A trashcan that is full of leftovers and rubbish cannot receive something precious, such as a priceless treasure. We hold so much information, filling us, satiating us to the brim, and we think we are doing just wonderfully; however, the world is not, for the most part, better off because of it. It is important to think a lot and to think in ways that are significant and that have profound meaning; too many of us, however, habitually think all kinds of needless things over and over, repetitiously. There can be an intelligence of silence that exists beyond mere repetitious words/symbols. This silence involves an emptiness that penetrates and that is full of life. To be empty — truly empty — is the action of true humility. That true humility brings about real order and the purity of “harmonious action.” It is no longer filled with secondhand beliefs, opinions, primitive perspectives, and dead traditions; it is whole, unsullied, and pristine beyond the rubbish of propaganda and learned distortion.
If procedures and systems involving time are needed to (supposedly) empty the mind, that is questionable; because the “cleaner/eraser (i.e., the one supposedly doing the emptying)” and the contents to be emptied are (psychologically) one and the same. When one is engaged in such attempts at emptying, a false conflict often ensues. One cannot, via some concocted will, make the mind empty. With intelligent, uncalculated perception, however, there is a possibility that a timeless emptiness can exist without illusory effort. That timeless emptiness, if it really is timeless emptiness, is what perceives beyond distortion and secondhand rubbish. Such perception is beyond tainting, beyond corruption, beyond habitual (sequential) repetition, beyond ugly, robotic manipulation. Such perception is a danger to all that is false.
Monarch Butterfly on Coneflower… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
Your piece triggered a memory of my grandmother who only asked me one question when I was a child: what are you thinking? I don’t recall anything else she said to me,including my response to her one question asked over 60 years ago. Peace.
That’s a very good question! Not enough people ask it of themselves and contemplate about the content of their own consciousness (which they are).
My wife and i live with a couple of really intelligent pet parrots. They have wonderful comprehension (of language) and can understand abstract words/concepts. Don’t ever believe it if someone tells you that animals cannot understand abstractions; that is a bunch of crap.
One day, a while back, i was gone for quite a long time and when i got home, i said to Tweetie Pie, “What were you thinking about today, Tweetie?” Her response: “About you!”
Not long ago, when she was sitting in silence, i said to her, “I think maybe you were meditating.” Her response: “I think you are right!” 🙂 She can sing the lyrics to songs that i don’t even know the lyrics to.
Oh yes indeed.
Thanks, Paul! 🙂
Totally agreed! As far as we’re still “loaded” with the unhealthy, negative, useless things and baggage we simply don’t have room for all the positive things that could fill our lives with joy…
Yes, we have to go beyond a lot of the garbage that was dumped into us. To do that, however, takes real intelligence.
That’s a stunning picture! Yes, out minds are full of odds and ends, mostly rubbish; but sometimes, suddenly, one understands something that has been tucked away, classified as junk.
Thank you! 🙂
For the most part, though, most of us cling to the superficial… and remain that way.
Gorgeous photo, Tom!
Thanks, Lindy! 🙂