Daisetsu Suzuki — ZEN
Fortunet to some of you (unfortunet to others) This Viz was in Japanese.
But, he was not a Zen monk — he was a trancelator and he was talking about the difference of the concept between the east and the west. —– So, he speaks, the notion of FREE in the west IS a notion of a relationship = has to start from two subjects. And its meaning IS = the one is free from the other. It is the relation of Subject and the Object. Dominant and Subjected. Such as the God and I. = So, the fundamental ethos / idea of the west starts from here, therefore the social structure too.
In contrast, there is no such God in the east. Instead, the heaven and the nature which we are in its part. Therefore, in the east, we were not created by the God, but we are exists as a part of the universe, nature from the start.
A word which was normally assigned to the word “Free” was 自由(Jiyu) though, the real meaning of this word in the east IS “To be as it is”. —– If it was the case of you = You to be as real you ARE (not the one who you imagined or others defined). (this is close to the meaning of the Zen notion 自在(Jizai)). So, in the Buddhism, You are not exists but the Nature (Dharma which you were a part) IS. So that, the Rinzai Zen try to make you aware who (real) you ARE through dialogue. And the Soto Zen try to disolve you as a part of the nature through practice (sitting and the other daily activities).
So, he was talking something like that.
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非情 === 無心 ? ? ? (no mind in Soseki)
もう半世紀以上も前に読んだいい加減な気憶なのだが、夏目漱石の小説、門の中で僧侶が主人公に「禅の悟りとは非情なり」と説く場面がある。「非情とは道ばたで腸を晒して倒れている事すら平気でいられる心のことだ」と続ける。(これが正確な言い回しであったか自信は無いが)---この僧の言う非情とは俗に言ぅ無心の事だろうが(どこかの宗派では非情と訳しているのか? あるいは漢訳のどこかの教典に「情に非らず」といった表現が有ったのか?)
どうも我々とかく表面的な見かけ、字面の印象、その固定観念でだまされる。非常に多くの仏敎由来の単語が俗語化して日常的に使われているがしばしば元々の悥味からずれてしまっている。諦めるも観念するも明確に理解すると言う元々の意味を離れ、希望を捨て目前の不運を受容する事と意味が変ってしまった。で、情動の関与なくと言う深意で使った非情と言う単語が酷薄無情と誤解されると「禅とは、仏教とはなんと非人間的なものか」と曲解され参禅者は“どう瞑想したらこの理解に至るのか”と混乱する。
(禅は、黙々と続ける行、あるいは日常の作業の間に己れが全く自己の意識無しに自動的に、無私無心に動いている事実に覚醒し、己れを動かしているのが外ならぬダルマである事を学びます。己れが実にダルマとともに在るのを自覚する事こそが悟りです。)
しかし、はたして漱石はどんな禅を教ったのであろうか???
(仮にでかい寺で参禅し、その場の雰囲気に圧倒されたとしても別に無心になれたり悟りに近付ける訳ではない。もし無心などと言うものを予め聞きかじっていたとしても座りながら「無心、無心」と考え続けるのが関の山。=つまり、座っていても禅にはならない。で、昔バナシを色々読んで耳歳増になっていく。ーーーまァ、漱石が禅に熱心であったとは聞かないが)(笑)
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Buddha Anime by Osamu Tezuka
In the mountain of Youtube viz, I don’t know how I came to this anime film. Any how, I watched this viz while skipping a part to part. Why I did skip was that I knew somewhat about Buddha’s story therefore I could see whether the part was an add-on or other legend or fantasy etc —– in fact, the viz was almost nothing to do with real Gautama Buddha but a story of a boy called Chabla and the military conflict between the Magadha and the neighboring Kosala kingdom.
