Saturday, December 2, 2017

______________

There are times when it becomes necessary to become quiet within yourself. And it strikes me that this isn't a matter of not thinking - fill in joke here - but not thinking the most familiar thoughts. Not telling yourself the same thing over and over.

And refraining from this is hard. And how many people even attempt it? But it's the only way to make way for something new.

2 comments:

semiconscious said...

thinking unfamiliar thoughts? are we talking about donald rumsfeld's known unknowns (or even unknown unknowns) here?...

while i can see unfamiliar thoughts occasionally/suddenly simply occurring to someone, i'm not so sure that they can just be spontaneously summoned up as needed. though, i suppose, immersing yourself in some sort of unfamiliar subject (like, for example, crocodile wrestling) might suddenly open one up to insights one might not've had otherwise...

not that i'm about to try it, myself, of course...

Ben said...

If I start thinking Donald Rumsfeld thoughts I lie down until the sensation goes away. As he should have.

We Westerners think of Buddhist meditation as simply wiping your mind clean, just as we think of Nirvana as ceasing to exist, which is why these concepts don't really have a broad appeal in the West. But this is inaccurate, as both things are more about freeing energy. While I'm not a Buddhist or a natural meditator, I guess that's what I was trying to get at.

Crocodile wrestling? Definitely not for everyone.