Are you always questing and looking for an answer feeling something "missing"? (Silence is Golden)

The mine will have you running in circles. Remember, the mind is a thinker. It is build to think up conceptions (thoughts/ideas). The best way to do this is to ask questions, so I'll have you running around asking so many question keeping you suffering that you lack the answer to this and that unanswerable question.

If you are not the questioning type, then it has another way to "get" you. It will use your fears. It'll keep bringing back all of these thoughts of bad things that COULD happen, and then you'll get lost in them and feel the fear.

Or it will keep replaying things that happened in the past and make you question, "why did this happen?", "why did that happen?"

Asking "Why" will make you suffer. You get the answer and then you try to conceptualize reality through the mind instead of just living life. And one day when you can't get a "Why" answer you feel suffering from the lack.

When the thought happens, just bring it back to silence. In other words, try to stay aware. Notice how the body moves naturally on its own and the words come out from silence.

This still place beyond all thought and emotion - the silence - all your thoughts, actions, words, arise from.

Live from there and you'll have peace.

reply to post by arpgme


I model the silence and stillness of a rock. There is no why or how or when or where for a rock, there is only the silence of now.

concentrate on breathing

the most purest state


peace

reply to post by arpgme


I experience that
my mind needs to analyze, and dissect experiences
That is it's talent (while my body ever seeks to integrate things together, make them of One, consume!)

These actions both have their benefit.
So I just make sure to give some time to each, each day.

When my mind keeps going back to ask "why?" and analyze, it is because it knows there is something that could have been learned by that experience, and I didn't get it.
There was something I didn't enjoy- so what was it? How did it get in there? What was my part in it? (so I can maybe eliminate it from the experience next time)

It's like chewing your food, and taking the fish bone out of your mouth, and learning to look for them in your fork fulls before they get in your mouth.
You can gulp without chewing, but then don't blame your tummy if it hurts, or there are certain pains as that bone is expressed......

I just spend a large part of my day acting, engaging, experiencing- at that time I am pretty much just taking it all in.
But each day I spend some time thinking- and use something like writing or talking, to help me with that.
I tend to do that in the morning. Rituals help the mind and body know when it is their turn to do their thing and when it isn't.

reply to post by Bluesma


Living should be like eating, see the food as it goes in and then never see it again. Imagine if you ate and then regurgitated the food to see it again. What is brought back up looks nothing like how it really was before. No matter how we replay the 'past' it will not be a true reflection of what really happened.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


I don't have much interest in what "should" be, I tend to be drawn more to determination of what "is".

But in my analogy, the analysis is the "chewing" action. It is the action of separating into smaller peices, before integration (swallowing).

The bone metaphor was symbolizing an experience in which the reflex to chew and not swallow goes on longer than usual- it means there is something you are feeling in there that should not be integrated, that you wish to eliminate from future mouthfulls.

I guess you could choose to swallow anyway, despite that hard pointy thing in there, and you could actually choke and die, and that could be seen as a beneficial natural process ina world where we have over population of the earth! But that "should" seems unrealistic because we all have the automatic drive to survive, strive and grow.



...but going back to that analogy, and trying to see how I would symbolize throwing up? I consider that to be the attempt to exeprience again the same emotions from the past experience- that is not the same (to me) as mentally analyzing the experience using intellect.
The easiest way to tell the difference? the use of images (sounds, smells, tastes...) or the use of language, in the reviewing.

Language separates.

reply to post by Bluesma


Analyzing and dissecting experiences is done with words (language). Words and language cannot replicate the real. Words and language do indeed separate.
The word 'yesterday' and the belief in the word makes one fragmented because one can only ever be here and now.
If it is seen that the words appearing now speaking of yesterday are just a story (fabrication) appearing presently one will not be fragmented or conflicted.
The belief is 'I could have done it better'. Which is not true.

Thinking about the past or future produce emotions. Fear and desire. Projecting an image of yourself into future or past senarios and playing out a scene in the mind causes all sorts of feeling in the body which is always felt in the present.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by Bluesma

 

Analyzing and dissecting experiences is done with words (language). Words and language cannot replicate the real.

I don't think the intent is to replicate the real. Not for me anyway.

If it is seen that the words appearing now speaking of yesterday are just a story (fabrication) appearing presently one will not be fragmented or conflicted.
The belief is 'I could have done it better'. Which is not true.

Neither yesterday, nor tomorrow, exist.
The analyzation of past is part of the process of creating the future and bringing it to now.

There is a belief that "I can do it differently", which is the creative urge! New experience feeds the appetite of the soul.

Thinking about the past or future produce emotions. Fear and desire. Projecting an image of yourself into future or past senarios and playing out a scene in the mind causes all sorts of feeling in the body which is always felt in the present.

One produces much more emotion when using imagery, yes.
When analyzing using language, the self consciousness is separated from that which is being analyzed. This is one of the ways talking about things or writing about them can help one detach from them and leave them, moving forward.

reply to post by arpgme


Arpgme, outside of the generalized concept of whether it is useful to ask "why" and search to understand deeper ones experiences.....

There is this, and I think of it each time I click on one of your threads...

Sometimes we fall into using that excessively as a way of avoiding actually engaging in life, relationships, challenges and social exchange, out of fear.

At such times, it is a good idea to turn off the computer, and get outside, and let the wind touch your skin and the smiles of others warm you!

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Ideally the accumulated experience that is now should be a painless, free flowing motion of being, however unfortunately up until the day you realize this and especially during your formative years events that took place can have a deep effect on your now which for some requires investigation and understanding before they can be released. Like with phobias getting past the fear sometimes requires facing it. If we do not know what causes the fear reaction we often stand a small chance of ever moving past it. My view is that what ever is is relative to your experience. In the end investigating the past is part of being in the moment that is and is as correct as not doing so. Everything is as and where it is ment to be always, it can be no other way.

just thoughts

love, light and balance

A human being is gifted (and sometimes cursed) with the capacity to ruminate. It can learn and grow from that rumination, even if the learning/growth process itself is often uncomfortable. Truth is that all growth has its discomfort - especially growth spurts.

A monkey doesn't have this uncomfortable capacity to ruminate, but mimicking the "clean, unaffected" thought process of a monkey doesn't make the human being enlightened. It just makes the human being train itself to think - as much as possible - like a monkey.

Not all "deep notions" are wisdom. Sometimes philosophy is self-indulgent intellectual masturbation, and nothing else.

reply to post by NorEaster


Enlightenment is just another concept...
One that may not exist depending on how it is defined...
Others are just subjective opinions...

Originally posted by thePharaoh
concentrate on breathing

the most purest state


peace

As a great zen master once said, "what do you concentrate on, when you are no longer breathing?"

To answer your question yes, I am always seeking what lies beyond my understanding.

Most of these philosophical questions can't be answered. It's all subjective.

Most thoughts are garbage.

Like NorEaster said, most thoughts come cheap and it's like masturbation. I was thinking of how a lot of things are fun when done lightly and without hardship, but as soon as you can say ouch, it loses the fun factor. That's why cheap thoughts are like masturbation.

My opinion is that these thoughts can be forged carefully and through hard work to become books, art, crafts and other things to have some value, but that's the best it'll ever be.

I think more wisdom is gained experiencing life than in thinking or writing or conversing about it. Typically, the best minds in history didn't just conceptualize these things, they experienced them. This is not to say all wisdom is produced through experience. Thoughts play a role.

But honestly most (great even) artists in history were poor and only praised after their deaths. Sum of the story is if you want to live a good life, don't be an artist.

And depression is higher in creative people.

Ewww... (pushes it away)... don't think I want any of that mess.