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Do you ever wish you could surround yourself in tranquility everywhere you go? Would you like to be impermeable to the hustle & bustle of the world, rude drivers, demanding kids, the boss and the stress and strain of finances and aging?
Millions of Americans answer a resounding "Yes" and become comfortably numb with the use of an endless, yet growing, number of psychotherapeutic drugs.
Antidepressants aren't the enemy although their long lists of side effects may beg to differ. The enemy is the solution perceived by our goal oriented, outward focused society that the cure is found on the pharmacy shelf.
Zen To The Recue
If you cannot find the truth right where you are,
where else do you expect to find it?
Dogen Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher 1200-1253.
Obtaining the true state of Zen takes many years, maybe more than we have, and requires daily discipline, again maybe more than we have. But the process is simple; you sit (or lay down) and practice zazen or mediation.
Unlike other forms of meditation, zazen is absent dogma, decorations, mantras and images. You have nothing to study, nowhere to go and no one to follow.
In Zen you are complete with your breath; not an easy thing for a capitalist to embrace. While the practitioner may indulge in reading Koans (abstract thoughts such as “Does a tree that falls in the forest make a sound if there isn’t anyone there to hear it?") they are not necessary to the practice of zazen.
True enlightenment may elude us but anyone can experience Zen living with little time or effort.
If you think of your mind as a badly tended garden, you can begin to see what Zen living requires: pulling weeds, removing stones, nurturing the dirt and seeding with the desired result. A great deal of this can be accomplished by just sitting and breathing. The weeds or cob webs will start to clear and the heavy burden of our mental stones will dissolve. The mind will get a much needed rest from outside noise and internal chatter.
Through the practice of zazen you experience the essence of now. There is only sitting and breathing. No planning, no rehearsing, no battles fought with the past, no goals, no reflection, no conversation. Just sitting and breathing.
Living in Your Zen
After just sitting and breathing for a period of time, it will be impossible to return to your life at the same level of consciousness. Suddenly the world looks different because for the first time you have stopped all the external commotion and removed many of the obstacles housed in the mind.
The illusions of your life will be revealed. Quite unexpectedly you will just "get it." Old patterns of living will seem foolish and will lose their hold. Conditioned beliefs will fall away like a tattered garment.
We practice so that each moment of our life becomes real life.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen teacher
What is Real?
The truth is we simply don't know... other than I AM. How complicated a world we entertain as we try to explain, label and conform to a truth we fabricate beyond the simplicity of accepting that we just are.
Living in the moment is living in Zen.
If at the moment you are eating then eat, walking then walk, working then work. Don't stray to the non-moment that hasn't arrived or the one long since departed. Beyond the dogma, the protocols, the drudge and the multitudes is the moment.
And in Zen is the understanding that the moment is now and now exists over and over and over again while never concretely existing at all. In accepting that there is nothing to hold on to, we are liberated to soar feely in the miracle of existence and all baggage is free to drop to the ground.
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