Tonight,Yvonne Ginsburg spoke at Mission Dharma. She talked about awareness of thinking in a very new and refreshing way. She talked about the ability to see thoughts as they arose–giving us the opportunity to let them go. This is a commonly sited benefit of mindfulness practice–disrupting Papanca. What was interesting was that she wasn’t just talking about Papanca–she was talking about disrupting and letting go of highly ingrained patterns of thought. Our habitual thought patterns. When these thoughts are seen at their root and let go we not only avoid Papanca– we have the opportunity to think entirely new, fresh thoughts. Youthful, playful, imaginative thinking becomes possible where typically we replay some old tired pattern! How wonderful!! She likened this to a stream of water that had formed a deep rut being diverted and allowed to flow freely over surfaces that were entirely new and fresh.

Another thought for the night was that we can do just fine without our thinking minds constantly “hovering” over our every move making sure we do everything right. What we have previously learned and done can spontaneously flow just how it needs to in situations without our minds having to worry, plan, guide and direct every move. I think there is a very deep insight in this that I only just got a glimpse of during her talk, but it was a very pleasant one–an insight into non-doing.