What is your life's purpose?

[lightmystic]

I relate to what you're saying Zendancer. I met a lot of amazing teachers too. In fact, I was obsessed with spiritual literature until I eventually got annoyed because they were already just talking about the same thing, which was what I was already experiencing and had already been pointed to so many times.

It's nice when teachers can relax into it enough to have fun and enjoy it...Zen has always been a tradition that I've appreciated....

[divinity]

zendancer... what is the truth that you found in your 35 year search?

[zendancer]

Divinity: I discovered that I was not who I had THOUGHT I was. I discovered that who I AM was here before the universe began and will be here after the universe is gone. Who I AM is the incomprehensible and unimaginable field of being in which this universe has momentarily appeared.

Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am." The same is true for you, and here's what's really funny; at this moment, you are reading a message from you to yourself. There are not two here.

[divinity]

zendancer... what you say is very in keeping with Zen. Do you think you may have found what you had been looking for? I think it's common for those who follow a particular religion. Were you raised as a Buddhist, or did you find Zen as an adult?

[shane]

OUSPENSKY THOUGHT HUMANS WERE FOOD FOR THE LUNAR(MOON)- a better question, IMO, would be, is there even an us?SOMEONE ASKED MAHARSHI ONCE ABOUT DEATH AND IS THEIR LIFE AFTER IT, TO WHICH HE REPLIED, QUESTION YOUR BIRTH NOT YOUR DEATH! If you look at humans objectively we must admit to alot of fear, hate exploitation, manipulation etc. I understand there is also compassion and kind acts which are done without thinking(spontaneously) Love on the other hand I see as I give something and I get something back(most of it mentally). So I believe we should take a closer look at our species and how destructive we are and that possibly our purpose is to destroy-I don't know. Good luck but I don't think your mind/thoughts will help you in this enquiry

[fear]

Shane, you should join this forum.... Jedi hand sweep...

No seriously you should. There are few places where people like us that seek the truth can congregate. Especially if you are familiar with Ouspensky and Maharshi.

[zendancer]

Divinity: I encountered Zen at the age of thirty-one and read about Zen and enlightenment for the next nine years. I intuited that various Zen Masters had found what I was looking for, but I had no idea how to find what they had found. Then, at the age of forty, I began doing a simple Zen breath-counting exercise to relieve stress. Within two weeks I realized that the exercise was affecting how I perceived reality (it was causing me to shift from interacting with the world through my intellect to interacting with it directly through my senses). In increased the practice to three hours per day, and five months later I had a mind-blowing enlightenment experience. It took fifteen more years of silent retreats and contemplation before all of my questions were answered and my search came to an end.

In retrospect, I appreciate the Zen tradition and all of the wonderful people I met along the way, but the Advaita Vedanta tradition ended up having more appeal to me. Zen is a bit rigid in its approach and many of the rituals and practices it encouorages are unnecessary for finding the truth. You can wake up as a result of daily walks in the countryside as easily as sitting in the lotus position. Having said that, I had many funny experiences when I was going on Zen retreats and most of the Zen Masters I met had terrific senses of humor. If you keep an open mind, you can have a lot of laughs in that tradition.

I ended up forming a church for people who are interested in contemplation but not interested in any formal religious tradition. We get together on Sunday morning to share experiences, discuss books and teachings, meditate together, etc. Ironically, the IRS had a tough time accepting us as a church because we did not demand exclusivity. We don;t care if people go to forty different churches; they can still join us if they want to. It took the IRS many months before they issued a ruling and accepted us as a church. The process was pretty funny, but I felt like, "hey, if the Baptists and Catholics can have a church, why can't we?" LOL.

[zendancer]

Shane: You make a lot of good points, and like Fear said, you should hang around. This is one of the most interesting websites for discussing reality, truth, enlightenment, etc.

I'm not quite sure what you meant about "love," but the most important kind of love is what the early Greeks called "agape." If you love in this way, then it is freely given and you expect nothing in return. It is a selfless kind of love. If your wife or girlfriend ran off with another man, would you still love her and wish her only the best? If you could remain happy because she was happy, that's agape. The Greeks recognized four other types of love, but agape was what they called the highest form of love. We might call it "cosmic love."

[divinity]

That's what more people need and deserve: non profit status! Good for you Zendancer!
Can you describe the breathing exercise for us?
Thanks in advance

[zendancer]

Divinity: The easiest form of meditation is a mantra. You simply repeat some phrase over and over in your head. A common mantra is "om mani padme hum," but "coca-cola yum yum," will work almost as well. Mantras are helpful for people who have very out of control minds.

