Zen Self Inquiry

Most religions offer a solution to human suffering in the future rather than trying to get to the immediate root of it, which is: “who is it that suffers?”

To attempt to present this dilemma of the human mind, I will use the template of the Ten Ox Herding pictures. They illustrate the course of deep self-inquiry and how it develops existentially. It is important to understand what the problem of the human condition is at its base so we can ...

Let’s further look at this concept of the reflective self, the self that only knows itself in relationship to something else and not in and of itself. Dr.DeMartino often said, “It’s not that we have an ego, we are the ego!”.  Here ego means the act of separating self from other to know self exists.  It is here that we exist in time.  It causes projecting into the future and ruminating about the past but this ego/self cannot live in ...

We take for granted who we are but we don’t really know who that is.  We can make proclamations of beliefs or political stances but they are just conditioned by our birthplace and environment.  You’re a devout Christian, Muslim or Jew because you were born into that family.  Most people follow the politics of their family and neighborhood and don’t really think critically of their choices. What we see as self evident truths are based on weak foundations that go ...

If you truly grasp that the problem is the dualistic functioning of your mind, that whatever  you do recreates the situation,  then you can attempt to stop this process.  If your goal is to simply ‘quiet the mind’ then you have only succeeded in a quiet mind and not in any great transformation of the self.  There are various Zen practices but what really is their goal, what are they trying to do?  Most schools push zazen or koan practice ...

Throughout Buddhism and Eastern thought in general is the idea that our attachment to physical things and our desires is the cause of our ignorance and suffering.  In the story of the historical Buddha it talks about him first leading a life of hedonism, fulfilling his every desire, yet having no relief from suffering. No matter how much you aggrandize your desires it does not bring about fulfillment. The second part of Gotama’s life is spent as an ascetic, depriving ...