Zen
Zen is simply a way for us to awaken from our slumber. It is just a way for us to focus on our present experience, living in the moment. It is simply paying attention to our actual experiences as they are: a breeze brushing through your hair, pristine water wetting your lips, a stomach ache, the laughter of children playing – seeing what you see, feeling what you feel. It is being aware of all the colours, forms, sights, sounds, touch, taste, and smell of your surroundings. “Zen is entering into things as they are, beyond concept and cosmology, beyond separation and duality, beyond personality, and into the intimacy and richness of this whole moment.” Zen is the day-to-day and moment-to-moment, method of focusing on the moment. It has spanned two thousand, six hundred years from India to China to Japan to right here. Zen is a philosophy designed to accomplish the Buddhist goal of seeing the world just as it is, that is, without the mind being cluttered by thoughts and feelings. This attitude is called “no-mind”, a state of consciousness where thoughts come and go without leaving any trace. Unlike other forms of Buddhism,Zen holds that such freedom of mind cannot be attained by gradual practice.
