Lemon Zen

To start the Zen practice, you have to forget all the blah blah— so called Zen talk.

Such as the question of whether Self is exist or not.

The question only arise when you reach the state of the mind which you can

do the task without thinking or able to do it unconsciously.

——– Before this stage, you haven’t seen the situation neither need

to make this question.

——– And when you reached this stage, you must be aware it is no point

to make this question because you are already in this selfless state.

A person, who couldn’t get this stage keep messing around those questions.

As those people had to do the guess work, they have to keep asking what

is Zen. Though, as long as talking continues, the Brain is fully occupied to

process the logics and the words, there is no chance to vacate the Brain

and attain selfless, subconscious state.

The more struggle in the puzzle, the farther stray away.

——————–

Zen practice can be anything, say cutting a lemon or cucumber into thin slices.

If you find your knife is too dull, start sharpening it with a good oil stone.

( Few pounds Chinese stone is not good—– you can use one good stone all your life)

Knife has to be as sharp as cut through a news paper held in air in ease, without

making any tear.)

Then slice a lemon to somewhat 1mm thin.

(You may start from 3mm thick, then improve it )

While doing this you have to repeatedly or continuously think ” I’m doing the Zen ”

( You don’t need to know what is the Zen theory—– what you are doing is the Zen )

——-When you finished slicing, you may make a cup of Hot Honey Drink.

Enjoy it and do this every day.

( In fact you may end up drinking a lots of cups—- with lots of Vitamin C)

——-After a while, you may achieved to make perfect 50 slices or so from

one lemon.

Its mean, your hand holding a knife has gained the absolute steadiness

which mean you have gained the absolute calmness and concentration

of the mind.

—— Here you are in the crucial point.

Once you managed to make 50 slices you might think, you have achieved

and reached to the goal, though you have to keep doing farther, like a

dairy routine. When it became routine your hand is accustomed to do

the work almost automatic and able to do all the preparation and after

clean up as one flow of the process.

—————-

In the same time, you must be noticed, your observation and attentions are

so refined and goes into the minute details, such as the position of cutting

board is exactly the same every day or found the way to move the knife to

avoiding the juice drips. etc etc.

——And you might be noticed you can hear the faint sound of the wind

out side or even a flower in the garden, which one is the one opened today.

Now you are in the Selfless state of the mind.

( Some may says, even the mind is not there and only sight and sound

surrounding you )

——————-

On the beginning, you might feel something strange in your sight.

Everything looks somewhat foreign and distanced, and looks fresh as if

it was the first time you see it. And it looks so clear.

And strangely, it spread the corner to corner of your eyes 140 degree wide

and still able to see the details all in the same time.

You can see even the small things move in the 140 degree view and still able

to respond instantly if it is necessary, like when you are on the road, you

almost see a coming car behind on the corner of your eyes.

( This is the way how Martial artist see the attack from behind )

——————

In the Brain term , now your brain is scanning all the visual signals from the

corner of peripheral vision to other corner without weighing the information.

Just see as it was seen.

Because of your mind is detached from even your SELF , what you see is

also looks like foreign land scape.

But it shouldn’t cause any trouble, since if it is necessary you can go into a

subject at once even deeper than before.

——- Though some of your associate might feel, you lost a passion and got

quieter, as you no longer have obsession.

———————-

I agree with the view, blood and thunder excitement of the obsession is also

very exciting on the life, though it comes with quite high cost.

And obsessive approach doesn’t have high success rate, as it is prone to

brake down. Dramatic success looks grate and exciting though, step by

step improvement and refinement would produce more reliable result.

——Quiet, tenacious Zen approach seems to achieve more in the end.

As a humble man, I took the way of the Zen Buddhist.

You also have the choice.

————————–

PS: We only see the world as we wanted to see.

Anything we don’t know already, we don’t notice. ( as its visual pattern has

not been registered in our data bank.) Such as, if you are not familiar with

plant, all of them looks same, and foreign language is just a noise.

