BIKERS CLUB FEBRUARY 2020 ISSUE | Page 52

ISSUE 02 | FEBRUARY 2020 BIKERS CLUB ® MAGAZINE | PAGE 36 "It is better to conquer yourself, than to win a thousand battles. Then victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you." The same goes with Zen because Zen Buddhism is a practice that needs to be experienced, not a concept that you can intellectualize or understand with your brain. The Zen means "meditation" in Japanese, and Buddhism is the core of Zen. Zen meditation, is a way of vigilance and self discovery which is practiced while sitting on a meditation cushion. It is the experience of living from moment to moment. It is through the practice of Zazen that Gautama got enlightened and became the Buddha. Zazen is an attitude of spiritual awakening, which when practiced, can become the source from which all the actions of daily life flow - eating, sleeping, breathing, walking, working, talking, thinking, and so on. Zen is not a theory, an idea, or a piece of knowledge. It is not a belief, dogma, or religion; but rather, it is a practical experience. We cannot intellectually grasp "To every man is given a key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell." Zen because human intelligence and wisdom are too limited - the dojo (the hall where Zazen is practiced) is different from the university. Zen is not a moral teaching, and as it is without dogma, it does not require one to believe in anything. A true spiritual path does not tell people what to believe in; rather it shows them how to think; or, in the case of Zen - what not to think. Zen is not a theory, an idea, or a piece of knowledge. It is not a belief, a dogma, or a religion.