The Practice of Not Thinking: A Guide to Mindful Living

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The ten Japanese precepts of Buddhism: ABSTINENCE from: killing, greed, theft, sexual misconduct, anger, false speech, negative language, vulgar language, idle chatter and following wrong views. I strongly recommend continuing to read beyond his book (Part I & II) onto Part III: a conversation in 2021 between him and Ikegaya, neuroscientist. This more clearly explains his meaning behind the practice of not thinking as translating to observing your thoughts and relegating ones that are not useful. This is a meaningful closing section to his overall treatise, and as undertaken recently does better contextualise the content to become topical and relevant. Dette blir en altfor enkel analyse av et komplekst fenomen. Han utelater også latter sin egenskap til å skape intimitet, dets evne til å ta opp tabu tema, eller hvordan latter kan tranformere noe uheldig, noe vondt eller trasig, til noe komisk. Jeg liker blant annet dette sitatet til Gordon Allport godt: The neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to selfmanagement, perhaps to cure. Solid state physics Quantum theory Chemical bonds SCIENCE Physics Condensed Matter Física do estado sólido Mecânica quântica

This is something I have started to do, and I now look at my traffic on this blog every hour instead of every 15 minutes. Small steps! Klesha’s If we’re truly sorry about something, we should think about the best way to ease the burden on the other person rather than merely apologizing or making an excuse for our own comfort.” In ‘The Practice of Not Thinking’ He introduces various techniques, ranging from meditation to mindfulness exercises, to help you detach yourself from ‘thinking disease’ and reconnect with the present moment. It offers plenty of advice on how to bring mindfulness into your life by examining your actions and behaviour as you go about your day. How to control your body and your mind Dependant Arising’: every event occurs due to connections that exist beyond the flow of time, making every individual event interdependent The concept of impermanence: surrendering to the fact that everything changes at a rapid pace and that nothing is permanent

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I imagine all my trivial concerns and opinions just blowing right out of my mind, leaving me free to experience the world without the burden of analyzing every moment of my experience. When I do this, I can feel my mind relax and, just like Ayya Khema said would happen, a feeling of contentment arises. 5. Let the world speak for itself. Initially I felt this book was too superficial, many well-meaning sentiments, but often not that relevant to today’s western society. I wonder if it fitted better within the Japanese culture as he so often commented. On further reflection, I realise that the year of publication (2010) explains why it felt outdated in patches. As for the book, obvious there is an entire mountain range of books on various sorts of mindfulness, which I tend not to bother with, as there is sufficient Islamic guidance on these matters. However, from time to time I enjoy reading philosophy/guidance from different traditions as it makes me consider my own beliefs and values. Indeed there is a lot of overlap here. Just as Islam teaches that you should be careful about what you see, hear and say and the company you keep, so Koike talks about the senses as gateways. The brain] deludes you into believing that the sense of anxiety you get from painful stimuli feels good, and it rewrites what should be uncomfortable as a sense of pleasure.’ Jeg finner meditativ praksis - på tvers av alle religioner og livssyn - svært interessant. Hvilke innsikter/betraktninger gjør man gjennom år med målrettet introspeksjon? Vi må derimot alltid ha i bakhodet et meditasjon er en ferdighet, en aktivitet, som igjen er preget av språket og det teoretiske rammeverket man velger som kontekst for introspeksjonen. Det er ikke en kongevei til sannhet. Dette er tydligere i for eksempel kristen meditasjonspaksis hvor målet ofte er å komme nærmere Gud, eller komme nærmere Guds sanne natur; de bruker ofte veldig like teknikker som i østlige religioner og livssyn.

A few of my reading choices this year have been inspired by Kpop; this was inspired by an actual Kpop singer, Ten from WayV/NCT who chose this book for a What's In My Bag challenge. If I had my career and talent as mismanaged as him, I might need to think less too. Buddha: A person who listens to a voice and produces impulsive energy like anger or desire will lose subjective control. His mind will be preoccupied and obsessed with the story.’ negative thoughts have a much stronger impact on our brain than a mild, gentle sense of happiness [...]’

