It takes sometime for the chattering mind to become silent, however it is not impossible and imperative that one be able to silence the incessantly busy mind before the actual or proper state of meditation can happen. This is purely my personal view from my own practice of Zazen or sitting meditation in the Soto Zen tradition of the Zen Patriarch Dogen Zenji.
Dōgen Zenji, also known as Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, Kōso Jōyō Daishi, or Busshō Dentō Kokushi, was a Japanese Buddhist priest, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. Wikipedia
Although it is almost impossible to rid the mind of its habitual tendency to chatter, ramble and indulge it all manner of mental formation, it is of utmost importance that one find the space where the mind is silent and be able to observe whatever arise from this quiet space. it is like trying to fall asleep but not wanting to drop off into the sleep state instead to awaken to the fully awaken state of consciousness. What does one hope to achieve from this simple practice is relative to each individual and their own personal understanding. I personally have sought to find the peace and tranquility from my ever so busy and often negative and destructive egoic mind. I suffer from having an egotistical mental state that has been the cause of many of my faults and failures in life. I also seek to find ways and means to have a good handle on my anger and my fear issues, my low self esteem and my lack of faith in the Divinity of my own being.
My introduction to meditation happened when I was fourteen when my father who was formerly a Buddhist from Sri Lanka before he married my mother and was converted to Islam, saw me sitting in a Yoga posture and told me to study Yoga and practice meditating. I took his advice and sat facing the South China Sea every chance I had staring at the horizon from the beach of the East Coast state of Terengganu. Later at the age of sixteen I joined the Malay martial arts of Silat Seni Gayung and was further encouraged to develop my sense of 'inner engineering' to develop a spiritual capacity for getting in touch with spirit guides that the art features. The art of ''Menurun" or "Peturun', was a form of spiritual trance that one gets into and be possessed by spirit guides or what we used to call spiritual buddies in the martial art. It was inadvertently a part of the martial arts practice to be able to bring the mind into a focus or quiet state to allow for the inner or subconscious being to manifest itself in every moves made while in combat. In its purest form this state of mindless consciousness was developed and practiced by the Japanese Samurai warrior when using the Katana.
As a teenager growing up along the East Coast I was also very much into free diving in and around the islands off the coast collecting exotic sea shells a a hobby. Diving under water for a long period of time without using any Scuba equipment can be an awakening experience as one becomes lost in time and the mind forget that it was not breathing due to being attracted by the beauty of the corals and exotic fishes one can be lost in what divers called oxygen narcosis, or something to that effect. Although it is not as serious when free diving but one can still feel the change in ones state of mind like becoming intoxicated or high underwater. While in this state I found the mind the mind to be very quiet and deeply focused upon what was around me which was one of the reasons I loved free diving. I wouls tempt fate by hovering like an eagle just above a coral bed and lost myself in time just watching the corals and fishes around me. This was how I felt about beeing in a deep meditative state of consciousness where time and space is lost and only a state of being is present.
Yet later on in my life when I moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin and was exposed to the Wisconsin winter my state of consciousness took a new heightened state as the stark whiteness and the silence of the snow covered landscape posited my mind on deep freeze. Meditating in the cold snow covered landscape or sitting before a warm fireplace during the winter months took my meditation practice to a higher or deeper level as by now I found the literature and studies done on meditation from the University library at UWGB. The sense of awesomeness, of pure silence and stark whiteness and freezing cold that chills your bones of the winter landscape of Wisconsin was like being in a state of hibernation of body and mind. Sometimes I can be found sitting on a rock facing Lake Michigan stretching like a white field into the horizon where it was hard to tell where the sky meets the earth. Sometimes you can find me sitting at my window of the old farm house on Humboldt Road gazing at the stretch of corn field as far as the yes can see like a sea of undulating endless green in summer. When the colors of autumn leaves comes along I would find myself absorbed, mesmerized by the sea of colors that stretches from one end to the other as I stood viewing the fall leaves from the top of the Ski Ramp at Iron Mountain , Michigan, where my landlord, Leon P. Lodl and I would make a trip every weekend to work on an old church he had bought and was converting it to a ski lodge.
#zazenmeditation,#greenbaywisconsin,#uwgb,#ironmountainmichigan,#southchinasea,#dogenzenji
to be contd.
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