The Thought Alone is Empty

1/22/09 - The last chapter to our travels in our World Religions class finally came to a close yesterday when we visited the Isthmus Zen center in Madison, Wisconsin. This experience was by far one of the best experiences I was able to relate to. During the first weekend of our J-term I was able to experience a silent retreat in Princeton, IL at the brothers of St. Johns. Though this silent retreat was not a part of the class it will be an important piece of the puzzle that will allow me to tie it all together, especially with the Buddhist religion.
At the Zen center we all entered a room which had pillows on the ground that were laid down in the shape of a circle. With our shoes off, we all found ourselves sitting in a comfortable position; I tried to sit in half lotus so that I could be more balanced out. There were certain elements to the session that was taking place. The first mediation that was going to take place was an evening bell meditation, this was a meditation where a solo was chanted and a bell was hit. During this time one would have to remain still and concentrate on the sound and vibrations, letting it slowly penetrate into your being while becoming one with the sounds. The next part of the session was the chanting of the Heart sutra, we went through the sutra at a pretty good pace and concentrated on what we were saying. It was a good chant and a great way to meditate but I wasn’t to ecstatic about this way since I was lost have the time. The last version of meditation that I participated in was the silent meditation. This was the one I enjoyed the best even though there were a few things that changed the idea of what I have already done.
In this silent meditation we were required to sit in a comfortable balanced position, preferably a lotus or half lotus. We kept our eyes open, while looking at the ground in front of us at a 45 degree angle, and we concentrated on something similar to a koan. Our koan was “who am I?” and with this question we were to reflect on the answer, letting our thoughts enter our mind and letting our thoughts leave our mind without chasing them around. In Zen we all try to find our Buddha nature, everything that we will come to know is already inside of us but meditation allows us tap into what is already there and see the world in a different perspective, our true nature.
The silent part of this reminded me a lot of what I was trying to do on the silent retreat. I was trying to silence all the distractions which were within my mind and listen through the perfect form of communication with God. The idea is that nothing can be added to God because He knows it all, what can we add to God that will make Him greater? Nothing. So there is no need to prayer to him by telling Him what is on our minds, He knows all of that, we pray in silence that we might hear just a bit of what He has to say to us. It was said to me that silence is only pure love of the Father gazing down up you. With this thought I enjoyed the experience at the Zen center because when I was able to feel that presence on the silent retreat, I knew what the dharma teachers were talking about when they said that they saw the world differently. Though we are from different religions we still had the same type of experience.