I just read the most interesting book.

[leftyladyfrommo]

I will have to look up the actual title but it is written by a man who practiced Zen for many years. And he talks about what happens when you have done that and then leave the practice.

It leaves a terrible hole in your being.

I have done meditation for years and years and cannot imagine life without it. But I think the difference may be that I am a believer. So when I meditate and wait and listen to the silence or to the "nothing" I am not really looking for "nothing." I am waiting for spirit.

And maybe that makes a huge difference.

[greyl]

1. Lemme get this straight...

You just read "the most interesting book", and you have to "look up the actual title"?

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. Yea - I don't pay much attention to the titles

Actually it is called Afterzen. Its just a little book.

by Van De Wettering.

[greyl]

3. That's peculiar, I must say. :) nt

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. Really, it's not.

I read all the time so I can't keep all of the books straight. I usually have five or six going at once.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. That is an interesting thought

because the first American born Sufi master, Samuel L. Lewis, was a Zen master as well, and first initiated his students in Zen. He then had a vision from God which led to the Dances of Universal Peace and the founding of his Sufi Order, the Ruhaniat.

Waiting for Spirit. I like that thought, and can relate to it.

[leftyladyfrommo]

6. I don't know if I used the right words to describe that

but I am coming to think that spirit is a necessary part of meditation. I didn't use to think that way.

But I still have learned a whole lot from Zen. For one thing, they take the romantic stuff out of mysticism and I think that is a real improvement.

The funny part is that if you read the original mystics they are very down to earth and very wary of things like visions and the like. Its so easy to get caught up in the dealings of your own mind and start thinking that your own imaginings are God speaking.

It is other people who have made the mystics romantics. And they have done them a disservice.