“In the modern world, there seems to be a collective understanding of the word Zen—it has become synonymous with serenity, relaxation, and a calm demeanor.”
“Unlike many other traditions, in Zen, emphasis is placed on the direct experience of enlightenment—experiencing insight through meditation—rather than on the study of the sacred texts of Eastern traditions.”
Source: Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
“Zazen is a great technique to start with because it is so straight- forward and uncomplicated.”
Source: Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
“Attention focused on the breath redirects your awareness from outside your body to inside it. It is an exercise in controlling the focus of your awareness.”
Source: Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
“Zazen practice develops our understanding of our connectedness to the world into which we were born, the world in which we live—which is also the world we are creating together, moment by moment.”
Source: Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
“Zen is an especially intriguing school of Buddhism because it brings to mind paradoxical images of monks happily living quiet lives, meditating on mountaintops, as well as powerful martial artists.”
Source: Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
“In the ever-accelerating modern world, with new technology constantly bombarding our senses and demanding schedules pulling us in different directions, the benefits of a practice like zazen are easy to overlook but profoundly powerful to practice.”
Source: Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
“Slowly and steadily, as the rush to “gain the benefits” of meditation fades away and the depth of the experience itself becomes apparent, your patience will strengthen and your need to be “moving on to the next moment” will begin to recede.”
Source: Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You
“It [Communism] is not new. It is, in fact, man's second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: "Ye shall be as gods." It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man's relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.
It is the vision of man's mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man's liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man's destiny and reorganizing man's life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in his image, but because man's mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals. Copernicus and his successors displaced man as the central fact of the universe by proving that the earth was not the central star of the universe. Communism restores man to his sovereignty by the simple method of denying God.”
Source: Witness
“As the grounding effect of breath awareness disengages you from the often-overwhelming chatter of the mind, the level at which you think will seem to transcend the noise.”
Source: Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You