“Once, a long time ago, there was a wise Zen master. People from far and near would seek his counsel and ask for his wisdom. Many would come and ask him to teach them, enlighten them in the way of Zen. He seldom turned any away.
One day an important man, a man used to command and obedience came to visit the master. “I have come today to ask you to teach me about Zen. Open my mind to enlightenment.” The tone of the important man’s voice was one used to getting his own way.
The Zen master smiled and said that they should discuss the matter over a cup of tea. When the tea was served the master poured his visitor a cup. He poured and he poured and the tea rose to the rim and began to spill over the table and finally onto the robes of the wealthy man. Finally the visitor shouted, “Enough. You are spilling the tea all over. Can’t you see the cup is full?”
The master stopped pouring and smiled at his guest. “You are like this tea cup, so full that nothing more can be added. Come back to me when the cup is empty. Come back to me with an empty mind.”
Beginner’s Mind.
This teaching it’s so famous, and well known, that now it’s almost trivial, and yet the opportunity to be applied in today’s World at large, is practically endless!
A less well known phrase is Shoshin (初心) is a word from Zen Buddhism which means “beginner’s mind“. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese Martial Arts.
The well known Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki said:
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”
Changing People’s Minds
The famous french woman writer Anais Nin once said: “we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” To see things as they are, instead of how we are, it requires leaving preconceptions behind, a receptive open mind, quieting of the ego, and a cultivation of the beginner’s mind.
We live in a political system known as democracy, even if it’s just a name, not a reality, and we feel, are entitled to our own opinions, and we see fit free to express it, regardless if we cannot add a single thing that can make any sense, or if it’s needed, when out of politeness people do not say nothing to avoid confrontations, despite the stupidity a particular individual may show.
One of the greatest tasks you can ever start, it’s to change people’s mind regarding any subject, a thing most of us avoid at all cost, we rather avoid the person in question than trying to set him straight.
We have made phrases of wisdom like: ‘Never argue about politics, or religion.’
Therefore our conversations are mainly trivial stuff, who almost nobody really cares, specially with those you got to deal not out of friendliness, but by duty, like family, or people you work with, specially if they are above you in rank. If you really want to talk about something important you go to a like minded friend, who you know he/she will not challenge you but confirm, and share your ideas, after all who needs a bad time confronting someone? In fact we choose friends more based on comfort, and ‘friendliness,’ instead of choosing people who can have a positive influence on us, and teaching us good things, despite the difficulties of being corrected, and told we are wrong.
On True Learning
Well, our focus, it’s not about our ideas, and how we see the World, but about our readiness to learn new things, so pardoning the digression above, just to show the rigidity of our minds, and how we are use to live with our preconceived ideas about almost anything, regardless of how little we may know about it.
Contrary at what most people’s think, learning it’s not difficult, actually what’s really difficult it is to change our attitude!
Perhaps it’s better today, I wonder, but reflecting, and being honest, even as children most of us with few exceptions granted, we went through school, as a duty, and found it a drudgery, only dissipated by the ring bell telling us recess was next, and it was time to play with friends, or it was finally time to go home!
Attitude, The Key Element To Learning
We know things, or we do not know, or maybe we know a little, but not enough, we have not even an idea, or we think we know better, but in reality it’s common to know nothing.
Humbleness it is a key to learning, admitting we do not know a subject it’s essential to learning, so to look for a qualified teacher to teach us, is the first step we need to take. A teacher can be many things, a person, a book, and above life, is the best teacher, by being humble we are accepting we are in lack of knowledge and we desire to improve, so we set to the task at hand which is to learn what we are in need to.
Now, observe we do not ask children to know if they approve, or desire to go to school, or not, children are in most countries obligated to attend school, some countries even penalize parents who do not take children to school.
As adults we are the ones who have to self motivate ourselves, and there is no way around it. Therefore our attitude to learn is primordial, otherwise it’s a no go situation, we are stuck!
Once we change our attitude, we are ready to, for whatever it’s necessary in order to learn, all these things may seem self evident, but if they are, how come so few people pay any attention to them?
There is a Hispanic saying: ‘Desde que se inventaron las excusas se acabaron los idiotas.’
