Zen

Zen is not a form of philosophy, religion or mysticism. Alan Watts likened it to psychology. For me it is an experience of consciousness which has implications for my life.

The "Middle Way", how to live in the world with the consciousness that the world is an illusion. It is a kind of schizophrenic existence of dreaming and awakening, of forgetting and remembering, of suffering and rejoicing.

I have always had this sense of "Zen". It is a consciousness that haunts my waking life and aches in my soul when I deny its presence. Decades of my life were spent in a desert thirsting for its quenching relief from separation and aloneness, always knowing of the existence of the Self beyond the self, the Creator beyond the creation, the Watcher beyond the actor and doer.

As close as the note to the chime, this consciousness and I are One, where time and space are collapsed into the eternal Singularity. Then in the twinkling of an eye I am drawn back into my separateness from where I find my self struggling with the illusion de jour. I am once again caught on the ropes. Am I ready to let go, ready to release this body and mind? I hear the bell signifying the end of another round. I realize again, that I and I alone, control the clock and the bell. In my mind I hold the hammer that punctuates the illusion of struggle and suffering.