“You are the sky. Everything else is weather.” -Pema Chodron
“Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace.” –Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)
“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle…Be water my friend.” -Bruce Lee
“The mind is originally empty, and only when it remains empty, without grasping or rejecting, can it respond to natural things, without prejudice. It should be like a river gorge with a swan flying overhead; the river has no desire to retain the swan, yet the swan’s passage is traced by its shadow, without any omission. Another example: A mirror will reflect all things perfectly, whether they are beautiful or ugly; it never refuses to show a thing, nor does it retain the thing after it is gone. The mind should be as open as this.” -Lin Ching-hsi
“Our mind is like glass of clear water. If we put salt into the water, it becomes salt water; sugar, it becomes sugar water; shit, it becomes shit water. But originally the water is clear. No thinking. No mind, no problem.” -Zen Master Seung Sahn
An empty mind doesn’t mean not having any thoughts. That’s impossible.
Rather, I believe it means not clinging to your thoughts. Instead, just notice them. See them on a giant movie screen in front of you. Watch them go by. Let them come and then let them go.
Just like water, you can’t restrict, control or hold on to your thoughts. But you can flow with them. And every once in a while, you can nudge them in the right direction.
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