<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Yoshizen&#039;s Blog]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://yoshizen.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[yoshizen]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://yoshizen.wordpress.com/author/yoshizen/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Mindfulness &#8211; Western Misinterpretation]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>People talked about the BBC News, featured about the Meditation (which I didn&#8217;t know).</p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>And it seemed, BBC used a word [Mindfulness] to explain [Meditation]. &#8212;&#8211; What ? </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>Meditation is to sitting in [Mushin = <span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">無心</span>] = not having even a notion of Mindfulness.</strong></span></p>
<p>&#8212;&#8211; Why such kind of mix-up is taking place in the west ?</p>
<p>So that, I first ever saw Wikipedia [Mindfulness] 😀 and discovered the situation. (it explained me why</p>
<p>a talking about Zen with western Zen Practitioners are often end up in confusion. 😀 )</p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>I&#8217;ve been long suspected that the understanding of [Mindfulness] and [Meditation] </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>in the west was wrong.</strong></span></p>
<p>Simply because of the academics or the scholars of the Buddhism scriptures are arguing about the</p>
<p>meaning of the WORD in its semantics. (Word is mere indicater of a notion = not the notion itself. And</p>
<p>even the notion couldn&#8217;t necessary able to describe the meaning.</p>
<p>Such as “Ride” a bicycle = to find the use of this [Ride] in the time of Donkey and a Cart wouldn&#8217;t make</p>
<p>any sense about an application against a modern bicycle. And the understanding of the word <span style="color:#000080;"><strong>“Ride” is</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong> nothing to do with how to ride a bicycle. You only know it actuarially master to RIDE it. 😀 )</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>So, it became clear. To know the meaning of a term in Zen, you got to do the Zen.  And to know </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>the meaning of the word wouldn&#8217;t make you able to to know the Zen. This is the very reason why</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#0000ff;"><strong>Lord Buddha ordered his disciples “Don&#8217;t take the words of mine or others, but think yourself.&#8221;</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#ffffff;">[]</span></p>
<p>Zen had spread from China, and to Japan. (then from there to the west)</p>
<p>Lord Buddha&#8217;s teachings were re-discovered in there through the practice which</p>
<p>Lord Buddha taught direct to his followers.</p>
<p>By following those practices, Chinese monk who translated Scriptures and Mantras, managed to find the</p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>meaning of the word in Sanskrit, Pali or Tibetan and assigned the word to a Chinese character</strong></span></p>
<p><strong>[<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">念</span></strong>(nien in Chinese, nen in Japanese)<strong>] to the word now (miss) used in the west, as [Mindfulness].</strong></p>
<p>The Chinese character [<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">念</span>] has the meaning of deep thought or even a kind of feeling stacked in the depth of</p>
<p>mind which is distinctively different from the temporally<strong> conscious thinking [<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">考</span>].</strong></p>
<p>One of the most observant people in the human history = Chinese, created the character to each different</p>
<p><strong>level of mind-activities in the brain.   Such as [<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">考</span>], [<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">思</span>],[<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">慮</span>],[<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">念</span>] and [<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">懐</span>].</strong></p>
<p>[<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">懐</span>] is a word to describe a feeling, “I feel it is there though, hard to describe, and I can&#8217;t get lid of it” kind =</p>
<p>such as latent fear or one&#8217;s positive, negative mood. ( They are the matters of the hormone level in the body)</p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>Above this, a bit more clear level of Mind is [<span style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS;">念</span>] = which indicates “whether you intentionally </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>think or not, it is always there and you aware of  it” kind of  focused tendency in the mind.