The Koan of the Day

Money is not a goal but the best possible way of human relations.

Zen Intuition: The Ability to Perceive a Situation as a Whole

 See also Zen Intuition

Zen intuition could be considered twofold: first, it's the ability to perceive a situation as a whole; and, secondly, the ability to anticipate the future (usually it's about your future.) In fact, these are two sides of the same coin: if you're perceiving a situation as a whole, every present moment is coming for you from the future, and vice versa. The practice described in this blog just such a perception develops.

The ability to perceive a situation as a whole is what distinguishes a mature person: first of all, it allows you to highlight the essence of the information you're receiving, gives you acumen, and the ability to distinguish any attempt to manipulate you. Whereas fatigue, absent-mindedness, the transition to a more infantile level usually lead to tunnel vision, which very often use all sorts of rascals.

To perceive a situation as a whole means that you're equally aware of all the things you're looking at, but this doesn't mean that while doing this, you don't see the essence of what's happening - quite the contrary - this means that your attention doesn't stick to the details. I came across tests for attention where you're offered to read some text containing, among other things, some figures, and then you're asked to repeat them from memory. Something more stupid is difficult to come up with: in this way you're picking up the habit of focusing attention on the details and not seeing the main things. When you're reading, it's important to see the essence: what happened in the story? Has the situation changed for the better or for the worse? And so on. The figures listed there are as a rule completely unnecessary for you: usually it's just a matter of etiquette to look more convincing.

Sometimes being too mindful can even be harmful

It's equally important to be able to highlight the essence during a conversation, if only because in this case it's often important not what they say, but what they mean. Then if you direct all your attention to what you were told, there is a high risk that anything they say you'll start to take literally and thus become susceptible to deception and manipulation. During a conversation, you should rather understand the true intentions of people: what is behind their words.

Here's a test: https://goodwithpeople.uk/  for how skillful you are in recognizing fraud (from professionals, by the way); their method is about analyzing details - for me it never worked. Even more, deception is often accompanied by suggestion, and if you focus all your attention on the details, then to suggestion you'll become especially susceptible. In my experience, a deceiver or manipulator is often impossible to catch just by looking at the details - every single trait of his or her behavior may not cause any suspicion - in this case, you should look not at the details, and not even at the very interlocutor but at the whole situation; ie, use the technique described here: assess the situation through the point Seika no itten - that is, your intuition is mu: the sense of reality of a professional, shall we say. Then you can go further and try to see the pure female aspect of your interlocutor, as described here and here, and then to understand what is behind it. And remember that people often lie without any rational purpose - just to make an impression.

But my advice, don't try to be (and especially to seem) very insightful during a conversation and leave the analysis for later. A conversation is a game: at times you should be attentive, at times, a bit vague. It's better to seem a bit vague while being skeptical inside. Try to stay neutral and remember well what was discussed and then come home, restore the conversation from memory, and analyze it - for me it works best.

Another important thing you you should keep in mind whenever you try to identify who is standing in front of you is that there are, roughly speaking, two types of people: those who act on their own behalf, and those who act on behalf of some group or corporation (religious propagandists, for example), which often allows them to look pretty confident and convincing (of course, such a division is very arbitrary, and sometimes media exposure, watching a movie, for instance, is enough to make a person fall under the influence of some idea.) Communication with people of the latter type can be especially difficult for you since this mentality is opposite to the mentality of a Zen follower, but in the long run, that reliance which gives them confidence at the same time is their weakest spot - ancient Chan masters were right: ultimately, the lack of support, independence and self-reliance provide much more advantages than dependence and availability of support.

See also Zen Intuition: The Ability to Perceive a Situation as a Whole

It's not enough to say that at the heart of any depression are always ties: depression is the feeling of inability to break some bonds. But in fact, you can break any bonds if you start with the most pleasant and cherished.

We believe we begin to think when we start to reflect on an object or concept; but in fact, when we start to do this we just say to ourselves what we already know, or let's say potentially know, and this potential knowledge is a real mystery.
So in the end, being exhausted by thinking, we have to interrupt our thoughts and return to reality to re-charge the potential. The real mystery, therefore, occurs when we interrupt our thoughts (that's why the word 'intellectual' for me is rather dirty.)

I don't want you to get the impression that I think of myself as a spiritual teacher. Actually, my goal is to write a self-teacher so everyone can achieve enlightenment without any teacher, that is, repeat my experience. For me your enlightenment is your problem, and I can only help you by giving advice via the Internet. In addition, this training doesn't involve any sexual encounters between me and the followers, so I cannot be called a spiritual teacher by definition.

