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Tashi Delek

 

Where do thoughts go to?

Thoughts are part of the mind, I suppose. When you are aware of your thoughts you recognize them as thoughts. Nevertheless, they disappear to some place or other.

I have had a picture recently: the mind is like a river, and thoughts sometimes come on the surface and then you can "think" them and you can try to be aware of them. Otherwise they remain under water.:maybe: But where do they last there?

What do you ~think~ :) ?

 

Best regards,

Kama

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Tashi Delek, Kama.

 

Where do thoughts go to? What do you ~think~ :) ?

 

"You can't solve a problem on the same level you created it." Albert Einstein

 

Best regards,

Simona

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Tashi Delek

 

What makes the river to be river? Are our thoughts the cause or is it our intention which is directed towards one specific goal/aim? To take up the challenge and start to develop the net of concepts it could be interesting topic in debate class. As Simona already said and if I took her hint it is unawareness which makes thoughts “alive†and awareness which reduce/calm them. I also understood that thoughts never completely disappear – where to at all they can… Even in the state of deep meditation or calm abiding state there can be some trace of thoughts. It is awareness which makes them less or more present. Along single pointed concentration we are focused on Buddha image for instance and thoughts still come in and out of “our spaceâ€, but we keep focusing and we don’t pay any attention to them. So, is it necessary to ask ourselves where do they come from or where they are stored? Or who is store keeper? :D

Tatjana

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Tashi Delek.

 

Good exercise is to go in the forest in the middle of the night, when it is black darkness. We would sit down and start to perceive much more as we are able to perceive during daylight. I`m curious if not some thoughts would cross our mind about murderers, which suppose to hide in the forests, about some wild animals, hungry waiting for their meals, we would see some outlines of the bear maybe, some moves and maybe we would seize something slime so on... At some point we would just run from the forest. And that`s usually the way we live our lives. We tend to run away in front of our thoughts, which we created. And the life passes by. In this way we will never get free from our thoughts. That`s why we should change the roles in the way that we become the hunter and the thought those, which would “run awayâ€.

 

Best regards,

Simona

 

N.B.: Anyone interested to go in the forest tonight? :))

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Tashi Delek.

 

Thank you very much for your answers!

 

The question might be unnecessary, but for me thoughts are really strange. There are for example images or words which I create, but in fact they are nothing. They are figures of a play called mind. And when you are in the forest by night, the mind plays very actively.... :D

I don`t know how it is for you, I find it difficult to be aware of my thoughts. I am trying, but my mind looks often for an excuse not to do it. :roll:

We should become some kind of an observer and we shouldn`t be lazy....

Then we realize that there are so many thoughts we have never expected.

 

All the best,

Kama

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Guest Ani.Chödrön

Tashi Delek,

 

waves are of the same nature as the ocean. They are rising from it and merging back with it. It is only our narrow-minded view, our projections, that give them a separate reality. It's the same with thoughts arising from our mind, as you said. I wouldn't call it nothing, but an illusion net, a display for movements and states of our mind. l-)

Well, when i grasp some nonsense thought and roll around it in vain, I would call it a swirl. :roll:

 

As Tatjana exposed, it is said that we come closer to the nature of our mind with single pointed meditation. I guess it means to gradually start to let go, to observe instead to grasp. And I've read another for me helpful hint about it (Sogyal Rinpoche?): actions arise from thoughts, thoughts from mental fabrications, mental fabrications from Emptiness. This makes a kind of ladder to Wisdom. :wink:

 

With best wishes, :*

chödrön

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Tashi Delek Ani Chödrön,

 

Thank you very much for your explanation!

The comparison with the waves helps a lot! :wink:

 

I didn`t understand how mental fabrications arise from Emptiness. Could you explain it, please?

 

Something refering to the forest experience:

When I sit in the dark forest and I start thinking, do I create fear? Are my thoughts producing fear? Can we distinguish between feelings created by mind and pure feelings , or are feelings always created by mind? :crunch:

 

All the very best,

Kama :*

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Guest Ani.Chödrön

Tashi Delek dear Kama,

 

I didn`t understand how mental fabrications arise from Emptiness. Could you explain it, please?

 

I'm sorry, i would love to but i can't, i didn't realise Emptiness and i'm not close to it.

 

For me the mental fabrications were a "missing link" between gross "ready made" concepts and the subtlety of Emptiness. It made me think about all the trodden paths of our thoughts and emotions, all the habitual tendencies that we are generating minute to minute, life to life. As i understood, this ground enables corresponding grosser phenomena to crystallise.

 

But others who know this better could give you a better answer.

 

Can we distinguish between feelings created by mind and pure feelings, or are feelings always created by mind? :crunch:

 

Feelings and thoughts are always created by our mind, which is in essence clear and all-knowing. :D But it is very hard to distinguish between pure feelings or pure dreams or pure visions… and impure, because our ego can be very deceiving. A Lama is very helpful here.

