Welcome


If you're interested in conscious living, then likely you're just as equally interested in Zen but simply not knowingly interested.

Usually Zen is associated with Japanese culture and religious or Buddhism practice, but true Zen (or at least the way this site uses the term) is emphasizing the value of conscious living.

Zen and conscious living come together and go hand-in-hand. Hence, conscious living without Zen is a huge oversight and vice-versa because these are not two.

"Conscious Flex: Zen & Conscious Living" is designed to offer a partnership of how these seemingly two are actually one movement.

Zen is the foundational spaciousness or presence from which conscious living derives. In the same manner that an artist, inventor or intuitive actions come from the stillness in the silence of non-movement.

In other words, Zen is a resting in the powerful space of not thinking about thought, not doing anything about doing, not trying to be the solver or understander, the knower collector but simply allowing the intelligence of life to flow through you and as you.

What is described can be thought of as meditation or accessing our intuition, but it's actually just natural living.

Often you will see kids in a natural resting space or presence and we tell them "snap out of it" because we think they are in "lala land" or "fantasy land" and not paying attention but actually they are simply being completely present with what is. It's natural to just rest and be, that's the flow from which insight and wisdom arises from.

Hence, conscious living is also the natural flow of how life organically expands upon itself. Consequently, conscious living is Zen living, when it's pure and without conceptual overlays.

Enjoy!
  • Two Worlds: Part 4: Ego Explained

    As a continuation of the ‘Two Worlds” series in the previous post I ended the article using ego as experience and egoless-ness as universal knowledge (also known as knowledge of everything). In this description, it is easy to see that the ego has its purpose too, for the reason that experience is the only process that life has to offer. Life is the essence of experience. How the ego is used determines your experience. If you use your awareness of the ego only as the tool it is (more explained in “Two Worlds: Part 3”) then, the purpose of the ego is completely pure in the experience and is not at play. As I was mentioning in “Two Worlds: Part 3” abandonment of the ego is not necessary, merely being aware of the true nature of the ego is important.

    The universal knowledge of everything (state of being, egoless-ness) is the whole reason why the ego is essential. For example, let us imagine for a moment that you know everything, that there are libraries of infinite knowledge inside you. You have access to all the information in the entire universe, where nothing is unknown to you. Here you are in the knowledge of everything and one of the goals is to ride a bicycle, even though you never rode a bike. Hence, you must bring forth all the information and knowledge about riding a bicycle so you know exactly how to accomplish the goal. Thus, you do exactly that to the point where every single detail you pull out from within and in an instant, every aspect that is recordable on how to successfully bike is available to you.

    With in an instant all the knowledge flows through you. You understand every single possible detail on how to ride a bicycle. You are aware of every factor, similar to gravity will pull you down. You must balance your body precisely ideal between the gravitational pull and the bike, by positioning the bike directly in the middle of your body and using your hands on the steering wheel to brace the bike firmly against your body. Once braced correctly, your body and the bike will feel as one unit and you can begin pedaling to build momentum in order to move the bike in a forward direction, while keeping both hands on the navigational wheel in an equally smooth and gradual fashion to avoid off-key unbalancing.

    Within that same instant, you immediately realize knowing is not enough to know completely. Do you imagine knowing everything will allow you to achieve something perfectly the first time you try? Even if you do know everything, in a particular field there is a strain on the mind that says one must practice, practice, and practice. If you must have a brain operation, would you trust a surgeon who has read and studied for ten years on surgical procedures and treatment, or a surgeon who has ten years of experience? One must have experience in order to know completely. Knowledge applied in experience is wisdom.

    Another example is trying to explain the taste of an apple, to someone who has never put one in his or her mouth or perhaps seeing the sunset and trying to explain the beauty of it to a blind person who never had sight to see. The blind person could have universal knowledge of descriptions to what the sunset looks like, but would be insignificant to him/her because she/him would not be able to see (experience) the sunset. In other words, it is completely subjective and is different to each individual, that is why some people are fond of apples and others are not. Consequently, if your vocabulary is extensive and your communication skills are comprehensive you might have the ability to express the basics, but you will by no means entirely explain something the way experience does.

