Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Right view/mindfulness and thinking
Jakbob
Explorer
This is a topic I'm kinda confused about, but at the same time am having difficulty putting it in words :x so please bear with me. On a day to day basis, we naturally tend to think of things that we see visually or anything like that.(most people) I have undertaken to limit this(not restrictively) by practicing mindfulness in most situations throughout the day. When I restrict, I don't mean I've set a rule against myself and put all my energy into it, but I have discovered the wonders of mindfulness and enjoying all of the precious moments of the day so tend to focus on doing that 
and try to only water "pleasant seeds" of the mind versus unpleasant ones. If you are being mindful, can you think? I totally agree with the right view principle and followed it even before buddhism, but its like for example: If I walk into the store and I see an article of clothing and I think to myself, this looks very nice, or maybe I'll say this looks not so nice( I would never say ugly, I find beauty in everything but this is just an example 
) am I not practicing right view for holding a view against something, and likewise not being mindful for "thinking". Sounds silly now that I write it but I'm curious to know what is considered mindfulness and the relation with right view in coalition with thinking. I feel like in moments where I am not doing anything physically demanding that also requires mental thought, but if I were to be just sitting in the car for example, I should focus on nothing but to enjoy the present moment of. (mindfulness?) 
In addition to thinking&mindfulness is aimlessness. Does aimlessness mean mindfulness and right view 24/7
and try to only water "pleasant seeds" of the mind versus unpleasant ones. If you are being mindful, can you think? I totally agree with the right view principle and followed it even before buddhism, but its like for example: If I walk into the store and I see an article of clothing and I think to myself, this looks very nice, or maybe I'll say this looks not so nice( I would never say ugly, I find beauty in everything but this is just an example ) am I not practicing right view for holding a view against something, and likewise not being mindful for "thinking". Sounds silly now that I write it but I'm curious to know what is considered mindfulness and the relation with right view in coalition with thinking. I feel like in moments where I am not doing anything physically demanding that also requires mental thought, but if I were to be just sitting in the car for example, I should focus on nothing but to enjoy the present moment of. (mindfulness?) In addition to thinking&mindfulness is aimlessness. Does aimlessness mean mindfulness and right view 24/7
0
Comments
If not then nothing new could ever arise in our consciousness. We couldn't switch to the new appropriate focus.
Mindfulness is to not resist the natural diffusing or the natural focusing but to take both as part of the deal in awareness.
Mindfulness is also not establishing an identity as "watcher". (this is merely ego in disguise).
This principle is called E VAM where the E is the diffusing and the VAM is the focusing..
Anyway thats what I recollect from dharma talks, but what you wrote was fascinating to me
Aimlessness means we trust opening to the new moment. Rather than attaining a material result. Open to whatever is here.
when 'we' see an 'article of clothing' we can not stop then and there but go on thinking 'this looks very nice or this looks not nice'
if we can stop at 'seeing' we are mindful and we do not think it looks nice (or not nice)
if we think it is nice then we think that this is good for me, or for my child, or for my wife etc.
and then we think that we should buy this etc.
then we think i do not have enough money now,
then i feel sad,
then i want to find some money to buy it, etc.
this thinking go on and on and on creating our 'bava' (becoming) , jathi (birth) etc. and we are in samasara (activating the paticca-samuppada)
just be able to stay at 'seeing' is Right view and mindfulness
no
this is 'ayoniso-manasikara' and delusional state (adukkama-suka feeling) where there is no ( suka) happiness or (dukka) painful feeling
In my personal analysis, as opposed to the intellect of a realized being, I find aimlessness to correspond to dukkha dharma seal. Aimlessness would mean you are not hooked by hope and fear, 8 worldly winds (praise blame, fame infamy, pleasure pain, gain loss). Impermanence corresponds to impermanence and signlessness corresponds to non-self.
That is exactly where I learned about that. In his book that I am currently reading ^.^ It's an amazing book.
My teacher for instance doesn't like the term mindfulness, because she has found in some of her students that it gives them some wrong ideas about the nature of the practice as a 'never missing attention' rather than 'openness to experience'. I don't want to argue about that point I am just using it to illustrate, but consider the common meditation experience of losing the breath we don't say "I am bad I lost mindfulness" (in my tradition) instead we rejoice that we have 'come back' and then we reconnect to the breath and open to the space of the experience.
But part of my course work in buddhism has been exploring my own cultural western language and looking for deep insights in the language of my own culture.
For you, aimlessness, might have a heavy negative vibe to it and experientially it might not be the right word for you, it might not produce a 'positive' meditative experience. I mean to say it might not capture what you realize as truth I don't mean to say that there are 'good' meditations and bad ones. But I think Thich IS connecting to teachings that you have heard before on the 8 worldly winds. Or I am guessing that you have heard of them. My teacher gives several talks on this topic and the way she titles her talk is 'turning the mind from samsara'.