Hardcore Zen – Meditation Retreat – Wants to be free from life and death by accomplishing Enlightenment!

Welcome to the Honora Zen Monastery in Switzerland. The mountain week is a hardcore zen meditation retreat.

Meditation

It is no small thing for a person to meditate. One does not start meditation to eat and dress well. Rather, wants to be free from life and death by accomplishing Enlightenment. To accomplish the logos, the living word, one has to discover his own Mind, which is already within this own body. To discover Mind, one should understand that this body is no more than a dead corpse and this world is, for good or bad, nothing but a dream.

Man's death is like popping out in the evening of the same day that you have popped in. After death, sometimes one may be born into one of the hells, sometimes in the realm of animals and sometimes in the realm of ghosts. Then, one must endure incalculable pain and suffering.

Since this is true, do not concern yourself with the worldly life. Just reexamine and carefully observe your mind at all times. What does this which is now seeing, hearing and thinking look like? Does this have any form or not? Is this yellow or green? It it bright or dark?

Examine and observe this matter carefully like a cat watching a mouse; or like a hen guarding an egg; or like a desperately hungry, clever old shrew gnawing a hole in a rice bag.

Contemplation - Hardcore Zen

There is a well-known saying which declares, "It is difficult for one who is clever and learned in worldly wisdom to encounter the true Self."

This is a problem for many people who are practicing Zen nowadays. Such persons try to come to an understanding through conceptual thinking alone. They insist that reality accord to the way they think it should exist. However, such worldly wisdom only screens the truth. Through scheming and speculating, it just gives rise to mere cleverness. Without being able to free yourself from such intellectual thinking, it will be extremely hard to encounter the true Self Nature. For this reason, those who only practice intellectual Zen are unable to make any progress. Even when they are sitting in meditation, they are still burdened with all their concepts.