An equivalent will be: ” Inventing an excuse, eliminates looking like an idiot.”
Excuses are just a way, to avoid changing our attitude, and they not remove the the obstacles for learning.
And therefore emptying the cup it’s a total change of attitude, and a preparation to open our senses, and our attention, and be ready to learn.
Now, pay attention and be ready to listen, and do the right thing, be alert!
Quotes
Now in a lighter tone a long list, of random quotes on foolishness, and stupidity:
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Albert Einstein
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity. Arthur Schopenhauer
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
Edgar Allan Poe
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one’s opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
Michel de Montaigne
You know when you’re young, you have this unbelievable stupidity and arrogance and ignorance all mixed in?
Christopher Guest
People’s ignorance really pisses me off. Stupidity is when you can’t help it -ignorance is when you choose not to understand something.
Sarah McLachlan
Never attribute to malice, that which can be reasonably explained by stupidity.
Spider Robinson
I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.
Herman Hesse
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Euripides
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Søren Kierkegaard
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
George Carlin
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.
Harlan Ellison
Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.”
William Faulkner
Irony is wasted on the stupid
Oscar Wilde
Beauty fades, dumb is forever.
Judy Sheindlin
When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift
If your brains were dynamite there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr
Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Kone, Krusos, Kronos 
Wonderful Collection, Compilation, Combination, Conversation… of all the Greats…..
Thanks
Regards 👍👌👏💞🌷
Shiva
Thank you for your nice comment, we appreciate it! 🙂
Brilliant, dear Mr. Brigido! And with the passion of the burning heart! Timeless post! 🙂
Maria, thank you for your kind praise, we cherish it! 🙂
All very true so far and well-known. But there is one real problem about learning a.s.o., because we think that we decide matters with our ratio and mind, in fact most things in our brain work quite automatically and are decided before we conciously think that we have decided. Otherwise life would be very difficult, but I am not a Zen monk of course.
Well, it’s what I call a rationale of Being, in other words we rationalize we are doing the proper thing at every moment, regardless of whatever we are doing, otherwise we wouldn’t do it, since we do not function believing we should do the wrong things, except by those with perverted behavior, or out of malice.
Generally most of us posses a sense of shame, when doing something wrong, so we need to be challenged in order to realize we are doing something wrong, to be aware of it.
Thank you for your comment, we appreciate it. 🙂
Great blog! I bow for you and bow for Rumi. And am humble. I know nothing, but are blessed to now and then se some patterns, in total rubish.
Thank you for taking the time to read it, we appreciate your comment, it’s very nice. 🙂
The more I learn, the more I know. The more I know, the more I forget. The more I forget, the less I know. So why bother?
It’s your privilege!
However in a lighter tone, as we age we forget a lot, maybe it’s time for some brain supplement vitamins! 🙂
Thank you for this post.
You are welcome, I am glad you like it. 🙂
waouuu so great ! thanks for sharing these advices
You are welcome, and thank you for visiting us ! 🙂
“Mk. 10:15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” That quote is quickly followed by the story of the young rich man who wants eternal life. Jesus tells him: “Go, sell all that you have and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.” Apart from the fact that his quote is one of the many reasons I’m no longer a Christian, I think it is self-explanatory, in line with your theme of emptying of our surfeit to gain that which is greatly more valuable.
Funny a few days ago I commented to Carl, on my previous post Mathew 18:3
What I do not get, it is why those lines about the rich young man helped to change your mind about being a Christian?
I do not care whatever believe you may hold, or not, only curious?
Emptying our cup its hard to do, but necessary if we care to learn, therefore the need to change our attitude, and yes as you say, it’s valuable.
Thank you for your comment it’s appreciated! 🙂
Logical my dear Watson. I live (and did church) among rich Christians with as many excuses for why “they” are not really rich as Carter’s got pills. Ever heard the one: God wants me to be rich and is blessing me”? How about, “It’s not mine, I’m just a good steward of God’s gifts to me.” So, rather than throw up in the “sanctuary” (or get out the whip and deal with the money changers!) I felt it incumbent upon myself to leave. I have read all the “tough teachings” of Jesus and finally concluded that no matter how hard I tried, I’d always remain a “failed” disciple. I would never accept the concept of cheap grace. Give me the power of the Holy Spirit or give me death! Since the HS power was not forthcoming, and death seemed a long ways away, I chose to go it alone, with compassion as my modus operandi. So far, 35 years later, so good! Nice to chat with you!!!
