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The Practice Of Not Thinking

author

Ryunosuke Koike

This was a useful book to stumble upon: I'd been feeling as if time has been passing by a bit too fast, and that's exactly what this book started off addressing -- those of us who spend far too much time thinking can get lost and forget to live our lives.

A lot of the book emphasizes that we are not our thoughts, nor do we have control over them -- but we can choose to edit the actions. There's a lot of emphasis on controlling our circumstances, decisions, environments and relationships to avoid upsetting the mind -- but I'm not quite sure I agree with all of those just yet.

Suggestions to be more mindful were generally valuable experiments for me to true:

• generally acting as quietly as possible; both to be intentional about the movements and also to add some grace
• avoiding owning too many things (I desperately need to declutter)
• focus on the object causing irritation instead of focusing on the irritation: the sound itself, heat in the abstract; the emotion that may be arising
• recognizing impulses; particularly impulses driving towards more stimulation as the author calls it; given I can't sit still and constantly need a book or music or some other distraction this one is hard
• compassion in beoing with others; mirroring AoA's VIEW conversations particularly well;
• eating very carefully, and slowly; tasting each bite, noticing the tongue (I realized this was completely automatic) for me and realizing I'm full

You might say that worrying is like a selfish pastime. You worry because you want to worry.

I really enjoyed a section at the back where the author talks with a neuroscientist and they discuss different perspectives.

All we need to do is sharpen our awareness, if that's all we have.

This was a welcome break and has been helping me feel significantly more grounded over the past week.

— Kunal