Let me just say than when I am less distracted by my thinking, I am more prone to glance at people in the same room as I am.
When I am more open to reality being different from what I prefer, I am more likely to notice person X is tense or sad or energetic (than to think 's!!! What now!?! Why me!') When I have tended my own body/mind sufficiently, I am more able to be a positive witness to a person in the discomfort of unwanted emotions, and less likely to take personal attacks as personal. So in sum, people are pretty good at assessing physiological states of one another, but not that good at detecting the contents of thought or the locus of attention. Thanks, Chris Austin-Lane Sent from a cell phone On Jan 14, 2011, at 8:37, Rose P <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Mel: Habitual/regular mind reading would be quite unnatural for a zen way of > life.... > > R: I'm hooked into pondering a little on this today Mel. The things I'm > pondering on are 1. the no *goal* aspect of zen 2. the fact that humans are > prone to assess another persons mind. > > As for the flowers, I know for sure that after I've gotten over my 'Wow, what > did I do to deserve this?' routine, I'd be like........'Whoa, lovely > stuff!!!'. Flowers and chocolates are not something I receive regularly, can > you tell?? Lol. > > Rose > > > > --- On Fri, 1/14/11, Mel <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Mel <[email protected]> > Subject: [Zen] beginner's mind, romantic moments, etc(to Rose/list) > To: [email protected] > Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 11:11 AM > > Greetings Rose and forum > > --- On Fri, 14/1/11, Rose P <[email protected]> wrote: > > ROSE: Is this something to do with the fact that we're all practising, and > no-one really ever actually achieves beginners mind 100%? But still, > beginners mind is something that we might agree is a goal (not the right > word) of sorts...... > > MEL: The beginner's mind is there, and was always there. It will never go > away, but it does get covered by desires, demands, and other short-comings we > place upon ourselves > > ROSE: Conversely, trying to assess the minds of others would seem to be > fraught with mucho danger! Sometimes we're bang on, most of the time we're > not. This I know from personal experience. > > MEL: Of course. Habitual/regular mind-reading (eg. in romance) would be quite > unnatural for a Zen way of life. We have eyes and ears, and what we see or > hear, is what we get > > ROSE: If I was given flowers and chocolates I suspect that my automatic > thought would be - wow, what did I do to deserve these? So I guess the > cynicism would be towards myself, not towards the giver. > > MEL: Or, a woman could/would think... > > - ...Hmmm..is he moving in on me? I don't even like him! > - I hate flowers, and I'm tryin' to lose some freakin' weight!(*big laughter) > - Oh s**t, how do I brush this guy off? > > in peace > Mel > > > > >
