Zen Is The Way

Zen living is the art of living well, and meditation is a major component of that art. In addition to making a healthy mind, meditation is finding the internal quiet, which is a tool to maintain physical wellness and to enrich spiritual life.

What do you do when you meditate? Nothing! Meditation is not an activity—neither a physical nor a mental one. Nothing is supposed to “happen.”

Then, what does meditation do to you? Meditation makes you feel more peaceful and contented so that you can see your life more clearly. It brings about changes—all in their own time

But, if you do nothing in meditation, then how can it bring about the changes?

Meditation, essentially, is the art of letting go. You don’t have to do anything; you just let go. Letting go is finding your quiet “without analysis, without effort, without expectation.” Letting go enables you to experience the deep quiet that involves your body and mind—the quiet so still that you can almost hear it. This quiet is meditation. During this quiet, you simply let your mind do nothing.

So, how do you meditate, if you do nothing in meditation?

(1) Close your eyes gently to prepare your body and mind for meditation.

(2) Sit comfortably. Lay the back of one hand in the palm of the other, and allow your thumb tips to touch lightly. Rest your hands on your lap in line with your lower abdomen. Learn to associate a relaxed feeling with this relaxed posture.

(3) Now, open your eyes and look down at your left hand. Relax and continue to direct your attention on your left hand.

(4) Wear a soft smile. Gradually, build a subconscious association between your relaxed posture and your feeling of calmness.

(5) Decide your intentions—that is, your approaches to meditation. If you wish to use the quiet to stabilize a distracted and restless mind due to anxiety or stress, focus on one single object (such as a candle flame), an action (such as your breathing), a single word, or even a feeling. If you wish to use the quiet to know yourself better, focus on your awareness of many things around you at the present moment, such as their colors, shapes, textures, and associations. If you wish to deepen your spiritual experience, direct your intention along some structured thoughts, such as a prayer, or an inspirational phrase.

(6) Breathe regularly. However, be aware of your breaths, which connect you to all living things. Do not lift your shoulders, do not tuck in your stomach, and do not swell your upper chest when you breathe; instead, suck air into your lower chest, with your hands feeling your stomach rise as you breathe in.

Remember, there is no right or wrong way to meditate. Do not be concerned about what you do or what you do not do when you meditate. Meditation is doing nothing, or doing without consciously doing.

For more information, visit my web page: How To Meditate.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Humans learn how to deal with the pain of loss. As a matter of fact, we learn at an early age that being busy is a way to deal with the loss of a loved one. In other words, many people deal with grief by staying busy.

But this is not how Zen teaches us about dealing with grief and loss.

Human loss is usually followed by a memorial service, which is partly to remember the dead, and partly to keep the living busy so as to alleviate the sad loss of loved ones.

Getting busy has immediate payoff. In life, many of us use the same strategy to deal with difficulties in our lives: we keep ourselves busy to avoid unpleasant or difficult experiences. We keep ourselves busy to earn more money, to gain more respect, or both. We get busier and busier—it has become addictive. Unfortunately, at the end, everything falls apart, and we become distressed and disillusioned.

Be mindful of your busyness. Mindfulness requires you to take time to explore your inner self—that is, what is most important to you. You can be busy, while maintaining your mindfulness.

A Buddhist teacher once said: “When you are washing dishes, wash dishes. When you are talking on the phone, talk on the phone.” But many people are talking on the phone, while driving!

Mindfulness is “concentrated” relaxation because your mind focus on the present moment, not the past, and not the future. Remember, only the present is real to you. Visit my blog: Cope With Stress.

For more information on mental wellness, go to my web page: Brain Power.

Mindfulness is a byproduct of medication, which is the most potent mind-body therapy not only for disease prevention but also for natural healing. Meditation has been associated with religion because during meditation it is easy to conjure up images of divinity or the metaphysical. However, nowadays, in this world of stress and turmoil, meditation therapy is getting attention in the medical field.

Meditation is medicine in that your mind controls your thoughts, which control your actions, and your actions are often responsible for your health. Contemporary life is stressful, in particular in the present economic environment, which generates emotional reaction, anxiety, anticipation, and worry. Naturally and inevitably, your mind focuses on the past or the future, or both. The past is the breeding-ground for stress: your memories of past difficulties or failures are projected into the future, which become real and almost tangible to you, or rather your “reality.”

Remember, in life, nearly all your thoughts, including your desires and fears, are based on either the past or the future. These festering thoughts may begin to feed on the mind, generating negative emotions that affect your hormone secretion, and thus affecting your overall health.

Meditation is medicine in that it provides a break or relaxation for your thinking mind. Your body needs rest, and so does your mind. It is a myth that when you sleep, your mind is resting. No, it is not, because your mind still works in your dreams.

