You are watching a good movie but you want a snack, a bathroom break. You pause the show. You know it is waiting there, more of the good story but right now, frozen, silent.
Sometimes, it is good to just freeze, relax and wait for a few beats. Eckhart Tolle suggests you can wait, still and relaxed, to just see what your next thought is.
Much of our recent history, say, the last 2000 years, has been focused on explanation, understanding. More recently, we got into science: investigation, experimentation. We search for the Higgs particle and for control and prevention of violence and lung disease. That is all to the good and is related to the mind's ability to crank out thoughts and rearrange the pieces of a puzzle, looking for a pattern.
Many of my philosophy classes were typical thinking groups, poised from the start of each meeting to debate, to question, to argue. So, it was like getting splashed with cool water when I heard about the Flower Sermon, in which the Buddha gave a silent sermon by simply holding up a flower. The story goes that only a single member of his audience felt that he understood the sermon and that man became a close assistant of the Buddha.
Primed by the contrast between standing before an expectant audience but remaining silent and the noisy gunfire of competing opinions being shot back and forth, the prospect of quiet observation of beauty (an especially visual and non-verbal aspect of the world), I was charmed.
I now visit Still Island several times a day. Stopping motion, even pausing my breathing, while I focus on a single point feels good. I like to pick a humble point that would normally be of no interest, beneath my detection and recognition, such as a corner in shadow or the dot above a letter "i". Just pausing for a few seconds takes me quickly out of the world of speed and need and onto the beach of Still Island, with its intense sun and cool shade, its deep quiet and gentle breeze. Join me anytime tomorrow.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
Sometimes, it is good to just freeze, relax and wait for a few beats. Eckhart Tolle suggests you can wait, still and relaxed, to just see what your next thought is.
Much of our recent history, say, the last 2000 years, has been focused on explanation, understanding. More recently, we got into science: investigation, experimentation. We search for the Higgs particle and for control and prevention of violence and lung disease. That is all to the good and is related to the mind's ability to crank out thoughts and rearrange the pieces of a puzzle, looking for a pattern.
Many of my philosophy classes were typical thinking groups, poised from the start of each meeting to debate, to question, to argue. So, it was like getting splashed with cool water when I heard about the Flower Sermon, in which the Buddha gave a silent sermon by simply holding up a flower. The story goes that only a single member of his audience felt that he understood the sermon and that man became a close assistant of the Buddha.
Primed by the contrast between standing before an expectant audience but remaining silent and the noisy gunfire of competing opinions being shot back and forth, the prospect of quiet observation of beauty (an especially visual and non-verbal aspect of the world), I was charmed.
I now visit Still Island several times a day. Stopping motion, even pausing my breathing, while I focus on a single point feels good. I like to pick a humble point that would normally be of no interest, beneath my detection and recognition, such as a corner in shadow or the dot above a letter "i". Just pausing for a few seconds takes me quickly out of the world of speed and need and onto the beach of Still Island, with its intense sun and cool shade, its deep quiet and gentle breeze. Join me anytime tomorrow.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
