Zen Anybody

[sky]

Originally Posted by Joe Mc

We should meet thought when it arises with kindness, openness, firmness perhaps and a little curiosity. Just as when and if you were to meet a person with ostensible mental difficulties, you would not treat them with derision, or any type of condemnation. I mean by mental difficulties when it seems in that person that mind is hyped, in the form of many thoughts, words, delusions etc. etc. We i hope meet that person with tolerance, kindness and compassion perhaps and understanding. So when you meet with your own mental difficulties you should have the same attitude even if you have not been 'classified' as someone suffering from mental illness.

This glimmer of awareness has saved me at particularly difficult times in my life when unconscious material decided to come hurtling through into the conscious mind in the form of thoughts, fears, and such like. It is amazing how powerful awareness can be. It could literally keep you in the game as they say. Just a couple of thoughts, forgive my incredible pun there on the word thought, i am so funny as usual !!! lololol

' We should meet thought when it arises with kindness,'


I'll try next time the thought of needing to pay Utility Bills arise

[sky]

To walk in this way, we have to notice each step. Each step made in mindfulness can bring us back to the here and the now. Go slowly. Mindfulness lights our way. We don’t rush. With each breath we may take just one step. We may have run all our life, but now we don’t have to run anymore. This is the time to stop running. To be grounded in the earth is to feel its solidity with each step and know that we are right where we are supposed to be.

Each mindful breath, each mindful step, reminds us that we are alive on this beautiful planet. We don’t need anything else. It is wonderful enough just to be alive, to breathe in, and to make one step. We have arrived at where real life is available—the present moment. If we breathe and walk in this way, we become as solid as a mountain.

Full Article is found at....


https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-med...ng-meditation/

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by sky123

So Walking Meditation involves THOUGHT....

It can involve thought but it doesn't have to. We can walk around aware and not identifying with any thoughts. With the right kind of non-attached awareness, thoughts don't even come.

Remember that experience in general is not necessary a verbal thing. External sensory experience does not have to involve thought either. I can watch a sunset, walk in a forest, eat an ice cream cone, all without involving thought.

We communicate through language which is conceptual and involves thought, but if I am walking through a forest or a city, alone, not needing to think or talk or use words, that is meditating, well why call it that... I'm just walking...

Like that saying, sometimes I sit and think, sometimes I just sit

Sometimes I walk and think, sometimes I just walk.

I can walk down the sidewalk, see a person in my way, and move around them all without a thought. It takes discipline and is a skill or sorts, takes awareness, as normally the "talking in our heads" is non-stop chatter...but we can learn to go into a non-thinking, non-verbal state. That's the whole point of mindfulness or zen or whatever. Not that thinking is turned off, more so we just stop having our awareness upon it, so to "us" it ceases to be though it may still be going on.

Seems to me we are in a non-thinking state much more than we realize. When we get into watching a movie on tv, we are pretty much in a non-thinking state the whole time. Yet we still fully experience the movie... we get scared and jump or laugh or cry.... all without thinking! So going for a walk without thinking is not a big deal at all. But why is it hard? Well when we watch a movie and get "lost in it" it's because we surrender our attention fully to the story there. So our attention is no longer on our thoughts, but is instead on the movie. So when we walk, what does our attention go to so that it is not on thought? The answer is it goes to what we know to be the thoughtless way to be. To the experience of selflessness itself. It has to be known in some way to place the attention there... that's where things like meditation, and practices, books, teachings, are important. We need insights into "emptiness" to be able to place the attention there.

But like how we "thoughtlessly" watch a movie and still fully experience it, likewise the word "emptiness" is just about the filter of thought coming between me and this being gone, the this is still fully here and experienced.

Everyone knows the experience of being so absorbed by an activity, we stop paying attention to thoughts or thinking. Like when painting, sculpting, making something, playing a musical instrument, we even stop thinking sometimes when driving a car. It's a certain kind of concentration that brings that state into being. So "walking meditation" will involving thinking unless we focus and bring about the kind of concentration we need to be thoughtless. We must exercise awareness and direct our attention instead of letting it unconsciously go to arising thoughts.

[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by sky123

' We should meet thought when it arises with kindness,'


I'll try next time the thought of needing to pay Utility Bills arise

Just try it yes ! lol

********************************

[sky]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

It can involve thought but it doesn't have to. We can walk around aware and not identifying with any thoughts. With the right kind of non-attached awareness, thoughts don't even come.

Remember that experience in general is not necessary a verbal thing. External sensory experience does not have to involve thought either. I can watch a sunset, walk in a forest, eat an ice cream cone, all without involving thought.

We communicate through language which is conceptual and involves thought, but if I am walking through a forest or a city, alone, not needing to think or talk or use words, that is meditating, well why call it that... I'm just walking...

Like that saying, sometimes I sit and think, sometimes I just sit

Sometimes I walk and think, sometimes I just walk.

