Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Talking

And then a scholar said, 'Speak of Talking.'
And he answered, saying:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude
of your heart you live in your lips, and sound
is a diversion and a pastime.

Is that not interesting, to be at peace with your thoughts?

So often practice is misunderstood as getting rid of thoughts, to replace 'bad' thoughts with 'good' ones. Or indeed to get rid of them all together. The basic delusion is that 'I am my thoughts'. Then follows, if my thoughts are bad, I'm bad. There is a world of difference however between dwelling in thoughts and dwell in the solitude of your heart. Thoughts are not excluded, you are at peace with your thoughts.

Take a look at the whole poem why not.