How To Practise Zen In Daily Life — Transcript

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1. 0:03Zen is a form of Buddhism. In the west - Buddhism is often ascribed to two main schools: Mahayana
2. 0:10literally the “Great Vehicle”, which Zen is a part of and is prominent in East Asia,
3. 0:15therefore also referred to as Eastern Buddhism, alongside Theravada literally the “Teaching
4. 0:21of the Elders”, prominent in Southeast Asia. Some scholars also include Vajrayana, a kind
5. 0:27of Esoteric Buddhism as a third school, practiced in the Northern Himalayan region, among other
6. 0:32places. Zen originated in China, when Buddhism spread
7. 0:36from India to China – and was strongly influenced by Taoist philosophy. It then spread all over
8. 0:42Asia in countries such as Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Today it is practiced all around
9. 0:48the world. Zen literally means “meditation”. Zazen
10. 0:53or “seated meditation” is the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. It
11. 0:57is a means of insight into the nature of existence, that is, the nature of the mind and of things.
12. 1:04This insight is expressed personally in daily life, especially for the benefit of others.
13. 1:10Unlike religion, Zen does not mention God, it does not try to explain how the world was
14. 1:15created and what happens after death. A Zen koan is a paradoxical anecdote or riddle
15. 1:22without a solution, used to create doubt and demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning
16. 1:27to test a student’s progress in Zen. A famous one is: If you meet the Buddha, kill him.
17. 1:34What we can make out of this, is perhaps that
18. 1:36we have to kill our ideas: whether it be god, becoming rich, to end suffering – we have
19. 1:42to break open from our conceptual framework that keeps us trapped from our creations,
20. 1:48and be open to what actually is. What we are all searching for is right inside of us, not
21. 1:53in the sky or somewhere else. Buddhism has at its base these things called
22. 1:58sutras, which are the teachings of the Buddha. Although Zen uses them, it really emphasises
23. 2:04much more one’s own experience, which is the way to discover the truth of the Buddhist
24. 2:09teaching. Not through intellectual understanding and study, but through one’s actual experience.
25. 2:15As such, it is less of a theoretical philosophy and more of a way of life and personal spiritual
26. 2:21practice. Zen highlights meditation as a way of experiencing
27. 2:25basic reality. Sitting quietly, going deep and asking the question: What am I? That is
28. 2:33the fundamental question in Zen. It begins with the curiosity and wonder of who you are.
29. 2:39If we take a look at our modern society, people can seem quite inauthentic, a lot of posturing
30. 2:45or creating personas, concealing our true self and presenting ourselves as someone different
31. 2:50to who we really are, in order to impress other people. This forms a shadow as psychoanalyst
32. 2:57Carl Jung puts it, where all of our repressed emotions and negative traits are stored – we
33. 3:03then behave like a passive victim of our shadow, which slowly takes control of our personality
34. 3:09and of our actions. Zen tells us to stop for a moment. To think
35. 3:13about what we are doing with our life. To begin to wonder, who are you? What are you
36. 3:19really? Not what your parents wanted you to be, not what society wants you to be, but
37. 3:25what is the truth? Who are you really? And what kind of life makes sense for you? Not
38. 3:30what people tell you to do, but for you, what is your truth?
39. 3:33Simple meditation allows us to go deeper into our reality and see things more clearly. Most
40. 3:39of us, if not all of us, are bound to our conceptual thinking. We get stuck in the commentary
41. 3:45of things. We ruminate, we overthink, there is an ongoing mental chatter going on.
42. 3:51As the Taoists would say: “Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind
43. 3:55become still.” While meditating, we see a lot of things,
44. 4:05a lot commentary, and opinions. Or we can also feel a sense of peace and calm. There
45. 4:10is the feeling of this calmness, and then there’s the commentary of the feeling of
46. 4:15this calmness. Two very separate things. Zen tries to bring us in to the experience
47. 4:21itself. What are you thinking? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell?
48. 4:26What do you taste? – By asking these questions we get closer to the experience, closer to
49. 4:32our true experience. When we meditate, we tend to drift away from
50. 4:36this and get lost in the commentary: the problems you’ve had at work, what you have to do
51. 4:41next. We live our life thinking of the future (of what we think is to come) and the past
52. 4:47(what has already happened). In Zen you might hear shouts and hits, this
53. 4:51is not some sort of torture, the point of this is to come back to this moment.
54. 4:56It is incredibly easy to drift away to our thoughts. Zen orients us to come back in order
55. 5:02to search for the fundamental question: What am I?
56. 5:06Have a clear mind. The way we can return to this moment is to say: I don’t know. It
57. 5:12means to let go of one’s certainty, we are so afraid of not knowing that we construct
58. 5:17fantasies of what things are so we can feel comfort in our knowing.
59. 5:22Zen teaches us to get some comfort in not knowing. If you can be comfortable enough
60. 5:27in not knowing, then you have the stability to be present with some curiosity and wonder.
61. 5:32We all have problems; we all struggle in our lives – that’s the human condition. Our
62. 5:38desire is to solve our problems so that we can be happier. The problem is that we are
63. 5:44stuck in our own conceptual thinking, it may happen that the more we try to solve a problem,
64. 5:49the worse it gets – or that when we do solve a problem, another problem pops up.
65. 5:55In Zen we expand our thinking, and if we listen closely – the answer is right there.
66. 6:02But if we are stuck in our ideas and belief system, we often can’t find it.
67. 6:07Be present and see what is happening, not your fantasy about what is happening but seeing
68. 6:11what’s actually happening and then responding. That in a nutshell, is Zen practice, and Zen
69. 6:18life. To be present, to hear what’s being spoken and to hear it, clearly.
70. 6:28Our life is built around making assumptions, but often times when you talk to someone – you
71. 6:32aren’t talking about the same thing. What you meant about something is not what the
72. 6:36other person is thinking you meant – in many ways, that’s what we do with our lives,
73. 6:41we make assumptions, our consciousness is built in such a way to make assumptions, we’re
74. 6:46making approximations all the time. One of the most important practices is to
75. 6:50learn when you are making wrong assumptions, without getting defensive but rather acknowledging it.
76. 6:56Then you can start to listen more closely, to be in the moment and find out what’s
77. 7:01actually going on. The simple practice of sitting down, closing
78. 7:05your eyes, breathing slowly in (what am I?), breathing slowly out (don’t know),
79. 7:12trains us to be present. Zen meditation brings our attention down to
80. 7:17our lower abdomen, it is diaphragmatic breathing. In the inhalation, your belly expands out,
81. 7:23and on the exhalation, it falls. “To study Buddhism is to study yourself.
82. 7:28To study yourself is to forget yourself.” - Zen Master Dōgen
83. 7:31The point of Zen is not to master Buddhist teachings, but to realise who you really are
84. 7:37– and in order to realise this, you must let go of yourself.
85. 7:40Zen teaches us that to let go of ourselves, we need to realise that the self and the external
86. 7:45world are not two different realms, but rather one. The evaporation of this separation allows
87. 7:51a natural state of compassion and wisdom, in which our life flows through.
88. 7:56So be immersed in this moment, not in the future and not in the past,
89. 8:02be aware and alive right now.