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

Thursday, May 8, 2025

For Me, This is One of the Most Useful Koans

To be a Zen practitioner, or as some say, to be on a transformative journey of self-discovery and self-understanding, you need a compass because it's very easy to stray from the right path. There are lots of controversial ideas around; and sometimes you yourself will come up with some guesses as to how the psyche and the Universe work, which could turn out to be mistaken. But there's a koan, I call it a koan, that can immediately dispel the bulk of all delusions and ensure that, despite all possible doubts, you'll generally stay on the right path. Here it is: ALL AUTHORITY COMES FROM WITHIN.

Indeed, your main enemy is the superego, which is responsible for most suffering. If it isn't properly integrated into your psyche, it will produce a conflict between the individual and the collective, creating the impression, or illustration, that there is some sort of superpower above you.

It's often said that through Zen practice we tame the ego, but in more specific Freudian terms, it's the superego that we should focus on, since it's the main source of all delusions and causes us the greatest problems that we are destined to solve (these problems usually reveal themselves as some forms of mental disorder).

To be precise, during practice, we first of all try to tame the id in order to be able to put the superego in its place. Without the later, you'll never understand who you really are and achieve enlightenment; and this koan is, in fact, about the superego.

This makes the correct practice of Zen even more radical than atheism: atheism simply states the fact that there is no such thing as God, while Zen emphasises that the very idea of any authority outside of you is the main obstacle to truth, freedom, and enlightenment -- in other words, to realising WHO YOU REALLY ARE (I write this in capital letters because this is a koan too).

Some of you might have thought, when reading my posts, such as those on Zen intuition, that this was something akin to religious practice; but in fact, it's exactly the opposite. The correct Zen practice can be rather described as anti-religious: it comes from within and denies any authority from outside. I'm aware there were attempts to merge Zen with christianity, but this was the most foolish thing that a real Zen practitioner could imagine, since it's impossible to reconcile these two.

So, check yourself: ALL AUTHORITY COMES FROM WITHIN.

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