The young Gautama was portrayed as a boy troubled with the reality of the life, the sufferings to have an illness, getting old and to die. (not much else, despite the viz spent almost all to a matter of social discrimination = misery to born as a slave )
The author Osamu Tezuka was in fact a PhD in Bio-physics alongside to be the legendary comics writer. He had a profound knowledges toward the ocultic practices and the belief such as the Boodo etc, so to the Buddhism stories, fantasies. Yet still something even disturbing me was that the amazing extent of the rack of the understanding toward the Gautama’s mind. —– how he started to cast a doubt to his own position and decided to leave. Tezuka could have given a much deeper observation toward the Brahmanism dominant society = social cast, idea of the fate = how the man will born and live = not just a superficial phenomena of sufferings but the deeper, fundamental cause determining the human life.
So, what I found was = its a waste of the time. = Don’t bother with this anime. 😀 (Ask Dalai Lama, how to convert the animals to the Buddhists or which Mantra could make a bird to follow a Holly man even if non of Mantra could stop the killing of Kosala soldiers. —– Since the mother Maya bore the Prince (Gautama) who would become the King of the World, at least the Magada should become a peaceful country away from the royals killing each other. = Too many nonsense. —– The most bizarre nonsense was a story, a rabbit offer himself as a grilled meat to a Holly man by threw himself into a fire. = To show an ultimate self-sacrifice ? ‰ ! ‰ ? ! = What a laugh. 😀 ) In stead, you may find the other viz called Hi-no-Tori 火の鳥 more interesting. They ARE worth spend the days to watch. The great epics continued on and on with the idea of reincarnation = its mean, Tezuka was thinking the Buddhism mixed-up with Hinduism and he lived in a fantasy world. ( = after all, that was what the children’s cartoon comics IS ! —- I don’t think you expect to learn anything serious from a cartoon comics. 😀 )
Against the Hindu, Vedic idea of the reincarnation, endless chain of the sufferings, Lord Buddha found the principle of the Cause and Effect = Body was the Cause and the Mind / Self was the Effect —– When a body cease, the Mind / Self will cease too. = Nothing to be reborn ! This was the idea only taught by Lord Buddha. There were hundreds of Hindu, Vedic Guru who was saying the reincarnation but the teachings of Lord Buddha was the revolutionary. It was really the liberation from a false belief of endless sufferings. (You may believe that you will reborn — to a beast, BUT that IS all false belief. = When your SELF is not existing, WHO will reborn ?) This was the Truth taught by Lord Buddha.
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Covent Garden (2) (by the Lens)
All the photos in this post were taken by, most of them were by
the 18mm Zeiss Distagon for Nikon, on D810. But few of them
were by the Homemade Toy Camera Lens on the Sony A7R.
Covent Garden IS the place the most changed its guise in London.
When I came to London, here was a vegetable market. Still, for the
planned move of the market, some businesses were started to move.
When the wholesale market kind of business moves, they leave
huge stock space behind.
Then, the people who needs huge space moved in. = Photo studio kind.
And the related business, such as film processing etc. =
That’s how I came here = to have my E6 film developed.
What a bad taste. Is this what they call Spiritualism ? ? ?
Simply because of a Film, My fair Lady (Audley Hepburn’s Flower girl !)
the tourists started to come Covent Garden, so, the area has been changed
to a “Fashionable Tourists Place” —– still, it’s interesting to see why the
area attracted occult / spiritual shop = quite few of them are here.
In 1974 (?) probably the first vegetarian restaurant in central London
“Food for thought” opened here. (I was taken there by a vegetarian
friend who does the Buddhists Meditation)
(thence, he started to have the troubles on his leg).
—– it was a well-known story, that the all the High Priests
of Zen end up on wheel chair.
Gautama Buddha left a rank of hard astir monk, thinking that to
torturing the body wouldn’t bring any High Awareness to him.
(But, my friend didn’t convince and said, that the trouble on his leg
was nothing to do with Zen practice, instead, need more effort for
the meditation to save his life.) ! ! !
So, may be those stubborn vegetarianism was the origin of
“Spiritual Covent Garden” (Food for Thought twisted the belief ! )
And a corner of the Covent Garden, Neals Yard became a holy place
for the vegetarian. — By the way, vegetarianism came from Hindu.
Lord Buddha eat anything offered and died for food poisoning of fish.
