John Ernest C.

Magbanua
INTFILO C41
JUNE 20, 2014 TALK ON ZEN BUDDHISM
What is Zen Buddhism? This is the mindset I decided to have before attending
the lecture of Ms. Velasco. The speaker started the talk with a statement that A Zen
mind is an empty mind, it was confusing at first because I do not know why a Zen mind
is an empty mind because how as far as I know Zen Buddhist tend to live in temples
and they are really wise people. I learned about the 3 kinds of fool, the simple fool, the
learned fool, and the blessed fool also known as the Zen Man. The first one is the
simple fool, he who does not know that he does not know. The second one is the
learned fool, he thinks he knows but he does not. Lastly, the Zen man who knows he
does not know. Majority of the population of the world is probably the simple fool and
the learned fool. Some of our politicians may be classified as a learned fool because
they claim to know everything but they are not making any difference in our country.
Maybe I am a simple fool myself because I cannot decide if I know something or not, my
ego tells me that I know it but after this talk it makes me think otherwise. The story the
speaker told was the story of the two monks running the temple. It tells us that most
people misunderstood each other because we have different perspectives and cultures
in life and some tend to use violence because they misunderstood each other. It also
means that we should try to understand each other better and understand the situation
from different perspectives to get the whole picture. If you project love, you will see the
person as beautiful, if you project hate, you will see the person as ugly. After hearing
this I can do nothing but to agree because as I look back it already happened a lot of
times to me. Maybe this is also the reason why majority of couples who break up never
become friends again, this applies also to divorced couples. Other people say that there
is a thin line between hate and love but maybe that is not love at all but an infatuation. I
am now reflecting on what if the love you felt that time was not love but just a simple
infatuation because I want to believe that love will not turn into hate that easily. I believe
that no matter what happens, if you love the person you will not hate him/her but
support him/her choices even if it means you have to let him/her go. A Zen mind must
understand and he should move according to his understanding without the influence of
other people. I think this is an important point in the talk because this tells us that we
should who we are, I know it sounds clich but you cannot be really happy if you are
pretending to be someone or if you are acting in accordance to others opinion. A good
example would be students who is in a program which was chosen by their parents, if
the student do not like the program, he/she will have a hard time studying it because he
is not interested in the program. Many successful people say that you have to do what
you love in order to succeed in it, I firmly believe their words because I think if you love
your job you will not be tired no matter how many times you do it or how long you do it
since its not just a job but a passion. The speaker said there are 3 types of
consciousness, the Camel who is a yes sayer, he is affected by other peoples opinion
and his yes does not have any dignity. The second is the lion who knows how to say no,
he is a revolution and he does not want to be treated like a camel. Lastly, the child who
is innocent, not obedience nor disobedient, a childs yes is sacred and its purity is at its
peak. If I am asked where my consciousness is at now maybe I will choose lion
because I dont think I am a camel because I know when to say no based on experience
and I hate being bossed around. I think the camel is pitiful because he is so used to
being controlled that he is not complaining. He is not living his life to the fullest because
he is not being himself and he acts on others preference. In my opinion majority of the
people in the world has the lion consciousness based on experience. During the open
forum part of the talk, a schoolmate asked about stress management and I liked how it
was answered. According to the answer you should find the root cause of the stress to
manage it, most of the time we tend to focus on other things to avoid the root of the
stress because we think that it will pass in no time but that will just make the stress
worst. We should eliminate it as soon as possible so that it will not linger in our minds
for so long. This sums up all the lessons I learned in the talk last June 20.