When we are kind to ourselves, when we have compassion for ourselves, when we love ourselves without reserve, we create the conditions in which to most easily evolve.
All of this evolution is towards a more peaceful and loving version of the [conventional] self.
Self-love creates a state in which one can hear the voice of our higher self and also feel that voice in the heart.
That higher voice points to the path ahead. The path ahead is always evolving [becoming] towards a more loving version of self. Self-love creates a kind of quiet in the mind/heart.
The lower mind is the place of judgment. That which is not love, that which is harsh, is loud in the lower mind. Self-love is the antidote to this loud voice. It balances and heals the harshness, restoring a kind of homeostasis, a calm, equitable ground [dzogchen]. Self-love creates neutrality in the self. It creates openness, and openness is peace. Into the true openness of peace, the presence of universal love, universal kindness, universal knowing arrives.
All those who walk with universal love walk in service to all beings.
So self-love creates the conditions for one to more easily become peace, and into that peace of the self, the great wisdom of universal loving-kindness arrives. And the individual into which it arrives now carries it as a remarkable offering for all.
Higher mind
It is as if self-love builds the room. The empty room is peace. And universal love always arrives to fill it. Put simply:
This peace flows from the individual consciousness into the collective consciousness, where it heals that which has not been loved which has remained there as residue.
["One-pointedness of mind/heart (cittass'ekaggatā), Ven. Visakha, is called concentration (samādhi, stillness, coherence)" (MN 44).]
Flower power made in the USA
When peace has flowed into the collective consciousness and has healed that which is not-love that is there, new possibilities emerge for humankind.
Old wounds are healed.
Old grievances are healed.
And more people, no longer held in bondage by old grievances, are able to hear their higher selves' voice, which is a loving voice.
And more people, hearing their highest voice, choose to act in love.
And things begin to change.
Old patterns suddenly end.
There is more harmony between people.
There is more peace.
And that peace, felt by any one person, enters the collective consciousness and heals another layer of what is there
calling to be loved,
calling to be witnessed,
calling to be healed,
calling to be honored for all that it is, exactly as it is.
Peace does that.
[EDITORIAL NOTE: When Goenka talks about observing sensations (feelings) in the body, he says to observe each one “AS IT IS.” The Pali phrase he uses is “yathā-bhūta.” Buddhist Sanskrit (tathātā) akin to the Chinese term rú zhēn (如眞) “suchness.”]
It's as if our hearts were burning as one at BM.
So all is honored, all is healed, and another wave of people feel called to lean into that voice at the center of their chests, their own heart's voice, the voice of a higher self, a voice that speaks of their purpose. That voice is loving, the font of love at the center of each being, what we can call the heart's voice. So it is better perceived, easier to hear and learn from.
An act of service to the world
Earth and every living being on it is so much more beautiful and unbelievable close up.
Our self-love is an ACT [karma] of service (sevā) to the world. Is builds our peace first, and our peace builds all peace.
Yes, it builds our neutrality (equanimity, unbiased looking on, upekṣā), which allows us to hear our higher voice. The peace it builds in our own heart/mind travels into the collective consciousness, where it heals and creates new opportunities for future peace, our own and the peace of others.
Our self-love powers this whole peacening[pacifying, cooling, slaking, quenching towards the highest peace of all, which is Nirvana or the "nirvanering"] process.
Our self-love is local -- planetary service to others.
(Eckhart Tolle) Life doesn’t stay comfortable for long. Expecting it to do so creates a lot of frustration. In this talk, Eckhart Tolle explains why challenges are built into life and how they can become a doorway to deeper awareness.
🌟 Find new meaning and purpose after personal crisis
🌟 Currently navigating a period of intense difficulty?
Through six hours of carefully curated teachings and practices [that seem very Buddhist even though Tolle does not claim they are] with Eckhart, discover the unique potential for spiritual growth that presents itself during the dark night [of the soul].
