stopping thoughts
Posted by Clarity on 10 May 2006 at 04:29 am | Tagged as: Buddhism
This is just too precious:
Some people think that Buddhist practice and meditation are about stopping thoughts. As the saying goes, if that were true, a coconut would be enlightened. - Prof Robert Thurman, talking in Cleveland.
A coconut is free, a coconut is ‘enlightened’. It is listening to judgements or the pessimism of the mind. It does not allow the experience of beingness to be altered. A coconut merely exists and is free within that existence. A coconut is the embodiment of the mystery.
Not that it has anything at all to do with stopping thoughts. It is just that when the mind isn’t trying to change so much, something special happens - you may catch a glimpse of unaltered beingness. It is generally easiest to be when mind is calm. Enlightenment is never known, only experienced. Coconut can only experience.