About Me II

About Me

My first word was 'papa' - 'dad' - my father read somewhere that if you whisper in the ear of a sleeping baby words, then in this way you can teach the child to speak. That's how he taught me my first word (although usually for the Russians it's 'mama'- 'mom'.) As it turned out later, that wasn't the end of his experimenting with whispering in my ears; and when I became a teenager and started to fight for my independence, he and my mother began to apply this method for my upbringing. Needless to say that what they whispered to me were only prohibitions (someday, maybe I'll tell you what exactly they whispered: I don't think this can already make me vulnerable.)

General Rules for Overcoming Mental Problems

See also
The Main Obstacle,
One Wonderful Technique,
The Hell Gate 

 and here

At the heart of all mental problems are always ties (attachments in traditional Buddhist terminology); they hinder the expression of your true self, which is a pure negation. By mistake you identify yourself with your attachments, ie, instead of identifying yourself with your potential, you identify with the past. Therefore, in the long term, it makes no sense to separate attachments into 'bad', which cause suffering, and 'good', which cause positive emotions: to get rid of the former, you should start with the later, and there are several general rules how to do this effectively.

The Trouble with Self-Compassion

To get rid of a neurosis, your ego should be changed entirely: you should not cherish it, but, calling things by their proper names, kill it. So there's no room for self compassion. Self compassion can reconcile you with your neurosis but won't solve the very problem (although if someone starts arguing that you should fit in some standards of behaviour, be 'normal' like everybody else, then it's appropriate to recall that you're a unique personality and have the right to your own imperfections.) Even after getting rid of the neurosis, you'll still have crises - and that's great! - and each time you'll face a choice: whether to reconcile yourself with your imperfections or to bring the crisis to the limit, which is a great skill, and get over yourself. This is difficult only with your first neurosis, but then you'll become like Phoenix.

The Four Noble Truths :-)

The First Noble Truth: to reveal your true self, you should just remove the shit that obscures it; and don't be embarrassed by the fact that you have to create nothing but only to destroy.

I remind you that when concentrating on the external world, you should also be fully aware of your body (see Zen Training : Methods and Philosophy by Katsuki Sekida.) Otherwise, no special skills are required ift when focusing on something, you lose the feeling of your body.

And you can really be aware of your body only by denying the outer world - the context - zazen in fact is a total denial of everything. That's why spiritual practices have always attached great importance to such challenges as dousing with cold water, for example. Otherwise, you can easily concentrate on a sexual object, but it will dissolve your self - to what 'elimination of dualism' could this possibly refer?

The Hell Gate

See also
The Main Obstacle,
One Wonderful Technique,

 and here

So, What Makes the Female Aspect So Special? 

Let me remind you my thesis: if you have mental problems, obsessive thoughts, for example, you can't just remove them like a sick tooth leaving everything else as it was: you have to change yourself, change your attitude to the problem - sounds logical, but what does this really mean?

From my own experience of depression, if you feel depressed, in the end you still feel better, and only then you can change something. But if you already feel good, is it necessary to change anything?  And if yes, in what way? The first step, therefore, is to realize that you have problems not only when you're depressed but also when you're feeling high so the recovery will require much greater changes than just getting rid of some unpleasant symptoms. When we're depressed, we're obsessed with unpleasant thoughts, but the very thought obsession usually begins when we're feeling high - that's when we usually get seduced by tempting, happy thoughts, and later when we're exhausted, nightmares overtake us.

This is a general rule: unpleasant thoughts are preceded by pleasant ones; before unpleasant thoughts invade, pleasant thoughts must already prepare the ground for them: make us malleable. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin: pleasant thoughts are the cause of unpleasant - somehow they are associated - there is some reason why we became attached to our nightmares. So to get rid of a neurosis, you should start with its pleasant aspect - this at least will deprive the unpleasant aspect of its energy. What seduces you - I called it the female aspect - acts as a Trojan horse when it comes to entering within you, and the same substance is also the reason why negative experiences associated with it linger inside of you, so to reverse the neurosis, you should start again with its pleasant aspect.

Those dark sides of our personalities that Freud describes (and which shock some so much that they refuse to believe in them) manifest themselves only when we're merging with someone, that is, when we're creating new or maintaining old ties (any relationship, even altruistic, has its dark side.) But this doesn't mean that we're doomed to such duplicity: when seeking independence, we sever ties, we can well be honest with ourselves and others.

I already noted that I don't consider the human personality as a mixture of male and the female substance, as Weininger does. But some Buddhists also believe that to become a Buddha, a men needs to get in touch with his female aspect, a woman with her male. OK, but in any case I don't think that the correct practice should make you homosexual: the trick is to integrate the components properly. And if you meditate by my method, everything fall into place: then you cannot say that you're a man in the classical sense if only because you lose the desire to dominate and no longer worry about your status; on the other hand, you're also not a woman if only because you don't tempt anyone, don't let anyone inside you, and become completely indifferent to what others think of you.