And anything we don’t want to see or want to know , we refuse to take its

signal in. We just filter them out.

——

In the same time, we see a preferred subject with photoshoped image.

In the dark, all the women looks beautiful since the visual information

is not complete, we fill the gap with ideal image.

——

So that, when your mind is clear and open, without your wishful selective

view, world looks different as its shows true image.

And you may first ever see a lots of things you haven’t noticed before.

That is why, the world looks foreign and fresh.

——- Able to see the world as it is, with selfless eyes is the one thing,

and what to do with this, is the another matter.

——-( I’ll talk about this later in the other post )

Perfect Circle

One of the Zen priest in Japan was well known to draw near perfect circle free hand.

—- Just to make a tea, tea master spend 10, 20 years, even all his life

perfecting its procedure down to the minute details.

—- In Internet, you may find rather peculiar  site to make a perfect

sphere of mud ball.     < google  to    dorodango   >

——— ?      What is the point to draw perfect circle, or to make perfect

mud ball, or perfect tea ?

To achieve perfection is the Buddhism.     It is the way to reach  Nirvana.

—————

To practice this path-way  by doing utterly useless, repeating action is

the Zen practice.  (sitting is one of the popular method )

Because of its useless, valuelessness, it is free from any greed

and vain arrogance.

And as it is purposeless, it is no use anything other than for Zen.

Useless, purposeless act couldn’t nest any idea or thought of ego or greed,

therefore it is a very effective way  to empty the mind and achieve Selflessness.

————

Many years of practice in selfless,  Zatsunen-less concentration and perfecting

a dairy subjects on the front one by one, will lead to the perfection of

the life in total.     Thus, ultimately it lead to a peaceful  Nirvana.

————-

When you see an extremely detailed fine carving of Japanese Netsuke,  you

might think  ” It is mare stopper of a string, what is such an over quality for ? ”

—Wrong.

What you are seeing is just a by-product.

By making it, the craftsman achieved his perfection and achieved his Nirvana.

This is the secrets behind of intricacy of the Japanese Art.

——– ( In reality though, as Japanese society was a tight feudal society,

there was no chance to move up in the social system even for a top craftsman

and little financial reward for even to the best art.

The pride and the spiritual achievement was only the way out for those people )

—– Sound pathetic ?    Wrong again.

Have look.    Even though, it was a by-product of his life, a beautiful  Netsuke

is still appreciated by people even hundred of years after his death.

His signature art achieved the eternal life.

This is not a belief or rhetoric, this is a fact.

Selfless Love

Among the human psyche, love and charity are the most strange phenomenon.

Love (and the base of the charity which is also love ) is only the phenomenon

which occurs without a cause (which mean out of Karma ).

All the notorious troubles associated with love are in fact caused by the attachment,

its mean the possessive ego.

Love itself is the causeless phenomenon.

—– Only possible explanation to this phenomenon is, it must be a fundamental

character of the Dharma, of which we are the part of it.

One of the peculiarity of the love is its selflessness.

While observing a selfless love of the mothers, and the charitable people,

Buddha must have conceived the original concept which is, selflessness is

a part of the Dharma though, the selfish ego always throw a spanner

( I’m not implying there was the spanner and screw in Buddha’s time)

to this act of love.

Since the Dharma is fundamentally selfless, its mean the ego is a human

invention driven by one’s obsessive delusion.

Therefore, the man to believe and clings the existence of self is fundamentally wrong.

The belief of the perpetual soul, Atman is nothing but a greed to keep the attachment

even after the death.

—————-

What Buddha wanted, was to save the people suffering in misery and in poverty.

They need to have the food to eat, help to alleviate their misery, not just

inedible holy enlightenment.

—————-

Following Buddha’s teaching, such as King Asoka spread the Buddhism and

organised the charity to save the needy and sufferers.

——- Though the professional scholar of the Buddhist Temple, who

couldn’t understand the teaching of the Buddha went into a cul-de-sac of

the ” definition of what is the self ” —-and lost.

Subconscious Data Bank

Are we the conscious owner of our-self ?

