Hi Marsha, A most apt quotation. It answers the question, "Who is the I that knows me?" Ken Wilber calls this internal observer the "Witness." Also, referred to by the poet Wallace Stevens as "beauty" as in, "The body dies; the body's beauty lives."
Thanks for sharing, Platt On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 5:30 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > "As a human being we have a mind that can reflect and observe. You can > observe whether you are happy or miserable. You can observe the anger or > jealousy or confusion in your mind. When you are sitting and feel really > confused and upset, there is that in you which knows it. You might hate it > and just blindly react to it, but if you are more patient you can observe > that this is a temporary changing condition of confusion or anger or greed. > But an animal cannot do that; when it is angry it is completely that, lost > in it. Tell an angry cat to watch its anger! I have never been able to get > anywhere with our cat, she cannot reflect on greed. But _I_ can, and I am > sure that the rest of you can. I see delicious food in front of me, and the > movement in the mind is the same as our cat Doris's. But we can observe the > animal attraction to things that smell good and look good. > > "This is using wisdom by watching the impulse, and understanding it. > That which observes greed is not greed; greed cannot observe itself, but > that which is not greed can observe it. This observing is what is called > 'Buddha' or 'Buddha wisdom' - awareness of the way things are. > > (MINDULNESS by the Venerable Ajahn Sumedho) > > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
