One way to think about Zen practice is:
A total, non-judgmental awareness (mindfulness) which incorporates together body and mind in the present reality of the moment, that is in the same current space-time & doing the same thing.
To do this:
Dropping all illusions and experiencing things and people as they currently are without the distortion created by our own relentless thinking and feeling.
Don’t fight your thoughts during meditation
Can you stop your heart from beating or your kidneys for making urine? No
While keeping your eyes open, can you stop seeing? No
Can you stop thinking? No, even while meditating. This is a fake news.
Our brain-mind that is hardware and software has 4 main duties: Making our body working, relating self with our environment via our 5 senses, thinking and having emotions. All of them are unstoppable.
How to work with our thoughts and emotions is the biggest challenge during meditation and life. While sitting, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, past and future are always present regardless your level.
“Awakening inventory” using a scoring system www.mindfulnesszenmeditation.ca
Are you “awake” or close to “awakening”? Please note: this is a very rough, non-scientific and limited inventory that may help you or not to assess your journey. The highest score the closest to “awakening”.
Score the following statements as:
Strongly disagree=1 Disagree=2 Neutral =3 Agree=4 Strongly agree=5 and be very honest with yourself!
1 2 4 5
I have an ongoing sense of contentment, ease, equanimity & open mind……………………………………………………………………………………..( your score here ).
I have pleasure for doing routine stuff / non exciting stuff………………………………………………………………………………………….
Life and things are what they are and not what I want them to be……………………………………………………………………………………………
I am trying to stay more in the present moment than being in the past or the future…………………………………………………………………………………………
When, where and how do you have “fun” Arnaud?
D, a very good friend of mine leaving in San Francisco told me the following over the phone:
“Practicing Zen Buddhism for many years at the San Francisco Zen center and reading your blogs, I found that Zen philosophy and its Zen Masters teachers are somewhat dull, pessimistic, depressed and even boring. hey seem to live without expecting anything”
“ Why that”? I replied.
D: “ All Zen literature talks about controlling our ego, controlling our emotions, desires, pleasure, expectation; not having nostalgia of the past, controlling our dreams about the future…. This is pretty grim, bleak and gloomy. In other words no fun, don’t you think”
“This is your view Denise, not mine”, I replied”.
Are you blind? About our emotional outbursts
Few months ago, I was walking downtown Oakville, with my arms full of stuff when someone roughly bumps into me so hard that my groceries went all over the ground.
As I picked up the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, I was ready to shout out: “You idiot, what’s wrong with you, are you blind !” Mad I was, like an aggressive wild beast.
But just before I can catch my breath to express verbally my anger, I saw a white cane on the floor and realize suddenly that the person who bumped into me was indeed blind.
Zen serenity as taught by a little dog
Our 10-year-old wonderful Shih Tzu named Zap is a perfect example of calmness & serenity except when he is asking to go out for a pee or when time for food is around the corner which is quite normal .
He is showing so much serenity that I asked him his secret. Since Zap does not use human language, I learned to read his non-verbal skills such his eyes. Here are his answers.
My brain and mind is only 7% of yours, which is a gift because more thinking induces more suffering.
I will explain that later. Here are the main reasons why I am more serene than you or Cathie or anyone coming for meditation in our home.
Mind-Made 6 poisons
The main roadblock against inner peace and serenity is our ego-driven mind
Our “I, ME, MYSELF and MINE” are critical for identification, survival, protection, enhancement, pleasure, procreation and many more other functions. This is wonderful but…..
Zen Buddhism considers our little self that is “I” is also the main cause of our unhappiness, dissatisfaction and suffering. These negative feelings and uneasiness are triggered by so called 3 main “poisons” in Zen Buddhist:
1) Desire/ craving/expectations or what we want 2) Dislike/Hatred/aversion or what we don’t want
3) Ignorance, better called illusions. They are affecting us more subconsciously than consciously. (more…)
Meditation: its 2 most common obstacles
As long you have been meditating, for 80 years or 2 weeks, all of us are encountering the extremes of drowsiness and agitation during the practice. Drowsy or agitated mind are the 2 most frequent obstacles in meditation.
From time to time, it is impossible to escape from them.
Meditation: an update from Neuroscience studies
Mindfulness is paying attention moment- to- moment to ourselves and our environment w/o analytic and decisional purpose.
During the past 25 years or so neurosciences have been very productive in trying to understand how mindfulness works. But, like for any scientific research, some studies regarding mindfulness and mindfulness-based meditation are very good, others are lacking true scientific data and many questions remained unsolved.
Here is an update meta-analysis from Berkeley Univ.
Time can be a dread
Once a while, I observe animals and pets and envy their pragmatism, calm and, maybe, their wisdom.
Their life is not fun, mostly routine. They suffer like all of us and yet they do not seem to make a “big deal of their dull and non-exciting life ”. Their lives seem to have few complications. They eat the same food, sleep when tired and don’t control anything.
As far we can judge, every animal is so busy with what he is doing in the current moment that he never bother asking whether life is good or bad, fair or unfair or what they regret from the past, expect or fear for the future. For them, happiness consists in living only in the present moment and not in the assurance that the past was better or the future will be full of expectations and without suffering. (more…)
