Talk:Right Thought

Evelyn Underhill

"But the doors of perception are hung with the cobwebs of thought; prejudice, cowardice, sloth. Eternity is with us, inviting our contemplation perpetually, but we are too frightened, lazy, and suspicious to respond: too arrogant to still our thought, and let divine sensation have its way. It needs industry and goodwill if we would make that transition: for the process involves a veritable spring-cleaning of the soul, a turning-out and rearrangement of our mental furniture, a wide opening of closed windows, that the notes of the wild birds beyond our garden may come to us fully charged with wonder and freshness, and drown with their music the noise of the gramaphone within. Those who do this, discover that they have lived in a stuffy world, whilst their inheritance was a world of morning-glory; where every tit-mouse is a celestial messenger, and every thrusting bud is charged with the full significance of life."

"And it is just such an act of union, reached through the clarified channels of sense and unadulterated by the content of thought, which the great artist or poet achieves."

Zen

Lankavatara Sutra (LS)

"Those who vainly reason without understanding the truth are lost in the jungle of the Vijnanas, running about here and there and trying to justify their view of ego-substance. The self realized in your inmost consciousness appears in its purity; this is the Tathagata-garbha (literally, Buddha-womb), which is not the realm of those given over to mere reasoning..." PP

Greek

Poltinus refers to the importance of establishing proper thinking when he says "Our thought cannot grasp the One as long as any other image remains active in the soul." He further suggests that to grasp The One you must "set free your soul from all outward things and turn wholly within yourself, with no more leaning to what lies outside, and lay your mind bare of ideal forms, as before of the objects of sense, and forget even yourself, and so come within sight of that One."

Christianity

The Cloud of Unknowing offers the same sort of advice.

Personally, I disagree. For sure we should lay bare our mind of ideal forms (i.e. archetypes), but getting rid of them altogether doesn't make any sense. I would suggest, and I have, that if we are to grasp the One we must replace Old Energy Archetypes with New Energy Archetypes so we can have a clear and organized vision/understanding of that which we "grasp" at. I also don't agree with the old "turn wholly inward" thing. Unless you got slaves to tend to your needs, as Poltinus probably had, that's an unreasonable, and unnecessary, spiritual requirement. I also think that grasping what the One has to say is only a little thing, like when you realized, as a very small child, you had a nose on your face. Let it titillate you for a while, but get on with your own life's purpose, whatever that may be.