Saturday, March 24, 2012

Studying "The Way"

 
The Monkey Buddha Bazaar:
Circle Reflecting Pool

Discovering the Zen mode of thought when I was a college student had a great impact on my personal understanding of the world. This approach to understanding reality felt immediately familiar to me, since I've always had an introspective, but iconoclastic, personality.


Essentially, Zen is a mindset in which names, preconceptions, and even the appearance of physical reality are all recognized as constructions of the lightshow within the mind. It doesn't mean that there's no "reality", but that reality as we experience it is extremely limited and even further filtered through our senses & perceptions. One benefit of looking deeply into one's own existence is to be "comfortable in your own skin" and understand our part in the universe.

I have Daily Zen as my homepage to randomly generate quotes from masters & practitioners.




This particular quote sums up the philosophy & practice very well:


"To study the Way
whether moving or still,
is nothing more or less
than becoming quite intimate
with our own nature,
resting quite easy in our natural state."

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