The Essence Of Zen

This is a relaxing meditation to bring you the essence of what is the meaning of Zen. Listening to it will provide you with a smile and remind you that you already are what you are seeking. The music background will help you ease into the state of being calm and relaxed.

Transcript

What is Meditation?

Before talking about the subject,

Let us explore the question,

What is what?

There are three parts to which the question of what is can lead.

To a conceptual mind,

These three directions can be facts,

Reality and truth.

If someone asks a scientist what is a flower,

He will dissect the flower and give facts in the name of his research pertaining the flower.

He will take the petals and examine the colours and claim it is due to pigment.

Then he will study the details of the veins within the petals.

And taking a step further,

He will put it under an electronic microscope and will figure out the atomic structure of whatever is remaining.

Then to a subatomic structure where he will confuse himself and you with quantum particles within the scope of his understanding.

But during the whole process,

The flower will be lost.

Merely fragment of what was,

There will be left.

If you ask the scientist to return you the flower that you brought to him,

Wondering what it was,

He simply cannot return the original flower.

The quest of what is a flower led to lose what you had in your hand.

If you ask a lover or a poet what is a flower,

He will share with you the reality that he sees through the beauty and joy of love that he feels in the presence of a flower.

It reminds him of the beloved and the essence of gratitude he has in his heart for being present and alive in the moment to be a witness to the beauty of a flower.

To him,

A flower reflects the whole of the cosmos and the worlds.

If you do not ask anyone and just witness the flower,

You perhaps may realise the truth through direct experience that a flower is just a flower,

Free from any judgements of even being called a flower.

Every moment a flower comes into existence,

Free from the flower that was yesterday,

Flowers come and flowers go,

Just playing the power of nature in the ever-expanding process of life.

It is merely a deeper quest for the human consciousness to have a direct experience of the self that it looks on the outside to find itself.

But what is within may not be revealed by the perception of what the mind makes of the world that it experiences through the senses.

To make a cup of tea,

You need water,

Heat and tea bag.

Yet still the tea may not become a tea unless there is a conscious player who through experience knows when to add what.

If one puts tea bag into heat and on top put water,

There will be chaos but no tea.

The conceptual mind only takes one direction,

Either one only believes in facts or in reality or only sticks to the truth.

But it is an incomplete experience unless one innocently and gratefully relies the right proportion of alchemy required for witnessing the direct experience.

The true experience is free of concepts.

It is merely there as of right now in this moment.

It is a reflection of a direct experience between the observer and the one which is being observed.

Today,

We are in a court where you all are a jury and your judgement is vital for finally settling down the case which has troubled whole of humanity for centuries.

The court that you are in is the court of Zen.

In Zen,

Even to say the word Zen is a crime.

I will pay my fines after these talks.

Why is it a crime?

You will realise that at the end of the talks.

The defendant here is named Bodhidharma.

Who is Bodhidharma?

Bodhidharma in his own accord does not speak anything of himself.

For your understanding in language,

It may be translated as no knowing.

It is accused that because of Bodhidharma,

For centuries the crime of a teacher and a disciple is being carried out.

Only if Bodhidharma would have not spoken to Eno,

Today none of this teacher and disciple activity would have existed.

The direct experience would have prevailed without the delusion of a requirement of a transmitter.

Now what the story is and what the acquisition is,

I will share with you as it is said.

But you as a jury have to give the judgement whether Bodhidharma went to China or not.

Bodhidharma is said to have gone to China from India and started what today in the West is known as Zen.

What is Zen?

Zen is derived from the Chinese word Chan,

Which in itself is derived from the Indian origin of Dhyana.

What is Dhyana?

Dhyana can be related to the first question,

What is meditation?

Some words have such a powerful experience when contemplated upon that it cannot be simply explained in words.

What is the meaning of Om that we notice people often chant?

Om has no meaning and no knowing but a very strong essence of Isness and for centuries it has been remembered and passed on.

The Om travelled and has been upgraded over time to become Om,

Amen and so forth in different cultures.

