Archive for the ‘Enlightenment’ Category

… the trick is getting in touch with this truth so that you feel it.

By Seamus Anthony

If you read a lot of Zen stuff, enlightenment stuff, you’ll come across the idea that we are all inherently enlightened, and I believe that this is true.

But also true is that most people don’t usually feel anything like they’re enlightened at all.

In fact most people either don’t even know what enlightenment is or they believe that it’s something “up there” that they cannot hope to achieve. Well, we’re not the first but we at Rebel Zen are here to tell you that it is true – you ARE enlightened but you just don’t know it yet.

Getting in Touch with Your Inherent Enlightenment

At the core of your being, underneath all of the emotions, moods, thoughts, opinions, and physical sensations is your True Self or your soul. Your True Self knows that it is one with all of creation, the Universe, God. It exists in a permanent state of peace that cannot be shaken even when you are in the midst of the worst possible crises imaginable. It is NOT the part of you that freaks out because somebody is pointing a gun at your head (or more likely, because the new guy in the office is using your favourite damn coffee mug). This part of you, much more readily accessible, is your ego.

By Seamus Anthony Ennis

If you have tried different methods to achieve happiness (meditation, reading self-help books, therapy, etc.) but have not succeeded then I’d like to share with you a very simple trick to being happy that has been blowing my mind lately…

In fact I actually believe it is the key to enlightenment and world peace.

Here it is …

Give up.

Or rather…

Let go.

Let go.

Let go of all that you are clinging to.

Let go of all the ideas in your mind.

All the should’s. All the want-to’s. All the trying-to’s. All the seeking-to’s. All the how-to’s. All the going-to’s.

By Steve Mills

Remember a few years ago when that song came out, I’m sure you know the one. It had a super catchy chorus, more hooks than a fishing shop and embedded itself so deep in your skull that you found yourself humming it while “on the job”. Sure it was annoying as hell, but everyone was going nuts over it. For weeks it was all you could hear on the radio. It was so popular that it sparked new novelty dance crazes, giving wedding DJ’s an excuse to throw out their tired old copies of the “Grease Megamix” and the “Bus Stop”, and play something new for drunk old people to dance to.

Then one day, something happened. A new song came along, and it had a really catchy chorus, hooks aplenty and was heard pumping out of radio’s from New York to Upper Cumbucta West. Two weeks later no one wants to hear the Macarena, and everyone wants to hear Beyonce. Time moves on, things change.

By Seamus Anthony Ennis

Well, maybe they do. Truthfully, I wouldn’t know, but I can’t help but reckon that those who walk around claiming to “perfectly enlightened” are probably at least partially faking it – if not out and out bullshitting us all – and so therefore they must have some pretty human moments. Try and picture it with me …

The seminar is over and the Guru has slipped into some casual attire and is down in the hotel lobby having a scotch, listening to the depressingly blue jazz band and trying to catch the eye of a pretty business woman. Unfortunately she turns her nose up at him so he downs his drink and retires to his room; yet another one. They all look the same.

He checks his email. Nothing interesting; just work and irritating questions from a few of the more obsessive disciples. “Why can’t they just switch on their brains and sort out their own problems?” he mutters, “Ah well – it’s a living.”

He flops on the bed and flicks on the TV. Sport. More sport. Bad movies. Oooh! Porn! Oh, unless you pay for it the screen goes blank after thirty seconds…

“Bah,” thinks the Guru. “Might as well turn in, gotta be up early for tomorrow’s flight to Seattle”.

By Seamus Anthony Ennis

Arm Rests. Adjustable ones. The key to happiness is being able to notice that things like this exist. Allow me to elaborate…

When things get wacky (difficult, painful), the hardest thing to do is to see the woods for the trees. Let me begin with an example – the common occurrence of a friend’s advice to a lovesick mate:

“It will be okay; either you’ll break up with your boy/girlfriend or you’ll work your problems through and stay together. Either way you’ll be fine and it will all be for the best.”

An answer to which our lovesick puppy will categorically fail to relate to until later, when he will see that it was absolute truth all along. Until then the problem will seem tragic, unbearable, and probably life-threatening.

Meanwhile it’s comically easy for the friend of our love-sick puppy to see the solution to the problem. Puppy just needs to be himself, do his best, and wait. That’s it. End of story.

