Zen and the art of filtering junk!

Cheeniya · Jun 6, 2007

Stop me if you have read this story before! Skip it and go to the concluding part!

An old Zen monk was walking through a beautiful forest with his three young disciples. The young ones always looked forward to these walks not only because they found the woods, like Robert Frost, lovely, dark and deep but also because these were special moments of learning. The words of wisdom that rolled out of their revered Guru’s mouth during these walks were more precious than the woods that lay before them. The answers that he gave in reply to their incessant questioning gave them an insight into the working of his great mind. This particular day was no different from the rest and the young disciples could feel the empty space in their heads fast filling up with the light he was pouring into them.

They walked on and on making vigorous and enlightening conversation when their progress was halted by a forest brook. As they prepared themselves for a swim across the icy river, their eyes fell on a young and beautiful maid standing helplessly on the banks of the river. At the very first glance at her, it was obvious that her repertoire of skills did not include swimming. The old Zen monk walked up to her, lifted her and put her on his shoulder. He swam briskly with the girl on his shoulder and crossed the river silently. On reaching the shore he placed her gently on the ground and walked away in silence. The disciples followed him in silence too. Several moments passed and not a single word was uttered by any disciple. The surprised Guru turned to his disciples and asked them the reason for their sudden silence. One of the disciples gathered his courage and asked the Guru how he could, being a sworn celibate, touch a woman. The smiling Guru replied, “Son! I have put her down long back but I see that you are still carrying her!”

I am sure that the significance of this story is not lost on you. It is not without reason that our mind is compared to a computer, not just a computer but by far the most complicated, the most efficient and the most user friendly. But unfortunately most of us use it just as a word processor. Imagine being in possession of one of those super computers they have in the Pentagon and you use it only for writing your blogs, sending out mails and chatting and you will get the picture! Our mind is also governed by the GIGO rule like any computer. Garbage in, garbage out!

Now look at those young monks. They were making such progress until they saw the spectacle of their Guru carrying the girl on his shoulder. With this single episode filling every available space of their heads, it was not possible for them to let any more light from their Guru enter the portals of their minds. Like your Yahoo mailbox bursting at the seams with read mail can not receive any further mail however vital! We take care to clean up our Mailbox and our computers almost on a daily basis by removing all the unwanted stuff from them so that their performance is optimized. But we prefer to keep our minds full of stuff that ought to have been thrown out ages back!

I do not want to dwell at length on the kind of stuff that needs to be thrown out because I don’t want this to sound like the Sermon on the Mount. Everyone knows it! But unfortunately no message is flashed across our mental screen like what we see on our monitor when our computer is low on resources.

Fortunately for us, Nature itself has provided a Junk Filter that filters out a lot of trivia. For example, we may remember what we ate yesterday or the day before but not a month before! These and many other things are automatically deleted or otherwise our heads will burst. But still, garbage continues to accumulate and so it’s time we set the cleaning process in motion manually and ensure that the system does not crash eventually!

Kamla · Jun 7, 2007

My respectful bows Zen master

....super computers they have in the Pentagon and you use it only for writing your blogs, sending out mails and chatting and you will get the picture! Our mind is also governed by the GIGO rule like any computer. Garbage in, garbage out!....

Don't aspire to become a Zen Monk anytime soon...for, leave alone the Pentagon Computer...I do not even use my home PC to its maximus capacity. GIGO rule is working quite fine with me! Will Zen tell me where my ambitious self disappeared ? !

All the same, the unwanted junk has been removed, if not by design, by poor memory. See, my giga byte capacity is very low. It erases by itself due to minimum capacity. In a way, a good thing Besides, not to forget the Nature's Junk Filter...why last month's menu, I hardly remember last week's Could that be Alzheimer...God forbid!!

Another very Cheeniya like piece And, what next?

L, Kamla

Chitvish · Jun 7, 2007

Dear Sri,

This particular zen story is my favourite too !

I generally try my best to apply the GIGO rule to my mind. When it comes to my computer, I regularly do the "house-cleaning".