I can walk down the sidewalk, see a person in my way, and move around them all without a thought. It takes discipline and is a skill or sorts, takes awareness, as normally the "talking in our heads" is non-stop chatter...but we can learn to go into a non-thinking, non-verbal state. That's the whole point of mindfulness or zen or whatever. Not that thinking is turned off, more so we just stop having our awareness upon it, so to "us" it ceases to be though it may still be going on.

Seems to me we are in a non-thinking state much more than we realize. When we get into watching a movie on tv, we are pretty much in a non-thinking state the whole time. Yet we still fully experience the movie... we get scared and jump or laugh or cry.... all without thinking! So going for a walk without thinking is not a big deal at all. But why is it hard? Well when we watch a movie and get "lost in it" it's because we surrender our attention fully to the story there. So our attention is no longer on our thoughts, but is instead on the movie. So when we walk, what does our attention go to so that it is not on thought? The answer is it goes to what we know to be the thoughtless way to be. To the experience of selflessness itself. It has to be known in some way to place the attention there... that's where things like meditation, and practices, books, teachings, are important. We need insights into "emptiness" to be able to place the attention there.

But like how we "thoughtlessly" watch a movie and still fully experience it, likewise the word "emptiness" is just about the filter of thought coming between me and this being gone, the this is still fully here and experienced.

Everyone knows the experience of being so absorbed by an activity, we stop paying attention to thoughts or thinking. Like when painting, sculpting, making something, playing a musical instrument, we even stop thinking sometimes when driving a car. It's a certain kind of concentration that brings that state into being. So "walking meditation" will involving thinking unless we focus and bring about the kind of concentration we need to be thoughtless. We must exercise awareness and direct our attention instead of letting it unconsciously go to arising thoughts.

I'm referring to Buddhist's Walking Meditation.

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by sky123

We are not always aware of thinking but in the background there are thoughts....

The brain doing a billion billion calculations every second without "consciousness" being involved in that process is not thinking. Thinking is the process in which all that processing produces internal language to consciousness. It's like a giant computer spitting out a ticker tape with words on it... we then read those words and become aware of "meaning."

If we are not paying attention to thoughts or anything verbal or language based, we are not thinking. But yea the brain can still be offering up thoughts, it just we or consciousness are not "reading" them or thinking. We have our attention elsewhere.

Also remember we are not the body or the brain. So saying "we are thinking" just because the brain is running it's programming is not really accurate. The brain produces thought, we may become aware of it, and depending on how much we identify with whatever it is saying, we experience it or are influenced by it.

think·ing
noun
the process of using one's mind to consider or reason about something

If one is unaware of thought, they are not thinking. But yea the brain, the computer, is still running it's programming so we don't walk into a tree! There is no "being" or "person" or "entity" or consciousnesses in a computer neither is there one in our brain. A computer or brain does not have a thinker within it... but we are merged with it in a way until we are not... that fact we can ignore thoughts, doubt thoughts, question thoughts, and become liberated or non-identified with thought shows our superior relationship with the brain. It operates the body, translates sensory data, stores memory, but we have free will over how we interpret or not interpret experience in the now.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Joe Mc

Just try it yes ! lol

********************************

I just tried.... It didn't work

But I've become aware of a way to overcome this.. I'm going to work on it
Being grateful I have these Utilities.

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by sky123

I'm referring to Buddhist's Walking Meditation.

Yea I just go off on my own tangents sometimes lol. There is something there as walking is walking, not something else... what makes walking Buddhist or Meditation? Sometimes I walk and think, sometimes I just walk.... don't have to add some judgement about it, though thinking can be bad... creates conflict, so walking without thinking is much more pleasant and peaceful.... and that's what some zen points to.... just sweeping the sidewalk... just making tea..... whats enlightenment? this bowl of soup says the master,,,

[sky]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

Yea I just go off on my own tangents sometimes lol. There is something there as walking is walking, not something else... what makes walking Buddhist or Meditation? Sometimes I walk and think, sometimes I just walk.... don't have to add some judgement about it, though thinking can be bad... creates conflict, so walking without thinking is much more pleasant and peaceful.... and that's what some zen points to.... just sweeping the sidewalk... just making tea..... whats enlightenment? this bowl of soup says the master,,,

Sweeping sidewalks, making tea requires thought . There is no way of getting around it..... Mindfulness is the way to sweeping floors and making tea, your in the moment.

Nothing makes it Buddhist but as we are on a Buddhist Thread it's obvious Buddha's Teachings will arise...

[Still_Waters]

Years ago, I spent some time at the monastery of the Grand Zen Master in Gyeonju, South Korea.

I told him that I could not recall any instance of the Buddha getting angry and asked him if he knew of any such instance. He looked at me for a very long time before responding:

"I do not know what is in the mind of the Buddha!"

Silence !