The Eastern Thought on Meditation
Writing by bwerner on Tuesday, 5 of August , 2008 at 7:38 pm
Be the change you wish to see in the world - Ghandi
Not out of the door you know the world. Not watching from the window you can see the way of heaven. LAO-TZU
Throughout history it was found that the human mind is capable of two types of knowledge, the first mode is that rational held in high regard in the West, the second is that intuitive which generally exactly the opposite is, and is suitable for the oriental attitude.
The rational conscience belongs to the field of science and intellect, whose function is to analyze, discriminate, divide, compare, measure and sort into categories.
The rational conscience is a system of abstract concepts and symbols, considering in this way the natural environment as if it were made up of separate parts, and constructs an intellectual map of reality, in which things are reduced to their contours.
The eastern thought and more generally the mystical thought, provides to the theories of contemporary science an important and coherent philosophical reference: a conception of the world in which the two key issues are the unity and interdependence of all phenomena, and considers the human as an integral part of this system.
What is relevant to the Eastern mystics is the research of a direct experience of reality that transcends not only the intellectual thought, but also the sensory perception.
The conscience that derives from an experience of this type is called by the Buddhist “absolute consciousness” because it’s not based upon discrimination, abstractions, and classifications of the intellect, which are always relative and approximate. It is as the Buddhists say the direct experience of the absolute essence, undifferentiated, undivided, and indeterminate.
The absolute conscience is therefore an experience of reality entirely non-intellectual, an experience that comes from a state of a non-ordinary consciousness, which may be called a meditative or mystical state. It’s the reality of the life of the Self who lives just as it is, it’s a bare experience of life (the only being alive now). The Self is not superficial is the fullness of joy. Being aware of the Self means to be joyful. “What makes a Buddha under the Bodhi tree? He does do anything. He limits merely to be”. He is on the height of unfathomable joy, because now nothing is left to achieve.
In one’s own being, one discovers that anything worthy of being achieved already exists. The simple case of life, the exhale and inhale, the mere pulse of life, is bliss. He has nothing to think about, he is not thinking of the family, nor does he think of the future, he is simply immersed in blessedness, the right way of being; there is no past or future.
He is not going anywhere, the heart beats, the breath enters and leaves, the blood circulates, he simply exists, everything is alive and pulsing. Energy devoid of purpose flowing without goal, that flows everywhere but that does not go anywhere. Flows toward the nothing. The ecstasy is not a goal.
It’s here and now, just in the movement, he is happy in itself, precisely in the pulse of being alive.
The Zen that originated in the Buddhism but was heavily influenced by Taoism boasts of being without words, without explanation, without instructions, without consciousness. It focuses almost entirely on the experience of illumination (satori), and it does not consist of doing something or obtaining something, but simply in recognizing that what always has existed in fact, and is interested only marginally to interpret this experience.
Because of education and environmental conditioning the functioning of our minds is linked to a particular system of logic made up of concepts, and everything is seen through a system of opposites: good bad, black or white, right or wrong.
Because of this way of judging, we cannot achieve the unity through the multiplicity. The purpose of Zen is to go beyond the bonds of duality, to renounce to all concepts created from the intellect and to see things as they really are, through intuitive introspection.
Since the flow of the mind cannot be stopped by an egocentric effort of will, that what is required moment by moment is the continuous observation of the duality, the continues trends of our “I”, the trends that makes up our thoughts, our feelings, our body. Throughout the Eastern mysticism, the intellect is seen only as a means to pave the way to direct mystical experience, that the Buddhist calls the “awakening”.
The Zen teaches that the awakening (satori) through meditation is at the end of the waiting-attention, which must be a vigilance without object.
There is nothing to wait for in fact, that what happens happens.
There are no rules and laws purposes, either in nature or in the thoughts. Reacquire the spontaneity of our original nature, the nature of Buddha of all the things, requires a long path and is a great spiritual conquest. Sit only without purpose. During zazen one does not think even if subconscious occurs, you let go, one does not stop the thinking, one does not hold.
In this way, the conscience becomes unlimited, infinite. That is the cosmic consciousness (the universality is the intrinsic nature of mind). The method Zen, this type of approach to reality, is a pre-scientific method or meta-scientific, or even anti-scientific.
In this way, Zen dips into the source of creativity and drinks from it all the life that it contains. This source is the unconscious of Zen.
The unconscious is other than scientific research, the unconscious can only be felt, and not in the usual sense of the term, therefore we must learn to master the ways of unconsciousness and the unknown wisdom of the Self.
That what exists in the interior center is beyond any explanation. Conversely science begins where the explanation begins, outside, it’s a research on the circumference, in the ambit of humans.
Usually the scientific consciousness is objective: knowing others, knowing the world, knowing the stars. Although at the time, that consciousness turns inside and get to know itself, in other words when the consciousness becomes object of the own cognition the illumination flourishes.
Henceforth consciousness will be the master and the servant unconsciousness. The door of truth is neither the center nor the circumference that are in fact two sides of the one and only truth, but a state in which one who sees and that what is seen, the observer and the observed thing, unites.
Only the men free from opinions and preconceived ideas can see the unity and integrity of life. Discovering the own subconscious is not an intellectual act, but an emotional experience that cannot be explained in words.
The intellect ultimately is superficial, is something that floats on the surface of consciousness, and the surface must split so that can be reached the cosmic unconscious, the logical spirit must dissolve gradually to allow to the trans-logical and unifying thought of Zen to emerge. Once this level is reached, the common consciousness is pervaded by the flow of the unconscious; this is precisely the moment when the finite spirit comprehends to have his own roots in the infinity.