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When you’re immersed in discursive thinking, it’s easy to forget that there are five experiences that are available outside your analytical mind: what you’re seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling physically. Try letting your attention rest on what’s coming in at these five sense doors. You’ll find a rich and fascinating world right at your fingertips—with that last sense door, literally at your fingertips, perhaps in the feel of soft material against your body. At the end of the book, there was an interview with the neuroscientist Yuji Ikegaya that was just splendid. Discussions about the intersection of the brain and the mind, the relationship between the philosophy of Buddhism and science, what neuroscience thinks of free will [Hint: doesn’t exist as even our movements are predetermined by our brain but the self gets to veto], how meditation can be quantified [Hint: GAMMA WAVES] and why neuroscientists are no longer allowed to examine Tibetan monks [Hint: Master monk’s gammas weren’t showing, THUS home boy wasn’t meditating at all, he was faking it unlike his pupils], a scientific experiment to prove that the conscious mind controls stress and that the pre-existing knowledge and awareness of a PROVEN stress relief outlet can enormously reduce the induction of physical stress, Empathy is real in more subtle ways than we can imagine and that we are a walking set of reflexes, no more, no less, to the frightening point that we will act based on the MOST RECENT information we have received, regardless of our best interest, the self is essentially PLASTIC, SO YIKES, the search for WHO YOU REALLY ARE IS most likely: TRIVIAL, POINTLESS, AN EMPTY FEAT, essentially. It’s easier to practice Not-Thinking if you put opinions and judgments aside. Doing this also brings welcome relief from constantly judging everything around you. Most of us tend to immediately form opinions about our environment (too hot, too cold) and about people (too talkative, too quiet). Listening to this running commentary is stressful and exhausting. When the Thai Buddhist monk, Ajahn Chah, was asked what the greatest obstacle for students wishing to practice Buddhism was, he replied, “opinions.” When you’re able to let go of opinions and judgments, you’re letting go of a big “chunk” of what goes on in your mind! This is a great aid in the practice of Not-Thinking. 4. Open the hand of thought. Problemet med dette er at det er mange andre gode grunner til å spise mer grønnsaker. En flust av andre helseeffekter, bærekraft og dyrevelferd er noen. Jeg personlig plages ikke med en for sterk kroppslukt, hvorfor da endre dietten? It caught my eye in a bookstore. Also, my life has recently been a bit stressful, and I was looking for something other than ‘meditate more’ in terms of mindful living.

As I said up top, there are parts of this I like. I started reading it during the end of my football (soccer) season, and as a goal keeper it can be hard at times to maintain focus when so much action is happening at the other end of the pitch. Some of the tips in here helped me to focus more on the match and my movements in it. I’m also actively working on incorporating some of what he shared in the speaking and listening sections. But I’m not sure I could fully recommend this to others. Ryunosuke talks a lot about Klesha’s which are something I haven’t heard of before. It’s basically a disturbing emotion, such as a fear or ignorance, which clouds our minds, and leads to unhealthy actions. Anyone looking for a book on mindful living that isn’t primarily about meditating a few times a week. Emergence: the self is not there to be discovered and explored, the self emerges from the system and routine we put in place. The avenues of exploration we allow to subject our bodies through using any form that stimulates our senses actually starts shaping our preferences, beliefs, decisions and modes of thinking. I have been struggling with the question of whether there is a master algorithm that controls our brain or whether that algorithm is an illusion, whether it can be replaced rather than refined and updated, the data doesn’t conform to it, it BUILDS it and the amount of data we process is immeasurable so we become in a CONSTANT STATE OF FLUX with no fundamental engine to control us. HOW UNSETTLING ?! It’s all about the stimuli: controlling the stimuli we are exposed to, having an active choice, as much as we possibly can, in the information we let in is the most critical skill of the twenty first century, I think. Even though the book argues that concentration isn’t necessarily natural, it’s actually detrimental to our survival to enter a sacred state of flow - THIS IS WHY EVERYTHING THAT REQUIRES FOCUS TODAY IS DIFFICULT - it goes against our best instincts to actually stay focused but we live in the modern world and that’s the new survival mechanism, so we must adapt accordingly. Extreme measures from time to time such as a silence vow for example to shut down all the extroverts may come in handy in this department, believe me, IT WORKS.

