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anita.
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February 20, 2026 at 8:21 am #455367
PeterParticipantThomas, I appreciate your honesty, and it reminded me of a poem by Rick Cain
“The ancient of Man ponders his curiosity. Questions arise as he wonders of his own significance… How time moves as sands of an hour glass, not to be grasped, but reckoned with by the moment. The focus of a single crystal houses Hope, Love and the rainbow multitude of Life’s involvement. We see these things as in passing… we feel them as now. The Master of these sands is he who loves each crystal.”
I’ve never been great at zazen myself. I used to approach the silence as if I were building a fortress, trying to keep the “world” out so I could finally be “spiritual.” I had to let that go. Part of the letting go was changing my relationship to the word “spiritual” to a experience of “Harmony”.
So when you say a pop song breaks in, wonder if that song isn’t a wall but a Gate?
When you sit in the silence and a song arises, it feels like encountering that “rainbow multitude of Life’s involvement.” That lyric in your head a crystal of sand, a opportunity to “reckon with the moment,” where the silence turns out to be big enough to carry the song.
Your instinct to writing those lyrics out feels like an act of loving the crystal. Acknowledging that right now, the universe is singing a popular tune through you. I don’t think the SandMaster would tell you to be quiet; he’d probably just start humming along.
February 23, 2026 at 2:17 pm #455414
RobertaParticipantHi A quote from a Leonard Cohen song
A……man leaning on his crutch say why ask for so much?
A woman in a darkened door says why not ask for so much more.Many years later I found out that he had spent time as a Buddhist monk.
February 23, 2026 at 7:24 pm #455427
Thomas168ParticipantThe thing about Zazen for me is that it represents the actualization of enlightenment. Just sitting in the quiet. Emptiness. Not trying to do anything. Being the awareness without the mind prompting this is me being aware. No creeping vines from the mind into the peace. Yeah,m can’t be building anything as that is the mind doing the building. The meditation is a way for the mind to drop away. For the awareness to stop identifying with thoughts. This becomes the actualization of enlightenment. Practice this and the more moments of peace happens then eventually mindfulness all day. It transforms the practitioner.
Unfortunately for me, my mind has built up defenses like the unending song repeating in my head. Creeping vines of me saying it is me being aware of the moment. I can see the tricks the mind plays to keep in control. But, it also lets me see the path to dropping the mind. For it is the middle way. Not to hold on strong and let it slip away like sand in a fist holding on tightly. But, also, not loosely like powder in one’s hand when the wind blows.
I know that someday I will need a teacher if I am ever to move forward with my practice. Got nothing to do with this but, The Sounds of Silence just played on the radio. Now another song stuck. Maybe it will be quiet this time.
February 23, 2026 at 8:24 pm #455429
anitaParticipantDear Thomas:
The Sounds of Silence 🔕 playing ▶️ loud in your mind?
Songs 🎵 get stuck?
I know the experience, the feeling: into the night 🌙, Right now, I am hearing the Doobie Brothers’s “Without Love Where would you be Now?”
Without Love.. where would you be right now?
You’re not alone, Thomas, getting stuck in music, there’s so much to us.
I become the music 🎶 I never dared to sing, the movement I never dared to dance 🕺 🎶
“You know how I feel .. and I’m feeling good” (don’t know who’s singing).
Parts of me is being heard by someone else’s singing.
“You need me, call me, I’ll be there in a hurry” (Diana Ross)
It really doesn’t matter, it’s the Singer within, the Dancer within, that comes alive.
Last I danced 🕺 was late last year, I did to live music, after a couple of glasses of 🍷 – it was beautiful.
When’s the last time you danced. Thomas?
I am not dancing now, but I’m drinking 🍷 and listening 🎶 to old music.
An old woman listening to old music and feeling Young and Alive. Isn’t it the point. Thomas?
To experience Youth at No Matter What Age?
Please 🙏 feel free to ignore all of this post. Thomas. I’m tipsy 🤪 and young.
“And if you want it, you got it… Maybe tonight… Let the music… ” (Marvin Gay.. Who was shot by his father).
What is it, this Youth refusing to succumb to Old age, Thomas?
“I’m so in love with you, whatever you want to do is Allright with me” ( reverend Green) “the good and bad, the happy and sad… you… baby… together… Let’s stay together…”
“I don’t care what they say… about anything they say, but being with you… I don’t care about anything else but being with you… one thing I know for sure”-
What would that be, Thomas, what do we know for sure?
For me, the answer is.. know for sure, I AM YOUNG, right now, tonight. I AM Y.O.U.N.G.
“I heard it through the grapevine and I’m about to lose my mind… Honey 🍯..”
“Stop, in the name of love before you break my heart… STOP in the name of love”
The name of love has no age. 16 can be depressed. 61 can COME ALIVE.. Just like that.
Strange, how at 60+ I am younger than 16.
