It all started out with a recommendation from a friend who is a practitioner from an old and well established sect of Zen.
One day this friend of mine came into my jazz pub. As was usual the case, I sat down with him and struck up a conversation with him. The conversation soon took a turn from the usual talk about life to more serious and philosophical areas.
We talked for many hours where he expressed ideas about how the world is view true Zen where by what is really around is but Emptiness and whatever form we see around us is but and illusion. That is why the need mediation.
The period of meditation for a zen practitioner is a period by which we clear our mind of all earthly distractions and truely attempt to bring our state of mind to what truly is. In the Zen sense this means Emptiness, a state of Mu-ga or Satori translated to English, it means a state of no I.
In this state of Mu-ga or Satori, one sees things not from the perception of the illusory self but from a state whereby the self does not exist, has never existed. In this state one is truly is able to see things as the way they should be seen, an impassioned point of view. Actions and thoughts performed thus in this state is truly an enlightened one.
While striving for such a state of mind might be too lofty a pursuit for most, meditation in the Zen sense does indeed help individuals focus their mind, removing all distractions, thus increasing their productivity. Similar in the tradition of the samurais who through the staunch practise of Zen are able to serve single mindedly their Master in some extent even beyond the point of physical death.
