LIVING IN THE REALITY.VIETNAMESE TRANSLATE ENGLISH BY=THICH CHAN TANH.AUSTRALIA,SYDNEY.

 

Chapter 4

True thinking

  

Can say, think or think is the most outstanding and unique point of mankind. Thoughts raise the level of awareness and give people countless good achievements in many areas. Thinking about thinking, reasoning, interpretation, understanding, concept, theory, philosophy and many other intellectual activities, including the most practical science, must also consider thinking as a key . People who do not think are no different from stone wood.

However, because the operation of thinking is too complex, inaccurate, often distorted by the subjectivity of instinct, emotion and reason within the limits of the ambiguous, ambiguous, fragmented knowledge, So the thought does not go away from being misleading, judgments, contempt ... This has led to so many disasters for people.

Thought leads every action and speaking activity. Therefore, misguided thought naturally leads to action, speaking wrongly and the result is certainly suffering and sorrow - not just for individuals but also for the community. Many thoughts have brought disaster to all humanity whether it is against it or against it.

For that reason, Lao Tzu said: "Prosecution, security, investment, education" (Seeing the essence, keeping rustic, thinking less, reducing desire). Jesus said: "Become like a child". Krishnamurti said: "Stop thinking". Zen Tong said: "Thinking wrongly" (Thinking is wrong), or "Path language, mind and body destroying" (Ending the language path, mind and mind, etc.) Many people misunderstood the words teach this wisdom, that it is necessary to end all activities of thought to enlighten the truth. But when you try to stop thinking, it is when you are motivated by the "thought that wants to end" full of subjectivity. If you end your thoughts too soon, your mind will die, and if you end it too late, the truth has already passed. So how do you know how to stop thinking in time?

In fact, you don't need to stop thinking. When you are truly mindful, your mindfulness will stop at the right time naturally, and it will be ready to react immediately, when necessary. So, while being mindful and alert, if thought stops itself, it is right understanding, if thought starts rightly and accurately (coming from right view) then that is righteous thinking.

Right understanding helps you directly identify things honestly. Right thinking helps you understand things practically. Right view and right mindfulness are two aspects of wisdom. On the same reality, righteousness recognizes the nature of reality, while the mind of thinking recognizes the summation of the phenomenon. Although both do not appear at the same time, but always alternately support each other in the process of identifying the truth. Just like the legs carrying out the movement, this leg is stable for the other foot to step forward, and vice versa; although the two legs do not perform the same movement at the same time, they always take turns to complement each other to take steady, precise steps. If one is removed, we immediately become crippled. Also, people who are too biased or intuitive but lack thinking are worse than those who know to think critically.

So don't be afraid to think. Keep thinking in calm, wise on the facts that right understanding has discovered; Do not rely too much on knowledge borrowed from outside that has not been verified or has not been directly tested. Right view only comes when you are mindfully aware, that is, when thought stops itself, it is not that you subjectively stop it.

There are four types of thoughts:

1) The thought of responding naturally:  This thought silently responds to natural conditions or needs. For example, when hungry, naturally there is a thought to eat; sitting for a long time with thoughts that want to stand, walk, or lie ... This kind of thought works quietly, hard to detect, seemingly not existing, because it is hidden behind your actions, mostly in love unconscious condition. You cannot eliminate this natural instinctive thought, because it is one of the essential elements of life. What you need is not to destroy this thought, but simply listen to yourself, you can detect it and not be unconsciously controlled by it as just a puppet.

2) Thoughts reflect reality:  When mindful awareness reaches the appropriate level, the thought automatically stops and the right view of nature arises, realizing the true nature (true nature). But immediately after that, the thinking automatically arises to revise and explain the solution just to be vindicated by the right view. That is righteous thinking. This kind of thought is essential in the realm of daily life. Because of this mindset, the Saints know what is enlightened and the Buddha knows how to be alive. Therefore, it is impossible to eliminate this natural function of thinking subjectively.

