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With the first step i feel compassion for all living things.

Moving the second step i don’t cause more harm or damage to the universe.

Performing the third step i am free from the three poisons of the mind: illusion, desire and anger.

On the fourth step i begin to better discern what is truly right and what is really wrong.

The fifth step will teach me that every dichotomy is false and empty. Good and evil, the self and the outside world, the white and black, are all abstractions of the mind.

Moving the sixth step I forget greed and envy and i behave always with generosity, sense of justice and positive creativity.

With the seventh step i forget selfishness, pride and false humility to act with honor and true perennial generosity.

The eighth step will teach me that happiness is the maintenance of a dynamic equilibrium, with loving detachment.

The ninth step will teach me to fight against personal pain with non-attachment and to alleviate the suffering of others with a deep sincere and disinterested love.

With the tenth step I return to the whole, to revive again on the road to perfection, a path with no beginning and no end.
So i start to walk another path made of ten steps, always improving, to reach here, in the eternal everchanging present, the enlightment.

(Free adaptation of the “Vote of the 10 steps” of the followers of Ch’an Tao Chia)

Many scientist have explored the similarities between physics and oriental philosophies.
Fritjof Capra has written an interesting book: The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism.

One of the main ideas proposed by this book is about the so called “Holographic paradigm”.

The holographic paradigm is a theory based on the work of David Bohm and Karl Pribram and extrapolated from two ideas:

• That the universe is in some sense a holographic structure, proposed by David Bohm
• That consciousness is dependent on holographic structure, proposed by Karl Pribram

This paradigm posits that theories using holographic structures may lead to a unified understanding of consciousness and the universe.

One of the main points of this paradigm is about memory. Memory, and so consciousness, is not stored in single pieces of this universe.
Many scientific experiments shows that memory patterns, as in DNA RNA, human and animal mind, chemical properties and reactions, physical laws, are similar to intersections of many wave fronts that permeates the whole.

So what we think about the world, in the sense of real world, is just an illusion. There is not solid thing, 3 dimensional space and time.
There is a whole constituted by infinite waves (or strings if you like) that are playing together, in dynamic series of movements in this ever changing eternal present.

So our body, our mind and our consciousness are reflections, images and holograms of the real world we can not experience directly.

This idea seems crazy and strange, we are living, made of and experiencing an illusory level of reality, but latest experiments in physics and the best candidates as theories of the whole are figuring this scenario.

Some author simplify this idea suggesting that we are living in something similar to Matrix (the result of universal computer), but the real world is a little bit more complicated. Tao and Zen, are suggesting, more wisely, that we are only part of the whole and patterns capable to see and understand themselves in the mirror.
Tao, in particular, says that the whole is the only interesting thing, a cup full of energy in eternal movement. Scientifically: an ocean of interacting waves/strings/branes from which emerges levels and levels of sub realms.
We are living in one of them and we can just imagine how big is the real whole.

Dino Olivieri

One day a young man asked to an old wise man which was the key to happiness.
The old man smiled, the wrinkles on his face corrugated for a lot of fun. Then he looked into the eyes of the young man, and he said: “The Gratitude, my son”.
The young man did not understand and so he asked, “Gratitude?”
“Sure”, the old man said, adding: “If you are not able to feel deep gratitude for every little precious gift that the universe makes you constantly, you will live only in the pain and suffering and you can never know happiness”.
The old man stood still a moment in silence and then said: “There is no awareness without gratitude, because it is not only a thought but also a feeling”.
The young man found enlightenment in those words. He embraced the old wise man and so he said: “Thank You”.

Zentao is a practical experience, a way of life.
Zentao is not a theory or a religion.

Here are 10 steps to put (with some effort) into a daily practice:

• respect the body and the life of every sentient being
• live naturally loving and respecting the environment to which we belong
• prevent disease constantly taking care of your body-mind rather than intervening after
• cultivate positive emotions such as love, kindness, compassion, joy, empathy, equanimity
• self-control in order to eliminate the occurrence of negative emotions as illusion, anger, desire
• focus on the present detaching your thoughts from past and future
• seek constantly balance and harmony
• meditate and accept the impermanence of things
• meditate on the illusory nature of self and on the false dualistic concept
• strive for union with the everchanging eternal present

Dino Olivieri

My daughter, my son.
Traveling, look in the eyes of foreigners, listen and learn their languages, walks in their shoes, open your eyes and your understanding to each new horizon in front of you.
When you’ve seen a lot of what you consider outside of yourself, then you will have the knowledge that everyone is the whole universe.
Dino Olivieri

Bodhidarma

This Japanese scroll calligraphy of Bodhidharma reads:

直指人心
見性成佛

(from up to low, left to right)

“Zen points directly to the human mind and heart,
see into your nature and become Buddha”.

It was created by Hakuin Ekaku (1685 to 1768).

Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are one

« I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These are your three greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you reconcile yourself with the meaning of the whole.
Compassionate with yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world. »

(Tao Te Ching, Chapter 67)

“Don’t seek the awareness because by doing so it escapes from you even further. The awareness is simple and natural life, is the spirit of a child playing and learning, it’s the thought that springs from the feeling that you try drinking a sip of cool water.”
Dino Olivieri

Welcome to Zentao.org
This simple website is dedicated to anyone is on the way to a good, full, peaceful, harmonious and conscious life.
Come back soon to browse it in the next few days because we are adding new interesting materials, ideas and experiences.