BIG MIND BIG HEART

A western Zen approach to life.

Zen Buddhism started with Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) 2500 years ago.

There is a couple of movements including Buddha’s teachings. Here I will concentrate on the Zen Buddhism and especially an American Zen master.

I got very interested of the Buddha’s teachings about 2 years ago after I reading about one special way to cultivate the meditation and the spiritual life.

I found it on Internet. The name of the product is Integral Life Practice (ILP) starter kit. It was a kit to help people find a better life by meditation and training.

The big interesting thing was the teachings. You must train all parts of the human being not only meditate. The mind, the physical body and the spirit must be trained at the same time. With an integral approach you will get faster result and get a better development of your life.

Among the material there was a DVD with lots of interesting information. It was about Big Mind and Big Heart. The famous Zen master “Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi” was teaching his interesting method to realize the Zen teachings in a way that western people could understand and use.

The Japanese teaching was a little frightening but Genpo has developed a way with a voice dialog. The Japanese method is mostly about using koans and special turning words and sticks to get experience of enlightening. Genpo combines the western knowledge in psychology and philosophy with the Zen voices. There are about 10 000 voices or personalities in a human being according to Buddha. The practice developed by Genpo Roshi made it simple for a westerner to experience the enlightenment. The process that took many years in traditional practice he could give a taste of in a couple of hours.

If you are interested I can recommend the book “Big Mind. Big Heart, Finding your way” written by Zen Master Dennis Genpo Merzel, for further information. Since the day I watched the DVD I have used the Zen voices daily in my own practice and I found it as a wonderful way of practice. I can very fast get the state of happiness and joy and my meditation has become very joyful since.

I can also recommend the BIG MIND TV as a learning channel. Every Sunday there is a broadcast direct from a Big Mind session from Utah.... The rest of the days there is small clips about the western Zen approach of life. It is interesting to listen. If you are interested even more you can pay to get the rights to watch videos from their archive. There are a lot of videos for you to watch if you want.

2009-10-16 Klas Elowsson

www.KlasElo.se