Quote from The Sound of Cherry Blossoms
The Sound of Cherry Blossoms: Zen Lessons from the Garden on Contemplative Design
by Martin Hakubai Mosko & Alex Noden
Shambhala Publications, Boulder, Colorado, 2018. 145 pp.
LEARN MEDITATION AS THE FOUNDATION OF CONTEMPLATIVE DESIGN
"The garden arises from our creative minds. How do we contact our creative minds? We are absorbed in our habits and conventions, and they fill every moment with thoughts that run in well-worn ruts. We worry about our families, our jobs, our homes. We daydream of great accomplishments that will draw attention to ourselves so that everyone we know will compliment and admire us. We plot out ways to be happier, and we rue the missteps that have brought us misery. With all of this going on, there's not much extra space for a new thought, a new approach to problems.
Yet from those spaces, those gaps in the wall of thought, come creative ideas and different ways of thinking and acting and making things. Without creative thought, our only means of solving our problems or figuring things out is through intellectual analysis or emotional reactions, like greed or desire. We are trapped by old mental processes and can't find a better way to handle things.
The better way, the creative way, requires space, room for ideas to arise amidst the chatter of our busy minds. We can create that space through meditation. Meditation is the key to the entire View; you cannot understand the contemplative garden without it. A lot of people think that meditation is all about transcendence or euphoria or bliss, but that is not at all the point. Meditation enables us to realize that we are not simply our thoughts or emotions. Thoughts that arise are just that: thoughts. They aren't the essence of who we are, and they don't have to rule our lives. . . . The more we can reside in that awareness, the more space we are allowing for creative mind to arise." (pp. 34-35)
-quotes submitted by Jennifer Knight
To visit the blog and see more reviews and quotes from books in the collection of Center for Sacred Sciences' Library, click here https://centerforsacredscienceslibrary.blogspot.com
LEARN MEDITATION AS THE FOUNDATION OF CONTEMPLATIVE DESIGN
"The garden arises from our creative minds. How do we contact our creative minds? We are absorbed in our habits and conventions, and they fill every moment with thoughts that run in well-worn ruts. We worry about our families, our jobs, our homes. We daydream of great accomplishments that will draw attention to ourselves so that everyone we know will compliment and admire us. We plot out ways to be happier, and we rue the missteps that have brought us misery. With all of this going on, there's not much extra space for a new thought, a new approach to problems.
Yet from those spaces, those gaps in the wall of thought, come creative ideas and different ways of thinking and acting and making things. Without creative thought, our only means of solving our problems or figuring things out is through intellectual analysis or emotional reactions, like greed or desire. We are trapped by old mental processes and can't find a better way to handle things.
The better way, the creative way, requires space, room for ideas to arise amidst the chatter of our busy minds. We can create that space through meditation. Meditation is the key to the entire View; you cannot understand the contemplative garden without it. A lot of people think that meditation is all about transcendence or euphoria or bliss, but that is not at all the point. Meditation enables us to realize that we are not simply our thoughts or emotions. Thoughts that arise are just that: thoughts. They aren't the essence of who we are, and they don't have to rule our lives. . . . The more we can reside in that awareness, the more space we are allowing for creative mind to arise." (pp. 34-35)
-quotes submitted by Jennifer Knight
To visit the blog and see more reviews and quotes from books in the collection of Center for Sacred Sciences' Library, click here https://centerforsacredscienceslibrary.blogspot.com