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The suggestion is to escape from toxic thoughts, immersing yourself in prayers instead?
by mewpmewp2 3y ago
The suggestion is to escape from toxic thoughts, immersing yourself in prayers instead?
- duncan-donuts 3y ago> It’s not about the wisdom we glean. It’s about what wisdom we grow. I think the author does a good job of actually testing the original point—questioning if all but a handful of books are a worthless distraction. I think the entire piece has almost nothing to do with prayer. The monks are used as a thought experiment around the value of thought for the sake of thought.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoOkay, I guess I misunderstood the article. What is the takeaway?
- theptip 3y agoSpending time and energy to engage in reading a book can change the way you think, and subsequently change your interpretation of the text. A good book is not just a bag of facts, but a tool to change your cognitive processes.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoWhich book should I try?
- coldtea 3y ago>What is the takeaway? That we should not take shortcuts and expect we'll gain anything by exchanging an extended treatment of a subject with a distilled short talking point.
- jamiek88 3y agoBravo!
- scooke 3y agoMost likely these were set prayer phrases, like recitations of the Psalms, and not a meandering, "Dear God/Santa, here is my Christmas list and help my dog and heal granny" kind of prayers. So the content is already set to lead ones focus to "heavenly" thoughts above the toxicity of the worldly plane.
- devjab 3y agoI think the easiest way to think of it is having a single word mantra that you repeat while you meditate to keep your focus on meditation and not let your mind wander in different directions. If you try the single word mantra thing you’ll probably find that it’s not exactly enough to keep your focus. But it’s an easy way to explain that it’s less like “praying” than about the recitation of the prayer because focusing your mind on the recitation will help you focus.