It sounds comical if you say it enough times, like the sound of a bag of beans or rice plopping on the counter: “Think!”.
In Buddhism or Yoga it may be called any number of things: “monkey mind” or “chattering mind”. I have a more personal pet name: “mental diarrhea”. It’s the constant psycho babble going on the the background of awareness. It follows like a parrot (or, in my case, several of them) sitting on your shoulder, commenting on everything, even about thinking.
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Have you ever spent minutes or even longer looking for something and not seen it right in front of you? You search through a kitchen drawer of utensils for a certain spatula and finally it appears as if by magic, but it was right there all the time. Some people do it more than others. I do it all the time. This is what I mean by the phrase “blinded by an idea”.
The problem is that we are trying to see with our mind rather than just the eyes. We can’t see for the looking. The mind is way too involved. It has a concept of what it should see which over rides the simple information coming from the eyes. Continue reading
I’ve been reading a fun book called, “Buddha or Bust” by Perry Garfinkel. It’s part travel journalism, part social studies, part history, part self-exploration. He traces the history of Buddhism from its origins in India to the various countries and cultures as the spiritual tradition spread East. During his travels, he also highlights some new directions in which Buddhism is moving.
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Higher Self watches as I struggle with the drama of ego; reacting to situations with selfishness, desiring control, judging, pulling away emotionally when things don’t go well, giving up easily, avoiding failure.
This lighter Spiritual Self smiles and gently nudges me back into the flow, reminding me to be in the moment without attaching to or rejecting it. With this higher part of me fully conscious, I gently embrace the emotions and fears I feel without being limited or dragged down by them, without giving into their endless drama.
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I know, the title promises much more. But here are three quotes, one by Buddha, one by F. M. Alexander, the great but still relatively unknown teacher of a system of poise and mental/physical balance which resembles Buddhist thinking. The third is a blogger quote I just found, simple, good advice.
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