Why I Study Zen

I was asked today how I first got started studying Zen. If you haven't read my book The Gift to be Simple, I mention Zen several times in it. To be honest, I don't actually remember how I first got started studying Zen, so I can't explain that. But what I can explain is why I've continued to study Zen through the years, even after abandoning my studies of Qabalah, Huna, and other traditions I also studied at some point. The reason is that the substance and essence of Zen, from my point of view, is mindfulness. It is an entire tradition dedicated to mastering, exploring, and applying mindfulness. Some people might say that considering mindfulness to be the be-all and end-all of Zen shows that I have a limited view of Zen, but I'd say those people have a limited view of mindfulness. In his book The Rinzai Zen Way, Meido Moore states that mindfulness is enlightenment itself. If you read my writings, you'll find that I frequently encourage people to take mindfulness, which is the second mental exercise of Step 1, more seriously. Perhaps if I'd mention that this exercise is enlightenment itself, they'd actually listen to me.

For me, the cultivation of mindfulness has four main benefits for those working through IIH. 

1. Cultivating mindfulness will help you with the mental aspect of the training.

2. Cultivating mindfulness will help you with the astral aspect of the training. 

3. Cultivating mindfulness will help you become more mature. 

4. Cultivating mindfulness will help you cope with the various difficulties, trials, and hardships you may encounter in life. 

Let's discuss each of these four main benefits one by one. 

Benefit 1: Cultivating mindfulness will help you with the mental aspect of the training.

As I've already mentioned, mindfulness is the second mental exercise of Step 1. This is the sort of thing you'd think I shouldn't need to point out, but someone once asked me whether mindfulness is a good supplemental exercise for those working through IIH, and their mind was blown when I pointed out that this exercise is already part of IIH. So, again, in case anyone wasn't aware, mindfulness is the second mental exercise of Step 1.

I actually consider mindfulness to be not just a mental exercise in Bardon's training system, but the foundation of the mental aspect of the training as a whole. Many, perhaps all, of the other mental exercises are related to mindfulness in some way. Therefore, when you get better at mindfulness, you simultaneously get better at all of the other mental exercises. Some of the mental exercises, like thought-observation, are closely related to mindfulness. Therefore, improving your mindfulness will also improve your thought-observation abilities to a great extent. Other mental exercises, like visualization, are not as closely related to mindfulness. Therefore, improving your mindfulness will improve your visualization abilities to a lesser extent, but they will still improve. Zen Buddhism contains a wide array of teachings and approaches for mastering mindfulness, and therefore is invaluable to anyone engaged in any sort of mental training, including aspiring magicians. 

Benefit 2: Cultivating mindfulness will help you with the astral aspect of the training. 

The more you cultivate mindfulness, the more you become mindful of who you really are and what makes you tick. This will help you with introspection, and introspection is an important part of the astral work of IIH. In fact, according to Rawn Clark, it is the most important part of the work of IIH in general. 

Benefit 3: Cultivating mindfulness will help you become more mature. 

If you read IIH, you'll find that Bardon frequently emphasizes the need for maturity. Those who are familiar with my writings know that I consider magical training to consist of an "overt" and a "covert" side. The overt side consists of practicing mental, astral, and physical exercises. The covert side consists of becoming more mature. I call this the covert side because people don't think of it or talk about it as often; in fact, some people aren't even aware of the existence of this side of magical training, and therefore reduce magical training to just practicing mental, astral, and physical exercises. However, the covert side of magical training is very important. Bardon makes it clear that those who are immature have no hope of advancing far along the magical path. 

As for specific ways that mindfulness will help you become more mature, honestly, there are too many to even list. Ezra Bayda discusses several of the most important ones in his book Being Zen, which is probably my favorite book on Zen. In the first chapter of the book, Bayda explains that the practice of mindfulness will eventually teach us how to stop fleeing from our problems in life, how to stop blaming other people or even ourselves for our problems in life, and how to get in touch with our innate openness, connectedness, and appreciation. I'd say all of that would definitely make someone more mature. 

Benefit 4: Cultivating mindfulness will help you cope with the various difficulties, trials, and hardships you may encounter in life. 

If you're walking the magical path, you're going to deal with a lot of difficulties, trials, and hardships. The reason for this is explained by William Mistele in the following excerpt from his essay "Problems in the Study of Magic: Part I." 

What happens is that serious magical practice accelerates your karma. Maybe in your life cycle over a thirty or forty year period you will have to come to grips with conflicts involving well-being versus insecurity, vulnerability versus self-confidence, love versus hate, trust versus suspicion, compassion versus selfishness, clarity of mind (even enlightenment) versus disorientation and domination, wisdom versus obsession and folly, inspiration versus depression, commitment and dedication versus stagnation and lethargy, etc.

What the magic does is that you find yourself confronting these issues not over the next thirty or forty years but in the next two or three years. It can be a heck of a ride. Do you take to drugs or alcohol? Do you get depressed, anxious, distracted, or hyperactive? There are all sorts of programs for working with various addictions and/or obsessions. Perhaps you moved a little too fast in your training but now you decide to slow down and catch up on your homework--round out your personality, gain more balance, and shore up the weak areas in your emotional life.

But some of these karmic problems you have evoked into your life through magical study have no solutions within this age of the world. This means no psychologist to turn to, no minister or priest, no mage or sage, no psychic healer or shaman is going to have the faintest clue as to how to help you. Oh, they will suggest all sorts of things and offer you remedies that give you temporary relief. But the study of serious magic (the kind that puts you in touch with creative and divine power) is not like Alice Bailey imagines in one of her images—you discover on your path that there are many other fellow students beside you and with you as you cross over a spiritual lake as the fog lifts in the morning. No, magic is not quaint, warm, and reassuring.

Zen Buddhism doesn't have specific concrete solutions for every conceivable problem you may encounter; but through mindfulness, you can more easily cope with any problems you do encounter, which will allow you to survive long enough to discover or come up with a solution and implement it. This is because mindfulness allows us to deal skillfully with our emotional reactions to the problems we encounter, and it is usually the stress intertwined with these emotional reactions, rather than the problems themselves, that results in the downward spiral that can sometimes end us.