C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Living in the Now? On Zen, Mindfulness, Budo, and the Depths of TRUE Practice      Zen has become part of our lexicon in the modern English language.  I don’t believe this is a “good” thing.  If you ask the average American about Zen, they’re not going to be knowledgeable on the subject.  They tend to equate Zen with calm or “being peaceful” or something such as that.  Zen is often used the most as an adjective or an adverb.  “Sensei is the most Zen dude,” a young martial practitioner may say of his teacher.  Or a surfer might say that his “ride was very Zen.”      That is not Zen.      If someone is a little more knowledgeable on the subject of Zen, they may equate it with mindfulness or “living in the present moment?”  But is that correct?  And for the martial artist, or the Zen practitioner reading this, should that even be the goal?     ...

The following was written spontaneously, that is, without planning or "thinking" about what I was going to write about, I sat down at my computer, and had a few musings at the back of my mind. The following is the result. Ramblings on Budo: More Budo "Minds" Not long ago, I wrote an essay on the different “minds” of budo, such as mushin , often called “no mind”, and shoshin , often referred to as “beginner’s mind.”  (I wrote a couple of essays on shoshin.)  But here, in this minor essay, I have in mind (pun intended) some other “minds” that, although they aren’t discussed outright in budo, they are encountered during practice.  And sometimes they are discussed outright in other Ways (such as the Way of Zen).   These include monkey mind, wild mind, centered mind, and big mind, to name just a smattering few. Monkey mind is a mind you’re, unfortunately, all-too-familiar with if you have ever tried to focus, even for just a brief period of time, on one solitary thing...

Read on and discover the REAL connection between Zen and the martial arts! Taisen Deshimaru - the great Soto Zen monk of the 20th century - clearly taught that there was a correlation between martial arts and Zen.      There has long been a debate over how much, if any, influence Zen has had on the martial arts.  There has also been interest over the years as to whether or not mutual exchanges occurred between the various martial arts and the various Buddhist philosophies of silent/seated meditation - i.e.: Zen.  Zen is the Japanese translation of the Chinese "Chan", itself a translation of the Indian/Sanskrit word "Dhyana", which simply means "seated meditation" in English.  I write "philosophies" (plural) of Buddhist meditation because there are many "Zens".  Not only is Zen known as Chan in China, but it's also practiced as "Seon" in Korea, and "Thien" in Vietnam.  (Probably the most popular Zen monk in the wo...