Enlightened Mind, Enlightened Body.
lobster
Crusty Veteran
I think my body exists. Therefore it does?
There is a Yogacara teaching that the mind, memories and existence come into being and then cease to exist.
Perhaps.
http://www.dharmafellowship.org/library/essays/yogacara-part2.htm
I think my brain just exploded with a Big Bang . . .
The sense of continuity - of a continuum of being, is dependent and co-dependent on the body. My thoughts, experiences and sense of unique being is attached to or centred around a physical manifestation.
The other day I developed a psychosomatic limp. The body was trying to protect me by not going somewhere. Thanks bod bud. Don't worry I was scuttling around again the same day. Strange even watching it unfold . . .
Does the body have a mind of its own? How much of enlightment is a head experience? What is the enlightened body up to? Or am I not 'this body' . . . 
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Comments
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, (a practice still prevalent now, even 4000 years after its first documentation) the Mind is inseparable from the body; each one affects the other, and they cannot be separated. Western medicine came round to that relatively recently - and I'm talking the past 30 years. How you choose to view that, whether through Buddhist eyes or otherwise, is up to 'you'.
The body is as much you as anything else right? We just done feel that way.
I read in Tolles power of now, his theory is that his depression was so severe the body sensed it's own impending death. It perceived the ego as the threat and let it go. That's when Tolle woke up. How's that for enlightened bodies!
The worlds biggest super computer could never even come close to what our bodies can do.
Reminds me of TNH "smile for your heart, it works tirelessly for you! Day and night"
Perhaps this is where Yogacara has run its course.
How can existence come from non existence? And vice versa? Nagarjuna has roundly refuted these possibilities with some pretty seamless logic.
Speculating on which is more real, the mind, the self, or the body, while tempting and entertaining, is what meditating on emptiness is aimed at curing us of.
To be a unified being, enjoying the journey while attempting to catch a glimpse of the emptiness of it all, from time to time, is the path. That's the way it looks to me.
Or just as much not you.
One property of the universe is that it can be manifest or non-manifest.
Kia Ora
Enlightened Mind, Enlightened Body.
You can't have one without the other!
Metta Shoshin .
..
I developed a physical limp in May, went off work at the beginning of June, and then in time for my knee (if not the rest of me) to be ready for work again, I got West Nile fever. It's considered 'mild' in that it isn't life threatening so much as just having fevers and severe fatigue for a month to six weeks. I went grocery shopping two days ago, first time, and it was doable, but the energy expenditure was shocking.
The relief I STILL feel for not having to go back to that pestilential hospital has made BFF with my right knee and my WN fever, I know it has. I'm always the last to know about these things, finding myself oozing along on my lips while friends and family peek over and say "um, are you OK?"
I could really go on at length here about the current situation (I might, not sure yet if it's necessary) but 'this' has happened before, sort of. When my kids were babies I was going to nursing school and a single mom. I got strep throat three times in one year, and that was the first time I realized if I did not deliberately take time to slow down I would be 'forced' to.
My body has been a wealth of wise 'commentary' long before I realized what it was saying, not to mention long before I even knew to listen. I wonder, very innocently, if it is 'easier' for females to access so-called 'body wisdom' (sorry for lack of better terms) as we females are SO subject to the body . . . monthly cycles, childbearing, and on the 'negative' side, on 'stage' as sexual objects defined by the quality of our bodily contours from the age of eleven.
Men, and I mean this with complete innocence and willingness to be corrected, seem less likely to be tied down by their biology, and may come to listen to bodily wisdom with more difficulty?
@Lobster
Does the mind have a body? and does the body have a mind?
Both are actually only the sense gates of an ephemeral existence which our skandhic
impulses try to deify in accord to their karmic inheritance.
As sense gates, body & mind are perfect subjects.
As empire builders, body & mind suck royally.
Yes, it's the thing stuck on to my head and it can be a real nuisance at times
I feel as @federica mentions they are a whole. Without a body, existence would be ephemeral to the point of non existence.
Perhaps.
I have no existence awareness independent of the sense gates. I can say for sure that Nirvana is independent but without sense gates what is there to be independently aware?
Indeed. Yesterday I had mild food poisoning. Cider vinegar, honey and water helped settle that royal discomfort.
How independent of these sense gates can we be? My inclination is to be benevolent and increase the range of being to include experience . . . :wave: .