front and back

Excerpts

Frog
Harry
Silence
Brainstorm Blizzard

Original Manuscripts

The Author
then and now

FAQ's

The Zen N Facebook page

Videos

Ditch Plains

FAQs

Level 2

Level 1

1) Q. Will Zen N save the world?
A. Unlikely for a couple of reasons. First of all, a tremendous percentage of the world's population are relatively illiterate or don't understand English.
Also Norman learned in the last 30 years that the genius of Zen is not enough to tackle the Reactive Mind discovered by L. Ron Hubbard and described in Dianetics - Modern Science of Mental Heatlh. There are also other pretty brutal phenomena at the spiritual levels that are only handled by Scientology processes. And these require the use of an e-meter and a trained Professional Scientology Auditor.
So, while Zen N won't save the world, it is Norman's hope that it will help direct people to the very best solutions available at this time in our human history here on planet earth.
Norman helps with Dianetics book sales at trade shows and while many people passing a booth will be curious or interested enough to ask questions, there are still many people who don't understand "the problem" we're really dealing with and as a result, decline purchasing a Dianetics book. Norman feels Zen N reaches some people that otherwise may never realize their potential for spiritual freedom.

2) Q. Is Norman J. Schoonebeek a Zen guru?
A. Most experts in the faith and study of Buddhism and Zen would consider someone who spends more time studying, practicing and teaching traditional Buddhist philosphy and meditation, as a guru. Norman had no desire to live an austere life as a monk and did not actively attempt to teach others any wisdom he gained in his experiences and studies.
His first attempts in his college days to share with others his experiences and understandings of life from a Buddhist perspective, did not have any success to speak of, regarding sharing those ideas with family, friends, neighbors or co-workers.
Hopefuly the book Zen N will provide the venue for Norman to share his few concepts with those who will find them beneficial, without requiring himself or others to struggle with the logistics of meeting in person, on such a large scale as distribution of a book worldwide via the internet can provide.

3) Q. Your introduction takes a vindictive turn into a rant against Psychiatry and Psychology. Why? Was that really necessary? It also seems hypocritical, after having a quote in Zen N, "May my words be sweet for I may have to eat them someday."
A. Yes, really! Most Americans, and people around the world, are totally unaware that Psychiatry and Psychology were founded to learn how to control people and their behavior. The research and "treatments" they have devised were focused on learning how to have total control over populations.
Originating from Germans and Russians, the methodologies being used in America are not being used with the intentions to help people with their "Mental Health", as they pretend, but to destroy our culture and future generations.
This is very obvious if you watch the CCHR videos "Psychiatry - An Industry of Death" and "Making a Killing". www.cchr.org
While there are many well meaning Psychologists and some well meaning Psychiatrist, they both ignore that emotional and mental problems are due to issues with the spiritual being and only Scientology has the technology to understand what those spiritual problems are and what to do about them.
Since Psychiatrists and Psychologists can not address treating the spiritual being they resort to methods that do not work and cause long term harm.

In regards to whether I am being hypocritical, please go to Level 3 for my explanation.

3a) Q. Your comments about the mentally handicapped people you claim Psychiatrists are mass producing could be taken as an insulting or derogatory comment about people with mental handicaps. Are you blaming the mentally handicapped for their illness and handicaps?
A. I realize the comment could be deemed as tactless and too blunt but the comment was a criticism of Psychiatry and Psychology, not the people that have been victimized by their bogus therapies or theories. To solve a problem you first have to become aware of it. And too many people are ignorant of what the government sponsored "mental health" systems are doing to their loved ones, friends, co-workers etc. People must wake up and "smell the coffee".
The saying, "Don't shoot the messenger" applies perfectly here. Don't let the Psychiatrists and Psychologists convince you that I'm the bad guy making preposterous or slanderous claims. They don't have a proven science of the mind. Dianetics Auditors do. They don't have a proven method or technology to handle the cause and effects of the single source of human misery, the reactive mind. Dianetics Auditors do.
You can't afford to be fooled any longer.
Just consider the injustice being done if over 90 percent of children, teenagers, adults and seniors that are under the consultation or direction of Psychiatrists or Psychologists, are being labled with bogus mental illnesses and being forced to participate in bogus therapies. To allow this to continue is outrageous, insane, criminal and foolish. For more go to Level 3.

4) Q. Shouldn't a book about Buddhism, a religion that's kind of like New Age, be more "warm and fuzzy"?
A. In a perfect world... actually Zen is known for sometimes being a bit more radical or rebellious. The best the author could do with "warm and fuzzy" is the concept luff.
While New Age philosophy tends to have a lot of "warm and fuzzies", Buddhism is a pretty straightforward, no nonsense quest, aquisition and teaching of the ultimate truths about life to the degree that such is possible without the breakthoughs that L. Ron Hubbard made with Dianetics and Scientology.
The author went to high school during the later part of the Viet Nam war and then saw a good number of the supposed peace loving, New Age hippies either end up in drug rehab and on welfare or low paying jobs or under the care of "shrinks" and on "meds" or talking the spiritual talk while walking the material walk and cleaning up on real estate and building their financial portfolios.
So "warm and fuzzy" had limited value and application to the author's "real world" situations.

I don't mean to knock New Age too much. I enjoy the art and clothing styles and certainly talk about the spiritual world, love and peace is a very good thing. The only problem is that it doesn't deal with head-on, the "evils" of the world and has no technology to handle the true causes of suffering on earth. Dianetics and Scientology have the only workable technology to handle the true causes of war, crime and insanity... for good. It's not easy and it's not always pretty but it works. And it's what we need to do before the mad men of the world, in power with WMD's and powerful mind altering drugs, kill or enslave us all.