When the Buddha-to-be (the Bodhisatta) was born, his father, King Suddhodana, and all the other Scythian (Shakyian) princes were educated by a very wise and virtuous Brahmin named Asita.
Asita was a sage who lived in the jungles close to the Himalayan foothills. He spent his days meditating in a hut there, when one morning he saw and heard the woodland fairies (devas) rejoicing by singing and dancing.
Inquiring, he learned that a baby boy had been born to King Suddhodana and Queen Maya and that this prince would one day become a supremely enlightened teacher surpassing all other beings. Hearing this, the sage Asita was delighted and hurried to Kapilavatthu to see the king.
When King Suddhodana saw Asita, he was very happy that his old teacher had come to see his baby, even before a message was sent informing him of the birth of his firstborn son. The king brought the prince to show him to the wise old sage so the sage could examine him and make a prediction about the little one’s future.
However, when he held the baby, his little feet touched the Brahmin’s head dress (jathah). Surprised at this, the sage took hold of his tiny feet and saw by the lines of his soles that this baby will definitely become a supremely enlightened one.
I am sure he will choose his Quest.
He was so happy at this that he got up from his seat and, holding his hands in front of his heart (anjali mudra), he paid respects to the baby. When the king saw this teacher venerating the baby, he too held his hands together and venerated his son. (This was the first time the king, the father of the Buddha-to-be, paid homage to his son).
However, Asita’s delight quickly changed into sadness when he realized that by the time this baby would become fully awakened, he himself would have passed away from the human realm to an Immaterial Sphere world known as the “realm of neither perception nor perception” or neva-sagna na-sagna yathana.*
*The mind is so subtle at this stage of absorption (jhana) that the karma of attaining it leads to rebirth in this realm. See the 31 Planes of Existence. Consciousness here is so subtle that it can hardly be said to be perception at all, but it is certainly not non-perception. The meditative practice of jhana, later classified by the Buddha as "right concentration" or samma-samadhi (extreme stillness of mind) brings this rebirth about. However long lasting such a rebirth is, it is not permanent and is not nirvana.
Nevertheless, the prediction was made that this baby would one day become a supremely enlightened teacher, a buddha. The prince was named Siddhattha (Sanskrit Siddhartha, which literally means “Doing good to the world” or “Wish fulfilled”).
On the seventh day after Prince Siddhattha’s birth, his mother Queen Maya passed away.
Thereafter, her younger sister and second wife of the king, Queen Pajapati, adopted the prince and looked after him like her own son. (She eventually had two children of her own, Nanda and Sundari Nanda, but always gave Prince Siddhattha the most attention over his siblings).
Other soothsayers told the king that his son might become a world monarch (cakkhavati), but if he saw the downside of life, he would likely turn away and renounce the world.
So to ensure that he went on to exercise rule over the whole known world (at least Jambudipa), it was advisable to protect the prince from hardship.
The father so loved his son and so wanted him to be a great king that he decided to shelter him and dote on him and give him everything he could want, spoiling him for 29 years.
At 29, Prince Siddhartha left it all behind.
But all of this had the reverse effect because, eventually, when the prince saw how the world really was -- beset by old age, sickness, and death -- it made such an impact that he had to go in search of a solution. This led him on spiritual quest. He abandoned the good life and went in search of the pure life of yoga (with first one yogi named Alara Kalama then another named Uddaka Ramaputta), meditation, and yogic austerities (tapas) to win complete enlightenment. These all failed him to win him the ultimate goal.
So he settled down, cared for his body, and undertook the Middle Way, avoiding extremes of hedonism as he had pursued in the palace and self-mortification as he had pursued on his own in the forest. Instead of rejecting the pleasure and rapture of the initial meditative absorptions, he pursued them to ever more refined states of stillness, practicing all eight jhanas.
