Where Did THAT Come From?
Where do your thoughts come from?
All thoughts, all of my thoughts, anyway, are specific to my culture. I think like a white boy from Oklahoma because I am a white boy from Oklahoma. Okay, I am definitely not the modal Okie, so one could find a lot of white boys from Oklahoma who do not think the way I do, but the point remains that the content of any person’s thoughts must reflect the culture they grew up in.
But that is separate from the question about how thoughts get into your head at all. Have you ever thought about it? In some sense, this is the question for Buddhists.
This question is similar to the famous story about Bodhidharma, an early Zen master, who had a man importune him repeatedly to teach him the dharma. According to the story, this would be student cut his arm off and offered it to Bodhidharma to prove his sincerity and zeal.
Finally, Bodhidharma asked what this new student wanted. He replied that he wanted to pacify his mind. Bodhidharma told the student to bring his mind and Bodhidharma would pacify it. So the student went away and came back after some time, explaining that he had looked everywhere and could not find his mind.
“There, I have pacified your mind for you,” Bodhidharma replied. The student was enlightened.
