It came up in my zazen this morning that what I was achieving in stilling my mind and focusing on the breath was no-thing at all.

For a moment my mind seemed totally still, there was really nothing at all! No thoughts or ideas, just the breath entering and leaving my body. Then suddenly, every trivial thought under the sun bombarded my mind and I recognized I was actually getting a feeling of fear. Fear from nothing at all? There was also a fascination because I was totally observing this mental phenomenon as if it was somebody else.

During this dream-like state, I remembered the Buddha’s word for this no-thing was shanyata and this word seemed much softer and more acceptable than no-thing. The empty void I was experiencing continued behind my chattering mind and then I had a prominent thought that I had experienced this no-thingness before. I had been in this space before I was born and I am and have been OK in spite of it. And my mind stopped again and only the breathing was there until my timer signalled the end of my sitting.

This period of 45 minutes I had been sitting in zazen, had gone in a flash and will never return again. It was truly timeless. There is only now.

The practice of zazen isn’t strictly speaking a meditation, more of a mind focus. It is the basis of Zen practice which is the intention of becoming mindful, recognizing that there is only now, that the past is gone and future is not yet.

It is the intention of a Zen practitioner to use the mindfulness practised in zazen into the tasks of every day life, meaning that the profound can discovered in the mundane.  There are many Zen stories and one that I feel illustrated this beautifully is…. There was once a student of Zen who asked his master, “how can I become enlightened”, to which the master replied, “Chop sticks, carry water… enlightenment”.

If we can become focused totally on mundane tasks “carrying water and chopping sticks” to the exclusion of all other thoughts, then we are mindfully in the here and now. At one with all and our perceptions of separation will disappear.

When I am totally present, focused on the here and now, I am totally detached from what was and from what will be. I can stay on the path to enlightenment if I can stay focused on what is.  This is my objective in zazen. I then need to extend the present mindfulness of zazen into my daily activities. This is to experience the path of true Zen.

The only thing that stands in my way of spiritual awareness is denial, the ultimate scepticism. In contrast, “I-don’t-know-ness” is a sign that my mind is open, so a wait-and-see, is a good philosophy. But…

When I get the feeling “I thought that would/would not happen”, I have the opportunity to realise that I have only pretended to be open-minded because I have been in anticipation of a result. Merely observing these traits and attitudes in meditation provide the impetus to de-structure them, which is part of the process of opening my mind more and more to ultimate reality.

Meanwhile, until I fully experience the domain of ultimate reality, my mind, through the Law of Attraction will bring me my goals and wishes, so my zazen is a powerful and useful tool to examine and edit what exactly I am wishing for!

Zazen is about focusing the mind.

Life circumstances are much less important than we think they are – they are just karma, the effect of our previous internal imaginings, feelings and thoughts.

It is the here and now thoughts and feelings that are important for they form our future life circumstances.

Through zazen we can focus our mind totally on any intent that we create in the here and now, creating a healing and letting-go of past karma.

The here and now, is therefore more important than anything that exists in time. The here and now is timelessness – it always is.

The mind is programmed to answer questions. The answer to simple everyday questions comes in the form of practical do-able answers.

The Zen koan (USA link) on the other hand, forces the questioner to transcend his/her mind and the answer comes in an abstract spiritual form. An experience, that cannot really be explained by words but is a direct spiritual experience.

Take forgiveness for example. We can know when we have forgiven but the way we get to feel liberated from our negative feelings. It is something that we experience. We have “done” forgiveness without knowing or being able to explain intellectually, how we have done it. We have the experience of having forgiven by the way we feel detached from the issue we had felt previously hostile towards

There have been many posts I have been involved with today that seem to be about the Law of Cause and Effect (karma). It’s almost as if we are all tuning into this subject today. There cannot be a high without a trough, as all relative things are identified by their opposites.

In life, I feel my lesson is to learn to go with ride, just like on a roller-coaster. It is not easy, but I try to not slow the momentum down - it is karma. Then there is a higher state of consciousness I have glimpsed, where there the “I” just being nothing but an observer - I love those experiences when I transcend karma! Or is that karma too? There are many questions in Zen

If we seek happiness we are acknowledging that we are not happy. In my zazen, I have realised that the moment I stopped seeking happiness, I became happy and when I started seeking again, I was less happy. There is only now, yesterday is gone and tomorrow isn’t yet. Right now is the only place we can really be happy.

As a Zen practitioner, I feel that my main lesson in life it to be the best I can with all things. To aim for mindfulness, whether it be on-line with an Internet business or whether a task like washing down the back yard.  It is the power of focus and intent that bring a feeling of fulfilment and satisfaction – the journey not the destination.

Zazen (meditation), trains our mind to focus and when we can change our focus, we can change our thinking,  and our thinking can change our awareness of what is so. It is in this way, that we create our perception of the world.

In zazen, like in all tasks worth mastering, we need to exert effort. Not an effort to force the mind into a denial about what is going on with us, but an effort to focus our mind, whilst at the same time, allowing forceful conflicting thoughts to have their say without opposing them. Because it is only by opposition that conflicting thoughts grow stronger. With full acknowledgement, they have nothing else to say and begin the process of getting resolved, leaving us to create anew, the way we want our lives to be. But there needs to be discipline, dedication and effort to discover what the Zen of life has to offer us.