About this mind

[Aloka]

About This Mind

About this mind... In truth there is nothing really wrong with it. It is intrinsically pure. Within itself it's already peaceful. That the mind is not peaceful these days is because it follows moods. The real mind doesn't have anything to it, it is simply (an aspect of) Nature. It becomes peaceful or agitated because moods deceive it. The untrained mind is stupid. Sense impressions come and trick it into happiness, suffering, gladness and sorrow, but the mind's true nature is none of those things. That gladness or sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming to deceive us. The untrained mind gets lost and follows these things, it forgets itself. Then we think that it is we who are upset or at ease or whatever.

But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful... really peaceful! Just like a leaf which is still as long as no wind blows. If a wind comes up the leaf flutters. The fluttering is due to the wind — the "fluttering" is due to those sense impressions; the mind follows them. If it doesn't follow them, it doesn't "flutter." If we know fully the true nature of sense impressions we will be unmoved.

Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind. So we must train the mind to know those sense impressions, and not get lost in them. To make it peaceful. Just this is the aim of all this difficult practice we put ourselves through.

(from "A Taste of Freedom" by Ajahn Chah.)

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/...teof.html#mind


Any comments?

[philg]

Our minds are wonderful but rather enigmatic things. How are we to get to know how they work merely using our minds? Can the mind ever know itself? This article talks about the sort of mind we could have if we can bring it to a state in which we can deal easily with those thoughts which constantly arise, demanding our attention and bringing us so much trouble and suffering.

This 'trained', or 'tamed' mind (depending on your point of view) is one which underlies our normal mind and is therefore 'intrinsically pure', or is 'Beginners Mind' (Shunru Suzuki) or is the one we were born to have, if it were not for the pressures of society which mold it to be what it is today. Our 'original mind'.

The only question I have is whether our practice is, as the article says, to 'see the original mind' or whether it is to see 'using' this original mind that underlies our own. To look again at the world we know, but using a different mind.

[philg]

I've been thinking this over more. There are many ways to get to this mind. The question is, how does it affect us? How can we cope with what happens when we see things with original mind? My only advice is to protect yourself by following the Buddhist path first.