>>12988>The fundamental idea in zen buddhism at least is that the world arises from the mind and not the other way around. They say your
perception of the world comes from the mind, Ego, self. The idea is to shut that down and be able to experience the world
as is. That's why Zen Buddhist meditation is all about breathing, not focusing on some "bodhisattva" like Tibetan buddhists do. So you breathe, focus on the breath, quiet the mind, allowing you to experience the world. And the world, turns out, also breathes: plants, animals, tides go in and out. Everything is in motion, which you can perceive better when you yourself are still.
Big part of Zen Buddhism is mindfulness, basically thinking about what you are doing right now and being in the moment, because that is the only thing that exists for you at that moment, everything else is just intrusive thoughts.
BUT THEN AGAIN, it is a bona fide religion. You do not need to adhere to all its tenets to take out stuff that is useful to you, like zazen meditation.
Zen has/had its share of problems. D. T. Suzuki, the guy who popularised Zen buddhism in the West pretty much, was gung-ho for Imperial Japan during WWII. In fact, he practically weaponised Zen, when he used the Zen belief that we are all different aspects/characters of the same consciousnesses, to tell Japanese soldiers that they are only killing themselves really, it's all a game the One consciousness is playing and war is a part of that game. Ultimately, he told them, it doesn't matter who wins or loses or what happens, cause we're all one, but it is best to play your role as well as you can, and well if your role happens to be a soldier of Imperial Japan, so you better do it as best as you can, going so far to sacrifice yourself to defeat the enemy, because as a soldier, your duty is to win battles.
This stuff inspired Jung and his theory of "archetypes". Archetypes are basically recurring roles.
So yeah, tread carefully.