The Inner Nobility

Nobility – when internalized – is not a social status. It is even outdone of the outer structure and speaks a language that does not compare itself to any other but himself.

It is the highest form of noble attitude, as it is the most difficult to achieve. The hard work to become a noble person inside, without any recognition of it by any other than oneself, brings fruits of wisdom beyond the normal comprehension.

These values activate the cosmic wisdom, the intuition, the deeper knowings.

• He knows himself to be an eternal student
• He does not seek to enlighten others out of respect for them
• Will at all times recognize his inadequacy and his inabilities
• Understand that the true wisdom is seated in his soul-consciousness and seeks to rediscover that essence
• Knows that the voice of consciousness can only be heard in silence and withdrawal
• He leaves behind what insults the soul-consciousness
• Follows the inner guidance only, and ignores any other law that insults his consciousness
• Recognizes that intuition is outside of the frequential capacity of the logic mind
• Lives by the inner wealth-wisdom, knowing it can never be taken away
• Lives outside fear, doubt and despair, as he has accepted other values
• Understands that obedience and dependence divides, and that oneness unifies
• Knows that the path to inner nobility is narrow, without compromise and severe, however not difficult

True Zen-Warriors are aware of their inner judge, their inner consciousness that oversees every action without fail.

This inner judge becomes the living intuitive knowing that no other person can ever teach you.

Through intuition the eyes will pierce through all external matter, the ears will hear what is normally not audible. The inner senses awaken as the intuition activates.

The Quiet Center of Stillness

Inside yourself — within your Personal Inner Hologram — located at the core of your being ... is a place of stillness, emptiness, and peace.

You’ve known it to be there for your entire life, and perhaps you’ve largely ignored it. But now, times are changing for many of you ... You find yourself reaching out to that eternal stillness.

Upon first interaction with this place, your “regular” everyday mind says “there’s nothing there.” Your normal, logical, outward-oriented, educated, adult mind suggests that you simply ignore it — ignore the emptiness and stillness.

But, a deeper part of yourself is attracted to it, and I dare say ... it has already fallen in LOVE with the stillness. In fact, it has started to develop an intimate, personal, secret, one-on-one love affair with the stillness that exists at the very center of your being.

The power of love draws you to energetic merging and oneness with that which you loveAnd so, just as you would with anything you love, you cannot help but return to it, day after day, multiple times, thousands of times, year after year. You find yourself day dreaming about the thing you love, and how to get more of it. In this case, the “thing” you love and are captivated with is the vast, limitless area of stillness and emptiness, inside yourself.

Soon you start losing yourself in it ... dissolving yourself in it so to speak ... so that who you thought you were, is no longer present. Your personal history is erased. You float in the stillness for seconds, minutes — who knows how long? — you float in the timelessness that is native and natural to the inner realm of stillness.You notice that you are nothing and have not a shred of identity when you are floating in the emptiness of your Inner Cosmos.

But that, when you naturally flow back into the awareness of Creation, as you do so, you are spontaneously re-assembled into a familiar being and identity. Get it? That is called natural self-orchestration. It is always a mysterious, beautiful, magical thing.

The center of stillness inside you is the same center in meBut now — as said before — things have changed. You realize the place that you came from (the stillness and infinite emptiness) is actually the Mother-Father principle of the whole Grand Universe. Everything is flowing from it.

Your personal, intimate, inner place of stillness, is actually the same emptiness that exists in the atom and between the stars. It is the birthplace of you, me, our friends, the planet, the sun, our galaxy and Everything. You realize that it has a center (which is the emptiness and stillness that we've been discussing) that is EVERYWHERE ... and a circumference which is nowhere.

From this, you grow into the understanding that the center of stillness that is inside yourself, is the same center that is inside me. It is a center of stillness that is common to everyone.

(full credits of the text : http://www.soulconnection.net/quiet_center_of_stillness.html - in deep appreciation for Teka, the writer of the above material)

The Quantum Field

The field of mystery, beyond our senses, yet very active, the quantum field. From there everything that we are, we know is born, from there comes the wish to exist.

It is the same field that resides in the core of the flower, it cannot be touched, named or controlled.

Powerful force of unknown quality, yet the basis of all life and perceptions here on earth.

Yes, it listens closely to all your wishes, and aligns the experience for you, beyond your own imagination. It is you and it is NOT you. A mystery that lives in the silence of who we are.

What is Zen ?

One day a student from Chicago came to the Providence Zen Center and asked Seung Sahn Soen-Sa, 'What is Zen?'

Soen-sa held his Zen stick above his head and said, 'Do you understand?'

The student said, 'I don't know.'

Soen-sa said, 'This don't know mind is you. Zen is understanding yourself.'

'What do you understand about me? Teach me.'

Soen-sa said, 'In a cookie factory, different cookies are baked in the shape of animals, cars, people, and airplanes. They all have different names and forms, but they are all made from the same dough, and they all taste the same. 'In the same way, all things in the universe - the sun, the moon, the stars, mountains, rivers, people, and so forth - have different names and forms, but they are all made from the same substance. The universe is organized into pairs of opposites: light and darkness, man and woman, sound and silence, good and bad. But all these opposites are mutual, because they are made from the same substance. Their names and their forms are different, but their substance is the same. Names and forms are made by your thinking. If you are not thinking and have no attachment to name and form, then all substance is one. Your don't know mind cuts off all thinking. This is your substance. The substance of this Zen stick and your own substance are the same. You are this stick; this stick is you.'

The student said, 'Some philosophers say this substance is energy, or mind, or God, or matter. Which is the truth?'

Soen-sa said, 'Four blind men went to the zoo and visited the elephant. One blind man touched its side and said, 'The elephant is like a wall.' The next blind man touched its trunk and said, 'The elephant is like a snake.' The next blind man touched its leg and said, 'The elephant is like a column.' The last blind man touched its tail and said, 'The elephant is like a broom.' Then the four blind men started to fight, each one believing that his opinion was the right one. Each only understood the part he had touched; none of them understood the whole.

'Substance has no name and no form. Energy, mind, God, and matter are all name and form. Substance is the Absolute. Having name and form is having opposites. So the whole world is like the blind men fighting among themselves. Not understanding yourself is not understanding the truth. That is why there is fighting among ourselves. If all the people in the world understood themselves, they would attain the Absolute. Then the world would be at peace.'

World peace is Zen.

The student said, 'How can practicing Zen make world peace?'

Soen-sa said, 'People desire money, fame, sex, food, and rest. All this desire is thinking. Thinking is suffering. Suffering means no world peace. Not thinking is not suffering. Not suffering means world peace. World peace is the Absolute. The Absolute is I.'

The student said, 'How can I understand the Absolute?'

Soen-sa said, 'You must first understand yourself.'

'How can I understand myself?'

Soen-sa held up the Zen stick and said, 'Do you see this?'

He then quickly hit the table with the stick and said, 'Do you hear this? This stick, this sound, your mind - are they the same or different?'

The student said, 'The same.'

Soen-sa said, 'If you say they are the same, I will hit you thirty times. If you say they are different, I will still hit you thirty times. Why?'

The student was silent.

Soen-sa shouted, 'KAAATZ!!!' Then he said, 'Spring comes, the grass grows by itself.'

(source of information : http://www.kwanumeurope.org)