Now his mind was temporarily released from the defilement, purified, and ready to practice clear seeing (vipassana) through mindfulness of the body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects. He took of his initial question that led him on this quest, "Why is the cause of suffering?" Practicing Dependent Origination, he traced back present suffering to its causes and conditions in previous lives, on account of karma and its results, all the way back to ignorance.
Forward and back, he went until he made a breakthrough in understanding, in knowledge and vision, directly knowing-and-seeing for himself. He awakened to the utmost under his bodhi ("enlightenment") tree and eventually agreed to teach after doubting if anyone would understand or put in the effort to purify their knowledge and vision and thereby gain the same liberation he had won.
(Dechen wangdi 🇨🇦) H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama has an important message for all religions, a message of love and unity (mutual respect, tolerance, celebration, amity, peaceful coexistence). #tibetanvlogger #tibetanyoutuber June 21, 2025. Background music: "Tears" (Produced by MX Audio Library)
Link: • Tears - No Copyright M...
Japanese Hotei (known in Chinese as Budai) is one of the Shichi Fukujin, or "Seven Shinto-Gods of Luck." He is the "god of happiness, laughter, and the wisdom of contentment" and the patron of the weak and of children, fortunetellers, and bartenders.
The term "Shinto" derives from the combination of two Chinese characters -- shin (神), which means "spirit" (kami, supernatural entities, possibly heavenly ETs coming to this dimension) or "god," and tō (道, tao), which means "way," "road," or "path" [45]. Shintō (神道) is therefore "the Way of the Gods" (or Spirits, the shapeshifting kami at the center of the priestly religion). It was a term already used in the I-Chingor Book of Changes, referring to the divine order of nature [46]. Around the time of the spread of Buddhism in the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), the term was used to distinguish indigenous Chinese religions (shamanic or magic-based traditions) from the new imported religion. Ge Hong used it in his Baopuzi as a synonym for Taoism [47]. Shinto is animistic and polytheistic with priests who deal with the unruly shapeshifting monsters/gods known as the kami. The Chinese term 神道 (MCzyin daw) was originally adopted into Japanese as Jindō [48]; this was possibly first used as a Buddhist term to refer to non-Buddhist deities [49] or spirits. More
Budai points at the Moon
Hotei is distinguished by his [fat] body, which is of generous proportions with a round belly exposed beneath loose robes. This big jelly belly is a symbol of happiness, luck, and generosity.
On his back he carries a huge linen sack, containing candy, precious things, and gifts of good fortune, including children.
He also holds an uchiwa, a flat fan of Chinese origin used by ancient chieftains as an emblem of authority and wish granting.
Hotei may sit in an old cart drawn by boys, as the Wagon Priest, and can be compared with the BuddhisticMi-lo-Fo.
Chinese backstory
I am the big Friendly One. Here's some candy!
In Chinese Buddhism he is known as Budai, the "Loving or Friendly One." He was a wandering Chan Buddhistmonk who lived in the 9th century.
At his death between the years of 901 and 903, he recited a poem that revealed to the world that he was in fact the BodhisattvaMaitreya in disguise.
Maitreya, Chinese Mahayana Buddhists believe, is the Future Buddha, who will return to the world and bring innumerable individuals to realization (bodhi) and salvation (nirvana).
This concept of hope for all those who suffer, combined with Budai’s pleasing (always kind and smiling) human features, made him a most popular Buddhist deity (deva).
Good Luck Budai honored in Thailand
It was not until the 16th century that he was canonized as the sixteenth and last Chinese Bodhisattva.
According to Chinese legend he carried a sack of candy to give to children. He is sometimes worshiped as a god of good luck and prosperity.
He is always represented as very stout (fat), with breasts and upper abdomen exposed to view. His face has a widely grinning, joyful, or laughing expression, so he is also known loosely as "the Laughing Buddha" even though he is NOT a buddha.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Even "Maitreya Buddha" is actually not yet a buddha as his name would suggest but rather a bodhisattva, that is, "a being striving to become a supreme buddha" (samma sam buddha) in the future.]
