Zazen meditation and mindfulness practice are beneficial tools in the practice of Zen.

One of the biggest subjects of debate in the Zen forum is over whether zazen meditation has anything to do with Zen and enlightenment or not. From what I've learned, if we are being true the teachings of the original Ch'an patriarchs, zazen is not an imperative to a Zen practice in understanding and realizing Mind. Yet I feel that it is important to note that it should not be reasoned that zazen has no merit or value in one's practice. Zazen is an amazing tool in the effort to become more aware of these minds of ours and have more control, because as most people here already know, meditation and mindfulness practice stills the overall amount of distracting thoughts that randomly occur.

With a long-standing regimen of zazen and even daily mindfulness practice, the raging seas of the mind are calmed down to a point that allows greater focus on the mind itself, which in turn allows one to observe and remain more in control of the situation before they react to phenomena. Of course one can choose to study and live in accordance to Zen without meditation, allowing the mind to dart about at all times like a beast of the wild, but why put yourself at the immediate disadvantage in the situation?

Furthermore, I've noticed an interesting trend over time in the Zen forum. There are outliers of course, but people here who are known to practice zazen generally tend to be more accepting of the differences of others and open to receiving new information. They usually seem to be more discussion-oriented as opposed to argumentative. They also appear to "flow" more with situations as they arise and cause less turmoil overall, which definitely seems more in accordance with the way of Zen. Why is all of this the case? I wouldn't make the conclusive leap that zazen leads one to somehow become these ways, but it seems to me that if someone is already similar to what I explained, then they are already naturally inclined towards meditation and would probably choose to do so in accordance with their personality.

Submitted November 05, 2018 at 08:43PM by WanderingRonin77 https://ift.tt/2zxNL5p