Thorns in my flesh.

Who am I? Am I my ideas, and my thoughts? My ideas that tell me what I am, and what I am not? You may say to me. "Well, without my ideas, how would I function in life?" If we take a look at the world in a whole, we'll find it doesn't really function. Chaos, would be the word that more accurately describes it. So during zazen, we get a chance to revisit how functional our own mind is. What is it these ideas, concepts, and stories really do to our own sense of being? Learn how to remove them, and see what happens.



Ideas are like thorns in my flesh. When an object brushes against the thorns, they impede our ability to get a true sense of the object. Instead other things become dominant. The wound, the pain, the resistance to the pain. So we automatically blame the object. We can't see the thorn as the cause. Basically the ideas say, "I am not what I am experiencing". Which make us feel small, and limited. But all experiences take place in the mind. Are we not the mind? How much does the mind wiegh? Well, lets try removing some thorns, some ideas, and see what happens.


When entering the business of removing thorns, we don't want to be unequipped. What we need is a band aid, an anecdote. We need a simple affirmation. An affirmation that says we are EVERYTHING that we encounter. Yes, everything. If this seems to be to much for you, look at it this way. When we have an experience, the basic thing that is happening is just, neurons firing.


Is it possible to remove thorns? I say yes! So let's return to functioning. Let's rest, without chaos.