What is Zen?

What is Zen?

Many people feel they understand the term to be that of "meditation" or "being calm" within their chaotic life, or their quest and finding of enlightenment. The "finding" of that solace through meditation.

Zen isn't really that. Although this is a part of Zen. Enlightenment is not something that is "found", but something that is. Zen is being in its most natural state.

I was having a discussion with a woman the other day on a variety of topics stemming from health, relationships, politics and the economy. Somewhere during the conversation she asked me how do I "do it" ? I asked her what she meant by her question, to which she responded, "You have a calm about you that I wish I knew how to be, while the world seems to be so chaotic." I pondered the question and smiled, "I meditate..." She humphed and said, "I try, but I'm not very good at it. I need to practice more, I guess."

Therein lies the crux of the confusion for most people. It has taken me a while, and through much personal pain, frustration and confusion to be where I am. It takes continued connection to remain there. I wouldn't call it work, but habit might be a term I could use. There are still moments of challenge in order to remain in the state I have found. Life is a continuation of challenges, it could not be otherwise. This is a part of Zen.

However, getting back to the confusion for most people. Zen is not a place or a state of being that one is looking for, it is a place or state of being that one is. You do not search for Zen, you are Zen.

Zen is the idea of non-attachment. Not being attached to the outcome, but being one with the moment. Not being attached to the outcome of the situation in your life at the moment, but being attached to the situation in your life at the moment fully. While in your moments of life, you are there fully, and the outcome is not the measure of why you are doing anything, but it is the process of what it is you are doing. Then you are independent of everything and not attached to anything. This non-attachment is our most natural state.

To be in the most natural state is to be like a stone or a plant. My mantra throughout my life is to be like that of a duck. The water rolls off of the back of the duck and the duck floats across the water with little resistance.

I know so many people who spend so much time frustrating themselves to reach a perfection to a task or accomplishment. Then, when the task is completed I hear them find small issues that they wished they could have fixed so it would finally have been perfect. This is a never ending saga. This is not to say to not try to do your best with any task or situation at hand, however, one must realize that the end result is not the quest. To understand that there is no such thing as perfection is when we will reside in the most perfect existence. Perfection is a relative term and varies in its definition for everyone. Therefore, what one might feel is perfect, another will find a flaw as to their perception to it. It is not the outcome that one must attempt perfection, but it is in the moment of the process that one must reach for their limits.

I was once on a plane traveling from Houston to San Francisco. At 35,000 feet the pilot came on the speaker and told everyone to buckle their seats we were about to begin an immediate descent. Within seconds we began to drop. Inside the cabin of the airliner was chaos. The passengers began screaming out of fear. The baggage compartments began flying open and items were falling out. The flight crew were also frozen in their seats with fear. The woman beside me was crying. The man behind me was screaming. The woman and child across the isle from me were frozen with the fear of death. We kept dropping. It was mayhem. The only words one could hear were "We're going to die"... We kept dropping. I thought to myself, this is not the state I wish to end my life with. I will not accept my last moments to be of fear and chaos. I sat quiet for a few moments and breathed in deeply. I understood that I was certainly close to meeting my demise in this realm. We kept dropping. The oxygen masks dropped in front of everyone's faces dangling in the midst of the chaos and fear. I looked over to the woman beside me. I told her it would be okay, and helped her with her mask and told her to close her eyes and put her head into her lap. She did so. I then looked over to the woman and child. She was frantic in her attempts to assist her screaming child while she was uncontrollably weeping. I loosened by belt but remained buckled in, and reached over and touched her arm. I helped her with her mask and told her to calm down and help her child with his mask, reassuring her it would all be okay. She looked into my eyes, smiled and began to calmly help her son with his mask. I sat up and looked at the man behind me. I nodded to him and reached for his mask and motioned for him to put in on. I smiled and said it would all be okay and to just remain calm. I glanced at the passengers across from him and nodded to them in reassurance as they were fumbling with their masks. I then sat back in my seat, put on my mask, and closed my eyes again. The chaos was gone from my perception. It was still happening, but I was not a part of it any longer. I felt a peace come over me and I could hear nothing. I felt calm.

At about 10,000 feet we began to level off. Shortly thereafter we landed on a small airfield in the middle of farmland. There were 7 passengers who were quickly taken away to the nearest hospital because their eardrums burst, the others milled about the cornfield in a daze for a while. The pilot told us later that there was a signal that the cabin door was beginning to open...

To understand that life and death are all part of the same process of existence, we will have no fear of death anymore. To know that the difficulties in our life are only created by our perceptions through our reactions to those difficulties and mean nothing to anything otherwise. It is then that we will find no more difficulty in our life.

There is no practice to meditation. It is a state of being. When you sit to meditate to find enlightenment, you are looking in the wrong place. This is not to say you cannot sit and meditate, however, you can meditate while walking, eating, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, even working. If you do all of these tasks, acknowledging them in their moment and doing them to the best of your ability, with no goal in mind, no outcome to attain, except the best that you are capable of doing, you will be enlightened. Feel the earth beneath your feet when you walk. Experience the gravity holding you to the earth. Taste the herbs and the vegetables as you chew your food, as the tastes rolls around your mouth. Feel the water roll off of your hands as you are doing the dishes. Notice the texture and softness of the clothes as you fold them. Smell the freshness as you take the clothes from the dryer or off of the line. Experience the work you have chosen to spend so much of your conscious life doing. Listen to the sound of the computer keyboard as you type. Feel the hammer in your hand as you pound the nails.

We all have two things in life that we have in common. We were all born, and we will all die. Absolutely everything else becomes a measure of what we decide its value to be, as per our own perception.




This, the 319th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!

(c)Copyright 2007 - 2011 Doug Boggs