Re: MD Zen & Reason

From: MarshaV (marshalz@charter.net)
Date: Fri Apr 08 2005 - 10:53:45 BST

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Steve,

I am very interested in what you say about Zen. Please say more.

Marsha

At 04:59 PM 4/7/2005 -0700, you wrote:

Greeting All,

I can see we have some pretty knowledgeable people here who may know something about Zen.

That Zen is anti-cognitive seems to me too simplistic. Could this be image be grafted on due to our own rejection of square classical reasoning in the 60s?

My reading and experience with meditation suggest that thinking is not somehow bad, but that attachment to our thoughts might not be preferable. In practicing I was told that, if I became aware of a thought, to justice notice it without 'thinking' it, to just let it float on like a cloud. And the next and the next. If one was to strive to cease thinking one thinks all the more.

It is these individual thoughts that clutter up the mind and interfere with both voracity and prejudice free reasoning.

Thinking patterns are habitual, actually pathways of neurons in the mind such that with each repetition the same pathway is easier and easier to use. If that's true, then we become, over time, incapable of developing new responses for our resources are all tied up with our habits of thinking (the full teacup). A 'free' person, IMO is one who has the maximum resources available for the moment and that must mean little to no preconceptions. it is these preconceptions, these habits of thinking, that Zen's techniques are trying to disrupt, is it not?

If we develop 'suspension of judgment to such a degree that we do not form habits of thinking with each new experience would it not follow that we have actually maximized our reasoning potential, not got rid of it?

Live well,
Steve

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