Darren Lorente-Bull

Zazen or Zen Buddhist meditation is the central practice of Zen Buddhism derived from the Chinese Chan school of Buddhism and developed by Dōgen Zenji (1200-1253) who was a seminal figure in Japanese Zen Buddhism, renowned for founding the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. Zazen or sitting meditation, also called Shikantaza which translates as "only sitting" is one of the most important and well known types of meditation. This type of meditation consists in sitting on a cushion or zafu with the legs crossed in the so called lotus position, with the back perfectly straight and the hands connected in what Zen practitioners call the "cosmic mudra,”Mudras are different positions the hands are placed in during rituals or spiritual practices in Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions  In this particular mudra, your right hand rests in your lap facing up and your left hand sits lightly on top of it. The thumbs gently touch each other.  Zazen consists i...

I apologize in advance for what may seem like a narcissistic and egocentric posting, and I must state that my goal is to talk about my spiritual path only because I believe - and hope - that it will resonate with the experiences of some readers. Raised in Spain and educated in a tolerant and enlightened Roman Catholic school of which I have only fond memories, I returned to my native England in the late 1990s where I enrolled at university and studied Literature. The title of my degree was quite generic, English Studies, but it should have been called ‘French Studies’ because the emphasis of the educational curriculum was on studying critical theory and focusing on the works of Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Baudrillard, Althusser and Lyotard among many others.  At first, I was fascinated by this approach to the study of Literature and Humanities because I had already read Nietzsche, Freud, Emil Cioran, the French Existentialists and the American Beats and these erudite Marx...