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, there may not be any! 

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.

There is nothing to realize from zazen, only that which we already know, that can be uncovered through stilling the mind, and knowing that which is not knowable.

Is clarity an open book?  Maybe! I know that Zen reading is a way to focus on the here and now. Each moment has not existed before now. Whatever page I am reading, involves me in an experience of reading it as if for the first time. I notice that this can be done many times, if I don’t believe a word I am reading!  Reading is then an experience in mind training of being here, being in the moment of now. If reading about the Zen experiences of others, those Zen experiences can come alive again. Here and now.

Zen can often feel so crazy!  Random thought course through the mind when I am supposed to be keeping it still. Supposed!? 

But whenever we create anything, the opposite also comes into being - like two sides on the same coin.  If we experience one side right now, like all experiences, it is not permanent, it will disappear from our awareness. Best to be aware that we are aware then.. Did is say best? Yes? There’s another side… worst. The mind is so busy all the time! Best and worst to get busy and still with crazy random thoughts and koans…  

It is said that when we suffer, we suffer alone. I guess that may or may not be true. Suffering is shared by everybody, but each instance of suffering is not.  Transcendence then must be when one suffers and it is OK to suffer.  In the mindfulness of zazen, this transcendence becomes quite apparent. When we get caught up in the mind though, there may be a tendency to struggle with the suffering and get sucked into it.  Stay mindful, but not with the ambition to transcend, unless that is, one does this with awareness.

When I find myself in an impasse, I do not try to break the impasse.  It is a matter of being willing to keep expanding my awareness of my resistance, then my resistance to the resistance, then my resistance to the resistance that is resisting the resistance. 

A simple explanation to the expansion of awareness? But perhaps I am looking for something deeper and more profound, but Zen is simply being aware of what is so, and adding such analysis is surely a mistake? 

But I read and such Zen reading is an analysis that paradoxically supports my practice. The essence of Zen can be got from many fronts.

The only thing that doesn’t change in life is the process of change.  Life is a journey, not a destination and the only reality is [b]here and now[/b]. This moment right now, is no more because this reality goes as soon as it comes, therefore time is an illusion and does not exist!

It is the mind that doesn’t like change, and we tend to fear what is to come and ignore what is so. Our fears are illusions..

To read discusssion

The Dream comes from the reasoning mind.

Reasoning is all to do with with comparison of past, present and future

These are illusory and therefore, non-existent.

The reasoning mind stops.

Here and now.

Zazen reminds me that all I can do is be aware. But awareness is not really  doing at all! So all that there is, is awareness and I just need to remember to direct my attention towards this. Direct it from where? From the mind? From illusion?

Illusion does not exist, as it is after all, illusion! So I cannot be in illusion. I cannot be in a state that does not exist. To think that this is at all possible is an illusion in itself! That also does not exist.

Perhaps directing my attention towards awareness is  doing?  It is an act of will that is for certain. But who can define an act of will?  Is it something that we do or something that we are? So that’s it then. We are already enlightened! The words of the great masters make sense! But when did Zen ever make sense?

Zazen (or Zen meditation) whilst it can help to reduce negative stress in daily life, its primary function is about spritual enlightenment and transcendence.

Zazen is more to do with the transformation of our base energy into spiritual energy (alchemy) than a fix for the worries and anxieties that life in modern society produces. As a result of zazen, the Zen practitioner gradually becomes detached from his/her anxieties as he/she recognizes the illusion of a time-based mental attitude.

There is only now, the past and the future is where anxiey lies. The past and the future are non-existent - an illusion, therefore the production of stress and anxiety must also be  illusion… That is the practice, but the mind (ego) will resist any effort that is going to ultimately prove the illusion. It is this resistance, the we work with in meditation.

This is the subject of a recent discussion I have been involved in. To participate further.. click here, or feel free to leave comments on this blog…