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Personal Truisms

KannonKannon NAMU AMIDA BUTSUAch-To Veteran

I guess I'm taking from Zen with this post. I've always had problems over thinking. Even with positive and introspective thought I become so obsessed it is toxic. I am always ruminating massive ideas. Recently I tried something new. After thinking awhile I boiled my thoughts down to a few sentences. Here's my Holzer truisms/Zen koans:

Things are everchanging but those changes are rooted in precedents which you are always creating.

You have to live like a poor man to become a rich man

Information oversaturation compels us to piecemeal our experiences across several channels of outward communication. But when do we look inside ourselves? ;)

I could go on. I figure after these I'll go to phrases, then words, then....silence? Who could've thought.

lobsterFosdickHozan

Comments

  • Fruitful 'over thinking' is a good thing. The essence you need to send our way. Part of the initial benefits of meditation are to calm this incessant thinking . . .

    Buddhadragon
  • BuddhadragonBuddhadragon Ehipassiko & Carpe Diem Samsara Veteran

    I don't know if I am mellowing with age, but I shun both overthinking and overtalking.

    Overthinking is a useless waste of "be-here-now" precious present moments, either to drift off into an unchangeable past or into an unforeseeable future.
    Too much discursive thinking projects unnecessary papanca into the reality at hand, while being present with what is, fosters new, more pertinent responses.

    As to overtalking, I deeply believe the capacity for synthesis in one's speech is priceless.
    Especially in an age where people's attention span lasts the seconds it takes reading a twitter.

    lobsterKundo
  • I am influenced most by those who say little. When they speak their few words much is said.

    lobsterBuddhadragon
  • As someone who Overtalks and Think-speaks, I will be in the noisy/naughty corner, gibbering as usual. Occasionally as Unusual. o:)

    Ah ... a forum where Silence is Golden.
    So Zen. :p

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    my Avatar.

  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran

    @DhammaDragon said:> Especially in an age where people's attention span lasts the seconds it takes reading a twitter.

    Sorry, what were you saying? :p

    lobster
  • KannonKannon NAMU AMIDA BUTSU Ach-To Veteran

    @DhammaDragon I checked my notifications last night and read your reply. Later when I was out with friends I began over thinking but then I remembered what you said and returned to the present. I felt much better! Thanks for the gentle reminder <3

    lobsterBuddhadragon
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran

    Like a never ending production line, our thoughts keep coming, however there's no thinker behind the thoughts apart from the sequence of mental events that produce the thought, (movements confined to the brain) in a sense thought itself is the thinker...

    And from what I gather....over-thinking is when the mind becomes fettered by these thoughts, which cloud over the other present moment activities...

    But trying to stop attaching to the thoughts requires the very thing one wants to be free of... "more thoughts" so in order to detach from the production line
    one has to learn the art of non-thinking and therein lies the paradox of overcoming "over-thinking"...

    If one begins to label thinking as "thinking" when one is 'aware' that thinking is taking place, then after awhile one will find they can 'detach' from the production line and just observe the process....

    Zenshinlobster
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran

    I think it was Daido Loori (Roshi) who did a little rewriting and came up with, "Silence is golden and sometimes its color is pure yellow." Talk a little, talk a lot -- just keep on practicing and the dust tends to blow away. Over-think or under-think and keep on practicing ... don't worry, you'll wear yourself out.

    Just practice ... and don't be a coward.

    ZenshinlobsterShoshin
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