| | With eyes open, ideally you would be looking "through" the spot you choose, or using a "soft gaze."
Zazen form provides many opportunities for noticing: visual sensation with eyes partially open, amount of effort found in holding thumb tips together in cupped hands, holding attention just below belly button, counting breath, tongue tip touching back of front teeth, erect posture, solid seat, etc. I don't progress in my seat until I have grounded in these points of awareness, and I inevitably come back to them at some points.
All these points of form help to notice the quality of mind, the sticking points, the differentiation ... it provides lots of “unsticking" practice. It’s hard work. Zazen is normally a refreshing experience, but I wouldn’t describe it as relaxing.
Regarding the eyes open, when I’m grounded in the form of zazen, I notice that, while I can see light, and that movement in front of me would not go unnoticed, I am not “seeing”, nor am I distracted by visual sensation (it took lots of “unsticking practice” to get there). The direction of my gaze settles just above the the bottom of my top eyelid; I note the light coming in, but I'm not "looking at" it. When I’m even deeper into the practice, this business with the eyes is all there, and I could access it, but I don't. And, as it progresses from there, I encounter difficulty saying anything more coherent about it than simply a couple of vowels and soft consonants. :-)
When I want a different kind of experience, I turn to vipassana (compassionate being now, eyes closed), yoga (celebratory unification of mind and body, eyes mostly closed), or shamanic journeying (reveling in story, eyes mega closed). |