3) Unexpected thoughts: This is the kind of thought that is often spontaneously spontaneous when your mind is not calm, wise or uninterested and peaceful; means an inner disorder, tension, insecurity. When the mind accumulates too much information in a state of lack of awareness, these unconsciously stored data will become impulses creating a multitude of "wild ideological" waves called distractions or elections. . This kind of thinking stirred up the mind that was difficult to stabilize, and aggravated can become paranoid in manic mental illness. Don't suppress it, if you subjectively try to hold it back, it may stop for a moment, then flare up in other opportunities or in other worse forms. You just need to calmly observe, listen, feel or recognize it objectively, objectively.

4) Intentional thought creation:  This thinking activity creates purposeful and deliberate behavior. This kind of thinking is quite complicated, right and wrong, good and evil. However, you do not need to try to stop all this kind of thought, just observe objectively and subtly the evolution of each thought to see its true nature: Right or wrong, good or evil, foot or fake, kill or give birth ... When you see that way, you will know exactly which thoughts should be prevented and eliminated; Any thought should be maintained, developed, naturally, without choosing subjective opinions according to the mind, the sex.

Of course, when you see the wrong thoughts, pollution, unwholesomeness, derived from craving and confusion, causing troubles and suffering for yourself and people, you should prevent and eliminate. Typically, thoughts of craving, hatred or harm. 

The right ideas, fresh, gentle, derived from wisdom, compassion, purity, peace for ourselves and people should maintain and develop. Typically, the thoughtless mind, no yard, harmless. Positive words are selfless thoughts, compassion, love, sharing. This kind of positive thought grows as much as possible, but it should not be rushed to end it just because it wants to be peaceful and peaceful.

This is an inevitable path in the process of inner perfection and wisdom to enlighten liberation. When Balas, like wisdom and virtue, have not been fully fulfilled but you have tried to stop thinking or stop your mind, this relegation is still the product of the "self-thought" that only!

So you need to see the difference between the two states of ideology:

- Thought self-pausing:  When you completely let go, mindfulness awareness will apply in a natural, impartial and objective way. Right then your thoughts automatically stop to give insight to the reality that operates in accordance with self nature and the principle of non-self.

- Thought is stopped:  When under the pressure of will, being controlled by other purposeful subjective thoughts or a deliberate kind of practice that you train in a certain way to stop thought, in fact, this cessation of thought is just another form of self-thought.

In short, thought does not matter or the thought of stopping does not matter, but it is important what the nature of it is and how attentive it is to it:

- Be wise or bewitched.

- Dharma or agreement.

- Real nature or concept.

- Ignore or accept.

- Non-love or craving.

Although thought stops but there is a craving, accepting that state of discontinuation, this pause is just a state of virtualization, not a pure mind in a natural light, not a true nature. , President Net Nirvana. According to Vipassanā meditation, when thought arises intellectually, it is clear that when the thought stops intellectually, it is clear that wisdom sees the impermanent nature of thought so do not rely attached to the state of birth or the state of cessation of thought, not to that state of one's being, one's own or one's self. There is wisdom in the senses (wisdom, right view) so the thought that arises or stops is depending on the infinite conditions.

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In terms of real nature (paramattha), thinking is a general use of naturally available wisdom. In terms of regulation (paññatti), thinking is one of the three means of writing, private, cultivation of the prime wisdom through experience. Therefore,  thinking in mindfulness is righteous thinking, so not all thoughts are delusions, but true thinking helps you in many ways about both truthfulness and unity:

- Illuminate unconscious thoughts:  When you lack awareness, you often think unconsciously like the above-mentioned kind of wild thought. The reason for the unconscious ideological thought is that it is not yet known and rightly thought, so the mindset is the process of formalizing these unconscious thoughts.

- Promoting useful positive thoughts, eliminating harmful negative thoughts: Righteous thinking develops positive and positive thoughts so negative negative thoughts like sexual thoughts, ideological thoughts, and harms I thought I would disable myself without using them.