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>This <strong> [念]</strong>  is the Mind what ancient Chinese monk who translated the scriptures, found to </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#333333;"><strong>be the best suited to describe [sati (Pali)] or  [smrti (Sanskrit)]. &#8212;&#8211;<span style="color:#333333;"> As this is the</span> mind </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#333333;"><strong>reside,  deeper beyond the person&#8217;s intentional manipulation, </strong></span><span style="color:#000080;"><strong><span style="color:#333333;"> try to </span>think something to </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>concentrate,</strong></span><span style="color:#333333;"><strong> is nothing but the </strong></span><span style="color:#333333;"><strong><span style="color:#333333;"> misunderstanding.  = Mindfulness will bore out from the </span></strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#333333;"><strong><span style="color:#333333;">situation and the attitude of the person.</span></strong></span><span style="color:#000080;"><strong> &#8212;&#8211;  It is the result,  not other way round.<br />
</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong><br />
</strong></span></p>
<p>Think, you are a journalist, walking through the ground near Melt-down Fukushima Nuclear site.</p>
<p>As you were allowed to walk there, it was regarded to be safe though, the mud could have invisible</p>
<p>radiation hot spot. Which makes you very cautious, hence choosing dry clean point to step-on.</p>
<p>Every steps &#8212;&#8211;.<span style="color:#000080;"><strong> This detailed attention you are unconsciously and constantly paying to </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>everything, every moment, &#8212;&#8211; this is what [Mindfulness] really meant.</strong></span></p>
<p>You were programmed to walk the most careful manner while watching all the signs and the left over</p>
<p>rubble of the Tsunami.   In the same time you have to observe what and how workers who removing the</p>
<p>contaminated soil are doing, or the situations how the strayed pet animals are surviving and so on, which</p>
<p>was the purpose of you to be there.  Mindfulness is not an intentional mind-set but when</p>
<p>you faced the serious situation, (or you take it serious) its naturally set in, as Dharma works.</p>
<p>(This is the reason why Tea Master says &#8220;Make a tea as if it is the only an occasion in your whole life&#8221; )</p>
<p><span style="color:#ffffff;">[]</span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>If you are riding a bicycle everyday, you just ride it. </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>You don&#8217;t need to think “I&#8217;m riding a bicycle”,  you ride it as to ride a bicycle, not a motor-bike.</strong></span></p>
<p>Because, your body, your<span style="color:#000080;"><strong> brain knows “You are riding bicycle, unconsciously</strong></span> = you have been</p>
<p>programmed through the practice to ride a bicycle.</p>
<p>To program your subconscious and your motor-region of the brain, how to ride, where to pay attention etc</p>
<p>has been done through the practice. = so, as the result, you<span style="color:#000080;"><strong> can do it almost routine = automatic. = </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>automatic mean, you can do it without thinking, hence efficient and smooth.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#0000ff;"><strong>To apply same principle to all the aspects of the life is what</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#0000ff;"><strong>Lord Buddha had found and taught = Life without useless thinking (delusion etc), hence </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#0000ff;"><strong>able to live in peace.     This is What Buddhism all about.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#ffffff;">[]</span></p>
<p>At the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness"> Wikipedia [Mindfulness] </a>you may read (Zen criticism) the quote of  Muho Noelke of Antai-ji saying</p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong>“Don&#8217;t be mindful, plase !  When you walk, just walk. &#8212; Let the walk, walk. &#8212; let the sitting sit”</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#000080;"><strong> it seems, his words are the most closest to the Zen among the many Zen sites.</strong></span></p>
<p>&#8212;&#8211; Even though, he was stop short of noticing that it was in fact, the matters in one&#8217;s subconsciousness,</p>
<p>at least, he knows and doing the Zen &#8212;&#8212; Able to do the Zen, he doesn&#8217;t need to give a damn whether it is in</p>
<p>the subconsciousness or else<span style="color:#0000ff;"><strong> = When you DO, just do.</strong></span>  (But my role is to analyze and see the structure of</p>
<p>the Zen = This is the reason why I didn&#8217;t became a monk, even though I&#8217;m a son of  Zen priest)</p>
<p><span style="color:#0000ff;"><strong>&#8212;&#8211; Forget the word, Mindfulness , Mushin, Jizai = they are just different naming of the same</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#0000ff;"><strong> mind.  As they are in fact just one, hence having Oneness = Ichijo, and this is what Dharma is.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#0000ff;"><strong>___/\___</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:#ffffff;">&#8212;</span></p>
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