Logic to you that you know your own story, but let me totally in the dark since I do not. 🙂
I kind of smile, one of the problems with religions is that some set the bar too high in my opinion, like Buddhism who it’s monastic in nature, where the reason for Pure Land coming to be, not much different than the Christians who profess salvation not to our own merits, or behavior, but by the hope of believing Christ would save us all, as long as you believe on Him, on this way minimizing what you do, and instead on hoping that the Mercy of God will do the job, rather than to begin the hard task of being Virtuous.
Of course this is not a criticism of your posture, on the contrary I admire your posture of ‘Give me the power of the Holy Spirit or give me death!’ But a general reflection as the state of affairs between the beliefs we uphold, and the harsh realities of the World we live in.
Ironically the non-politically correct Muslims posses a better understanding on human weakness, and have Sharia law, Islamic canonical law based on the teachings of the Koran, and the traditions of the Prophet (Hadith and Sunna), prescribing both religious and secular duties, and sometimes retributive penalties for lawbreaking. It has generally been supplemented by legislation adapted to the conditions of the day, though the manner in which it should be applied in modern states is a subject of dispute between Islamic fundamentalists, and modernists.
But to our Western mindset still too harsh! 🙂
A compelling compilation of quotations,metaphors and reflective photos for the “beginner’s mind“. and not only!Most enlightening post,my friend 🙂
Thank you for your nice response, we appreciate it from the heart. 🙂
My pleasure.All your posts are so rich and thought-provoking ; in fact,one has to peruse them carefully in order to gain knowledge 🙂
Thank you for your great input, it is welcome! 🙂
Good post. I borrowed your Zen master story for an essay on ~burning woman~ blog with a link to your blog. Hope that’s OK.
Sure feel free to do so, the Zen Master story it’s not mine, and it is well known in Zen circles.
By the way I find your blogs very interesting and I would go later to read your latest post Love Vs Compassion, it also intrigues me. 🙂
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” This one is so timely. So many people shoot off their mouths, thinking that the thoughts are their own, when in fact they’re just parroting something that was force fed to them. And it comes from ALL sides, not just the one that’s marketed as ignorant. It’s so rare to come across someone who thinks for him/herself. I guess it’s a result of being forcibly educated. School was an absolute nightmare for me. But I loved learning so very much. It’s funny: the more we learn, the “stupider” we get when compared to our younger selves, who knew everything. After many humbling experiences, I know the precious emptiness now, the vast, receptive space. Thank you for sharing these words. They arrived at just the right time.
Realizing who we are, and knowing our shortcomings, paradoxically make us wiser but keep us humble, sometimes the privilege of age, as long we do not loose the emptiness needed, in order to learn new things.
Thank you for your nice comment, we appreciate it. 🙂
Wonderful post: thank you for sharing
You are very kind, and we appreciate your comment. 🙂
I like how you started the post with that story of the tea being poured over the rim of the cup and the words to return when the cup is empty. An open mind is incredible! We don’t always truly listen to other people or to our environments in general, which keeps us from absorbing all that we could potentially learn. Rather than imprinting our memories onto present-day learning (which can restrict what we maintain in our minds), let’s be open to new experiences and knowledge (bookish or otherwise). Hugs to you for another great post!
Some of us we live in the World in the present, most we live in our heads, and in the past, or future, therefore the difficulty of really listen, before the phrase it’s finished, we go on our mind: ‘Oh, that!’ And we go on automatic pilot, and stop listening, since we already know it, or we have our own ideas on the subject, and we are not ready to change our minds, or simply we do not care.
It’s bad all the time, but when it prevent us from learning something new, and valuable, we are the losers.
I am glad you like it Christy, we appreciate the fact you took the problem to let us know. thank you! 🙂
Years ago I would have completely agreed with Rumi, but now I am realizing slowly the importance of people who remain in their beloved countries and try to look after it, its landscape and its way to produce healthy food! To change my mind, sometimes is very demanding and a lot of reading or personal experiences are necessary. Thank you very much for your thought provoking post😀
Well, in favor of Rumi, maybe you learnt all that because of your many travels. insight it’s always 20/20 they say, maybe if you had stayed at home and never travel, you would never look at your place with new eyes.
