Za Zen Practice

Za-Zen Influence in our Lives

 

Your Life’s Work

While I cannot tell you what your life’s work is in any detail, I can suggest a few terms to serve as a frame of reference while you are making your search. In your life’s work, you will find a mix of integrity, service, enjoyment, and excellence.

 

Integrity: Your life’s work is something you deeply care about. In line with your values and ideals, its something you can be proud to work for. Of course, it is important that your work not conflict with your values and ideals. More than this, a life’s work is born out of your visions, values, and ideals. It’s giving life to your ideals, anchoring them in the everyday world of action.

Key Words: Purposeful, Meaningful, responsible, honest, truthful.

Ask yourself: Who am I?

 

Service: Your life’s work is your way of making this world a better place. Its something you can make an important contribution to. We all want to give; to know that we do is benefiting others. Your life’s work is an opportunity to put your love in action. It’s your way of taking a stand to help your fellow man.

Key Words: Helping, caring, loving, giving, contribution.

Ask yourself: How can I make this world a better place?

Enjoyment: Your life’s work is something you love to do, something your talents can find full expression through. If we enjoy our work, we are sure to bring our creativity and enthusiasm to it. If we do not, we are sure to get burnt out, frustrated, resentful, or indifferent. Not matter how noble the ideal or seemingly valuable your service, you must bring joy to it if you are to be truly successful. Work without joy is a chore or a bore. Channel your creative powers into meaningful contributions.

Key Words: Talents, creating, joy, gratitude.

Ask Yourself: What do I love to do?

 

Excellence: Your life’s world is something you can give your all to. Something you can describe yourself to. The dancer has his/her body pain, the writer struggles and racks his brain, the craftsman sweats every detail, and the musician has his endless scales. Always quality has its price. It takes extra effort to make it nice.

Key Words: Dedication, persistence, determination, quality.

Ask yourself: What can I dedicate to enough persist to excellence?

 

2. Meditation Life-force Encounter

 

ZaZen Practice

 

Every training session begins and ends with meditation. Mukuso is the direct look into our own minds in order to see our true natures. By being able to see ourselves, we are better able to see others, and thus become aware and unafraid of both. The following will assist the student in the initial effort at class meditation.

1.     Kneel and sit in a seiza position; for long periods of meditation, a more relaxed position is preferable.

2. Keep spinal column straight with shoulders drawn back but slightly drooped and completely relaxed.

3.     Place right hand upon left hand (inside of palm) with both thumbs meeting each other.

4. Draw in chin and straighten neck.

5. Keep tongue pressed lightly against roof of closed mouth.

6. Close eyes lightly, but not completely.

7. Breathe naturally but slowly through nose.

8. When finished meditating, change hands into prying position. Tense entire body and do strong breath for 20 seconds.

 

The lower abdomen (saika tanden) and its development are the utmost importance. In its essence, development consists of breathing in through the nose and deriving the air down into the lower abdomen, holding it and releasing it slowly through clenched teeth.

 

The use of the saika tanden (shita hara) occurs through the sudden tensing of the muscles of the lower abdomen and the pelvic region, by driving the breath down and out. The breath should sound like hung, which stores the energy.

 

Breathing for Meditation

 

The Attitude of the Mind and Consciousness

 

Unification of Body, Mind and Spirit

 

Sansei is a holistic well-being program dedicated to unification of the body, mind and spirit. A delightful synchronization of movement, visualization, and song, brings the three centers, into harmony and alignment. We vibrate with vitality, drinking from our reservoir of inner peace and wisdom.

 

Fitness of the body creates fitness of the mind. This coupled with appreciation for the beauty and miracle of life unifies the body, mind and spirit trinity, bringing it all together. Then, sitting in gratitude, we are attuned to what needs to be done in any given moment, reception, eager and willing to engage in the creative process of life.

 

We each have a unique talent to offer to the world.  We are here to help each other evolve and grow as we discover new ways to consciously live fully.

 

The World Sansei Goju-Ryu Karate Organization offers the tools to support your work as a leader and pioneer of positive change. Some of the practices help release pent up stress, anxiety and frustration. Other exercises are designed to energize, renew, and prepare you for the days ahead when the demand is high and your energy is low.

 

It’s challenging to stay centered in a world the in continually changing. We are better prepared to meet this challenge behind what we live for, and all that we are here to do.when we are centered, balanced, and charged with vital energy. With our whole system tuned-up, we have the strength and flexibility to fully get 

 

We offer this program to guide and support you in fulfilling your mission and life purpose, in both your personal and career endeavors.

 Chi Energy

 

 Is like a multi-lane superhighway of energy that picks up and carries information from one entity into another. It drives and links everything in the university so that even the tiniest light years away will eventually come to ripple through one of us.

A subtle electromagnetic energy permeates everything in the universe to sustain life and activity. It essentially connects us to everything else and is called chi or qi in china, ki in Japan, and prana in India. It permeates all material and flows through all living things as it travels from one creature into another. In accordance to its principles chi cannot fade away nor can it be destroyed, but moves and changes from one form to another, and is easily replenished on a day-to-day basis. Allow the stream of chi to work for you, by understanding how it moves and secondly, by applying it to areas of your life that need it the most.

Making Chi energy Work for you

 

Tap into the heart of the universal energy that is chi and use it to make powerful changes deep inside yourself.  Different types of inner and outer chi connect you to the cosmos and everything in it. Inner chi circulates thoughts and feelings around your body and what you think and feel changes as it fluctuates and interacts with the outer chi from surroundings. Learn to regulate chi and enjoy a healthier mind, body, and emotions.

 

Mushin:  can be understood as 'no mind' but I prefer to define it as 'no conscious mind'. To me the term refers to the diminishing dominance of the left hemisphere during meditation (whether dynamic or static) and increased access to the right brain hemisphere.

Satori: define satori as an experience of complete right brain hemisphere dominance for a brief moment before the left hemisphere 'wakes up' and regains control. 

Heijo shin: This is one's everyday mind, which I would describe as being (for most of us) one in which our left brain hemisphere is dominant, we are conscious that we are conscious and we have a sense of 'I'. Although this aspect of our mind is often overlooked in the literature written on martial arts meditation, it is nevertheless a key component to investigate. 'Realizing' your everyday mind is as important as awakening to the non-conceptual minds of mushin and satori.

Zanshin: This term does not come from pure Zen but is crucial in understanding The Way of the Enlightened Zen Warrior. Literally it is translated as 'remaining mind'. To me this term refers to a mind that is fully engaged with both the left and the right brain hemispheres functioning at a high level to produce a fighter who is fully alert and who remains alert while being very much caught up in the moment with no distractions from the task at hand. Zanshin can be achieved by anyone in pursuit of any activity, but the experience is heightened through the study of martial arts meditation.