Thien is an attitude or a method for arriving at knowledge and action. For Thien the techniques of right eating and drinking, of right breathing and right concentration and meditation, are far more vital than mere beliefs. A person who practices Zen meditation does not have to rely on beliefs in hell, nirvana, rebirth, or causality; they have only to rely on the reality of their body, their psychology, biology, and their own past experiences or the instructions of Zen masters who have preceded them. Their aim is to attain, to penetrate, to see; once they attained satori (insight), their action
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