If you think your internal dialogue is thinking, and that you stop thinking when you stop the internal dialogue, do you really understand thinking?

I can remember thinking before I could talk.  I remember learning to talk.  How could one learn to talk without thinking ?

Talking to yourself in your head is not thinking, its talking to yourself about what you are thinking.

Quote: "Thinking is remembering or imagination. If you encounter something you retrieve it from your memory and compare it to what you see. So obviously you cannot think of something you have not encountered before. Like  emptiness. If you experience emptiness but if it does not compare on what you know, what you have read about emptiness it does not compute. So even if you experience emptiness as if it did not happen. Like wisdom you only know wisdom according to your knowledge of wisdom.

Suppose  you try to think of the unknown can you think about it.
This problem about thinking is what Zen is suppose to cure.
"
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Zen has no purpose, no objective, no design, thats the beauty of it.

Just being.

Quote: "So why do sit in zazen and just do breath counting or awareness of the breath and face a blank wall.. That is exactly to stop you from your thoughts. In sesshin you do it for days.. and you need a kyosako.. to alleviate the stress on the shoulder... "
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Zazen, or any form of sitting or meditation, is not an end in itself.  Just a turning to go in another direction, like from outward to inward.

Why do you do it ?  To turn.

Momentum, inertia, carries you in the direction you are going, so you have to do something deliberate to break that and move differently.  So you turn and face the wall, not because there is anything particular to be gained from the wall, but to break the inertia of ordinary life.

Stopping the internal dialogue also breaks the inertia.  But mostly I just do it to relax. 

I can remember thinking before I could talk.  I remember learning to talk.  How could one learn to talk without thinking ?

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I can remember thinking before I could talk, and I can remember thinking in words before I could talk English. 

Naturally I remember thinking in words as if they were English words, but they could not have been, because it was English that I needed to learn before I could talk or listen to others.

So I wonder what language I was thinking in.  I have been heard by a number of people, particularly ex wives, to speak in a foreign language in my sleep.  We were always going to put a tape recorder by the bed, but never got around to it.  I wonder what language that is.  I hear that it *sounds Asian*. 

If you said something then there must have been something to say.  No regrets.

I did not seek awakening, nirvana, satori, whatever.  I was not sitting, I was meditating, astral travelling, and then one day, whoooosh !! 

I had read about Zen in Eugene Herrigels books, but it hadnt made much sense to me.  Now suddenly it did, so I finally took an interest in Zen beyond common curiousity.

Herrigel first wrote *The Method of Zen*, but when people couldnt understand what he was trying to say he wrote the more popular *Zen in the Art of Archery*. 

Here in this forum we often try to put into words that which cannot be put into words.  So when there is criticism of the shortcomings of what I or others may say, I just blow it off, because I know that none of us can explain what someone else may yet not have experienced.

The first explorers to return to the East and describe the Grand Canyon were ridiculed and mocked for making up such a fantastic tale and trying to fool everyone.  Yet today the Grand Canyon national park hosts over a million visitors per year.  No one any longer doubts its existence, they just plan to visit some day.  Just as people who have not yet experienced nirvana or satori should not doubt the experience of others, but simply look forward to their own visit to the Void some day.

Quote: "Quote: "The idea is - and I'm sorry but I didn't read all the lengthy moments - that the foregoing is just one long vanity project. Perhaps you'd benefit from forgetting what you've been told and what you're trying to foist on others, and when you've unlearned everything you think you know, you'll remember All. And don't ask me how you did it. I'm just privileged to be here with you and thank you for the next feature. "


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Insert song clip here: artist: Queen song: The Show Must Go On!

By the way if a mythological creature walked out of the woods, gently touched you and then went back.  Immediately after you would know, that was all real.  As time went on and no one believed you, you would wonder, was that real?  You learn to stop talking about it, even as you catch glimpses of it in the forest.  Then one day it walks right up to you again and touches you gently then walks away again.  And you cry becasue you realize "ah ha!" "I am not crazy after-all."  But what was it, how, why did it happen, and is there something wrong with the rest of the world that they do not see, what is right here for anyone who has eyes?  You can not help but think that the rest of the world is so blinded by their notion of what is and what is not that they can not see the magic that is right there. You try to show people but they either refuse outright, or simply argue why it is not so, and begin to analyze what is wrong with you.  It is a tremendously lonely feeling.  One day a guy walks up to me and he knows what I am talking about.  He walks me to the Forrest and on command he causes to happen, what I must be patient about and let happen. After all of that is over he teaches you and leaves you to practice.  I still can not do what he did, but, I can feel I am at last on the right path.  The truth is, I really need to stop talking about it again, and just keep doing it.  I am part of a group who practices now.  And even though they have never seen the mytholgical creature, they believe, and it is sufficent for me to be among those who, have faith. But i can't force my experience on them, nor anyone else. we open our eyes when we are ready.
"
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One day, sitting in the park, I noticed a lot of crows were cawing in a tree over what appeared to be a street person sleeping below.  He seemed to take no notice of them.  I thought it odd and turned off my internal dialogue to relax and watch.

