Chains of Thought

  During group meditation practice tonight, I practiced reciting Buddha's name, imagining that each sound (Na-Mo-A-Mi-To_Fo) formed a complete circle or chain. In fact, it reminded me that each moment, though forming a chain, stands in itself for all the world and everything within it. There is no actual sense of time when I get into this state. It becomes a kind of direct seeing into each sound.

    It's hard not to follow the "chain"of one's thoughts unless there is a stillness that breaks the chain or at least goes beyond it. When the mind is unsettled, it's like a chain reaction (to extend the metaphor of chain): something seems to automatically lead to something else. When stillness breaks in and one is attending to only one thing with full attention, the links in the chain start to be seen as entities in themselves. There is no interaction between the links in those chains, and therefore no reason to think of each thought as inevitably related in some way. Imagine what the mind were like if it did not see thoughts as inevitable links in a chain. It would be much more flexible to adapt different approaches to learning and would no longer be bound by one chain of thought or another.

   I also noticed that when I am in that state of just attending to each sound, the pain in my body felt less apparent, and I was able to be curious and even genrou toward the pain. I coul see that pain was part of my experience, and there was no sense of  me having toget a new body or rplace that pain in any way. Perhaps this is due to the stillness of mind as well.