Oakville Zen Meditation
What is Zen?
Zen is so simple that any attempt to describe it with words is doomed to confuse people simply because Zen means experiencing the concrete reality of the moment that is in the NOW.
Zen is made of:
What we are:
1) Our relative self is a daydreamer, experiencing fictional reality under the control of our powerful ego-driven mind in which daydreams to trap us continuously.
2) Our True Self/ Nature, experiencing, consciously, the surrounding and ultimate reality of the current moment, the opposite of daydreaming.
It cannot be revealed thru thinking but only by practicing awakening that is not being in a daydreaming state. It is achieved by experiencing current reality as it is, and not as we think it is or should be. Simply put: being conscious w/o thinking. Weird.
What we do:
By practicing mindfulness- based meditation during which we discover our True Nature as described and realize Awakening or Enlightenment.
Mindfulness: to pay attention w/o analytic nor decisional process.
Awakening means:
Not being trapped in a constant non-decisional daydreaming state but rather experiencing, in a mindful way, the concrete reality of the current moment that is in the NOW. It is achieved by bringing the mind where the body is and do.
Through a dedicated and consistent meditation practice, we realize that our genuine self has nothing to do with the ego-driven conditioned self, source of suffering from desires, hatred and the impossibility to differentiate reality from mind-made fiction (ignorance).
This path toward Awakening was achieved some 2,500 years ago by the Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama, who came to be known as Buddha meaning “Awakened one.”
His great teaching was that we can all achieve awakening regardless our beliefs.
Out of this realization flows:
A natural serenity, wisdom, compassion to others and
A peaceful and intuitively appropriate response toward whatever circumstances may arise.
Stop trying to get an intellectual understanding on Zen. There is nothing cognitive in it because
Zen is simply experiencing our non-dreaming state of the moment.
Meditation is a good example of it:
Just breathe in with full awareness and appreciate it fully.
Now breathe out, slowly, with equal appreciation. Anchor your mind to your breathing with or w/o
counting. Breathing with conscious awareness, on a regular basis, is the transformative profound and yet simple practice we call Zen. When we are focusing on our breathing, we are practicing
Awareness.
You discover the genuine reality of the NOW and not the mind-made fictional one of the past and
future which are trapping us continuously in a daydream space-times.
You discover that we are not a permanent, independent, unique, separate self-entity with a self-intrinsic life but rather interconnected and interdependent.
When you take a shower, use your 5 senses to invite your mind to join your body and share
this present and true real experience. You become Awake rather than a daydreamer.
This is Zen: no brainer.
Thank you
