Welcome


If you're interested in conscious living, then likely you're just as equally interested in Zen but simply not knowingly interested.

Usually Zen is associated with Japanese culture and religious or Buddhism practice, but true Zen (or at least the way this site uses the term) is emphasizing the value of conscious living.

Zen and conscious living come together and go hand-in-hand. Hence, conscious living without Zen is a huge oversight and vice-versa because these are not two.

"Conscious Flex: Zen & Conscious Living" is designed to offer a partnership of how these seemingly two are actually one movement.

Zen is the foundational spaciousness or presence from which conscious living derives. In the same manner that an artist, inventor or intuitive actions come from the stillness in the silence of non-movement.

In other words, Zen is a resting in the powerful space of not thinking about thought, not doing anything about doing, not trying to be the solver or understander, the knower collector but simply allowing the intelligence of life to flow through you and as you.

What is described can be thought of as meditation or accessing our intuition, but it's actually just natural living.

Often you will see kids in a natural resting space or presence and we tell them "snap out of it" because we think they are in "lala land" or "fantasy land" and not paying attention but actually they are simply being completely present with what is. It's natural to just rest and be, that's the flow from which insight and wisdom arises from.

Hence, conscious living is also the natural flow of how life organically expands upon itself. Consequently, conscious living is Zen living, when it's pure and without conceptual overlays.

Enjoy!
  • Follow Your Heart Completely NEVER Your Logic

    Logic is a limited belief about something. A limited belief is a dominate thought that says: “I can’t” or “Not possible”. For example, when watching a movie of fiction, your logic will tell you: "What I am watching is not possible for me or others.". Fiction is defined as an imaginative form of creation. In other words, when watching fiction movies, logic stops the imagination from flowing (logic stops your mind from having imaginative thoughts while watching the movie). Children do not have much logic, which is why their imagination is more active.

    As I explained in "A Deeper Look into the Power of Imagination", the imagination gives you the ability to see more choices to choose from. Without your imagination, you limit your experience of life. The solution to any problem is within you and the answer is your imagination. Use it wisely and you can achieve anything you can imagine! I wrote an article called "Your Brain Does NOT Know the Difference", which provides an exercise of how your imagination opens up more choices. Logically speaking, the five minute exercise above should NOT work, but it proves that the imagination has more power over logic, in creating reality.

    The Full Impact of Logic

    Yet, logic does worse than just limit your experience of life by cutting off your ability to imagine. It also leads to illusions. Illusions are based on fear. Basically living our life by logic, is our way to control our life through fear.

    I am going to use an experience I had to help explain what I mean. When I was experimenting with polyphasic sleep, I was sleeping 15 minutes every four hours. I slept this way continuously around the clock (which averages to 1.5 hours of sleep in a 24 hour cycle). In other words, I was up the same amount of time during the night, as I was during the day. Through this sleeping experiment, I experienced life as a continuous moment. In fact when people would talk to me about yesterday, I had a difficult time realizing what one moment to the next was yesterday. People refer to yesterday as something that happened a day ago, but through my experience (while on this sleeping pattern), I could no longer define my reality in that way.

    When I goto bed at night and wake up the next day, I realize that it is the next day because I slept all night. However, when I was on this sleeping pattern, I lost track of the day to day scheme. I noticed the day and night shifts (as the sun set and the sun rose), but I did not shift with it. I merged into experiencing a continuous moment, rather than a series of day to day.

    Logically when looking at time, we define time as a being linear. On a line of past (which no longer exists), present (which exists right now), and future (which will exist in time). Yet, we define time this way (which is just a theory of how time works) because of our sleeping patterns. I find it interesting how babies are born with polyphasic sleeping patterns (a baby will wake up off and on during the day and night and slowly merge into sleeping more during the night based on conditioning).

    Time is an illusion based on logic thinking. Polyphasic sleep helped me realize that time is an illusion because it allowed me to live my life in the moment. Everything I did while on polyphasic sleep, I did because I desired to make this moment RIGHT NOW better. I did not sacrifice time, feelings, or being in order to make a future time better. For example, people work at a job (being somewhere they do not want to be and doing something they do want to be doing) because they feel it will help make a future time more rewarding.

