One simple method of Zen training that allowed me to overcome my post-traumatic stress disorder and unleash creativity. And reading the blog from the beginning, you can practise it without a teacher

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Common Mistakes in Zen Practice

This is my comment on the article see the link below.

There is always the temptation to accept bliss as truth along with other mistakes that can interfere with our practice.

First of all, as I understand, only some know how to apply the experience of sitting meditation to the realities of everyday life, ie, when the body is in motion. In addition, doing just sitting meditation and focusing on the tandem, you can easily make mistakes in what you've found (the very sensation in the tanden) and accepted as truth. So it makes sense to be more precise and to focus specifically on the point Seika-no-Itten located in the lower abdomen below the navel at a distance of the thickness of three of your fingers: index, middle, and ring (although if you know how to do zazen properly, you can concentrate even on the palm, for example.)

There are also several traditional annoying inaccuracies that arise when Buddhists try to convey their experience to others. One of them is the advice not to separate yourself and the object (situation) you're watching. In principle, it's true but not so simple. For instance, you can easily merge with a sexual object or dissolve your self while being in a stadium or a rock concert.

If you give advice, you have to be more precise: non-separation in this case means separation brought to its limit: Zen meditation is just a total denial of everything, and non-separation you achieve through this denial. In addition, many followers are just trying to turn off the left hemisphere, so the result of their practice is rather akin to brain damage. The emphasis, therefore, should be done on understanding instead.

Another inaccuracy, or rather a mistake, is the idea that a follower, supposedly, should always show love. One of the reasons for this may be the fact that if you practise in a secluded place, you can easily lose the realistic idea of people and start to feel overwhelmed with love for them though in fact you fell in love not with real people but just with your idea of them, which actually means with yourself (I met monks who preached love, but in my opinion, they weren't completely honest with yourselves and others.)

Love is the result of lots of energy, so if a beginner shows lack of energy, showing love is not desirable. I read somewhere that love in Buddhist practice is a mean to destroy the ego. I don't think this is the shortest way to truth, especially if someone already had problems and agreed with the First Noble Truth. So if he or she hardened in this situation, it's OK and only natural. And even for a Zen Buddhist it's difficult to reconcile love with the idea of non-attachment unless you, consciously or unconsciously, delude yourself and others.
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Bliss is a By-Product

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