Zen

Zen means waking up to the present moment. 

That is, perceiving this moment exactly as it is, rather than through the filter of our ideas, opinions, etc.  One way to practice this is to ask yourself a Big Question, such as "What am I?" If you ask such a question strongly and sincerely, what appears is "Don't Know." This don't-know is before thinking. If you keep it moment to moment, then everything is clear. Then, each moment, whatever you're doing, just do it. When you're sitting, just sit; when you're eating, just eat; and so on. 

According to Zen, existence is found in the silence of the mind (no-mind), beyond the chatter of our internal dialog. Existence, from the Zen perspective is something that is only happening spontaneously, and it is not just our thoughts. All of life that we perceive is constantly in a state of change. Every atom in the universe is somewhere different every millionth of a second. 

What then is existence? Zen says that it is instantaneous. Since the earth is constantly moving, and our thoughts and our bodies are constantly in a process of fluctuation, then what we really are, can only be experienced in each moment. 

Think of a view. Is it what it was a second ago, or what it is now? In fact the moment we say the word “view",  the view has already changed into something new. 

In fact, anything that we can explain, according to this viewpoint, must be past-tense. Even if it’s about our most immediate feelings and thoughts, it is not the same experience the second after it passes through our minds. Researchers estimate that our minds perceive 12,000 separate impressions every second. This is in terms of everything that we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. 

So, what is our reality really? Isn’t it always a very limited view of what we are even actually experiencing around us? And that which we are aware of, is only our own minute impression of the world itself. Are any of our views then actually true in the absolute sense of the word, or are they all just our subjective impressions, based on an individual experience of what we are perceiving? 

Zen says that if we entertain no personal version of what we think existence is, in other words, if we hold no subjective interpretation of what existence is, at the moment we are free of any notion at all, we will experience existence instantaneously, spontaneously. 

Do you see this point? Zen says that we don’t really experience existence, because we are too busy experiencing our own subjective, version of existence. 

How then can we experience existence itself? If we don’t create existence, then existence simply IS. The problem is, that we are usually trying to create our own model of the world. Whatever existence we create, it will be an extremely limited view, and that isn’t existence itself. 

In Zen a less subjective awareness is cultivated through silent meditation, and contemplating on certain sentences, known as Koans. A koan is defined in "The Three Pillars Of Zen" as, "Formulation, in baffling language, pointing to ultimate Truth. Koans cannot be solved by recourse to a logical reasoning, but only awakening a deeper level of the mind beyond the discursive intellect."

An example of a Koan would be, “The sound of one hand clapping”, or perhaps you remember this one from grade school, “Does a tree that falls in the forest make a sound if there isn’t anyone there to hear it?," and so on. 

Through these more abstract thoughts, the Zen student may find that they gradually suspend with their reasoning altogether (this is called no-mind), and this clears the way for an actual experience of existence itself. 

Unanticipated, spontaneously, without warning, the student may suddenly experience that 'Peace' beyond thought, words, or description. All that anyone can really say who has experienced this is, “All is one, and one is all”. This is what Zen calls the experience of Nirvana, or Enlightenment.