But onward, holistic soldiers, to the arm-rest thing, and the promised ‘key to happiness’ I know you are breathlessly waiting for …

Oh, the Pain! The Pain!

I have heard it said many a time that every person on this planet has a story tell. If you sat down with a pensioner from Melbourne, an office worker in Berlin or a 12 year old kid in Beijing, each would have a unique and compelling tale to tell. I bet that you also have an interesting story regarding your life and your place in the world.

You possess a chronicled history of your past, a unique viewpoint on the present and a predictive prophecy about what you assume is going to happen to you in the future.

Everyday when you wake up you listen to the story of what today might be like, and the story of what occurred yesterday. We are constantly re-telling this life story to ourselves, checking it against our immediate reality in order to make decisions, evaluate what other people are doing and to know our cultural place in certain situations.

This story is the blueprint that the voice inside your head, your inner narrator, uses to explain to you what you are seeing, thinking and doing in the present moment.

By Seamus Anthony Ennis

It’s just my opinion, and I have no idea what I am talking about, but you – yes, you – have absolutely no clue what the hell is going on.

Yes, you heard me, and that goes for your guru, coach, expert or teacher also.

You see, sometimes when I am at barbecues, beer comfortably resting on my belly, paper plate piled high on my knee, the subject comes up that I write personal development articles and, for better or worse, I cringe. Why? Because the first thing that happens, at least in my mind, is that people look at me and think “Well, what the hell does he know that I don’t? He’s no guru; look at that blob of mayonnaise on his beard! And isn’t that the guy who drank a couple too many at Jo’s party last fortnight and made a fool of himself? Personal development writer indeed – hmmph!”

And the truth is they are right. I don’t know diddly. But neither do ‘they’ and neither, my friend, do you.

You Are Already Enlightened!

That’s right, and no – I’m not joking.

Zen Masters have publicly said that we are all enlightened, the trick is knowing it (or getting in touch with it). And if you haven’t any idea what it feels like to connect to this state of being then all I can say is it is very difficult for anybody to express in words. To briefly try (not the main point of this post) let me paraphrase Rachel Pollack’s words about the Hanged Man tarot card (from her book Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom): It’s feeling free to be who you are, even if everybody else thinks you have everything backwards; it’s the feeling of being deeply connected to life.

But here’s the rub: “perfect enlightenment” is probably a myth. A beat up. It’s a bit like saying ‘perfect musicianship’ or ‘perfect scientific methodology’.

These things most likely can’t exist and in fact, certainly in the case of artistic endeavour, absolute perfection ruins things. It stifles the life out of things and therefore makes them inherently imperfect again in some kind of weird feedback loop to nowhere.

By Steve Mills

There is nothing like two weeks holiday to break you from the everyday routine, it removes you long enough from your standard habitual patterns so that you can see things from a different angle. I have just returned from two weeks holiday and feel very refreshed. I spent the time just relaxing, meeting folks and exploring the beautiful area of far north Queensland with my family. I also had some very interesting conversations with a few people up there, and have come back ready to tackle the second half of the year. Having a break like that is a great way to gain a fresh perspective of you life, and the way you choose to live the other weeks of the year at home and work.

In the last few days of holidays instead of having the “I have to go back to work soon” feelings of dread, I spent my free time thinking long and hard about how to best retain my holiday mindset. I decided to make it my single point of focus to find as much balance as is possible, and to continue to be mindful of this through the rest of the year.

By Séamus Anthony Ennis

This afternoon I was munching my way through my lunch when I slipped and flicked a forkful of baked-beans and sauce all over my jumper and trousers. I experienced a flash of irritation, quickly replaced by amusement. I was at home by myself – messing up my clothes mattered even less than it usually would (which would not be much).

As I pondered the several squishy beans and blobs of red-orange goop I had so randomly, yet skillfully arranged on my off-white sweater, I had what I will reluctantly call a Magic Bean Moment. I am reluctant to call it this because it makes me sound like a dork. But that’s ok because I am a dork. And one with baked-bean stains on my jumper to boot.

‘Describe this Magic Bean Moment, Dorky McDorkison’, I hear you ask. ‘What did it look like?’

‘Like squished beans on a jumper,’ I reply, dorkily, ‘only kind of magical.’

Very Mild Superpowers