To see this page in your own language use the following translation bar.

What is Zen?

What reply do you want?

You are probably unconsciously aware that you are conscious but it is more difficult to imagine being consciously aware that you are unconscious.

My mind rebels at the idea.

My mind? Who am I if I am not my mind?

And now that I am consciously thinking about it, what is unconscious anyway?

What has actually happened to me when I am unconscious?

And why does Zen claim to "raise my state of consciousness" as some say?

Here is a topic that is remarkably badly understood, considering how fundamental it is to us and everything we are.

Would the world exist if there was no conscious being to observe it?

Or is everything conscious anyway?

Can I change my "state of consciousness", whatever that means?

Sir Roger Penrose, the famous British mathematician, has covered this topic in depth in his excellent books The Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of the Mind.

You may be surprised to find, on reading these two books, that consciousness may be intimately connected with quantum physics.

You will be less surprised when you find it is actually all about some kind of coherent state existing in regions of the brain.

Which is, of course, what oriental culture has always said, and what yoga, zen, meditation and buddhism in general are all about.

Bringing more of the mind into harmony. Expanding the region of coherency.

Continue to my next topic - Why play GO.

This document was last updated 21 July 2019