When you ask, “What is this?” do not narrow the sense of “this” just to what is palpable within the confines of your own skin. “This” includes the totality of what is present in this moment: what’s arising from within, and what’s going on all around you. One might even say it is what is prior to the distinction between self and other, you and me, you and the world. Before I think that I am here and you are there. Something primordial….
Zen practice is about opening yourself to this mystery, allowing yourself to become totally immersed in the perplexity or wonder it evokes, so that it begins to suffuse your consciousness as a whole, not just when you’re meditating….
This is an embodied inquiry. When you first ask, “What is this?” in meditation, the question may have little traction on how you feel in your body. It might seem just a curious mental exercise…. But over time, as you settle into a quieter, more lucid awareness, this perplexity begins to resonate and reverberate through your nerves, flesh, bones, and skin.
Don’t expect anything to happen. Just wait…. You reach a point where you’re just sitting there, asking, “What is this?” – but with no interest in an answer. The longing for an answer compromises the potency of the question. Can you be satisfied to rest in this puzzlement, this perplexity, in a deeply focused and embodied way? Just waiting without any expectations?
Ask “What is this?,” then open yourself completely to what you “hear” in the silence that follows. Be open to this question in the same way as you would listen to a piece of music. Pay total attention to the polyphone of the birds and wind outside, the occasional plane that flies overhead, the patter of rain on a window. Listen carefully, and notice how listening is not just an opening of the mind but an opening of the heart, a vital concern or care for the world, the source of what we call compassion or love.
— Stephen Batchelor in The Art of Solitude