 

All the very best,

chödrön

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Guest Ani.Chödrön

Tashi Delek,

 

you can also consult a book about this topic. Maybe: Venerable Lobsang Gyatso: The Harmony of Emptiness and Dependent-Arising. A commentary to Tsongkhapa's The Essence of Eloquent Speech Praise to the Buddha for Teaching Profound Dependent-Arising. Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, 1992.

 

All the very best,

chödrön

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Tashi Delek,

 

I know that the idea of our thoughts being the result of some chemicals in our brain is unappealing, but still…

When a mother is away from her new-born child she becomes uneasy and wants to get back, due to prolactin in her brain. As soon as she is there and breast feeds the baby, she feels better and peaceful because oxytocin was secreted. This same hormone is the scientific counterpart of cupid as is produced when one falls in love. Than there is dopamine that is associated with our high moods and pleasure. If you seek long-lasting happiness you will manage to find it via a constant flow of dopamine through your brain (people do that with drugs, maybe something similar can be achieved through some practice). Endorphins in your brain help you to calm your mind and enable you to endure a particularly unpleasant situation. When your seratonin level is high, you have a high self-esteem and vice versa.

There are many more hormones and neurotransmitters and our moods and thoughts may well be just the result of the “cocktail of the dayâ€.

 

Jigme

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Guest Ani.Chödrön

:))

 

Tashi Delek dear Jigme,

 

you forgot the hormone for Bodhicitta. :wink: Just kidding. But seriously: how does biochemistry explain that in the same situation different people have different reactions (secretion of a different hormonal cocktail)? Some might experience it as pleasant some as stressfu, yet the measurable conditions are the same. And how can one, according chemistry, control one’s mind (biochemical secretion)? Yet, we can transform our attitude towards a situation from negative to postive.

 

As far as I know this is not in contradiction to Buddhism – states of mind, subtle flows of energy in our body and hormonal states are interconnected. Just that Buddhism goes further. :wink::))

 

All the very best,

chödrön

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Tashi Delek,

I know that the idea of our thoughts being the result of some chemicals in our brain is unappealing, but still…

I know that the idea of questionning the authority of science/scientists to answer every single question is unappealing, but still... :v

 

No, seriously. Just recently I read an inteview with two oncology doctors (i.e. cancer experts). They said that the worst problem with cancer is the inability of the medical science to predict when/why a completely healthy cell will turn into cancer (a pathologically multiplying cell). Surely science can help a lot, but when it comes to really important questions, it just seems to fail again and again :roll: :cry:. E.g. beginning of the universe (cause of the big bang), beginning and end of human life - where does it come from, where does it go etc. It's all karma, my friend! :* :lol:

 

I don't want to take this debate elsewhere, so I would just say that surely we cannot reduce :notme: all human behaviour to some basic physiological processes. l-) Of coure, each human action shows also as a physiological process, but is physiology really the cause for it and everything there is to it? I'd say no! {-|-} :lol:

 

Best regards,

 

Draftsman

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Guest 3ndr3

Tashi Delek everyone!

 

I think that thoughts and the chemical reactions in brain are closely related, I mean that they are not separate. The mind and the physical body are working together. It is like the differential in mathematic. We have the first function and there is its differential. So if we change the first equation the second will follow. If we change the state of our mind the chemicals in our brain will also change and vice versa: if we take drugs (chemicals) and change the chemical balance in our brain our state of mind will change also. And probably those two equations are just variables of the main equation called karma :-)

 

Best regards,

3ndr3

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Tashi Delek,

There are many more hormones and neurotransmitters and our moods and thoughts may well be just the result of the “cocktail of the dayâ€.

I would say the opposite. Our emotional habits and repeating thought patterns will produce different "coctails", and we will have to deal with their effects on our nervous system. It's a cycle (cause and effect), but I would put the mind first. If we don't, our hands are tied.

Buddhists would say that hormones (their causes) are deep-rooted desires and delusions: our obscured mind.

The Buddha taught that in order to be happy we must subdue the mind... then any coctail will be <|:)

 

Best regards

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Buddhists would say that hormones (their causes) are deep-rooted desires and delusions: our obscured mind.

I am not sure where exactly i got this idea... :))

 

3ndr3 couldn't explain it better... :)

 

Best regards,

Khyenrab

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I agree with 3ndr3,

 

It has also been seen, that non-alpha-male rats have shown some uncharacteristic, bossy behaviour, after they had been administered a seratonin injection. A state of mind being the consequence of chemicals.

It has also been proven, that the seratonin level of a player in a team sport raised after the player had been chosen as the captain of the team. Chemicals are the consequence of a new state of mind.

