Zen Psychology

The impetuous to post my thoughts regarding Zen Psychology was and is for the benefit of a few of my psychology students who to my surprise, have asked me specific questions regarding philosophical concepts which are, in of themselves, ideological doctrines.

The aim of these postings is not to offer ready-made answers and solutions to their queries but instead to provide them a path to their own realization of the questions they pose.

These postings are not intended to change a snake from being a snake. We all know a snake is a snake. These utterances are not to shed a wolf’s fur; we all know a wolf is a wolf – even though the wolf may not know he is a wolf.

Lastly, these postings are not aim to make the artificial real. Today, artificiality is worn like a carpenter wears a tool belt. To strip someone of his or her artificiality is to make him or her naked. Please keep your clothes on.

To begin, if I tell you the answer to an enlighten state you will not believe me. It is better to point the way and allow you to find your own path to nirvana.

Having said that, if exercising and eating right is the answer to a healthy body, how many of us practice this? Therefore, just knowing the answer, is not the answer.

If you say be specific, is this for my benefit or for your benefit? It is better that I say, you be specific for yourself and I will be intrinsic for myself.

Why Zen Psychology? Man excludes. Man has rigid rules, which he himself does not uphold but dictates that everyone else should follow his rule verbatim. Zen Psychology does not exclude. The only person, who can exclude, is the person himself.

Are you still in the dark? Zen Psychology is the application of eternal philosophical principles which when internalized and dutifully practiced, takes the individual from a state of ignorance to a state of consciousness.

How is this different from the concept of God? God is an external being to the individual. Zen Psychology explores an internal path. Someone well verse in Existential Psychology should understand this language. Someone well schooled in fluid or seamless thinking should understand Zen Psychology.

There are many ways to enlightenment. If you have not killed, raped, robbed, or treated people badly, but instead have followed your own path, why are you anxious?
Why are you confused? Do you want to follow the path of those who have killed, raped, robbed and treated people unjustly?

Still others live in their comfortable environment. Where is the growth?

Understand black.
Understand brown.
Understand red.
Understand white.

If you cannot tell me the difference between the four go study. Understand you do not understand then begin your journey. Do I understand? If you think I do not, then there is no reason for you to keep reading.

Zen Psychology unless your parents were Sages is not your parent’s ideology. It is not the doctrine practiced in your limited, closed-off environment.

Zen Psychology and Women:

Early teachings did not consider women as readily as they should have. I see no limitations but the limitations placed by people. Is there room for women? How can one block an invisible path? If I tell you there is no room, would you not then force your way in? It is better to seek quietly than to talk to hear yourself talking.

Zen Psychology and Liberal Thinkers:

I have not included right-minded thinkers in the heading because they have excluded themselves. Zen Psychology looks to simplify and liberal thinkers seek a life of semantics. They march here and they yell there, protesting to be protesting. Is it not better to teach those who are impoverish or those who are victims how to not be impoverish and how to not be victims, than it is to plead ‘their’ case in Herod’s court?

Zen Psychology on Politics:

Be careful you do not impose your beliefs in a foreign country. Before you attempt to educate those you feel need educating check to see if what you are about to pontificate has worked in your neck of the woods. These indigenous people cannot freely traverse in your land why do you feel the need to traverse and talk in their land? Better to buy an island and spear fish all day.

Training:

Take the sunglasses off and you will see. Put down the telephone and you will hear. Stop talking and you will attain. If you know all of this, there is no need for you to keep reading.

You cannot market enlightenment. You cannot steal unification. You cannot rape oneness. If you know all of this there is no need for you to keep searching.

Since this is so, the labelers cannot label. The rationalizers cannot rationalize.
The intellectuals cannot intellectualize. Since this is so, dilatants will remain dilatants.

Today, people like to label and to categorize things. If you see a snake, how does that change you? If you see a bird, what has that got to do with you? Are you wearing a beret so you can be an artist? Are you drinking coffee at Borders so you can read? Are you wearing leotards so you can exercise? Please bring me your artist’s hat, your writer’s coffee mug, and your tight exercise garment so I may talk to them.

How can you simultaneously drink alcohol and also study? The best way to gain control is to not exert control. It would be good to decipher what your desires, your obsessions, and your passions are before taking the journey. Once you have deciphered what the above three are, then ask yourself what these three siblings have done for you?

In this world where self-delusion is as rampant as STDs, someone will eventually ask me, what school do you come from? What training have you had? I will laugh, for when such a circular-question is raised, I will know I am dealing with a person who has not taken up the journey. I will know this person is someone who believes Zen Psychology is more culture than it is mind. It is better to not ask.