The immediate and full take of the world is precisely the purpose of Zen, is the real awakening (being aware) that is on the root of all intellectual creative thinking and, the intuitive and immediate apprehension, equivalent to overcoming the emotional cerebral contamination and manipulation; tantamount to the disappearance of the polarity conscious and unconscious.
It means to have nothing and only to be. The follower Zen here follows its subject because he has reached to his destination; he has now reached the heart of duality that in itself includes all that what is intellectual, emotional or creative in an indiscriminate way, undifferentiated or better absolute.
His activities have not changed, that what has changed is his subjectivity.
My personal experience of consciousness in everyday life is to lose it easily, continuously at all times. I happen sometimes to lose in the reactions, or I isolate from that what happens.
Every day, countless times I lose awareness, often I fall victim of the “Tiger of mind.”
Unfortunately, the pressures, tensions and the frenzy of life are not ideal conditions for awareness. However, as soon as I recognize that I lost it I can start over again. Therefore, it shows a simple Self based upon the breath, able to surrender to the present moment. That is what I want to stress as personal experience, when I acknowledge that I’ve lost consciousness, I already regained it, and for that this recognition, itself, is a function of awareness.
Consciousness in fact is not something abstract or far: for each of us takes it life in the moment when we start, and every time we start again. Being conscious, waked up, remembering ourselves, to observe, not to be overwhelmed by the chatter of mind, this is the power of consciousness, being attentive and present with equilibrium, calm and understanding, be it that the experience is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Remaining simple an indifferent witness.
When we’re present we observe with meditative vision, with a deep and penetrating attention characterized from the absence of superficiality, and we know to meet directly that what is happening in our world (the naked reality), with openness, sensitivity, lucidity.
When we switch on the view of the wise attention, can we see clearly, we understand that we should not make even a step in any direction, to find our place where we can be at our ease, because it is precisely here, where we are now. Usually we lack of intuition and a clear vision because we are prisoners of our conditioning.
The reality is already present in us but for our blindness, it escapes us completely. In a certain sense, we experience something continuously, but we are hardly in touch with our experiences, only half-awake in front of the reality. In this sense can we say that we do not really experience.
For the Gestalt the real experience is therapeutic or corrective in itself, it’s that point that is beyond the technical as reality-consciousness-responsibility.
A moment of waking, a moment of touch with reality is the moment in which the ghosts of our dreams can be recognized with open eyes for what they are, it’s a moment of training of our experience, through which we can learn for example that there is nothing to fear, or that the satisfaction of being alive exceeds the suffering or loss that we wanted to avoid with our drowsiness. One who has developed the stimulation from within, can rejoin with its senses and come into contact with the own experience, reawaken and returning to the naked reality of life that is “the Self in itSelf for the Self,” the Self which makes itself in the Self, whatever happens.
This is the true spiritual dimension, the point where one is anymore directed from the “I”, but from a non-dualistic consciousness, there is nobody who thinks: “you arrive with no concept of reach and see with no concept of seeing”. Until we have not gone beyond dualism, we do not know the final freedom (the last reality). Achieving this profound understanding of one self is the source of true wisdom; the true wisdom resides in the observation and knowledge of oneself.
The views of the gestalt therapy on this as on other issues is that awareness is enough, taking in mind the distinction between being open to experiences and manufacture experiences. In fact, the actions resulting from the experience and their expressions are not designed to produce an effect. The actions that affirm life rather than deny it, that reveal rather than to hide, expressing rather than repress, are in a certain sense non-actions. The action in fact contrary to manipulation (of oneself or others), is experienced as flowing from within rather than made to meet extrinsic models.
Finally, I want to say that the consciousness is our true “Self” it’s that what we really are. Therefore, in a certain sense there is no need to develop awareness: just get an idea of how we block it with our thoughts, fantasies, judge and opinions. Staying simply at the instant, doing one thing at a time and deliver us fully to it is the most efficient way to live, is simply being here, living our lives. “Nothing special.”
Life is as it is, the work is as it is, the world is as it is, and maybe, if we know to accept it as it is, we awake to its meaning.
In any situation, if others will observe us or not, should we be aware of that what is happening within us and be on guard against negligence and inattention. So we do not damage the others.
The goal is to develop gradually consciousness, and to activate the compassion and loving kindness that are already in us. In addition, this is within the reach of everyone.
By Akong Tulku Rinpoche
Taken from: http://www.etanali.it/zen.htm
P.S. we agree on all the principles that are obviously universal, but to the conclusion of the writer, we would like to make a consideration: the fact to accept the “world so ‘as it is’… if we know to accept it….prevents… and/or lessens the being conscious, by bringing his personal “concepts” that derive from the activated consciousness (no more dormant) to the altogether Humanity = Universe and thus to help the existing manifestation to its progressive consciousness (accumulation of information, more and more complex and therefore always more conscious) as altogether humanity = Universe, and thus to subside in not actually participating in the exchange of information more and more’ complex, what slows down the process of acquisition of system of information in its entirety.
Proof? The script just read in itself, provides indications that, if followed, lead to real progress towards the evolution of consciousness of the being to which it belongs, thus is it itself an informational input of a subject to the evolutionary process of the altogether = Humanity = Universe, therefore nothing static but participation on the evolutionary action of becoming conscious of the altogether Humanity = UniVerse.
Kindly permission www.mednat.org
Leave your thought on this; let’s discuss. Have a backlink too!
Category: Buddhism, Meditation, Personal Development, Religion, psychology
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