    Goal Example: Logically Thinking
    Let us use an example to determine how most people live life and why they do not create the things they desire. Let's say you have goal and in this goal your main focuses are: using your creative output, making money at it, and doing it in a timely fashion. In your inspiration and excitement, you get to work on your creative outlet. You then try to sell your ideas/things. Through time you begin to lose your inspiration. You get frustrated that you are not making any money and you could not do it in a timely manner, so you give up. Instead, you go and find a job (I will explain how to make this goal work, later in this article). Therefore, logically people think getting a job is the best way to earn money, which is another illusion.

    The system behind money is giving value, it is an exchange from one person to another. Before money was introduced, people would trade based on skill and/or possessions (you do something for me and I will do something for you). It is still the same today, except the trade is mostly done through a trade of time for money. Most people think of money as something they need to survive and even that is an illusion. Science says that energy can never die, it can only change form and energy is the essence of every human being on a scientific level. The only reason most scientists do not believe in an after life (surviving beyond the body) is because logically it does not make sense (there is an article I wrote called "Perspective & the Potential of Unlimited Possibilities", about why it is does not make logical sense on scientific level).

    Goal Example: Following Your Heart
    Can you see how following logic creates illusions? Can you see how these illusions are created out of fear? There is another way to rid your life of all illusions and fears. You do not even have to go on polyphasic sleep to do it (yet I would suggestion everyone at least try it). Simply follow your heart completely. When you follow your heart completely, it rids of all illusions/fears because you do not allow room for logic (limited beliefs). Using the goal example above, if you followed your heart completely, then you would not have worried about focusing on earning money or doing it in a timely manner. If you really listen to what your heart is telling you, then your main focus would have been on your creative output. Could you imagine the value you would have put into your creative output if that was your only focus? Since value is the system behind money, then the money would have came automatically. Spending all your time on your creative output, would have allowed the money to come in a timely manner because of the value attached to it.

    If people just followed their hearts, then they would only do whatever it took to make life better for themselves/people (providing value). Yet, because people need money to survive (in the terms of how people think of money), then that becomes a focus and because the sooner they have that money, the better things will be (again in the way they think about time in relation to money). Deep down though, these things do not really concern people. They only concern the people who make them real. However, it is not real in their heart, it is only real through their fears (the illusions they created through logic thinking).

    The Irony of How Following Your Heart Attracts Logical Things

    The ironic thing about this, is that once people let go of these fears and only concentrate on what is in their hearts, then they attract the illusions as well (it brings all the logical things to you). Even though at this point (the point of following the heart completely) the illusions are their least concern. The less they are concerned about it, the more of it they attract.

    This is why following your heart/passion is so important: it also attracts everything else you could ever desire in reality without trying. You do not have to try to follow your heart, your heart will lead you exactly to where you want to be. All you have to do is not change your focus. Stay active in your heart. That is what the most important thing in life is all about and that is the key to success. Successful people, are people who follow their joy/ happiness/ passion NO MATTER WHAT. They do not let illusions and fears stop them from doing what their heart says to do. They have no expectations to any illusion (money, time, surviving, paying bills) because they have no logic. They have no fears to life, they are only concerned with following what is real. What resides in the core of their being.

    How Do You Know When You Are Following Your Heart?
    The easiest way to determine if you are following your heart, is to ask yourself a few important questions:
    1. Am I doing this out of fear?
    2. Does this tell me: "I can't." or "Not possible."?
    3. Do I feel like this is out of my control?
    4. Does this feel good?
    5. Does it provide value (or have the potential to provide value) to me?
    6. Does it provide value(or have the potential to provide value) to others?
    If you answered "No." to the first three questions and "Yes." to the last three, then you can be certain that you are following your heart.

    For more information on how/why following your heart works this way, please read "How to Find Your Passion & Make it Your Career".

    • Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.” ~Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American Writer, Journalist and Editor.
    • "The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced." ~Andre Gide (1869 - 1951) French Author and Winner of the Nobel Prize.
    • "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." ~Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Theoretical Physicist.
    • "No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical." ~Niels Bohr (1885 -1962) Nobel Prize winner in Physics.
    • "Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis." ~John Dewey (1859-1952) an American Philosopher, Psychologist, and Educational Reformer.
    Obviously logic has some benefits, it gives us a way to reason, which helps to find conclusions in an abstract way. Using logic, you can determine that things are likely to happen a certain way (like the action/ reaction of cause and effect). Yet, once you realize that reality is operated by your filters (your perspective on life, your beliefs about life, your expectations to life and your experience of life), then you recognize that logic is only a system of thoughts programing reality.