Silence

Take a moment.. Listen to this silence. The here-and-now....
Notice there may be noises, and listen to the silence. The here-and-now.

Listen. This it the universe, wherever you may be focused in it.
There is a silence beyond the noise.
The dark of the moon?
Is this a time for listening?

This is zazen. Just listening to silence, if you like.
The silence behind the intruding thoughts
The universe.
No answers. There are no questions that are not already answered
In themselves.

Silence reflects the "suchness"
The being-ness of being.
This is it.
This is now.


The silence is always there.
I will need to remember to listen more often.

Dark Shadows in Neat Boxes

Dark shadows exist at the back of the mind. Zazen can bring them to awareness that can act like a candle or a bright torch shining light into them and creating greater clarity.   In zazen I don't try to stop myself thinking about the discomfort of such shadows, as there is something they are teaching. Writing about it with mindfulness and focus is a great support.  This is what I feel is unraveling the wiles of karma and is a valuable process to do through communication, thus making issues clearer to awareness.

No!  Not clearer to the mind, as rational reason likes to "own" each and every experience, wrapping them up and putting it away in a neat boxes for future reference. Spiritual experiences cannot be owned, because every experience is immediately gone and we are into the next one.  It's the journey.

Looking Zazen: Guilt and True Forgiveness.

Guilt and True Forgiveness



In zazen today I have been fascinated by the antics of the mind.  This whole thing about guilt complexes - to give it a Freudian term.  He said that they were buried in the subconscious mind and yes, they are. As they emerge into consciousness, the mind creates a (dis)ease of impending retribution, from others, from karma, from the universe. 

It came to me that guilt is the operation of the conditioned mind when we think we are doing what is considered to be wrong. I am using the word "considered" (to be wrong) because right can only be genuine right when coming from the heart, from the self where there is no motivation, no desire for anything. All other stuff is just societal control, which from birth slowly enters into this life. I have swallowed all this hook, line and sinker and are therefore just as likely to feel a judge as anybody else. I am looking at this from my own perspective. Even though, I have heard so many tell me of their guilt complexes and resultant anxieties, I can see the reality that all is one, and to be able to know something I must own it. Whilst others have it, I must know  of it too, or I could not talk of it and would be prone to judging it without realizing it. Transcending it it not necessarily making it "better" or destroying it. The experience can disappear, but to disappear there needs to be something to disasppear. I need to experience it and see it as an energy with opinion attached, and then there is an opportunity to transcend it. It exists as a physical manifestation belonging to this physical world, of which I am merely a visitor! 

My work as a Zen practitioner, has always been to transcend this conditioning and choose for myself to be in harmony with all else. Societal rules don't change, but my awareness does, so that I can be free to live in harmony with the rules. I can choose freely for myself.   Acceptance and observation - just watching what arises. Going completely with the flow.  What would emerge then?  "True righteousness" born of awareness?  Is this true forgiveness?

Conditioned Mind... or Prison


I am my own creator of these prison bars..
I made a prison of negativity…
And through zazen,  I am getting that I am now nervously coming out of that prison.
Each awareness of imprisonment of this sort,
Does lead me to a great sense of space in which to just be. 
Experiencing my life…
Nervousness is a resistance that is bound to be a response as the bars disappear, Because those prison bars of ignorance through conditioning,
Can act like a security blanket that has for lifetimes, held me tight..
Security though is the freedom to expand into the adventure of life in this universe..