piecesofzen

In zazen (Zen meditation) this morning I became aware that we are so much more than the physical body and a discursive, analytical mind. I see life with all its trials and tribulations as lessons for the soul (or higher self) or maybe that should read, lessons from the soul.

If we can be right here, right now, recognising that past is no more and future is not yet, we can catch a glimpse of the “eternal now” and if we just witness this, we can transcend our karma - but the discursive mind cannot be so disciplined and thus karma is created immediately like long “chains” of thoughts (action and reaction).

I don’t see karma as anything bad, just the function of the world of opposites from which our souls are having an experience. Karma becomes bad only if we consider it to be so, for the world is just the world. If our souls are eternal, then whatever we experience in this world is transient.

If through our zazen or other meditation discipline we can integrate with the higher self, we can easily realise that we are creators in our own right. It is then up to each of us what we create.

I was recently talking to a friend and the subject came up about karma. He wanted to know how it fitted in with my Zen practice…

I see karma as something I am creating every day with my thoughts, and my karma are the opinions that are formulated as a result of those thoughts.  This is very apparent to me when I am sitting in zazen , aspiring to still the mind so completely still that there are no thoughts entering my mind and I am just totally linked with my life force. My life force expresses itself as my breathing   – my inhalations and my exhalations.

As intruding thoughts enter my mind I am creating more karma. Each thought is a seed that will germinate to attract into my consciousness, an effect.  Whatever I think, trivial or not so trivial, will become my karma and manifest in my experience. At present, like most other people on this earthly plane, my karma is to resolve my karma thus freeing my mind of that karma.

It is through zazen I aim to resolve my karma. Others interested in resolving karma may do it with their own  referred type of meditation, but regardless of the discipline, all paths will eventually lead to ultimate enlightenment.

So the seeds that I sow now whilst stilling the mind in my meditation, willeventually become like a tree growing ever stronger in the light of dawningconsciousness, when the day will come when I will be “karma-less”.

When it comes to the Law of Attraction , we have all we need right here and right now. This is how I see it from a Zen perspective…

If we can just realize this through the mind and imagination by focusing on it in our zazen (meditation) , we can cease being needy - we would not need desire because what we have in our mind, will manifest in our life.

Buddha’s enlightenment showed us that the root of all suffering is desire. When we can visualize that we have all we need right here and right now, desire must end.

As we look around and see people who have the best of health and great prosperity, we can remember the Zen message that in reality, all is one, we have all we need already.

As a hypnotist and Zen practitioner of over 30 years, I have recognized that each goal needs to be examined carefully under zazen (Zen meditation). There are times when what we think we want isn’t exactly what our subconscious mind wants!

In Zen, as it is in the Law of Attraction, time does not exist, and there is no judgement or analysis of what is good or bad, just the Law of Attraction, acting like a magnet that becomes stronger and stronger with the daily use of zazen. So if what we want does not agree with what our subconscious wants, this can open a huges can of worms and bring about all sort of problems. This scenario is very common with many of us.

It was when I first started practising zazen that I realized that it was practically identical to a self-induced hypnotic trance.

In Zen Buddhism the goal is enlightenment and I would say that in “Zen Business ”, the goal is improved business practices on all levels from sweeping a factory floor to the perfection of the ultimate product – e.g. a perfect piece of technical apparatus.

Read more on this subject here…

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Acceptance is the key to unlock the door to realization.

As I sit in zazen, if I accept all that comes into my awareness, I am resolving the conflicting thoughts and ideas my mind generates and resolving them into a one-ness. Once I attain a strong level of acceptance, it is a certain indication that I am focusing my awareness.

The aim of zazen is stilling the mind, but we cannot experience such stillness if we resist the darting activity of our thoughts. We need to sit in acceptance and observe all that goes on and at the same time, maintain that resolve for perfect stillness of no-mind.

The flowing water of a river is a lot like Zen life. At times it flows so easily without getting blocked by fallen trees or debris. Then there are times when the flow of our life is obstructed and we become stuck.

