Tuesday Jan 08, 2008
A Show of Hand
When you do hear the truth, there is nothing more to say.
The word chair, or a painting of a chair isnt the chair. The artist Mark Rothko painted his floating abstracts of vertically aligned rectangles large enough so the viewer could step in and feel engulfed, to have a transcendental moment.
Is art the truth itself or the doorway?
As the Japanese Zen priest, Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, said: “When I raise the hand thus, there is Zen. But when I assert that I have raised the hand, Zen is no more there.”
That moment is gone. When you call attention to the moment with thinking, the truth of it is already gone.
What relevance does this have to me? An insight leads to understanding, and understanding is the goal.
Don’t doubt your courage to feel the truth from wherever it might come.
I think I understand your point, but why is thinking bad?
Thinking is not bad. Let me clarify. Insights spring up from intuition, which is an immediate understanding that bypasses any need for cognitive foreplay.
An insight is a unique realization that does not rely on any previous thought. Grasp this, and you will find harmony between thinking and feeling—emotional intelligence.