About that time a man walked past me, somewhat sheepishly as if trying to sneak past me, and sat down on a bench in front of me, also facing the man and the crows.  I had seen him before on the subway and it seemed that he was watching me for some reason.  We both appeared to be local office workers in DC.

I returned my attention to the man lying in the grass below the crows, which were still cawing loudly.  This went on for another minute or two when suddenly the man rose up on his elbows, looked at his hands as if to verify he was really there, looked over at us, and then slumped back into the grass with a look of resignation.  The crows all stopped cawing and flew away simultaneously.

The man on the bench in front of me turned around and looked at me, beaming a broad smile.  I looked back, smiled slightly, and nodded my head to confirm that I had seen what he had seen.  Then he got up and left the park, walking past me again, but this time with an apparent feeling of accomplishment.  I don't know what he saw, or even if he saw the same thing I saw, but he was happy about it.

He and I never met or spoke, and I don't think I ever saw him again, but we shared that experience in the park that day, and I sure he remembers it too.

Quote: "The idea is - and I'm sorry but I didn't read all the lengthy moments - that the foregoing is just one long vanity project. Perhaps you'd benefit from forgetting what you've been told and what you're trying to foist on others, and when you've unlearned everything you think you know, you'll remember All. And don't ask me how you did it. I'm just privileged to be here with you and thank you for the next feature. "
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I love to write.  It used to be my job, all day everyday.  But now I work with numbers, and this is one of few opportunities to write.  But I dont mean to foist anything on anyone, I'm just rambling annecdotally I suppose.

I have nothing to foist.  What applies to me personally, between me and the Spirit doesnt seem to apply to anyone else.  Im just living a life, and when its over Im going back into the Void with the Spirit, into my own plane of existence.  The Spirit tells me I will spend an eternity there with It, in an essential *holodeck* of my own.  Sounds good to me.  I dont know what all of the rest of you will be doing, I dont care, because its not my problem.

What the All has in store for you personally is between you and the Spirit.  Maybe your own plane of existence.  Maybe non-existence. There is no limit to how many planes of existence the Spirit can create, all within Itself, All, like layers of an onion, separate yet all One.

I remember All.  I remember being All when there was nothing else and never had been.  There is not much to think about there.  Its just one all encompassing thing.  A sort of baseline of existence.  It is a lot more fun to think about all that the All is being.  It creates us, our circumstances, and poses problems for us to solve.  Thats exciting, and even moreso if you understand the All, because then it is interactive.  Kind of like an interactive game, yet a bit like solitaire, since all is One, and One is All.

Quote: "How do you help a man who is trapped in a well without using an inch of rope?

Easy, you use a rope that is in excess of an inch. 


"
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Easier still, teach him how to tread water.

Quote: "Quote: "How do you help a man who is trapped in a well without using an inch of rope?
.........

Easy, you use a rope that is in excess of an inch. 

.........

Easier still, teach him how to tread water.

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The question is not help the man who is trapped in a well without using an inch of rope.
It is "How can you free a man who is stuck in a well without using an inch of rope?"

So, the answer is to get the man to see his true nature. Then he will be free.
"
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So I suppose throwing him a floatation device, like a large rubber duckie, would be out of the question ?

I only care about the Spirit, and she can reveal herself to whomever she wishes whenever she wishes.  It doesn't come from flowers in sermons or through bodisatvas.  Thats illusion.  Fitting it into the story the Spirit is making up.

Cause has no real effect, thats just smoke and mirrors.  The Spirit is being everything and everyone, all the time.  It can be as It wishes. 

There have been a couple of people who attributed their awakening to my help, but thats just illusion.  Only the Spirit can do that.  There is only One source, and everything comes from It.

Naturally there are those I love, and I feel compassion when I see pain, but it is always within the matrix of creation presented by the Spirit.  I help when I can, when its right in front of me, but I dont look for love to share or pain to heal.

Quote: "If you say awareness what are you aware of? "
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Presence, that has always been and will not pass,

and how horrible it is to be alone, to have always been alone,

and except for the machinations of ones own imagination,

to know that one will always be alone.

All the vampires that i know is dead. :)

Quote: "In a war-zone - we don't need a bungalow with roses round the door - help us buy a shelter. [Who the hell makes those missiles?]"
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Daddy Warbucks, so he can send little Annie to camp.