Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.

~Chuang-Tzu

As one sits and realizes the impermanent nature of thoughts and feelings and begins to get a flavor of the background space one might begin to feel less solid in their identity altogether. We invest so much in our jobs, our relationships, and our good works or bad habits that they at times identify who we are. Our roles along with our habits and thinking patterns construct our personalities and hold our egoic selves together. Sitting in meditation puts holes in the fabric as gaps will naturally arise. Continually coming back to the breath cuts any fear and allows the space for seeing habitual patterns. Bringing habit into consciousness creates change and over time a long term behavior can dissolve. The more strongly we identify with something we are letting go of, the scarier it is to the body. You may feel like you are literally dying. If the pattern was established in infancy as a coping skill or a way to be accepted in the family you may have a fear from then that if you change you will be ostracized by the group and you will die, which as an infant you were dependent on your parents for survival, but that is not the case now. Take a deep breath and release any fear.

Desire nothing, and you’re content with everything. Pursue things, and you’re thwarted at every turn. Ryokan 1758-1831, Japanese Zen Master, Poet, Calligrapher

Much of our inner turbulence reflects the fear of loss: our dependence on people, circumstances, and things not really under our control. On some level we know that death, indifference, rejection, repossession, or high tide may leave us bereft in the morning. Still, we clutch desperately at things we cannot finally hold. Nonattachment is the most realistic of attitudes. It is freedom from wishful thinking, from always wanting things to be otherwise.
Marilyn Ferguson

From the moment that a man no longer responds in the slightest to the motives that regulate the material world, that world appears to be at complete repose. Yukio Mishima 1935-1970,

To become free of attachment means to break the link identifying you with your desires. The desires continue: They are part of the dance of nature. But a renunciate no longer thinks that he is his desires. Ram Dass

To renounce things is not to give them up. It is to acknowledge that all things go away.

Shunryu Suzuki 1905-1971, Japanese Zen Master

"May I be free of anger, free of attachment, free of confusion, free of pride.
May I be free of the problems that arise from such distortions of my mind.
May I recognize and cultivate my potential of loving kindness, compassion, wisdom, patience and all other good qualities.
May these good qualities grow for my well-being and the well-being of others.
May my fears, worries and sorrows fall away.
May I find the joy of love and peace in my heart."

Opportunities.

I see every situation in life as an opportunity to exercise the power of focus. Through focus, acceptance is automatic and awareness of what is so is established. Then, what is so, what is ultimate truth, can be realized at greater and greater depths.

Non-Interference

Non-interference is doing nothing but accepting all without resistance. It’s about an expanding my willingness to just be with all my experience and allowing it to be. The ego however, seems to prefer to complicate simple acceptance.

Day Dreams

Day dreams are what many people live by when they have fears of failure. Intent on the other hands involves faith and trust in the self that can move mountains.

Taking Responsibility

As all is one, the challenge is in acknowledging that all situations are my creation. Not an easy call. But nevertheless, it is still true. For to attach to blame to anyone or anything is an attempt to remove myself from my experience and lose my responsibility. If I lose my responsibility, I lose my power to deal with it. Acceptance, faith, trust, whatever name it is given, is the way to regain my responsibility for my life.

Defense

In meditation, I often focus on the question, “what am I defending?” I gets lots of weird and wonderful answers and sometimes a defense of my defending. An equally powerful question is, “am I willing to drop the defense?” From this question I get to know unequivocally what I have created.

Holding on

To totally be here now means to give up our past and just be. Hidden fears and anxieties often arise from the ego during this process. When I consider my memories, whether they be good bad, because they are my memories, I am separating them from the whole and can get a really sense of a “holding on”, reluctant to let go.

Acting as a Magnet

When we strongly reject something and really do not want it to be experienced, we are welcoming it into our existence as if we are a magnet. But as with all paradox, if we accept it into our experience with the motivation to rid ourselves of it, we are welcoming it into our existence as if we are a magnet, only this time the attraction is more cunning… more subtle.

Blame and Guilt

When we attach blame, we are judging, not only the other person but that part of our Self that we identify in the other. Giving is receiving, and the intent of blame is to attach guilt - for other or self, it makes no difference as this guilt becomes hidden in the recesses of our consciousness and needs to be resolved if we are to move toward real freedom.

Let it Be.

