Thinking – Starred
These are my favourites, the most important ones.
All the listings: the starred items, the topics, all items, and recently added items.
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⭕️ TMWT
- Read widely and from people you disagree with.
- We construct our reality. Perception is active participation.
- We are the cosmos becoming more itself, becoming aware of itself.
- Subject and object are distinct, but not separate.
- There’s lots we don’t understand. It can feel spooky. It should inspire awe.
- Simplicity is a feature of our models, not reality.
- Resistance to the flow brings beauty, complexity.
- Reality is one indivisible whole, in constant motion.
- Prefer the bigger, more integrated picture.
- Opposites co-exist, making something new and taut and harmonious.
- Important truths must be approached gently, indirectly, in a looping spiral.
🙆 Acceptance
- It's not a quiet mind that matters but non-attachment to the activities of the mind.
- Not a heroic quest, but a silent attunement.
- Everything is perfect as it is, even the ego that insists it's not.
- Find peace by resting in the wider whole, of this and not-this.
- Rest in the wider space of awareness.
- Practice is not having a problem with the endless stream of problems.
- Let go. Don't push, don't pull. Make space.
- Nothing's worse than attacking what yields.
- Give everything a warm welcome.
🦢 Antifragile
- Read widely and from people you disagree with.
💖 Brave
- Take measured doses of discomfort to expand your comfort zone.
- Speak up.
- Be vulnerable.
☸️ Buddhism
- The wholeness of life is all there is.
- The separation of subject and object is only conceptual.
- Clarity is accepting what's clear and what's not clear.
- The effort to be a different person increases the tension, the suffering.
- Practice grows the amount of life you can hold with becoming upset, without it dominating you.
- It's not a quiet mind that matters but non-attachment to the activities of the mind.
- Right Mindfulness (including Right Action (including Right Speech)).
- Pay close attention to the consequences of your behaviour.
- Everything is perfect as it is, even the ego that insists it's not.
- When meditating, be very gentle with your concentration.
- Meditation is about resting. Not-doing, relaxing, refreshing, recharging.
- Nothing to gain, no results. Just the process.
- To be able to provide help we need a little calm, a little joy, a little compassion.
- The task of the meditator is to care for bad feelings, like an older sibling.
- The self is just a concept, coming from identifying with what's arising.
- The problem is the reactivity, triggered by the underlying feeling tone, creating a compelling narrative.
- The knowing and the object arise as a pair, distinct but not separate.
- The freedom is in the not-(becoming).
- Making yourself an attractive object doesn't help you be happy as a subject.
- Find peace by resting in the wider whole, of this and not-this.
- Practice is not having a problem with the endless stream of problems.
- The Three Marks Of Existence: Impermanence (Anicca); Suffering (Dukkha); No-self (Anatta).
- Let go. Don't push, don't pull. Make space.
- Free will is an illusion. Can you decide to decide?
- Things only exist by convention, in aggregates.
- The ocean, not the waves.
- Subject and object are distinct, but not separate.
- Respond rather than react. Intensity and reactivity breed more of the same.
- Give everything a warm welcome.
- Concepts put imaginary fences around things.
- Begin Again, with with a fresh, open-hearted, perspective.
☯️ Daoism
- The Sage doesn't cling to their own comfort, thus problems are no problems for them.
- That which has no substance enters where there is no space.
- Three jewels of Daoism: humility, compassion, simplicity.
- Our life is a gift from everyone. None of us have earned our keep.
- New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.
- To be noticed / perceived, something has to be different. We filter our sameness.
- The potential infinite collapsing into the actual finite.
- Take problems seriously, but handle them calmly.
- Don't do anything except be open to the possibility of being more relaxed.
- Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose at hand.
- Notice, harmonise, and integrate patterns in polarities.
- The rivers all flow to the sea because it's beneath them.
- Quietly, discreetly, serve the common good.
- Form is employed to make things clever. Emptiness is employed to make things useful.
- Where the pot's not is where it's useful.
- Slow your tempo.
- Opposites co-exist, making something new and taut and harmonious.
- Nothing's worse than attacking what yields.
- Expert consciousness is nondual. The (constructed) boundary between doer and doing vanishes.
- A person can't be reduced to their usefulness.
📍 Experience
- Transcend difficulties through deep surrender.
- Transcend difficulties through deep surrender.
- The separation of subject and object is only conceptual.
- Clarity is accepting what's clear and what's not clear.
