| 思 |
This is the Japanese character for think… it’s pronounced “omo” and usually has an い at the end of it, making it “omoi.” Anyway the cool thing is what this character tells us about what thinking really is.
It has two parts: a top and a bottom. The top is 田 (“ta”). Have you ever seen a rice field? It looks exactly like that. It’s a big square holding little squares. Inside the squares you flood some water, and the rice grows. Sure enough this character, 田, means “field” – a place where good and important plants grow by way of human cultivation.
The bottom part of 思 is 心, “shin.” Look carefully at this character, it is the chest of a human being. Two arms on either side, with a mark in the middle denoting the heart in the center of the chest. That’s what it means, “heart.”
So the Japanese word for think is a combination of a heart and a field. What does that say about the act of thinking? Amazing things!!! Thinking is the act of cultivating what is inside your heart, causing it to grow and blossom and become very useful and health giving. So a thought is really like a vegetable or grain which we grow from inside our own hearts.
The Enquirer 