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OMZ book now
available
This is a great book for those considering starting a
meditation practice, or those interested in the
Open Mind Zen system of
study.
Cost, Including Postage $14.50
Pay through Paypal by clicking the button below, or
make checks out to Open Mind Zen
and mail to:
3222 SW Elizabeth St, West Melbourne, FL 32904
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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.
About the Author
Al
Rapaport is the originator of Open Mind Zen, a unique system of
meditation study. He has over 35 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.
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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