Time to Get Purified with Zen Meditation

Ensuring spiritual and mental purification, meditation can be considered as a factor that makes people to become calm and peaceful in life that is full of chaos. Having been relied on and become a lifestyle by many since ancient times, meditation undoubtedly has numerous benefits. Meditation turns life journey into a cognitive process with higher awareness, peace and serenity, and has a dynamic impact that increases the quality of life.

 

 

Zen meditation is a kind of meditation that is one of the popular disciplines. Even if you don't know what exactly it means, you must have heard of it. With this article, we will answer “What is Zen meditation?”and “What does Zen meditation do?”.  

 

 

 

 

What is Zen Meditation?

Zen meditation forms the basis of Buddhist belief, and is a technique that requires being able to get into certain postures and makes you feel purified. Zen meditation, which must be practiced in a quiet place, can help you feel much more energetic and have stronger awareness.

 

 

 

Regarding the answer to “What is Zen meditation?”, Zen meditation, also known as a Zazen discipline, is a technique that provides people with the ability to direct their attention consciously and to get away from thoughts by teaching "not thinking".  It takes time and patience at the beginning to fully benefit from Zen meditation.

 

 

 

How to Practice Zen Meditation?

Before beginning meditation, you to need to sit in the lotus position and focus your attention inward. Lotus position, which is known as the most accurate posture in all meditative disciplines, is also available in Zen meditation.  You can turn inward by focusing only on your own body, which is the most important step in Zen meditation.

 

 

There is no specific answer to “How to practice Zen meditation?”. As long as you practice Zazen, which is more commonly known as Zen meditation, by focusing your entire attention, you can practice it not only in the lotus position but also while lying down or even walking.

 

 

 

 

Zen meditation teaches you the discipline of focusing on breathing and body's sensation or seeing the flow of life in the body and mind through the eyes of an outsider. This helps you focus your entire attention on a stronger awareness. Requiring focusing on the stream and presence of mind, Zen meditation, in fact, also helps you practice conscious awareness.

 

 

 

Unlike other forms of meditation, you do not need to close your eyes when practicing Zen meditation. You can keep your eyes semi-open. In this way, you will be able to watch the flow of all of your thoughts when meditating. This practice is based on watching the thoughts passing through your mind as if they are not yours, without interfering either in a positive or negative way. As your ability to watch your thoughts as if they are not yours improves, it will start protecting your mind from thought attacks.

 

For Zen meditation:

•Find a peaceful and quiet place and sit in the lotus position. You can burn incense to further increase concentration.

• Breathe in deeply, and focus on your stomach as it rises and falls with each breath. So, focus on your breathing.

 

 

 

While doing this, many thoughts, whether big or small, will rush into your mind. Do not let these thoughts turn into feelings but let them flow through your mind like a scrolling text. Just accept that your focus is the depths of your body.

• If you are distracted, focus on your breathing again. You will see that you will breathe in slower and deeper as your mind becomes concentrated.

 

 

 What Are the Benefits of Zen Meditation?

Zen meditation ensures physical, mental and spiritual relaxation, and helps manage stress. The benefits of Zen meditation are not limited to these.

• It helps develop self-awareness in positive and negative aspects.

 

 

• Regular practice of Zen meditation improves creativity and imagination. In this way, it helps develop different perspectives and solutions to the problems being faced in life.

• It  provides faster access to subconscious material.

• Practicing Zen meditation helps adapt to situations, which require concentration, more easily and to ignore distracting stimuli more rapidly and easily.