persons.  You must not sit in Meditation in a windy or very high place lest you should get ill.  Be sure not to let the wind or smoke get into your room, not to expose it to rain and storm.  Keep your room clean.  Keep it not too light by day nor too dark by night.  Keep it warm in winter and cool in summer.  Do not sit leaning against a wall, or a chair, or a screen.  You must not wear soiled clothes or beautiful clothes, for the former are the cause of illness, while the latter the cause of attachment.  Avoid the Three Insufficiencies-that is to say, insufficient clothes, insufficient food, and insufficient sleep.  Abstain from all sorts of uncooked or hard or spoiled or unclean food, and also from very delicious dishes, because the former cause troubles in your alimentary canal, while the latter cause you to covet after diet.  Eat and drink just too appease your hunger and thirst, never mind whether the food be tasty or not.  Take your meals regularly and punctually, and never sit in Meditation immediately after any meal.  Do not practise Dhyana soon after you have taken a heavy dinner, lest you should get sick thereby.  Sesame, barley, corn, potatoes, milk, and the like are the best material for your food.  Frequently wash your eyes, face, hands, and feet, and keep them cool and clean.

[FN#243] See Yoga Sutra with the Commentary of Bhoja Raja (translated by Rajendralala Mitra), pp. 102-104.

[FN#244] Kei-zan (Jo-kin), the founder of So-ji-ji, the head temple of the So To Sect of Zen, who died at the age of fifty-eight in 1325.  He sets forth the doctrine of Zen and the method of practising Zazen in his famous work, entitled Za-zen-yo-jin-ki.

’There are two postures in Zazen—­that is to say, the crossed-leg sitting, and the half crossed-leg sitting.  Seat yourself on a thick cushion, putting it right under your haunch.  Keep your body so erect that the tip of the nose and the navel are in one perpendicular line, and both ears and shoulders are in the same plane.  Then place the right foot upon the left thigh, the left foot on the right thigh, so as the legs come across each other.  Next put your right hand with the palm upward on the left foot, and your left hand on the right palm with the tops of both the thumbs touching each other.  This is the posture called the crossed-leg sitting.  You may simply place the left foot upon the right thigh, the position of the hands being the same as in the cross-legged sitting.  This posture is named the half crossed-leg sitting.’

’Do not shut your eyes, keep them always open during whole Meditation.  Do not breathe through the mouth; press your tongue against the roof of the mouth, putting the upper lips and teeth together with the lower.  Swell your abdomen so as to hold the breath in the belly; breathe rhythmically through the nose, keeping a measured time for inspiration and expiration.  Count for some time either the inspiring or the expiring breaths from one to ten, then beginning with one again.  Concentrate your attention on your breaths going in and out as if you are the sentinel standing at the gate of the nostrils.  If you do some mistake in counting, or be forgetful of the breath, it is evident that your mind is distracted.’