🤪🎶🎵✨️ Anita
February 24, 2026 at 6:59 am #455433Thomas168ParticipantSorry, I am just trying to let the song pass on its own. Last night was the first time the sounds in my head went quiet. I know the songs were driven by my own mind. Feelings that linger long after they are felt. Guess that is why most songs are about love. Anyway, the person watching this life is the same at 16 as at 60+. That hasn’t changed but the husk or shell has changed and renewed itself many times. So, what is it that I sit and practice quieting the mind? Sometimes the noise doesn’t want to relax and go. So, then I ask what am I? Not so much as a question to be answered rather as a way to see what am I really. That never disappeared. I am looking to rediscover it. To dwell inside the awareness of the watcher.
Ah, but life doesn’t stop. So, we trudge along and live the lives that make us who we are outside. I might turn into an grumpy old man. But, for now, got a wife and daughter to take care of. I don’t think my daughter will ever leave our house. I have got to think about setting up a trust to leave the house to her. Damn, the senior property tax discount might not apply?? Will need to talk to a lawyer. Hate that idea. Getting old and cynical.
February 24, 2026 at 8:23 am #455432RobertaParticipantHi Thomas
A short clip on Meditation & Music
One of my teachers said to view all sounds as the sound of Dharma which was very helpful when we had a construction site literally just the other side of the door of the shrine room.
February 24, 2026 at 8:38 am #455436anitaParticipantDear Thomas (Morning, not tipsy 🙂)
It sounds like your mind has been very loud lately and you’re doing your best to find quiet, even when it’s difficult.
It’s okay that the songs come and go. It’s okay that life feels heavy sometimes. You’re carrying a lot — your family, your responsibilities, your thoughts — and anyone would feel worn down at times.
But there’s still a calm place inside you, the part you call the watcher. That part is not gone. It’s still there, even on the noisy days.
The Watcher 👁️: the part of you that notices what your mind is doing — the songs, the thoughts, the worries — without getting pulled into them. The watcher doesn’t fight the mind. It just sees it, like someone sitting quietly on a porch, watching clouds ☁️ ☁️ ☁️ pass by. The thoughts come.. the thoughts go.. and the watcher stays the same. Quiet. Unmoving.
That part of you hasn’t gone anywhere, even on the noisy days. It’s still there, underneath everything. You’re doing your best, Thomas. And it’s enough.
☁️🍃🤍Anita
February 24, 2026 at 12:18 pm #455444Thomas168ParticipantIs it this watcher or awareness that survives death? I mean the memories and character of this person may pass with the body but the awareness survives and goes on to the next incarnation?? Can I find this awareness inside of myself? Identify it? Experience it? Music has always been there. It touches another part of a person somewhere near the heart. I don’t wish to derail Peter’s thread. So, let us go back to prison house of language. Wow, that sounded funny.
February 24, 2026 at 2:05 pm #455449anitaParticipantDear Thomas:
I’ll respect 🙏 your suggestion to not derail this thread, so I’ll close with saying that yes, music does indeed touch a person somewhere near the heart.
I guess songs 🎵 get stuck in you, Thomas, because you have a big heart, lots of heart space for songs to touch and stick to.
🎵🤍🎶 Anita
February 25, 2026 at 11:11 am #455477PeterParticipantPlease I continue to explore…
What struck me reading through this exchange was how clearly it showed that language isn’t only the words we speak. It’s a tool that opens our world, yet it’s also a boundary. In this dialogue I kept seeing how we don’t just use words; we live inside them.
A song became a distraction, then a doorway.
A worry became a trap, then a truth.
A poem became a mirror.
Even the back‑and‑forth carried its own quiet rhythm, painted its own picture.The Sufis say everything speaks, all arising from and returning to the ‘Word’ we’ve forgotten and keep trying to remember. If that’s true, then even the mind’s noise belongs to the conversation… Art is language. Song is language. A tree growing is language. Even Taxes are language. Sometimes these things confine us; sometimes they open us. Often they do both at once. (the intention of the topic was to notice, when it was a relationship to a word and or event holding us back.)
Perhaps that’s where the old line comes in: For those with ears, let them hear…
For the last twenty plus years I’ve lived with tinnitus, so for a long time my silence has never been silent. The ringing is always there, a thin thread of sound running through everything, everything. Over time I learned, (had to learn?) that silence isn’t the absence of sound it’s the absence of being pulled around by sound.
The ringing never stops, but the struggle around it softened… most days. It’s pushed me to let go, to breathe through it, to find a different kind of quiet.
In that way it’s become a language too. When it grows louder, it’s a warning: something’s tightening, pay attention.
Even noise has something to say. Even distraction can be a doorway. So maybe the “prison house of language” isn’t a place we escape, but a place we learn to notice and listen to differently, where everything speaks, even the things we once thought were in the way.