 

Jigme

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I have read two separate ideas about matter and consciousness. One stated that matter, at its most subtle level, was prana, which is inseperable from consciousness. Just different vibration states i guess. The other talked about space particles being in existence only later to interact with consciousness to create the living forms we see around us.This seems to suggest that consciousness and matter are two separate things. If thoughts are hormones and hormones matter....it would seem that consciousness is matter and the 1st hypothesis would be correct...that matter and consciousness are not two separate things. I love our new background!!! :?

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Tashi Delek.

 

Thank you all for your answers!

And thank you, Ani Chödrön for the book recommendation!

 

I have read two separate ideas about matter and consciousness. One stated that matter, at its most subtle level, was prana, which is inseperable from consciousness.

I heard that Prana or Lung is the energy of life. Consciousness and vitality of the body belong to Prana.

So I would also say that prana is inseparable from consciousness. Matter has to be connected with Prana because it is even the basic energy of everyone`s life.

 

I would add something to your discussion about the medical point of view. I agree with you, draftsman. It is all karma. And if you suffer from cancer it will be karma. Western medicine can`t cure you, it can only take the symptoms away. I read about some visualisations. They are like an inner fire which can burn carmic traces. Your intention must be very clear and you need a Lama who helps you.

Finally it is Prana, which has the power to recover from cancer.

 

All the best,

Kama :*

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Guest 3ndr3

Tashi Delek!

 

Regarding this subject, I wonder how are thoughts and the language connected? If the thoughts arise from emptiness then in this process of arising they take up some form, which I think is in some language. But if the mind is without gender then I assume that it enjoys language freedom also…:D so it must exist some universal language of mind, which also allows communication (like to know what is on somebody mind). :?

 

I would appreciate very much your thoughts on this.

 

Best regards;

3ndr3

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Tashi Delek.

 

In the mind there are five always presented mental factors and each thought is preceded by the feeling about something. These feelings can be hardly to decribe more exactly, and when they are put into some concepts they become narrow. This happens by putting them into words, as they become a thought. So, words and thoughts are basically the same. I guess it was one Japanese author, I forgot his name, who wrote that we mistakenly claim that we make decisions accordingly what we think. Yet, we take decision on the basis of the feelings. Thoughts and feelings are like two levels, among which feelings are more subtle (even in the process of dying there would be feelings about the process itself and on the certain stage thoughts would fall away, while feelings would go on). Of course one takes a decision on the “thinking” level also, but it is just a manifestation of the preceded feeling. For example, when you meet some new person, the first few seconds are decisive about the whole relationship. And one would on the basis of the feelings shape the role of this person, which won`t be changed or very very hardly to be changed. No matter what this new person would say to us, i. e. it is not about what that person would say, but about how will say it. About the communication, thoughts have their own language (words), the body has its own language (gestures, body manifestations) and the mind also has its own language (51 mental factors, i. e. states of mind).

 

Best regards,

Simona

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Guest 3ndr3

Tashi Delek.

 

Thank you very much for your thorough answer.

...thoughts have their own language (words)...
But then I wonder how is a new born baby capable of thinking?

 

Best regards,

3ndr3

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Tashi Delek.

But then I wonder how is a new born baby capable of thinking?
It is the question of the criteria, i. e. where we locate the point, in which thinking turns to non-thinking. I would say that a new born baby does think. Yet, the lack of mastery the language certainly leaves some consequences on the lenght, quality and skilfulness of the process of thinking on the gross levels of consciousness, which does not mean that some processes are not taking place on the subtlest levels of the consciousness. We know that a new born baby spend more time in the dream state of sleep and I guess this is the state in which s/he come in the contact with the personal potential of thinking or s/he even might experiences thinking as a memory of it from the past lives.

 

Best regards,

Simona

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Guest 3ndr3

Tashi Delek.

 

I definitely agree with you Simona :D!

I mean the babies do dream and they often smile during their sleep :). And the dreams must have close relations to the memories from the past. I wonder if we could help the babies to remember their past lives (although I don’t know if it would be appropriate or not).

 

Best regards,

3ndr3

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Tashi Delek, 3ndr3

I wonder if we could help the babies to remember their past lives (although I don’t know if it would be appropriate or not).
I don`t see the purpose in helping babies to remember their past lives. Memories arise from the so called store house accordingly to karma and one`s "life rhythm".

Nevertheless, we could help babies while they are growing up and accordingly to their abilities how to change one`s store house into treasure house. We ourselves being an example...

 

Best regards,

Simona

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Guest 3ndr3

Tashi Delek, Simona.

I don`t see the purpose in helping babies to remember their past lives.
If I think about it neather do I.
store house into treasure house
I must admit that I am not familiar with these terms. Can you please tell more

 

All the very best,

3ndr3

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