- Everything is perfect as it is, even the ego that insists it's not.
- To be noticed / perceived, something has to be different. We filter our sameness.
- The witness and the object are two sides of the same experience.
- Reality is not given to you twice.
- Nothing to gain, no results. Just the process.
- Wait for a better question to arise from loose and open attention.
- The knowing and the object arise as a pair, distinct but not separate.
- The first instant is before before classification, measuring, labelling.
- Sense fields: What shape is it? What size it? Where are the edges?
- Anything that can be named or located can't be you: it's an object in awareness.
- Nondual practice is nondoing, relaxing.
- Being outdoors, in nature, wakes up our physical senses.
- The separate self arises in resisting and seeking.
- Find peace by resting in the wider whole, of this and not-this.
- Rest in the wider space of awareness.
- Find just enough space to notice what's going on.
- Be interested in what's happening, not caught up in it and identified with it.
- Be, accept, the whole of your experience, not just some of it.
- We construct our reality. Perception is active participation.
- Give everything a warm welcome.
- Concepts put imaginary fences around things.
👤 Human
- Three jewels of Daoism: humility, compassion, simplicity.
- Our life is a gift from everyone. None of us have earned our keep.
- New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.
- When you feel like a bad person, you're more likely to do bad things.
- Right Mindfulness (including Right Action (including Right Speech)).
- Pay close attention to the consequences of your behaviour.
- To be noticed / perceived, something has to be different. We filter our sameness.
- Take problems seriously, but handle them calmly.
- There's no need to start the day with productivity debt.
- To be able to provide help we need a little calm, a little joy, a little compassion.
- Making yourself an attractive object doesn't help you be happy as a subject.
- We are in and of the world, not separate from it.
- Orient towards unity, wholeness, the peace therein.
- Being outdoors, in nature, wakes up our physical senses.
- We interpret states according to our stage.
- Problems start when you dismiss or deny a perspective.
- Don't dismiss what you find just because it doesn't match your existing model.
- Practice is not having a problem with the endless stream of problems.
- Quietly, discreetly, serve the common good.
- The Three Marks Of Existence: Impermanence (Anicca); Suffering (Dukkha); No-self (Anatta).
- Change your tone from critic to coach.
- Read widely and from people you disagree with.
- Free will is an illusion. Can you decide to decide?
- Speak up.
- Reframe. In time, in space.
- Prefer the bigger, more integrated picture.
- Give Benefits, freely and easily.
- A person can't be reduced to their usefulness.
- Be vulnerable.
❤️ Love
- Change your tone from critic to coach.
- Respond rather than react. Intensity and reactivity breed more of the same.
- Reframe. In time, in space.
- Give Benefits, freely and easily.
🧘 Mindfulness
- Transcend difficulties through deep surrender.
- Transcend difficulties through deep surrender.
- Practice grows the amount of life you can hold with becoming upset, without it dominating you.
- Don't do anything except be open to the possibility of being more relaxed.
- When meditating, be very gentle with your concentration.
- Meditation is about resting. Not-doing, relaxing, refreshing, recharging.
- There's no need to start the day with productivity debt.
- The task of the meditator is to care for bad feelings, like an older sibling.
- The problem is the reactivity, triggered by the underlying feeling tone, creating a compelling narrative.
- Being outdoors, in nature, wakes up our physical senses.
- Notice what you map to your sense of self. For example: anxiety vs indigestion.
- We interpret states according to our stage.
- Don't dismiss what you find just because it doesn't match your existing model.
- Find just enough space to notice what's going on.
- Be interested in what's happening, not caught up in it and identified with it.
- Be, accept, the whole of your experience, not just some of it.
- Take measured doses of discomfort to expand your comfort zone.
- The ocean, not the waves.
- The feeling of self is what it feels like to be thinking without realising you're thinking.
- Slow your tempo.
- Reframe. In time, in space.
- Begin Again, with with a fresh, open-hearted, perspective.
🌊 Motion
- The rivers all flow to the sea because it's beneath them.
- Resistance to the flow brings beauty, complexity.
🌘 Nondual
- Notice how the boundaries move when you to try to fix them, grasp them.
- Who will be the knower once the self is know? The knower must be the self.
- The wholeness of life is all there is.
- The separation of subject and object is only conceptual.
- The self is a modality of action, not the seat of our identity.
- Sense the indefinite, flexible, indeterminate boundaries.
- Not a heroic quest, but a silent attunement.
