The New School of Contemporary Zen

"The Way is the Paradox"
Zen Master David Ferguson

The New School of Contemporary Zen
by
International Contemporary Zen Master
David Ferguson
Founder of The New School of Contemporary Zen

The New School of Contemporary Zen is quite unique in the way it requires the student to work. It starts with an inner investigation into the movements of mind, understanding the reason why belief systems are so important to us and observing how these beliefs systems lead to demands in our life. An example might be the demand for a continuity of life beyond death, this always leads inevitably to the need for a faith or belief in an afterlife. A faith has no relationship to the experience of our lives but simply serves us with a belief system that we hope will give us a good quality of afterlife, (the thought that an afterlife may not exist is not good survival strategy by brain’s imagination). Such a faith can be extremely important and will often be defended to the death as an 'absolute truth' in our lives. To let go of these beliefs and faiths fills us with fear and the thought that death being the ‘end of the road’, is more than we can bear. If we understand that the motivation for these fears is simply the need of brain to survive death, we can see that it is quite a natural need as a consequence of homo-sapiens having an imagination which projects into our future survival needs.
The student is able to understand that by investigating the need of the belief system rather than whether the belief is true or not, will lead directly to a confrontation on the survival needs of the brain, so the need to survive death is responsible for us having a faith. When it is seen in such a way it allows the student to confront his or her survival needs with the truth of their experience, that is to say no direct experience of life after death exists to the student, only some other person's belief system. As no proof by self exists for afterlife the student is forced to accept an agnostic view of afterlife, seeing quite clearly that the need is simply a fear of death. With the understanding of Kensho the brain is able to drop the need for faith and with it the fear of death, as it realises their is no one to survive death and you are something the brain does.
So by understanding the question and not concentrating on the answer, a freedom has arisen from the fear, allowing brain to concentrate on the immediate value of living and surviving rather than an imaginative projection of fear beyond life. This in no way lessens the fear of dying but it has of the fear of being dead. The fear of dying is seen as a natural fear which has value in our survival strategy in that it ensures we do everything possible to survive dying. So we see that the brain has sorted out the fears into those that are not needed and those that are by simply understanding the reason for the question rather than seeking an answer. This applies to all our demands in life, often though it is quite hard to find the question. But the reader should always remember that the base or datum from which brain works is always the need to survive.

© David Ferguson 2012
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"The function of The New School of Contemporary Zen is to bring the student into the direct experience of the present, devoid of beliefs, faiths and ideas of the moment. Such an experience challenges the need of hope and survival.
We learn that in the present are all our yesterdays and tomorrows, for without the present no past or future is possible and all is a movement of mind. That if an objective reality exists, and it probably does, their is no way we can prove it. But without objective reality survival seems impossible, hence an irresolvable paradox of life which eventually is seen as two conflicting truths.
With the Zen realisation called Kensho-
“The realisation that no separate nature of self exists”, a freedom arises where no paradox is seen by brain, just two truths that have no need to be resolved.
The purpose of this work is to raise the question of self identity with the sure knowledge that no conclusion is possible without the employment of faith, belief or idea and if we are to overcome the fear of the loss of any of these concepts we have to give up the idea that a separate self exists outside the movement of mind."

An extract from :-