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Nothing Doing
lobster
Crusty Veteran
We feel we know our own mind. What we know is we have opinions. Beliefs change according to age, socialisation, circumstances and the latest media promoted mind fad or meme. Some stagnate at age thirteen but most of us are very different as children, teens, adults and seniors. Are we really just a bundle of other people's dreams, parental and schooling influence and the music lyrics drummed into adolescence and obsolescence? Do we actually have a mind of our own?
Using mind technology honed over two and a half millennia is the Buddhist path. The Buddhist teachers assure me that the belief in the mind is a construct. The mind is not independent of the life circumstances or karma that arises in our thinking. Oh Buddha. Oh Dharma. Never mind the thinking, what is left?
The enlightened of other paths, those awake to Christ, Allah or the 'great cause', align and merge with the objective. Even the Taoists, go with the flow. Buddhists bless their monkish monkeying, have no such goal. Nothing, Neti, Nada. No way.
In the Buddhist way, we are not attaining a new perfect mind, a sort of super mind, or flawless new perfection. Oh no. We are aiming for a mind that is aware of what it clings to, which is the tendency to associate with some sense of being. Just when we feel comfortable they are removing every known rug from under us. We can not stand on the rug, we can not weave it, we can not even hide under it and hope our demons will be imagined away. Holy stupas of Inner Mongolia, what kind of enlightenment does not exist?
Well for better or for worse, even though those might be subjective, this is my path. These awakened ones may just be leading me nowhere. What a concept to not have, except over imaginary saki cocktails at the latest Zen sushi bar. So much effort and nothing to show for it.
Does any good, for want of a better word come from all of this? Perhaps it might be better to ask, when nothing is left, what remains? Well it seems that the clarity of not having a mind also offers a basis for unsullied, rather than nihilist action. In other words there is - and I am quoting - a form of emptiness that has a form. Holy smoke and mirrors Batman.
Maybe the very overwhelming nature of a house without walls, carpets, roof or even the thought of being a future construction, just came tumbling down. Do we construct a house or wonder at our new abode? Maybe first we have to declutter. Time to sift, sort and add to the pile of consumed and discarded jumble.
So dear friends and readers of my mind full and outed excesses, I am on a path to silence. When I am nothing, who will speak for me? When emptiness strikes, nobody will be there. The light will be out along with the darkness. I have nothing to look forward to and even looking back might be impossible. No ego, no attachments to the certainty of Buddhahood or the realms of eternal gnashing of empty words. How wonderful as the Tibetans say. I hope they are right. Some of my myriad selves are feeling very insecure and want to sit in a small corner of rug chewing certainty. Sorry rug chompers and weavers of all description and realms, nothing doing.
Using mind technology honed over two and a half millennia is the Buddhist path. The Buddhist teachers assure me that the belief in the mind is a construct. The mind is not independent of the life circumstances or karma that arises in our thinking. Oh Buddha. Oh Dharma. Never mind the thinking, what is left?
The enlightened of other paths, those awake to Christ, Allah or the 'great cause', align and merge with the objective. Even the Taoists, go with the flow. Buddhists bless their monkish monkeying, have no such goal. Nothing, Neti, Nada. No way.
In the Buddhist way, we are not attaining a new perfect mind, a sort of super mind, or flawless new perfection. Oh no. We are aiming for a mind that is aware of what it clings to, which is the tendency to associate with some sense of being. Just when we feel comfortable they are removing every known rug from under us. We can not stand on the rug, we can not weave it, we can not even hide under it and hope our demons will be imagined away. Holy stupas of Inner Mongolia, what kind of enlightenment does not exist?
Well for better or for worse, even though those might be subjective, this is my path. These awakened ones may just be leading me nowhere. What a concept to not have, except over imaginary saki cocktails at the latest Zen sushi bar. So much effort and nothing to show for it.
Does any good, for want of a better word come from all of this? Perhaps it might be better to ask, when nothing is left, what remains? Well it seems that the clarity of not having a mind also offers a basis for unsullied, rather than nihilist action. In other words there is - and I am quoting - a form of emptiness that has a form. Holy smoke and mirrors Batman.
Maybe the very overwhelming nature of a house without walls, carpets, roof or even the thought of being a future construction, just came tumbling down. Do we construct a house or wonder at our new abode? Maybe first we have to declutter. Time to sift, sort and add to the pile of consumed and discarded jumble.
So dear friends and readers of my mind full and outed excesses, I am on a path to silence. When I am nothing, who will speak for me? When emptiness strikes, nobody will be there. The light will be out along with the darkness. I have nothing to look forward to and even looking back might be impossible. No ego, no attachments to the certainty of Buddhahood or the realms of eternal gnashing of empty words. How wonderful as the Tibetans say. I hope they are right. Some of my myriad selves are feeling very insecure and want to sit in a small corner of rug chewing certainty. Sorry rug chompers and weavers of all description and realms, nothing doing.
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