Thursday, May 20, 2004

Today's Daily Zen:

Your notion that thoughts arise
Leads to a notion that you
Must prevent them
From arising.
These conflicting ideas
Are both wrong.
Look well at the source
Beyond mental activity.

- Daito (1282-1334)

What do you think this means? My meditation manual discusses the notion that thoughts just come and go, and that much of what we view as realities are nothing more than mere thoughts. But what is the source of our thoughts and why would anybody want to stop them from being generated? Do thoughts arise from reality, via perception and consciousness? Is that dangerous?

1 comment:

doug said...

I will respond with what I think is ideal, not with what my own reality is. I want to be just like Backpew, she seems pretty cool.

No seriously, I strongly believe that much of my thinking is undisciplined and I would be served well to be more mindful of what I allow to play on my radio station. Sometimes I am dialed into RadioKFUCK and all bets are off. Other times I can dial into RadioReSUN (ReSUN = reason! just in case I was too cryptic, but I was going with the call letters theme) even if there is chaos all around.

I agree with your manual Randy, many of my thoughts are useless and so I try to devalue them. I think the trick for me personally is to know when my thought should be ignored and when it should be given a stage. With regards to the other fine questions you've raised, I pass to the more philosophical folks in the bunch. Dave, what say you?