If I said, “Don’t believe everything you think,” you would not bat an eye. It seems reasonable. You’ve been wrong once or twice before. If I said, “Don’t believe anything you think,” could you stay with me here? Could you keep your breathing steady and consider it?
Experience comes in via our senses. Pain, pleasure, puzzling new input. We process and categorize the incoming data for our safety and use and growing intelligence. Shutting that sense-experience up in idea boxes is a primary cause of confusion and suffering. Who are we, with our limited understanding of cosmic forces, to properly categorize the world? On what basis do we label, interpret and file away life?
What say we dump the blowhard routine! How about staying open instead? What if your native intelligence sees the fluid surprising beauty in things, even mundane things like the dull green slime that clings to the underside of the kitchen sink stopper? (Have you tried wiping it off with a dry paper towel, a wet paper towel, the sponge you use for the dirtiest pots and pans, only to rinse the sponge and the green slime adheres to your fingers? Icky cool!)
Here’s the problem with words and thinking: we spin stories instead of staying alert to what’s really here. Monks and yogis spend decades trying to detach from their thoughts, not to be heavenly space cadets but to be present. To live beyond bias. You can do it, too.
What say we dump the blowhard routine! How about staying open instead? What if your native intelligence sees the fluid surprising beauty in things, even mundane things like the dull green slime that clings to the underside of the kitchen sink stopper? (Have you tried wiping it off with a dry paper towel, a wet paper towel, the sponge you use for the dirtiest pots and pans, only to rinse the sponge and the green slime adheres to your fingers? Icky cool!)
Here’s the problem with words and thinking: we spin stories instead of staying alert to what’s really here. Monks and yogis spend decades trying to detach from their thoughts, not to be heavenly space cadets but to be present. To live beyond bias. You can do it, too.
Stop for just the length of a breath when a new experience comes in. Stop with no purpose except to be with that whatever. Pain, pleasure, scent, glare, potholes, underarm deodorant, none of these requires a plot. You need not sew the stream of experiences you have together with word thread in order to be someone.
You’re the world perceiving itself.*
The next time a mental story line tries to take you off on its golden back, rein in. Don’t take the ride. It really can be engaging to watch the story fly off kicking up muck, leaving you behind, centered and largely unconcerned. Any story will do: I can’t stand it when she…, I’ll never make enough money to…, Why do all my friends…? The experience on its own can and does deliver the punch. The storyline your thinking concocts whirls you off on a goose/moose/monster chase, and leaves you ignorant where you could have been informed.
Believing what you think misses the mark. Please witness the world. Leave stories to novelists (some of whom love life enough to try bending words beyond themselves into the shape of pure being).
You’re the world perceiving itself.*
The next time a mental story line tries to take you off on its golden back, rein in. Don’t take the ride. It really can be engaging to watch the story fly off kicking up muck, leaving you behind, centered and largely unconcerned. Any story will do: I can’t stand it when she…, I’ll never make enough money to…, Why do all my friends…? The experience on its own can and does deliver the punch. The storyline your thinking concocts whirls you off on a goose/moose/monster chase, and leaves you ignorant where you could have been informed.
Believing what you think misses the mark. Please witness the world. Leave stories to novelists (some of whom love life enough to try bending words beyond themselves into the shape of pure being).
*A fantastic calling, and full time.
Synonyms for blowhard: babbler, blabber, blabbermouth, chatterbox, cackler, chatterer, conversationalist, gabbler, gasbag, jabberer, jay, magpie, motormouth, prattler, talker, windbag. Jays and magpies have my apologies for the comparison.
Buy a bumper sticker online.
Synonyms for blowhard: babbler, blabber, blabbermouth, chatterbox, cackler, chatterer, conversationalist, gabbler, gasbag, jabberer, jay, magpie, motormouth, prattler, talker, windbag. Jays and magpies have my apologies for the comparison.
Buy a bumper sticker online.
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