Light Incense And Meditate

Soyen Shaku, the first Zen teacher to come to America, said: “My heart burns like fire but my eyes are as cold as dead ashes.” He made the following rules which he practiced every day of his life.

In the morning before dressing, light incense and meditate.

Retire at a regular hour. Partake of food at regular intervals. Eat with moderation and never to the point of satisfaction.

Receive a guest with the same attitude you have when alone. When alone, maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests.

Watch what you say, and whatever you say, practice it.

When an opportunity comes do not let it pass you by, yet always think twice before acting.

Do not regret the past. Look to the future.

Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child.

Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.

Encounter Your Loneliness

When Soyen Shaku said – My heart burns like fire but my eyes are as cold as dead ashes – he said everything. His being is throbbing with life and when he says that my eyes are as cold as dead ashes he means that his mind stopped, he has entered into No-Mind.

Scientifically it is proved that our eyes are connected with thoughts. When Soyen Shaku says that my eyes are dead ashes he says that I am no longer thinking. Also when he says what he practiced in everyday life is – Watching – in all his activity. He has entered in his aloneness. His eyes are the proof. His whole being is proof of the way whether he is receiving guests, in his communication, all the circumstances are an opportunity for him to transform him, sleep and awakening.

Whenever you are alone, that loneliness erupts, surfaces. Suddenly you start feeling yourself a stranger in a vast world, an abysmal world, infinite. And you are there, just a tiny speck of dust – although conscious, but so tiny, so helpless, so powerless, and all alone. That creates pain, panic, anguish. You rush back into some activity, you start doing something or other that keeps you away from this truth.

There are only two types of people: one, who escape from their loneliness – the majority, the ninety-nine point-nine percent, who escape from themselves; and the remaining point-one percent is the meditator, who says, ‘If loneliness is a truth, then it is a truth; then there is no point in running away from it. It is better to go into it, encounter it, see it face to face, what it is.’

Soyen Shaku is the second type – meditator – for him meditation means going into your loneliness wholeheartedly, to discover it, to investigate it, to inquire into it. That’s what meditation is all about.

Meditation means you are not escaping anymore. Although it hurts, but you are not escaping. It is painful, but you are not escaping. If it is there, you have to face it, to inquire as deeply as possible into it, because it is your reality. And by knowing it deeply you will become a man of wisdom.

What you are feeling is the first step of meditation. You are encountering your loneliness. If you go on encountering it, if you are courageous enough and you go on encountering it and you don’t start escaping, then loneliness one day changes its color: it becomes aloneness. And that is the moment of great mutation, when loneliness becomes aloneness.

Learning from the story Light Incense And Meditate: Encounter Your Loneliness

Experience Learning

The difference between loneliness and aloneness?

Loneliness is a negative state of mind. Aloneness is positive, notwithstanding what the dictionaries say. In dictionaries, loneliness and aloneness are synonymous. They are synonyms; in life they are not. Loneliness is a state of mind when you are constantly missing the other; aloneness is the state of mind when you are constantly delighted in yourself. Loneliness is miserable, aloneness is blissful. Loneliness is always worried, missing something, hankering for something, desiring for something. Aloneness is a deep fulfillment, not going out, tremendously content, happy, celebrating. In loneliness you are off center, in aloneness you are centered and rooted. Aloneness is beautiful. It has an elegance around it, a grace, a climate of tremendous satisfaction. Loneliness is beggarly. All around it there is begging and nothing else, it has no grace around it. In fact, it is ugly. Loneliness is a dependence; aloneness is sheer independence. One feels as if one is one’s whole world, one’s whole existence.

Aloneness and silence are two aspects of one experience, two sides of the same coin. If one wants to experience silence one has to go into one’s total aloneness. It is there.

We are born alone, we die alone. Between these two realities we create a thousand and one illusions of being together – all kinds of relationships, friends and enemies, loves and hates, nations, races, religions. We create all kinds of hallucinations just to avoid one fact: that we are alone. But whatsoever we do, the truth cannot be changed. It is so, and rather than trying to escape from it, the best way is to rejoice in it.

Rejoicing in your own aloneness is what meditation is all about. The meditator is one who dives deep into one’s aloneness, knowing that we are born alone, we will be dying alone, and deep down we are living alone. So why not experience what this aloneness is? It is our very nature, our very being.

Aloneness is the Everest of meditation, the highest sunlit peak. Once you start enjoying aloneness, there is no end to where your joy stops growing. It goes on growing, it goes on spreading; it seems as if the whole universe is full of joy and full of fragrance. Aloneness is the greatest achievement in life but certainly there is a painful period of transition.

Man ordinarily lives in loneliness. To avoid loneliness, he creates all kinds of relationships, friendships, organizations, political parties, religions and what not. But the basic thing is that he is very much afraid of being lonely. Loneliness is a black hole, a darkness, a frightening negative state almost like death … as if you are being swallowed by death itself. To avoid it, you run out and fall into anybody, just to hold somebody’s hand, to feel that you are not lonely.

I have seen people when they are walking in the night on a lonely street, they start singing songs. Nobody has ever heard that they are singers! And what suddenly transpires that they become singers? – and loudly. They are simply trying to forget that they are lonely. They are trying to drown themselves in their own voice.

Nothing hurts more than loneliness.