About
the Book:
The
word “Zen” has become a popular
one in modern media, but few readers have even
an intellectual understanding as to what Zen
really is, much less an experiential one. “Open
Mind Zen” uses plain English to demystify
an ancient, Eastern method of self-realization
and make it accessible to those without a background
in Eastern spiritual practices.
Open Mind Zen is a concise, easy to read text with short chapters
designed to be carefully read and meditated upon. It
cuts through the cultural baggage and mumbo jumbo you will
find in many other books on this topic.
Open Mind Zen is written for the lay practitioner by a lay teacher
with the understanding that few of us desire to abandon our
life, work & family to practice meditation. It shows
us how we can learn to meditate and deepen our awareness in
the midst of daily life.
Al Rapaport:
Al
Rapaport is the originator of Open Mind Zen,
a unique system of meditation study. He
has over 30 years experience practicing and
teaching Zen, and is one of only a few lay
Zen teachers. Al developed and produced
the Buddhism in America Conferences in Boston,
San Diego, and Colorado & the Tricycle
Buddhism Conference in New York City. He
currently directs the Open Mind Zen Center
in Melbourne, FL.
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Free
Preview:
Master
Kempo,
“ The Bhagavats of the ten directions have one way to Nirvana. I wonder
what this one way is.” A monk once asked. Kempo held up his stick, drew
a line, and said, “Here it is!”
– Mumonkan, Case 48
What is freedom, and can human beings really experience it? How
can we say that the world is perfect as it is when it often
appears to be the opposite? To gain an understanding of Zen
teaching on this point, we need to see that there are two ways
of looking at this issue. One is the relative side, which is
that the world is never going to be perfect, that there will
always be problems. But then there is also what we in Zen practice
call the absolute side, which is that from the perspective
of wholeness or oneness the entire universe is perfect the
way it is, suffering and all. For someone who has achieved
this perspective, the earth with all its imperfection is the
enlightened Buddha-mindfield. So, whether this earth is a minefield
or a Buddha-mindfield depends on how we experience it.
To truly experience freedom, we have to be able to see things from
both the relative and the absolute perspective and not get
stuck in either one. To be attached to the relative level means
that we believe that just a little more money, a little larger
SUV, a little larger house or a little better relationship
will give us the freedom we need. The problem is, no matter
how much we get, it just doesn’t seem to do the trick.
All those extra things require maintenance, and more and more
of our time goes to creating and maintaining this kind of material
wealth. Then we wonder why we aren’t as happy as we’re
told by the advertising we should be!
On the other hand, if we have some kind of spiritual beyond body
experience we can just as easily get so attached to it that
we cannot drop it to see the relative world around us when
necessary. Life is not always perfect and wonderful – there
is suffering, pain and destruction all around us, and we need
to be able to empathize with those that are suffering in order
to do any good. Sometimes life is calm and clear, and other
times it is terrible and chaotic, so to be able to freely move
between functioning in the relative while seeing the absolute
state underlying all reality is very important to a spiritual
understanding. Zen practice is about letting go of the relative
self in order to realize oneness, but then after you have that
experience of awakening, letting go of that so you can go on
to the next stage. This is a very subtle point that many spiritual
systems do not address, that it is necessary to avoid getting
attached to both the relative aspect of life and the universal
aspect. We have to be able to freely move between them. We
need to be able to function in the relative world, to keep
clean, to eat food, to relate well to others, but at the same
time we need to be able to see the oneness of the entire universe.
Nothing can be left out, or we are not truly free.
So, what is freedom? Well, if it was a fixed state of being of
some type, it wouldn’t be totally free. Zen teaching
is that any fixed state is a trap sooner or later. Could it
be that freedom is simply the realization that we can choose
at any time, and in any situation? Doesn’t this define
freedom itself, that whatever happens we can choose – choose
to go right or left, to do good or evil, to live or die? If
we take any option off the table, whether it be ego, anger,
lust, or selflessness, clarity and enlightenment, we limit
our options and our freedom. We have an infinite range of tools
to use in our tool chest – why not keep them all handy?
In Zen training we use meditation as a way of learning how
deeply our ability to choose goes.
Meditation is simply being aware of our own lives, of what we have
created. We take our attention, which is normally focused outside,
and turn it inward. What do we see when we turn our attention
inward and start noticing our own body and mind? At first we
see whatever we’ve created in our life, and that creation
usually feels stuck in some way. We don’t feel free because
of conditioned patterns that keep us in certain narrow parameters
of experience. The fact is that we are always free. We just
need to free ourselves from the feeling that we aren’t.
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