Tony
10th December 2012, 12:17
How easy is it to contaminate the mind?
The mind, in its natural state, 'is' clarity. It has the facility of perception, memory, and discernment.
The clearer the mind is, the easier it is to perceive, recall memories, and discern.
When the mind is contaminated with fixated circling thoughts and reactions, is not clear, and therefore no clear-seeing is present.
When the mind is clear, it can then connect to its higher function of realising Essence.
So the mind is a vehicle for Essence, just as the body is a vehicle for the mind.
One of the functions of the mind is to care for the body. The body grounds or focuses the mind, otherwise the mind would go all over the place...literally!
The higher function of the mind is to realise our true Essence - pure uncontaminated being.
Even though we all have a body and mind, we see 'things' differently. We are made of the same 'stuff', but we choose different mind sets. Some of us are attracted to physical phenomena, some to psychological phenomena, and others to spiritual phenomena. Because of this, when we are living together in a society, we can quite often (all the time!) be talking at cross purposes.
From the highest point of view, playing our part in society has two aspects. One is to cooperate with others to maintain our precious body - and theirs. The other is to help others understand their true nature, having first understood it oneself.
We spend most of our precious time entertaining this body and mind. We ate some of the apple, turned the rest into cider, sold it, bought an over-sized TV, and stare at it in over-sized bodies.
We have forgotten that we ever had a mind, let alone why we are here, and how we are evolving.
How easy it would be to contaminate and control a mind that is attracted to entertainment...you might even be being entertained at this moment! We constantly do this to ourselves, believing everything is real and solid, and therefore we get upset and emotional.
Then we become a seeker/speculator (we've gone up in the world!). But instead of looking into our true nature and experiencing that, we speculate about it. We look for alternative answers, and we do not trust anyone. Again, we contaminate this very simple open clear mind with doubts. And worse still, we feed - or get fed - mind-fantasies that contaminate and remove us further from knowing who we are. We may even start to believe that we are beings from another planet, or dimension. The facilities of perception, recall and discernment are now clouded with desires, reactions and judgements, making these fantasies seem even more real.
Well, it's better than watching TV....is it?
We can see that if something is originally clear, it becomes contaminated if anything is placed in it. And the clearer the mind, the easier it is to identify the contamination. When the mind is contaminated, it is hard to recognise further contamination.
This brings us to being an experiencer. It is here that the contamination is very subtle.
We can clear our minds, and be aware of an “I” experiencer - an observer. The “I” knower, that is the cause of all the contamination. The mind has turned itself into a vacancy, a blankness. It knows 'things' but does not know 'knowing'. So the mind is contaminated with ignorance: ignorance of its true nature.
So we come to the final step, which is unconditional clarity.
This very simple. Perception, memory, and discernment were mentioned above: we work at the level of perception. Once memories and discernment are still, and one is just in the present moment, there is still an “I” present. So, when perception merely has to become aware of its own awareness (that is what meditation is all about) it finds no thing there. It is empty...just aware, just perceiving.
That – unmodified - is pure perception. Ordinary perception has been up graded....to pure perception...that is Essence. Pure and simple.
Essence has three qualities, Pure, Knowing and uncontaminated Compassion.
Could it be anything less or anything more?
Oh, there is one more thing: those fixated memories and discernment have to go too!
When there is pure knowing, memories and discernment are no longer needed.
This leads us onto the next stage – expression - where memories and discernment are needed in order to empathise with others (this also involves clearing our own residue of karmic reactions).
When we have recognised our true nature, cleared our karma and gone beyond hope and fear, we have arrived!
Yours, still having a long way to go,:llama:
Tony
The mind, in its natural state, 'is' clarity. It has the facility of perception, memory, and discernment.
The clearer the mind is, the easier it is to perceive, recall memories, and discern.
When the mind is contaminated with fixated circling thoughts and reactions, is not clear, and therefore no clear-seeing is present.
When the mind is clear, it can then connect to its higher function of realising Essence.
So the mind is a vehicle for Essence, just as the body is a vehicle for the mind.
One of the functions of the mind is to care for the body. The body grounds or focuses the mind, otherwise the mind would go all over the place...literally!
The higher function of the mind is to realise our true Essence - pure uncontaminated being.
Even though we all have a body and mind, we see 'things' differently. We are made of the same 'stuff', but we choose different mind sets. Some of us are attracted to physical phenomena, some to psychological phenomena, and others to spiritual phenomena. Because of this, when we are living together in a society, we can quite often (all the time!) be talking at cross purposes.
From the highest point of view, playing our part in society has two aspects. One is to cooperate with others to maintain our precious body - and theirs. The other is to help others understand their true nature, having first understood it oneself.
We spend most of our precious time entertaining this body and mind. We ate some of the apple, turned the rest into cider, sold it, bought an over-sized TV, and stare at it in over-sized bodies.
We have forgotten that we ever had a mind, let alone why we are here, and how we are evolving.
How easy it would be to contaminate and control a mind that is attracted to entertainment...you might even be being entertained at this moment! We constantly do this to ourselves, believing everything is real and solid, and therefore we get upset and emotional.
Then we become a seeker/speculator (we've gone up in the world!). But instead of looking into our true nature and experiencing that, we speculate about it. We look for alternative answers, and we do not trust anyone. Again, we contaminate this very simple open clear mind with doubts. And worse still, we feed - or get fed - mind-fantasies that contaminate and remove us further from knowing who we are. We may even start to believe that we are beings from another planet, or dimension. The facilities of perception, recall and discernment are now clouded with desires, reactions and judgements, making these fantasies seem even more real.
Well, it's better than watching TV....is it?
We can see that if something is originally clear, it becomes contaminated if anything is placed in it. And the clearer the mind, the easier it is to identify the contamination. When the mind is contaminated, it is hard to recognise further contamination.
This brings us to being an experiencer. It is here that the contamination is very subtle.
We can clear our minds, and be aware of an “I” experiencer - an observer. The “I” knower, that is the cause of all the contamination. The mind has turned itself into a vacancy, a blankness. It knows 'things' but does not know 'knowing'. So the mind is contaminated with ignorance: ignorance of its true nature.
So we come to the final step, which is unconditional clarity.
This very simple. Perception, memory, and discernment were mentioned above: we work at the level of perception. Once memories and discernment are still, and one is just in the present moment, there is still an “I” present. So, when perception merely has to become aware of its own awareness (that is what meditation is all about) it finds no thing there. It is empty...just aware, just perceiving.
That – unmodified - is pure perception. Ordinary perception has been up graded....to pure perception...that is Essence. Pure and simple.
Essence has three qualities, Pure, Knowing and uncontaminated Compassion.
Could it be anything less or anything more?
Oh, there is one more thing: those fixated memories and discernment have to go too!
When there is pure knowing, memories and discernment are no longer needed.
This leads us onto the next stage – expression - where memories and discernment are needed in order to empathise with others (this also involves clearing our own residue of karmic reactions).
When we have recognised our true nature, cleared our karma and gone beyond hope and fear, we have arrived!
Yours, still having a long way to go,:llama:
Tony