When the goal is debating and spewing hot air without movement, then you should return to wearing your beret, drinking coffee at Borders, and buying new tight exercise garments. You should return to your previous state – that is, return to where you are.
If your former life is not peaceful and meaningful do not bring your waste to me.

Zen Psychology is not a club. It is not a prestigious school. It is not anything man has created and therefore can exclude others from participating in. You cannot buy it nor can you sell it. You cannot apply the same separatist principles applied in other domains.

In this world where self-image and cognitive dissonance is as rampant as the $9.99 dollar deal, it is better to not ask. It is better to seek for yourself.

If you have evolved then you have solved your hollowness. To question me is to believe I am seeking your admiration; it is to believe I am seeking your attention. It is better to wipe yourself before you try to wipe me.

If I tell you cigarette smoking is bad, but then smoke, what has that got to do with you?

If I tell you fornicating with different people is wrong, but then fornicate, what has that got to do with you?

If you like to make ‘shop-talk’ you will not fix what needs to be fixed. If you like to apply make-up, you will never wake-up. It is better to remain where you are.

Problems:

You have cancer? The problem is not cancer; it is your fear of dying, address that problem.

You are unemployed? The problem is not employment, the problem is how will you eat and live without money? Address how you can momentarily subsist without a job.

You are without a significant other. The problem is not finding someone. The problem is finding you.

You are an adult child of a dysfunctional family. Address why you are still listening to inaudible screams and why you are still receiving and taking invisible beatings years after they actually occurred. Address the real fear that without this external label, you will have to search within.

If it were simple, we would all be. If it were plain, we would all see. Everything you need is self-contained.

To reach the state of emptiness you must drop what you are carrying. Drop your mask not just when you are with friends and with family members, drop your mask forever.

The person who unduly frets and worries about what others will say or worries about what others may do, is only worried about what he or she will say or will do.

If you feel you have no power or no authority who is forcing you to eat? Who is forcing you to sleep? Who is forcing you to drink, to smoke, to sex, to bear children? Control yourself and you will be in a better state of mind to the handle the manipulative control of those external to your being.

If you feel you are lost, who has kidnapped you? Perhaps you have kidnapped yourself from yourself? Return to the stage or time when you were not lost and start from there.

Zen Psychology

Thoughts regarding being empty, being in the here and now, and evolving as human being. In the areas where I have quoted I have indicated the source, for the most part, the statements are mine. Zen Psychology is an attempt to go beyond ‘sheepdom’ it is an attempt to live outside of the external control of a less than humane world.

February 3, 2003

Instant Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary p. 18
“Don’t seek reality, just put a stop to opinions. As soon as there are judgments of right and wrong, the mind is lost in a flurry.”

Instant Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary…
“It is not the wind moving, not the fog moving, but your mind moving.”

mau on Zen Psychology:

“When you wake, do you see the sun or your problems? If you see your invisible problems before the visible sun, maybe that is your problem?”

“When you walk, do you walk on the sidewalk or on the grass?”

“If you eat when you are not hungry, what do you eat when you are?”

“If you cry when you do not feel physical pain, why do you not cry when you do feel physical pain?”

“Everyone wants to be taught, but how can anyone be taught if they have not learned?”

“A psychology student asked me if I was Self-Actualized. I told her no. To say one is
S-A is the best way to not be S-A.”

“The student not daunted then asked, “Why do you refer to people as him instead of him or her?” I said, “Why do you call a bra a bra? Is it for my benefit?”

Be empty. Be Tabla Rasa.

“If the trees of life are too tall and too thick, climb on top of one of them to see your way out.”

“Wood floats on water easier than a brick. Zen Psychology is for the individual more than it is for his household.”

“If you are driving fast, you are driving fast. If you are eating, you are eating. If you are drinking, you are drinking. Today, we have too many words for too few things.”

“Be careful who you invite into your house. One dirt you can clean, the other you cannot.”

February 5, 2003

Instant Zen, ISBN # 1– 55643 – 193 – 7
p. 85

“If you don’t see the original reality, obstacles will follow you all along; if people have obstacles, they go wrong countless thousands of times.”

mau on Zen Psychology:

Existential neurosis:
What does this all-mean state? What is life? What is death? Does anything really matter? It is good to question than it is to only eat and defecate. In the end, it is love, which transcends all things. Love of people. Love of earth. Love of birds, trees, grass and the rolling green hills and bright blue skies. Love of the cool, fresh, clear running stream. Fill your mind with love and it does matter.

If we take too long to see and to do that which is simple, how long will it take us to do the things that are difficult?

Be empty. Be without interpreting. Be without rationalizing. Be without controlling.

Control yourself. Do yourself. Seek yourself. Love yourself. Do not look outward for answers that are inwardly found.