He stands in the first hall of Buddhist monasteries. Because of his constant good nature, he has become the symbol of philosophical contentment. Source
The Laughing Buddha Story | Joy of Enlightenment | Zen Buddhism
(Narrative Dreamscape) This short Zen story follows the tale of Hotei (Budai, Putai), a Chinese Buddhist monk who attains "enlightenment" [satori or kensho, an epiphany or spiritual realization] after hearing a child's laughter. He then wanders the land being called the "Laughing Buddha" [Bodhisattva], spreading joy and showing that enlightenment [a realization] can be found by embracing the humor and impermanence of life. This lighthearted and inspirational Zen tale reminds us not to take life too seriously but to greet each moment with childlike joy and presence. Let this [Fat Happy] Laughing Buddha story bring a smile to the face and warmth to the heart.
For the Buddha so loved the mother who raised him that he made her the first Buddhist nun.
Thus have I heard. One day the Blessed One (the Buddha) was staying in Vesali, in the Hall with the Peaked Roof in the Great Forest.
[His foster mother, the Scythian/Shakyian former queen, the sister of his biological mother and second wife of his father, the world's first Buddhist nun] Maha Pajapati Gotami went to the Blessed One, bowed, stood respectfully to one side, and said:
"Venerable sir, it would be good if the Blessed One were to teach me the Doctrine (Dhamma) in brief so that, having heard it from the Blessed One, I might dwell apart, secluded, heedful, ardent, and resolute [withdrawn into calm-and-insight meditation]."
"Gotami, qualities of which it may be said, 'These qualities lead to
"As for the [opposite qualities], you may categorically maintain: 'This is the Doctrine, this is the Training [Discipline], this is the Teacher's instruction.'"
That is what the Buddha said. Gratified, Maha Pajapati Gotami rejoiced in his words.
Contentment
Satthusasana Sutta: "Contentment Discourse (to Upali)," The Teacher's Instruction
Scythians lived in peace thanks to him
Venerable Upali went to the Blessed One, bowed, sat respectfully to one side, and said: "Venerable sir, it would be good if the Blessed One were to teach me the Doctrine in brief so that, having heard it from the Blessed One, I might dwell apart, secluded, heedful, ardent, and resolute."
"Upali, those qualities of which it may be said, 'These things do not lead to complete:
"you may categorically maintain, 'This is not the Doctrine, this is not the Training, this is not the Teacher's instruction.'
"As for the qualities of which [the opposite may be said], you may categorically maintain, 'This is the Doctrine, this is the Training, this is the Teacher's instruction.'"
"Contentment"? What the Avici is that? Imagine a disposition of mind, a mood, of everything being fulfilled, everything being fine, having enough... The Laws of Attraction and Vibration and One would be so proud we made it. Here we are, at peace. There is a useful opposing force we sometimes cultivate called "a sense of urgency" or samvega. Most of us being lazy, it's probably better to develop enthusiasm and a spiritual quickening. But, actually, too much striving does not help and is counterproductive. It ruins a practice: efforting, manly (virility or viriya) energy, straining. There's a place for it. But it's better to follow the Buddha's "gradual or progressive instruction" (anupubbikathā) to peace: calm (the result of virtue), wakeful stillness (cultivated as the absorptions), and fourfold mindfulness for insight the is the Middle Way that avoids extremes and is the direct path to enlightenment and nirvana.
"Meditators, Kassapa [1] here is content with any old patchwork robe. He praises contentment with any robe, and he commits no offense of rule or etiquette [2] on account of his wardrobe.
"If he has no robe, he worries not; if he has, he enjoys the use of it without clinging or foolish attachment, committing no offense, aware of the danger [of developing attachment and clinging] he wisely avoids it [3].
