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Originally Posted by FallingLeaves
im not sure if anyone has actually done this or not.
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But then what is "it?"
Our minds read into things I think. The normal reaction to almost everything others say is usually to disagree in some way and more rarely to agree unless we have some ego based relationship with the other person or group in that case we will usually agree. Well not "us," our brain or "minds." But I think it's all mind, the agreeing or disagreeing or offering up opinions. Though opinions can be "insightful" and a proclamation of our "real self" or consciousness itself. Consciousness or our true self can communicate using mind in other words. That's not to say some of us have to use mind in our daily lives in small or large ways. The "mind" is always operating on the body so there is that as well.
Has anyone done it? I think we do it all the time. Consciousness is not concentrating on mind all the time. But then "mind" is the "person" in my way of seeing things. So that is usually operating in background. Even when the "person" is lost in some activity like watching tv like you say. In fact, one decides what they like and want to watch right. So a "persons" preferences are there based on past experiences. I don't think the "person" ever goes away as it is present in the brain and memory and our conditioning. But then while it is here, we can by choice focus on it or not as reality or some aspect of what we are. I don't think it is really what we are. I think we are that which identifies with it or not.
I would assume most "eastern masters are more lost than found." What one's "job" is, like a spiritual authority, does not mean one is free of mind. A dishwasher can be free of mind. Anyone can. And it's on a scale. It's not an on or off switch. In each and every moment of our lives is a potential to be self aware and transcend our minds and so in how many of those moments are we free? It's up to us. How much do we identify with our past and conditioning? That's also up to us. We could go to a rally or parade and fully identify with these things then go home and watch a movie and not be identifying at all.
Stating "the whole pursuit seems sorta silly" is brilliant stuff to me. As any seeking is from mind. So there is nothing to pursue really. There is now and what we are now. That's all. There's nothing to do in the future. Nothing to get or achieve in the future. All roads lead to now and no other place. There's nothing to get. We are "something" now and that "something" I think can be a lot of different things. Like we can be "anger" now or "fear" or "peace" and on and on. Now can include a conflict or resistance to something or not. What determines what now is? We do in a way. We are in control of how it is experienced and that changes what it is. But then one's karma is always at play and what one is attracting by past choices and activities.
"I'm not getting anywhere nice, not doing anything useful," is more brilliance to me. That is a consciousness denying mind to me. Without mind or ego one is truly humble and at peace. Not trying to be anything. There is no being better than anyone else. Everyone is the same. A consciousness in a body making choices in the now about what is present. Some choices lead to conflict and others lead to harmony and peace. Then choices that lead to lower vibrational states impact our future as we are telling the universe we prefer these lower vibrations so it is happy to put where us in lower vibration environments. Letting ourselves be angry about something is a much bigger deal than we realize I think.
A few people environmentally conditioned into "Zen" or Buddhism speaking on this topic.
Huángbò Xīyùn (died 850) was an influential master of Zen Buddhism during the Tang dynasty. "Why do they not copy me by letting each thought pass as though it were nothing, or as though it were a piece of rotten wood, a stone, or the cold ashes of a dead fire?"
Platform Sutra, ch 7, p 62, BDK Edition:
Not seeing a single dharma but maintaining the view of nonbeing
Is much like floating clouds blocking the face of the sun.
Not knowing a single dharma but maintaining one’s knowledge of emptiness.
Platform Sutra, ch 5, p 45, BDK Edition wrote:
In this teaching of seated meditation, one fundamentally does not concentrate on mind, nor does one concentrate on purity, nor is it motionlessness. If one is to concentrate on the mind, then the mind involved is fundamentally false.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?
2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.
The Master addressed the assembly: "All of you should realize the vital, functioning, living Buddha Mind! For several hundred years now, [people in] both China and Japan have misunderstood the Zen teaching, trying to attain enlightenment by doing zazen or trying to find 'the one who see and hears,' all of which is a great mistake. Zazen is just another name for original mind, and means to sit in tranquility with a tranquil mind. When you do sitting meditation, you're simply sitting, just as you are; when you do walking meditation, you're walking, just as you are." Bankei
I am sitting here just posting. Now I am done and I will do another activity without one memory of what I just posted. Nothing valuable is here. Nothing important. It's like a flower producing a scent. It takes no effort. It exists as a result of what a flower is. A flower lives for a short time, then it's essence moves on to a new form. Human's are interesting to me in that we do have some control over what we are in each moment. We have potential and choice. To let our past and mind and circumstances determine our experience or to put all of that aside and just be empty and let that produce an experience of now. Produce an action or response out of inner silence.
Linear Mode
