What is zen? It is something that fits into your hand.

I chose to live in simplicity and self-reflection during this vacation. I was trying to live a life on my own, away from people and the hustle and bustle of the city, so that i can learn to enjoy solitude and loneliness. I had some insights, as I tried these new experiences. On the quest to find my true self, and to find what's the best way to live one's life. What luck I had as I stumbled upon treasures of wisdom, written works passed down by great writers. It was merely a stroke of coincidence that I found a book "The importance of living" by Liu Yutang. An english book written by a Chinese Prof. His work enthralled me. He has adopted the spirit of Zhuangzhi, to advocate laziness and simplicity. To him, the way of life is to just idle and be humorous. He proposed the half-half philosophy, integrating Confucianism and Taoism as the way of life. I hardly could disagree with him. A contemporary writer applying ancient Chinese wisdom to daily modern life, he proves that ancient wisdom can still be practised till the very day. It has not grown obsolete in this rapid growing world of materialistic comfort.

So happy I was that I gaily went to botanical gardens and east coast park on my own, to enjoy the nature the way I never did. The essence of Zen and Taoism is so simple, yet so difficult to be practised. Zhuangzi, had, through his philosophical works, thought us not to think so much and just flow along with the course of the river. The bad thing about being a human, is the concept of distinction. That is the root of all problem. There is hatred, and so the opposite exist. Love and hatred complements. Life and there is death. Sadness and there is happiness. Good and bad. Beautiful and ugly. Abandon thinking, spontaneous action is the key to handling all matter. It has a scientific background. I shall care to explain this. Have u heard of a reflex action? It's a automatic response from our nervous system to deal with situations where fast action is required. When we commit an action, and stop down to think and analyse, some precious time is lost in the mood of thinking. If u touch a hot kettle, your hand automatically retracts to avoid burn damage. If u slow down, distinguish it and tell urself that the kettle is hot, and then process the information with your brain that what u should do, finally u react, how much time is wasted for the whole process. Think about it urself, by that time, your hand could have been burn already. Stopping down to think is bad in this case. These ideas can be found in Lao Tze's teachings. I found some passages that imply this.

The Daodejing

Chapter Two

Everyone in the world knows that when the beautiful strives to be beautiful, it is repulsive.
Everyone knows that when the good strives to be good, it is no good.
And so, to have and to lack generate each other.

This talks about opposites and how they co-exist with each other. The uselessness of desires is that the more u want something, the more u drift away from it. Don't say i want something, just do it! The style of nike!

Chapter 19
Cut off sageliness, abandon wisdom, and the people will benefit one-hundred-fold......
Cut off cleverness, abandon profit, and robbers and thieves will be no more.....
Manifest plainess.
Embrace simplicity.
Do not think just of yourself.
MAke few your desires.

Do not think, do not think highly of wisdom. Wisdom and knowledge is the root of all problem. When Eve and Adam ate the fruit of the Tree of knowledge, they got knowledge and got into trouble. God kicked them out of the paradise they used to be in. To get back to the Eden gardens, put the fruit of knowledge back to where it is. Abandon knowledge!

Fine tune your senses, train urself to be in what u r, then u will know how to react appropriately. Thinking doesn't help. Wanting something and desiring it also does not help u to achieve ur goal. A Zen master told me. The way to attain peace in ur heart is so simple, yet so difficult to do for so many people. This is also what Lao Tze had said before.

Chapter 70
My teachings are easy to understand and easy to implement;
But no one in the whole world has been able to understand or implement them.
My teachings have an ancestor and my activities have a lord;
But people fail to understand these and so I am not understood.

The Zen master carried on with his explanation. It is so simple, yet so difficult for people to do it. I wonder how many people can attain this level of tranquility. The way of life, is to be in what you are doing, the mindfulness mind of awareness. That is all. When u take a train, take a train. When u watch a movie, watch a movie. When u listen to a lecture, listen to a lecture. When u eat, just eat. When u talk, just talk. When u shower, just shower. When u sleep, just sleep. When u drink a good brew of tea, just drink the tea. I wish to abandon the thinking mind. It is thinking that brings about negative thoughts. It is distinctions that give rise to discrimination. But since i'm born with it, i shouldn't try so hard to be stupid and forget knowledge. I can have the best of both worlds.

So here i am, sitting in my house. Drinking my tea, not thinking about anything. So here I am, in the botanical gardens, being one with nature. I feed the swans at the swan lake. I saw two mices trying to steal food at the bandstand, a favourite picnic spot for visitors. I saw a bird catch an earth worm and enjoy its meal after its hunt. I saw pigeons flying around, cooing, not daunted by the presence of humans. I saw dogs run happily in the fields, they look happy. How do i noe they are happy? I noe it because they seem to be not thinking about anything at all, just running. I saw bougainvilleas and hibiscus plants. I saw a green fern and i went forward to feel the fern for myself. I flipped the leaves and look at the spore bags underneath. I saw three birds resting at a rock. I didn't know its name. For a moment, I was fooled into thinking that they were part of the decor. They were motionless and looked unalive. Then I was startled when one flapped its wing and flew off. Before I knew it, I was hungry and went for dinner.

When i'm on the train, everyone else don't seem to be on the train. Their minds are somewhere else. I observe those people around me. Some people were sleeping, some talking to their friends, kids play game boy, adults read newspaper. This jc kid was so into smsing. A women dressed in the business attire stares blankly. She seems to be lost in her own thought. I was the only one on the train. Some look back at me when they realise I'm looking at them. Maybe, they weren't so distracted afterall. I was a observer. And I see so many things I never use to see.

I have grown to like simplicity. So what is zen? Zen teaches u the way of life. The way of life is something so simple. It is something that can even fit into your palm.