piecesofzen

One of the secrets of getting what we want out of life, is to free ourselves from past karma.

Karma can be very deep as one of the vows generally uttered before zazen (Zen meditation) can attest to… “Endless blind passions I vow to uproot”.  The word endless confirms the enormity of this task. And it is said that there is no person occupying a body on earth that has uprooted all his karma (blind passions).  In Zen, our great teachers are known as Bodhisattvas – those who renounce entry into Nirvana (enlightenment)  until all beings are enlightened through his/her enlightenment.

We can release karma when we can forgive all beings and self. When we can forgive all beings and self, we become detached and are free to create our life the way we wish to create it; i.e. without karma getting in the way.

As we work towards our enlightenment, letting go of more and more karma, so we create more and more of a fulfilling life.

One of the secrets of getting what we want out of life, is to free ourselves from past karma.

Karma can be very deep as one of the vows generally uttered before zazen (Zen meditation) can attest to… “Endless blind passions I vow to uproot”.  The word endless confirms the enormity of this task. And it is said that there is no person occupying a body on earth that has uprooted all his karma (blind passions).  In Zen, our great teachers are known as Bodhisattvas – those who renounce entry into Nirvana (enlightenment)  until all beings are enlightened through his/her enlightenment.

We can release karma when we can forgive all beings and self. When we can forgive all beings and self, we become detached and are free to create our life the way we wish to create it; i.e. without karma getting in the way.

As we work towards our enlightenment, letting go of more and more karma, so we create more and more of a fulfilling life.

Through my Zen experience I have found that good thoughts and feelings about my fellow human-beings come about because of the law of evolution, but I have to be willing for that to happen by living with Truth and working on applying forgiveness where it is needed, because others are just a reflection of who I am.

What is so about people today, is so, but it doesn’t mean that it is always going be the way it is. Life is a process of change, growth and development, if we are willing for it to be that way, transformation will happen quite rapidly, but as I see it, for some time yet, we will continue to be challenged by our friend, the ego.

In Zen practice, we need to make a distinction and at first it can quite often seem hazy and cloudy. There is thinking about Zen practice and then there is practice itself and this involves, zazen (Zen meditation/focus).

Thinking has the power to create experience but it’s not the experience itself. Zen experience is about stilling the mind as much as we can in order to experience Zen, which is “no mind” or “no thought”. However, many practitioners elect to aim for single-mindedness, which is a focus on the moment of now, and not the “no-mind” or “no-thought”.  In this way we have Zen and the art of… archery, motorcycle maintenance, archery and so on…

In reality, we cannot remove ourselves from the moment of now, so the belief in the past or future, cannot be reality, but fantasy, which we refer to as memory or anticipation of what is to come.  When we experience this reality of the moment of now, it is not the same as thinking about it. And the experience comes from the actual practice of focusing the mind in zazen.

When we first start the practice of zazen, we need to be aware that our nostalgic past and anticipation of the future is going to challenge us strongly. And this unconscious reaction isn’t surprising when we think about it – who wants to, lose one’s mind? This goes against our conditioning.

In Zen, we just need to be patient and accepting of this challenge, observing all its objections, whilst being aware of the moment of now. Sometimes we will be completely drawn in by the enticements of the ego-mind and lose our Self there, and then there will be glorious moments, when we experience mindfulness, where only the present exists and we have ceased to analyse for a while. It is those short moments that make a thousand years of zazen well worth practising.

In the words of J. Krishnamurti: “To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still. But if you think I am going to achieve stillness at some future date, I have destroyed the possibility of stillness. It is now or never. That is a very difficult thing to understand, because we are still thinking of heaven in terms of time.”

What the teacher is saying here is what many Zen masters have said. Words have so many ways of pointing to the same thing and our relative mind seems to need as many variations as we can get, and there is nothing I like better than reading the writings of great spiritual teachers.

But the words are not the practice. In zazen, focusing on the breathing, the exhalation and inhalation, without any thoughts of gaining enlightenment, is what is ultimately required; for enlightenment exists in a timeless domain. But in the meantime, the words of the masters will indeed act as a great inspiration.

Books by Krishnamurti (UK)
Books by Krishnamurti (USA)

Forgiveness is an indication that we have judged something. Yet, what we have judged exists no more, and therefore it is an illusion. But that means forgiveness an illusion too! Forgiveness is an illusion that merely points to Reality, just like words are not the thing they are describing, but mere pointers. Forgiveness is a pointer and all pointers are useful on the road to enlightenment, which is itself and illusion, because we are already there.

Many people look out to the world and constantly see something that is better than what they have or experience, and are generally dissatisfied with their lot in life.  But, it is backward thinking to try and achieve things or states of being from what you see externally; i.e. what others have or experience out there in the world.

For what you see outside in the world has been created from intelligence. For a foetus to grow in the womb, intelligence is needed. It requires that same intelligence for a flower or a mighty tree to grow.  Each and every one of us has that intelligence and what separates man from other living species is that we can direct our intelligence.

If we focus our intelligence on negativity, we will experience negativity. That means if we focus our intelligence on others always being better off than we are, we will experience that others are better off than we are for as long as we continue think that way.

If we focus our intelligence on positive things, and feel pleased about what others have achieved rather than envy them, we will be creating a feeling of pleasure related to that thing or way of being and attract it to ourselves also.

This intelligence in Zen and other eastern traditions is known as Mind – Spelled with a capital ‘M’. In religions, it is referred to as God.  Personally, I see this as a pure creative force, pure energy.   Actually, it can be whatever you want to call it, as the name given it won’t alter it one iota.

I am not saying here that you cannot go out into the world and purchase that expensive sports car or mansion, because you can if you have the purchasing power. But the money and the product are only available to you because originally it was created in the mind of a creator. In fact, our whole way of modern life, has been created from its original form of hunting, through to farming, to bartering and now to the creation of money for which to buy things.

The key to all power, to all manifestation and achievement made by man has been born first of all in his mind, that is linked to Mind. I cannot see any other way that it could have been.  And if this is the truth and I am certain it is, all a man has to do in order to manifest his needs and desires, it to understand how to create what he aspires to by focusing his mind and feelings on to those aspirations.

But what can you do about doubts and mental blocks? There have been thousands of words spoken and written about dealing with doubts and mental blocks and this will be the subject of another post.  If you have questions or wish to share anything, just leave your message in the comment section of this post.

I realized today that focusing the mind in zazen (meditation) is no light task and needs to be done with wisdom because what I realised was that this earthly vehicle of experience that is my body is my physical outward appearance that is created with the energy of “I-am-ness”. It is an effective and wonderful instrument but my body is not who I am. My body is really one with my mind and it is a transmitter and receiver that I use whilst I live life in the physical world.  So my current task here is integrating mind and body and realizing that they are really one. Many of the mind’s capabilities are untapped, but through my zazen, I can get to the source of all that I am.

In today’s zazen, a thought come into my mind that said, “stop blocking!” I had the experience that I am consciousness, I am pure energy.  For a moment I seemed to step out of time and I became an energy observing my body. I was not my body yet I was my body - like a single yet dual consciousness. Awareness not analysis brought me this awareness, then the thinking ego kicked in and the awareness evaporated as my mind left that magical moment of now.
As I think about today’s zazen, I am seeing that energy is; it always has been. Energy is infinite and indestructible. It never started, and it never began, and it will never end. It has never been destroyed or manufactured. It exists in all things and can transform itself from one thing to another. So what can I do with energy? I can focus it, and direct is as I receive it, so I had better use it wisely!