Buddhism doesn’t have such arrogance, “Killing the plant is OK”.
Killing and eating animals, plants are part of unavoidable Karma.
Round the corner, two pictures above, were in fact, China Town.
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Play with Lens
So far I made quite few lenses to obtain soft-focus or wide-angle pinhole etc,
mostly by utilizing single lens. (still, some of them seemed to be an achromatic
compound lens) Single lens has inherent aberrations which produces soft image.
Furthermore, I’ve experimented soft images with focus shift or even with camera
shake/vibration using aberration corrected normal lenses. Though, those approaches
were hardly called technique but more like an opportunist seeking a good luck, since
the success rate was rather low = lots of try and only few will show the good results.
That’s because, when the focus ring was rotated while camera’s shutter was open,
the resulting shake gives devastating effect than a soft nice blur.
= make smooth focus shift while camera was held steadily. = That’s what I need.
Inside of the Canon G9 compact camera, I found pretty useful mechanism.
(1) A motor moves the lens. (2) Small stepping motor shifts a lens for focus.
—– though, those two mechanisms were constructed on the same plastic piece.
(Photo above, left) = I needed to cut and separate its center mechanism out of the
lim with DC motor. (second photo shows the separated piece = the lim which can
drive a cogged barrel — in the second photo top, the lens was placed in the barrel)
Photo 3rd and 4th showed the center mechanism — the lens was pushed out most
and pulled inward most by its stepping motor.
The photo above, left is the cogged barrel = when it was rotated by the motor,
the barrel, hence the lens will be extended(= Pushed out) (photo center)
When motor rotate opposite direction = lens was pulled in. (photo right)
Those function is exactly what I need for a smooth Focus-shift.
In order to have an experiment to get a soft focus by the focus-shift ( by a normal
lens, not by the aberration) I took the lens unit out of a Canon 50mm FD lens.
(Photographic equivalent of gouging the eye !)
( a disc shaped mechanism on the right is the Iris — very useful device )
The lens unit which I’ve put inside of the plastic barrel, in the photo before was this
Canon 50mm F1.8 Lens. —– though, on the test, I found that this Canon 50mm FD
lens can’t give an infinity focus on Canon EOS = only usable closer than few meters.
(otherwise, the EOS’s mirror will hit the lens bottom. 😦 )
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Then, give a thought, what all those hustle for ?
—– Why not just modify a Canon EF 50mm for EOS =
put an extra electronic connection to override their AF motor !
(Ideally, huck into the Canon camera’s OS and reprogram it to give a focus-shift while
shutter is open = was the best though, not only the risk to destroy the camera but also,
the Canon doesn’t like it at all. )
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Singing Bowl
After the post of Wind-Bell I got a call from a person who said that she got
genuine Japanese glass Fuurin. “Oh, marvellous!”—– It’s said to have come
from a Net-shopping with a help of her Japanese friend.
“The sound is exquisite, its ethereal resonance suck you into the infinite depth
of space!” “How extraordinary!”— and she said that she got a singing bowl
from Tibet too which sound even deeper and draw us into deep meditative state.
—– though, —– What can I say ? ? ? —– should I say “Congratulation” for her
able to get hold genuine article ?
Or should I praise her keen effort to seek a genuine sound ? —– ? ? ?
Or should I flirt her that her spirit will reach higher awareness soon.
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It may not fare to write here like this because soon she will read this and might feel
offended though, this is not just her personal phenomenon but this is the wide-
spread misconception among those who, so-called “spiritually awaken” — or
New Age kind of people.
As a matter of fact, it is not easy to see what they are after. (Fashion ? Snobbism ?)
Are they really believing that they can get hold the Cosmic Power through a
Crystal they bought ? —– Are they believing that to keep a particular article, made
her to posses its myth and the understanding ? (It’s called Fetisizm Sir/Mme !)
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In this area, there are three levels of misconception.
1) Believing that the object has its own power. (Like a Crystal power)
2) Or believe the function of its object would solve the problem.
(Like an exercise machine — the matter is not what the machine is but your act.)
