RUBY CARMEN explores Zen as a path of meditation, breath awareness, and “empty cup” openness, inviting us to meet the mind in a new way.
The word “Zen” has entered the vernacular; it has seeped into everyday life without a full understanding of what “Zen” is.
In everyday speech, “Zen” has come to mean a feeling of peace and relaxation, even a state of “coolness” and a “laid-back” approach to life.
Zen is a form of sitting meditation and derives from the Chinese word Chán. While Zen can be understood as a form of Buddhism, it places a strong emphasis on meditation and on perfection, meaning the perfection of the person, of one’s own self.
Gateless Gate
Zen is defined as a way of life rather than an ideology, and this is true of many spiritual paths and systems. It has no fixed doctrines or dogmas and little emphasis on written teaching, which has given it a strong appeal for many who feel disenchanted with organized religion.
To practice Zen, it helps to understand its three-step process: the body, the breath, and the mind. The method is sometimes described with the Zen term practice-realization, emphasizing the need for practice rather than reliance on words and letters—what we would call theory or philosophy.
Regarding the body element, the practitioner needs to adjust the body for meditation, which means maintaining a proper diet, engaging in physical exercise, and avoiding habits that would negatively impact the body-mind connection. In Zen, the optimal meditation posture is the lotus or half-lotus position.
Concerning the breath element, there is an exercise of counting one’s breaths. The purpose of this breathing exercise is to refresh the body and mind, infusing the mind-body with energy and releasing toxins and negative energy. During this process, the mind may wander—this is often what happens to all of us who begin a meditation practice. Current concerns, fears, worries, and memories may arise during this process, and this is accepted as a feature of a wandering mind. We could ask if there is any other kind of mind! Different methods and paths offer the meditator a focus, an anchor, an object upon which to rest the mind.
In Zen, it is suggested that counting the breaths helps us train the unconscious mind and supports the training, or taming, of emotions. Many paths and traditions have emphasized the relationship between the breath and a person’s emotional state. For example, we can compare our breathing when we are in a peaceful state to when we are furiously angry!
The purpose of this breathing
exercise is to refresh the body
and mind, infusing the mind-body
with energy and releasing toxins
and negative energy.
Mind and no-mind
Now, we come to the mind element. What to say of the mind? How can we use the mind to adjust the mind? A Zen practitioner prepares their mind for meditation, consciously moving into that meditative state or condition. Again, how? There is a conscious disengagement with the daily concerns of life. The posture and the breathing, this counting of the breaths helps with this, as there is only the breath. Meditation trains us to come face to face with ourselves. In doing so, it trains us to be “with” our own self. It creates a form of psychological stillness, even isolation, to offer an inner environment for this self-study or introspection. Through meditation, we have a window of opportunity to enter the world of the inner psyche. Again, in meditation, we are invited to learn the art of becoming an observer of the canvas of the mind with all the colors, including ideas, desires, and prejudices, that may appear on the surface of the mind. We learn to observe them, without becoming involved in them or over-identifying with them. As consciousness levels change, the ego's power diminishes; in essence, it becomes weaker.
In Zen, through years of practice and meditation, a practitioner can reach a state of “no-mind,” transcending the duality of the mind. In other meditative traditions, it is also referred to as “nothingness” or “zero,” or, in Heartfulness, as the “Center.” Some explanation of the “no-mind state might be needed here. What it means is that the mind is no longer fixed or preoccupied with any particular thought or emotion; instead, the mind is open to everything. In fact, there is a Zen expression, “mind without mind,” which means just that: the mind is open to everything and free of mind-attachment.
In modern-day mindfulness practices, which have drawn on Zen and other Buddhist practices, there is the teaching of non-identification, “I am not my thoughts,” “thoughts are just thoughts”—they are not “me.”
In meditation, we are invited to learn
the art of becoming an observer—the canvas of the mind
with all the colors, including ideas, desires, and prejudices,
may appear on the surface of the mind.
We learn to observe them,
without becoming involved in them
or over-identifying with them.
As the level of consciousness changes,
the ego's power diminishes;
in essence, it becomes weaker.
Empty Cup
In these words, an attempt to touch on the essence of Zen, from what has been written before, it is very clear that Zen, or any other spiritual practice for that matter, needs to be experienced first-hand. In Zen, to know or understand reality, that is one’s own nature and the nature of the physical world, one must experience it and even transcend it.
There is a famous story of the Empty Cup, and it goes like this:
One day, a student came to visit the Zen master seeking advice. He asked. “I have come to ask you to teach me about Zen.”
After a short time, it became clear that the student was full of his own opinions and knowledge. Repeatedly, he would interrupt the master with his own stories and did not listen to what the Zen master had to say. The master calmly suggested that they have some tea.
So, the master poured the tea into his cup. The cup was full, yet he kept pouring until the tea overflowed onto the table, onto the floor, and everywhere. The student cried out, “Stop! The cup is full. Can’t you see?”
“Exactly,” the Zen master replied with a smile. “You are like this cup—so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in…. Come back to me with an empty cup!”
..the Zen master replied with a smile.
“You are like this cup—so full of ideas
that nothing more will fit in….
Come back to me with an empty cup!”
Ruby Carmen