Thank you for your comment, Martina, it’s always Welcome, and appreciated. 🙂
I certainly agree in part with you. But we also have to admit that travelling has changed a lot in recent years and has turned into globalisation events! If we compare it with Rumi, who went from his village in Persia to Samarkand and then to Syria to study about 800 years ago, we have to admit that travelling was something completely different! Have a very good day.:)
You are right Martina, it certainly was, people mourned when loved ones would leave on a journey, a lot of times they would never return, like Rumi, and many others, who left their place of origin, never to come back, now we have it relatively easy.
As a funny comment now there’s a dispute between the Governments who claim Rumi as theirs! ‘Rumi wasn’t yours: Afghanistan furious as Iran, Turkey claim Sufi poet.’
Thank you for your insight Martina. 🙂
And the Americans, do they not claim him????
Not yet, but Rumi have sold millions of copies in recent years, making him the most popular poet in the US. Globally, his fans are legion.
“He’s this compelling figure in all cultures,” says Brad Gooch, who is writing a biography of Rumi to follow his critically acclaimed books on Frank O’Hara and Flannery O’Connor. “The map of Rumi’s life covers 2,500 miles,” says Gooch, who has traveled from Rumi’s birthplace in Vakhsh, a small village in what is now Tajikistan, to Samarkand in Uzbekistan, to Iran and to Syria, where Rumi studied at Damascus and Aleppo in his twenties. His final stop was Konya, in Turkey, where Rumi spent the last 50 years of his life. Today Rumi’s tomb draws reverent followers and heads of state each year for a whirling dervish ceremony on 17 December, the anniversary of his death.
In 1976 the poet Robert Bly handed Barks a copy of Cambridge don AJ Arberry’s translation of Rumi and said, “These poems need to be released from their cages.” Barks transformed them from stiff academic language into American-style free verse. Since then, Barks’ translations have yielded 22 volumes in 33 years, including The Essential Rumi, A Year with Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book and Rumi’s father’s spiritual diary, The Drowned Book, all published by HarperOne. They have sold more than 2m copies worldwide and have been translated into 23 languages.
I believe he is now a poet for all seasons, and ages, he belongs now to the World.
Thank you Martina! 🙂
On traveling, the exchange student concept holds promise in making “travel” a meaningful process. Unfortunately it seems to be mostly for the richer kids, but then isn’t most traveling the preserve of the richest and privileged these days?
Yes, you are right in some way. I have seen many such students, for example in Malta. They had a very good time with the money of their parents and not too inteested in studying! But if we look, for example towards Africa, there young people travel in very different conditions. I very much appreciated your words, thank you. Best regards Martina
I enjoyed your thought provoking post
Thank you, we appreciate your comment. 🙂
Wonderful post. Enjoyed it very much 🙂
Thank you for your nice comment, we appreciate it. 🙂
Thanks for visiting my blog. Following your lovely posts and looking forward to each other’s stories in the future!!
You got it, thank you for your gracious comment! 🙂
Where did you find the incredible photo with the ant??
Well, I could make a story out of it, but it was pure, and simple serendipity!
And maybe a little bit of Synchronicity, when I work on a post, I really never plan too much, but as I write the post, things seem to come up by themselves.
Thank you for your comment. 🙂
Excellent teaching one of my favorites
Thank you for your comment it’s appreciated. 🙂
An instructor once told me, in order to become an expert in a subject you have to keep going back to the beginning, even if you think you have mastered the basic concepts, you haven’t, and you will always learn something new by revisiting the first steps. I’ve found this to be very true in any subject… even if I think I already know it inside out… there’s always a revelation! Great post!
You got a good instructor, in many Arts, and crafts, and many other disciplines, the study of the basics are essential to keep the Art afresh, and vital in order to gain depth, and Mastery, my teacher kept repeating to us the study, and practice of the basics, over what it seemed more complex stuff, he bore into us that it’s on the basics where you find the skills, and secrets of an Art.
