by Bret Stalcup

Created on: March 07, 2007   Last Updated: April 04, 2010

What is Zen?

"Coming empty-handed, going empty handed that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud that appears.
Death is like a floating cloud that disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing that always remains clear.

It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?"
-Zen Master Seung Sahn

Zen is a practice whose sole function is to bring the practitioner to an understanding of their true nature, to realize the Great Question, What am I? Beyond words, beyond definition, beyond relation and beyond opposites what am I?

Most of us define ourselves in relation to events that we perceive as external to ourselves. I am this because I do this and don't do that, I like this and I don't like that, this makes me happy and this makes me sad, and so on. The problem with living with this type of view is that our happiness, our very being, is contingent upon other circumstances, frequently in the form of other people. If our idea of ourself is dictated by and contingent upon external events, may it be truly said that we possess a "self"?

The method of Zen meditation that I describe is designed to allow the practitioner to experience and live the reality of the Self, their true nature. This Self is something much greater than we have been led to believe by the constraints of language-based perception; it is the "one pure and clear thing" mentioned in the Zen poem above. What is this one pure and clear thing? This is for you to experience, for you to discover. Words do no justice to Truth, for words automatically split us into opposites-thinking, and reality exists beyond opposites. To experience this is Zen.

It is a good idea to be clear of this purpose from the start of your practice. Many practitioners become involved in Zen meditation for mostly ego-centered reasons. We read or hear stories about enlightenment", or perhaps read materials from other branches of Buddhism or religions, and hope that practice will reduce those qualities that we don't like in ourselves, and make us into some kind of wise super-being. As long as we dichotomize into categories of like and dislike, we will be unable to experience our true nature; only in the absence of mental conflict will our Self unfold. We are not meditating for a means of self-development, we are meditating to cut

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