Salad and Selfhood

[cabinintheforest]

Salad and selfhood

Does "Human selfhood" exist?

Can you make a salad without thinking?

Read this to find out.

A couple of days ago, i had to cook a meal i spent about 30 minutes making this meal.

I had a table with about 20 food ingredients on it. Plates, bowls, cutlery. I was making a huge salad.

These are some of the ingredients i had.

Lettuce, celery, spinach, garden rocket, cress, tomato, avocado, cucumber, onions, grapes etc.

These were all layed out, i had to cut them up and make a good salad out of them and put all the ingredients into a bowl.

Now first off i was thinking about what im going to do etc. But after a few minutes, thinking stopped. I was moving around the table, cutting up the ingredients, but i was not thinking. There were no thoughts. I was cutting, chopping, grating, making the best salad in the world... and i was not even thinking about it!!. I was not talking... my "mind" was silent. After i had finished making the salad thinking started again, thoughts came.. i was talking to myself.. the and i was in my imagination again.

After this experience had happened, thoughts came back in and i came out of that beautiful experience, i was angry!

But i am very pleased that i had this experience, for those minutes when i was making the salad i was not thinking it was so peaceful.

The question is for those 20 or 30 minutes when i was making that salad, where was i? There was no self.

This was such a simple and peaceful experience, but i felt like sharing it. I was present for 30 minutes that day when i was making that salad.. then the mind kicked back in with thoughts and i was thinking... it sucks. Wish the experience lasted longer!

Yummy

[zendancer]

Cabin: The salad looks great!

Now, here's the big secret that isn't really a secret; it is a truth that is simply overlooked. Who you really are is what does everything. Sometimes THAT is silent and sometimes THAT thinks. Sometimes THAT thinks/imagines that THAT is "Cabin." Sometimes THAT makes a salad in silence. Sometimes THAT thinks that making a salad in silence is peaceful and that a talkative mind sucks. This is very funny because only one thing is doing everything and that one thing isn't "Cabin." THAT is pumping blood, regulating hormones, walking, talking, eating, making salads, and...........thinking. Sometimes, with sufficient silence, THAT recognizes Itself and gets a big laugh. THAT loves to play hide and seek even when it doesn't know that only One is playing hide and seek.

[charliegee]

and that is precisely why I order out ... 'just saying' ...

[charliegee]

great lookin' salad though Cabin? ... you don't deliver, do you? ...

[karen]

Keep it up Cabin!

[peanut]

Cabin..looks yummers!!!!!

ZD...yes i agree. When THAT is in the flow and no thinking is happening it just feels so right. Actually any time out of the head feels right...maybe natural is a better word? So what i am asking is...is there a different flavor/feeling depending if thinking is happening or not ?

[zendancer]

Oct 13, 2010 18:54:30 GMT -5 peanut said:

Cabin..looks yummers!!!!!

ZD...yes i agree. When THAT is in the flow and no thinking is happening it just feels so right. Actually any time out of the head feels right...maybe natural is a better word? So what i am asking is...is there a different flavor/feeling depending if thinking is happening or not ?

That's a good question, but there's no one simple answer. It's a bit more complex than that.

The average person, who doesn't know anything about non-duality, thinks, but doesn't think about thinking, so thinking is not a problem. Thinking only becomes a problem when (1) thinking runs amok (creating stress, anxiety, depression, or other psychic disorders), (2) one reads about mindtalk and attempts to interrupt it or stop it, and (3) one recognizes how thinking hides the real world and tries to escape it in order to find reality. In the first case, one usually goes to a doctor and gets a prescription for an anti-depressant such as effexor (which stops repetitive thinking and cuts down the volume and intensity of thought). In the latter two cases there is sometimes a big fight--LOL--within the mind of the imaginary thinker who wants to stop thinking. The seeker suspects, or discovers, that not-thinking is more peaceful than thinking and pursues less thinking as a goal.

Eventually, if a person sees through the illusion of selfhood and discovers that thinking is a natural function of reality, thinking ceases to be a problem. If the mind thinks, fine. If the mind doesn't think, fine. In this case one quits reflecting about oneself and quits checking on whether thinking is happening or not, so the problem disappears by itself.

Probably most people who escape the mind (attain non-abidance in the mind) realize that most thinking is unnecessary, as well as tiresome, and therefore they don't think as much as they did prior to attaining freedom. At any rate, thinking is no longer a problem.

Is there a different flavor or feeling when thought is absent compared to when thought is present? Not in any specific sense, but in a general sense one is much happier, more relaxed, and more energized the less one thinks because thinking consumes a great deal of energy. Chess masters, for example, often lose ten to fifteen pounds of body weight during a tournament and they are doing nothing but sitting and thinking. Someone once wrote that the brain consumes more oxygen and sugar than any other organ in the body, and this probably explains why incessant thought is so debilitating.

Tolle once wrote that if someone asked him to name his greatest accommplishment it would be "freedom from incessant thought." He claimed that after his big enlightenment experience 80% of his thinking stopped, but he didn't realize this and didn't realize why he felt so good until he heard a Zen Master say that one of the goals of Zen was to become free from the burden of thought. It was only then that he realized 80% of his past thinking had ceased.

Ha ha. I don;t know whether any of these comments answered your question, but at the least they should give you some food for thought. LOL

[charliegee]

yeah, been readin' and thinkin' and ponderin' and it is tiring, frustrating and, well, boring ... then tonight, walking to a meeting listening to a song that reminded me of Maryann brought on such a wave of gratitude that it literally put a beat in my step and I was happy ... happy and grateful ... maybe that still is thought and reasoning and discrimination but it felt open and free ...

[peanut]

ZD...you continue to crack yourself up :-) and me too! yes thank you..helpful and was reassuring....