When one speaks of meditation,

It may occur that it is a practice of closing one's eye and sitting down to overcome anxiety and relax the nervous system.

To a reasoning mind that is enough to define the process.

But let me share with you that one never does meditation.

It is always happening all the time within you and to you.

Me speaking right now is meditation and you listening and experiencing this moment is meditation.

I have seen when a cat approaches a pigeon,

The pigeon closes its eye believing that the cat is not there and everything is just fine.

Often the cat bounces and takes the pigeon.

Meditation is not about closing your eyes and believing there is nothing happening on the outside or the cat of worries and anxiety is not there.

It is way deeper.

If you come here running from the cat,

I may share with you the lion when your eyes are closed.

That lion is you who is needlessly scared of the world and worries.

You are who you are,

Perfect the way you are.

There is no duality in the process of oneness.

One cannot run from the world and go to the cave inside.

No matter wherever you go,

If you do not change your habits,

You will invite the same troubles and stories wherever you go outside or inside.

The practice of Zen is simple.

If you already grasp this perhaps,

You will realize it.

Zen cannot be taught or learned.

It is a direct experience of realizing the essence within you.

When a butterfly flies over the lake,

It casts a reflection on the lake.

As it flies by,

So does the reflection.

The reflection does not remain behind or around the head but moves along with the butterfly.

The lake does not claim the reflection and the butterfly does not divide to become two butterflies.

One that flies and the one that is just on the surface of the water in the lake.

The butterfly is going on its own journey.

The lake is just being there.

If you only look at the reflection in the lake and run to catch the butterfly,

You will only touch the surface of the water,

Which is enlightenment in Zen.

That there is no butterfly in the lake as it never was.

All teachings are only to point at the reflection of the butterfly in the lake.

Zen is the direct experience for you to see the actual butterfly flying in the sky and reflecting in the lake at the same time.

So even saying Zen,

Dhyana or Meditation and to claim to be doing any of these words is merely splashing the water claiming to catch the butterfly.

The true experience is not spoken of as it keeps on evolving moment by moment similar to the flying butterfly casting reflection in the lake,

Leaving no trace behind.

Bodhidharma was a fierce looking man with big eyes.

He lived in India and took a very harsh three years long voyage at sea to arrive in China.

He had a presence about him,

Which was undeniable.

Back in the days,

Buddhism was very popular in the region of China.

As yoga pants are in California today.

The emperor of that time heard about Bodhidharma coming to his region.

This emperor had dedicated his life in creating temples and spreading the influence of Buddhism in China.

He was the only king after Ashoka of India to do so.

The story of Ashoka in India is profound.

Ashoka was a fierce king of his time and he was obsessed with ruling India.

He had killed millions of people for his vision.

But on the battlefield of Kalinga,

A region back in India changed his life.

He had an enormous army and he was winning all the battles.

On the battlefield after winning,

He was looking with pride over all the dead and the land that he had conquered.

Someone who seemed like a beggar marched over to Ashoka in the battlefield with a dead child in their hand and said,

Oh great king,

You can conquer the land and take life of uncounted beings and animals.

Can you bring life back to this child which you have taken?

The king was never spoken to like that before and something radical happened to him after that war.

Buddha was said to have lived around 200 years before Ashoka.

From that instance on,

Ashoka turned his path towards the path of Buddha and dedicated his remaining life for creating free hospitals,

Education and Buddhist temples for his citizens.

Sometimes,

Few drops of water is enough to smoothen the hardest of rocks in the flowing river of consciousness.

To the contemporary mind,

Ashoka cannot be on the path of Buddha because of a barbarian past.

Someone asked Eno,

Eno is the person who spoke to Bodhidharma.

Someone asked Eno from North China,

In his older age,

How can you be in Buddhahood?

You are from South China,

Where all barbarians are from.

Eno responded,

North or South does not matter.

Your true Buddhahood nature has no North or South.

If Ashoka can be Buddha,

Then Buddha can also be Ashoka.

