062-The detachment from being - Buddhism in daily life

The detachment from being


Again and again the question comes up what exactly Chan (Zen) is.


Generally speaking, Chan is the very personal practice of
self-discovery, self-observation. This sounds very simple at
first, but in practice it can be accompanied by strong
distortions. First of all, not everyone likes to see what they
find, and secondly, it is difficult to focus the mind, to get to
the point. And then there is the matter of "enlightenment", which
Buddha recommended to his followers, but which does not come
easily at all.


In any case, Chan Buddhism is the path to personal freedom,
without fears and useless attachments, which makes the philosophy
of the teacher of all teachers practicable for all people, but
also difficult.


Those who are new to the subject should first use the teaching to
a kind of feel-good Buddhism, and then dive deeper into the
philosophy. The "enlightenment" as the absolute essence of
Buddhism will probably not be able to follow all interested
people. Especially if you are new to Chan Buddhism, then
everything is very confusing, the Buddhist teachings have many
different directions, each country has, just by the language,
completely different approaches.


So also when this spiritual orientation meets the Central
Europeans, who like to put up a statue of Buddha, but have hardly
come into contact with his teachings. Here, the rules of Buddhism
are gladly adapted to the existing structures of the prevailing
religion (Christianity) in order to please the taste of the
majority.


Right now, Western Buddhism is in an enormous crisis, because (as
said) the person of Buddha has been accepted, but the average
Central European can do little or nothing with the words from the
past. Alone to make a choice among the different directions of
Buddhism (Japan, Korea, China, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Vietnam,
Thailand, etc.) overwhelms many people so much that they already
throw in the towel here.


Every Buddhist direction is then subject to innumerable rules,
commandments, prayers: Is it allowed to have sex, eat meat, what
about the family, what about rebirth, were there gods and saints?
The things to follow are endless, generations continued to add
their views, the thicket of teachings became denser and denser.


I follow the pure teaching of Buddha, as well as the Chan
teaching (Zen) superimposed on it, which was developed in the
Shaolin Temple in China about 2000 years ago. I fade out all
views introduced afterwards. The original words of the great
teacher may have been written down only after his death (sutras),
but in their core they all point in the same direction
("enlightenment").


Buddhism is characterized by self-initiative, detachment from
one's own being is the focus, cessation of suffering is the goal.


To integrate the ideas and methods of the great teacher in the
West does not seem to be an easy undertaking, the individual
Buddhist schools argue too hard, groups form, everyone has
something to criticize about everyone. Only one's own path leads
to Nirvana, the other branch errs, the splinter in the eye of the
other is naturally large, the beam in front of one's own face is
ignored.


The goal of the Chan is to "enlighten" the mind, that is, to
detach it from being. Are you interested?


The way is the goal!





Apply to everything your mind, and when you have analyzed it and
found it good for you and everyone else, then you can believe in
it, live by it and help your neighbor to live by it too


- Buddha - "The Enlightened One" - honorary name of Siddharta
Gautama - 560 to 480 before the year zero





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