See also Zen Intuition and Zen Intuition: The Ability to Perceive a Situation as a Whole
Zen intuition in particular manifests itself as the ability to anticipate the future (usually it's limited to what concerns you), and in this cese it enables you to understand a situation without thinking: you begin to understand what is happening around when you see what will happen next. But very often stupidity is the inability to see what will happen in the long run, which is not the case for Zen mind: in fact, Zen intuition, that is, mu, is also the understanding of what you should do in the long term although often you cannot predict what exactly in the long term will happen; it also entails an exciting and rather extravagant way of living - if you have nothing against this, Zen practice will make you a wise fool: you'll know exactly what to do though without knowing why* - you're not a prophet - but on the other hand, you'll also know what determines the expediency of your actions.**
The ability to anticipate the future is also directly related to creativity. You cannot create anything
fundamentally new empirically. A new model, the very principle, must appear at once as a whole - as if somewhere it had already been ready - only then the details become clear: you have the impression that the thought process in this case comes from the future to present. My Zen method just trains such type of thinking: for example, while doing sitting or walking zazen, imagine that you're a receiver of what is coming from the future (this is not a special exercise for the development of creative thinking but just one of the ways of doing zazen; sometimes if you're in the right mood, you can do it this way.)
This practice goes even further. I already wrote here and here that severing ties is the reason for the understanding of what was behind them - not vice versa as psychoanalysis declares - I can only explain this by the fact that there is the oppositely directed time’s arrow. But even more interesting is that the same principle is also applicable to abstract ideas and concepts. Indeed, a new idea as a rule appears in place of old ideas; even more, a new idea sometimes emerges as a result of the destruction of an old concept: as if the latter had channeled your thoughts directing them in a certain direction and thus not letting go beyond its limits.
Of course, not all destructions lead to the emergence of a new: for this the problem you're working on must be shifted to the level of your subconscious mind; it must become grafted upon you; in other words, you have to be a professional in this field - the concept must be destroyed from within because you've overgrown it. Having this, sometimes it's enough just to destroy the old idea, sometimes even you can imagine it as a female image, to understand the crux of the matter; note that this is not a religious, as one might suspect, but in fact an anti-religious feeling since it's only available to those who don't belong to any group, corporation, brotherhood, etc, ie to those for whom all authority comes from within.*** Having appeared, a new idea opens a new space of possibilities that can already be refined: developed empirically.
Of course, there is a distance between working on your personal problems (when you find that severing ties is the reason for the understanding of what was behind them) and working in the same way on generally accepted rational and often abstract ideas and concepts. This gap can be bridged not so much by sitting in Lotus or Seiza postures as by the very way of living:***** such intuition is only accessible to those who can afford the lifestyle that as the main goal implies non-conformism and the desire for personal independence, which is a manifestation of the denial of the context, so don't be surprised that none of the modern Zen masters mention this (by the way, one of the main principles of ancient Chan masters do not make yourself a support now no-one mentions either.) If you try to live this way, you will soon find that you can create nothing at all but only destroy****** (see the Four Noble Truths.) Surprisingly, as a result, you somehow don't get stuck in a dead end, but instead new opportunities open constantly for you. Therein, I believe, also lies the secret of creativity: there is no need to think up anything since everything already potentially exists so the only trick is to understand how the universe really works.
------------------------------
*This is similar to what physicists call the shortest trajectory, which in turn means that everyone in principle has such an optimal time line, and they all somehow harmoniously coexist in space and time.
**This blog is not the result of pursuing some lofty goal or expediency but just my whim.
.*** See also Erich Fromm: The Courage to Be Human: 117-28.
****The oppositely directed time’s arrow also means anti-entropy.
*****There are two main shortcomings of sitting meditation: firstly, practising only it, you can easily make a mistake in what you have taken for truth; secondly, even if you're doing everything right, it's very difficult to understand how this experience to apply in real life when the body is in motion, ie what this experiense actually means; on the other hand, all these difficulties are easily overcome by practising the walking zazen method.
