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Thinking Styles
I used to think: “DAMN IT! IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS WAY!” for just about every observation that I judged to be a “problem“. Now I think, “It shouldn’t be this way – but it is – lol“ for most observations that I judge to be problems. Of course, there are still far too many things that cause me to red-line, but it’s an incremental, iterative, and continuous learning experience.
If I’m lucky enough, I might even gravitate up to this fully, non-judgmental, thought-style: “It is this way, because it got this way“. However, I don’t think I’ll ever make it into the effortless thinking realm of Buddha/Lao Tzu/Eckhart Tolle/Byron Katy: “It is this way because it’s exactly the way it should be“.
How about you, dear reader? What’s your predominant thinking style? Has it been changing with age? Are you happy with it?
Up, Down, Sideways
In order for a tree to remain viable throughout its lifetime, it must grow upwards, sideways (think leaves), and downward (think roots). In BD00’s tortured mind, a lot of people seem myopically focused solely on growing up.
Loving All That Is
Because it’s very different from any other “religious” book that I’ve ever read, I really like “The Most Rapid and Direct Means to Eternal Bliss” (free pdf download here). In the book, mysterious Michael Langford lays down step by step instructions for five spiritual practices:
- THE AWARENESS WATCHING AWARENESS METHOD
- THE ABANDON RELEASE METHOD
- THE ETERNAL METHOD
- THE INFINITE SPACE METHOD
- THE LOVING-ALL METHOD
To give you a taste of the book’s style and content, here is the procedure for THE LOVING-ALL METHOD:
Love your thoughts, your feelings, your body, your actions, the objects you see, the people you see, every input from each of your senses, every word you utter, every word spoken to you. Piece of cake, no?
The other night, I went to bed with a strong resolve to start practicing THE LOVING-ALL METHOD “tomorrow“. When I woke up the next morning, within seconds I deviated from the plan. My shoulder ached from a touch of arthritis and I automatically thought and said “Ow – damn shoulder!“. Upon discovering my transgression a few milliseconds later, I thought “D’oh!” and gave up. Maybe I’ll give it another spirited try in the future.
It’s weird. When I read a spiritual book that “clicks” (and not many of them do), I experience a sense of peace and serenity during the read. But as soon as I close the cover, the feeling dissolves and IT takes over once again – and it’s hard to love IT; very hard.
Robot00.com
The other day, I received a package from Amazon and I was popping the packing bubbles to reduce the volume for throwing them away. While robotically popping away, I had a sudden realization that I was thinking about what my next blog post was going to be about. I wasn’t paying attention at freakin’ all to what I was doing.
I reflected further, and then became amazed at how much of my so-called conscious time is spent on autopilot – not thinking in the least about what I’m doing at the moment. I realized that the only time I really think “in the moment” and pay attention to what I’m doing is when I’m designing/writing code, golfing, and writing blog posts. Sadly, that is not the majority of my time. Not even close.
How abut you? Do you find yourself in robopilot mode often?
Picture this
Picture your thoughts as leaves floating down a river. A thought appears in your head, you think it, and then you let it go. Aaaah, what bliss. But wait! One of those leaves just got stuck on a tree root extending out into the water. There it stays, spinning around at a maddening frequency. D’oh! I hate when that happens.
Picture your thoughts as puffy white clouds drifting across the sky. A thought appears in your head, you think it, and then you let it go. Aaaah, what bliss. But wait! One of those clouds just turned dark and started spewing thunder, lightning, and rain. D’oh! I hate when that happens.
Mind Speed
One of my nieces recently sampled my blog and told me: “sometimes the words seem to flow faster than I can read them“. Another person once told me: “you talk faster than I can think“. Alas, such is the downside of having a racy mind.
If you believe the curve above, then the question of how to slow down a speedy mind may have occurred to you. Well, there are tried and true temporary solutions to the dilemma: music, drugs, exercise, alcohol, and meditation.
If you suffer from a racy mind, what works for you? Do you know of any permanent solutions?
Hijacked By Thought
In “The Most Direct Means To Eternal Bliss“, Michael Langford nails BD00 personally with a bullet to the forehead:
Confusing “knowing-insight-awareness” with “conceptual knowing“. That’s exactly the rut I’m in. What rut are you in?
Structure, Not Content
The problem is not the content, it’s the conditioned structure of the human mind – Eckhart Tolle
If the structure of one’s mind has been conditioned and molded into a crystallized pyramid from birth (and whose mind hasn’t?), then its time-varying content will be heavily distorted by pyramidal thoughts. You know, those thoughts that put you at the top of the pyramid so that everyone will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re smarter and more important than they are.
Order Imposition
When functioning correctly, the purpose of “rational thought” is to impose the illusion of order on chaos. As you well know by now, BD00, whose thoughts are dysfunctional, irrationally prefers chaos-squared over order. Actually, he doesn’t prefer it. It’s just the way it is. D’oh!
Obscured By Me
I hate when this happens….
…which is ALL the time. D’oh!
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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