Principles of Zen Living - 3 Easy Steps to Effortlessly Master Zen Living

With increasing stress in today's society, it is becoming increasingly important to find ways to relax and unwind. One of the best ways to go about managing your stress is to live a zen lifestyle. Here are three easy steps to live a zen lifetstyle! 1.) Posture Your posture is the expression of your self. It is where everything begins. You should not seek to master posture as a means to attain a particular state of mind. Your posture is the purpose itself of practice of zen living. One of the most important aspects of zen posture is a straight spine. Relax your shoulders, push up towards the ceiling with the back of your head. Press your diaphragm down towards your lower abdomen - this will help you breathe deeply. Deeper breathing creates more oxygen in your blood stream, thereby increasing your brains alertness. Do not tilt sideways, backwards, or frontwards. Accessing your true nature through your posture is the key here. If you own your own physical body, you would be able to create presence effortlessly. Being present in their body is how athletes & performers create miracles. Enlightenment is not some good feeling or some particular state of mind. The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, in and of itself, enlightenment. 2.) Focus On Your Breathing Breathing is synonymous to swinging the door - the door that connects the outer world with your inner world. There is no limit to your inner world, neither is the outer world limited. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. When you practice Zen, the idea of time and space melts away, just the way there difference between inside and outside air disappears when you breathe. Focusing your mind on your breathing is one of the key zen activities. Breathing is a fundamental activity of the universal being. When we focus on our breathing, we become the swinging door, and create instant presence... 3.) Give Up The Control "The greatest meditation is the mind that lets go" - Zen Philosopher. Whatever we see changes with every passing moment. Whatever we see is changing, loosing its balance. Although everything is going out of balance, the background is in perfect harmony. That's the essence of zen nature - keeping the perfect balance in background while in midst of constantly changing foreground. One of the best ways to control your cow or sheep is to give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow. To find perfect balance of your mind, to find the calmness that you are constantly seeking, you should learn to ignore the various thoughts and images you find in your mind. The true purpose of zen practice and living so to open up our small minds so we can see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Be like water, not the rock. When water flows through a bamboo fountain in traditional Japanese gardens, the zen practitioners are reminded of how water is free to acquire any form. This is where true zen'ism exists.