Well trust lifestyle magazines and blog posts and cultural norms.
This is simply because they make sense to us.
They become self-evident truth when we can easily apply them to our issues.
Despite being a derivative of Buddhist teaching, Zen is simply the art of self-awareness.
Its for this reason that Zen principles are universalthey can apply to any dogma or lifestyle, essentially.
So here are eight ancient teachings of Zen and how to navigate them in the modern world.
Your experience is constructed by your mind.The Yogacara discourse essentially explains how our minds perceptions create our experiences.
Not every fear feeling or negative thought is an invitation to explore it to a resolutive end.
Your concept of self is an illusion (and construct) as well.Who you are is an essence.
Thats why its never one thing for too long or in any given context.
However, most of us only understand ourselves as we imagine other people see us.
(Writer, teacher, mom, student, basketball player, good person, etc.)
Most of our issues surround trying to manipulate the ego; trying to inflate or immortalize the self.
Its about the simple understanding that all things serve you.
The bad things teach you and show you how to heal to open even further to the good things.
It cannot be put much simpler than that.
The art of doing nothing is profound.
The point is: You are not what you do; you simply are.
Guidedmeditation practiceswill often have you observe thoughts as they pass, as a third-party viewer.
The point being to teach you that you are not those thoughts.
You are not your feelings.
You are the being that experiences those thoughts and feelings, who decides which to value and act on.
Your natural state is oneness.The reality we will all return to eventually is that everything is one.
(This is the basis of enlightenment.)
It is in the illusion of separateness that we suffer.
It is playing out the ideas of individualism that we learn.
It is to our natural state, unification, that we eventually return.
