Witnessing the mind does not involve any desire for enlightenment for how can I be what I already am?
Just allow the mind’s antics to unfold. Notice what is ego, and see if you can get what is not ego.
In my zazen, I witness how the mind tries to seduce me into entanglement with its plans and decisions of past and future.
There is nothing to get when we already have it!
We always have a choice. So what is this thing called, choice? It is purely subjective therefore resists all attempt to define it. We just choose! But how? We just do it.
Is it an act of whill? An act of will cannot be defined, only experienced - if we can stay aware. We can choose anything, even that we do not wish!
It is said that when the student is ready, the master appears. In Zen, there are many masters and they will appear whenever one is ready. The masters are here right now, waiting.
Consider the flower seed, as a Zen master.. It’s main purpose is to grow into a glorious plant. It does not hesitate and resist leaving the safety of it’s shell. Its trust in the universe is absolute because it does not know what awaits for it. What can that developing flower possible teach us?
The seed just is. It opens up in total trust. Zazen is a function of trust. We need to stop knowing what lies ahead, for the future never comes. There is only now and zazen is just sitting, becoming mindful and trusting that the moment of now will bring us to enlightenment.
As a Zen master, a flower seeds shows us how it manifests into a bloom. It has no mind for the future, for such considerations may paralyse it in fear of being eaten. It just grows without guarantees. That is the essence of Zen. There are many masters if we will but look.
My Zen practice isn’t really about happiness, but reality. I recognize more and more in day-to-day living how I really create my reality. When I create something that is light and cheerful, I am also creating something dark and miserable, for I create effects. And each effect can only be known by comparison to its opposite. It is a case of Yin and Yang, yet pure Self transcends this in reality.
No matter how many times I get that “I am”, there is always another unique experience of getting it. Each moment of now, each moment of really getting that I-am is unique and has never occurred before and will never occur again in quite the same way.
Be here now!
The words are not it. But they can, if the mind is ripe, elicit an experience of “I-am!” If you get it, let it go, to make room for more experiences of “I am” in the moment now. Now is always the right time for us to know what/who we already are.
The “I-am” consciousness is not so much about what we do in life, but about who we are in life. A state of being. We do not achieve or do enlightenment, but recognize enlightenment in our own space of being, because we already are enlightenment. Zazen is an exercise in trust in this truth.
In zazen, this morning, I found my mindfulness was being disturbed by a feeling of dissatisfaction at someone else that I knew. I was perceiving a dissatisfaction with their attitude towards me.
If ever I look at someone in this way and see shortcomings, I need to look within myself for those very shortcomings that I am seeing in another. For where am I getting such judgment if not from myself?
Watching others therefore, can be a way to learn about myself, because my perceptions are all part of me. When I realized this during my zazen, my focus went back strongly to my breathing, and I began to feel that I and my breathing were one for a while.
We always have a choice. So what is this thing called, choice? It is purely subjective therefore resists all attempt to define it. We just choose! But how? We just do it.
Is it an act of whill? An act of will cannot be defined, only experienced - if we can stay aware. We can choose anything, even that we do not wish!
Zen is certainly not for everyone. Its rewards are hard, and almost impossible to define with words. Zen communicates through experiential practices that words are inadequate to describe.
My writings here in my Zen blog, in themselves answer nothing. They come from my zazen (Zen meditation) and aim to pose more questions within each mind. I hope the words on my Zen blog help take the reader further down his/her path to enlightenment.
I worked as a hypnotherapist until December 2009, when I went into semi-retirement. However I keep my website going to help anyone who is considering hypnotherapy.
I am fascinated by the potential of the human mind. Each day I practice zazen (a form of Zen meditation) and the blog posts contained on this blog, is inspired during my zazen. Please feel free to get involved and leave your thoughts and responses to the posts.
Another passion of mine lies in music and I play a clavinova piano and digital keyboards and did so once professionally - I love all genres of music but modern jazz is one of my favourites because of the potential to create improvisations. ...
I love computers and gadgets, cars, photography and also love to read and to write about spirituality ... I find learning new things is very exciting and I tend to have the motto in life... "what else is there? I might as well go for it and see where it leads me.."
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