We all think. Right? Wrong. Few of us really think. Thinking is a lost Art.
The Art of Thinking requires the ability to permit the mind to come fully into focus on something, to search for the essence of that something. It could be a thought, a feeling, an experience, or an object. By contemplating that thought, feeling, experience, or object profoundly, the secrets of the universe open up to us.
Yet here is the Zen of Thinking. Before we can fill our mind with the contemplated "thing", we need to completely empty o
ur mind. That is extremely difficult! The practice of Yoga and Meditation has honed the science of emptying the mind to an art. The benefit of emptying the mind is that we also release ourselves from the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and experiences that actually block our ability to think. The Zen is that the beginning of the Art of Thinking is no thinking!Once we have emptied our mind, then we are ready to fully contemplate. Paulo Coelho wrote: "All you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation." That quote is famous for a reason. Because it is true. When we fully contemplate even a grain of sand, we peer into the way the universe is created. We contemplate the interconnectedness of creation. We ponder the beyond creation, the spiritual reality. We loft our mind into the divine. Now that is Thinking! Fully contemplating any creation of God liberates our mind and spirit.
Shakespeare portrayed Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull. A human skull more readily has a thought provoking power than a grain of sand, especially if the skull belonged to someone we knew. We naturally drift into a contemplation of the impermanence of life on earth and reflections on the life after death. Indeed, I think that it would be true to say that the beginning of wisdom comes from the contemplation of death. We quickly come to the thought, is this all there is or is there more after death? We begin to ponder the spiritual.
You see, it is when we ponder the spiritual that our thinking is put to the real test. Can we contemplate from what we see to what we can't see? That is where the power of the mind and the Art of Thinking rises to its fully glory. Only with the mind can we fully comprehend the spiritual reality. Anyone who denies eternal spiritual reality will be a cynical Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull. The person who embraces the spiritual reality with their mind finds liberation from cynicism.
The power of the mind, the Art of Thinking, becomes energized with the realm of feeling. There can be no profound thought without feeling. Reality is feeling and the essence of a thing contemplated can only be grasped through feeling. That is why art, music, and mathematics have such a profound sway upon the thinking person. We can grasp truth through art, music, and mathematics that can never be grasped logically. All truth has at its core ecstasy or joy.
We have the ability, and the responsibility, to discover the truth through practicing the Art of Thinking. The ability to find and recognize the truth. Ah, yes, there is the rub! What is truth?
37"You are a king, then!" said Pilate.
Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."38"What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. John 18:37-38 (New International Version)
Pilate said the
re is no way to know truth so don't bother. Jesus said the truth is within us, that the Kingdom of God is within us. Jesus taught us to have confidence in ourselves, in our ability to know the truth.
One of the key reasons we have lost the Art of Thinking is that we have lost the confidence that we are capable of discovering what is true. We feel that we need something or someone to help us understand, to tell us what to believe, to tell us what is true.
Well, here is the secret. We possess the power to know the nature of things by exercising the power of our minds to think. That's the secret. Think. We can only understand the nature of life, the purpose of life, through the naked power of the mind. We can only understand by practicing the Art of Thinking.
re is no way to know truth so don't bother. Jesus said the truth is within us, that the Kingdom of God is within us. Jesus taught us to have confidence in ourselves, in our ability to know the truth.One of the key reasons we have lost the Art of Thinking is that we have lost the confidence that we are capable of discovering what is true. We feel that we need something or someone to help us understand, to tell us what to believe, to tell us what is true.
Well, here is the secret. We possess the power to know the nature of things by exercising the power of our minds to think. That's the secret. Think. We can only understand the nature of life, the purpose of life, through the naked power of the mind. We can only understand by practicing the Art of Thinking.
he Lost Art . . article was a very fine and profound one. And very apropo for a poet.
ReplyDeleteYou article also opnes to way to see that the West's great thinker/scientists: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Pasteur, Einstein, to name a few, were all some sort of practitioners of Zen!!!
And to compliment the 'grain of sand' quote let me add two others:
"When you enter a spiritual state you can see that even a grain of sand contains the principles of the universe, and even one atom contains the bottomless and inexhaustible harmony of the universe."
– Sun Myung Moon
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."
– William Blake
Continue to enjoy. As for great books, you might also want to read Nelson Mandela's autobiography and The Trilogy by Tolkien or did you forget to add that one?
L. Howell, aka 'Hafiz'
Now THIS is what I call thinking! I often complain that no body thinks anymore. They don't know it, but this is exactly what I mean. To understand the universe, inter-connectedness, our purpose, all through observing and thinking about, for example, a ripple in a pond... a tiny bug, or a piece of thread on a jacket...
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel,
ReplyDeleteYes, that was interesting. I have always found Buddhism appealing, before and after I became a Church member. Before, I read some Suzuki and was particularly inspired by Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" because it responded to my thirst for truth. To me, it was to Divine Principle what John the Baptist was (meant to be) to Jesus. After, I found it equally appealing because, with all our (over)emphasis on responsibility in the application of the Principle, we exhaust ourselves spiritually and emotionally. Buddhism has the power to replenish and restore the balance. My daughter attended a Buddhist high school here and also found it useful. I am not surprised that Hyung Jin Nim's "spiritual training" is to a large degree based on Buddhism.
When it comes to the "lost art of thinking," I don't think we should underestimate the powerfully negative infuence of the media, particularly the Internet. How can we expect our children to read Hamlet or even Frankl when they have their Facebook page, which is much more accessible and interesting? You don't need a dusty novel and even less "a grain of sand" when you have 100 GB at your finger tips... Information substitutes for insight, and image for truth.
Concerning the contemplation of death: I have found the movie "The Bucket List" a useful tool to get my students to think beyond Facebook and college entrance exams, if just for a moment. I was glad to hear that Daemonim has put it on her viewing list for second gen workshops. More about death: June 25 passes by more or less unnoticed in Korea nowadays. Sad perhaps, but true. We have Internet...
I was happy to see that Lloyd Howell is one of your readers. We're old pals from our common Oregon days.
Best to you,
Maarten
whew! This article GETS me THINKING! I may need to read it a few more times, yet, it prompt me to, you guessed it, go do some thinking.
ReplyDeleteSide note: Remember when I was in AZ and I talked to you about Paulo Coelo's The Alachamist and you had JUST written this artice? Well, just yesterday and today I recieved a very profound paragraph by PC, and here I am reading this blog for the first time!
Good job on the article!
Love, your offspring.
This statement came to mind after reading your article. "The silence of the soul makes more distinct the voice of God." I am not sure that one can completely experience no thought or an entire emptying of thought. Our brains don't seem to be able to operate in that way. But what I hear from your blog is the need for silence-to be able to contemplate, explore, and allow nature to 'speak' to us. When I think of truth - I see more than theory and fact - God is the essence of truth and in seeking truth we are seeking to know Him. Gathering truth in a grain of sand we are coming to know His attributes and personality and ways of operation.
ReplyDelete-just wanted to share my thoughts.
one of your students,
Risë
It’s great to see good information being shared and also to see fresh, creative
ReplyDeleteideas that have never been done before.
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