Can Zen ( Rinzai and/or Soto branches) be of assistance in approaching Dhāraṇā, the 6th limb of Patanjali's Ashtanga, in particular object and objectless concentration practice?
"The other Sunday at Stillpoint Yoga I practiced Led primary with Manju Jois. On coming to the final padmasana we practiced pranayama and then chanted shanti mantras. Ramaswsami refers to chanting here as Dharana, it's one of the meditative limbs of Ashtanga, concentration on an object (next, according to Patanjali you would move on to concentration without an object). The object might be an icon, the breath, or here a mantra. Ramaswami would have us practice Japa mantra meditation, repeating a short mantra over and over, Manju happens to have has us chant a number of Shanti (peace mantras). I guess you could replace your own preferred approach to meditation practice here if you not yet comfortable with chanting ( I wasn't for the longest time)" from an earlier post.
Yoga in the west is of course big on Asana…., Pranayama too if you know where to look but detailed help with the 6th limb Dhāraṇā can be hard to find. Aranya's commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is a good start but perhaps we might also consider looking elsewhere for assistance….for the nuts and bolts of object and objectless concentration/meditation practice as it were.
It's interesting perhaps to compare Patanjali's treatment of object and objectless meditation practice with that of Zen.
Patanjali and meditation on an object.
1.17 The deep absorption of attention on an object is of four kinds, 1) gross (vitarka), 2) subtle (vichara), 3) bliss accompanied (ananda), and 4) with I-ness (asmita), and is called samprajnata samadhi.
http://swamij.com/yoga-sutras.htm
Here's the Rinzai branch of Zen on meditation on an object ( here a Koen)
Rinzai Zen and meditation on on object (Koen)
How is Zen meditation done? … zazen, one maintains the body in a position free of tension and movement, and focuses the mind on a single object of attention.
http://zen.rinnou.net/zazen/
How to sit
http://zen.rinnou.net/zazen/sitting.html
Patanjali and meditation without an object
1.18 The other kind of samadhi is asamprajnata samadhi, and has no object in which attention is absorbed, wherein only latent impressions remain; attainment of this state is preceded by the constant practice of allowing all of the gross and subtle fluctuations of mind to recede back into the field from which they arose.
http://swamij.com/yoga-sutras.htm
And here's the Soto branch of Zen on objectless meditation.
Soto Zen and meditation without object
"What is the meditation practice of Soto Zen? We call it “shikantaza,” “just sitting,” or “objectless meditation",
http://www.sfzc.org/ggf/display.asp?catid=3,78,89&pageid=1455
In Patanjali meditation o an object might be con sidered as a preperatory stage for objectless meditation. In Zen it is perhaps the other way around.
"Isshu Miura says that the difference of the Rinzai Zen school from Soto is that "zazen is, first of all, the preliminary practice by means of which mind and body are forged into a single instrument for realization. Only the student who has achieved some competency in zazen practice is, or should be, permitted to undertake the study of a koan. Proficiency in zazen is the basic ground for koan study. During the practice of zazen the koan is handled. To state that it is used as the subject of meditation is to state the fact incorrectly. The koan is taken over by the prepared instrument, and, when a fusion of instrument and device takes place, the state of consciousness is achieved which it is the intent of the koan to illumine and in this instant the koan is resolved." He also writes: "When the koan is resolved it is realized to be a simple and clear statement made from the state of consciousness which it has helped to awaken."
http://www.dharmanet.org/lczen.htm
On Zen and the two largest schools/branches, Soto and Rinzai.
"Zen schools are more or less divisible into those that emphasize a curriculum of verbal meditation objects-like koans-and those that do not. Emphasizing daily life practice as zazen, Soto Zen centers generally do not work with a set koan curriculum and method, though koans are studied and contemplated. Because of this, Soto Zen has traditionally been criticized by the koan schools (the best-known koan school is the Rinzai school of Japan) as dull, overly precious and quietistic, in contrast to the dynamic and lively engagement of the koan path. But the koan way also has its critics, who see the emphasis on words, meaning and insight as working against real non-conceptual Zen living. Koan training systems also have the disadvantage of fostering competition and obsession with advancement in the system.
To study the Buddha way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget oneself is to be actualized by myriad things.
