Practice zazen as if your hair were on fire. When we sit, we cannot be thinking about yesterday’s actions or tomorrow’s plans. When we while away the time doing this, we are not sitting, but thinking. Sitting should be performed like any other action, we should be consumed by it, so that the thoughts drop … Continue reading Absolute
Tag: action
Mind imposed order
We are incredibly conditioned creatures, far more than we are consciously aware and our minds control almost everything we see, hear, experience and do. If we learn a new word, something unusual that has caught our interest, so we remember it, we begin to see or hear this particular word much more frequently in the … Continue reading Mind imposed order
Reading between the lines
It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised, the mosquito is swatted.* To the drinkers in the beer garden, the wasp is nothing but an annoyance, yet to the gardener, the wasp is a friend who keeps down the greenfly and caterpillar population. Good can always … Continue reading Reading between the lines
Relativity
When asked about the relativity of time, Albert Einstein once explained it like this; "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute." When did you last lose time? This often happens when we … Continue reading Relativity
Act
There was never a better moment to sit than now. With all the anxiety and sadness of the past few months, the constant uncertainty and worry, we need to find a way to give ourselves some peace. It has been a terrible time for many, devastating, grief stricken. For others, the threat of a jobless … Continue reading Act
Senses
How often do we take our senses for granted? We make a cup of tea, the actions performing themselves, our hands filling the kettle, flicking the switch, placing the bag in the cup. Then we drink, usually while we're absorbed in some other action, the tea being a side-line. We have these amazing gifts, our … Continue reading Senses
Do you mind?
Where do we go when we close our eyes? We still can see, but we don't see - our sense of sight shuts off and the longer our eyes are closed the further we drift away into unconsciousness, and eventually sleep. What happens to our thinking mind? There are other occasions too. When we are … Continue reading Do you mind?
Unconsciousness
What do we think of by unconsciousness? We can be 'knocked unconscious', we can 'fall into a deep unconscious sleep', we can 'act in an unconscious manner' - all these ways imply a non thinking, a time when we are not using our intellect or our minds, we are blind, blank. Let us compare it … Continue reading Unconsciousness
Karma
Far from being some mythical force of fear, that is waiting around the corner to catch up with us eventually, karma is concept, and often a resulting factor of the need to control. When we feel we need to control a situation rather than just allow it to be what it is, we are starting … Continue reading Karma
Satori
The sudden and intuitive way of seeing into anything, whether it be remembering a forgotten name or seeing into the deepest principles of Buddhism. One seeks and seeks, but one cannot find. One then gives up, and the answer comes by itself.* We have all experienced this on some level or other, whether we were … Continue reading Satori
Zen musings 