When we realise that our mind is but a slave to our brain’s reflexes, we can mount a revolution against the things that control us.’ Let’s say there’s a woman who would like her obese boyfriend to lose weight. Telling him that she won’t love him any more if he doesn’t lose weight will have a negative impact on his self-esteem, which is not good. First, she needs to convey to him that her love for him won’t change, whether he’s thin or obese, and to get him to understand this. [...] As she continues to analyse her thoughts, she may begin to rethink her values and reconsider her desire to be with her obese boyfriend. Maybe it won’t matter any more that he’s overweight. If not, she should explain her self-analysis in full. It might go like this: "I like you a lot, but when I think about how other people judge me, I worry that dating someone who is overweight will affect how others perceive my worth. I don’t want to be sad because I’m with you. Do you think you could try to lose a little weight for me?"(s.97) If we didn’t give the body a rest at night, it wouldn’t function very long. The only time the mind can have a real rest is when it stops thinking and only experiences. Once verbalization stops for a moment not only is there quiet but there is a feeling of contentment. That quiet, peaceful space is the mind’s home. It can go home and relax just as we do after a day’s work when we relax the body in an easy chair.

May be this is a good opportunity to not overthink the experience of reading the book, but instead simply vocalise the thoughts that find their way to my mind and allow this review to take its natural course, without resistance, selective thought processing or harsh judgement of my own opinions, thus silencing my klesha of anger that thinks I should have chosen a better book as my 100th registered book in goodreads, an honour one might think, or my klesha of arrogance that thinks it knows what its talking about. Please note that thus far, I haven’t collected any substantial value from the insufferable body of the book; which explores the act of seeing, listening, speaking, reading and writing, touching, discarding, eating and nurturing in an excruciating way that just didn’t work for me personally. Apologies for not abstaining from my arrogance Klesha that apparently drives our need to spread negativity because positivity is just not stimulating enough. HOWEVER, the book, like many self development guides, reinforces certain pathways of thought that we already know and believe but sometimes need to hear from someone else. For me, these thoughts hovered around the concept of the emergence of the self, selective data, the preselected narrative and script of the brain and what ultimate awareness and a life of active stimuli selection and the discipline of choice look like. Zen teacher Kosho Uchiyama wrote a book titled, Opening the Hand of Thought. I use this phrase to practice Not-Thinking. Sometimes I’ll even open my hand and lightly blow on my palm as if I’m dispersing thoughts into the air like they’re dandelion seeds. The main approach for Koike is is that we must develope our senses, defined as speaking, listening, seeing, reading and writing, eating, discarding, touching, and nurturing. I found the speaking and listing sections to offer the most practical insight. The other sections, while not necessarily bad, just didn’t speak to me as much.When I awaken, one of my goals is to be more mindful as my morning begins. That’s why I read books like this as part of my ‘ Voyage of the Dawn Reader’ series, to encourage open awareness and acceptance, before my day invariably turns to shit. So we don’t want to—nor are we able to–put an end to thinking. That said, there are benefits to intentionally practicing what I call “Not-Thinking.” Discursive thinking—the constant stream of one thought after another—is a deeply ingrained habit. It’s so ingrained that we often start thinking just to occupy our minds! But even during our waking hours, the mind needs to rest now and then. The practice of Not-Thinking is restful, calming, and restorative. According to Buddhist teacher, Ayya Khema: