What Is Zen
Zen is simply a way for us to awaken from our slumber. It is just a way for us to focus on our present experience, living in the moment. It is simply paying attention to our actual experiences as they are: a breeze brushing through your hair, pristine water wetting your lips, a stomach ache, the laughter of children playing—seeing what you see, feeling what you feel. It is being aware of all the colors, forms, sights, sounds, touch, taste, and smell of your surroundings.
“Zen is entering into things as they are, beyond concept and cosmology, beyond separation and duality, beyond personality, and into the intimacy and richness of this whole moment. ” Zen is the day to day ...
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cannot be attained by gradual practice but must come through direct and immediate insight. Zen students prepare themselves to be receptive to such answers by sitting in meditation (Japanese za-zen) while they simply observe, without thought, whatever may be happening. The Zen belief is that nature cannot be grasped by any system of fixed definitions or classifications. Reality is the world as it is, apart from any thoughts an individual has about it. One of the original teachers of Zen, Shakyamuni Buddha said to his students one day in a talk that has been recorded as the Satipatthana sutta, the Discourse on Mindfulness, that, “There is but one way to liberation and that is mindfulness. Mindfulness is paying attention with the entire body and mind to the present experience. It is going past hesitation and reference points, past confusion and fabrication and into our actual lives. Liberation means freedom from the need to hide from our world and ourselves; ...
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Buddha (meaning “The Awakened One”). He taught for about forty years and then died in Oudh, India.
Zen, itself, originated from a blend between the Mahayana form of Buddhism originating in India and the Chinese philosophy of Taoism. Zen is the Japanese (Ch'an, which is often used interchangeably with Zen is the Chinese way of pronouncing dhayna) way of pronouncing the Sanskrit term dhyana, which can be roughly defined as meditation. “Dhyana denotes specifically the state of consciousness of a Buddha, one whose mind is free from the assumption that the distinct individuality of oneself and other things is real. ” The school of Zen Buddhism begins with a ...
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"What Is Zen." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 24 Jun. 2008. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/What-Is-Zen/85749>
"What Is Zen." Essayworld.com. June 24, 2008. Accessed April 24, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/What-Is-Zen/85749.
"What Is Zen." Essayworld.com. June 24, 2008. Accessed April 24, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/What-Is-Zen/85749.
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