3) With its object, the one can imagine that he or she suddenly acquire the truth.
(Like a “Special Mantra” “Book of ancient wisdom” kind. Chanting O~~~~~rm !)
(— like seeing a film, made a person to believe “Be force with ME” ? )
Unfortunately, none of those kind are in the world. If anybody selling, it’s a fraud.
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Yes, I did said that the sound draw a mind into meditative state and this IS the
state of Void. This is true, — you try test = what you found? Did your brain
configure any notion out of tinkling sound ?
I don’t think so = nothing there because nothing else of pure sound is there.
But in this Void what could be discovered ? It is the question to be a Buddhist.
—– To a non Buddhist, Void or a sound of Fuurin or Singing Bowl wouldn’t make
any meaning other than A sound. Though, to a Buddhist who seeks nothing,
this Void opens the eyes to see the Void. (I said, “seeks nothing”)
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—– How come ? = our brain takes High-pitched tone as a sign of danger, hence
our brain activities were suddenly silenced and all the perceptions were
concentrated to pick-up further sign. — even though our higher brain did know
that the tinkling sound was mere Wind Bell and nothing to worry about at all, still,
the emotional region / limbic system and all the sensory receptors were tentioned.
= This combination : completely blank-out Thinking activities and the
completely open / absolutely passive perception is very close to the state of Zen,
and it was the base of the Clear Eyes. (Then, to see WHAT is depend on the person
— some will see the enlightenment, but some see nothing.
— you can buy Singing Bowl but not necessary the Enlightenment.)
And this is THE Singing Bowl ! —– yes it sounds more or less the same to Tibetan
Singing Bowl.
(It’s my cooking pan. = the handle was just unscrewed that’s all, and still sound nice !
— cooking pan wouldn’t make any rice sound. But it would sound just Gong ! :-D)
—– What’s wrong with this ? Do you still clinging to the Tibetan Bowl ?
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Think yourself — Why ?
“Don’t believe what others said. Think yourself” was the most famous last teachings of
Lord Buddha in his death bed. Buddhism is not a religion to recites the words in the
book (repeat the same words million times makes a man to believe it ) or arguing how
to interpret the meaning with rhetoric, but just practice and get understanding.
Therefore, in this context, the use of the word “Think” may not to be the correct word
= instead, “Feel and Grasp” “Find and Understand” would be better, because as I said,
the Buddhism is not a religion of what you Think and Remember but who you become,
down to the subconscious level.
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See a simple situation. Somebody taught you the Walking Zen saying “By walking
round and round, you can get rid of all your thoughts, and get Mushin, the Mind of
No-Mind. This is the another way of meditation which purifying your mind.”
—– Well, the words must be well remembered and a word Mushin must be stuck
to the mind. ~~~~~ Then, walk round and round —– while a thought of
“Have I got Mushin or yet ?” coming up again and again and haunt you. 😀 😀
(Instructor should have told you just “Follow me”. It’s difficult to see a quality
of the instructor = well spoken friendly instructor tend to get more attendance.
It’s a paradox Sir ! ) 😀
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When No-Mind, No-Self was the matter,
teach it by the word is self-contradiction. = I think,
Lord Buddha didn’t teach it in such a way, but just showed how to do, expecting
that the followers can get the Selfless Mushin naturally through the practice.
(Please read the Post : [Test of Selflessness]) (And remember Kisa Gotami’s story =
She was just made running around without having any explanation ! )
Though, among the followers, someone pretending to be wiser, started to give an
own explanation what was the intention of practice or meaning of Selflessness.
But as I said, to explain it by the word is the Self-contradiction, for instance,
“ Do this without thinking is the No-Mind, No-Self” — though, to have this notion
in the Mind IS against the No-Mind = nothing but a Self-contradiction.
So that, there is no way else to learn No-Self other than “Do the practice
and find it by oneself.” —– (Same situation to learn how to ride a bicycle
= absolutely no word will help, but to learn it yourself ! —– And once learned,
you ride it automatic = no thinking is needed there. )
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Lexical communication is based on the words which is the categorized, abstract
notion, hence, it rely on the high-level process in the brain which we call thinking.