This circle of consciousness is a realization which comes with maturity in this field of Buddhahood.

In China,

Emperor Wu was busy building temples and spreading the word of Buddhism when he heard of Bodhidharma,

A wise sage from India,

Has arrived in his kingdom.

He called him to his court and asked him,

What merit do I get for building all these temples and spreading the word of Buddha?

Bodhidharma answered,

No merit.

Wu was shocked as no one spoke to him like that before.

All the people before Bodhidharma had praised him for his doings.

No one speaks to an emperor as if he is ordinary.

Wu believed in karma,

So in his opinion,

He was doing good karma to balance his bad ones.

But Bodhidharma's answer of no good was brave and of utmost truth.

There are no merits in life.

There is no price called enlightenment.

If there is a good,

That means there has to be a bad.

Otherwise the good cannot exist in comparison.

The good and bad spoken here are not of society dictation of rights and wrong.

This is deeper and is a realization which comes with maturity,

Not through reasoning and conceptualizing.

Bodhidharma was kind to tell this to Wu.

But Wu was not at the maturity of realization.

He was taken aback.

In the case of Ashoka,

When he was building or doing whatever it was,

It was a realization of his.

He was not thinking when he was killing and he was not thinking when he was building hospitals.

He was not doing from a place of covering up his bad karmas or good ones.

Karma is inevitable,

As is breathing.

If you breathe in,

You have to breathe out.

Karma is action.

It is not under anyone's control.

And for centuries,

The human mind,

Which loves to control,

Wants to control one's karma.

When the rain falls,

The seed sprouts in the wild.

When you walk or even when you breathe,

So many microorganisms are killed in the process.

If you believe in good and bad,

Then you will go insane.

The mind and the thought is what needs to be freed.

That is what Bodhidharma shared with Wu.

But Wu was not sure of what Bodhidharma was saying.

Wu asked him out of panic,

As if someone removed the earth beneath his feet.

Who are you to speak to me like that?

Bodhidharma responded,

I know not.

And he left the palace.

Bodhidharma's response,

I know not,

Is profound,

As he did not speak from judgement or from the thought,

But from pure cognition of innocence.

The one who knows does not speak,

And the one who speaks just mumbles in words.

So far,

Bodhidharma has not done any harm in the court of sin.

The issue arises when he left Wu's kingdom and went north.

He sat for nine years in meditation facing a wall,

Where Eno came to Bodhidharma and asked him to teach him what he was doing.

Bodhidharma refused as there is nothing to be taught,

Since it is merely an experience.

Eno did not agree.

He stood outside his door the whole day,

And it snowed heavily that night.

Eno did not move.

He was deep in the snow.

The next day,

Still motionless,

Determined to learn.

Now the story goes that Eno cut his arm and brought it to Bodhidharma as a token to show his determination and dedication to learn meditation.

So Bodhidharma said to Eno,

What do you want?

Eno said,

Specify my mind.

I cannot get over my thoughts.

Bodhidharma said,

Bring me your mind.

I will specify it for you.

Eno took a moment and responded,

I cannot find my mind.

Bodhidharma said,

Then your mind is specified.

Eno realized something deep in that moment and began his own journey within.

He became the disciple of Bodhidharma and long after that of Bodhidharma,

Jain or Zen was born.

We all search for answers and solutions on the outside to pacify our own thoughts and mind.

But all directions only point to the inward silence and peace.

This journey of going inward or the journey going deep into the unknown is the true essence of meditation.

No words or no story can reach these depths.

Just as the wind and the turbulences can cause storms on the surface of the ocean,

So does the mind through thoughts cause unrest to a state of being.

But the depth of the ocean and the center of your being is always calm and unshaken.

The journey into the unknown has no destination and has no milestone as you walk.

It has no boundaries and continues for eons.

Yet,

When one truly finds himself,

Then there is no question of how long the journey may be.

The true essence of joy is already received,

Which connects to oneness of the whole within.

