Oakville Zen Meditation
Thinking zombies:
Our brain-mind is on the roll non-stop. We are trapped in our compulsory and mostly conceptual
thinking which produce around 90 to 120 thousands thoughts /24h as confirmed by fMRI
Most of us spend our entire life glued within the net of our own thoughts.
Except for our cognitive decisions, most of our thinking is just mental noise from our inner little voice
that we listen to, religiously. Zen calls it “Day dreaming” or “Day sleep walker”
Obviously, decisional thinking is critical to function. In fact R. Descartes said “ I think therefore I am”
and optimizing our thinking is cardinal in our Western culture and education til we die.
Zen does not deny thinking of course, but it is warning us mostly about non-decisional overthinking. Why is that?
For the following reasons
1 The more we are thinking, the more the mind is controlling us, and the less control we have on it.
2 Thoughts and feelings do exist of course but are they concrete material realities or are they mostly sort of virtual or fictional mind entities?
3 In its desire to control us, our mind, mostly ego-driven, is making its thoughts/feelings authentic genuine truth, therefore, dragging us into wrong interpretations, delusions, illusions, ignorances, and mistakes.
4 Each thought or feeling, especially the ego-driven ones, pretends to be useful, critical, and important, making us not only attracted to them but also their strong believers. It is very easy to be trapped in our own beliefs, opinions, judgments, and labeling. Be careful of this since this trap is giving us a false sense of security, and the sources of countless mistakes.
What is the Zen approach?
Don’t get me wrong. Thinking & feeling are fundamental mental functions critical to act and interact as a human being. Without it, we will be reduced to a veggie level. Zen advocates the following:
1 Learn to observe your thoughts/ feelings as they pop-up using mindfulness-based pure awareness that is nonanalytic, nonjudgmental, non-decisional, and nonemotional ... .like a mirror reflecting things as they are. You will realize that, being the observer of your mind at work, you are in control of it rather than the opposite exactly like during meditation. This is fundamental.
2 Stop believing in all your thoughts/feelings even if you are producing them via your mind, and especially when your mind is ego-driven. The ego can be very deceptive.
3 Then,you may analyse your thoughts/feelings if necessary: if the thought/feeling is factual, and truthful, act accordinly.
4 Practice an “open mind” or “don’t know mind” the Zen way that is minimizing if not deleting your rigid beliefs, dogma, labelling, judgment, opinion if they are useless or not based on concrete reality.
All of the above can be learned and applied with the practice of meditation because this is exactly what we are doing while meditating: focusing on X ( breathing) , observing a thought , letting it go then returning to X, our mind anchor. Meditation is mind control practice, and such practice is cumulative, making it easier and easier.
Does Spiritual Awakening is achieved by leaving our permanent daydreaming state.? ….Maybe.
