Let' s dispell a very common stereotype in the Buddhist world: thoughts are bad. Poisonous.
Well, nothing wrong with thoughts. the problem comes from belief and identification. We all have thoughts and it is Ok... as long as thoughts don't have us.
Trungpa used to say : first thought, best thought" and if some people might think he was celebrating the power of intuition over discrimination, the charm of mental happening, I am convinced he was after something very different here: first thought arising from the field of being is Ok as long as it is not feeding another thought and yet another which we all happily do getting lost in the process ( is it familiar ? :P ). Thoughts arise and collapse into the mind-seal-sea. This is the way.
Being an ex scholar, my background was lecturing about literature and philosophy in University, I am not against words and thoughts. Just very cautious not to get to a point where fiction is mistaken for reality. As I grew, I moved from expanded forms like novels, plays, essays to shorter and shorter forms in writing, haiku and tanka, fragments. I now write not to leave a legacy or a body of works, not to get known, but just to remain present, here and now, in this.
I revere old fools like Santoka, Ryokan or Sawaki , ordinary blokes dressed in rags and not interested the slightest in power trips and institutions. Not seduced by thoughts of fame or truth, not distracted by so called insights: always at it cutting, cutting what is extra.
Reading sutra, poems, Dogen, ancestors and the likes, all this is part and parcel of our practice.
Coming back to the simplicity of being is the very essence of our practice.
Gob shut is our origin and end.
I like to shut up.
gassho
a far too chatty Taigu
Well, nothing wrong with thoughts. the problem comes from belief and identification. We all have thoughts and it is Ok... as long as thoughts don't have us.
Trungpa used to say : first thought, best thought" and if some people might think he was celebrating the power of intuition over discrimination, the charm of mental happening, I am convinced he was after something very different here: first thought arising from the field of being is Ok as long as it is not feeding another thought and yet another which we all happily do getting lost in the process ( is it familiar ? :P ). Thoughts arise and collapse into the mind-seal-sea. This is the way.
Being an ex scholar, my background was lecturing about literature and philosophy in University, I am not against words and thoughts. Just very cautious not to get to a point where fiction is mistaken for reality. As I grew, I moved from expanded forms like novels, plays, essays to shorter and shorter forms in writing, haiku and tanka, fragments. I now write not to leave a legacy or a body of works, not to get known, but just to remain present, here and now, in this.
I revere old fools like Santoka, Ryokan or Sawaki , ordinary blokes dressed in rags and not interested the slightest in power trips and institutions. Not seduced by thoughts of fame or truth, not distracted by so called insights: always at it cutting, cutting what is extra.
Reading sutra, poems, Dogen, ancestors and the likes, all this is part and parcel of our practice.
Coming back to the simplicity of being is the very essence of our practice.
Gob shut is our origin and end.
I like to shut up.
gassho
a far too chatty Taigu
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