The 6 Realities of life that our ego centered mind is distorting all the time:
- Nothing lasts including self. Good & bad stuff are transient. This is part of Life & Evolution. Without the endless circle of birth & death Life & Evolution would not exist. Believing otherwise is an illusion.
- Nothing can be controlled including self (body/mind). Believing otherwise is an illusion.
- Only now (present) Past and future are very useful inventions but remain illusions.
- No living being has a permanent, independent, unique and separate self-entity. This is what Zen Buddhist calls “emptiness” or empty of self entity. We are all interconnected & interrelated, dependent of Nature & the Universe to survive. Global consciousness is made of all individual ones and each individual one is a component of the collective one. Believing otherwise is an illusion.
- Life, people, events, things and environment are what they are and not what our ego mind wants them to be. Believing otherwise is an illusion.
- Our ego centered mind is the main source of our illusions, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, suffering causing attachments, desire, fear, anger, resentment and negative emotions, etc. Meditation (pillar # 1 below) will help us to control this beast. Believing otherwise is an illusion.
The 7 pillars to achieve a Zen Mind free from illusion like a “mirror mind”:
- To practice diligently daily solo & weekly group meditation to control our ego-centered and deceptive mind causing our illusions & to achieve a clear and still mind (see also # 6 &7pillars)
- To realize that nothing lasts including self.
- To accept that we do not control almost anything.
- To live now, ethically & with compassion into the present moment and not in the past or future.
- To be mindful moment-to-moment to what is real – like a mirror - & reflecting things as they are and not as we want them to be. We should not believe in everything we think.
- To empty our deceptive ego centered mind causing our illusions and full of desires, attachments, opinion, concept, idea, judgment to achieve a clear mind also known as “empty mind” or “don’t know mind” or “beginner mind”.
- To fill up this new receptive mind with the 6 main realities listed above.
Thanks.
Ven. Ji Gong Sunim. March 12th 2015.