I don't want you to get the impression, from what I wrote, that I see the human personality as a mixture of male and the female substance, as Weininger does. Instead I prefer to think of it as the result of two conflicting desires: the desire to deny the environment (which approximately corresponds to Freud's ego) and the desire to merge with it (which corresponds to id and super-ego.) In particular, the conflict between ego and super-ego is, in other words, the conflict between individual and collective consciousness.

I prefer to talk about bonds, not attachments

It seems that everyone already understands that being attached to things is wrong. But somehow when it comes to attachments to people, especially our relatives and friends, even Buddhists don't dare to call things by their proper names. Therefore, to be clear, I will use the terms 'ties', 'bonds',  instead of 'attachment' whenever possible.

One Wonderful Technique

I continue describing the technique that will allow you to handle your mental problems - if you think you don't have any, perhaps you don't need this practice and this post is a reminder that for that you should already be sufficiently prepared. It's also about why the correct Zen practice is better than psychoanalysis, and in the end, I'll outline in general terms how works the very process of understanding, which would be just pointless philosophizing if in the following posts I weren't be going to give concrete practical recommendations how to have such an experience.

The Main Obstacle

I already wrote that there is also one more thing that I can't disregard anymore since this can hamper your practice. Sometimes you find that it's very difficult to perceive things as they are - truth seems clouded - why is this so, and what can be done in this case? Strangely enough, this can be not only your fault: I won't reveal a secret if I recall that people tend to mislead each other. At a certain stage, your practice should become more versatile, and the question should be put this way: what aspects of the human personality hinder objective perception? In other words, what tends to deceive, and what to be deceived? The technique that I start describing will eventually allow you to understand people, yourself, and even how the very process of understanding works.

When I began practicing Zen (I was 30 then), I tried to achieve objective perception by seeing the world as if I'd been dead; for me, unfortunately, this wasn't enough: there still were people that could mislead me - I believed those masks they were wearing - but you can't become enlightened until everything becomes understandable, your particular case, so I learned to understand people. In a few

A topic for meditation

To control things, we must abandon them (or, at least, be able to abandon.) Otherwise, they control us.

 

I promised you that as I improved my English, I would edit my posts

I promised you that as I improved my English, I would edit my posts. These three are already ready, I think they look much better now:

Perception of Time During Zazen 

http://0zen1.blogspot.fr/2017/01/the-perception-of-time-doing-zazen.html

The Walking Zazen: The Main Trick - Concentrating on the Outer World

http://0zen1.blogspot.fr/2016/03/the-main-trick-walking-zazen_22.html

The Walking Zazen

http://0zen1.blogspot.fr/2016/03/the-walking-zazen.html

Zen Intuition

At the beginning of Zen training, you tried to be just rational - this was necessary to ensure objective perception - but after that, this sense of reality you acquired during the practice, mu, became your new intuition. 

Zen intuition can be considered twofold: first, it's the ability to perceive a situation as a whole; and, secondly, the ability to anticipate the future. In fact, these are two sides of the same coin: if you're perceiving a situation as a whole, every present moment is coming for you from the future, and vice versa. The practice described in this blog just such a perception develops.

The ability to perceive a situation as a whole, first of all, allows you to highlight the essence of the information you're receiving; it also gives you acumen and the ability to distinguish any attempt to manipulate you.

What's So Special about This Meditation Method?

What distinguishes my method from traditional Zen and mindfulness?

The heart of the practice that I propose lies in eliminating the roadblocks that prevent you from experiencing your true self; it's a way of self-realization that you can practise without a coach, and it's suitable even for those for whom it's difficult to concentrate sitting in a static body posture. It's much more understandable, practical, and simple to study than traditional Zen; and at the same time, it's much more radical and effective than trendy mindfulness (but it should be noted it's absolutely incompatible with any religion since it naturally eliminates from your mind any authority that is outside.)

Practising my meditation method doesn't require any moral obligations except the desire to be independent and free - it's all about eliminating the taboos that were imposed on you.

At Least a General Idea of Psychoanalysis You Need to Have

Correct Zen practice, in the long run, is akin to psychoanalysis in many respects: the sense of reality that you attained during zazen, decodes and gives the correct assessment of the thoughts that come to you mind - in this way your self keeps changing. That's why at least a general idea of psychoanalysis you need to have. In addition, those terms that two and a half thousand years ago were introduced by Gautama Buddha for the description of mental processes now are mostly outdated, so it's better to think in the new terms.

