Zen...

"ZEN is an ancient Buddhist practice that allows its adherents to live life in a more “ALIVE” manner. Through years of deep meditation (“Zazen”) and difficult instruction, guidance, and questioning from a ZEN Master (“Sanzen”), ZEN adherents become adept at a new “divine” way of carrying out the WONDER which is the human life experience. Their glass is not only “Half Full,” it is virtually overflowing much of the time.

TheNewZen is a practice to gain the fulfillment or “Awakening” provided through ZEN practice in the Modern World (especially the Western World) through more contemporary means...without retreating from life’s many travails and tribulations."

Steve Braun, Founder – TheNewZen.

What Is Zen?

(From WHAT IS ZEN? By Alan Watts & Mark Watts, copyright 2000)

"Zen is a method of rediscovering the experience of being alive.

It originated in India and China, and although it is a form of Mahayana Buddhism, it is not a religion in the usual sense of the word. (Zen arrived in Japan in the 12th Century AD.) The aim of Zen is to bring about a transformation of consciousness, and to awaken us from the dream world of our endless thoughts so we experience life as it is in the present moment.

[Zen] has for many centuries been one of the most potent influences in molding the cultures of Japan and China. It would be as great a mistake to leave out Zen in a history of Japan as to omit Christianity in a history of England.

Many hold Zen to be at one with the root of all religions, for it is a WAY OF LIBERATION that centers around the things that are basic to all mysticism: awakening to the UNITY or oneness of life, and the inward - as opposed to outward - existence of God. (In this context the word God can be misleading because, as will be seen, the idea of a deity in the Western religious sense is foreign to Zen.)

Zen is simply the sensation and the clear understanding that, to put it in Zen terms, there are "ten thousand formations; one suchness." Or you might say, "The ten thousand things that are everything are of one suchness." That is to say that there is behind the multiplicity of events and creatures in this universe simply ONE ENERGY - and it appears as you, and everything is it. The practice of Zen is to understand that one energy so as to "feel it in your bones." Yet Zen has nothing to say about what that energy is..."

ZEN

(From Myths To Live By, Chapter 7 -“ZEN,” By Joseph Campbell, copyright 1972)

"The word Zen itself is a Japanese mispronunciation of the Chinese word ch'an, which in turn is a Chinese mispronunciation of the Sanskrit dhyana, meaning "Contemplation, Meditation." Contemplation, however, of what?

Let us imagine ourselves for a moment in the lecture hall where I originally presented the material for this chapter. Above, we see the many lights. Each bulb is separate from the others, and we may think of them accordingly as separate from the others. But now let us consider further. Each of those separate bulbs is a vehicle of light, and the light is not many but one. Analogously, I would be looking out from the lecture platform, seeing before me all the people of my audience, and just as each bulb is a vehicle of light, so each of us in the audience is a vehicle of consciousness.

The leading aim of all Oriental mystic teaching, consequently, might be described as that of enabling us to shift our focus of self-identification from, so to say, this light bulb to its light; from this mortal person to the consciousness of which our bodies are but the vehicles. .... This world that you and I are here experiencing on the plane of "Separateness," is on the plane of "Unity," nirvanic bliss; and all that is required is that we should alter our focus of seeing and experiencing.

Extinguish egoism, with its desires and fears, and Nirvana is immediately ours! (We are already there if we but knew!) .... To walk around in knowledge and experience of all this is to live in as wondrous dream. .... Great poverty, suffering, cruelty, and injustices, all the usual concomitants of existence in this vale of tears, are present in full measure-as everywhere, and as they will be, world without end. BUT THERE IS ALSO ESCAPE FROM SUFFERING! THE ESCAPE FROM SUFFERING IS NIRVANA. AND NIRVANA IS THIS WORLD ITSELF, WHEN EXPERIENCED WITHOUT DESIRE AND FEAR, JUST AS IT IS. It is here!!! It is here!!!"

Zen Bones

(From Scared Hoops, By Phil Jackson, copyright 1995)

"What appealed to me about Zen was its emphasis on clearing the mind. As the Buddha put in the Dhammapada, "Everything is based on mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a polluted mind, suffering will follow you, as the wheels of an oxcart follow the footsteps of an ox... If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form."

But the Zen idea of a polluted mind is quite different than the Christian perspective, which dictates that "impure" thoughts be rooted out and eliminated. What pollutes the mind in the Buddhist view is our desire to get life to conform to our peculiar notion of how things should be, as opposed to how they really are. In the course of everyday life, we spend the majority of our time immersed in self-centered thoughts. Why did this happen to me? What would make me feel better? If only I could make more money, win her heart, make my boss appreciate me... The thoughts themselves are not the problem; it's our desperate clinging to them and our resistance to what's actually happening that causes us so much anguish.

The point of Zen practice is to make you aware of the thoughts that run your life and diminish their power over you. One of the fundamental tools for doing that is a form of sitting meditation known as zazen. The form of zazen I practice involves sitting completely still on a cushion with eyes open but directed downward and focusing attention on the breath. When thoughts come up, the idea is not to try to blot them out or to analyze them, but simply to note them as they arise and to experience, as fully as possible, the sensations in the body. When you do that regularly, day after day, you begin to see how ephemeral your thoughts are and become acutely aware of your bodily sensations and what's going on around you-the sound of the traffic in the distance, the smell of the flowers across the room. Over time your thoughts calm down, first for a few seconds, then much longer, and you experience moments of just being without your mind getting in the way."