5) Q. Can the author walk through walls or fly? Is he invincible like superman?
A. He's not telling. Then again, what would be the fun in that?

6) Q. Is the author "enlightened? Is the author Clear or Ot?
A. The author is enlightened in the Zen sense of the term. There are probably various types of similar enlightenment, so this should not be taken as a claim that the author's experience of enlightenment is exactly the same as any other person known to have become enlightened. With that said, religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism do seem to share a common understanding of enlightenment. It's not so much how it is described because words are not the state of being itself.
By it's nature, the state of beingness of enlightenment is not easy to explain to anyone who has not experienced it and so various different descriptions will be found for what is assumed to be the same state of beingness.The author is not Clear but occasionally is able to excercise some OT abilities for better or worse. Since the author is not Clear he has not done any official OT levels.

7) Q. Aren't you at least a little bit concerned that the Psychiatric Pharmacuetical Coroporations henchmen or Government goons are going to be really pissed off at you and try to mess you up with harrassing infringments on your human rights or worse?
A.The thought has occured to the author.

8) Q. Is there any way you can succinctly explain the difference between Zen, Dianetics and Scientology without evangelizing, preaching or boring us to death? We'd really like to know, and they all seem like the same thing.
A. Wow! That's a tall order. The enlightenment of Buddhism , Zen and Hinduism involves an actual experience of a beingness of our true, hidden nature as a spiritual being with similar qualities to what we consider God to have, but on a smaller scale. This is sometimes denoted as the God beingness being Brahman and the individual beingness as Atman. When a person experiences it they have total certainty, absolutely no doubt, about it. This is what is meant by enlightenment.

Dianetics is a science of the mind developed by L. Ron Hubbard. It is an exact description of various parts of the mind as based on their function and is the only science of the mind that explains in detail the single source of mental aberration (mental illness, tendancy to error, negative emotions, psychosomatic illnesses etc), the Reactive Mind. It is the only science of the mind that has an exact technology to eliminate the Reactive Mind, resulting in the state of Clear. So, a person could experience Atman enlightenment, but could still have a reactive mind. These concepts are concerned with two different things. Atman with the soul or spiritual beingness as being found to be our true nature or self and Clear as being in a state of being free of the reactive mind.

Scientology is a much more advanced study of the spiritual being, (called a thetan in Scientology), and it's relationship with the other beings and things in life and this universe and other universes and how the spiritual being helps create life and universes, with or without the agreement or help of others. L. Ron Hubbard found an enormous amount of data about our past history on earth and this universe and Scientology technology helps people recover from traumatic experiences that have hindered and confused our quality of beingness as spiritual beings and discovered higher states and techniques for achieving them, well beyond the basic concept of the beingness of Atman. They are known as OT abilities and levels.

There is a possiblility to some degree that the Upanishads may have contained some truths about life similar to the facts discovered by L. Ron Hubbard in his research of Scientology but if so, the current translations do not seem to equate exactly with Scientology axioms, data about life and the spirit and auditing/processing techniques.

Also, Scientology employs the use of the e-meter, a sensitive electronic devise necessary to help locate spiritual and mental moments of trauma or confusion that are hidden deep in our unconsciousness. The computer technology necessary to make this possible to reach the higher OT levels with great accuracy only became available in 1997.

I hope that helps. As always, for the best and official description of Dianetics and Scientology, visit their respective websites ( www.dianetics.org, www.scientology.org) or study the BASICS books and lectures available at www.bridgepub.com. You can also use the official online glossary at http://www.whatisscientology.org/html/Part14/Chp50/pg1018.html

9) Q. Do you still practice TM?
A. No. TM and other similar forms of meditation have limited use. It may be pleasant to sit and relax and reflect on events in one's life but meditation for the purpose of attaining full spiritual freedom leads one in the wrong direction. L. Ron Hubbard discovered the reasons for this and one explanation can be heard in his Route To Infinity lectures.

The basic lie or myth is that, "the answers are within." But the answers are not within since your mind and memory, of you the spiritual being you really are, are not really in your head or anywhere in space.

Other than for stretching muscles, yoga presents the same problem.

Like the spirit, the mind has no position in space or size or dimension. The current "twisted" teachings of eastern meditaion, Psychology and Psychiatry try to convince you your mind is inside your head, to get you introverted and trapped in your head and body. more - Level 3 TM

10) Q. In the introduction first you say that Buddhism didn't explain the evil forces to you but then in the next paragraph you mention you took an Intro to Buddhism course and say that Buddhism did explain the mental and spiritual phenomena you had been experiencing. This seems contradictory and it's giving me a headache.
A. The introduction was written in a hurry and later I realized that part could cause confusion. The Introduction to Buddhism course explained the mental and spiritual phenomena I had been experiencing doing TM and most of what I experienced in the near death experience. The only thing that course didn't explain was what the evil forces were, that I experienced in the near death experience. Scientology does explain them.

11) It seems a bit foolish to try to compare yourself and your accomplishments to L. Ron Hubbard in the introduction with those peculiar trivia of coincidence you listed. That seems to be an insult to L. Ron Hubbard considering all that he accomplished and how hard he worked.
A. That is a section I would also change or actually remove from any future edition. But I was not trying to impress people with my accomplishements or actions. I myself was very much in wonder at those similarities and they seemed exactly what I called them- peculiar trivial coincidences. Those coincidences just sometimes make me I wonder if I knew him in my past life but I don't have any certaintly at this time whether or not I have or not.
There is actually another coincidence I didn't remember at the time. We both designed a symbol, logo or monogram made from combining our initials. You can see my original creation on the original manuscript page opposite page 1 of Harry. I noticed my sister making one of those, years before, and thought it would be fun to make my own. This was long before I ever heard of Scientology or L. Ron Hubbard.