Unfortunately, I don't know what to recommend in English on this topic for beginners. If you can read in French or Bulgarian, try these two books by Pierre Daco:

Les Prodigieuses Victoires de la psychologie moderne 

and 

Les triomphes de la psychanalyse -

I read these books in Bulgarian in the 90s when I was in Bulgaria - strongly recommend - they explain psychoanalysis in simple terms, give an idea of its connection with neuroscience and an overview of all mental illnesses: where mind can wander. Try also by the same author

Comprendre les Femmes et leur psychologie profonde -

since I read it, I'm no longer afraid of women! ;-)

I like Freud and Jung (sometimes Freud even more than Jung.)

In addition, for general knowledge, I also recommend Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom and
The Courage to Be Human (especially the chapter THE X EXPERIENCE AS THE MYSTICISM OF THE ONE)
and Eric Berne's Games People Play.

A lovly film

My Comment

 See the link below

This is true but only partly. As a former neurotic - I hope it was just a neurosis - I suffered from my memories. If your subconscious mind is poisoned, you can't ask youself about anytying because your thoughts go in the wrong direction. So instead of asking myself, I had to suppress all my doubts (the main problem was that my fears were primarily associated with my loved ones) this may seem unspiritual, but that's exactly what Zen Buddhists do during dzazden. Surprisingly, as a result, I didn't get in some kind of vacuum: the very denial gave me the understanding of what was happening around so I began to feel free from my past: it didn't matter to me anymore.

If your past no longer determines the present, then you have a choice. The truth is that we're not only our past, but also our potential, that is, the future - at least until we're denying the past.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/memory-hacker-implant-false-memories-in-peoples-minds-julia-shaw-memory-illusion  

The Perception of Time during Zazen

If you're perceiving a situation as a whole (while doing zazen, for example), you have a different from the usual perception of time: then each present moment is coming from the future - I'm not discovering anything new: this has already been described in Zen literature. And sometimes, by the way, you can use this perception as a gimmick to achieve the desired mental state when doing zazen: just be a receiver of what is coming from the future.

Some may argue that all we see is the past: for light it takes some time to pass from the object you're looking at to the eyes. This is true, but during zazen, you experience the real anticipation of the future. And this anticipation is exactly the reason why you begin to understand what you see without thinking: you begin to understand what's happening around when you see what will happen next.* Practising just sitting zazen, such a change in time perception is difficult to notice; but if you're doing the Walking Zazen (when you're moving, or changing, in other words, the whole situation with the legs), it becomes obvious.

From Einstein's point of view, past, present, and future are equally real and all exist simultaneously; there is no real difference between them, so there should be no difference for you where the present comes from - from the past, or the future - your destiny is already defined. But in fact, there is such a difference, and this can only be possible if there are different future scenarios, that is, if the future can be changed - that's why it makes sense to think of the future as of the Potential.

At some point of your practice, you may find that having a choice sets you free from your past (since your present is no longer determined by it.) However, it should be noted that the past can also be changed in the sense that you can change your attitude to it so for you it will have a different meaning.

The result of your practice may be the feeling that there are two opposing time's arrows, and the present moment is their intersection; sometimes the present is determined by the past, sometimes by the future (actually, if there is the oppositely directed time's arrow that manifests itself only on a large scale 'from the top', it cannot be detected empirically 'from the bottom'.) This doesn't mean that the goal of your practice should be about trying to predict the future, but somehow you'll learn to anticipate it intuitively. Particularly don't try to predict playing cards or dice: this will just drain you mentally. And, by the way, the weather and women's intentions are two things that I never could guess.

At some stage, your practice will go beyond the present moment and become mainly about understanding, which is the feeling of the future, present, and past at the same time. Therefore, in the long run, you should not discard anything, neither the past nor future, but just integrate everything you have properly: by denying it. Otherwise, without practising understanding, the result of your practice won't differ from the result of brain damage (due to a stroke, for example) although it may well give you a feeling of happiness: for the record, many Buddhists are satisfied with just turning off the left hemisphere.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Usually we control a situation by controlling several key objects which, we believe, determine the situation. But while perceiving a situation as a whole, you don't control any particular object but just intuitively feel how the overall situation is going to change - for example, then you observe not what your opponent is going to do but what is going to happen as a result - you anticipate the future.

If you are inclined to self harm

The healthiest way to self harm, I think, is to take an ice cold shower. Especially if the water hits your back between the blades and above.

Your New Intuition

After practising being only rational, Mu became your new intuiton (I hope you've already realized that.) But keep on making sure it correctly reflects reality.