A TO ZEN:

Social Psychology for the Modern World.
A 
B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
A WHEEL TURNS * WATCH THE WHEEL * A WHEEL TURNS *
WE CANNOT STOP ITS TURNING
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y

ZEN

When you think about it, life is what it is precisely
because it isn’t forever. It has a miracle beginning,
opportunity in the middle, an end we needn’t fear.
 

FOREWORD.

Zen-Buddhism comes to mind as a religion. This is because it originated with spiritual teachings of Gautama Siddhartha Buddha given in India and taken in Asia as religion. The oriental sees such teachings, the dharma, as a lesson on a way of life that not only explains that life IS suffering but also points a way to relief and escape from this fate. Ironically, the Boy Scouts Law is the nearest set of rules for life we have in the West. The danger is not that the Western reader learned religion from a Jewish, Christian or Muslim parent but that the idea of religion is the same as having a spiritual nature and that there is a Someone - not the reader, who is responsible for all that happens in life. Hence, A to Zen sets out to establish as the context of the readers life, not as a religion decrees but what the reader defines of a purpose to this one life, then what that means in terms of behaviour, and the social psychology drawn personally from that meaning. Don’t forget: while psychology is personal the social part means we belong in society.

 

BEYOND BELIEF – THE QUAINT MIND                                                          

The mind works in mysterious ways its purposes to unfold if not to reveal exactly. An essential part of the mind is the imagination. With the imagination we may apprehend things by opening up, responding to its imagery, proposing what we ‘see’ as truth and then, coming to believe something that we could not entertain otherwise. Don’t be coy about imagination: the unknown is imagined there, first to tell the impossible from the possible, the improbable from the probable, and all for self-protection and survival. In the imagination we can imagine ourselves. But we learn that this is learnt from others. We know what we think we know – or believe we know. What is believed is taken for the truth if no more than a theory, for now. Scientists work to an Uncertainty Principle or the ‘boot-strap’ theory on which to proceed beyond belief to the proving. The mind works in stages: sights, sounds or feelings feed the imagination. It tries to identify the possibilities, probability or certainty, creative recognition projected in a place beyond belief called, the quaint mind, as a geometry that can build the universe there.

 

A COVENANT – MADE WITH ONESELF                                              

Life is good; good enough, anyway, to see it as a gift. How we rationalize it depends on the individual perspective from the bridge, back to the bank of yesterdays, and on, to the unknowns of tomorrow. To whom or to what this gift is owed need not be said: the gift is all, but gratitude is a quality of fine personal sensibility. Zen paradox again: make a covenant, not a signed paper contract, for the spiritual will is required for this; a covenant, not with life, but with oneself. It is this: the gift of my life I will redeem in my conscience and with that sense of purpose in life with which I shall live it.                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                DILEMMA THE SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 

                         

 Man has fought dilemmas all through his history - and since pre-history. His dilemma, to reach fruit evolved, balancing on two legs, to standing erect to see over his horizon. His curiosity evolved with his imagination and the wonder at what can do on two legs. Mental agility can be learned from physical agility: the body-mind is a singularity the skills of which is seen as a child learns logic by fitting shapes pegs into a shape-sorter. From balancing on two feet, the mind-body learns to balance choices, or issues which may not resolve in an obvious choice, and then it must be balanced to a reconciliation of opposed choices. Man’s social conscience lies close to his need to belong in society so as to survive. Ancient Athenian society in Greece evolved into the first democracy: cratein, government by; demos, the people. Civilized as it is, the democratic principle requires every citizen to give up individual views and opinion to the people’s majority wishes. The principle extends its dilemma to a poorly understood social rule of today: if you do not like the life in this society, you may leave at anytime soon.

 

 

AND SO ON – ROUND AND ROUND 
Take this stream, its tripping down the steps of the year, triplets of many seasons of a life, seen through the Perspectives of Zen, the ‘trips’ are extracts from the chapters of a book; 

 

EVERYMAN’S A TO ZEN
– THE GEOMETRY OF THE QUAINT MIND.
R.R.J.THATCHER