Zen Meditation

Zen - To figure out something by meditation or by a sudden flash of enlightenment.

For me the beauty of Zen has always been the simplicity of its lateral twist. Many great thinkers who perhaps had spent much too much time analysing the permutations and connotations of a particular problem, are amazed by the simplicity of a Zen solution. And sometimes a Zen solution is in the posing of yet another question.

The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"
 

The questions raised about reality in this little story are often the lateral questioning of logic and reason that Zen values so much. Zen tells us simply that our conditioning may be wrong, what we think is normal may not be natural, and to trust only the truth of the heart.

The Zen tradition is Buddhist, though its mistrust of the learned is historically common to most forms of meditation. According to Zen the mind and ego can be convinced of anything it seems. An untruth repeated over and over can eventually become a fact, but from Zen's point of view it is still untruth.

This is the beauty of Zen.

It tells us that real wisdom is simple. That the greatest truths are true in any age and that all wisdom has always been inside of us, all we need to do is reveal it. 

Against the backdrop of western science, where complexity is valued and facts change with every evolution of scientific knowledge, Zen speaks of pure wisdom itself.

When next you feel the urge to doubt the intuitions of your heart against the logic of your head, take a moment, to enter your Zen meditation and see for yourself what is true.