One permanent grease(call it garbage!) which is forever stuck in my mind goes like this.
In our younger days, I used to go with Vish wherever he went out on saturdays, because that was a holiday for him. Almost every week, we would go to the SBI, Mount Road (then) - you remember those days, I am sure ! There was one particular lady officer who would welcome Vish, all smiles (more than what was called for, I used to think) and accord him a seat, pamper him with tea etc under the guise of discussing some loan sanction by you (which, I felt was non-existent). She would ignore me completely and I used to boil with anger (tinged by jealousy ?) A big verbal fight will follow once we got into the car. I refused to get pacified with whatever Vish said about the matter being purely official with nothing personal. This continued 3 or 4 times till, to my great relief, that lady got transferred & left Chennai. He used to say that, the thought of the lady had got embedded in my mind & she was nowhere in his thoughts, once the discussion was over.

That "garbage" got conveniently stuck in my mind, which I still use as a weapon whenever we have an arguement. I start off " annikku neenga antha lady officer kitte vazinjathai naan eppadi marakka mudiyum ? ", the next minute, he vanishes shouting ' you & your imagination" !
well, tell me, how to get rid of this garbage, (rather why should I at all,) which is a convenient tool for me to fight with him?

Love,
Chithra.

Lavanya · Jun 8, 2007

Very nice write up & an article that needs to be read by all. But I don't agree completely with the view about nature's method of erasing. It is erased by us since we consider it trivial & don't try to remake the neural networks to keep that "thought link" alive. Unfortunately we are unable to consider all the thoughts equally. Hence the more importance we give the longer & harder it gets to forget. Eknath Eshwaran's 'Conquest of Mind' is a wonderful book that can be read with ease by anyone to understand how our mind works & how we can drive our mind to think what is essential rather than brood on negative issues.
As long as we keep our mind positive & active we can stay young & keep various neurological disorders at bay. Mind is a great power awaiting to be harnessed - I guess its better late than never!

sudhavnarasimhan · Jun 8, 2007

Dear Cheeniya,

Have heard of this zen story before, but the way you linked it to our minds and computers, and Gigo concepts and junk mail filters etc etc....shows the way your mind compartmentalises what you observe.....is this called the craetive aspect of our computer minds? Oh oh, i am getting stuck with one aspect in my mind now....will be carrying this the whole day....ha ha....after all its not so easy to use the GIGO technique na?:mrgreen:
but good write up as usual.....enjoyed readiong it thoroughly!:2thumbsup:

Malathijagan · Jun 9, 2007

Dear Sir!
As Kamla had pointed out -"the unwanted junk gets removed, if not by design, by poor memory! And I am blessed with a poor memory!(If you could call it a blessing!)
The zen story was an old one, but the way you linked it to our memory and computers was where you stole our hearts!
Regards,
Malathi

Malathijagan · Jun 9, 2007

Sorry!Without reading your post I have used the same words! I think we think alike!

sudhavnarasimhan said: ↑

Dear Cheeniya,

Have heard of this zen story before, but the way you linked it to our minds and computers, and Gigo concepts and junk mail filters etc etc....shows the way your mind compartmentalises what you observe.....is this called the craetive aspect of our computer minds? Oh oh, i am getting stuck with one aspect in my mind now....will be carrying this the whole day....ha ha....after all its not so easy to use the GIGO technique na?:mrgreen:
but good write up as usual.....enjoyed readiong it thoroughly!:2thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Cheeniya · Jun 9, 2007

Dear Kamla
A poor memory can be a blessing too. Lest we should carry all the hurt caused by others through our march through life. People with poor memory can be a very endearing lot like Lord Emsworth of Blandings!
Life is getting so complicated and relationships getting skewed up, what is there to retain in our memory for long?
I may be taking a very cynical view of things but if you have walked this distance as I have, you may feel in agreement with me!
Sri

Cheeniya · Jun 9, 2007

Dear Chithra
I was the Chief of that Branch of SBI that you are talking about when I first had the pleasure of meeting your dear hubby. I was there for three years and I can hardly recollect any female working there who could be considered a potential threat or to feel jealous about. Of all my assignments in SBI, my wife used to feel most comfortable during my tenure at that Branch!
But then I was never lucky with my postings in SBI in that respect:icon_frown:
Sri

Cheeniya · Jun 9, 2007

Dear Lavanya
Thanks a lot for suggesting a good book on the subject. I'll get one immediately. I have read Deepak Chopra on the subject and he is very good to.
Mind over matter is an exercise that is essential for all of us to undertake.
The power of mind is so great that even great scientists like Einstein are reported to have used only a portion of their minds. If we can harness a little more of mental power than what we do, the possibilities are endless!
Sri