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!

Zazen is about focusing the mind.

Life circumstances are much less important than we think they are – they are just karma, the effect of our previous internal imaginings, feelings and thoughts.

It is the here and now thoughts and feelings that are important for they form our future life circumstances.

Through zazen we can focus our mind totally on any intent that we create in the here and now, creating a healing and letting-go of past karma.

The here and now, is therefore more important than anything that exists in time. The here and now is timelessness – it always is.

If we seek happiness we are acknowledging that we are not happy. In my zazen, I have realised that the moment I stopped seeking happiness, I became happy and when I started seeking again, I was less happy. There is only now, yesterday is gone and tomorrow isn’t yet. Right now is the only place we can really be happy.

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.

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.

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!

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”.

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.