******If I'm not mistaken, this was also mentioned by Tibetan Buddhists.
Zen intuition in particular manifests itself as the ability to anticipate the future (usually it's limited to what concerns you), and in this cese it enables you to understand a situation without thinking: you begin to understand what is happening around when you see what will happen next. But very often stupidity is the inability to see what will happen in the long run, which is not the case for Zen mind: in fact, Zen intuition, that is, mu, is also the understanding of what you should do in the long term although often you cannot predict what exactly in the long term will happen; it also entails an exciting and rather extravagant way of living - if you have nothing against this, Zen practice will make you a wise fool: you'll know exactly what to do though without knowing why* - you're not a prophet - but on the other hand, you'll also know what determines the expediency of your actions.**
The ability to anticipate the future is also directly related to creativity. You cannot create anything
fundamentally new empirically. A new model, the very principle, must appear at once as a whole - as if somewhere it had already been ready - only then the details become clear: you have the impression that the thought process in this case comes from the future to present. My Zen method just trains such type of thinking: for example, while doing sitting or walking zazen, imagine that you're a receiver of what is coming from the future (this is not a special exercise for the development of creative thinking but just one of the ways of doing zazen; sometimes if you're in the right mood, you can do it this way.)
This practice goes even further. I already wrote here and here that severing ties is the reason for the understanding of what was behind them - not vice versa as psychoanalysis declares - I can only explain this by the fact that there is the oppositely directed time’s arrow. But even more interesting is that the same principle is also applicable to abstract ideas and concepts. Indeed, a new idea as a rule appears in place of old ideas; even more, a new idea sometimes emerges as a result of the destruction of an old concept: as if the latter had channeled your thoughts directing them in a certain direction and thus not letting go beyond its limits.
Of course, not all destructions lead to the emergence of a new: for this the problem you're working on must be shifted to the level of your subconscious mind; it must become grafted upon you; in other words, you have to be a professional in this field - the concept must be destroyed from within because you've overgrown it. Having this, sometimes it's enough just to destroy the old idea, sometimes even you can imagine it as a female image, to understand the crux of the matter; note that this is not a religious, as one might suspect, but in fact an anti-religious feeling since it's only available to those who don't belong to any group, corporation, brotherhood, etc, ie to those for whom all authority comes from within.*** Having appeared, a new idea opens a new space of possibilities that can already be refined: developed empirically.
For the
manifestation of the self and for the very process of thinking, the
context is necessary: the collective unconscious (in this case I prefer
the Jungian terminology to Freudian) and the collective conscious (by
this I mean humankind's accumulated ideas and experience.) Severing ties is in
fact the destruction of the context's elements - or of the the matrix, as I call it - and it is close to what Richard Dawkins calls memes. Text and context should not merge;
the self manifests itself as a denial: as the denial of images of the
inner world and the environment (as the immune system.) Without this negation, we begin to follow our thought stream, daydreaming, and the self
dissolves. With practice, it will also become obvious to you that this negation means the oppositely directed time’s arrow;**** it makes sense, therefore, to think of the self as the Potential.
The Lifestyle
The Lifestyle
Of course, there is a distance between working on your personal problems (when you find that severing ties is the reason for the understanding of what was behind them) and working in the same way on generally accepted rational and often abstract ideas and concepts. This gap can be bridged not so much by sitting in Lotus or Seiza postures as by the very way of living:***** such intuition is only accessible to those who can afford the lifestyle that as the main goal implies non-conformism and the desire for personal independence, which is a manifestation of the denial of the context, so don't be surprised that none of the modern Zen masters mention this (by the way, one of the main principles of ancient Chan masters do not make yourself a support now no-one mentions either.) If you try to live this way, you will soon find that you can create nothing at all but only destroy****** (see the Four Noble Truths.) Surprisingly, as a result, you somehow don't get stuck in a dead end, but instead new opportunities open constantly for you. Therein, I believe, also lies the secret of creativity: there is no need to think up anything since everything already potentially exists so the only trick is to understand how the universe really works.
------------------------------
*This is similar to what physicists call the shortest trajectory, which in turn means that everyone in principle has such an optimal time line, and they all somehow harmoniously coexist in space and time.
**This blog is not the result of pursuing some lofty goal or expediency but just my whim.
.*** See also Erich Fromm: The Courage to Be Human: 117-28.
****The oppositely directed time’s arrow also means anti-entropy.
*****There are two main shortcomings of sitting meditation: firstly, practising only it, you can easily make a mistake in what you have taken for truth; secondly, even if you're doing everything right, it's very difficult to understand how this experience to apply in real life when the body is in motion, ie what this experiense actually means; on the other hand, all these difficulties are easily overcome by practising the walking zazen method.
******If I'm not mistaken, this was also mentioned by Tibetan Buddhists.
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