So, with these beginning posts, I hope to have given you at least a small understanding of what having a zenity mind can do for you. However, for the sake of completion, I'll tell you the two goals I hope to help you with here.
1.) Zenity is about being a person whose mental and physical selves are constantly in a state of calm, quiet, and peace, and able to quickly return to that state in the blink of an eye, no matter what may be occurring to you mentally or physically. From this state of being, you may step or launch in any direction you choose, in both mental and physical forms, with all the emotional and material focus and intensity needed for whatever task is at hand. Zenity can be your position of strength from which you are able to do all the things you may be required to do, and all the things you want to do.
2.) Zenity is about securing your mind and your thoughts within your own space. No outside thought (fear, worry, anxiety, stress, anger, etc...) will be able to invade your space, and much more importantly, take control of your mind, unless you allow it. Alternatively, no inner thought will be able to escape from your space unless you allow it to, thereby helping to insure your mind doesn't wander off, to help you live in this and every moment.
As I describe on the Zenity Defined page, I have developed this zenity mainly through four means: mushin, shoshin, zanshin, and heijoshin. The wiki definitions do a good job at explaining about each discipline, but let me tell you about them in layman's terms.
Mushin can be summed up as having a mind that is thinking no thoughts. Is that even possible? Yes, and you've done it. How many times have you slipped your footing, but caught yourself before falling down? That's called intuition and reaction. That is a prime example of mind & body working together in harmony without you thinking any conscious thought that could get in the way of their natural actions. Think for a moment how much trouble, not to mention pain, we would be in if we had to think of every command for our body to take in order to stop from falling down. You see, our minds and bodies already know what to do! Mushin teaches us how to remove our conscious thoughts from possibly interfering with this natural process.
One of my favorite explanations for shoshin comes from Master Yoda, when he says to young Skywalker, "You must unlearn what you have learned." If you are unwilling to accept a beginner's state of mind, then how could you possibly ever learn anything? This doesn't only mean learning some new physical action, it also, and more importantly, applies to learning about yourself, your true self. Intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, expertise, all those things can be just as much a hindrance to you as they can be a boon, especially if you think and feel that you are dependent on them as a person. You are not. Adopt the state of mind that you had before you had any of those learned things, and you can better understand the person you really are, and in turn, be the person you really want to be.
Zanshin is simply 'being aware'. That's it. Aware of where you are, what you're doing, thinking, saying, at this very moment. While it sounds like a simple concept, the actual performance of it is something that many people are sadly lacking. Physically, it means knowing where you are, what surroundings you are in. Spatial awareness is the term. One of the greatest causes of vehicle collisions is due to people with no zanshin. Mentally, some obvious examples are people who are talking and keep repeating the same phrase over and over. "You know?" is a big one, and so is "umm". Some may simply like to wave things like this off as habits, or personality traits, and not all of them are to be considered bad. However, when you are aware of all that you are, it's much easier to just let yourself be.
"To maintain a level heart" is how heijoshin translates. "Cool under fire" is another phrase that could be used. Heijoshin is all about not letting the stress, strain, and anxiety of everyday Life become your life. You know those people, the ones who are so down-in-the-dumps one moment, then bouncing off the walls the next. Heijoshin doesn't mean it's not okay to have this large range of emotions, quite the opposite. It does mean that when you give control of your thoughts and deeds over to emotions, especially emotions that are not your own, then that can and often does more harm than good.
So there are the four main disciplines that help establish a mind of zenity. I came to know them through many years of martial arts training, through many years of living the daily life of a U.S. soldier, by being married, by going to war, by going through a divorce, by getting myself out of $52,000 in debt, and by dedicating myself to many years of theological and self-help study. I certainly don't expect you to follow any of those in order to obtain your own mind of zenity, although, if you are, then you are already ahead on the learning curve. Simply understanding something about each concept, and how it applies to you, is enough to start you down the path to your own state of zenity.
