Perfect Zazen!!

In my zazen, there are often distractions. At first these may be annoying, but then I remember the process of acceptance. Not that I can force myself to accept, but it is more like an invitation from my self to my self to simply accept. The other day for instance, there was the sound of a door gently opening and closing in the breeze created from an open window…

At first, I felt distracted and my mind urged me to get up and close it just to make my zazen silent and "perfect". Yet, a deeper part of me that knew that I just needed to connect with whatever arose in zazen. Perhaps this deeper part was "true" self. But one never knows in Zen, as not knowing is a desirable and "perfect" state. Did I mention desire there? Did I mention perfect!? What illusion! What paradox!

Anyway, whatever happened, I slipped into a state of just listening. The door would touch its framework and then nothing. Touch its framework again, and then nothing. No rhythm at all, so I didn't know when the next noise would occur. I realized that I was anticipating the noise and had slipped out of the immediate moment. The noise wouldn't come and just as I felt relief that I could get on with zazen, there is was again! I knew this was not correct practice! But reminded myself that there is no correct practice without there being incorrect practice.. Trapped in dualism again?

Then it all stopped. The noise came and went, came and went, and it was OK. Zen became perfectly imperfect. Without expectation or disappointment that my zazen hadn't been… Perfect! Ha!

Past and Future: Non-existent. Peace of the Moment.

This is a copy of a response to a discussion post I have done on myLot forum...

As a Zen practitioner I do not follow any conventional religion but through my practice of zazen every day I have no beliefs about what is to happen at some future time or when I am dead.

My Zen practice takes me to the truth that the future does not exist and neither does the past. How can it!? There is only now, and it is constantly available. The moment of now, disappears immediately and cannot return again. If you can understand, the past is an illusion - that is, it is not real. The future is also an illusion and not real. Only now can exist. If I am to keep looking and focusing on this moment of now, I am focusing on the only reality that exists. My mind becomes still, and I connect with everything in my awareness that exists.

There cannot be fear, only when I allow my mind to fear what may be in the future, which I have already established (within myself), is not real! So that means I fear what is not there! A ghost!

I have found that no matter what I experience whether I be comfortable or in pain, if I just stay focused on this moment of existence as it comes and goes, I recognize that nature provides me with a natural inclination to the peace and calmness of the here and now.

Generally society, does not teach this, but teaches us to focus on the future all the time. Get better, richer, healthier and do not rest on the moment, for we have to "improve life" constantly! The truth I have found is that we can only really improve the quality of our life by being focused here and now and becoming totally mindful of what we are doing or experiencing. We are not working things out, so much as allowing nature to allow us to evolve and grow. Contemplating these ideas in meditation, I have found for myself, that problems have a tendency to sort themselves out. It is our very being (or soul) that allows energy to flow allowing such evolution to naturally occur.

I thought with this post, that I would share my experience and insights with you.. If you just look within yourself, I feel you may find something far more valuable than any beliefs that come from outside yourself. My truth cannot be yours, and yours cannot be mine, but we can certainly find our own and they will sound remarkably similar...

Please feel free to share your insights or experiences..
Love and light..

Zen: Just Awareness

Zen. It is just awareness! When it is not present, it is present, but through the ego we are stuck in the pretence that we are not aware! A rock and a hard place, for to try and be aware is a desire and will only cause us to sink into the quicksand of the finite mind. So what do we do to become aware? Exactly!

If we want to get it right, then it will be wrong. So, we need to transcend both right and wrong to that state of awareness where we get the experience that everything is just so.

Letting Go

Letting go needs to be on a moment to moment basis in order to remain focused in the here and now.

But to have such a desire to achieve this, wouldn't work, because desire would immediately bring one back into a world where the random, planning mind would once again be in control.

Letting go, in each moment of now, is liberating and the way to mindfulness. It is quite simply Zen. As all is.

In Zen. What is Absolute Truth? Is it Truth That We Lie?

I have just involved myself in an on-line discussion on why people lie. It will be interesting to see what reponses I get, but being a very Zen answer. What I have written can be quite challenging to some, so there may not be any responses at all.

As a Zen practitioner and therapist, I have studied the tendency to lie.  In Zen I aim to deal in absolutes, that is, we are either lying or telling the truth. Lying is usually done  out of some sort of fear. The fear could be great or small.  For instance if you see someone who is wearing what you believe to be an awful outfit, but they seem very proud of it, it may difficult to tell absolute truth because there is a fear. Not a big-deal fear, but a fear of offending them. It is easier to say that it's nice, than to say it is hideous and doesn't suite them at all.  So, it is not easy to tell the absolute truth all of the time.

Another part of this equation is that the mind exists on a lie, meaning that what we may totally believe is a lie.

For instance, in Zen, the truth is that whenever we judge another person, we are judging our self.  But we totally believe that we are judging and perhaps blaming another person for something that upsets us. This is not so.

We can only perceive the other person as part of our own awareness, which we consider to be our self and then we create our ideas of what they are like, but thos ideas still isn't truth. It is only our ideas about what may be truth.

So judging others is judging our own awareness which we believe to be our self!  It's a neat trap, if you can understand what I'm saying here.  Most of life, we are strongly identified with our self as being separate from others in the world, This is another lie. But no-one will believe you if you were to realize this, because believing is not truth either, only realization and experiencing is! Only now is true as the past or future which we may think of as being real, is not truth.

As a Zen practitioner, I am as honest as living in this world permits me to be, and to tell absolute truth is a great challenge whilst the mind keeps interfering!

Nothing wrong or right about that, so it's best not to worry about it.

Can we really say that there is truth in the world everywhere we look? I think there may be more untruth than truth in the world.  That's is a mystery that I love about Zen practice!

Please click here if you want to read the discussion or responses... Or lack of them! Or sign in/sign up and respond yourself.

Judgement: Memoirs of an Encounter Group: A Zen Challenge

My challenge as a Zen practitioner and group therapist was not to judge. And I found it to be a great challenge as  judgements came up, In fact judgement still arises - for its roots seem ancient - imbedded in my mind as in the society I belong to.

In my encounter groups, I used profanity a lot to "shock" people into awareness.  Bashing people with a Zen stick, wouldn't have made me very popular and would probably have got me arrested! 

Yes, the judging mind  raised its objection and considered such ways of communicating as bad, so I had to get past my judgemental considerations  because I wanted to cause a stir in my groups.  

Once past that first hurdle of my judgemental mind, the space in the group room became what I can best describe as light and free as the language amongst the participants got to be more expressive and although encounter groups are based more on spiritual development than therapy, such expression provided the space for some very rapid and therapeutic effects to take place.

Getting Better, Getting Real.

In Zen, some of us look to get better. Others look to get real. Can there be an "better" without "reality"? If we can drop the struggle to get better and focus on the task of getting real, will we not then get better anyway?