"Kassapa is content with whatever food offerings he gets... whatever lodgings... whatever medicinal requisites... he enjoys the use of these without clinging or foolish attachment, committing no offense, aware of the danger, he wisely avoids it.
"Therefore, meditators, train yourselves in this way: We will be content with whatever robe... food offerings... lodgings... medicines... that we might get... We will enjoy the use of them without clinging or foolish attachment, committing no offense, aware of the danger, we will wisely avoid it.
"Meditators, I exhort you all using Kassapaas the example, or someone like Kassapa. Exhorted in this way, practice to gain the goal" [4].
NOTES
1. Maha (Great) Kassapa, one of the Buddha's chief disciples who later became the leader of the Monastic Sangha, who convened the First Buddhist Council, organized the Dhamma into a religion after the Buddha's final nirvana, and who was declared by the Buddha as the foremost in the practice of the sane ascetic practices. 2. Unlike, for example, the Buddha's half-brother, the princely monk Nanda (SN 21.8). 3. Nissara napañño: literally, "wise as to liberation." 4. Tathatta: the state of "thusness" or "suchness," nirvana (nibbana). With a different suffix there is the almost equivalent term tathata, found mainly in Mahayana texts, but also occurring in The Path of Purification (VM XVII, 6), etc., where it means "the state of being really so."
Maurice O'Connell Walshe (trans.), Santuttham Sutta: "Discourse on Contentment" (SN 16.1 PTS: S ii 194 CDB i 662), with Pali title based on the PTS (Feer) edition; edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
"I already live this way *lol* it's kool" (Ayr Hed)
The Buddhist term "monkey mind" originates from Chinese xīnyuán and/or Chinese-Japaneseshin'en (心猿). It is a Buddhist concept that literally means "heart-mindmonkey [business]," for it describes a state of discursive restlessness, capriciousness, and lack of self-control in one's thoughts and emotions.
It has also been adopted by Taoism, Neo-Confucianism, Chinese poetry, theater, and literature. The expression "monkey mind" commonly appears in two reversible four-character idioms paired with yima or iba (意馬). It translates as "idea horse."
Chinese xinyuanyima (心猿意馬) and Japanese ibashin'en (意馬心猿) illustrate the interconnectedness of a restless mind and wandering thoughts.
The "Monkey King" Sun Wukong in the classic Buddhist Chinese novel Journey to the West is an iconic personification of feeling indecisive and unsettled. More
We need brains, but do we need thoughts?
Few people waste more time overthinking than we do around here at the office of Wisdom Quarterly. It is no way to be. Thinking might make a person smart. Might. It will definitely make her or him obsessive, neurotic, unhappy, and exhausted. Lev Z lost his brain in the war and lived.
What is there instead of thinking, worrying, anxiously projecting, predicting, prognosticating, forecasting, mental doomscrolling, trying to avoid everything bad that can happen? One time on retreat with a very great Buddhist meditation master who was visiting California from Asia for the first time, I was spending all my sitting time thinking and pondering.
I would ask him solutions to my thoughts, which would put to rest my worries. But I would soon think of something new to ask, an unsolvable mental construct, philosophical question, or paradox.
I remember mainly thinking about karma -- the process by which our intentional (cetana) deeds bring about many wished for and unwished for results even though we do most things in ignorance, not with the "intention" that they should bring about the results they do: How can this be "fair" if we didn't know?
I think this sort of questioning brought him to him to the limit of tolerating my nonsense and indulging my endless stream of questions. Thereafter, every time I'd ask anything speculative or philosophical, he'd answer by asking, "How's your meditation going?"
I would laugh, realizing that I was spending way more time thinking than "meditating." He asked me how, and I explained my system: Since I only had to be aware of "breathing" (in), I would let my mind wander the rest of the time (when I was breathing out or when the breath was pausing in between, so I was actually able to get a lot of thinking in while still being aware or counting the breath as it happened, only drifting off the rest of the time.
