Styles of thinking and clothing have a lot in common. We are born with mind simple and body naked. We soon dress our body in clothes and our mind in thoughts. Wishing to return to our original self physically, we can simply go naked. Wishing to return to our original no mind, is another matter. The main glitch in returning to one’s roots here lies in styles of thinking. I see two archetypical cognitive styles (A and B below) from which we ‘choose’, sometimes one, sometimes the other. Which is your most common ‘choice’ in real life? Continue reading ‘Naked Thought’
Tag Archive for 'mysterious sameness'
I am always reassured when I see a strong correlation between ostensibly lowly, mundane life forms and myself. For one thing, it shows Nature is no fool; she simplifies her work by using time tested tools at every level of life—and ‘non life’ as well. Those tools are the so-called instincts. I suppose the reassurance I feel arise from seeing examples of my being truly connected to all life being.
Indeed, it is somewhat puzzling why humanity has gone to such lengths to see itself otherwise, like being created in God’s image. Perhaps having no way to notice the subtle (yet profound) similarities between ‘them’ and us, we turned to myth and imagination, with our species centric ego giving our myths direction. Continue reading ‘I, Amoeba’
Gathering around the water cooler
When I saw this story, What ants can teach us, I was left with the gut feeling that we’re simply ants with big brains and hands with opposable thumbs.
Talk about mysterious sameness! Just imagine what ants could do if they had those two assets at their disposal. I suppose they would ruin the earth even faster than we appear to be doing. Continue reading ‘Ants Are Us’
We now know we are animals biologically speaking. However, do we really feel we are, or do we understand this as mostly an abstract factoid. Catching the flue for the ‘first time’ in my life may (or may not?) offer an example of the how thought can separate us from feeling our animal-ness fully.
Claiming that I caught the flue for the first time must surely be untrue, but up until now I never ‘knew’ the difference between a cold and the flue. I’ve heard of flue shots and the danger of catching flues, like the bird flue of a few years ago. However, whenever I came down with fluey symptoms I ‘knew’ I just had a cold. Do you see where I’m heading with this? Continue reading ‘Feeling Animal-ness’
"To use words but rarely is to be natural."
Awhile ago a friend said to me (1), “Words are sounds that gain meaning with use. Saying a rock is conscious is like saying a rock is alive. Might work in a poem but not for logical communication. Look in dictionaries for guides to usage (of course, they’re fallible) rather than rely on my memory”
So I looked up conscious and then the tracked down some of the words used to define that word. As usual, it turns out to feel like a vicious circle. Clearly, word definition is a messy affair when you scratch the surface (which few ever do in my experience). Nevertheless, I can articulate why a rock, or even an atom for that matter, qualifies as being conscious using this trail of definitions, Continue reading ‘Is Rock Conscious?’
I notice two side of enlightenment. One is a sudden flash of knowing, the Zen Satori, as the Japanese call it. I imagine everyone experiences this to one degree or another, at various time throughout life. I’d say it is almost guaranteed; one’s awareness has to fall from their fortress of belief every once in a while.
The other side of enlightenment, as I see it, is sustained knowing. Here impartiality is essential. It might even be the key to sustain knowing in the first place. In any case, without sufficient impartiality, see the “whole” would drive one insane I expect. Impartiality opens the window of awareness wider; the wider the widow the more awe full the view; the more essential impartiality becomes to maintaining sanity. Continue reading ‘So, You Want Enlightenment, Eh?’
This Science News piece, Many unhappy returns for wandering minds, packs a big punch for its small size. (It’s so short I’ll paste it below.) Science News and the Tao Te Ching are my two best resources for reducing the risk of ‘the blind spot’. Together, they offer point of view from opposite ends of the awareness spectrum. Each balances the other. Alone, either can mislead. Better yet, having an eye on both keeps my mind from wandering too far.
I have wondered at times why I’m such a stickler for what I call watchfulness (paying attention, mindfulness, seeing what I’ve not seen, being moment to moment, and so on). Frankly, all the common ‘spiritual’ reasons were too pie-in-the-sky for me. Continue reading ‘Wandering Mind Is Unhappy Mind’
There is more to fear than meets the eye. We often associate the symptoms of fear (the reactions fear initiates) as the fear itself. This can evokes mental images of fear as a screaming and fleeing experience.
As I see it, this is a reaction to feeling fear, not fear itself. The other most common reaction to feeling fear is the opposite of fleeing; it is attack and anger. Continue reading ‘Fear Is The Bottom Line’
A non-neurotic nitpicking conversation
Noticing differences really aids survival… up the point of diminishing returns. Continuing along this path is counterproductive and eventually leads to anxiety of some sort. Of course, in the wild, such discernment would seldom turn as worrisome.
Civilization, in taming the wilderness, removes natural stresses that would otherwise counterbalance us, and before we know it, we’ve become neurotic nitpickers in one way or other. Continue reading ‘Balancing Difference With Similarity’
Chimp mother climbs a tree for food while carrying her dead infant.
There are a couple of articles in recent issues of Science News, Chimps may be aware of others’ deaths and Neanderthal genome yields evidence of interbreeding with humans, that challenge the universal myths of human uniqueness. Our uniqueness is expressed overtly as in the Christian ‘created in God’s image’, or simply implied by an attempt to nail down ‘origins’(1).
I suppose the Tao Te Ching’s disclaimers let us off that hook somewhat, e.g., ‘the way that can be spoken of is not the constant way‘… and ‘… one who speaks does not know‘, and finally, ‘… are you capable of not knowing anything?‘ Hmm? Continue reading ‘We’re Not So Different After All’
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