Oakville Zen Meditation

Dharma Lecture

#243 Baby mind vs. closed mind Oct 7th 18

From baby mind to closed mind Great Japanese Zen Master Suzuki wrote a famous little book called “ Zen mind, beginner’s mind” He wrote: “"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." Have you notice how the mind of a baby works ?.

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#242 When the mind is squeaking, the body listens Sept 23th 18

When the mind is squeaking, the body listens Contrary to our Western medicine, the Oriental one and Zen Buddhism consider Mind and Body as an unbreakable single unit in which each part affects the other back and forth and continuously and at different degrees. Body functions, thoughts and emotions are the jobs of our subconscious […]

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#241 Love and Attachment: is there a difference Set. 16 18

                                Love and attachment: Is there a difference? Difficult question. since these 2 words are perceived almost synonymous. From our own experience we know that when we love someone or something we become, subconsciously attached to this person or a thing like home, car, sex, chocolate, addiction, etc., We are even totally attached to our […]

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#240 Meditation: Tips & Tricks while meditating Sept 9th 18

                                          Meditation: Tips & Tricks while meditating About yourself: Prioritize. We always find time for priorities, never enough time for what we perceive as “non priorities”. Make your sitting a priority like your day-to day routine stuff. Minimize the excuses. Pick a doable amount of time to sit. Even five minutes are enough to […]

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#239 Self, No-Self, True-Self: what does that mean?

                                 Self, No-Self, True Self: what does it mean?  How do we define the “self”? In our Western world, the way we define and delimit Self that is you, others and me living beings is very arbitrary, restrictive, too materialistic. This “individual self” is just a biological organism made of around 30 trillions cells and […]

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#238 Do you love yourself? or searching self-acceptance

  Do you love yourself? or searching self-acceptance Another strange Zen sentence. Don’t take it literally! It has nothing to do with narcissism or hedonistic behavior. Zen is teaching that, in order to be nice, empathic, compassionate and generous with others, which is a mean goal, we have first, to do the same for ourselves […]

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#237 Happiness & serenity: what is the difference? Aug. 19 18

                                          Happiness vs. Serenity: a big difference? Often we equate happiness with serenity but their origin, meaning and purpose are totally different. To achieve serenity, it is important to differentiate them. Happiness (end of XVI c= hap= “good fortune/luck “ is a genetically programmed, ego driven, genuine and transient emotional reaction whereas serenity is […]

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#236 Achieving an open mind Aug. 12 18

                                               Achieving a “ Don’t know mind” Zen literature is full of strange, confusing and misleading words an such as “empty mind”, “don’t know mind” , “mind before thinking”, “original mind”. In the strict literally sense a “don’t know mind” is understood as a mind empty of knowledge, at max, an idiot mind. In its […]

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#235 SPACING your mind Aug. 5th 18

                                                           Spacing our mind  When we look, by definition, we always look at something or somebody. Cannot be otherwise. During the day, we look at zillion of visual objects such as screen, the road, the face of someone, your plate, your watch, your face in the mirror, etc.... We never look at the space existing […]

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#234 Neuroplasticity: how to improve it

                               NEUROPLASTICITY: how to improve it. Neuroplasticity or brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to reorganize its wiring and create new ones by increasing its synaptic connections (we have over 100 trillions of them) that is connections between neurons (we have around 100 billions neurons or around 1,000 connections per […]

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