Meditate as if You Are Already Dead

A famous Japanese Zen master named Kodo Sawaki said the following: “Zazen means getting into your own coffin—there’s nothing left to discuss. When you sit, imagine that you are already dead.”

In my last article, I talked about a quote from him, and this article will be a short wake-up coffee to inspire your spiritual practice.

“When you sit, imagine that you are already dead.”

Kodo Sawaki’s teaching is nothing for the faint-hearted, nor does he promote a feel-good spirituality. He is as serious about the matter as it gets, and he liked to express himself in a direct and uncompromising way.

In spiritual scriptures, we often read about killing the ego, killing the small self, letting our imagined version of ourselves die to make way for the absolute truth, and so on. The only problem with this is that when we read it, we get really motivated and think, “Yes, I’m going to do that. I’m going to kill my ego so that I can finally be enlightened.”

And who is thinking this? It's the ego, of course. Our ego tries to kill the ego in order to get enlightened, thereby preventing itself from dying. Because our ego is on a new mission again, called spirituality, it has new energy to sustain itself. Even when we try to stop the ego from doing that, we have to realize that this is still the ego at work.

So what can we do if doing anything is already the ego doing it?

We do nothing.

When we sit in meditation, we just sit. We don’t imagine attaining a good feeling, a certain state, or enlightenment; no—we just sit.

Think of your thought-form, your feelings, whatever comes into your perception, as something that has a certain gravity to it. The gravity from these perceived forms pull your attention towards them and attach you to them.

What does this mean?

If you’ve ever practiced meditation, you’ll probably know what I’m talking about. You sit there, you have a certain orientation in your meditation, a sort of “theme,” even if the theme is to not have a theme, and suddenly something pops up. Maybe a memory from the past comes up, one where you did something stupid and now feel embarrassed about it. Or you did something wrong and feel guilty about it. Whatever. You forget about your meditation, and the only thing you can think about is how bad you are. You can’t forgive yourself for what you did, and now you're wrestling with this memory and the feelings that come up, and so on. Suddenly, this memory has become more important than all the spiritual truths that you said are true before this thing came up.

This is what I mean when I say that everything we perceive has a certain gravity to it. It means becoming attached to what we perceive. In meditation, we practice letting go. We practice letting go of these attachments so that we become more free. And what's a good way to do that?

To imagine that we are already dead.

A dead person has no desires.

A dead person doesn’t strive for a good feeling, a certain state, or even attaining enlightenment.

A dead person doesn’t even think in terms of being alive versus being dead.

The dead person is just dead.

When you're sitting in meditation, just ask yourself, whenever something comes up, how would a dead person react to this? If a desire comes up, a desire to attain enlightenment or awakening, just ask yourself how a dead person would react to it. If anything, really anything, comes up, ask yourself what a dead person would do.

As Kodo Sawaki said, “Get into your own coffin, there is nothing left to discuss.”

Therefore, stop the discussion within yourself and just sit!

Practice meditation as if you are already dead.

All the best, your friend of the way. Bye!

P.S. If something is still alive within you, check out my new online course on the fundamentals of spiritual awakening. Learn more here.