A video of Miki Nakura-sensei’s “Seiza” (Quiet Sitting) session at the Cambridge Unitarian Church, September 2023

Miki and me in the Cambridge Unitarian Church, Sept. 2023

At the end of September 2023 my friend, dharma-friend, and Seiza meditation teacher, Miki Nakura, visited Cambridge both to lead a Seiza (静坐 — literally, “quiet sitting”) meditation session at the Cambridge Unitarian Church and to conduct my Kikyoshiki service. For those who are puzzled about why this style of meditation was being taught in a Unitarian setting, it’s helpful to know that Seiza meditation was the preferred form of meditation practised by the Japanese Yuniterian (sic) movement thanks to the great twentieth-century advocate of free-religion (自由宗教 jiyū shūkyō), Imaoka Shin’ichirō-sensei (1881-1988). Imaoka-sensei knew and studied with Okada-sensei personally, and he practised Seiza meditation for nearly all of his adult life. Indeed, as he often said, it was his own primary religious/spiritual practice.

Anyway, we both thought it would be a good thing to record the teaching sections of the session and put them up on YouTube to give as many people as possible the opportunity to benefit from them. That’s now been done and so, below, you’ll find an embedded video. But, before you click on that, here are a few other, Seiza-related links that you might find helpful. 

Firstly, here’s an essay by Miki Nakura about Seiza at the end of which you’ll find a few other helpful links.

Secondly, here’s a link to a pdf handout in which Nakura-sensei introduces the basics of Seiza

Thirdly, here’s a link to a piece by Joshua Shapiro about the founder of Seiza, Okada Torajiro-sensei 

 

Miki Nakura holds weekly Seiza sessions on ZOOM (link below) every month, mostly Tuesdays, from Noon to 1 PM (New York Time) and Saturdays, from 9 AM to 10 AM (New York Time), but to check the current schedule please contact him at:

mikinakura87@gmail.com

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89673869721?pwd=R01tUWMzL3IyT0JsOWtjWnFUeHRHdz09
 

Meeting ID: 896 7386 9721
Passcode: 552956

These are free virtual live sessions which anyone in the world can join.