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Steve108Steve108 Explorer
edited July 2012 in Buddhism Basics
Don't Know! How is it possible to maintain a don't know mind / beginners mind?
With metta _/|\_

Comments

  • taiyakitaiyaki Veteran
    Maintaining is what is preventing.

    Stop, then stop the stopping.

  • Steve108Steve108 Explorer
    So I think your saying that wanting to achieve Don't Know mind is actually the obstacle?

    With metta _/|\_
  • taiyakitaiyaki Veteran
    edited July 2012
    Yup.

    Any movement of push or pull is a distancing away from this basic mind.

    But after the basic mind is known. Then the pushing and pulling itself is the movement of compassion and fundamentally no different than basic mind.

    So because there is no difference between movement and non-movement to such mind. Mind is also both apparent and absent, this then can become effortlessness. No need to maintain or create.

    But first it must be known. Then practiced. Then dropped completely.

    Just my opinion though.
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    edited July 2012
    Not everyone will agree with this but...
    Beginners mind is the natural birth of a Spiritual journey. Falling out of it is just the normal maturing process where we slowly experience the futility of trading worldly possessions for spiritual ones. Beyond this, the journey begins anew with no traveller to be found.
    Beginners mind is an ideal that has little worth compared to just being where you are.
    and
    yes
    to try to maintain it is to have already moved on in your journey.
  • RebeccaSRebeccaS Veteran
    If you're really honest, you don't know much at all. You've heard things, you think things, you believe things. This is not the same as knowing, it's knowing about. For example, you know about enlightenment but you're not enlightened, so if you were honest you would say that you don't know what enlightenment is. That's beginner's mind.
  • MaryAnneMaryAnne Veteran
    @RebeccaS

    Bingo. :thumbup:
  • BeejBeej Human Being Veteran
    don't belive what you think. believe what you know. then you're not really beliving as much as you're just knowing. simple, but not easy. very not easy.
  • SonghillSonghill Veteran
    Steve108:
    Don't Know! How is it possible to maintain a don't know mind / beginners mind?
    With metta
    This kind of Zen falls, IMHO, under the rubric of "pop Zen." When Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma, "Who is before me?" and Bodhidharma replied, "I don't know (不識)" Bodhidharma really said "imperceptible," a reference to the absolute. The I don't know rendering of 不識, which suggests ignorance or stupidity (S., moha), is unsatisfactory and out of context. 識 is not an infrequent Chinese Buddhist term which generally means perception or perceiving, and the fifth skandha aggregate, vijñâna. Adding the negative prefix 不 to 識, imperceptible is the better rendering.

    The better question for the beginner is, "What is the substance of your thoughts?" If you get lucky and hit the jackpot, [it's] imperceptible will be a good description. :)
  • I_AM_THATI_AM_THAT Veteran
    You think you know who you are... You need to find out who you are not... This will move you away from the superficial illusion we call ourselves, and move you closer to the identification of true self.

    My name is "I Am That"... but in true reality "I Am What I am Not"
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