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Talk: 19840920-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-buddhas_ancient_med_path_a_modern_challenge_part_ii-1516 Leandra Tejedor Start_time: 08:50 Display_question: In my experience thinking is a part of my meditation practice. Can you clarify what you mean about being attentive to not thinking? Keyword_search: awareness, meditator, thinking intellectual, wholeheartedly, love Question_content: Questioner: (inaudible) How possible is…to what you're talking about not thinking? You were also talking about earlier the attentiveness, to the fact that you are, and being wise in a sense that you're thinking it's another meditator back in your awareness about talking about this. Larry: Yes. Questioner: (inaudible) In my own experience. I think I know what you're speaking of, but I think it's extremely rare. Larry: What is? Questioner: To have experiences in which I feel that this thinking is not a part of it. Larry: Okay, then all you can honestly say that it's rare in your experience. Okay, but then supposing your job, is an intellectual job. Meditation should help you do that, in a superior way, because you become more attuned to thought, and thought starts to purify itself. In other words, the language that's more appropriate for what's happening starts to be refined. In other words, if you pay attention to your mind, and also your actions, you're going to see that a lot of your thoughts are lies, and half truths… that we rant and rave. But if you hold yourself responsible, you can't escape the fact that a lot of the stuff that comes out of the mind, is not reliable. And out of that, just the observation of it, not any editing comes a natural editing, where thought becomes more precise. Break_line: Okay now, let's say your job is to be a professor. You have to think, you have to read. Okay, you would just do that wholeheartedly, in other words so you're fully doing that, so that it's not to get rid of thought, though. There are some times when there's no thought, and there are other times when thoughts are appropriate. I would say it's not viewing thought as, an enemy, or bad. The key is… can we be free of thought, so that we can use it, when it's appropriate? And to not endlessly think about things, when it just goes nowhere. 2000 times the same thought, worrying about the same thing, digging very deep holes in the mind, and making the mind old, and dull, before it's time. You can see that, and see that it's going nowhere, and let go of it. And then there are other times, certain technical activities require thought, and so we have to be good at using thought. And so meditation is not designed to make you a misfit, or more of a misfit than you may be… already. Does that make any sense? No, if it doesn't, let's keep going. Questioner: Let me see if I can jump in here. Larry: Jump in. Questioner: Almost all of my life I have related to things on this purely intellectual level. And for while I was saying what's wrong with the world is that it is so irrational that people could think we could think our way through to solutions. and then somehow through some workshops. Various things... Larry: You got brainwashed Questioner: Some kind of intuitive energy. And this may sound very triumph. I thought of my best year for Europe, and being very attentive. And is that somehow going to set you apart from what you're seeing? And what I found is, that now I walk to work, and I see all these things, and I see a crow in a tree, I see these peacocks, and I thought I was writing poetry work this morning. I don't think the thing does catch as… Larry: I can only personally tell you that whatever the degree of my ability to love was, that meditation has opened it more. In other words, the ability to feel closer to people, has definitely increased. I'm not saying it's any place special, but relative to where I was, there's just no question. That because the barrier is thought. And as we start to see that in order, as we separate ourselves from each other, and as more, and more we start to see how we do that, and then feel unfulfilled, and then try to bridge a gulf which we've created, we do that less and less, and we feel close. It's not cultivated. Maybe there's something intrinsic to life. We feel close to each other, just because we're all human, we're all alive. So personally, it has not made me more detached, in that sense, or alienated. End_time: 13:47