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"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh
“It’s not other people, situations, or circumstances. It’s not the empty boat, but my reaction to it that causes my anger. All the people or situations that make me upset and angry are just like the empty boat. They don’t have the power to make me angry without my own reaction.”
“I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.” — Jonathan Safran Foer
Thinking, on the other hand, is the act of thinking about our thoughts. This takes a significant amount of energy, effort, and willpower (which is a finite resource). Thinking is actively engaging with the thoughts in your
mind. You don’t have to engage with each thought in your mind, but when you do, that is thinking.
The moment we think about our thoughts is when we begin to get taken on an emotional rollercoaster. When we think about our thoughts, we begin to judge and criticize the thoughts and experience all sorts of internal emotional turmoil.
Thoughts create. Thinking destroys. The reason thinking destroys is because as soon as we begin to think about the thoughts, we cast our own limiting beliefs, judgements, criticisms, programming, and conditioning onto the thought, thinking of infinite reasons as to why we can’t do it and why we can’t have it.
“We are ever only one thought away from peace, love, and joy — which come from a state of no thought.” — Dicken Bettinger
“If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.” — Sydney Banks
“A crowded mind leaves no space for a peaceful heart.” — Christine Evangelou
“Mushin is achieved when [the] mind is free of random thoughts, free of anger, free of fear, and particularly free of ego. It applies during combat, and or other facets of life. When mushin is achieved during combat there is an absence of loose or rambling thoughts. It leaves the practitioner free to act and react without hesitation.
"If I had infinite money, already traveled the world, had no fear, and didn't receive any recognition for what I do, what would I do or what would I create?"
