Have you ever found your practice being boring?

Don't think that haven't written anything in my blog recently because I've run out of topics and ideas - not at all. The matter is that I'm going to make some changes in my life, and I won't write anything serious until things got sorted (hopefully it won't take long). Even so, one exception I'll probably make: I want to comment on Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.

All the same, for now, to keep the ball rolling and to cheer you up I'm going to give you practical advice. Have you ever found your practice being boring: that sometimes it was boring for you to concentrate on the present? I bet you have, and that was because you did it wrong. If you practise correctly (ie as I recommend 😉👍), you'll never get bored, even when you're staring at a wall!

The trick is that focusing on something, you have to anticipate the future. It's this anticipation that makes your practice interesting, intriguing, and spiritual. Spiritual, because eventually you start to feel that there's some hidden mystery behind all this you're watching that you must solve.

About One Feature of Our Time

Have you ever noticed that journalists and bloggers tend to post their content on certain days? Indeed, there're days favorable for publication on certain topics, and there're days that are not, and astrology has nothing to do with this. It's the media every day affect and change the public mood so journalists just catch the moment when the mood of their potential readers is most favorable for accepting their ideas, which in turn enhances the effect in question further.

Zen Intuition: The Ability to Anticipate the Future

 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

Zen Intuition: The Ability to Anticipate the Future

 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

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

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.

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?

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

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.
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*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.

Understanding

Maybe doing zazen, you have an unpleasant feeling if other people are next to you. In that case, you should understand why this is so: it might be not your fault. In other words, you should understand who those people are (in which way and why they influence you), and for this you should deny them, that is, just continue to do zazen. If you do everything right, then as a result, you'll have the feeling that they are your particular case, or, more precisely, that the whole situation around is your particular case, unless a thought occurs to you, which means you've failed to comprehend the situation.

Working on Mu

One of the few books about Zen that I recommend you is Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy by Katsuki Sekida, and I once already referred to the chapter 'Working on Mu', now you can reread it.

What is Mu? This is the first koan, and Sekida gives the answer: '"Mu" means "nothing"'. And he is right: there is no point to hide the answer since you have to prove your competence only to yourself; and the answer, I believe, should be even more specific because Mu is the basis on which the further practice is built.

Physical Exercise Can Be as Effective as Zazen

Properly performed, physical exercise give the same effect as walking meditation, and for this, you should feel like an immovable centre relative to which you're moving everything around.

Let's Die! :-)

Your goal is to see things as they really are - you'll solve all your problems by doing this.

There is an archetype, or let's say a point of view within, that if you look from it, you perceive reality correctly (and even become identical to it). It can be either the point Seika no Itten or the Opposite Point (on the spine exactly at this level of Seika no Itten.) Which of these two points it's better to choose depends on which one it's easier for you to find at the moment. From either of these points you can evaluate what's happening around.

Over time, you naturally come to the understanding that this new viewpoint is not compatible with your former immature self must die: this is an obligatory part of Zen practice, and as I understand, through this go even those who work with koans.

This technique will enable you to see the world as if for the first time without any emotional coloring. When doing the walking zazen, imagine that you're dead, and it's your spirit is travelling unnoticed (this exercise makes sense only if you feel like an immovable centre relative to which you're moving everything around with the legs.) How does everything around you look now? As for me, having a neurosis, I was glad to get rid of my former self; I really loved being dead! This is a curious experience, which some even confuse with enlightenment. Enlightenment comes later: having gone through all this, you should finally resurrect but in a new quality.

At this stage, try to live just by reason, not intuition; try to see the world as if you saw it for the first time; try to see people only as some amount of flesh and bones.

What Should Be the Result of the Correct Practice?

This is my comment on the article see the link below. It's worth it to comment since that path of reductionism that some Buddhists practise is inherently flawed and leads to delusions. The same practice - being in the present moment - if performed incorrectly, can lead to the opposite result.

Our entire lives are nothing but a chain of moments in which we perceive one sight, taste, smell, touch, sound, feeling, or thought after another. Outside of this process, nothing else happens.

Such reductionism means that the author lost the sense of integrity of the situation - to what enlightenment could this possibly refer? Enlightenment is an understanding of a situation in its entirety, so the path of reductionism is inherently flawed. First, it's not correct to say that when it comes to Zen mind, you perceive just the object you're looking at: you perceive the whole situation at once. Secondly, the same applies to the perception of time: it's true that understanding can only be achieved through the present moment (this is so because we understand by denying, which is a pure sensation of the present moment), but understanding is in fact grasping a situation in its past, present and future at the same time.

There is no place for understanding in the author's scheme. Liberation is the result of the final understanding: as soon as you recognize yourself (the universe recognizes itself), the world doesn't scare you anymore.

At this stage, try to live just by reason, not intuition...

At this stage, try to live just by reason, not intuition. Try to see the world as if you saw it for the first time. At the beginning, try to see people only as some amount of flesh and bones.

Looking from the Darkness behind You

There is another trick for beginners: sometimes instead of focusing on the point Seika no Itten or on the Animal, you may find it's easier to concentrate on your back, which will enable you to feel the whole body. That is, you can concentrate on your back and as a result be aware of the whole body.

This works especially well if you're doing the walking zazen: try to see the world from your back (from shoulder level to the tailbone) through the eye sockets - ie, try to see from the darkness behind you while pulling the road towards you with the legs. Remember, you can be fully aware of your body and of the outer world at the same time if and only if you feel like an immovable centre relative to which you move everything around (with the legs, for example.) Over time, in this way you'll learn to think with your body.