yoga

while this should have been more obvious, i never gave serious thought to the yogic elements in Buddhism specifically Zen. the zazen posture recommended by the Rinzai Zen school as well as some Soto Zen schools is padmasana (full lotus), a yoga classic. susokkan or breath counting or for that matter any breath control suggested in zen is shared with other indic (yogic) traditions. it possibly reflects the fact that the Buddha didn't simply reject everything about the philosophical systems extant during his search for the truth and create something out of nothing (or is it no-thing). he did choose the middle path between asceticism and hedonism but elements of yoga are indispensably part of his middle path.

the soto school maintains that shikantaza or just sitting is all there is to zen practice which means paying careful attention to posture. the correlation between posture and concentration is quite easily observable even doing 15 min. of zazen. philosophically, Buddhism differs considerably from sankhya or whatever school Patanjali's yoga sutras fall into. someday i hope to piece through the metaphysics and dialetics of these schools, maybe not in this lifetime. it will be great to reconstruct the arguments the Buddha might have had with the teachers he studied with- Alara Kalama or Udaka Ramaputta. but then if may not help anyone except historians. a realistic dream of mine is to write a play set on the day of his leaving the palace, wife and son. three acts- morning, afternoon and night. what would he have said to his wife or to his sleeping son? what was going on in his mind? how could he justify abandoning them? what kind of uncertainty it would have been? would he have broached it with anyone esp. his wife earlier?