What is Zen? It is at the same time what a person is, his true essence, expressed outward moment by moment, and what he does, the practice of self-discipline, through which it becomes possible to know the joy of existence. It is not a belief system to be accepted. There are no dogmas and doctrines in this spiritual practice. Zen is the direct experience of what is sometimes called the ultimate reality or the absolute, yet it cannot be separated from the ordinary, the relative. This direct experience is available to everyone by birthright. The practice of "zazen" - meditation - allows you to realize the unambiguous, bright, complex nature of all life hidden from worldly eyes.
The birth 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 of Buddha Shakyamuni. The word "buddha" has the simplest meaning - "awakened". The great teaching of the Indian prince is that everyone is capable of awakening, that fundamentally everyone is a buddha -Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, secular.
With this flexible and consistent attitude towards different cultures and beliefs on its way, Buddhism covered all the countries of Asia. In China, it merged with Taoism and evolved into "chan", the Chinese concept of meditation, which became "Zen" in Japanese. During the last decades, Zen Buddhism has been integrated into Western culture as well. 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 the unconditional happen at the same time, the absolute and the relative are the same. From this awareness, natural sympathy and wisdom are born, a peaceful and intuitively correct reaction to any external circumstances. Zen is not a phenomenon, Buddhists don't even consider it a religion. When the Dalai Lama answered a question about what Buddhism was, he simply called kindness his religion.
Zen State
And yet, the state of Zen - what is it? Stop. Stop trying to comprehend with the mind that which cannot be understood intellectually - simply because such depths are not accessible to rational thinking. Just take a fully conscious breath. Feel it. Feel grateful that you are able to breathe. Nowexhale - slowly, with understanding. Let go of all the air, feel "nothing". Breathe in gratitude, breathe out love. Receiving and giving are what we do with each inhalation and exhalation. Zen is a transformative practice of breathing with full awareness of every moment, with a regular basis.
Know thyself
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 most ordinary people is that they consider these artificial restrictions to be the essence of their personality and unchanging individuality.
And really: who do you think you are? If you think deeply about this question, it will turn into a koan - a meaningless phrase that contributes to immersion in meditation and sounds like "who am I?". You will find that the conventional opinions and compulsive traits that society has come to think of as individuality have no fixed substance.
Through consistent zazen, a person is able to free himself from self-proclaimed individuality and find his true self - an open and confident being, not constrained by any obstacles, flowing with all that exists at every single moment. That is why it is absolutely natural for all people to take care of the environment, starting with their own actions: preventing the waste of the planet's precious resources, realizing that every action has consequences. This awareness intuitively spreads to the whole world around us. Zen Buddhistsstrive to live with attention to everyone, integrity, reality; they want to free all sentient beings from suffering.
The Four Noble Truths
Renouncing worldly life and sitting under a tree to meditate, the Buddha attained enlightenment. He put the teachings of Zen in plain language in the form of four principles, or four noble truths.
First Truth: Life means suffering
Until the age of 29, Prince Siddhartha remained imprisoned within the four walls of his father's castle. When he first went out into the street, he saw four spectacles that left a deep mark on his tender and naive soul. They were a newborn baby, an old cripple, a sick person and a dead person.
The prince, who grew up in luxury and was unaware of the existence of death and grief outside the palace, was amazed 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.
The Buddha realized that throughout life, every person 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 a person simply because he is subject to desires. If you manage to get the object of desire, you can experience joy or satisfaction, but these emotions are very fleeting and fast.disappear. If the pleasure lasts too long, it becomes monotonous and sooner or later gets boring.
Three truths about desires
Second Noble Truth: Attachment is the root of suffering.
To avoid suffering, you need to realize what is their root cause. As the Buddha stated, the main cause of psycho-emotional experiences is attachment to desires to possess (craving, thirst) and not to possess (rejection, disgust).
All people tend 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: Ending suffering can be achieved.
According to the Buddha, the end of suffering can be achieved by regularly practicing non-attachment to desires. Freedom from torment clears the mind of worries and worries. In Sanskrit, this state is called nirvana.
The Fourth Noble Truth: One must walk the path to the end of suffering.
Nirvana can be achieved by leading a balanced life. To do this, you must follow the Eightfold Path, which is a gradual cultivation.
Zen is the first step on the Eightfold Path.