Bypassing those thinking process and leave the judgement, or action to the
old intuitive part of the brain called Limbic System, = is
“What Mushin and the Selflessness meant.”
This is why “Don’t believe what others said. Think yourself = Experience yourself and
discover the fact, that the things can be done without thinking = in Selfless Mushin.”
So, if it was Selfless, who did this = It was done by the Dharma !
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—– Still, this episode exposed a serious situation then. In a very last moment, WHY
Lord Buddha had to give such basic instruction to the most closest disciples.
= It signify the fact, that
Lord Buddha did aware that his disciples haven’t fully understood
what his teachings of No-Self was.
(And it explains why the Buddhism have had deviated in such early stage
and mixed up with the Hinduism.)
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Zen thinking — [Void] in the real life
After years or months I don’t remember still, I suddenly realized a significance
of the words in an episode in the Agama Sutra.
(= I described it in the post [Three times Buddha] )
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“Thinking without thinking” sound Zen like approach you may think though,
it is nothing fancy at all = 90% of our thinking was actually done in this way.
With utter annoyance of the philosophers, this fact was revealed to the mankind
when a Brain Scanner was first introduced = after all, we, the most intelligent
creature on the planet is not necessary consciously carrying-out our
thinking process. —– (We only conscious of it’s process after it was converted to
the lexical code on the last moment.)
The reality is, when we say “I think”, in fact, the most of the thinking has been
already done a moment ago without us noticing it.
And in the almost all the case, so-called “My Decision” was actually made
out of our conscious.
So, “thinking without thinking” is in reality “thinking without noticing that
I was thinking” = we are in deed always keep thinking or our brain is always active
yet simply we are not aware of it. So that, not only an obvious “work-out to solve
an arithmetic problem kind” of conscious thinking, even so-called meditation is
nothing but a practice of “latent thinking process”and often, our brain find a
connection, even an answer from completely unrelated matter. (Very creative !)
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There was not a significant issue I was facing, or even an important question =
therefore it was not “posted” in my mind = just there as one of the memory, yet,
a passage in the scripture was suddenly highlighted and gained the significance.
= A ha ! I found it’s here.
(Answer was always given when we are not intentionally seeking = When
our mind was free — or in the state of Mushin or in the Void, suddenly
the connection was made. —– some time in the bathroom. 😀 )
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Lord Buddha told the horse trainer “Stop speaking is the same to kill the person”
(Please read the post.) —– this is not just an action on the mouth, but the hole
mind-set = In the mind-set, the person became a landscape hence no longer
recognized as a person. So, its existence is “Exists as not Exists” = this is
nothing but a state of “Void”. = In deed, this is the very core of what
Lord Buddha’s teaching was, and what all about the Zen Buddhism is.
To detach and free the Mind and see the Void and by freeing the mind,
it enables us to see the dynamism of Karma and the Dharma, hence enables
to live with Dharma moment to moment.
—– This is THE paradox, “By detaching the view and emotionally free from the
subject, thence the mind can see subject even more in it’s details”.
= Because, the mind is not stack in a small part of the subject or fixed view, but
it is seeing the subject in any point and from any angle.
= this is the very Clear Eyes to see the Truth.
And the way to gain the Enlightenment.
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Does Meditation helps ?
There was an interesting report which studied the benefit of Meditation.
After a medical report about the effect of Meditation was published in JAMA
Internal Medicine, numerous articles which quotes this report has been
published. = This is the one of them (Wall Street Journal)
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304887104579304691799314468
Meditation Has Limited Benefits,
Study Finds
Mindfulness meditation can ease stress but
won’t curb problems like being overweight
Certain types of meditation may provide some modest relief from anxiety,
depression and pain, a new study found.
But the study found little evidence for other reported benefits of meditation,
including help in curbing substance abuse, poor eating habits,
sleep disorders and weight problems.
The report, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine,
reviewed the findings from 47 previous studies, all randomized clinical
trials, with 3,515 adult participants in total.
