What is zen? This is at the same time what a person is, his true essence, expressed externally moment by moment, and what he does, the practice of self-discipline through which it becomes possible to know the joy of existence. This is not a belief system that needs to be adopted. There are no dogmas or doctrines in this spiritual practice. Zen is a direct experience of what is sometimes called the highest reality or absolute, and at the same time it cannot be separated from the ordinary, relative. This direct experience is available to everyone by birthright. The practice of "zazen" - meditation - allows us to realize the unambiguous, bright, complex nature of life that is hidden from worldly eyes.
The origin of Buddhism
It was this path to awareness that was demonstrated to people more than two and a half thousand years ago by the Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama, who became famous under the name Buddha Shakyamuni. The word "buddha" has the simplest meaning - "awakened." The great teaching of the Indian prince is that every person is able to wake up, that fundamentally all are Buddhas - Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, secular.
With this flexible and consistent attitude towards different cultures and beliefs, Buddhism has embraced all the countries of Asia. In China, it merged with Taoism and evolved into a "chan," the Chinese concept of meditation, which turned into Zen in Japanese. Over the past decades, Zen Buddhism has been integrated into Western culture. As the famous historian Arnold Toynbee said, one of the most significant events of the twentieth century was the journey of Zen Buddhism from east to west.
Unique worldview
Zen Buddhism is a purposeful and consistent spiritual practice through which a person gets the opportunity to realize: his “I” and all other people are one, the conditional and unconditional happen simultaneously, the absolute and relative are the same. From this awareness, natural sympathy and wisdom, a peaceful and intuitively correct reaction to any external circumstances are born. Zen is not a phenomenon; Buddhists do not even consider it a religion. When the Dalai Lama answered the question of what Buddhism is, he simply called kindness his religion.
Zen state
And yet, the state of Zen - what is it? Stop. Stop trying to grasp with your mind what is impossible to understand intellectually - simply because such depths are not available to rational thinking. Just take a fully conscious breath. Taste it. Feel grateful for your ability to breathe. Now exhale - slowly, with understanding. Release all the air, feel the "nothing." Inhale with gratitude, exhale with love. Receiving and giving is what we do with every breath we take. Zen is a transformative practice consisting in breathing with full awareness of every moment, which has a regular basis.
Know yourself
This simple but surprisingly deep spiritual practice allows you to free yourself from the shackles of the past and the future, as well as from the prohibitions and barriers that people have laid for themselves. The main mistake of the majority of inhabitants is that they consider these artificial limitations to be the essence of their personality and unchanging personality.
And in fact: what do you consider yourself? If you think carefully about this issue, it will turn into a koan - a meaningless phrase that promotes immersion in meditation and sounds like "who am I?" You will find that conditional opinions and compulsive traits, which society is accustomed to consider individuality, do not have a fixed substance.
Through consistent zazen, a person is able to free himself from a self-designated individuality and gain true self - an open and confident being, not constrained by any obstacles, flowing with everything in every single moment. That is why it is absolutely natural for all people to take care of the environment, starting with their own actions: avoiding the waste of the precious resources of the planet, the realization that every action entails consequences. This awareness intuitively extends to the entire surrounding world. Zen Buddhists strive to live with attention to everyone, integrity, reality; they want to free all living beings from suffering.
Four noble truths
Renouncing worldly life and sitting under a tree to meditate, Buddha attained enlightenment. He designed Zen doctrine in an accessible language in the form of four principles, or four noble truths.
The first truth: life means suffering
Until the age of 29, Prince Siddhartha remained imprisoned in the four walls of his father’s castle. The first time he went out into the street, he saw four spectacles that left a deep mark in his gentle and naive soul. They were a newborn child, an old cripple, a sick man and a dead man.
The prince, raised in luxury and not suspecting the existence of death and grief outside the palace, was struck by what he saw.
During meditation, he realized that life means suffering because people are imperfect. The world inhabited by people, respectively, is also far from ideal. To comprehend Zen, this statement must be accepted.
Buddha realized that throughout life, everyone has to endure a lot of suffering - both physical and psychological - in the form of aging, illness, separation from loved ones, deprivation, unpleasant situations and people, grief and pain.
All these misfortunes haunt man simply because he is subject to desires. If you can get the object of desire, you can experience joy or satisfaction, but these emotions are very fleeting and quickly disappear. If the pleasure lasts too long, it becomes monotonous and sooner or later bothers.
Three truths about desires
The second noble truth: attachment is the root of suffering.
To avoid suffering, you need to realize what is their root cause. According to Buddha, the main reason for psycho-emotional experiences is attachment to the desires to possess (craving, thirst) and not to possess (rejection, aversion).
It is common for all people to have desires. Since it is impossible to satisfy them all, people become irritated and angry, thereby only confirming their susceptibility to suffering.
Third noble truth: the end of suffering can be achieved.
According to the Buddha, the end of suffering can be achieved if you regularly practice the lack of attachment to desires. Freedom from torment clears the mind of anxiety and anxiety. In Sanskrit, this condition is called nirvana.
Fourth noble truth: the path to the end of suffering must go.
Nirvana can be achieved if you lead a balanced life. To do this, you must follow the Eightfold path, which is a gradual self-improvement.
Zen is the first step on the Eightfold Path.