There is no complexity in “I am” consciousness, for all complexity is of the ego. I am consciousness simply is, but once we try to analyze is, we are surrendering to the ego’s attempts to control our beingness. Simply let awareness be. Accept it and know nothing, then know everything.

De-stressing

When we are stressed is it because two opposing forces are battling for supremacy; that which we want and that which we don’t want. If we do nothing but observe whatever opposites are battling, they will become one as they disappear into each other and we will become peaceful. If we continue to desire one thing over another, we will continue to be stressed. Focusing the mind on what is so in meditation or mindfulness in our daily activities, enables us to de-stress.

Conflict and Belief.

When I feel I am in conflict, it is because of a fictitious “war” that is raging within myself, which is in reality, an illusion. Thoughts are pitted against one another in the belief that some are right whilst others are wrong. It is belief that is the fuel for this crazy illusion.

Past, Future, Reality

When I contemplate the future and try to predict what is going to happen or what it not going to happen, I am really getting stuck with the past, for prediction always refers to the past. The only reality is here and now where future and past disappear along with the relative world.

Deciding.

Decision is a powerful force and I need to decide that my mind is not trapped in the brain in my head for it can be wherever I want it to be. If I focus on my hand, that is where it is, if I focus on some place far away, that is where it is. If I focus on the past, that is where it is, but it is in an illusion, for the past is no more. Yet, what about guilt? What I have done, is no more, therefore guilt is a way of trying to pay for my wrong-doings. If I see something as “wrong” anywhere at all, I am creating it to be that way for in reality, everything is simply the way it is. A problem arises when I recognise that I believe that I am my mind. When I believe I am my mind, I am putting a machine in charge. This is the ego

Ego Complexities

In meditation, I recognize the mind as a sophisticated machine that is programmed by decisions and beliefs. When I’m trapped in this machine, I cannot see that I am anything else but my mind – this is ego, also a part of my creation. However, when I get glimpses into my creator self, I can see that I am not my mind, but the controller that creates decisions and beliefs. I am aware of how my mind has been programmed with making judgments by the ego I have created, accepting some circumstances and rejecting other circumstances. This all about attack and defense and the mind will only do what it is programmed to do. The implications of this grow wider and more complex as I continue to serve the process of attack and defense. In reality, this is a crazy situation, for I am attacking illusions, that I believe is my Self.

Mechanical Process

I can recognize that my mind is a mechanical process in which when I think something it responds with physical sensation and can change mood. Therefore the way I respond to all events is my responsibility and blaming others for what I perceive is an attempt to create an alternative reality. There is only reality, there is no such thing as an alternative reality, so my task in accepting and observing is best made without judgment. If I perceive a dilemma of any sort, I aspire to accept without judgment or interference.

Disabling Self

Judgment and its effects are very subtle but powerful. When I see things in the world and judge them as inferior or superior, right or wrong, sick or in good health etc., I am beginning the process of identification in myself. I need to over-look them and see them as just so, for how can I possible assist if I am judging and rendering myself disabled by my judgments?

Remembering

Meditation is like remembering who I am. But focus on the breath is used with the exclusion of thought to stop the ego-mind analyzing “I am consciousness” which is beyond analytical thought.

Response.

A good friend who shares my interest in Zen posed a question – “how do I balance mindfulness with a sense of setting goals and planning?”

My response come from my intuition and was given, not with the intent to instruct, because the answers are within each of us, and each of us can be student and teacher - and I see them as both the same. So I responded to this question with gratitude. I say gratitude because the question acts as a catalyst that encourages me to look within and discover more of my Zen Way of life.

My Response:

Yes, "losing" desire is not easy, especially in this day and age as Western Society seems to rest on the foundation of materialism. I don't believe in giving it up, so much as transcending it. I feel that to be a martyr or an atheist is far too extreme. In Zen you may have heard talk about the middle path. This way you can apply Zen to religion (as in Zen Buddhism) or the martial arts, sword-making and to flower-arranging, and motorcycle maintenance (did you ever read that book?). The middle path is where we are totally mindful of what we are doing - in the here and now and allowing (accepting) the results of our efforts (karma) without attachment. Yet, we are attached! So we need to accept our attachment and create a paradoxical intention. That is if we accept it without judgment, we transcend it.

DO NOT get trapped in a cycle of craving approval and fearing rejection. It's a nasty spin cycle of confusion and hurt.

Admiration is a terrible thing.

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