I remember the stir and the annoyances among the scientists and philosophers

when they faced with the first ever report of the live brain scan.

It was the discovery of the fact, we are not consciously thinking.

The thinking process was being done unconsciously.

Naturally it lead to the most fundamental question, If not consciously thinking

who made this decision ?

If am not I, who is the one consciously aware I am ?

——Thinking process does not needs to be conscious.

Make an analogy in the computer.

Even though we program it in a kind of English (only after the computer became

able to be programed in higher language —– before it, all had to be done in

Hex or binary number ) computer is not operating in English. And even in

the out put sage, unless the signal was not decoded in ASCII it wouldn’t become

readable in A B C.

Exactly same as this, our thought, especially such as deep feeling, vague idea etc

has to be first categorized in the pattern and converted into own language,

otherwise we can not consciously process it in English.

In every-days life we are reading numerous signs and even a hint without converting

them to the words.

——————

In a latest development of the Honda Asimo Humanoid Robot, Honda created

” Thought controlling System ” using a geographical pattern of the activity in

the brain , picked up by the sensors in a helmet, and enabled to move the

Asimo’s right hand left hand and so on.

This experiment demonstrating the fact, to think something, we don’t nee to

have linguistic conversion.

And without conscious, the process in the brain is still taking place.

I also recall a funny quote ” The bathroom is where most of the important

invention was conceived”. I know lots of people would agree with this.

Why bathroom ? The answer is very simple. All of us do the business as

a routine and we have done the same, hundreds of thousands of times.

We don’t need to think about and do it unconsciously.

And the bathroom is where our brain has a moment of brake in the busy life.

Once our brain was vacated empty (some may describe it, completely open

minded) it is easier to sense and locate a faint image or vague idea, when it came

up from the depth of unconscious darkness. Then you might shout ” Eureka”

The original concept, conceived in the unconscious process having much grater

freedom of the creativity than the ordinary rational thinking.

Zen meditation is the way to create this condition of the brain, in a bit more

comfortable, less smelly environment.

( If possible, under a Bodhi tree. Ha Ha Ha 🙂 )

Koan ? ? ?

Quite awhile, I was haunted by the Ontology and the Epistemology in the Buddhism.

On the surface, its definition is different in a Mantra to Mantra, and even worse in the

Mahayana Mantra, the description such as “Exist as not exist” kind appeared so often.

——–? ? ? Then oneday, I suddenly realized, the matter is not on the superficial words,

BUT in the intention behind of such expression.

At the teaching, Buddha wanted to show how uncertain the existences are, let alone

unreliability of our own perception, which supposed to observe and sense the objects.

Especially in the bottom line of the idea “Karma”, everything, include our 5 senses

are the relative phenomenon. Both observer and the observed.

Nothing can be certain.

——- In order to make Disciples to contemplate this, by themselves,

the Buddha must have used quite mind boggling, puzzling analogy.

YET, the understanding of the uncertainty itself, even the Self is exist or not was

not the main issue.

(Then I realized, this is the very situation which 1000 years old cliche has mocked

about while describing  ” See the finger, but not the moon “.

And, mocking the novice who is trapped into arguing the shape of the finger

such as ” Who is watching ” or ” Where they are ” kind, as ” Trying to catch Namazu

(slippery, slimy Cat-fish) by Hyotan (equivalent of smooth glass bottle).

——This is the very reason why all the famous answer to the  Koan  is, in fact,

mocking back to the question. )

What Buddha wanted to teach was, to brake the attitude of the people who

tend to cling or obsessed with the things or ideas.

Buddha wanted the people to have clear eyes to see the truth of the life.

Imposing self or distorting vision of the ego is the main obstacle to see

the truth.

BIG JOKE

Once I told a man who asked me What is the Zen.

I said him, I am the Zen, my daily life is the Zen.

Making tea as the Zen. Drinking it as the Zen.

Cutting a metal as the Zen. Soldering electronic circuit as the Zen.

