stop it damit

[old3bob]

 

I keep seeing chess pieces and moves in my head and they don't want to stop,  so I've been playing the game too much... there are also song loops we sometimes get in our heads that don't want to stop.  (or other kinds of loops)  how about for you?

 

[stirling]

I'm sorry to hear this one has got you down. It is a terrible curse, no doubt about it Bob. The work is there to do, every day... bringing yourself back to this moment. Current world circumstances make this more of a struggle than I can remember it being in some time for sure. My sympathies. _/\_

 

Daily meditation practice, especially just allowing the mind to be still, is the only thing I know that softens it, and makes us calmer, less reactive, and able to hold more of it at arms length before engaging the mind.

 

Edit: To add

 

Reminds me of:

 

 

[old3bob]

its not all bad, the subconscious can sometimes sort out and or solve problems when the conscious mind can not.  (which can be part of what is going on with loops)

[Nungali]

8 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

I keep seeing chess pieces and moves in my head and they don't want to stop,  so I've been playing the game too much... there are also song loops we sometimes get in our heads that don't want to stop.  (or other kinds of loops)  how about for you?

 

 

 

We ha a friend that was susceptible to this , so we played an evil trick on her .  How few notes of a tune one could sing (in the background or when she was not conscious of it ,  to give her an 'ear worm' resulting in her walking around humming the tune and not knowing why    

 

Six   it was !  

 

half a day of an occasional ....  ''  Dhurrrrr ''   , nope not enough ....  '' Dhurrr Dah ''   nope ....  next day ;   Dhurrr dah da  .... nope ....  finally on .... '' Dhurrr dah dah dar dar da 

 

 

 

[old3bob]

an oldie but goodie, here is another one:

 

 

[Mark Foote]

Wrote a post just for you, ol3bob:

 

"The Place Where You Stop and Rest"

 

 

Starts like this:

 

In one of his letters, twelfth-century Ch’an teacher Yuanwu wrote:
 

Actually practice at this level for twenty or thirty years and cut off all the verbal demonstrations and creeping vines and useless devices and states, until you are free from conditioned mind. Then this will be the place of peace and bliss where you stop and rest.
 

Thus it is said: “If you are stopping now, then stop. If you seek a time when you finish, there will never be a time when you finish.”
 

(“Zen Letters:  Teachings of Yuanwu”, tr. Cleary & Cleary, Shambala p 99)

 

In my teenage years, I became keenly aware of the “creeping vines” of my mind. I read a lot of Alan Watts books on Zen, thinking that might help, but I soon found out that what he had to say did nothing to cut off the “creeping vines”.
 

I was looking for something Shunryu Suzuki described in one of his lectures, though I didn’t know it at the time:
 

So, when you practice zazen, your mind should be concentrated in your breathing and this kind of activity is the fundamental activity of the universal being. If so, how you should use your mind is quite clear. Without this experience, or this practice, it is impossible to attain the absolute freedom.

(Thursday Morning Lectures, Shunryu Suzuki; November 4th 1965, Los Altos; emphasis added)

 

 

 

[old3bob]

oops