piecesofzen

The only thing that stands in my way of spiritual awareness is denial, the ultimate scepticism. In contrast, “I-don’t-know-ness” is a sign that my mind is open, so a wait-and-see, is a good philosophy. But…

When I get the feeling “I thought that would/would not happen”, I have the opportunity to realise that I have only pretended to be open-minded because I have been in anticipation of a result. Merely observing these traits and attitudes in meditation provide the impetus to de-structure them, which is part of the process of opening my mind more and more to ultimate reality.

Meanwhile, until I fully experience the domain of ultimate reality, my mind, through the Law of Attraction will bring me my goals and wishes, so my zazen is a powerful and useful tool to examine and edit what exactly I am wishing for!

What would happen if each person in the world just focused on the miracle of our existence, and meditated on the question, what is our life? What would happen if we considered that there is no why in life, no purpose other than live within the law of evolution that states that all beings grow and develop, realizing more and more of their infinite potential?  What would happen if we would just consider for a moment that every other person is an element of our own awareness? What would happen if we took seriously what great Zen and other masters have spoken about over millennia, that all is one, and nothing is separate?

Zazen (meditation), trains our mind to focus and when we can change our focus, we can change our thinking,  and our thinking can change our awareness of what is so. It is in this way, that we create our perception of the world.

In zazen, like in all tasks worth mastering, we need to exert effort. Not an effort to force the mind into a denial about what is going on with us, but an effort to focus our mind, whilst at the same time, allowing forceful conflicting thoughts to have their say without opposing them. Because it is only by opposition that conflicting thoughts grow stronger. With full acknowledgement, they have nothing else to say and begin the process of getting resolved, leaving us to create anew, the way we want our lives to be. But there needs to be discipline, dedication and effort to discover what the Zen of life has to offer us.

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)

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.

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.

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.