Ordinary Thinking Case Study

Ordinary Thinking: Ordinary thinking is associative thinking…the mind is allowed to move anywhere.

Contemplation: Thinking becomes contemplation when it moves not through accociation, but is directed. You work on a particular problem and you bracket out all associations. For example, science is based on contemplation…any logical thinking is contemplation. Contemplation is logical and rational.

Concentration: Concentration is staying at one point, not allowing your mind to move at all…it is allowed only to concentrate on one point.

Meditation: Meditation is a state of non-mind. The mind itself is not allowed to be and is the highest possibility. The text uses an example of the mind as a room of furniture and to remove the furniture
is to create space, or absence of mind. I don’t understand the reasoning of freeing your mind? Likewise, what is the purpose of a empty room without furniture? I can better admire the space or wallpaper or lighting of the room with absence of furniture, but why? Does meditation equal enlightenment? Perhaps, more importantly, meditation creates mental discipline—controlling the most uncontrollable part of the body.

Heart Center: This can be developed.
The heart and head centers determine our psychological and personality dispositions. For example, our heart center determines the ease in which we become more sensitive and develop love for each other

Head Center: This can be developed. The heart and head centers determine our psychological and personality dispositions. For example, our head center determines how we view the world, how logical and rational we are in our thinking and decisions.

Naval Center: This cannot be developed…it is just to be discovered, not developed. Likewise, there are techniques to develop the Heart and Head Centers, but you must uncover the naval center. The text addresses this by saying, “You are already a Buddha, you only have to know the
fact.”

Techniques to Penetrate the Inner: Man is a circle and his life is the circumference and superficial, unless a center is found. On the circumference only lukewarm life is possible and your life becomes unauthentic to the extent where your death is even unauthentic. Only in authenticness can your life become beautiful. There are many techniques that help in finding the center, like tantra, yoga or religion, which help a person become an individual. Ultimately, we all have a center and are all naval centered, we just have to find our ‘within’.

Closing the seven openings of the head with your hands, a space between your eyes become all inclusive: When all the openings of the head are closed, your consciousness, which is continuously flowing out is stopped suddenly and it cannot move out.
It remains in, and that remaining in creates a space between your eyes, which is know as the third eye. This space becomes all inclusive. The third eye sees the infinites and sees the immaterial, the spiritual…it can even see energy. But, it is not part of your physical body, it is the infinite space which had penetrated in you and the moment you know this inner space, you have known the deathless…then there is no death. For the first time you are really alive. In terms of how I would refer to this in the western world, it is the soul. It transcends physical description and is the life force of intuition and inner
peace.

Blessed one, as senses are absorbed in the heart, reach the center of the lotus: This is best for those who have a very developed heart, who are loving, feeling types and are emotional. With one who is heart-oriented, everything leads to the heart…if you love him, his heart will feel your love, not his head. Most religions are heart orientated. Once you know the center of the heart, it is very easy to fall down in to the navel center and from the heart, the door is opened towards the naval.

Unminding mind, keep in the middle—until: The mind moves from one extreme to another, that is the way of the mind. The mind will always go on choosing the extremes…for example, “never” is an extreme. You should remain in the middle until there is no mind. Unminding the mind, keep in the middle, until there is no mind. That middle point is all that spirituality means.

When is comes down to this, I see this whole article as a way to be balanced and centered as a human being, which should translate into being a better co-worker, manager and leader. Also, I think that practicing looking within oneself to achieve a sense of balance in life and work is very important. Frankly, I’m alittle lost on how this applies to our class, except maybe it contributes to the “whole person concept”