    Therefore, the ego is for experience purposes, but what is in the larger scheme of things? I am sure you have heard of a disorder called multiple personality where two or more distinct identities or personalities existence in an individual, each with its own model of the world to which they perceive things and intermingle with their reality. These personalities also regularly take control of the individual's behavior and body, but only one personality at a time is in conscious control of the body throughout this period, there is some associated remembrance failure, which is outside usual forgetfulness to the individual. Typically, the individual subconsciously creates these other personalities to experience for the individual, the extreme overwhelming traumas or problematic experiences that lead to unbearable painfully circumstances. In doing this the individual is not forced to experience these overpowering situations and instead consciously shuts down and has one of these other personalities carry out the experiencing. During these moments, the created personality has full conscious control over the body and the memories of the experience, while the individual is unconscious with no memory connected with the experience.

    The ego in the bigger picture of life is a way to separate you from everything else and see yourself as an individual. In the universal knowledge of everything (state of being, egoless-ness) as the puppet master that you are is at complete happiness, peace, paradise, and ecstasy to yourself and everything else around you because you are living life through the absolute, where everything is perfect and nothing bothers you. You disconnect yourself as an individual being and remain at a place that is always aware of complete unchanging pure State of Being. In this state, it is impossible to know yourself as anything because you are the whole of everything. The only way to know yourself as anything is to separate yourself form the whole of everything, but whom you really are is the whole of everything, so it is impossible to disconnect yourself from you. The only way to create yourself as not part of yourself is to form an illusion and trick yourself into thinking you are a much lesser part of a whole. Hence, the ego is that illusion to arrange you as an individual separate piece and can therefore experience every other part of yourself in the illusion of that separation. You must individualize yourself, in order to realize and be grateful for the experi­ence of the complete whole.

    The only way for this ego illusion to be in complete effect is to entirely forget yourself as the whole (universal knowledge of everything, egoless-ness, the puppet master). Much like a person with multiple personalities goes unconscious and disconnects from memory through painful experiences. Without this process of remembrance failure, the multiple personalities would not hold their illusion and the creation of the disorder would have no reason to exist because it would not be able to effectively experience for the individual.

    The consciousness is a marvelous thing; the dividing of it can surpass into infinite numbers. The most multiple personalities ever recorded was well over 200 that could be accurately accounted. When it comes to multiple personalities it seems to be a golden rule that no matter how many personalities one individual has, each personality is only aware of themselves as the only consciousness and does not realize other personalities even though in some cases the personalities is aware of the individual and vice versa. The reason for this is that if the personalities were to discover each other they would see who they really are a creation from the mind of the individual and they would know they really do not exist. The personalities will use every method available to them in order to convince themselves of their own reality and give themselves meaning. Without meaning, their 'lives' will fail to exist. The ego is exactly the same way; an illusion created by you for the sake of experience and gives itself meaning to stay alive.

    Why is it so difficult to see the ego as a tool and use it that way? In most of our social scenes like our family, friends, and community, we continuously feed off from programs that keep us interacting with our egos. Look through a newspaper, turn on the television, and watch the media to see exactly what I mean. Your thoughts automatically limit themselves from subconscious conditioning and habituation when exposed to any type of media because the only purpose of the media is to narrow thoughts to very limiting wave patterns. Everything is for you to link thoughts like “How does this affect my relationships, my finances, my comfort, my life, my community, my nation”? All these things are ego related and therefore may seem to be very valuable things to wonder how they affect you. When you can see past the illusion that the ego holds for you, when you can see the disguise, the trick, the tool that the ego really is, and when you can break through the comfort zones/ boundaries that the ego sets in place; then you will open up the world of wholeness and who you really are. It is not as complex as one might think to do, especially when the design of life is for you to do that exactly. I explain in the next article post.