| One of the dangers I quickly discovered is the old
childhood trick: You repeat a word often enough and it loses meaning and becomes just a
sound. This also appears to be a problem with traditional religious chanting. The mind
becomes anesthetized, numb after several dozen repetitions. Content does matter. A zen
paradox (the sound of one hand clapping, etc.) can stop you in your mental tracks the
first time you encounter it. But even the best paradoxes lose their punch after a few
repetitions. The mind becomes bored and the monkeys start chattering away, the wild horses
go running off to other pastures, even while part of your mind is numbly repeating the
words of the paradox.
This led me to collect a whole set of saltlicks, a group of lenses
if you will, in order to vary the content of the silent utterance.
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