One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.
Among the most remarkable features characterizing Zen we find these: spirituality, directness of expression, disregard of form or conventionalism, and frequently an almost wanton delight in going astray from respectability.
Tantric Zen is a state of mind
The whole aim of Zen is not to make foolproof statements about experience, but to come to direct grips with reality without the mediation of logical verbalizing.
This is Zen, and in Zen, as we all know. . . anything goes!
You may wonder which came first: the skill or the hard work. But that's a moot point. The Zen master cleans his own studio. So should you.
In Tantric Zen you can be humorous and make fun of anything or you can be very serious.
It is not good to talk about Zen, because Zen is nothingness. . . If you talk about it, you are always lying, and if you don't talk about it, no one knows it is there.
There is no letter of the law to follow in Zen. There is a lot of etiquette, but there are no rules.
I was very attracted to the way that Zen did not go into the imagination land. And now I've forgotten what your first question was and how we were going to tie this together.
You have to begin to develop a repertory of jokes, multi-plane spiritual jokes, the sort of things the Zen masters tell each other when they're asleep. These are the secret teachings.
What I term Zen, old Zen, the original face of Zen, new Zen, pure Zen, or Tantric Zen is - Zen in its essence.
Zen doesn't believe in the reconciliation of opposites because from the point of view of Zen, there is no point of view.
This particular school of Zen has always considered itself the Marines of the spiritual world, so it has a kind of bias against conceptual thinking in favor of a very rigorous physical life.
The way of nothingness is the way of Zen. It is just a term. The contemplation of nothingness or everythingness is where everything starts.
There was a famous Zen master whom people would seek out to become enlightened. He was strict and would occupy people with things having nothing to do with seeking enlightenment. You see, that is the only way to achieve enlightenment; by not focusing on achieving it. Then, one day it will just come to you.
HELLO! Look at me. HELLO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. Hello. Everything is nothing, and it's so cool to be ENLIGHTENED. Like me.
Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one's own rules-this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.
I work out because that's my job, but what I enjoy about it, beyond the vanity, is the Zen of it. I like getting out of my head, and one great way to do that is to sweat your face off. And to know that, if you're thinking of anything else, you're not working intensely enough.
Zen is like soap. First you wash with it, and then you wash off the soap.