When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away.
Dogen Zenji
In koan Zen, contemplation of a koan begins with zazen practice. The practitioner comes to intense presence with body and breath, and then brings up the koan almost as a physical object, repeating it over and over again with breathing, until words and meaning dissolve and the koan is "seen." This practice is done in the context of an intensive retreat led by a qualified Zen koan teacher. Like all systems, the koan system can degenerate into a self-protective and self-referential enclosure. It's the teacher's job to see that this doesn't happen, but sometimes it is not preventable. There are many different systems of koan study, but most of them emphasize humor, spontaneity and openness. The koan method is, at its best, a unique and marvelous expression of human religious sensibility". http://www.dharmanet.org/lczen.htm
Below, extracts from Zen Training Sekida Katsuki ( my use of bold) which I'm currently reading quite closely, always seem to keep coming back to Zen ( this will be my fourth 'Zen phase'), no doubt because it's useful. Does anywhere else focus so closely on actual practice ( ashtanga comes to mind).
"In studying Zen we start with practice. Now, it is true that Zen is concerned with the problem of the nature of mind, so it necessarily includes an element of philosophical speculation. However, while the philosopher relies mainly on speculation and reasoning, in Zen we are never separated from our personal practice, which we carry out with our body and mind. Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, may seem to come close to Zen in his ideas when he advocates a technique called "phenomenological reduction." He says that he ignores "the ego as a person arranged on objective time," and arrives at the "pure phenomenon." However, like other philosophers, he does not seem to go beyond a purely mental exercise. In Zen training we also seek to extinguish the self-centered, individual ego, but we do not try to do this merely by thinking about it. It is with our own body and mind that we actually experience what we call "pure existence."
"Our aim in practicing zazen is to enter the state of samadhi, in which, as we have said, the normal activity of our consciousness is stopped. This is not something that comes easily to us. The beginner in Zen will usually be told to start by practicing counting his breaths-that is, to count each exhalation up to ten, and then start again (see chapter 5). The reader (assuming he is inexperienced in Zen) should try this for himself. Quite probably you will look on this task with some contempt, thinking that you can do it without any difficulty, but when you start you will soon find that wandering thoughts come into your head, perhaps when you have reached about "five" or "six," and the thread of counting is broken. The next moment you come to yourself and cannot recollect where you left off. You have to start again, saying "one" and so on. How can we prevent our thoughts from wandering? How can we learn to focus our attention on one thing? The answer is that we cannot do it with our brain alone; the brain cannot control its thoughts by itself. The power to control the activity of our mind comes from the body, and it depends critically (as we shall show in later chapters, in detail) on posture and breathing".
"We have already referred to the state of off-sensation, in which we lose the sense of the whereabouts of our body. Subsequent1y, by stilling the activity of our mind, a state is reached in which time, space, and causation, which constitute the framework of consciousness, drop away. We call this condition "body and mind fallen off." In ordinary mental activity the cerebral cortex takes the major role, but in this state, apparently, it is hardly active at all. "Body and mind fallen off" may seem to be nothing but a condition of mere being, but this mere being is accompanied by a remarkable mental power, which we may characterize as a condition of extreme wakefulness".
"When the Zen student has once experienced pure existence, he undergoes a complete about-face in his view of the world. But unfortunately, as long as he is a human being, he cannot escape from the inevitability of living as an individual. He cannot leave the world of differentiation. And he is thus placed in a new dilemma, which he did not encounter before. Inevitably, this entails a certain internal conflict, which may cause much distress. To deal with this, further training of the mind has to be undertaken in order to learn how, while living in the world of differentiation, we can avoid discrimination. We have to learn how to exercise the mind of nonattachment while working in attachment. This is called training after the attainment of realization, or cultivation of Holy Buddhahood, which constitutes an essential part of Zen (see chapter 17). There is a Zen saying, "Equality without differentiation is bad equality; differentiation without equality is bad differentiation." This is a very commonplace saying, but the level of understanding to which it refers is not common, since it can be attained only in a mature state of Zen practice".
"Zen training continues endlessly…"
Souce: http://grimmly2007.blogspot.com/2013/09/can-zen-rinzai-andor-soto-branches-be.html