Zen is the mystical branch of Mahayana Buddhism. Zen is a highly individualistic religious discipline.
Zen done in a group is not Zen at all. True Zen is done alone. Zen is a sanskrit word which means meditation. The sanskrit D-H-Y-A-N pronounced as duh yen first becomes dh-yen,Jen and then Zen.
When our mind truly abides in or meditates upon something we're practicing Zen. Meditation is not mere pondering a subject, musing or mulling it over. Meditation involves orderly discipline that leads us into total absorption.
Entering the Nirvanic realms or the state of samadhi, or experiencing incomparable bliss of that state, is the goal of any spiritual practice. Prayer and meditation are personal and private. As Jesus says, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."
In meditation You undergo total transformation and You radiate joyous effulgence.
Zen meditation technique called mind-blanking is an advanced technique and should be attempted only by someone who has already experienced Samadhi and a few other exalted states of consciousness. Yet people are prompted to practice it since the instructions are so simple that everyone feels competent to try them. All what is required of you is that you sit down and stop thinking. Every time a thought arises in your mind you erase it, the object being to attain a thought-free mind. Each thought arising in mind is but a speck of dirt that soils the mind and so you are duty bound to polish it off immediately.
But this continuous friction in trying to making your mind blank by thinking about nothing can have serious consequences. For the normal person can't remain thought-free for more than a few seconds at best and soon reverts to mentations. Responding to peer pressure and religious fervor may drive one to surrender to mass-hysteria and mass-hypnosis.
Any quietism he comes to experience is just a stuporous blandness, a wretched, numb and passive state which is far from reasoned equanimity. Certainly it is not tranquility but a bout of mere vegetative dullness.
What is necessary in Zen is a realization that life can be brutish and cruel and for this none but we ourselves are largely responsible as also for all the mess we find ourselves in. Until we practice passionate ratiocination we shall not understand our predicament. Escaping from life is hardly an answer nor mechanical attempts to obliterate our minds by cushioning ourselves and closing our eyes to the sorry state of affairs around us.
Zen Quotations
Close your eyes and you will see clearly.
Cease to listen and you will hear truth.
Be silent and your heart will sing.
Seek no contacts and you will find union.
Be still and you will move forward on the tide of the spirit.
Be gentle and you will need no strength.
Be patient and you will achieve all things.
Be humble and you will remain entire.
Taoist meditation
Ye suffer from yourselves.
None else compels.
None other holds you that ye live and die,
And whirl upon the wheel,
And hug and kiss.
It's spokes of agony,
It's tire of tears,
It's nave of nothingness.
Buddha Gautama (born 563 B.C.)
Neither is there Bodhi-tree,
Nor yet a mirror bright;
Since in reality all is void,
Whereon can the dust fall? Under the sword lifted high,
There is hell making you tremble;
But go ahead,
And you have the land of bliss.
Miyamoto Musashi
(Trans. Suzuki)
When they curiously question thee, seeking to know what It is,
Do not affirm anything, and do not deny anything.
For whatsoever is affirmed is not true,
And whatsoever is denied is not true.
How shall anyone say truly what That may be
While he has not himself fully won to What Is?
And, after he has won, what word is to be sent from a Region
Where the chariot of speech finds no track on which to go?
Therefore, to their questionings offer them silence only,
Silence — and a finger pointing the Way.
Buddhist verse
(Alan Watts, "The Spirit of Zen", 1958)
Hui Neng (638-713)
(Alan Watts, "The Spirit of Zen", 1958)
