Zen

As a devout person I shun those practices dedicated to false gods and those teachings that are contrary to my faith. As a thinking person I recognize that every culture and every religion has some truth. I try to embrace truth wherever it comes from. As a martial artist I was exposed early on to Zen and the practice of meditation. While I am devout in my Christian faith, I believe Zen offers a traditional wisdom that has been discovered by many cultures in many ages.

Zen is partially a school of psychology and such aims at the direct experience of life. Zen postulates that there are three 'thought actions', the first is sensation, the second perception and the third conception. Our sensory systems receive data but it's not until we become aware of the data that we perceive it. Our conception is what we think, how we feel etc., about our perceptions. I can pick up an apple but until I perceive that I have done so it is only un-interpreted sensory data. Once perceived..."it is an apple" I then process...I like apples, they taste good, so I think I'll bite into this one.


It is the last, our conception stage that can become a problem. I can harbor preconceived notions about my apple that can alter my perception of it. That is what can interfere with my direct experience of life. The person who thinks of bears as warm and cuddly will conceive of them quite differently than someone who thinks of them as wild animals that can rip your arm off. The reaction that these two people have when they encounter a bear could be very different based on their conceptions.

Zazen, or seated Zen meditation, aims at allowing sensory data to arise in the mind, it can then be perceived but one learns not to attach any conceptions to the perception. That is to say, I am aware that I'm holding an apple...I feel the weight of it, the shape of it, the texture of it, the temperature of it but I don't go on and make any judgments about it.

Now our minds are trained to go on and make judgments about our perceptions so we have to un-train them by allowing those thought actions to simply arise and drift away instead of attaching to them. I will naturally go on to think "I like apples" or whatever judgments I have of apples once I've perceived an apple. It takes the discipline of meditation to let go of those conceptions / judgments and simply stick with our perceptions.

The idea is simple, I can miss things about life by attaching conceptions / judgments to them. My preconceived notions can interfere with my perceptions so Zen aims at letting them go.

One thing that I find quite fascinating is that we all naturally experience the mind-set of stopping at perception. When we go for a walk or a run or some other common activity we can lose our sense of self in the activity. We cease to think: "I am walking" and the activity simply becomes: "walking". We become so engaged in the activity that we lose our sense of "I".

Asian philosophers took this very natural phenomenon and asked how they could achieve that sense all the time. Most schools of seated meditation began in a such a way. The aim was losing the sense of "I" in an activity. This is why Zen became so popular with the Samurai and other warriors. When one loses ones sense of I in an activity one can react much faster because conceptions / judgments don't enter into the picture. You react quite differently to an attack when you don't stop to think: "I can be injured or killed"...you simply react to the moment.

In Japanese this sense of losing oneself in ones activity is called Zammai. (Called Samahdi in India) It is a natural state of mind that comes from knowing ones activity so well one no longer has to think about 'how to' do it.

In the path to mastery it is a natural progression that comes with practice. We begin in an Unconscious / Unskilled phase...we don't know what we are doing and don't have a clue how to do it. We progress to a Conscious / Unskilled phase...now we know we don't have a clue! With continued practice we reach a Conscious / Skilled phase...we now know what we are doing but have to think about it while doing it. Finally we reach the Unconscious / Skilled  phase...we know what we are doing so well we no longer have to think about it. We just push the 'activate button' in our brains and the action follows. We no longer have a sense of "I" in the action. It comes automatically.

One can only experience this way if one is fully in the present. If one lives in the past or future in ones mind it is impossible to experience correct perception because we are living in our conceptions. One only experiences guilt and resentment by living in the past. One only experiences worry and anxiety by pre-conceiving the future. Zen teaches one to live fully in the moment where such conceptions / emotions are impossible. Such conceptions keep us from fully perceiving the present. They keep us from fully living.

That's part of the beauty of Zen... It isn't really a religion in the Western sense. It is a way of approaching daily life. It allows us to directly connect to life instead of our preconceived notions about life.

The ultimate of aim of Zen, of the zammai experience, is Satori...enlightenment. That is to lift the veil that Buddhists believe clouds the mind from perceiving the ultimate reality...that everything is one. Therein lies the faith that Buddhists have...another way of perceiving reality.