On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious

by Douglas E. Harding

Our two-way meditation, then, is truly radical psychotherapy - psychotherapy so deep that overt and particular results may be very slow indeed to surface. Nevertheless, when sufficiently persisted in, it is sure to yield - more as a bonus than an expected reward - quite specific improvements in that “outer” scene, in the problem-ridden realm of our everyday lives. Typically, these will include an enlivening of the senses (raising the screen which muffles the plangency of sounds, dims the glow of colours, blurs forms, and filters out the loveliness shining in the “ugliest” places) and (to go with the sensory awakening) a complex of inter-related psychophysical changes - including a sustained “whole-body” alertness in place of the “heady” intermittent sort (as if one were poised through-and-through to run the race of one’s life), a reduction of stress, particularly in the region of the eyes and mouth and neck (as if one were at last letting them go), a progressive lowering of one’s centre of gravity (as if losing one’s head were finding one’s heart, and guts, and feet, which are now rooted in the Earth), a striking downward shift of one’s breathing (as if it were a belly-function), and in fact a general come-down (as if all the good things one had vainly strained after in the heights were awaiting one in the depths). And, balancing this descent, a general uplift, including a sense of exaltation (as if one were perfectly straight-backed and as tall as the sky), an upsurge of ...