We can understand the craft of meditation as the joining of a physical posture with a mental posture. In this talk, Zenki Christian Dillo will look in detail at the four fundamental mental postures that are implied in most Soto Zen meditation instructions: Don’t move (stillness), Don’t scratch (nonreactivity), Don’t invite your thoughts to tea (nonthinking), and Don’t correct your mind (noninterference). Together, we will explore how these mental postures are essential for the process of liberation.

 

 

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Christian Dillo is the Resident Teacher at the Boulder Zen Center. He started his practice at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1996. For 20 years, he practiced monastically at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center and received dharma transmission in 2013 from Zentatsu Baker Roshi. Since then, he has been Boulder Zen Center’s Guiding Teacher. In 2020, he moved to Boulder, Colorado full-time, where he now lives with his wife and son. Christian Dillo teaches Zen as a craft based on the understanding that, fundamentally, Buddhism is an embodied investigation of human experience with the intention of transforming it in the direction of liberation from suffering, wisdom, and compassion. He is the author of The Path of Aliveness: A Contemporary Zen Approach to Awakening Body and Mind (Shambhala 2022) and is currently developing a series of practice courses on Foundational Zen Teachings to actively support lay practitioners in their daily lives. His ongoing teachings are available on the podcast Zen Mind.