21st Century Zen

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Zendan14
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21st Century Zen

Post by Zendan14 »

When we read the scriptures might I suggest that we are trying to understand what Gotama meant when he said :” Nirvana is the extinction of dukkha.”
Since his death there have been many attempts to explain what he meant.
The Pali Cannon consists of 45 volumes.
The Chinese scriptures consist of 100 volumes , each of 1000 closely worded pages.
The Tibetan scriptures consist of 325 volumes.
The Dharma was transmitted orally for 500 years.
All of that contributed by highly intelligent philosophers and experts well experienced in the fruits of correct meditation who struggled to express their experiences logically.
This has resulted in his teaching being interpreted differently by many schools and factions. Even Zen, the teaching outside the scriptures, has fragmented.

Here is an attempt to get to the heart and core of Buddhism which lives hidden in this vast body of literature. Below is why zazen works and what to do about it:
Here is 21st century Zen – a direct pointing at the common human goal:

As the first signs of a central nervous system began to appear in the history of the evolution of life on our planet, the model that primordial, hypothetical creatures exhibited was:

State 1/ Passive but alert awareness.

State 2/ Reception of a stimulus.
The stimulus could be pleasure, the demands of appetite, danger or pain.

State 3/ Reacting to that stimulus by successful action guided by intellect [using conscious mental activity} until the stimulus is gone
Conscious mental activity is all the tools intellect has at its disposal; it is the perception, accumulation, recall and association of data – all thinking, imagining .planning and predicting etc.
The response to pleasure would be to sustain it; to appetite to satisfy it; to danger and pain, to avoid them. All responses would engage all the mental skills the primitive creature possessed.

State 4/ Return to a state of alert passive awareness.
Once the stimulus has been removed by finding a solution to the problems it presented, the possessor of such a system would return to a mental state of alert but passive awareness. You could say it would be reacquainted with its original mind. Or that it would have peace of mind – conventionally called happiness.

This is the model from which our own highly sophisticated central nervous system has evolved.

The rules that apply to the original primordial system also apply to ours.

However, for us, as life has grown more complex, the stimuli proliferated, and the responses to those stimuli have overwhelmed us to such an extent that modern men rarely if ever experience the first element of the model from which their central nervous system has evolved – alert, passive awareness – profound peace-of-mind.

Meditation (zazen) is a way to reacquaint us with that first element - passive awareness – peace of mind - and integrate it into our daily lives.

From reading this article it becomes obvious that those who wish to reintroduce this peace-of-mind into their lives must understand what they are doing – or, in this special case, what they are not supposed to do. Meditation is a way to reacquaint ourselves with the common human goal.
The correct practice in meditation is obviously:
“Refrain from conscious mental activity while remaining alert and passively aware".
Zazen is essentially rest from mental work. We sit devoid of will effort.

Awareness is like an ocean disturbed by storms of conscious mental activity. In zazen we patiently wait until the waters become calm,. neither encouraging nor suppressing these disturbances, but remaining detached from them and all that is around us. When the ocean becomes calm, you will become truly enlightened in every sense of the word.
We must “react to stimuli “in order to live out our lives. But in order to get our just and proper reward for our successful actions in life, we must limit conscious mental activity to just that - its proper role. Conscious mental activity (all intellectual effort) was in the beginning, is now and always will be the tool we use to satisfy our appetites and solve our problems. It plays no part in our beig happy.

The very phrase “peace of mind” carries connotations of rest from mental activity.

Commentators have used the word “consciousness” when “awareness” is a better one. We never become unconscious in zazen, we are always aware. Only what we are aware of changes – for the better.
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Orategama
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Re: 21st Century Zen

Post by Orategama »

Why does 21st century Zen have to be so pragmatic about conscious mental activity? Is pragmatism the 21st century Dharma? :?
Let's assume that we use our intellect only to satisfy our appetites and solve our problems, but never to contemplate on happiness, right and wrong and other philosophical problems and base our actions on our conclusions. Wouldn't we be like drones that turn the cogwheels of the society for the benefits of the ruling elite? Hence all the mental "stress" we have that we try to ease through zazen techniques to get rest from mental work.
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Zendan14
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Re: 21st Century Zen

Post by Zendan14 »

Conscious mental activity is an extremely valuable tool we use to do a lot more than solve problems and satisfy our appetites. We must review solutions that fail in order to improve responses and we must plan our future activities to name but two. The better we are at using the tool, the better our lives will be. Some of the problems we are confronted with are vastly important like curing cancer, feeding the world’s exploding population and ending wars. There are many valid reasons for employing our intellect efficiently. But the fact remains; CMA plays no part in our being happy and the sooner we realise that [practically] the happier we will be. 21sr Century Zen approaches the problem at an extremely basic level , but not as basic as the old Zen Masters who would beat their students if they showed any sign of using the tool.
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