Reddit reviews What Is Zen?
We found 4 Reddit comments about What Is Zen?. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Reddit reviews What Is Zen?We found 4 Reddit comments about What Is Zen?. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
explaining zen to a 5 year old could prove tough... explaining zen to a 9 month old, however, would be a piece of cake.
edit: also, http://www.amazon.com/What-Is-Zen-Alan-Watts/dp/1577311671
and, http://www.selfdefinition.org/zen/Alan%20Watts%20-%201957%20-%20The%20Way%20of%20Zen.pdf (you dirty pirate, you)
the dedication on that last one made me smile :)
getting into zen is like getting into western philosophy. just keep reading/practicing even if you don't understand and eventually things will start to click
There are several popular 'flavors' of Buddhism, but unfortunately I have not read any general overview books covering all of the sects. Most of my generalized knowledge has come from podcasts like Buddhist Geeks and Zencast. Gil Fronsdal and Jack Kornfield are both enjoyable to listen to.
But back to books!
The most accessible Zen book I've read was Nishijima's To Meet The Real Dragon. Other overviews like Alan Watt's What Is Zen and Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind are good but a little obtuse.
And while I can't give it a general recommendation because the writing style isn't for everyone, I really enjoyed Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up.
Of those mentioned, I would go with To Meet the Real Dragon unless you prefer a much more informal style -- then I would pick Hardcore Zen.
So, your creative side has burst open, and is aching to play, but that means the chasm between your current circumstance, and where you want to be now, is laid bare. Okay.
>I do agree that it all reduces, more or less, to "maximize positive emotions and minimize negative emotions."
Yeah, perhaps, but it's not something you do deliberately as such. Really, for the releasing exercise, just treat it as a habit you do every day, without expectation. It's only 10 minutes, which you can treat as your daily time to "let the engine cool off", like when the metal chassis of a car going "ping! ping!" as it settles back into shape - or whatever metaphor you want.
The side effect is that gradually your sense of space will expand into your body volume, and beyond. You will be more in touch with feelings and the felt-sense of intuition and your creative sense. But you can't "do" this, you just have to let it happen. All you need to do, is do the daily exercise and get better at not micro-controlling yourself and the world, if you find you have a tendency to do that.
>I want to learn writing and other artistic pursuits.
Related Top Tip - If you centre your attention in your lower abdomen, that's where that "global summary" sense is, and is where you "rest" with your attention when you want to understand something in a general way, or when you want to explore things creatively. You can't make it do anything, but you can sort of "ask and receive" in that area. (Which sounds a bit vague, but it's hard to describe because you do this by just "feeling out".)
>Yet, I've always had an inner desire to draw, to write, to make music, to dance, to act, etc.
Have you begun doing that now?
Any moment you're not doing other stuff, and time you sitting feeling miserable, redirect yourself toward an artistic project. Mood is posture, to an extent - you can't work your way through misery, it can't be solved; you just have to "shift state".
So: think up a project. Or pick an artistic area and ask me to invent a suggestion for you.
Books some people find useful:
>I see the giant scam we're all living in and it drives me completely nuts making me think i dont belong here.
So you've seen behind the curtain and discovered the scam. Not surprising since you're smart it was bound to happen sooner or later. However, believe it or not, that is a good thing. You can now move on to living a life worth living instead of living like an oblivious little cog in a machine you don't understand. Now it's time to learn something new; something that will never let you down: wisdom.
What is wisdom? Wisdom is knowing what (not who) you are and what's going on. Smart people usually get to some point in their lives when they realize that buying junk and working some dead end job isn't ever going to do it for them. At that point, at the point you're at now, you have to choose: wisdom or death. Please choose wisdom because the world needs more wise people.
Where to look for wisdom. Wisdom can be gained by following any number of different paths created and refined over centuries by people like you who realized there was something missing from their lives. The easiest one for me was zen buddhism. Unlike other religions that ask you to believe in things that insult your intelligence and contradict everything you experience, zen asks you to see for yourself. It is a guide to discovering what you are and why you should continue to live and deepen your understanding of what this life is all about. Avoid dumbed down versions and new agey bullshit. Find the authentic way that has been tested and shown to work for many hundreds of years. Choose wisely. This book by Alan Watts might help get you started.