Hanno:
"...disengaged his mind and let hours or days flow by, scarcely registering on him."
-The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX, 24, p. 540.
How did he "disengage his mind"? He did it "...when stimuli palled and thought flagged..." (ibid.) He has had a lot longer than us for stimuli to pall and thoughts to flag, thus also maybe enough time to learn to disengage.
A Quaker said meditate by switching your mind off and letting your soul take over. Can he do that? I can't.
A Zen lay practitioner said that, after we have practiced just sitting meditation for a while, thoughts stop arising during meditation. A Zen monk told me, "There will always be natural thought. But don't add to it."
At least, if we practice, we have some understanding of what we are talking about.
(I didn't know that Howard Fast had written about Zen.)
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Falling behind, hard to keep up.
I think Hanno practices what this Quaker gentleman does.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Not sure. Hanno sounds as if he is going to a sensory level below thought. "Soul" implies above thought.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I would still argue that, functionally, what this Quaker did/does is what Hanno was described as doing.
Ad astra! Sean
Sub- and trans-rational have similarities. Both are not rational.
Hanno has to learn that, or he'd get "bored to death".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely!
Ad astra! Sean
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