Memory: Forget About It

Thoughts: Beachcombing

I realized that most thoughts are impersonal happenings, like self-assembling machines. Unless we train ourselves, the thoughts passing through our mind have little involvement with our will. It is strange to realize that even our own thoughts pass by like scenery out the window of a bus, a bus we took by accident while trying to get somewhere else. Most of the time, thinking is an autonomous process, something that happens outside our control.

From Breaking Open the Head, by Daniel Pinchbeck

Intention2: Polluted

Again from Osho:

You ask: Why can't I see any meaning in life?

What meaning are you looking for? You must be looking for a certain meaning. You will not find it -- because from the very beginning your inquiry is polluted, your inquiry is impure. You have already decided.

For example, if a man comes into my garden and thinks if he can find a diamond there then this garden is beautiful, and he cannot find the diamond, so he says there is no meaning in the garden.... And there are so many beautiful flowers, and so many birds singing, and so many colors, and the wind blowing through the pines, and the moss on the rocks. But he cannot see any meaning because he has a certain idea: he has to find the diamond, a Kohinoor -- only then will there be meaning.

He is missing meaning because of his idea. Let your inquiry be pure. Don't move with any fixed idea. Go naked and nude. Go open and empty. And you will find not only one meaning -- you will find a thousand and one meanings. Then each thing will become meaningful. Just a colored stone shining in the rays of the sun... or a dewdrop creating a small rainbow around itself... or just a small flower dancing in the wind.... What meaning are you searching for?

Don't start with a conclusion, otherwise you have started wrongly from the very beginning. Go without a conclusion! That's what I mean when I say again and again: Go without knowledge if you want to find truth. The knowledgeable person never finds it. His knowledge is a barrier.

Awareness2: Small Opening

From Quotations from Chuang Tzu, by Thomas Merton:

Seeing the light

Look at this window: it is nothing but a hole in the wall, but because of it the whole room is full of light. So when the faculties are empty, the heart is full of light.
(4:1, pp. 77-78)

Eyes3: Inadequate

From Glimpse in the Gaps in Your Vision, in Mind Hacks: Tips and Tools for Using Your Brain, by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb:

"Despite the fact that the eye has a blind spot, an uneven distribution of color perception, and can make out maximal detail in only a tiny area at the center of vision, we still manage to see the world as an uninterrupted panorama. The eye jumps about from point to point, snapshotting high-resolution views, and the brain assembles them into a stunningly stable and remarkably detailed picture.

These rapid jumps with the eyes are called saccades, and we make up to five every second. The problem is that while the eyes move in saccade all visualinput is blurred. It’s difficult enough for the brain to process stable visual images without having to deal with motion blur from the eye moving too. So, during saccades, it just doesn’t bother. Essentially, while your eyes move, you can’t see."

So you think you are seeing everything? You are not catching anything that moves faster than your eyeballs can handle -- and yes, more things move faster than you can imagine.

Life: Bobbed and Buoyed in the Wake

From Birocco, December 02, 04:

I remain convinced to this day that in all likelihood I have only an illusion of choice, which of course I have to exercise in even the most trivial of situations. This is probably why I like so much being in situations where there is nothing for me to have to decide, where decision is taken out of my hands, such as being on a long river journey. That life is fated is not so bad, it just means that life is more mysterious than were it simply the sum total of a myriad of wills attempting to influence the world. It could explain why most attempts to actually influence one's own life by action that is not in accord with what is fated usually seem like a kitten trying to battle its way out of a paper bag. And even if free will exists, so many people made such a kibosh of it with their decisions in early life that even now they are so bobbed and buoyed in the wake of it that for them all may as well be fated.

Now where in this oceanliner is my vorpal sword?