Thank you for your comment, we appreciate it! 🙂
This is an impressive and excellent post. Thank you for following BrewNSpew.
Thank you for commenting, and following as well. 🙂
I think I recognize Ralph Waldo Emerson in what you say about leaving preconceptions behind. In his essay Nature, he uses a concept that has been endlessly ridiculed as regressive and infantile, while in fact it gives us the notion of that phenomenological reduction that is necessary to see anything new. While walking outdoors, he sheds his years like the snake sheds its skin and he becomes a transparent eye-ball: “I am nothing. I see all.”
Ellinngton
Yes. I agree totally. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature it’s a great piece of writing, and an essay people should read, but few do.
Nature speaks a Spiritual language to us, but we do not pay attention.
Thank you for your great comment. 🙂
Wow! Your posts leave me excited and enlightened. Always.
A ‘penny dropped’ for me on the East versus West teaching styles.
It is an absolute pleasure visiting your site. So much to understand. Thank you 🙂
I am glad you find it useful, and to your liking.
Also appreciate much, you letting me know, thank you for your nice comment. 🙂
A wonderful post! To be teachable, we must be humble! 🙂
Thank you Linda, for such a nice comment! 🙂
Een heel interessante post.Heel graag gelezen en er heel wat van op gestoken
Thank you for your nice comment, it’s appreciated Marylou. 🙂
Great post Brigido, thanks for stopping by my blog!!!
You are welcome, and thank you for doing the same! 🙂
Great Post Sir. I particularly appreciate Anais Nin’s view and the comment of Urban Liaisons.
I find a small flaw in the Zen master’s analogy in that, while to most outward appearances/observer’s the cup is not taking in anything new after it is full, this is decidedly not so! While tea is being poured tea will be replacing tea within the cup but change the teapot for a milk jug and you will see the instantaneous change occuring quite clearly and soon the tea in the cup will be almost totally replaced with the milk – and so on as new things enter the already ‘full’ cup.
Just because our minds are ‘full’ does not mean new things are not able to be held/considered by it as they are presented. Admittedly, some of what was previously held can act to counter the new data and perhaps even reject it, but it is not as straightforward as the zen example above implies. Also we can never empty the cup completely nor alter the shape and volume of the cup radically, both of which would be required to learn something from a completely novel point of view/attitude.
Part of the reason i say this is that to be ’empty’, completely open to a ‘new thought or idea we would also have to forget our natural languages and ingrained cultures and thinking processes we have acquired all of which help shape our understanding of a new thing.
While i find almost all the quotes to be sage and wise, and a few humourously so, i have to disagree with Mr Ellison’s quote. None of us can avoid being ignorant to some degree of some and even many (most?) things in this world. Everyone has the right to, and to express, their opinions – even Mr Ellison. I may disagree with Mr Ellison’s opinion and claim the right to say so, but i defend his right to his opinion – however wrong it may be, in my opinion. 😉
It is up to each one of us to determine for ourselves who’s opinions we believe are ‘informed’ and whose are not, or are ‘ill-informed’ and treat them as appropriate.
Well, that’s MY opinion 🙂
Peace.
Wow!
You have deconstructed the whole Zen canon!
But I am afraid in doing so, you are missing the point, and therefore wrong!
Please do not confound the democratic right to have an opinion, to the different issue of being wrong, even if you have a right to have an opinion, that’s also conditioned by other factors, as for example; a judge will not be lenient to you if you declare you recognize you were wrong in shooting somebody, but because you have the right to be wrong he should let you go unpunished, you still will be found wrong, and guilty of the crime, and punished accordingly!
Wrong, is still wrong, not right.
In over analyzing, and deconstructing the anecdote you defeat the whole purpose of gaining understanding by emptying the mind state of Zen Buddhism.
By focusing on the wrong thing, it’s of no importance to the anecdote, that new tea, or whatever you pour is still going into the cup.
You are just focusing on the wrong thing, even the important man of the anecdote recognized the fact that by overfilling the cup the monk was making a mess, and it was affecting him by soiling his clothes. And that was the issue who made him react.
A prevalent malady between us humans for having, an untrained mind, is the mind to wander off in all directions and never stopping the talking going on, in your head.
