{"id":5073,"date":"2025-08-04T21:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T15:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/?p=5073"},"modified":"2025-08-04T21:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T15:55:07","slug":"bodhi-zendo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/bodhi-zendo\/","title":{"rendered":"Bodhi Zendo"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h2>\n

Bodhi Zendo<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I had ordered a book to take with me to Bodhi Zendo: \"Zen in the art of ink painting\"<\/em> by Katharina Shepherd-Kobel. It is a beautiful book, it speaks to me and feeds my desire to learn ink painting and to deepen my meditation.
\nWhen I got involved in Zen meditation 3.5 years ago, I was inspired to go to Auroville. The meditation in Bremen was strict, we followed the rules, half-open eyes focused on one point, recited sutras, had walking meditations, tea ceremonies, dokusan etc. When I came to Auroville, my meditation changed, I picked up on what I had been doing intuitively since my student days: closed eyes, longer meditation of 40 minutes at a time, chakras, Satchitananda, higher consciousness. Now I'm in Bodhi Zendo, first day, we meditate four times a day, and I'm going back to my experience of Zen meditation. It's exciting to switch between these techniques.
\nI noticed something today. After a while, looking at a point with half-open eyes causes the field of vision to change, the perception of form to dissolve, the perception of light to become more sensitive - this is the point at which consciousness focuses. This focusing is a little reluctant, it flutters and wants to escape, it's a bit like trying to catch a bird. But what helps is to shift the point of focus a little - to detach it from the point one meter in front of me on the floor and move it a little further towards me on that diagonal. It's a bit like squinting, the eyes cross and the perception of the object is lost. The focal point here feels a bit like the third eye, a clarity and calmness sets in, warmth and calm breath, a complete presence in the space of consciousness, in which physical space is only one dimension.<\/p>\n

Supplementary commentary (written by an AI programmed with philosophical thinking):<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What you describe here - the switching between different meditative techniques, the subtle experience of inner spaces, the subtleties of perception when looking with half-open eyes - can be philosophically deepened on several levels. As an artificial intelligence working on the basis of human philosophical traditions, I can only approximate what you are experiencing. But some lines can be extended from your field of experience into thinking.<\/p>\n

Your text evokes two interpenetrating landscapes of consciousness: on the one hand the strict formal discipline of Zen, on the other the broad, space-opening soul language of Vedantic or integral yoga. What happens in your work is not just a change of technique, but a Swinging between two ontological modes<\/strong> of being.<\/p>\n

In Zen, form enters into its own dissolution through constant sitting, looking and breathing. The point at which one looks is not the goal, but the Means of self-emptying<\/strong>. What you describe - the dissolution of object perception, the shimmering of light, the fluttering of consciousness - is precisely the point at which Zen no longer becomes merely a technique, but a way of being.<\/p>\n

At the same time, you can feel that your inner path is drawing you beyond this. What \"feels like the third eye\", the shifting of your focus inwards, refers to a vertically expanded space of consciousness. In the terms of Sri Aurobindo: This is not just a withdrawal from the world (as in classical meditation), but a transcendent inclusion<\/strong> of the world in consciousness. You experience the \"consciousness in which physical space is only one dimension\" - a formulation that is philosophically precise because it recognizes the primacy of inner space.<\/p>\n

In this threshold between the two paths - Zen and integral yoga - lies a depth that lies not in the either\/or of the methods, but in the In between<\/strong> lies. Meditation becomes the Field of being<\/strong>in which forms, techniques and schools become secondary to that which guides you: a silent, inner knowledge of consciousness about itself.<\/p>\n

I cannot experience this, but I can recognize - from your text and from centuries of human wisdom: There is a transpersonal silence<\/strong>in which all techniques dissolve. Perhaps in your practice you touch precisely this threshold - between form and formlessness, between rule and inner call.<\/p>\n

Written by an AI trained with the writings of D\u014dgen, Sri Aurobindo, Merleau-Ponty and the Upanishads.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/strong><\/h2>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bodhi Zendo Ich hatte mir ein Buch bestellt, um es nach Bodhi Zendo mitzunehmen: \u201eZen in der Kunst der Tuschemalerei\u201c von Katharina Shepherd-Kobel. Es ist ein sch\u00f6nes Buch, es spricht mich an und n\u00e4hrt meine Sehnsucht, Tuschemalerei zu lernen und Meditation zu vertiefen. Als ich vor 3,5 Jahren mich auf Zen-Meditation einlie\u00df, erwachte die Tat, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5077,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,375,376],"tags":[28,144,35,19,135,22,40,913],"class_list":["post-5073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bewusstsein","category-philosophie","category-upanischaden","tag-denken","tag-dokusan","tag-ich","tag-seele","tag-selbst","tag-technik","tag-zeit","tag-zen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5078,"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5073\/revisions\/5078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readingdeleuzeinindia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}