Technorati Tags: consciousness, karma, meditation, thoughts

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Technorati Tags: law of attraction, zen buddhism, zen businss

I am seeing that the purpose of my zazen (Zen meditation) is to recognize that I am so much more than the physical body and my discursive, analytical mind. I see life with all its trials and tribulations (karma) as lessons for the higher self or maybe that should read, lessons from the higher self, which some may want to refer to as the soul. But what real difference does a label make?
 
If I can focus strongly in my zazen and be right here, right now, recognising that past is no more and future is not yet, I will catch a glimpse of the “eternal now” and as I witness this, I can transcend my karma.

But then the “battle” continues as my discursive mind cannot remain so disciplined and thus karma continues to be created immediately by long “chains” of thoughts (action and reaction) that I experience through my interaction with the world.

But karma isn’t necessarily anything bad, or anything good. It’s just the function of the world of opposites from which our souls are having experience. Karma becomes bad or good if we consider it to be so, for the world is just the world. I need to be mindful that our higher selves or souls are eternal, and whatever we experience in this world is transient, but it will become whatever we create it to be in our thoughts.

Technorati Tags: higher self, karma, thoughts

Acceptance is the key to unlock the door to realization.

As I sit in zazen, if I accept all that comes into my awareness, I am resolving the conflicting thoughts and ideas my mind generates and resolving them into a one-ness. Once I attain a strong level of acceptance, it is a certain indication that I am focusing my awareness.

The aim of zazen is stilling the mind, but we cannot experience such stillness if we resist the darting activity of our thoughts. We need to sit in acceptance and observe all that goes on and at the same time, maintain that resolve for perfect stillness of no-mind.

Technorati Tags: acceptance, awareness, zazen

Life’s a river. Perhaps a river is Zen [life]. At times the river flows easily without getting blocked by fallen trees or debris. Then there are times when the flow is obstructed and the river becomes slow and heavy, but the river is not really stuck.

And we are not really stuck, as Zen life, just like the river, always gets on with its journey by going through and around any obstruction. It is through zazen that we can cultivate our consciousness to be flowing, just like the river. We need to pay attention to the way around and through any obstruction - that is our karma. We are not going get past very easily if we don’t devote our focused consciousness to what is obstructing us.

Sometimes, during a storm, more and more water is added to a river and the force builds up stronger and stronger until the river bursts through the obstruction annihilating it completely. 

If we were to take a lesson from nature, the storms in our life can be used in the same way to blow away our own barriers. If we will just sit in zazen and go with the flow and accept and observe whatever is emerging even though it is not always about sweetness and light.

In zazen we enhance our awareness of our barriers, and through focusing on our own river of inhalations and exhalation as we breathe, we can witness as our barriers to higher states of consciousness just fall away.

In life we can take time out to sit on the bank of a river or small stream and focus on the flow of the water, just as we focus on the flow of our breathing in zazen, we can learn a lot about who we really are.

Technorati Tags: river, zazen, zen life

During my life, I have desired many things and achieved those desires many times, but after a while, I got to feel that my achievements didn’t mean anything and my achievements simply got replaced with new desires. And so I continue on my path…

Then Zen came into my life, and gradually through my zazen , I began to realize more and more the value of the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama’s realization when he sat under the Bodhi tree some two-and-a-half thousand years ago…

In his enlightenment he realized that the source of all suffering was desire, and this was the basis of his teaching. 

In my zazen I have realised that this seems to be true whether desires be large or small. Or paradoxically, even the desires for enlightenment is a desire! This is where I can recognize the value of the words or many Zen masters when they say, “it is the journey, not the destination”.

So what I am currently making out of all of this is that life doesn’t mean anything. It just IS. Life is about living (the journey along the path), not the destination. When I desire, I am projecting a neediness on to the future. This is like trying to get to my destination before I arrive there. As a Zen master would say, “I am already enlightened!”

Life’s journey is meaningless. It just IS! When I realize this cosmic joke, there are times when I can cry about it, and there are times when I can roar with laughter about it. Life’s journey is not about meaning, laughter or tears, it just IS

.

Technorati Tags: enlightenment, life, meaning

Buddha discovered in his original enlightenment in his zazen (Zen meditation) under the Bodhi tree, that desire was the root of all suffering. It stands to reason that desire leads to attachment, and when the desired thing or condition is realised, we can become protective of it and defend it. Why defend something that we are unattached to? Why defend something if we have not fear of losing it? This means that we begin to experience fear of loss. In extreme cases, this fear of loss can manifest as a phobia. An phobia is something that can freeze us in terror as if we are faced with a man-eating tiger. And all this can be born of desire! 

It is the task of the Zen pracitioner in his meditation to realise that all is one, for if there is nothing separate, there is nothing to fear as fear can only manifest about something that is about to attack our well-being in some way. So, spiritual development through Zen or some other discipline can be very therapeutic.

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My perception of the world is coloured by the opinions, judgements and beliefs I hold about it. Therefore, what I am perceiving is not absolute truth as much of it is so different to that of another. Some may perceive this world as hell, some as heaven and others as somewhere in between.  But how does a mind enlightened by zazen perceive the world.

I sit in zazen each day as an act of trust. I trust that I will see the Truth that I aspire to. I take these small insights, these small pieces of Zen I get from time to time as signs that my zazen is the correct vehicle for me to be using on the road to ultimate enlightenment.

Technorati Tags: enlightenment

If my earthly life is an illusion, I need to awaken from this dream and look beyond. As truth slowly unravels I see that even “healing thoughts” are fragmented and therefore illusory because when all is one, there is no call for healing and it will cease to exist.

In my practice, with most clients, I see their stress-related symptoms are resistant to conventional therapy… We need to go beyond merely “healing” because their discomfort is much deeper - it is more like a call to a spritual growth.

This can be exremely transformational if the client is ready. For where they came into therapy wanting immediate release from their stressful lives, they begin to look beyond those symptoms and begin the practice of meditation, begin to read more self-development books. and begin on their own path to higher, spiritual consciousness.

Technorati Tags: look beyond, self development, spiritual