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hi all!

I have been having the darnedest time posting lately. Not that i cannot type or the like (well i cant spell worth a !@#$ but thats somethjing lese), but i keep writing replies or new topics. carefully editing them, reading them, re-reading them... then deleting them. :?

Now I think I keep deleting them because i fight with my intentions for posting or... hmm fight is the wrong word here. i question my self until i delete it. Not that the subjects are not interesting/useful or the like or that i dont have anything to say... more like... "Okay dirk, your replying with your opinion/view/comments on someones experience/observation or opinion at this moment, Can i add anything more than 'I...' ? - no?" so it gets tossed.

Also, You all have such wonderful insights/comments and personal angles already shared by the time ive come up with something, that, what ever I had/could have written, had been already posted (and much more coherently) or what i was thinking was way out in left field... so rather than chiming in late with my patented "What they said..." type comments, I delete.

Now for me im acutually finding this to be a healthy excersice. I generally open mouth and think later :| And Besides my comments are just thoughts at that moment... only written out, they change disperse and dissapear in the next moment anyways :)

Ive been keeping up with the sit-a-longs, but still not sitting enough -Darned holidays (started to post about this earlier but deleted it!!), im waiting on my copy of Opening the hands of thought, should be late next week when i get it, and so i will be sharing more i hope...

I learn alot from you all i just needed to let you know that im trying to give some back and I just wanted to share my little experience.

So this post is a post to say that i cannot post
WOW im CURED!!! :lol:

Well its snowed over 3 feet in the last few days so i got me some more Samui Sumu (i love snow days!!!)

Gassho
Dirk

Dirk, thanks for taking the risk of posting. Sounds like this is a struggle that runs pretty deep for you. I hope you learn to trust this group as a place where you can play with this issue. Great stuff. Thanks for trusting us.
Blessings,
David aka PapaDoc

Thanks David!
welp i dont mind sharing, i do feel safe posting I trust you all as much as one can with out meeting i dont feel inhibited by you guys... but as it stands its more of trusting my self is one issue... I have had moments of "brilliance" when i try to share ... Poof! gone... its not frustrating either whats brilliance? ...just wierd...er unique! yeah thats it...Unique! and im being at one with it... :lol:

Gassho

Di[del][del]

Hi, Dirk . . . I know where you are coming from. I tend to worry about my intentions a great deal too, coupled with a bit of perfectionism.
Recently, however, I simply let go of that stuff when it came to posting and everything has been fine. I post when it feels right and after I send it, I surrender it to the void of the internet, no regrets.
So, I can't say that I haven't looked back at a few postings and thought they were crap, but at the time they seemed right so . . .
My advice is to simply say what you feel you need to say (in accordance with the precepts :) of course) and stop thinking about it after that. But, there is also great wisdom in silence . . . I don't know . . .

Gassho,
Bill

thanks Bill - good advice, as always.

Gassho
Dirk

A similar thing happens to me from time to time Dirk. In my case the carefully worded bit o' wisdom takes so long that my account times out, so it's gone.

Inevitably, I ask myself if what I had just taken all that time to write was worth saying. As evidenced by my post count, the answer is usually no. :)

I suppose that is the thing about Sangha in this medium. Because we can't see everyone's faces, we sometimes feel the need to say something.

While to me Reason is very important to practice, the Zen method doesn't rely solely on Reason and erudition. Insight and intuition are equally important.

You may understand something in a different manner than other folks here but can't put it into words. You don't have to be:
As pragmatic as Jundo
As blunt as Harry
As poetic as Will
As fluid as Keishin
As scholarly as Junpei
As logical as Tracy
and so on...(sorry guys I don't have one-word descriptions for everyone right on the top of my head ;))

Just be as Dirk as Dirk. What you need to say will come when you need to say it.

At least that is my thought.
R

Yes, just be Dirk as Dirk. As you say, "as it stands its more of trusting my self."

If you really misbehave, I will call Rocko the Bouncer to toss you out on your butt into the back alley. But, until that point, please enjoy our little party ... fall on your face, get up, say the wisest thing ever said, sound like a four year old (although they are wise so much more than one might think). Know that the way you perceive yourself has very little to do with how others actually perceive you (and, anyway, do not care so much about how others perceive you ... as long as you are polite and shower every day, the rest is largely up too you I think. Heck, since we are online, you can even skip the shower.).

One thing to think about is that Zen is about our human tendancy to OVER-think situations, problems, "what if's", the ramifications of the past, the best course of action, judgments, thoughts about the worth of our thinking about thinking about our thinking ... etc. etc. . We get caught up in swirling "thought tornadoes" that pull us into a spinning vortex of the imagination from which it is hard to escape. Our Zazen calms the mental wind into stillness or a gentle breeze. So, just let it blow ... without worry about whether it is hot air, a cold draft or a fresh zephyr.

Is that advice "pragmatic" enough?

Gassho, Jundo (who often suffers from writers block in his book writing for reasons not unlike what you describe)

PS- Okay, maybe we generally try to keep the conversation around here focused on our "Zen Practice", although that's not a hard rule and everything is Practice if perceived as such.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jundo

Is that advice "pragmatic" enough?

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:P :lol:

Thanks for the wise words all.
To be honest I was thinking something else when I was starting this thread -but thinking a bit further, I DO tend to worry to much on how things i say will be perceived. A rather pointless worry since i cannot know the thoughts/feelings of others at that moment (if i could... id be RICH!!! MWHAHAHA)... best i can do is say what i feel needs saying, when I think it needs said and "Just Sit" on the rest :)

There will be plenty "I do not get" and lots i do. ill offer what i can when i can without stressing out about it.

"I think I think I think a little too often, That's what my therapist said"
Dead Letter by Wintersleep

Gassho
Dirk

Hey Dirk. Could you do me a favor?

Shut up and sit. :)

Deep Gassho Will

:oops: :lol:

Gassho
:X