Why Study Zen Buddhist Meditation?
Ozmo Piedmont, Ph.D.
Those of us who are truly seeking joy in our lives may find in Zen Buddhist Meditation that which we seek. We all wish to be free, to find love, and to understand the meaning of our lives. Zen Buddhist Meditation offers techniques of self study to help realize these goals. It has been practiced for thousands of year by millions of people all over the world, first in India, then throughout China and the Far East, and now in Europe and America, refining and adapting these techniques to the people and cultures it has encountered along the way. The foundations of Zen Buddhist Meditation are built upon the direct experiences and insights gained through sitting in silence for a few minutes daily, and the transformation this may bring to one’s personality, one’s perceptions of the world, and how one interacts with others. One literally rewires old outworn patterns of thinking and experiencing, and in so doing one may change one’s reality of the world. From the first session of Zen Buddhist Meditation one begins to experience a deep sense of tranquility and peace that seems completely natural and innate. For most people, Zen Buddhist Meditation can be learned simply and easily, if one is willing to make time to sit quietly daily. How much is peace of mind worth? Who wouldn’t be willing to sit in silence if the result could be the end of suffering, fear, doubt, and delusion?
Zen Buddhist Meditation is a way of life in its practical applications and techniques that bring harmony, balance and healthy living. It is a religion in that it aims to connect us with an Infinite source of love, wisdom and compassion, an un-nameable Presence that is without beginning nor end, is both impersonal and intimate, is unchanging, yet adaptive to all needs and circumstances. Zen Buddhist Meditation is a also a psychology of self discovery and a scientific exploration of inner space and consciousness, answering the questions of who we are, why we do the things we do, and how we can eliminate unhealthy ways of thinking to bring about healthy changes. Zen Buddhist Meditation is also mystical, in that it opens us to levels of direct experience with the Mystery of Life, a knowing that is outside of our rational, Western, dualistic confines of thinking and perception. We learn to transcend our limited ego selves and rediscover our true Selves that are one with the Universe.
Zen Buddhist Meditation is not just about sitting in a quiet place, harmonizing body and mind, although that is indispensible for rediscovering the Unborn. Zen Buddhist Meditation also requires active involvement with life. When we bring the active awareness of the Unborn into our lives, we learn to act in the world based on principles of respect, ecology, compassion, ethics, morality, insight, and beauty. The study of Zen meditation requires both sitting in silence, as well as, action in the world through study and practice. Sitting in Silence, as well as, our daily study through practice, are the two wings of the bird of Illumination. With these two wings, we soar into the sky, learning to be free of our suffering, and becoming one with the Infinite.
Zen Buddhist Meditation is for many of us who continue to live practically in the world. We must face the challenges of earning a living, raising a family, cooking, cleaning, making love, travel, stress, and negotiation with our partners, spouses, bosses, employees, and the general public. The Buddha indicated that there are 4 paths of Buddhism: 1. Male monks, 2. Female monks, 3. Male lay practitioners, 4. Female lay practitioners.
Those of us who are lay practitioners can take as a model and example the life of Vimalikirti, a Chinese businessman who lived in the 5th – 6th C B.C.E. (Carré 2000; Ramirez 2002). He was the quintessential lay practitioner who was so well versed in Buddhist wisdom, that saints and scholars from all over the world came to consult with him on learning the bodhisattva path. What is a bodhisattva? It is a being who has renounced his/her own salvation, refusing final Liberation into Nirvana, until all beings of all existences are also able to accompany him/her there, too. This is a symbol of the Buddhist Ideal of compassion, where the individual is willing to give up all personal desires, including the desire for Liberation, until all are equally free. It serves to take the conceptualization of Nirvana as a mental construct based on ego desires, bringing it to the level of every day work for the good of all. It reveals the ideal of altruism and compassion for others before one’s personal gain. Vimalikirti is an image of how each one of us can carry the commitment of a monk, as well as our temples and meditation cushions, right into the middle of our hearts every day. When we do so, we are Nirvana itself. It is no longer something in the distant future, but rather our actual lived experience of now. If we do not live our religion in every moment, if we do not worship the Infinite in every experience, than we have compartmentalized the Divine into a cold stone statue that we only take out of the closet on special occasions, or whom we only visit when we think of it on special days, but which otherwise has little relevance to our lives.
Vimalikirti 5th-6th BCE
We the laity who choose to live in the everyday world of business, home, family, sex, restaurants, shops, driving, television and movies, have a particularly challenging path of choices that requires constant grounding and moment to moment considerations of practice which is quite different from living in a monestary. Perhaps our biggest challenge is choice. The world of human beings is one of multiple and often contradictory choices. How to spend our time wisely, choosing to go in one direction as opposed to another? It is often a very daunting job. The demands of work, children and socializing with friends can appear to us that there is not a single minute free to sit in silence, let alone the undertaking of the study of Buddhist teachings. But life is a mirror, showing us exactly what we need to know in each moment. If we cannot take a minute for quiet reflection, than perhaps we are being run by the stress and strain of the world, as opposed to our choosing how to be in the world in each moment.
The Buddha said that basically, life is suffering. Perhaps we don’t even realize how much we suffer. Suffering includes the discontent, irritations, impatience, and general angst of our existential dilemma, feeling that something is missing in our lives, wondering if this is all to living, wondering what it all means. We suffer because we have misidentified ourselves with this body, this ego centered consciousness. The Buddha said that we do not have individual, permanent, nor separate souls. If we did, there would be no hope of true transformation resulting in our liberation. We would be locked into isolated, unchanging beings, that could never really connect into anything truly transcendent or Divine. Instead, the Buddha said we are like waves on a sea of consciousness, taking the individual wave for the whole picture, not seeing that below the surface, we are all one, unified in our consciousness, all parts of the great Ocean that is the Infinite. The Buddhists use such terms as the Infinite, Unborn, Unchanging, and Undying, to break away from any limiting conceptualization of a finite God that can become an anthropomorphic reflection of our own limited perceptions. Instead, That which is beyond all conceptualization is our true nature, our Buddha Nature, our True Self, and we work to discover this connection in every moment of our lives. Zen Buddhist Meditation is a most precious tool to the realization to that True Self in the Divine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carré, Patrick (Trans). Soûtra de la Liberté inconcevable. Librairie Arthème Fayard : France, 2000
Ramírez Bellerín, Laurean (Trans). Sútra de Vimalakírti. Editorial Kairós: Barcelona, Spain. 2002.
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