In fact your response it’s exactly the opposite of what the anecdote is trying to accomplish, stopping the chatter in your mind of going off, on, and on, and be replaced by a state of quiet receptivity, as in meditation.
Inner silence, it’s a practice that extend not only to Zen monks, but to the Greeks, Hindus, and the ancient Christian desert fathers, and still practiced today in Western monasteries. 🙂
Firstly, let me thank you for taking the time to read, consider and respond to my comment as well as visiting and liking posts on my blog. It is appreciated i assure you. 🙂
I fear though that you have deduced and assigned to me something from my comment here that is incorrect, which must surely be my fault in poorly expressing myself, as i believe you to be quite wise.
I in no way missed the point the story of the Zen master was suggesting and have long appreciated it and tried to apply it (with disappointingly small success to date!) to my own case.
I was simply expressing my view that the analogy being used, to me, was a very poor one (for reasons some of which i stated – there are more i could add) I was not suggesting that the intended point was not a valid one because of this.
If i were the master (not likely, i realise) i would use as a better analogy the mind as a field that, in many people’s case, has had many seeds planted in it from when it was just a new, fertile piece of rich soil in which to grow things. The problem with most of us is that the field has not been tended well due to the many distractions we let into our mind/life and weeds and invasive species’ seeds have been blown in by different winds and have been allowed to take over the field and choke the life out of many of the seeds we tried planting in it with the idea of benefiting from the full grown plants that fail to eventuate because insufficient care was taken to allow for their proper growth and maturity.
To get the rich, rewarding and beneficial mind garden we want we must first cut down and remove the roots of the weeds and unwanted species growing and filling our mind ‘field’ so as to give room for the plants we desire to have in it: grain providing plants, beautiful flowering plants and/or fruiting plants, all of which give us benefits and make us feel at ease and not chaotic, unkempt. Once the soil has been freed of the overgrowth we can sow new seeds while this time being aware of the need to nurture them and retain and have them grow into full fruition through disciplined care and attention and the elimination of unwanted/unneeded distraction.
I should also probably point out that cutting down weeds and digging out roots so as to establish a clear ground in which to grow the desired seeds/plants is not a quick or easy task, and is made even harder the longer things have been let grow wild. It takes much hard work and people might easily be put off attempting or seeing through such a task. It is in no way as simple as turning a cup upside-down so as to empty it to be able to fill it with fresh new ‘Tea’ 🙂
Am i ‘wrong’ still – in your opinion?
Peace.
lwbut, whatever you name be.
I like your analogy, start weeding your mind.
Pick up a daily practice, preferably early on the morning before sunrise, choose a place nearby, where you can be alone, and just contemplate the sun rising over the horizon, do your best to keep inner silence, and do not talk to anyone, take in rather than think, at least for an hour.
Read my post Via Positiva Vs Via Negativa of May 2012 🙂
Most people know me by the name Bob.
I wiil do what i can. 🙂
(the inner silence is so hard due to the length of time already spent without it)
“Every little thing we do matters greatly when it is multiplied by the number of times we do it.”
Do your best Bob, it matters greatly! 🙂
They are nice collection of the Thinking = try to find the answer through thinking / or among the thinking = idea / conception. But, Zen Budhism and its enlightenment is not an understanding or any idea / notion. When all of them (thinking) has exshorsted = when the cup was empty = exactly like when you are walking, we don’t think how to walk = we can walk wothout knowing / thinking how to walk. When nothing in our mind, strangely, still we can live / do all the task —– because, we were made to live with Dharma. Everybody born with Dharma though useless thinking / idea is masking the hidden Dharma. So, the matter of Zen is to empty the mind. That is why all the sect practicing endless repeating practice (like walking round and round, banging dram, chanting etc = make the person wareout / fedup / tired and started to do it automatic = without the thinking / mind.
When you got nothing in your mind, Dharma inside of you start to make you live.
Yes, it’s as you said, thank you for sharing your experience with us. 🙂
learn to learn!
Yes, thank you Rohit, we appreciate your comment! 🙂
What a wonderful post!
Thank you for sharing
💙💙💙
We appreciate for yo to let us know, thank you. 🙂
My pleasure
🙏 😊 🙏