Talk:Right Thought

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.