Another meditation, and the one most favored in Zen traditions for beginning students, is breath counting. There are ten different ways to do this, but here is a simple one. Get comfortably seated, fold your hands in your lap, look down at a 45 degree angle, half-close your eyes, unfocus your eyes, and then slowly expel the air in your lungs a bit more than usual by using your diaphragm. Count the exhalation, "One." Then inhale slowly, exhale slowly and count "two." Repeat this process until you get to ten exhalations, and then start again at "one." If you lose the count, then start over. Some people like to count every inhalation and exhalation. Some people count only the inhalations.

After mastering breath counting, then try the same exercise without the counting. This gets rid of words in your head. Just watch the breathing process in silence. Feel how the air comes into your body and leaves it. Focus so intensely that "you" disappear into the breathing process.

Another exercise is to listen to whatever you can hear. Turn your body into a big ear. If thoughts interrupt, as soon as you recognize what's happened, gently return to listening.

After your mind has calmed down sufficiently, you can experiment with "shika taza," or pure awareness with no specific focus. It is like sitting in a hostile jungle at night surrounded by dangerous animals. You heighten your alertness and awareness to maximum intensity as if in preparation for an imminent attack.

There are many other kinds of non-concepetual awareness practices, and you can experiment to find out which ones appeal to you. Just going for a walk outdoors or in the woods and paying attention to sensory phenomena is an enjoyable kind of meditation, and it can be very effective in changing one's habits of mind.

Experiment and have fun. Cheers.

[fear]

It's funny, I discovered some of those techniques on my own, well sort of, nothing is really on your own, but anyway, the awareness of breath is one of the most helpful to me. I find that it can be applied to almost anything, from being afraid to solving a problem because it blocks out a lot of unnecessary thoughts, and in that silence there is some clarity.

[zendancer]

Yes, and that's the reason that a lot of holistic doctors recommend breath awareness. Dr. Weill and many other docs tell people that if they get into stressful situations, they can focus on their breathing, and it will lead to calmness and clarity very quickly. It induces what some researchers have called "the relaxation response." It is even taught to people with high blood pressure as a natural way to bring the pressure down.

[vacant]

I practiced breath awareness with serious application for a good number of years and found it VERY beneficial on many counts, like calming the thoughts frenzy, developing a stronger certitude that I am not my thoughts nor their contents nor my emotions, and in general making the inner landscape more dispassionate in a way that seems healthy to me —read peaceful— and yes, Fear, it does lay the ground for some welcome clarity.

But then I came to a point —say a year and a half ago or so— where I felt that those exercises weren't doing it quite the way they use to and as I got into reading Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Richard Rose, Huang Po, Nisargadatta, and more recently this blessed forum I started to get a message, or perhaps a call toward developing intuitive understanding.

Now right there I think is an important question: is this a genuine inner call or a tricky ego fooling my judgment to take me away from practices that DO bring some results which this tricky ego doesn't welcome? In other words, am I making excuses in order to keep the ignorant dream going? See what I mean?

Well, form is ever changing and my current exercise is an endeavor to cling to none of it (thoughts, opinions, aspiration toward awakening, etc) just drop, drop, drop as soon as I can remember, or as Nisargadatta puts it, proceed as if walking in a crowd, steadily but steering to avoid ANY collision!

So... Thumbs up to mantras to counting breath to breath awareness to "shika taza" —thanks for a very useful post Zendancer— when you feel you should DO something, and on to other inner contortioning processes when you find there really isn't much one can DO at all...

[zendancer]

Vacant: "Is this a genuine inner call or a tricky ego fooling me....?" That's a good koan, but I'll save you the time of solving it. Don;t second guess yourself. As one of my favorite Zen Masters used to say, "Only go straight, 100%, don;t know!" In other words, trust however it is you are being called, and go into the unknown like a warrior. If you're called to read Nisargadatta, just do it. If you're called to meditate, just do it. If you're called to stand on your head, just do it. LOL. In this way you'll develop trust in the intuitive intelligence of your body. The more often you act without reflection in response to an inner call, the easier it will be to act like that in the future. After a while, you'll stop second-guessing what's happening and you'll become psychologically unified. You'll be able to confidently stand in your truth regardless of what anyone else thinks. Keep in mind the Nike commercial---just do it!

[divinity]

Who is Maharshi?

Zen... Thanks for the tips on mind-quieting. Ignoring the wild ox is easier than wrestling it to the ground.

Good to see that many people read these posts even if they don't post. This information is becoming more interesting to the general public. A good sign I think!