But we are not really stuck as Zen life, just like the river, does get through by going around the obstruction or through small gaps. Our consciousness needs to be flowing, just like the river. To be flowing we need to pay attention to the way around and through the obstruction. We are not going to pass by if we don’t devote our focused consciousness to what it obstructing us.

Sometimes, during a storm, more and more water is added and the force builds up stronger and stronger until the river bursts through the obstruction annihilating it completely.

So the storms in our life can be used to blow away our own barriers, if we will just go with the flow and accept and observe whatever is there in our life and that it is not always about sweetness and light.

Through zazen we can enhance our awareness of our barriers, and through focusing on our own river of inhalations and exhalation as we breathe , we can witness as our barriers to higher states of consciousness just fall away.

If we can take time out to sit on the bank of a river or small stream and focus on the flow of the water, just as we focus on the flow of our breathing in zazen, we can learn a lot about who we really are.

During my life, I have wanted things and achieved my desires many times, but after a while, I got to feel that my achievements didn’t mean very much and my achievements simply got replaced with new desires. And so I continue on my path…

When Zen came into my life, gradually through my zazen , I began to realize more and more the value of the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama’s realization when he sat under the Bodhi tree some two-and-a-half thousand years ago… In his enlightenment he realized that the source of all suffering was desire.

This seems to be true whether desires be large or small. Or paradoxically, even to desire enlightenment is a desire! This is where I can recognize the value of the words or many Zen masters when they say, “it is the journey, not the destination”.

So what I am currently making out of all of this is that life doesn’t mean anything. It just IS. Life is about living (the journey along the path), not the destination. When I desire, I am projecting a neediness on to the future. This is like trying to get to my destination before I arrive there.

Life’s journey is meaningless. It just IS! When I realize this cosmic joke, there are times when I can cry about it, and there are times when I can roar with laughter about it. Life’s journey is not about meaning, laughter or tears, it just IS.

During zazen this morning, I was suddenly enveloped with a nothing-ness or a timeless instant. No thoughts or physical sensations, no emotions or memories, just pure nothingness. Yet an awareness so free of analysis that my words here an inadequate to describe it, but can only point to the experience.

Was this the enlightenment talked about in Zen circles? No, that would be giving a label and my Zen studies tell me that an experience, once experienced is done and cannot be repeated – to name it would be to cause a fragmentation as if it was a part of me and not whole. If I label it, I become stuck in time. And the experience is timeless, neither manifest nor un-manifest not past or future, for it exists always in the here and now.

True spiritual consciousness just is. It is totally unreasonable, for in the purity of true spiritual consciousness, there is no judgement or reason. There is no judging of right, wrong, intelligence or illiteracy, no better or worse, no attack or defense, for one who has reached such consciousness, it totally at peace with him/herself recognizing no separation.

As I contemplate the enlightenment of Zen-Buddhism where nothing-ness is manifest, I am reminded of the Last Judgement Day spoken about in the Bible which I feel now is not about condemnation and punishment but about the cessation of reason where the last judgement is made and all becomes one in heaven, nirvana or the great void. Without judgement there can only be absolute peace.

So, who am I?

You cannot learn what or who you are, you can only be what/who you are. Zazen (Zen meditation) supports you to recognise who/what you really are.  Zen does not teach you who you really are because you cannot learn what you already know.

We cannot walk along the path we have already walked upon, for as we look back, it is not the path we look back on, but an image of that path that is no more. Similarly, we cannot look forward to see where we are going, we can only walk where we are now by being aware.

In Zen it is often said that there are no teachers or students. Each individual gains knowledge from the insights that are shared, in this way both student and teacher disappear. Insight is transformed by the act of sharing becoming more potent and profound. So knowledge from insight is not a static thing. 

When we sit zazen (Zen meditation), we may often find we are striving, but such striving is the very thing that is preventing us from realising that we are already enlightened - that we already know “I-am” consciousness. Zazen is like practising to wait patiently for enlightenment to dawn in our awareness, and then letting it go, as we continue to sit and wait.