My Quest, My Journey...

For the first time I feel am actually writing a blog post out of my own, rather than posting something I read or found interesting to share. I love to read and that's where most of my inspiration or most of my dilemmas are answered.

Many people still ask me what do you mean by ZEN, the first first word you come across on my blog when I tell them to visit or read it. Well the word Zen is the Sinico-Japanese abbreviation of the Sanskrit Dhyana, or Meditation. It implies the whole body of teachings and discipline peculiar to a Buddhist sect now popularly known as the Zen Sect.

Now let me take out time to actually explain why I started writing this blog or created it in the first place. Every minute of our lives we are thinking or reacting to some or the other questions may it be problems pertaining to family, career or something else. But yet everyone of us come across a simple question, I know I have many times.

The Question is : "Am I really living a good and a full life". And by that question I don't intend to measure the quality of you life by asking you questions like- how rich you are? how wealthy, what car you drive or how many houses do you own... NO!

I dont think happiness or quality of your or my life is measured in those terms. They you might ask is it by how many friends I have? How many people I keep happy? Am I a good Son? A good father? a good husband?... well in my mind the answer still remains NO! but then these questions are a better measure than the previous ones without doubt.

SO we end up on the same thought how do I measure the quality of my life? well their is a  simple answer really - "The quality of your life, is determined by how you live it, how you lead it". Do you have a smile on your face when you fall asleep? Do you take time to notice small yet marvelous wonders of nature around you. My father always has been my hero and I hold him in the highest regard.. I remember he asking me this once when we were sitting and looking at the sunset from my balcony.

He said "How beautiful is this nature, The sun rises and sets in a pattern, giving the same light to one and all. Plants, animals, humans.. no differences, every living creature comes into existence and survives on 3 things water, air, sunlight. You may call it food, but everything or every being is made of same stuff. Every wondered how do plants come from dust, give birth to the most beautiful flowers, how does mother nature fills such beautiful colors in them..."
 

That's when something stuck me, why do we live.. what is the purpose of our life. Is it to spend 15 to 18 yrs in educating ourselves, then looking for a good job, earning money to get a house, a car, a good wife... raise a family and finally grow old and retire to do what we feel like coz now we have earned good money, and now we can eat the fruits of our hard work we put in all thought out our lives. Is this life?? 
 
Even ants are busy looking for food and shelter, preparing to store food for rains, protecting the clan from threats of other insects or living creatures. So what makes us (Humans) better off ?? then I looked around everyone does the same thing in a exact same patter over and over again. "Eat-Work-Sleep and Save the surplus" and I felt am not anywhere different then any of the people around me, no matter where I go. So who are different, who follow a different pattern that I do or any of us do? 
 
Like I said I read a lot and I happen to remember reading about a prince who had the exact same question in his mind, who later gave up everything his riches and all his ancestral savings so to say, in order to find an answer to this same question. He later found an answer and people have known him as "Buddha".
 
My interests in Buddhism grew from that day onwards, I started reading more on budshism, old texts, old translations from Indian, chinese, japanese and other cultures. Reading about scholars who devoted their lives to preach and spread the answers they discovered in their lifes journey. 
 
Am still an amateur, but I continue to feed my mind with more wisdom, more knowledge. From that time I have been reading more, since the time I spend reading and researching people closest to me started noticing changes in my behavior. I was more attentive to smallest details I now took time to relax, time to look and admire nature.. And I intend to keep this change forever. I remain in quest, and someday i intend to reach the answer to my questions in my own way... Hope you start your journey soon, I wish you the very best!
 
regards,
Jeet