Tag: monkey mind

Big thoughts

by MAÔ, posted in philosophy

Consider the single thought. A bit of synapse firing in the brain. This could be in response to a need – hunger, thirst, fight or flight. This could be the processing of a sense – smelling a flower, or seeing a rainbow. Maybe it’s working through a complex problem of some kind.

Steven Pressfield, in Do The Work, writes, “I was thirty years old before I had an actual thought. Everything up till them was either what Buddhists call “monkey-mind” chatter or the reflective regurgitation of whatever my parents or teachers said, or whatever I saw on the news or read in a book, or heard somebody rap about, hanging around the street corner.”

Thoughts are precarious, and when big thoughts come, grab them! I don’t know the first actual thought that I had. It’s possible I’m still waiting for it to come along. Sure, I get ideas, but they are just in the semblance of a thought – something half-formed.

So when those ideas pop up, nourish them. Bring them to fruition. And enjoy the freedom of a thinking that is higher-level.

What we know

by MAÔ, posted in Pathfinding

How many of us really know anything? Steven Pressfield, in his book, Do the Work, says, “I was thirty years old before I had an actual thought. Everything up till them was either what Buddhists call “monkey-mind” (chatter) or the reflective regurgitation of whatever my parents or teachers said, or whatever I saw on the news or read in a book, or heard somebody rap about, hanging around the street corner.”

Most of our so-called “thoughts” are simply the processing of someone else’s information. Some input that we took in. It stands to reason that the wider variety of input we take in, the “smarter” we get to be.

Wouldn’t we all aspire to be faithful citizens? Of the nation, of the world, of our family, and of our community.

Whatever your personal definition of faith is, doesn’t that sound like something we’d want to aspire to?

Don’t we want to have faith in our community? To believe that we’re safe? That we’re free? That we belong…