To such an individual,

Even enlightenment,

Buddhahood,

Nirvana or what modern terms you may have is all meaningless.

This individual will taste everything,

Yet will not cling or attach to anything.

Meditation is the journey which is unknown and to be on this road one has to let go of what was previously known.

Just as one takes a boat to cross a river,

All the identities of self is like a boat,

Which helps to cross the flowing time.

But when one is on the shore,

They do not carry the boat on their heads as the boat helped them cross the road.

The river is no more here on the shore.

All our identities and our baggage is the weight that we carry unnecessary in our lives.

The true self and the true essence of is-ness is merely an experience happening at this moment through you in this human experience.

To let go of self is to let be who you really are.

A lotus that is above the water never touches the water,

Although rising from within the water itself.

Why meditate?

To answer this question,

First let's wonder why did Bodhidharma went to China?

In Bodhidharma's defence,

He pleads not guilty as he says he never went to China.

And in the core of Zen,

Where you all are jury,

Please consider his part of the story.

To understand Bodhidharma's non-action,

First the realisation and distinction between the mind and the thoughts and the source from where it arises and where it finally settled down is vital.

When you go to a movie theatre,

There is a small hole in the projector in which there is a film.

A bright light is passed on the film which reflects on the big screen and images are formed.

In our thought process,

Something is very similar.

Before a thought arises in the big screen of our imagination,

There is a whole set of wonder happening in our mind and consciousness.

Visualise an orchestra.

There is a symphony of different musical instruments coming together to create a moment of music.

There are violins,

Guitars,

Drums,

Trumpets and so on.

Now,

When we look at anything,

For instance a sunrise,

The first instance,

The upper limb or the edge of the sun appears to touch the horizon on the ocean.

In that very instance,

A remark in a language arises at times,

How beautiful.

So the first instance of observation is the moment when the sun's edge is observed.

Let's call it the light has come from a source for the film in case of a projector and in case of a kestra,

The violinist has appeared.

This state is what is true state of innocence which a child holds.

The observation of a child is very pure.

A young child can even witness the flying wings of a bee as no language has yet appeared for the child.

It enjoys the bliss of witnessing things as they are.

In Zen,

This interaction is referred to as first nen,

The pure encounter with isness of everything.

For an adult,

This lasts for a very short instance.

Yet it does happen all the time.

The instance you experience the first nen or see the sun's edge on the horizon,

A reflection in a language comes so beautiful.

This identification of beauty is an indication that the light has passed through the film and is now on the way to the big screen.

Or all the other instruments and musicians have been identified for the kestra.

This instance is referred as second nen.

The first is the observation.

The second is the identification of what is observed.

Then comes the awareness of the eye which prevails in the conditioning of the mind through the past,

Identifying itself as the center of everything.

In case of the projector,

Now the image has arrived on the screen or the conductor has arrived to detect the musicians to create a symphony.

This instance is where we lose our connection with direct experience since the eye gets involved.

This is called the third nen.

The third nen takes over the first and the second and formulates its own perception of reality.

So the moment you saw the edge of the sunrise and the instance you said beautiful,

The third nen came and said nice.

Now let's go on and have a coffee or let's go for a walk.

We are done here.

It takes you away from the moment.

For a child,

There is the first instance and the second instance but no third identity of eye.

So you may notice the bliss the child is always in.

She sees a butterfly and starts running after it.

Then she sees a flower and gets lost in the presence.

To actualize the experience of pure is-ness or to intuitively feel the first nen without conditioning of the third,

The expectations of experiencing of the first nen must be dissolved.

If one is being in the forest to experience the forest,

First we have to have an intimate experience with one tree.

And during that process,

The whole forest is experienced.

Likewise,

When we see the small in front of us and experience it for what it is,

The conditioned self is set free.

As it becomes free of expectations,

Suddenly the conductor disappears and only the music is left.

Where each musician and every instrument becomes the conductor of themselves.

The saying having no expectation in life and just being a witness of what is can be simpler to realize the three nens.

