HI-SHIRYO, Non-thinking (2): Realistic consideration
Dear Mr Mike Cross,
I have read your blog HI-SHIRYO, non-thinking, and I also felt that
your consideration was
a kind of very pure idealistic thoughts. Therefore I would like to
recommend you to have a
special training to think all kinds of philosophical problems on the
basis of consideration,
in which you will think about everything on the basis of completely
separated four philosophies.
For example when you will think about a flower, first you will think it
on the basis of idealism.
Therefore you will think a flower that it is a kind of plant, which is a
kind of romantic symbol
suggesting love, beauty, hope, yearn, and so forth.
And in the second phase you think a flower as a materialistic plant on
the scientific knowledge.
Then you will think a flower, which is an object of botanical
viewpoint, that it is a part of plant having
miscellaneous colors, petals, stamens, pistols, calyces, and so forth.
But as a real flowers, which exist in our private room, they are put in
beautiful glass pots sometimes,
and they are soothing our feeling actually at the present moment.
And in conclusion a flower is something real, which really exists in
this world actually.
I think that such a kind of our intentional mental and physical
training is very useful for us to accustomed
to realistic consideration.
Have a good luck!
With best wishes Gudo Wafu Nishijima
I have read your blog HI-SHIRYO, non-thinking, and I also felt that
your consideration was
a kind of very pure idealistic thoughts. Therefore I would like to
recommend you to have a
special training to think all kinds of philosophical problems on the
basis of consideration,
in which you will think about everything on the basis of completely
separated four philosophies.
For example when you will think about a flower, first you will think it
on the basis of idealism.
Therefore you will think a flower that it is a kind of plant, which is a
kind of romantic symbol
suggesting love, beauty, hope, yearn, and so forth.
And in the second phase you think a flower as a materialistic plant on
the scientific knowledge.
Then you will think a flower, which is an object of botanical
viewpoint, that it is a part of plant having
miscellaneous colors, petals, stamens, pistols, calyces, and so forth.
But as a real flowers, which exist in our private room, they are put in
beautiful glass pots sometimes,
and they are soothing our feeling actually at the present moment.
And in conclusion a flower is something real, which really exists in
this world actually.
I think that such a kind of our intentional mental and physical
training is very useful for us to accustomed
to realistic consideration.
Have a good luck!
With best wishes Gudo Wafu Nishijima
posted by Mike Cross at 12:55 PM
1 Comments:
Dear Sensei,
Thank you very much for your reply.
This weekend, Laurie Blundle, Alex Gould, Chie Shimizu and I practiced four sessions of sitting-meditation per day, following the schedule which you demonstrated in Japan. In the big room where we sat there is a small wooden table with a vase of rosemary twigs, with small blue flowers.
At the same time, on the window sill are some trays of seedlings, for example, seedlings of beetroot, lettuce, radishes, and brussel sprouts, and there are also some seed potatoes which are sprouting. Life in England for people on low income is becoming rather expensive recently, with rises in basic unavoidable expenses -- council tax, utility bills, food, et cetera -- growing faster than income. In response, I am enjoying the process of learning how to grow vegetables from seed, and now is the season for indoor sowing.
To grow potatoes takes energy, as it also takes energy to peel potatoes and cook them, then to chew them, swallow them, digest them, and shit them out. But, the energy which is released by digesting the potatoes is greater than the energy consumed by growing, peeling, cooking, chewing, swallowing, digesting, and shitting them.
Thus, thanks to the benevolence of some higher power which so miraculously provides a temporary obstruction to the spontaneous spreading out of energy, as predicted by the second law of thermodynamics, some surplus of energy is available for we human beings to direct as we like.
One activity which we like to practice is realistic consideration. Another one which we like even more is directing energy up the spine in our sitting-meditation.
On these points I believe that there is no difference between you and me, even though our verbal explanations of the meaning of HI-SHIRYO seem totally opposed.
In conclusion, I will resist the temptation to write a poem in praise of the beautiful rosemary flowers which soothe our feeling and really exist in the external world. But I would like to prostrate myself wholeheartedly to those seed potatoes which so miraculously supply us with energy that we can use as we like.
Thank you again.
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