What is The Real Meaning of Zen Meditation?
How does it work?
Can Zen meditation help me achieve genuine peace and happiness in today’s hectic, often chaotic world?
Meditation is a word that has come to be used loosely and inaccurately in the modern world and the movie world has not helped with their hocus-pocus. That is why there is so much confusion about how to practice it. Some people use the word meditation,
When, they mean thinking or contemplating; others use it to refer to daydreaming or fantasizing. However, meditation (dhyana) is not any of these.
What is Zen Meditation?
Zen Meditation is a precise technique for resting the mind and attaining a state of consciousness that is totally different from the normal waking state. It is the means for understanding all the levels of ourselves and finally experiencing the centre of consciousness within, our essential nature . Zen Meditation is not a part of any religion; it is a science, which means that the process of Zen meditation follows a particular order, has definite principles, and produces results that can be verified with the aid of a discipline called koan practice.
In Zen meditation, the mind is clear, relaxed, and inwardly focused. When you meditate, you are fully awake and alert, but your mind is not focused on the external world or on the events taking place around you. Meditation requires an inner state that is still and one-pointed so that the mind becomes silent. When the mind is silent and no longer distracts your, meditation deepens.
Turning Inward
From your childhood onward, we have been educated and conditioned only to examine and verify things in the external world. No one has taught us how to look within, to find within, and to verify within. Therefore, we remain strangers to ourselves, while trying to get to know others. This lack of self- awareness or understanding is one of the main reasons our relationships don’t seem to work, and why confusion and disappointment are so often prevailing in our life.
Very little if any of the mind is cultivated by our formal educational system. The part of the mind that dreams and sleeps—the vast realm of the unconscious, which is the reservoir of all our experiences—remains unknown and undisciplined; it is not subject to any control hence the name monkey mind. It is true that the whole of the body is in the mind, but the whole of the mind is not in the body. Except for the practice of meditation, there is no method to truly develop control over the totality of the mind.
The goal of Zen meditation is to go beyond the mind and experience our essential nature—which is described as peace, happiness, and bliss but even this description falls short. As anyone who has tried to meditate knows, the mind itself is the biggest obstacle that is standing between ourselves and this awareness. The mind is undisciplined and unruly, and it resists any attempts to discipline it or to guide it on a particular path. The mind has a mind of its own. That is why many people sit in meditation and experience only fantasies, daydreams, or hallucinations. They never attain the stillness that distinguishes the genuine experience of deep meditation.
We are taught how to move and behave in the outer world, a good example of this is an army, but we are never taught how to be still and examine what is within ourselves. When we learn to do this through meditation, we attain the highest of all joys that can never be experienced by a human being. All the other joys in the world are momentary, but the joy of meditation is immense and everlasting. This is not an exaggeration; it is a truth supported by a long line of Zen Masters or sages, both those who renounced the world and attained truth, and those who continued living in the world yet remained unaffected by it.
Zen Meditation is a practical means of calming yourself, for letting go of your biases and seeing what is, openly and clearly. It is a way of training the mind so that you are not distracted and caught up in its endless churning. Meditation teaches you to systematically explore your inner dimensions. It is a system of commitment, not commands. You are committing to yourself, to your path, and to the goal of knowing yourself. But at the same time, learning to be calm with a clear mind, it should not become a ceremony or religious ritual; it is a universal requirement of the human body.
How to Cultivate Stillness
Learning how to be still is the method of Zen meditation. The process of cultivating stillness begins with the body. In the Zen tradition, you are guided by a competent teacher to keep your head, neck, and trunk straight eyes resting @ an angle of 45-degrees to the floor, while sitting in a meditative posture. When you have learned to be comfortable in this posture, you should form a regular habit of practicing in the same posture at the same time and at the same place every day. Repetition is the mother of skill as they say.
Find a simple, uncluttered, quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Sit on the floor with a cushion under you or in a firm chair, most important with your back straight and your eyes resting at an angle 45-degree to the floor not starring just blink when necessary. Then bring your awareness slowly down through your body, allowing all of the muscles to relax except those that are supporting your head, neck, and back. Take your time and enjoy the process of letting go of the tension in your body. Zen Meditation is the art and science of letting go, and this letting go begins with the body and then progresses to thoughts and then manifest into your life.
Once the body is relaxed and at peace, bring your awareness to your breath. Notice which part of your lungs are being exercised as you breathe. If you are breathing primarily with your chest you will not be able to relax. Let your breathing come primarily through the movement of the diaphragm. Continue to observe your breath without trying to control it. At first the breath may be irregular, but gradually it will become smooth and even, without pauses and jerks.
Zen Meditation is a process of giving your full attention to whatever object you have chosen. In this case you are choosing to be aware of the breath. Allow yourself to experience your breathing in an open and accepting way. Do not judge or attempt to control or change it. Open yourself so fully that eventually there is no distinction between you and the breathing. In this process many thoughts will arise in your mind: “Am I doing this right? When will this be over? Perhaps I should have closed the window. I forgot to make an important call. My neck hurts.” Hundreds of thoughts may come before you and each thought will call forth some further response: a judgment, an action, an interest in pursuing the thought further, an attempt to get rid of the thought.
At this point, if you simply remain aware of this process instead of reacting to the thought, you will become aware of how restless your mind is. It tosses and turns like you do on a night when you cannot fall asleep. But that is only a problem when you identify with the mind and react to the various thoughts it throws at you. If you do, you will be caught in a never-ending whirlwind of restless activity. But if you simply attend to those thoughts when they arise, by not getting attached to them in other words letting go of them without reacting to them, then they cannot really disturb you. Remember—it is not the thoughts that disturb you, but your reactions to them.
Signs of Progress
Have patience and do your practice systematically. Every action has a reaction weather you have realized it or not. It is not possible for you to meditate and not receive benefits. You may not notice those benefits now, but slowly and gradually you are storing the impressions in the unconscious mind that will help you later. If you sow a fruit seed today, you don’t reap the fruit tomorrow, but eventually you will. It takes time to see results; so be gentle with yourself.
Zen Meditation means gently understanding all the levels of your being, one level after another. Be honest with yourself. Don’t worry or care what others say about their experiences—keep your mind focused on your goal. It is your own mind that does not allow you to meditate. To work with your mind, you’ll have to be very patient; you’ll have to work with yourself gradually like training a wild monkey.
At first you may see progress in terms of physical relaxation and emotional calmness. Later you may notice other, more subtle changes. Some of the most important benefits of Zen meditation make themselves known gradually over time and are not dramatic or easily observed. Persist in your practice and you will find that Zen meditation is a means of freeing yourself from the worries that gnaw away at you. Then you are free to experience the joy of life being fully present, in the here and now, because if you have anything at all it is just this very moment.
Dae Haeng.
The Four Pillars of Zen
Great Faith
Great Doubt
Great Determination
Great Responsibility
Taking Great Responsibility is the central core of the whole practice.
The lack of any one of these attributes and you will leave the practice,
Blaming others for your failure
No matter how long you have been practicing.
