Sit­ting Zazen (med­i­tat­ing) is a key prac­tice for chang­ing your mind. I’ve writ­ten about this exten­sively, so go to the online ver­sion of this arti­cle, and type “zazen” into the search box at the top of the right col­umn. Or, read this arti­cle.

Mind-watching is all about sim­ply notic­ing what’s going on up there. Most of us either ignore our think­ing process (let­ting it hap­pen auto­mat­i­cally and out of consciousness—which is why we end up repeat­ing stu­pid behav­iours) or try to stop them. Nei­ther of these approaches lead anywhere.

So, just watch. Notice the games, notice the aver­sions and attrac­tions. Just notice. Gently.

Part of the “watch­ing of mind” is notic­ing what you expect to hap­pen. Lis­ten to your­self talk­ing to yourself–predicting the out­come of what­ever you are think­ing about. Because we pre­dict it, we pre­dis­pose our­selves to get that, and only that!

Karma works two ways.

First, if you act with dis­re­spect or anger or jeal­ousy, you will find your­self sur­rounded by peo­ple and sit­u­a­tions that are what you put out there. The results you are getting—the way your life is—is the direct result of what you set in motion, 100% of the time.

If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain fol­lows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, hap­pi­ness fol­lows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. ~ Buddha

Sec­ond, your mind’s main func­tion is to fil­ter. For exam­ple, open your ears right now, and lis­ten to every­thing hap­pen­ing around you. You’ll likely hear stuff that you were unaware of. Your mind decided that this stuff was unim­por­tant, so it didn’t “reg­is­ter” on your con­scious­ness. Your mind also fil­ters results, by only bring­ing what you expect to see into consciousness.

So, if you think, “My hus­band is a jerk, and he will fail again,” you will only notice his jerk­i­ness and fail­ures. You see only what you are look­ing for.

Instead, shift your expec­ta­tion and your behav­iour, so that the two match, and are clear and pre­cise. Put into the world what you want to take out of it.

This was the point of the series that ended last week. I gave you exer­cises to do that help you to make con­scious choices, that answer the ques­tion, “What do you REALLY want?”

Part of Zen Mind is a sim­ple aware­ness that every­thing about your behav­iour in the world is under your con­trol, as are your judge­ments about meaning.

If you learn to focus on the step-by-step path toward your goals, you can lis­ten to your mind bab­bling about fail­ure, and doom and gloom, and have a laugh. As you bring aware­ness to your games, they become what they are—the fears and inse­cu­ri­ties of your inner 6-year-old.

We are crea­tures of habit—far more then we realize—and habits oper­ate on the sub-conscious level. Brain the­o­rists sug­gest that habits are actu­ally hard-wired neural path­ways in our brain. Thus, a stim­u­lus comes in, and we fol­low a pre-ordained path, even if we say it’s a path we would rather not fol­low.

The only way out is pay­ing atten­tion—being present. For now, pick some­thing you want to shift. Dar­bella and I, sev­eral months ago, decided to work on stop­ping com­plain­ing. We got “Com­plaint Free World” wrist bands, and worked on it steadily (it takes 25 days to change a habit/rewire your brain’s neural path­way) I wrote about it in an arti­cle on cleans­ing. (Specif­i­cally, point 6)

After pick­ing some­thing, fig­ure out what sets the thing in motion, and pledge to your­self to begin to notice when that hap­pens. Decide in advance what the new behav­iour will be, and imple­ment it. Do this 100% of the time for 25 days. If you blow it (you will!) start the day count over again.

OSHO had it right. He defined the prob­lem in East/West terms. In the West, we use exter­nals, piles, wealth and power as mark­ers of development.

As good lit­tle Puri­tans, we fail to remem­ber plea­sure, sen­su­al­ity, etc. These things are essen­tial, and equate to Zorba’s insis­tence on deeply div­ing into the plea­sures of life.

Start with Zorba–decide which things you want to immerse your­self in, own the expe­ri­ences you want to have, and con­sciously choose to make them hap­pen. Devote time to tast­ing, hear­ing, see­ing, touching–drinking in the essence of life.

“How sim­ple a thing is hap­pi­ness: a glass of wine, a roast chest­nut, a wretched lit­tle bra­zier, the sound of the sea. All that is required to feel that here and now is hap­pi­ness is a sim­ple heart.” ~ Zorba the Greek

We return here–to zazen–to sim­ply sit­ting, with pres­ence and verve.

In the East, the focus has been inter­nal–on spir­i­tual devel­op­ment, and on denial of self, celibacy, aus­ter­ity, poverty. This is the Bud­dha side.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or antic­i­pate trou­bles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” ~ Buddha

” Just as trea­sures are uncov­ered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wis­dom appears from a pure and peace­ful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wis­dom and the guid­ance of virtue.” ~ Buddha

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Click here to go to the online arti­cle, and leave a com­ment or question!