The Unconditional Body
of Zen Meditation

April 8, 2004 · All Rights Reserved by Dr. Andrew Shugyo Daijo Bonnici

Meditation is not an altered state of consciousness or a transcendental state of being. Meditation is the practice of a natural, pristine, or original Way of being your human body and being in your body with wakefulness, bright wisdoming and genuine compassion toward all of your passing thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions.

The true body of meditation is not restricted to the seated form. The root body of meditation as a Way of life is the practice of resting on the true ground of our unconditional nature. We truly rest in the practice of our unconditional nature when we live our life without constantly grasping and pushing away at our felt experiences.

When we rest on the True ground of our unconditional being we do not identify with the ever arising impermanence of our egocentric desires or the endless self-chatter and self-preoccupation about our likes and dislikes. When you practice the root body of meditation as living unconditionally moment by moment, you may be said to actualize and authenticate the unfathomable depth of your humanness and the wholeness of your body wisdoming.

Without this unconditional posture in meditation life practice, the truth and dignity of your humanness and the wholeness of your body wisdoming cannot be fully realized nor authenticated within yourself and in your relationship with others.

The true practice of meditation is exactly the tangible process of breathing into the center point of your lower abdomen. Meditation is feeling the pause at the end of your inhalation, resting in the center point of gravity, and deeply sensing the felt wholeness of your body wisdoming.

The practice of meditation and the felt wholeness of your body wisdoming is also the tangible process of breathing out and letting your whole body become soft, gentle, peaceful, vital and wakeful. Know that this practice of authentic meditation does not transcend daily life nor the felt experience that true self is exactly the tangible wholeness of your deep body wisdoming.

Living meditation is exactly breathing silence into the wholeness of deep body wisdoming, and being the wholeness of deep body wisdoming is your true self that practices living unconditionally throughout the activities and relationships of daily life.

The tangible bodily experience of living meditation as the wholeness of body wisdoming is like the feeling of a firm stone in your hand that communicates a constant and trustworthy refuge of coolness, weight, presence and truth. Meditation as the felt wholeness of body wisdoming is like the wetness of water that unconditionally upholds, cares for, and nourishes all life.

The living texture of meditation as the felt wholeness of body wisdoming is like the warmth and radiance of sunlight that illuminates all beings and things without preference, without judgment, just as they are, just as IT is. The brightness of your whole body wisdoming in the daily practice of meditation life is like the clarity and freshness of the open sky that offers a natural and unconditional hospitality to all arising experiences and phenomena.

When you rest in the true body of meditation, your bodily experience of wholeness and wisdoming is as if the wisdom of the whole Universe is exactly your inhalation breathing you and your exhalation releasing you. When the body of meditation is truly lived as exactly this bodily wholeness and wisdoming, you may be said to be just this body of living enlightenment practicing its unconditional nature, just as it is, just as IT is.

When the body of meditation is truly lived as exactly the wholeness of your body wisdoming, you are this Only Moment Body of living enlightenment that holds the past without clinging to it and embraces the future without grasping for it. This Only Moment Body of living enlightenment is exactly the root body of your humanity — wholly present, wholly here, just as it is.