He was astonished someone could be so utterly daft (or neurotic and full of too much zeal and too overbearing a sense of urgency when what was desperately needed was contentment), and no wonder I wasn't making any progress. "Who told you to do that?" he asked.
I didn't answer, but the answer was obvious: "No one ever told me not to." (I like thinking, why wouldn't I think? I'm thinking all the time, it's my thing, my jam, my delight, and apparently my downfall!) It was true. I was only supposed to be aware of the breath -- so he again defined "breath" for me:
"Breath" in BREATH MEDITATION is mindful awareness of anapana (the in-and-out breath and any time in between, which becomes vanishingly brief the slower one breathes for the person paying more and more attention to the whole-body-of-the-breath like the Satipatthana Sutra instructs).
Aah, then everything came to a rest: blissful peace
Then not long after, it happened. It was a miracle. I would not have thought it was possible. And thinking so much, there wasn't much I thought impossible. Nearly everything is possible by some twist with enough creative imagination.
What happened? THINKING STOPPED. (I didn't stop; it stopped). It was the strangest thing. I wasn't expecting it to. I didn't know it could. I don't think I was doing anything different than normal (other than maybe not thinking for once). IT REALLY STOPPED. I kept checking it to be sure. I was fully aware.
Earlier in the day, I had taken a walk in the woods and seen wild turkey and deer, and I had found a giant rusty cistern, a big corrugated water tank, the size of a grain silo, just in the middle of nowhere in the woods. It had no water in it. Imagine dragging a stick across it, the sound it would make, clang-clang-clang: that's what my thinking was like.
As a teen in high school, I was in some bands, and one of the hardest things about being in a band was coming up with a satisfying name. (It's very hard, so the best bands, the legends, just take on any nonsense and by their greatness, they make the dumb name great. It's almost the dumber the name the better because their fame will have to eclipse it and raise it to the status of "wow, what a name," whereas the dumb names keep sounding dumb because the music isn't that good to our ears. Lead Zeppelin, what kind of dumb name is that? Lead (leed as in leader). Hey, I know, we'll drop the a so nobody will ever mispronounce it! It was a self-deprecating expectation of how their new group would go over when they launched, like a leaden blimp, dwhoopall the way down to a crash and burn like the Hindenburg, which was used as the cover of their first album. So I thought a great name for my next band would be No Mind Asylum. It didn't go over very well because no one knew what it meant, which I thought was self-evident. People liked the sound of it; only no one thought it had a meaning. My friend heard it, didn't judge, thought about it, and asked, "What does it mean?" I was flabbergasted. "Well, isn't it obvious?" It wasn't. It means how pleasant it would be, if such a thing were possible, to find asylum from so much thinking. After all, too much thinking doesn't pay. "That's what it means, being sent to a mental asylum!?" "Not a mental asylum! A mental asylum is called an asylum as a euphemism, a pleasant place, a safety, a refuge, how nice it would be to go to give the mind a rest." Suddenly the name Led Zep was looking really good by comparison.
But here it was. I found it without looking. I had my asylum. There was compulsive thinking. Here's the amazing thing, thinking was possible, it just wasn't automatic. There was peace, rest, direct knowing. That's the thing: I would have thought, if asked before this, "Why think so much?" My answer would have been "To know." But there's no knowing that way. There's only speculation, pondering, wondering, probabilities, possibilities, imagining ways to test intuitions, inspirations, guesses, or logical suppositions and conclusions.
Now, here, the most amazing thing was happening to me -- like everyone had always said was impossible and NOT the goal of meditation. Not thinking it was the goal, here I was enjoying it. And like said, I could think. It just seemed dumb to. Thinking stands between us and direct experience. It's a buffer, a block, a kind of dirty glass we look through for so long we fail to notice how dirty and distorting it is. A rain comes along, like maybe a good long sleep, and things seem clearer -- clearer for not having thought. Thinking gets in the way, yet it's glorified, particularly in the university system.
