Ommmm…..Ommmmm….what? Oh! Sorry, I was practicing my daily Zen meditation.
When you think of Zen you probably think of monks meditating on a secluded mountain, wearing
robes, eating nothing but rice. And while you may be right about some of that – Zen
is just so much more. Or, maybe they would say less.
Zen’s a belief system that first developed in China over 1500 years ago and became a
super important philosophy in throughout East Asia and particularly in Japan. One could
think of Zen as a mixture of Taoism and Buddhism. It places a strong emphasis on something can
Zazen – which loosely translated – means meditation.
Just like in Taoism, Zen does not focus on the accumulation of knowledge. Instead it’s
main focus is to stay present in the moment without judging anything. We in the west might
think about this as going with the flow. The philosopher Alan Watts describe the mindset
of Zen as: “there is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there,
one cannot live anywhere.” Meaning that for people who practice Zen their main goal
is to be perfectly in tune with the present moment and to enjoy it to its fullest – to
a Zen master, eating a grain of rice is just as satisfying as purchasing the most luxurious
car. Another key idea of Zen is about trying to
clear the mind in order to enter a state of no thought. However, doing this in a way that
requires no effort is key. In fact, “trying” is the wrong word to use. In Zen it is thought
that one cannot listen if they are thinking about their listening – one can’t let
go of oneself if one is trying to let go. Instead of thinking about doing something
then, Zen requires a person to just do it – to just listen or just let go – this
is also a form of Zazen – or what we call meditation.
Many might think of Zen as a passive philosophy, where one just sits back and lets life dictate
their journey. However, this would be a misunderstanding. Zen is as much about the spontaneity of life
as it is about discipline and control. In fact there is no contradiction between the
two. It is true there is chance in nature. But the human element of control is just as
natural as the actions of the wildest of animals. Watts explains that from this standpoint,
“artistic technique is discipline in spontaneity and spontaneity in discipline.” In other
words in our work, our lives, our art, we must practice being disciplined about being
spontaneous and we have to be spontaneous in our discipline.
Now – I’m going to head back into a state of Zazen. Ooommmm….oommmm.
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