Silence

Take a moment.. Listen to this silence. The here-and-now....
Notice there may be noises, and listen to the silence. The here-and-now.

Listen. This it the universe, wherever you may be focused in it.
There is a silence beyond the noise.
The dark of the moon?
Is this a time for listening?

This is zazen. Just listening to silence, if you like.
The silence behind the intruding thoughts
The universe.
No answers. There are no questions that are not already answered
In themselves.

Silence reflects the "suchness"
The being-ness of being.
This is it.
This is now.


The silence is always there.
I will need to remember to listen more often.

Dark Shadows in Neat Boxes

Dark shadows exist at the back of the mind. Zazen can bring them to awareness that can act like a candle or a bright torch shining light into them and creating greater clarity.   In zazen I don't try to stop myself thinking about the discomfort of such shadows, as there is something they are teaching. Writing about it with mindfulness and focus is a great support.  This is what I feel is unraveling the wiles of karma and is a valuable process to do through communication, thus making issues clearer to awareness.

No!  Not clearer to the mind, as rational reason likes to "own" each and every experience, wrapping them up and putting it away in a neat boxes for future reference. Spiritual experiences cannot be owned, because every experience is immediately gone and we are into the next one.  It's the journey.

Looking Zazen: Guilt and True Forgiveness.

In zazen today I have been fascinated by the antics of the mind.  This whole thing about guilt complexes - to give it a Freudian term.  He said that they were buried in the subconscious mind and yes, they are. As they emerge into consciousness, the mind creates a (dis)ease of impending retribution, from others, from karma, from the universe. 

It came to me that guilt is the operation of the conditioned mind when we think we are doing what is considered to be wrong. I am using the word "considered" (to be wrong) because right can only be genuine right when coming from the heart, from the self where there is no motivation, no desire for anything. All other stuff is just societal control, which from birth slowly enters into this life. I have swallowed all this hook, line and sinker and are therefore just as likely to feel a judge as anybody else. I am looking at this from my own perspective. Even though, I have heard so many tell me of their guilt complexes and resultant anxieties, I can see the reality that all is one, and to be able to know something I must own it. Whilst others have it, I must know  of it too, or I could not talk of it and would be prone to judging it without realizing it. Transcending it it not necessarily making it "better" or destroying it. The experience can disappear, but to disappear there needs to be something to disasppear. I need to experience it and see it as an energy with opinion attached, and then there is an opportunity to transcend it. It exists as a physical manifestation belonging to this physical world, of which I am merely a visitor! 

My work as a Zen practitioner, has always been to transcend this conditioning and choose for myself to be in harmony with all else. Societal rules don't change, but my awareness does, so that I can be free to live in harmony with the rules. I can choose freely for myself.   Acceptance and observation - just watching what arises. Going completely with the flow.  What would emerge then?  "True righteousness" born of awareness?  Is this true forgiveness?

Conditioned Mind... or Prison

I am my own creator of these prison bars..

I made a prison of negativity…

And through zazen,  I am getting that I am now nervously coming out of that prison.

Each awareness of imprisonment of this sort,

Does lead me to a great sense of space in which to just be. 

Experiencing my life…

Nervousness is a resistance that is bound to be a response as the bars disappear, Because those prison bars of ignorance through conditioning,

Can act like a security blanket that has for lifetimes, held me tight..

Security though is the freedom to expand into the adventure of life in this universe..

How I Deal with Challenges and Barriers

If there's anything that will kill the inspiration/motivation to meditate, it is trying to do too much too soon, and what is too much, too soon will mean different things to different people.  As a general guide, I invite my clients to begin meditating for 20 minutes each day.  I get their commitment to do this every day until their next appointment, which is preferably a week away. Some clients though are better suited to 10 minutes and feel that is all they can do. In my experience, if a commitment becomes established, a client will meditate longer more often and even begin the practice of mindfulness in his/her day-to-day life.

What I have found though is that if for instance, a client is unable to return in a week's time, a fortnight tends to be too long, and very soon my client would have abandoned the idea and more than likely will cancel his/her next appointment, or even not bother turning up without cancelling. They are simply not ready to face the Zen-like challenge and may or may not seek an alternative path. 

This phenomena tends to be such as shame because meditating is very a valuable process that just by practising it, a person can become more centred and expand consciousness and awareness. But commitment is needed.

Daily meditation is a discipline and can be very challenging to the ego-mind as it exposes the "inner politician" - named thus because politicians are famous for going back on promises and commitments! I am talking here about the politics of comfort seeking, and personal/spiritual development tends not to be very comfortable, because old beliefs and personality traits have to be challenged and transformed, if a person wants to experience the empowerment that Zen practice can bring.

If there is no way for any reason, that a person can arrive for a weekly appointment, I introduce another "tool" - the telephone. I get him/her to commit to phoning me on  a specific day, at a specific time, a time when there is no doubt with that person that he/she will be able to make such a call. Now that home computers are in practically every other home, the use of e-mail is also used.  Stating what one is committed to by phone or using the written word over the internet, has been found to be a great support. It brings into external reality the act of giving one's word, be it spoken or written.

Listen Carefully.

In zazen, it is far better to observe and accept whatever comes to consciousness than to analyse or look for meaning.  Things are simply so, right here, right now. What is so right here, right now, is truth, for it cannot be anything else.  Analysis of truth is just that, analysis and not truth itself. Analysis tends to come from conditioned thinking, memories… and that is of the past, not now.    The analysis is the interpretation of something that is so. Something that is being communicated from the spirit via the nerves and other "messengers" in our vehicle of experience - our body, is so.  Listen carefully!

Silence and Pain

Silence within is where I can be at peace.

Where I will reflect on myself and witness what is going on.

Silence is the only permanent thing in life; the only unchanging thing.

Silence is silence, always has been, always will be.

It existed before the beginning, because all beginnings have an end,

And the journey is endless. 

Silence is always there even in the midst of the marketplace.

The Moon reflects on the water.

The reflection is silent.

When there is pain or loss,

Listen to its silence closely. 

This is the art of true meditation

It can be like a built-in healing phenomenon

Keep focusing allowing the silence to absorb it completely

Into completion.

I want this higher state of awareness.

I opened the gates to it through my Zen,

And I know that this pain and that pain happens to many Zen practitioners..

But I need to remember the art or non-resistance.

Be with what I am with. This is it.

All truth is experience and all perception is of the mind

And all that mind stuff...
Is merely an interpretation of what I am experiencing.

The truth of what I am experiencing comes from experiencing it.

Without judgment.