Sunday, February 12, 2006

Say that Again?

"Don't just do something, sit there! "

It took me a couple of readings to understand that simple sentence.

The first time I read it, my mind was only able to register, "Don't just sit there, do something!", the version we are all familiar with.

"With all this socially engaged work, first you must learn what the Buddha learned, to still the mind. Then you don't take action; action takes you."

This, according to the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh who was 'exiled from Vietnam in the 1960s for his nonviolent antiwar activities' and who now runs the Plum Village meditation center in southwestern France where 'he regularly hosts, among others, Palestinians and Israelis in workshops on conflict resolution and peace negotiation.'

Intrigued?

Read some more here. The entire article is available only by subscription, unfortunately.

10 comments:

bengaluru said...

So are you influenced by Buddism? or are you already a Buddist? Either way try this pop-up on this Buddist site, nowrojee.com.
Please dont consider this a spam! Remember to still the mind and let the action take you.

A Motley Tunic said...

Wow! I thought the same thing when I read that!

Prithi Shetty said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Arthur Quiller Couch said...

I do that all the time, but I don't think that qualifies me as a practising Buddhist.

Sujatha Bagal said...

Jayavel, no, I'm not a Buddhist, but I love the idea behind it. Maybe some day.

Sowmya and Prithi, :))

AQC, exactly what I thought as well, but I guess there is a bit more involved in sitting there and doing nothin. Actively doing nothing takes a lot of energy as I discovered from my yoga classes.

Hilal, that has happened to me too while meditating. In yoga class, we regularly had at least one person snoring away when we all lay down in Shavasana (corpse pose) at the end of class.:))

Prithi Shetty said...

so yoga does achieve its goal - reeelaaaaxx the person !

Anonymous said...

That makes sense. Even the Japenese take their own sweet time before making a decision, but once they take it they implement ruthlessly.

Sujatha Bagal said...

Prithi, only too well sometimes. :))

Hiren, thank you for your comment.

bharath said...

Thich Nhat Hanh? thats some name! :)

can you post a summary/review of the article? :) pretty please!

david raphael israel said...

Bharath --

Tich Nhat Hanh is fairly popular as a writer in this field. Googling should suffice to uncover much info. E.g.:
A Public Talk, Plum Village, etc. Though if Sujatha wants to summarize, that's fine too!

cheers,
d.i.