- "I don't know." Remind yourself of the fact, not try to make it know.
- "ego-reframe" more than "ego death": revealing the interconnected relationships of self and reality, rather than a process of erasure and reconstruction.
- "We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains."
- The witness and the object are two sides of the same experience.
- Reality is not given to you twice.
- A mirror only gives not-mirror. But it also only gives it in the mirror!
- The knowing and the object arise as a pair, distinct but not separate.
- Making yourself an attractive object doesn't help you be happy as a subject.
- We are in and of the world, not separate from it.
- The first instant is before before classification, measuring, labelling.
- Sense fields: What shape is it? What size it? Where are the edges?
- Orient towards unity, wholeness, the peace therein.
- When you think "I've found it!", that's not it. "It" is before thought.
- Not an injunction to do, but an invitation to rest.
- Anything that can be named or located can't be you: it's an object in awareness.
- Nondual practice is nondoing, relaxing.
- Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose at hand.
- Notice, harmonise, and integrate patterns in polarities.
- If "I" am separate and free from my environment, how can I influence it and act on it?
- Where the pot's not is where it's useful.
- We construct our reality. Perception is active participation.
- We are the cosmos becoming more itself, becoming aware of itself.
- Things only exist by convention, in aggregates.
- Subject and object are distinct, but not separate.
- Reality is one indivisible whole, in constant motion.
- Expert consciousness is nondual. The (constructed) boundary between doer and doing vanishes.
↔️ Opposites
- Notice, harmonise, and integrate patterns in polarities.
- Form is employed to make things clever. Emptiness is employed to make things useful.
- Where the pot's not is where it's useful.
- Opposites co-exist, making something new and taut and harmonious.
💪 Resilience
- When you feel like a bad person, you're more likely to do bad things.
- Orient towards unity, wholeness, the peace therein.
- Change your tone from critic to coach.
- The ocean, not the waves.
- Nothing's worse than attacking what yields.
- Give everything a warm welcome.
- Begin Again, with with a fresh, open-hearted, perspective.
🙋 Self
- Who will be the knower once the self is know? The knower must be the self.
- The effort to be a different person increases the tension, the suffering.
- The self is a modality of action, not the seat of our identity.
- Sense the indefinite, flexible, indeterminate boundaries.
- Not a heroic quest, but a silent attunement.
- "ego-reframe" more than "ego death": revealing the interconnected relationships of self and reality, rather than a process of erasure and reconstruction.
- "We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains."
- The witness and the object are two sides of the same experience.
- Reality is not given to you twice.
- A mirror only gives not-mirror. But it also only gives it in the mirror!
- The self is just a concept, coming from identifying with what's arising.
- Not an injunction to do, but an invitation to rest.
- Anything that can be named or located can't be you: it's an object in awareness.
- The separate self arises in resisting and seeking.
- Notice what you map to your sense of self. For example: anxiety vs indigestion.
- If "I" am separate and free from my environment, how can I influence it and act on it?
- Free will is an illusion. Can you decide to decide?
- The ocean, not the waves.
- The feeling of self is what it feels like to be thinking without realising you're thinking.
🐌 Slowness
- Practice grows the amount of life you can hold with becoming upset, without it dominating you.
- "I don't know." Remind yourself of the fact, not try to make it know.
- Meditation is about resting. Not-doing, relaxing, refreshing, recharging.
- Nothing to gain, no results. Just the process.
- Wait for a better question to arise from loose and open attention.
- The problem is the reactivity, triggered by the underlying feeling tone, creating a compelling narrative.
- The freedom is in the not-(becoming).
- Let go. Don't push, don't pull. Make space.
- Slow your tempo.
- Respond rather than react. Intensity and reactivity breed more of the same.
🏛️ Stoicism
- Take measured doses of discomfort to expand your comfort zone.
- Respond rather than react. Intensity and reactivity breed more of the same.
- Reframe. In time, in space.
- Give Benefits, freely and easily.
⏰ Waking-up
- The wholeness of life is all there is.
- There's no need to start the day with productivity debt.
- A mirror only gives not-mirror. But it also only gives it in the mirror!
- If "I" am separate and free from my environment, how can I influence it and act on it?
- Free will is an illusion. Can you decide to decide?
- The feeling of self is what it feels like to be thinking without realising you're thinking.
- Subject and object are distinct, but not separate.
- Concepts put imaginary fences around things.
- Begin Again, with with a fresh, open-hearted, perspective.