- Adjust thinking back to its true function:  Thinking has both made and caused because it leads to speaking and acting. Wrong thinking will lead to conclusions, advocates, misconceptions and, of course, the consequences of harming people. The right mindset is the positive function of the mind.

- Supporting the right view in the process of comprehending the truth:  As we have said, knowing right and right thinking are two aspects of wisdom. Right view without righteous thinking only sees the base but does not see it. But in fact this is not possible, because once there is right understanding, there must be righteous thinking, new wisdom is perfect.

- Redefine what the right view has realized:  After the perception under the Bodhi root, the Buddha takes forty-nine days to rethink what he has realized in a speechless way. That is why He can express the truth to everyone.

- Making bricks connecting the right view with the right speech:  The Buddha's reflection after realization is the process of conveying his verbal self-talk to people in a language of design.

__________  

Question:

- He says good and evil, right and wrong, etc., is a concept, and he also says that right thinking is wrong and that good and evil are good. Now that thinking is falling into the concept, how can I think honestly?

A:

- Evil, right and wrong are not always concepts, unless they are conceptualized. To make it easier to understand, we are temporarily divided into four categories:

1) The true nature of good and evil is perceived as they are, beyond concept, meaning independent of all our rules.  For example, when you quietly feel the anger or kindness with mindfulness and awareness, you still see the specificity of each psychological state without conceptualizing with words or thoughts. both.

2) The concept of good and evil is defined on the basis of meaning, phenomenon, form, synthesis, space, time, etc.  For example, the concept of almsgiving or theft, although it indicates an action but it is only a complex phenomenon that does not have its own nature depending on the regulations of each community.

3) The concept stipulates to name the true nature of events.  For example, the name of the nature of the facts: Sad, happy, miserable, lost, greed, etc., Although it is the name, behind it still contains the nature of the fact.

4) The concept of assumptions for naming ideas or conceptions that people agree on with each other  because of utility in mutual relations, not in nature, without facts. Examples are filial, filial, loyal, betrayal, honor, disgrace, etc.

In short, the nature of facts is not different, but there are many different concepts depending on each person, each group or each community about the event. Thus, thinking based on the nature of reality (type 1) and on the concept of identification for the nature of nature (type 3) can still be honest and accurate thinking. But thinking according to the concept of form (type 2) or the concept of purity (type 4) is still true and false according to the concept of each person, each group or each community.

__________  

Ask:

- Can we use good thoughts to defeat bad thoughts, like the Buddha taught "Taking compassion to win hatred"?

A:

- No, it can't be. You misunderstood the Buddha. He didn't mean that. In the Dhammapada, he taught: "In this world hatred never ends with hatred, but only ends with compassion, that is the law of eternity." This does not mean taking benevolence to kill hatred (evil), but when there is good thought, there is no evil thought, because these two thoughts cannot appear at the same time in the same mind. You cannot take human thought to destroy hateful thoughts, because hatred will become more discreet and sly. In fact, most of the thoughts that you use to fight and destroy have the nature of anger that can be benevolent! When there is compassion, there will be no anger inside. Mercy does not need to fight against hatred.

We need to see that, in opposing use, there is often an attitude of discontent from the reaction of the ego - the ego wants to destroy the disapproval to achieve the desire. This contains tension between the pitch and the greed, leading to tension and energy consumption. On the contrary, when you actually return to know the full state of the pitch, don't react, don't intervene or censor, criticize you then feel a cool stream of words flooding your soul; the temper, the tension, the annoyance of the anger disappeared on its own, without consuming any energy or effort to destroy the mind. In doing so you do not fall into the "victorious self" or the "I gain". Lao Tzu called it "Real struggle for victory". END=NAM MO SAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUN=THICH CHAN TANH.GOLDEN AMITABHA MONASTERY=AUSTRALIA,SYDNEY.6/5/2019.