Meditation is mind-body therapy because it helps you focus your mind on the present to the exclusion of past and future thoughts.

Meditation is actually easier than your might imagine. Start meditation by paying attention to your breathing. There is no right or wrong way of meditation. Just practice it. Go to my web page: How To Meditate to learn how to meditate.

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Did you know that you may be spending about five percent of your waking time on worrying?

Yes, consciously or subconsciously, you worry about a lot of things in your life—family and relationships, jobs and schools, health and money.

Yes, a small percentage of people even have anxiety and panic disorders. Essentially, they worry about multiple problems at the same time. If you are a chronic worrier, you may be spending half of your waking hours worrying about one thing or another—even though they may be totally out of your control, such as the weather, among other things.

You may feel there is nothing you can do about your worries—and so you just don’t do anything about it.

However, you need to change that unhealthy attitude about worries. Worrying is unproductive. Don’t spend the best years of your life worrying about things that may never happen in your life. Worse, don’t give up on yourself. There is everything you can do to stop worrying. Claim back the life you rightly deserve.

Worries can do harm to your health, such as causing you headaches, lack of concentration, poor sleep, and low self–esteem.

Is worrying worth the effort?

Studies have shown that as you grow older, you would worry less, not more. Is it because as you grow older, things get better and so you worry less? Or is it because as you grow older, you simply realize that worrying is not worth it? Or is it because you have grown older and wiser?

Whatever, these are the things you can do to stop worrying yourself sick:

• Don’t strive to suppress your worrying thoughts. The harder you try, the more persistent they become. Instead of avoiding them, confronting your worrying thoughts may surprisingly alleviate your worries.

• Focus on your worries. Imagine the worst scenario. Then, try to think of positive solutions to your worries. You may get worse before you get better.

• Jot down all your worrying thoughts. Seeing your worries in writing, you may see them in a different perspective, that is, they may look less “real” or even “worthless” to you.

• Do something about your worries, especially if they are real and require some action to be taken. Procrastination only prolongs the worrying. This strategy applies to all legitimate worries.

• Talk about your worries with your friends. Discussing your worries may deflate them.

• Learn to live in the present moment, which is essentially full awareness and appreciation of life. In other words, you are simply “experiencing” the perturbing conditions of your environment, instead of “thinking” about them. Thinking causes needless worries and negative thoughts.  To achieve the goal of living in the present moment, focus on doing something ordinary, thereby instrumental in quieting the distracted mind. Once your mind remains in the present moment, distracting thoughts will just float by, and you just observe them without becoming absorbed in them. As a result of your detachment or non-involvement, you now have the opportunity to learn why and how you have your mental static and emotional reactions. One of the most effective ways of training to live in the present moment is meditation.

Why Make Yourself Crazy? provides 300 strategies to deal with your stress and worries.

Secret of Healing Meditation: You can heal yourself of any physical, emotional, and spiritual problems through quieting your mind.

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Depression is a disease of the mind. Depression is a common mental disorder affecting millions of people around the world.

However, according to Zen, there is no such a disease as “depression” as Western medicine would label it. The reason is that, in Zen, human sickness is just a physical or mental condition, and not a disease.

In Western medicine, depression is a mental disease due to the imbalance of certain brain chemicals, such as neurotransmitters. The symptoms of the disorder are reflected in a general lack of interest in life. Modern psychiatry seeks analysis and explanation of the mental and psychological pain associated with depression.

Typically, those suffering from depression or any type of mental disorder demonstrate the following characteristics:

They have a distorted perception of self-worth. Either they have low self-esteem, or they want to be what they would like to become. That is a major cause of confusion and distress characteristic of most depressive individuals.

They cannot confront life’s problems, whether they are relationship, work, or financial problems. Due to their inability to face or cope with these problems, they resort to avoidance, which often aggravates the mental condition.

Zen may provide the ultimate solution to depression.

Zen focuses on who you are, not what you are. In Zen, there is no low self-esteem, because you are what you are—a unique individual. You need not be someone else.

Longing for something you cannot have is the root cause of human misery; it is the source of anguish and mental pain. In Zen, every moment remains with that moment, and hence everything is changing and is therefore impermanent. So, craving permanence in something impermanent is only a disease of the mind.

When a depressive individual is confronted with life’s problems, that individual may strive to avoid them. In Zen, you embrace all that life hands to you—the good as well as the bad. In avoiding the problems, you are in fact creating more problems that require more solutions down the road. According to Zen, problems are unavoidable, but suffering is. The way of Zen is the way of living without stress and depression because one learns to let go and live from moment to moment.

In Zen, there is no depression.

Living By Zen provides a blueprint for healthy living in contemporary society.

Copyright© by Stephen Lau