As I believe it is the Zen while I’m doing it, so it become the Zen.

Whether it looks mythical and fancy to others, is not a matter at all

and whether it is perfect or yet is the matter of time.

One day it might become perfect.

At moment, I only doing it in my best.

Tomorrow’s best may be better than today’s,so I just keep doing it.

And it may get perfect one day. Who knows ?

———–

Nirvana ?

I have no idea as I’m still here.

If I got it I have no idea neither because when I got it

I’m dead and can’t answer you, Can I ? Ha Ha Ha 😀

Starting point of Yoshizen

It was the last moment as I was leaving the temple, when Master Kogetsu stopped me at the gate and asked me,

“I’ve been wondering since I saw you on the first day. Who the devil this guy ?

Have a tea and talk before you go”

While receiving his tea I told him who I am.

Finding my father’s name in the Soto Temples Directory and heard that I was a veteran mountain climber,

he understood why he felt me as if I were a seasoned monk.

It was the time soon after the collapse of the 70th students’ uprise (lots of ex-activist left Japan then) and

my Degree was in Sociology, I had enough ammunition to ask him about the viability of the Buddhism

in the aspect of the society and human existence.

His answer was what I wrote before, still I promised him I’ll see him again.

I’m afraid it must be too late to report him back, still I feel my duty to tell his tombstone what I found.

——Since, without encountering Master Kogetsu, Yoshizen couldn’t exist today and I believe it was

the destined Karma.

And me to encounter a new friend who directed me to Zen blog site, and me to start blogging was

also a pre-destined Karma which meant me, the time is ripe.

[]

PS :  To follow-up this, you may read a post “Tiny Comment” which would explain the point best.

[]

* FUNNY STORY (1)

Many years ago I was talking with my friend about the Zen.

When I said ” The matter of the Zen is to control one’s subconscious”.

My friend said ” No, subconscious is outof one’s control”.

So, I told him “Have look, as you got young daughter, you must have noticed, when she wear mini-skirt

her body movement become completely different, and she does it unconsciously”.

“Another sample is the time when we encounter an escalator which is not moving. When we step on it we

almost tumble as the body is adjusting to the expected movement.

But it couldn’t happen in the second time. And we are not necessary consciously thinking about it”

—— A question here, if we can behave or act without conscious, WHO is operating the puppet / us.

(Of cause now all we know it is the programed movement in our motor legion of the brain)

This is what the Mantra described “Mind is there as it is not there, therefore it is there”

(Before the notion of  Subconsciousness was defined,  it was so difficult to explain the

phenomenon even to the Buddha himself, and made the follower to puzzle.

The Buddhism to find the notion of Alaya (close meaning to subconscious) is

300 years after Buddha’s death.)

Any how my friend was convinced that this phenomenon is the one of element of the Zen.

The conscious of wearing mini-skirt, went down deep into the subconscious, and started to

control her behaviour.

So, when you  were re-programed or put a conscious of that you are a Buddhist, deep down

into your invisible subconscious, you start to behave and live as a Buddhist.——Provided,

you know what the Buddhist is, in the same time.

And this is the reason why all the Buddhist sects employ the physical practice as a part of

the Buddhism study.   Since, physical practice goes into subconscious faster as a routine.

—————-? ? ?     Really ?

Once you have been re-programed, you no longer spread your legs wide open.

Though, I wouldn’t imply that’s the reason why Buddhist is not sexy.    Ha Ha Ha 🙂

Do it!

If anybody want to live as a Buddhist, just live don’t waste the time thinking.

Unlike the Hinduism which started from the myth or story, the Buddhism was started by the man who

got the clearest eyes and his observations, it is based on the realm of the fact.

The realm of the fact mean, it is not the imaginary world, but the solid reality of the life.

In deed the Buddhism is the way of the life, not a fantasy.

In the same context if anybody attempt to dissect and analyze the Buddhism, the answer can not be found

from the theoretical thinking. It can only be found from the practice.

That is the reason why , like the Soto-Zen prohibit the teaching in the verbal mean.