I see quite a few tweeple in the twitterverse who tweet every day that they are beginning a meditation with Insight Timer or have just ended a meditation using that app. I have always used a stick of incense as my timer but today I finally decided to give Insight Timer a try and I was pleasantly surprised. Not only could I select any length of time, I could even ask it to ring a bell at any interval during that length of time.
So I set the length of time at thirty minutes and the interval for the bells at ten minutes apart. I counted exhalations from one to ten, practicing conscious breathing or what Venerable Ajahn Brahm calls Present Moment Awareness for the first ten minutes. At the sound of the ten minute bell, I segued into metta and at the sound of the next ten minute bell, I tried to drop the inner chatter and fell into shikantaza, or what Ven. Ajahn Brahm calls Silent Present Moment Awareness.
I have followed those three practices for years every morning. At howtopracticezen.com, those three steps are called the steps of Beginning Zen. Counting exhalations corresponds to Seeking the Ox, metta corresponds with Finding the Footprints, and shikantaza correspond with First Glimpse of the Ox. This was the first time I know for sure that I spent ten minutes in each practice.
The first ten minutes begins the development of mindfulness by creating happiness, the happiness that lifts us from the bottom dharma realm, the tenth dharma realm where unhappiness rules.
The second ten minutes deepens mindfulness because the mindfulness generated in Present Moment Awareness is carried into the metta meditation where loving kindness lifts us from the ninth dharma realm of the hungry ghosts who are created by the absence of metta, just as hell-dwellers are created by the absence of happiness.
Mindfulness deepens further as we drop our inner chatter and dwell in Silent Present Moment Awareness for the final ten minutes of our morning practice. This practice generates feelings of generosity as our loving kindness expands in the silence, lifting us from the eighth dharma realm of animals where greed dominates.
With each subsequent practice, we rise through the remaining dharma realms, beginning in Intermediate Zen where we begin by practicing the four steps that collectively develop mindfulness of the body as taught by the Buddha in the Anapanasati Sutta (which develops the peace that serves as the antidote for the fighting of the asuras who exist in the seventh dharma realm of aggression, thereby lifting us from that dharma realm and corresponding to Catching the Ox).
This is followed by the four steps that develop mindfulness of feelings which practice develops the morality that serves as the antidote for the absence of precepts of the humans who exist in the sixth dharma realm of sense desire, thereby lifting us from that dharma realm and corresponding to Taming the Ox.
The next four steps develop mindfulness of the mind which practice develops the jhanas that serves as the antidote for the desire of the fifth dharma realm gods (of the six worlds) who desire to continue living in the world of sense desire, thereby lifting us from that dharma realm and corresponding to Riding the Ox home.
The final four steps of Intermediate Zen develop mindfulness of mind objects, practice develops the immaterial attainments that serve as the antidote for the desire of the Arhats to continue to exist in the immaterial realm, thereby lifting us from that dharma realm and corresponding to Self Alone, Ox Forgotten.
So for our evening practice we can set our Insight Timer for seventy minutes, with a bell every ten minutes. This allows us to repeat the morning practice of Beginning Zen and the four steps of Intermediate Zen.
Of course, if we get into the jhanas we will not hear the bells and we will go way beyond seventy minutes of sitting. But this is a good way to cultivate the three steps of Beginning Zen and the four Anapanasati Sutta steps of Intermediate Zen, laying a solid foundation for the more advanced practices of Advanced Zen where we turn the “super power” mindfulness developed in Beginning and Intermediate Zen to the Doctrine of Dependent Arising (Step eight) and to teacher-assigned Zen koans (Step nine).
So tonight I’ll use Insight Timer for the first time for seventy minutes for ten minutes between the bells. Thanks to the magic of the Insight Timer, many of us will be spending that seventy minutes together.
And why not add another twenty minutes, with ten minutes directing our super power mindfulness to the Doctrine of Dependent Arising (the Buddha said an enlightened Arhat sees that doctrine forwards and backwards) and ten minutes directed to a teacher-assigned koan? Those are token times, but they train us for those retreat/sesshin days when we can cultivate for much longer periods of time.
How To Practice Zen 