Living the Zen

 

The Indian thought process, the UPANISHADS says, ‘All that you see does not exist in actuality. It is a kind of an optical illusion, a Maya. that you think you are seeing some real thing. And you will be surprised the quantum physics also says the same thing. The matter that you study, you describe and dissect, actually does not exist. Matter and energy, are two sides of the same coin. They are not two distinct, separate entities. From here you look you see a particle. right? From there you look, you see waves and no particle. So, there is no matter, distinct from energy. So, it’s all energy. A vast Omni potent energy the universal consciousness if you want to call sour divine or God, if you want to call so. right? So, there is this universal consciousness and we humans are, the individual consciousness. a small bit of that same material. Right? And in our country, in this land sir Arabindo and Sri matha of Aroville, Pondicherry lived their life just expressing that divine. And they taught people to live to express that divine in us. All the rest of the things in life is ignorance and valueless. One great soul of this land Sri Ramana Maharshi of Tiruvannamalai, lived and proved the essence of Vedanta of the Upanishads, and many people are alive today who have seen him in flesh and blood. The trouble is you can’t live that life It is impossible for us. Now, Buddhism, has lots of similarities with this philosophical thinking. Its foundations are also very deep, accurate and unquestionably true. look for example, it says humans have a habitual tendency, a conditioning of the mind, to see parts of a reality and miss the whole picture. this?? For example, we SEE separate individual trees and miss the forest. Where is the forest? can you see a forest? . this.. No, ,you will see only individual trees. Fine.. That is it.

We are humans. That is how we are made.8 A manufacture defect! Now, here comes Zen you see to serve you. It says don’t worry about that universal consciousness and all that deep evasive meta physical knowledge. Now, simply live the life of that enlightened person the Buddha. Express in your body, in your emotion, in your thinking, that buddha nature. Right??? See what happens Look. Here is an example It says you see the water in the pond. Keep seeing the water only. Then eventually you will see fish also. Don’t look at the individual fish. That is the way to see fishes. Fish and water are not two distinctly different entries, do you know?? One depends on the other. In the rainy season the sperm and ova of the fishes fall into water. They fuse in water and those cells, they eat the water, drink the water and breathe the water. Over a time, they take the form of a fish, the body and that shape. So, the fish and water are not two separate entities.??? One depends on the other and one is the same as the other. Except that, at some point of time, the fish grows and takes a body shape. and again, it loses it and becomes water. So also, when you see a lotus, you may see the lotus or you may see the elements from which a lotus is made of. See, an invisible small bud of lotus, lies in water. With the arrival of morning sun and the sun shine, there is a spurt of activity in the bud. the photosynthesis. A lot of energy is created now, by the inter actions of elements of mud, air and water. Now in those buds, some new proteins are manufactured. They are arranged one above the other like you lay bricks one above other and build a wall. A lotus petal is built. These lotus petal proteins are some special proteins. They absorb certain colors of light and reflect other colors. And you get a colored lotus now, the red, the blue and so on. So now you have two ways to see a lotus, either you see the raw materials of lotus, the mud, the water, and the sun shine, or you see only visible lotus. It depends on the onlooker. So, what we do in Zen is, we don’t go into the dissection and vivisection of the deep philosophical understanding of buddhas teachings. we live the buddhas life. We simply go on expressing the buddha nature that is there in us. We act like buddha, we sit, work, eat like buddha. But we are not buddhas. But that is not our concern. Our practice is such. We have a strong faith in teaching that says, we all are bestowed with buddha nature. Finish Our in born innate nature is buddha nature. 8With that faith, and confidence we practice. We feel this way, we think this way, and eventually we become that it works. Don’t be surprised The Brain is like that, it is malleable. It is always subject to change and transformation.

See for example. You play a trick on someone. You meet a person tell him he is looking sick. , He denies that. Fine. But next day again you meet him and say the same thing. Ask a couple of friends to do the same thing on him. Wait After a few days he will behave like a sick person. This is the basis of practice. It is a kind of reverse technology. See, in some African tribes, there is culture. If someone does a wrong behavior, a shameful act, they don’t punish him., They all circle around him, and keep telling him about all the good behaviors he has shown earlier all his good deeds and virtues. Each one tells his own experience of good interactions with him. It goes on. Eventually that man becomes alright takes the right moral path. It works. It is all in the way you think as you sow so you reap It is “what you think is what you are.” The famous, French philosopher, Renes Decartes made that famous statement, which is quoted most often. that is, “I think Therefore I am”.

But he had erred there., We call it, decartes error. The thinking should always be, supported, by gut feelings, the equal amounts of emotions. If there is no emotional part, and only pure 100 percent reasoning, logical thinking, that person is bound to make, Collazo mistakes in life. Descartes did not believe in this emotional part. And that was the error. So, it is also true that: “what you feel is what you are” In Zen we take into account both faculties. So. this is what we do in Zen, we begin with 100 percent faith in the teaching, and we start LIVING that. with all our thoughts and emotions. with full life spirit. Then what next?. It is up to you to walk the path. In the past, so many patriarchs after patriarch, have lived and shown the concrete evidence, that it is workable simple and anybody can do it. Right?? And before our own eyes we have seen revered Thich Nat Hanh, of Plum village, France, who lived a beautiful noble and meaningful life. What more evidence do you want. See those Zen centers. . And finally Look here, we can’t do all, what Japanese or western people do., we have to look into our cultural background, and build our own appropriate sangha and, Zen group. For example, when we bow, do the prostration namaskar we automatically get the feeling that I am a small being in the ocean, the divine is a super power and so on. We easily lie down flat and dissolve our ego and become humble. We can make use of such cultural values and, build our own version of Zen sangha. So, to sum up, our very practice is the expression of the teaching that we all have inside a peaceful calm true nature. And you will BE the practice. you will BE the enlightenment You will not go to get enlightenment. Right?? That is the crux of practice.