Many people use meditation to ease stress and promote general health.
The purpose of the report was to examine the accumulated evidence to help
doctors determine how best to counsel patients on the possible benefits and
limitations of meditation, said Madhav Goyal, assistant professor of
general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
and the report’s lead researcher.
In each of the underlying studies, participants received professional
instruction in one of two types of meditation: mantra meditation or
mindfulness meditation. A popular form of mantra meditation is
transcendental meditation, which involves repetition of a phrase
“in such a way that it transcends one to an effortless state where focused
attention is absent,” the study said.
By contrast, mindfulness meditation emphasizes training in “present-focused
awareness,” or mindfulness. The study noted that the distinctions between
the meditation types aren’t always clear.
Researchers found that only mindfulness meditation produced some benefits.
For example, the improvement in patients with mild symptoms of depression
was similar in magnitude to what might be expected from the use of
an antidepressant, the study said. It also noted that there were few
mantra-meditation studies to include in the JAMA review, which could help
account for the lack of evidence of benefits from this type of meditation.
The study didn’t find any evidence meditation was harmful.
Researchers culled through nearly 19,000 previous studies on meditation to
select the most scientific. Dr. Goyal said his team used rigorous inclusion
criteria. Each of the 47 included studies was a controlled trial in which
at least one group received either a therapy with known psychological
benefits, such as exercise, or a placebo instructional or educational session,
he said. Studies that looked only at children or adolescents, or those without
a control group, were excluded.
“Although uncontrolled studies have usually found a benefit of meditation,
very few controlled studies have found a similar benefit for the effects of
meditation programs on health-related behaviors affected by stress,”
the JAMA report said.
The report’s findings show that meditation is perhaps less effective in
alleviating stress-related symptoms than is widely believed, said
Allan H. Goroll, professor of medicine at
Harvard Medical School-Massachusetts General Hospital, in invited
commentary also published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
“The studies overall failed to show much benefit from meditation with
regard to relief of suffering or improvement in overall health, with the
important exception that mindfulness meditation provided a small but
possibly meaningful degree of relief from psychological distress,” he wrote.
Still, Dr. Goroll noted that participants only received 30 to 40 hours of
training in meditation, which could indicate that “meditation is a skill that
takes time to master.” He also said more evidence is needed to draw
more robust conclusions about any benefits to meditation.
“People come to a meditation class because they’re suffering in some way,”
said Jon Aaron, an instructor at New York Insight Meditation Center, which
promotes mindfulness meditation. Through meditation, they learn to relate
to their stress in a way that is more productive, he said.
Lindsay Gellman
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Something took my attention was that the way the other articles were
created while quoting the original JAMA report.
= Despite the original JAMA report gave only limited “prose” to “Mindfulness
Meditation” and found no positive effect in “Mantra Meditation” a lots of
subsequent article has been using this report as if it was the positive proof of
the effect in Meditation. <= this was a fraud !
See the real situation by Googling this = type [ JAMA report, meditation ]
—– This fact highlighting a situation = simply, people doesn’t actuary read
the line in detail but easily deflected by a misleading head-line = and this
tendency was exploited by those organisation who is making money
selling the Meditation practice.
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In reality, it is same as any religion, Meditation may work, may not work.
= It depends on the person’s Karma. (Everybody got own different Karma.)
And even worse, the effect of Meditation depends much more on a person’s
mentality. —– A person who got addiction, dependency, depression kind of
mental problem, it needs long term treatment = not few months medical trial.
Naturally, if anybody who is possessing a strong will and able to keep a strict
regime, the person wouldn’t get a trouble in the first place.
It’s mean, in case of opposite tendency, neither Meditation which is not a
Magic Bullet works.
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So, here is a funny but fundamental question. = Buddhism / Zen is
stands on the Selflessness, not a strong will or mind, because mind itself
shouldn’t be existing there. — But, “Strong will” wasn’t it a part of the Self ?
Well, this is the most fundamental question = I’ll write about in another post.
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