*Thinking is the hardest work there is,

which is the most probably reason why so few indulge in it.*

Mark Twain

Thinking comes pretty easy to most, its *thinking things through* that is difficult.

Thinking about how offended you are about something someone said comes naturally.

Thinking it through to the *why* of what they said can be more difficult,

but may just solve the problem.

Quote: "You afraid of work?"
.........

Yes.  I was once trapped in it.  I had gotten into it quite innocently, because that is what everyone had expected of me.  I just went along, and before I knew it there were obligations that had been made, mortgage, car payments, credit cards, that just would not go away.

And then I looked back and realized I had walked into a trap.  There had been a time earlier in life before I went down that road when I could have taken a different road, called freedom. 

I had reached outside myself for fulfillment, instead of inside, and there I was, trapped.

I like working.  I am glad to have a reason to get up and go out.  Otherwise I probably would not.  Some recent home repairs have drained my finances temporarily, but I usually make more than I need, and have a surplus of cash lying around in the bank.  Im not rich, but I am free.

The ‘truth’ is it’s impossible for the mind to go very long without thought arising otherwise George W Bush would have been enlightened a long time ago. Enough political comment for a Zen forum for one day.

It’s more like the ‘stillness between two thoughts’, as Krishnamurti put it and as Eliot put it even better:

          ….  heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always —

Quote: " ... Will be to arrive where we started.
And know the place for the first time.

Samsara is Nirvana."
.........

Sansara or sangsara (?????) is a Sanskrit^[1] and Pali term, which translates as "continuous movement" or "continuous flowing" and, in Buddhism, refers to the concept of a cycle of birth (jati), and consequent decay and death (jaramara?a), in which all beings in the universe participate, and which can only be escaped through enlightenment.

Sa?sara is continuous suffering (or dukkha) and is generally considered the antithesis of Nirva?a (Sanskrit) or nibbana (Pali), which literally translates as "extinguishing" or "unbinding". The concept of Sa?sara was derived from the Hindu belief of reincarnation, from which Siddhartha Gautama — the founder of Buddhism — developed some of his teachings regarding life and death. (wikipedia)

Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about …

No T. S. Eliot humor here please Joe. It lowers the tone.

True Leoj99.

Sorry for calling you 66joel. I got it all back to font lol. Won’t happen again.  

Keep on not thinking, Leoj, for you are not ready for thought … ha ha

I say you are repeating something you have said before.  You shall say it again.  Shall you say it again? You bet.

Posted on Nov.22.2012 @ 12:39AM GMT+10 by leoj99
"The thinking mind is afraid not to think. And when it thinks and thinks it become more afraid.

So it likes to swallow more and more knowledge because it is not always sure. The thinking mind always wants to know but the knowing never stops.

So tell me if it is not true. So what will you do?"

This thinking mind needs to take some time out and reflect rather than always trying to gain from its thinking.

Better to develop wisdom than to latch on to what you read and hear.

The getting of wisdom does require a quest though, however true wisdom will not come without humility in place and nurtured.  Humility can not be understood intellectually, it is sat before us once we are willing to let the scales fall from our eyes and our hearts, and then it cloaks us like a gift, and we can rejoice.  Better be clothed in humility than any luxurious fabric.

Quote: "Thanks star. 

Ah, samsara may be  nirvana but is nirvana samsara?

Sit and not think about that for a few hours whilst eating watermelon and icecream like 66joel tells us to -  as I will now proceed not do ...

But seriously, I didn't think Zen was about 'not thinking'  or 'trying not to think'  - it's about not identifying with anything that arises and letting it 'self-liberate into emptiness' as Ken(sho)  Wilber himself puts it.

This is beginner's Zen. And advanced.

"
.........

From my own perspective, when I meditate I am deliberately looking for something to come to me, a dream perhaps, or a vision, to let me know about something.  I may end up more confused than before, but eventually everything works out over time, maybe just not as I hoped or expected.  Looking into the guiding light.

But when I sit, I just sit, and dissipate into nothingness, the nothingness of singularity, being all that It is being at Once.  I stop being human, or anything.  Needing nothing, wanting nothing, being nothing.  In silence and stillness, after a few minutes I can no longer feel my body.  I feel only breathing.  I hear things I dont usually hear, like the clock ticking, the refridgerator purring, the bleeze gently rocking the window shade, but still I am not listening to these things, they are just there, in the isness of the nothingness, at the moment....  Not-Doing, anything at all.

Quote: "So what is humility that cannot be understood intellectually? "
.........

Humility descends on you, and it is like a Grace

It is experienced and so can only be generally described

If you can, you renegotiate regularly to try to align with what you might sense as humility, however true humility will descend on you and leave you windswept and beatified. Humility is traumatic as you disengage from the false.

No one wonders like the man who has seen the impression of his footprints on the mat at the door of the house of contemplation.