Eckhart Tolle: Even the Sun Will Die
It seems even now that no one appreciates any of this except maybe Eckhart Tolle. He sat on a bench in a park perfectly content to keep sitting there. It was such a relief compared to all his previous worries, ego-trips in the highly competitive world of academics and self-promotion university faculty maneuvers. Imagine Descartes, Sophia, Nietzche, Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle getting a day off -- getting some no mind asylum (benevolent respite, safety, exile, expat vacation) time. Remember the paean, the joy the Buddha felt right after his great awakening (maha-bodhi). He KNEW freedom was possible and directly attainable here and now. There was no need to die and hope for a heaven. Here and now he saw things clearly.
As it was happening, because it went on for a long time (until it was about to be ruined by having to get up from my meditation mat to go to the restroom before the long evening Dharma talk started and I would be trapped in the hall holding it in for two hours or so), it occurred to me how I might explain this to anyone who might in the future ask. I had to kind of explain it to myself, too, because I was fully conscious, much more conscious, undistracted, and in the moment than I normally was. In fact, I normally tried to keep myself in abstractions most of the time, finding it fun to pose philosophical questions about reality then tackling them with an explanation that could be verified. The verification would show if the speculation or intuition were true. So these were not just pointless thoughts with no purpose; they were grand thoughts about life, the universe, and everything, musings of which Douglas Adams could be proud.
The explanation that spontaneously came to mind -- in just the same way that once when the Buddha was asked if he planned his answers to questions in advance or just spoke extemporaneously as it now occurred to him, he said there was no need to premeditate any more. He instantly knew the answer as the question was being asked. The analogy came to me what it was like, this "not having a brain"/"not thinking" was like, which as I said should be impossible to our normal way of thinking, speaking, conceiving, or imagining. It was exactly like this:
Normally and usually when we "think," it's like tossing a rock into a giant old empty cistern (corrugated galvanized rippled metal water tank) or big storm runoff corrugated drainage pipe, so big one can stand in it, and around here such underground pipes pour runoff into the LA River. It's not a sewer but a wash, a cemented over arroyo. Throw a rock in it, and it ricochets and echoes after hitting multiple times. One question (thought, stone, disturbance), many ripples (vrittis). The commotion of my mind was that nearly anything could trigger it. Now it was at rest, contented and peaceful. I knew not why.
Whatever desire-to-know arose, there the obvious answer simultaneously arose with it. There was no need to ponder or wrack my brain or stir up a hornets' nest of thoughts and questions. I toss one stone, and the reply is one thud, at which point the stone is done, no echo, no commotion, no ripples in the mind or aftereffects.
It was blissfully beautiful, and one could imagine living that way for the rest of one's contented life. THIS WAS BETTER THAN THINKING BECAUSE THE ANSWER WAS IMMEDIATE AND UNMEDIATED BY LANGUAGE, GRAMMAR, THOUGHT CONSTRUCTS, AND SO ON. There was just direct knowing.
When external disturbances (my having to get up, impelled by the urge to pee which was uncomfortable to hold and conscientiously not wanting to disturb the Dharma talk later by getting up in the middle of it, being bumped by other meditators trying to signal me that we were switching from silent meditation to Dharma talk as if it were possible that I forgot) forced me to get up, move, and slowly head toward the bathroom, the peace and silence remained. It was not an artifact of perfect stillness; I was not asleep or in anyway unconscious, semi-conscious, or unmindfully out of it. I was bright, mindful, and much more away of what was really happening in the moment than usual.
Anyone who says nonthinking is wrong. Anyone who says it is not the goal of meditation is right. Making it the goal, striving not to think or trying to stifle the brain/mind, which has as its job to think, is no way to peace. Being aware just of this moment without evaluation, judgment, ambition, resistance, nonacceptance, force, efforting, that is far more likely to result in this kind of blissful abiding, this "peace of mind."
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