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zen · Dogen's Eihei Koroku (formal lecture, jodo), via Carl Bielefeldt's translation and commentary

Breath at the Field of Cinnabar (Tanden)

A breath-awareness practice Dogen described in a formal lecture: knowing a long breath as long and a short breath as short, felt arriving at and leaving from the tanden — the 'field of cinnabar' in the lower abdomen — without controlling or counting it.

The theory, briefly

In a lecture preserved in the Eihei Koroku, Dogen describes regulating breath and mind after first straightening the body and sitting erect. He distinguishes this from what he calls the Hinayana method of deliberately counting the breath, describing instead a Mahayana approach: 'to know [when the breath is long] that this is a long breath, and to know [when it is short] that this is a short breath.' The breath is felt as reaching the tanden (the 'field of cinnabar,' a point in the lower abdomen recognized in East Asian physiology as where vital breath is stored) on the inhale, and exiting again from that same point on the exhale.

Dogen quotes his own teacher, Tiantong, to sharpen the point further: the breath entering the tanden 'does not come from anywhere; hence, it is neither long nor short,' and the breath leaving the tanden 'does not go anywhere; hence, it is neither short nor long.' When asked directly how to describe his own way of working with the breath, Dogen says it is neither the Mahayana method nor the Hinayana method, and finally: 'inhalation and exhalation are neither long nor short.'

The practice is less a counting technique than a way of noticing the breath exactly as it already is — long or short, arriving at and leaving from one settled point in the body — without adding commentary, control, or even a fixed category of 'long' or 'short' on top of the bare sensation.

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The practice

Knowing the Breath at the Tanden

10–20 minutes · Seated wherever you already are, body straightened and sitting erect, as in zazen posture.

  1. 1Sit erect with your body straightened, as you would for zazen.
  2. 2Let your breathing settle into its own natural rhythm, without deliberately lengthening, shortening, or counting it.
  3. 3This is deliberately not a counting method — Dogen distinguishes it from the practice of counting each breath, which he associates with earlier schools. Here, there's nothing to count, only to know directly.
  4. 4Feel each inhalation as arriving at one settled point in your lower abdomen — the tanden — and each exhalation as leaving from that same point.
  5. 5Simply know a long breath as long and a short breath as short, exactly as it is, without trying to change it.
  6. 6Dogen's own teacher put it further: the breath entering the tanden doesn't come from anywhere, so it isn't really long or short at all; the breath leaving doesn't go anywhere, so the same is true leaving.
  7. 7When Dogen himself was asked how he works with the breath, his answer refused every category offered him — not the Mahayana way, not the Hinayana way either. Pressed further, he simply said: inhalation and exhalation are neither long nor short.
  8. 8Let go even of needing to label the breath as long or short — rest in the plain fact of breathing itself, exactly as it already is.

None stated in the source.

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