Well, I think my level of Zen learning right now is indeed focusing on humanity and personal sense and how Zen attitude can influence our attitude and behaviors toward our relationships with others and the environment. I challenge myself "How can I move on to the next Zen level if I couldn't complete the basic level first?"
Thank you for helping me to know his name correctly, because he's quite a guy with great determination and endurance. Personally I am more inspired by another Chinese figure, Ji Kun. Often people call him "Crazy Monk", but he is a very wise man. He always wore a dirty and dragging cloth, he drank wine and eat meat so people said he's crazy, but his message then was "why wasting?". There are lots of stories about him. When look at his facial _expression_, there are different looks from different angles, one side is laughing, one side is sad and the other one actually mixes these two emotions together. One of his famous message he taught us is "Don't get angry". Even though he was a monk from Buddhism but he is also widely respected in Taoism.
It's my understanding that in Buddhism, people have to learn how to control our desires with a pure heart and mind. There are commandments towards few specific categories, e.g. we should be very careful about food we eat, things we see, words we hear, words we speak, feeling we feel, and the most challenging one is to pure our thought. These areas should be what are vigilance focus on.
First of all, I am not a Buddhist. I chose Catholic as my religion but Zen study as my living philosophy, so I am really a fresh student in Buddhism or Taoism. In Taiwan, the vegetarian restaurants can make dishes with the name of vege-chicken, vege-fish.... I also like to joke with my friends, who are either Buddhists or Taoists,that they still can not go over the 'thought' part, because the use of word like chicken/fish/duck... still assemble thought in 'meat', perhaps not in real form but still in their thought. I don't know whether this interpretation is correct or wrong, kindly enlight me with further thoughts.
>There are many different types of meditation. Searching for a thing is a type of Tibetan/emptiness meditation. Intention-less awareness is another. In my experience, both can give rise to "not knowing". Meditation for relaxation is another kind of meditation. Of the three mentioned here, intention-less awareness is closest to zazen. One doesn't always arise relaxed and refreshed, especially when resistence arises. <
Thank you for helping me know the difference of meditation. Right now I am focusing on relaxation meditation, because I can't do or think of anything else if I don't have a good and balance health. No matter what, I think it is the best to simply focus on the basic relaxation part and then see how the process will lead me. Of course, I hope the next level that I can reach is intention-less meditation. I am not quite sure if I would be interesting to get into the Tibetan/emptiness meditation that to see 'things'.
>Do you have Dogen's Fukenzazengi? Or Zazengi? A very good book, if you can get it where you are, is The Art of Just Sitting, edited by John Daido Loori. It has many of the basic writings in it.<
Thanks, perhaps I can check with the Buddhist Temple in Antwerp next week and see if they have that book in their library.
Blessing and wish you a nice weekend
Agnes
Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood
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