February 25, 2026 at 6:09 pm #455494anitaParticipantHi Peter:
I must admit: without the help of AI in translating what you are saying (too abstract
too fancy; not oncrete enough for me), zI don’t understand what you’re sayingEven if I wanted to use AI at this time to concreticide (to make concrete, lol) what you wrote, I can’t- because my adorable dog (and my lack of caution) destroyed my computer and I don’t know how to access AI on my phone AND continue a message.
Looking at the title of your thread, I wonder if there’s any truth to Prison House of the Abstract? or is it just me.
It could be my personal challenge in regard to the abstract, a lack of the kind of intelligence required to decipher it, which brings me to tinnitus. I remember years ago you shared about it.
It happened to me one day that I noticed there is no more silence for me, only static, and at times, a ringing, and then 🙀 came the pulsating tinnitus: hearing the sound of a pulse. I looked it up and read that it could mean that a blood vessel going to the brain 🧠 is blocked.
I went to a doctor, had an imaging of my brain done- and nothing was found. But my point is that when I shared about it irl, someone commented: “So, you have proof (the imaging) that you do have a brain?”
It’s true, and he noticed, that I don’t understand abstract, figurative language.
What I increasingly like about myself these very days though, is that I understand emotional language more and more. I am feeling more human than ever before.
✨️🏃♀️🏃♂️🤍` Anita
February 25, 2026 at 7:42 pm #455500anitaParticipant* Oh, I just noticed, I wrote “nothing was found”, I meant no blockage was found, but it could have been read as No Brain Was Found.
Such phrasing could have been what got me in trouble with Bruce who commented about the possible non-existance of my brain.
Bruce, 70 year-old, I miss him.
February 26, 2026 at 8:01 am #455512PeterParticipantHi Anita,
That is a very common response to the way I communicate! Please don’t feel it’s a lack of intelligence; it’s really just a mismatch in the “tools” we’re using. Language is funny like that, it can trap us and free us, and half the time we don’t even notice which one is happening.The phrase “Prison House of Language” actually comes from a famous Nietzsche quote about how we are constrained by the words we use. I’ll admit, I was heading into deep waters and probably got a bit over my head!
The other day, I tried to make a serious argument following all the logical rules, and it was ripped apart for relying too much on metaphors. I realized I was trapped in my own way of speaking. I eventually turned the whole thing into a short parable just to make sense of it for myself.
It’s interesting: I use symbols, and you use emotional concrete language, but we both end up in the same place, telling a story.
Your brain scan story is actually the perfect example of what I was trying to say. When you said “nothing was found,” the words were so “slippery” they made it sound like you had no brain! For a second, the language trapped you in a meaning you never intended. That’s the secret, I think. Language often shuts things down, but also open them back up just by changing the delivery. Whether it’s a parable or a story about a broken computer, the story is how we finally hear each other.
I’m glad you’re finding that “emotional language” makes you feel more human. It’s a much better way to get out of the “prison” of big words than anything I was writing. I’m often frustrated by it myself.
Here is that parable… don’t worry about “deciphering” it. It’s just an image to sit with.
The Three Mirrors
There was a man who lived in a burning city. He carried a mirror so the people might see the fire was not the whole world.Early in life he learned he had to keep a mirror within his own heart, knowing that if he let his heart catch fire, the mirror would melt and he would see only the flames. He heard of those whose hearts could burn without being consumed, and that left him wondering…
He also belonged to a guild of mirror makers. Some in the guild wanted to melt the mirrors to make shields for the soldiers. He wished them well but refused. He told them, “A shield can stop a sword, but only a mirror can remind the soldier why he should lay the sword down.”
Later, the city took some of the guild’s mirrors and built them into the walls. But once a mirror was part of a wall, it could no longer be moved to face the truth. It became just another stone.
The man witnessed all these things as he sat on the edge of the city and held the glass. His heart burned but was not consumed. He trusted that the coolness of the glass was more powerful than the heat of the flame. And every now and then, others would come to sit beside him, find rest, and share something to eat.
February 26, 2026 at 8:13 am #455513PeterParticipantA note on the parable. Perhaps it would be helpful to add that I was originally trying to make an argument about how we often mix up our spiritual lives and our politics. I was wondering if we’ve started asking them to do things they weren’t built for: we load spiritual practice with an urgency it can’t always carry, and we expect political action to give us a kind of “awakening” that it can’t really deliver.
I was getting so tangled up in those big, heavy words I felt like the mirror-maker in the story—trying to decide if I should be making a “shield” or just holding the “glass.”
The parable was the only way I could find to step out of the argument and just breathe. It’s exactly like you said, Anita: sometimes we just need to find a way to be human again when the “abstract” starts to feel like a wall.
Still, I notice that the parable is abstract… for me, it is my emotional language, a attempt to paint a picture. It’s how I feel my way through.
February 26, 2026 at 8:15 am #455514PeterParticipantPerhaps a edit – Still, I notice that the parable is abstract… for me, it is my emotional language, a attempt to paint a picture. It’s how I feel my way through – “Prison House of Language”?
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