Oakville Zen Meditation
Dialogue between a student and teacher about 3 topics:
About suffering:
Zen says that desire, hate, and illusions are the main causes of suffering and I have to be mindful of them in order to have better control of my emotions and delusion. Right?
YES
But if I want to control my desires, hate or any negative feelings, then I am creating another desire that is to control something. So, what is the point?
The point is these 2 words that you said “ being mindful”.
To be mindful is to pay attention to something w/o analytic thinking that is w/o pre-conceived ideas, attachment, judgment and w/o decision.
Train your brain-mind to be an observer of your feelings rather than them controlling you.
Practicing mindfulness during meditation and on the go will polish your brain-mind to become a mirror reflecting feelings, things, events, and people as they are and not as you want them to be. A Zen mind is a mirror mind. It is just reflecting things w/o attachment, cognition,andw/o thinking.... sort of thinking thoughtlessly.
About time:
Zen says that we have to live in the present moment, the only existing time, because
it is only in the NOW that we are alive and experience concrete reality. But I believe that past and future exist because I have memories, pictures and a planning calendar.
BUT IT IS WRONG THINKING
When the present moment is gone, it is dead by becoming part of the past.
So both past and “past-you” are dead. Pictures and memories will not make them alive.
Both are fiction.
Don’t be a “past-you”. It does not make sense because it will bring you suffering such regrets of what was wrong and nostalgia of what was right.
When the present moment is gone, it becomes the “next moment” but this next moment is,
in fact, in the unborn future and the “future you” is also not born yet.
So, both future and “future you” are not born yet. Calendar will not make them alive.
Both are fiction.
Don’t be a ”future-you”. It does not make sense because it will create expectations of what you want and worries of what you don’t want; most of them just thoughts and potential suffering.
Obviously we have to plan using calendars but calendars are only on paper and on our smart phone. Can you predict how and where you will be in 24h, 1 week, and next month? NO
Train your brain-mind to be an observer of the NOW. Practicing mindfulness of the NOW during meditation and on the go will polish your brain-mind to become a mirror reflecting things, events and people as they are and not as you want them to be.
A Zen mind is a mirror mind and, like a mirror, it is just reflecting things w/o attachment, cognition and w/o thinking...sort of thinking thoughtlessly.
About using our 5 senses:
Zen says to practice our 5 senses mindfully as the way to be conscious to our surrounding true reality and be connected to its components so the mind is attached with the body to be one entity rather than being elsewhere doing something else. I don’t get I t!
How often are you mindful to the sound of your car, a taste of a nut, a smell of the grass, the color of a cloud or the contact of warm water on your skin during shower? If you do it, it is analytically for a specific reason. For example, checking the sky for rain.
Being mindful of our 5 senses is to hook up our wild mind to our body. We become then one entity rather than our body doing something, usually routinely, and our mind wondering elsewhere doing something different. At this point, we are mono-thinker because the mind is paying attention to what the body in doing ..... close of being thoughtless.
Remember this: having a Zen mind is not an extraordinary, supra natural skill to learn.
It means just to be....like a mirror..... in the moment....reflecting present reality as it is. Thank you