This quality is what Buddhahood or Zen is.

I spoke too much since this is an experience unfathomable by words.

A monk asked his master,

Will it perish when all is gone?

The master responded,

It will perish when all is gone.

The monk asked further,

Will everything perish as well?

The master responded,

Everything will perish as well.

A true master leaves no trace behind,

No name,

No identity.

This is the real art of mastery.

A monk is very similar.

They are more courageous than the master since they are willing to take on to the journey within.

Whereas a master is just a few steps ahead sometimes and few steps back at other times.

All stories and parables are not for the name,

Ego or identities and has nothing to do with the character.

These references are always about you.

You are the master and you are the monk in all the stories of life.

The monk asked,

Will it perish?

This it is the identity of self-awareness of ego of I.

His question is,

Will the ego die when the body dies?

The master lovingly supports and answers by repeating the question,

It will perish when all is gone.

When the human experience or this body degenerates,

Will the third nen also degenerate?

To realize this parable,

Consider there are four principles on which the universe is flowing.

Creation,

Existence,

Destruction and elation.

In Hindu mythology,

The cosmos is created by Brahma,

Preserved by Vishnu,

Destroyed by Shiva and then returned to the void or nothingness.

These are just elaborations to express the daily process of life.

You breathe in,

Hence you create life force within.

The small moment before you breathe out is your existence.

And the moment you breathe out,

You release what no longer serves you in your body,

Which returns to nothingness.

So every instance this is happening,

So who is dying in the process?

The third nen which makes itself the center of the universe or the I in you is always scared of its death.

I certainly am not the intelligent one here.

As a pounder myself,

What is mine in this place of existence?

This body is created through the body of others,

Which are my parents.

The air that I breathe is from the plants on this earth.

The food to nourish my body comes from other plants.

What is mine here anyways?

Even the third nen or the I is created here.

So if it remains here or goes away,

Who is to interfere?

The monk was not satisfied as he got scared for his ego,

So he asked further,

Will everything perish as well?

This everything he asks is the cosmos,

The galaxies,

The unknown universes,

And all that is and all that is not.

Will all of this also perish?

He asks.

Again the master lovingly says everything will perish as well.

All you have and we have is this present moment right here right now.

The first nen or instance of what is and the second nen or instance how you experience this.

This is all which is.

The identity of I is just temporary.

Why did Bodhidharma go to China?

Who is this Bodhidharma?

He or she or it is not someone who lived in the past or a character of a story.

Bodhidharma is inside of you.

What is China?

There is no China or India or America.

These are just lines marked on a piece of paper.

If you look at the earth from above,

It is just one shiny globe among other infinite number of big globes existing in the cosmos.

This China,

This America is the third nen and Bodhidharma is the first nen.

So why do you go from the first pure innocent experience of is-ness to the third nen of identifying of self as the center of this is-ness?

This why is not a blame or something to be ashamed of.

This why is the essence to return to your innocence.

This divine wisdom or the ultimate truth perhaps is merely a question.

Why did Bodhidharma went to China?

The question in itself is the answer.

The teachings cannot be spoken in words as words cannot define it.

The teachings cannot be thought of as thoughts are limited.

The teaching is an essence where the questions becomes the answer.

I kindly ask you to give your judgment today in this quote of Zen.

Did Bodhidharma commit any crime?

Did he leave for China?

When in life you have a thought of any sort that cause any turbulence in your existence,

Ask yourself,

Is Bodhidharma going to China?

This will help you to turn back to your true self.

Now to simplify the second question of why meditate,

Let me put it in simple words.

One meditates to return to their innocence.

This journey is yours.

You are the master and you are the monk.

You are the audience and you are the actor of this play of life.

Reviews

Fell asleep but what I did hear, I liked a lot.
Thank you so much, namaste 🙏♥️

Did the Bodhidharma go to China?…Truly this is about more than its title suggests. Loved this and will return to it, for I too am so often the pigeon closing eyes to the cat, or the butterfly over the lake🙏🏼❤️