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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
Is mind really doing the thinking or is thinking just the brains way of interpreting mind?
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Consider what I said the Mind is. I said the Mind was “unconditional Love”. Consider what this means. It means that the Mind is the authority of what Love is, that Love is unconditional. If I love conditionally, whether for myself or for another, then my love is meaningless. If I hate conditionally my hate is even meaningless. Conditions are of an opinion and of my conditional thinking, which is judgmental thinking. My opinion is meaningless. Unconditional thinking means no-opinion. Consider what unconditional actually represents: It is nothing; it is empty and void of everything; there is no thought, no pictures, no images or idols of self, no-opinion; there is only the acceptance of the absence of these. Unconditional thinking is the absence of everything. Stillness is in the unconditional Thought, where there is no thought at all of what you are.
The term unconditional in itself has no meaning. And yet this is where the unconditional Mind is. This Mind is empty of thought but not empty of itself because it is for us the Source and the Giver of Love. To be in the presence of the unconditional Mind my thoughts must then be emptied of any thoughts of self. This is what is important; not to be empty of thought, but empty of thoughts of self. This means to let go of any clinging to any attachment that I might use to define what I am. Nothing I have or do in the world can I use to define what I am, as these attachments can only reinforce the illusion of what I am.
Our choice is reality or illusion. My opinions of what I am are always an illusion not only because I must imagine what I am but because it is not what the Mind is, which is what I am. If you know that the Mind is unconditional Love it is not an opinion, it is knowledge. The unconditional Mind is beyond all imaginations, beyond all definition except to say that it is unconditional Love. And who knows what Love is? Love is a mystery of the Mind. All we can know, and the choice we make, is that love must be conditional or unconditional. Ego is to believe that Love is conditional.
I was trying to clarify whether Riddlewind sees "Mind" as purely individual, or as part of something bigger. As I observed earlier in the thread, there seems to be a similarity with Hindu belief in Atman/Brahman.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Clarification is good....I'm having difficulty following the discussion itself, but I'm persevering. There are some good points being made, all round....
@SpinyNorman said:
I used to do a lot of hill-walking/climbing, scrabbling up steep inclines to get to the top, only to realise that there are higher peaks beyond. Always.
So don't get too attached to a particular view, keep moving up.
Seems like a Mindful unconditional plan for the Luvvies.
There is a huge difference between the unconditional and being guided/aware/attentive to a state or condition no matter how free/open/realised it appears/manifests.
In other words Mind/Love is a peak - no doubt. It is also a stage. A being. A realisation.
The point of expression/manifestation is how to reveal without veiling or how to share unconditionally without confusing.
“When the mind is somber, broad daylight gives birth to demons and evil spirits. When the mind is clear, a dark room has its blue sky. That which is self-concious and ulterior is far from the Truth. That which is Mindless, is near.” – Taoist poem. http://opcoa.st/Pdyyl
... and now back to the nature of the unconditional ...
@lobster said:> Seems like a Mindful unconditional plan for the Luvvies.
The Dairy Lama ( NBUH ) is a big fan of the film "The Sound of Music", which he says contains many spiritual truths, like "climb every mountain, ford every stream".
Maybe he just has a thing for Julie Andrews though.
@SpinyNorman said:
You say Mind is the "Source and the Giver of Love". That sounds rather like God?
The reason why the Mind is the "Source and the Giver of Love” is because the experience of Love comes from nowhere else. All experiences in the mind are given by the mind. To have Love is our Natural state of mind; to be without Love is unnatural. The problem is one self-destruction. The fix is to end self-destruction. If the mind were not able to provide Love you would never experience Love at all. If the Mind were not Love then there would be no Love. Ego is the killer of Love. If the Nature of the Mind is unconditional Love, and it is, then, unless you become That then you are not yourself nor in your right mind. To perceive the mind to require ego is a false perception of the mind, to perceive the mind as ego thoughts is wrong perception. When you are as ego is you are not yourself. When you love unconditionally (with no conditional thought) you are your true Self. To be Mindful is to be yourself. Peace has come because you have ended the conflict in your mind that ego caused with its illusions of condition thinking. The message is to empty yourself of any thoughts of self as you would think to perceive yourself. Make the mind blank in this way and the Natural result is to have Love and be what you really are.
There is really no difference between Mind and mind except in the way we perceive the mind. The emphasis on Mind is to show that the mind is other than ego and the disaster ego caused. Ego is the idea that he is all there is and that you have no other mandate in you nor is the mind capable of just bringing you Love without his help. Ego is the idea that you have to bring yourself love with your own thinking. The result is to kill Love and deprive you of the Love the mind would give you. How you perceive the mind itself has consequences. What you believe the mind to be is what you think you are. The correction of perceiving the mind as ego thoughts is to understand that your true Mind is not that. You are Mind, and not ego. Believe in the Mind instead of ego and the Mind will abide in you and give you Love naturally, and with that Love a deep and abiding peace. Love is peace. The mind is no longer divided and in conflict with two opposing views. The Mind itself has only one simple Thought: Love is unconditional. This is the changeless Mind that we need conform to if we are to be in our right Mind and our Natural Self.
As long as we use ego thinking and abide in the ego-illusion we are not ourselves because we are not in our right Mind. If to abide in unconditional Love is Mindfulness, and it is, then, to abide in the ego-illusion is mindlessness. The consequence of the ego illusion is that we do not live in reality and our thoughts are insane in flights of vain fantasies and imaginations to somehow delusionally provide love for ourselves. Mindfulness is then to empty the mind of mindless thoughts so that the mind is made empty of the thoughts of self so that what is left is only the truth of what we really are. This is the Natural state of the mind: to be as Love really is. Else, you make yourself the enemy of your Mind and you are at war with yourself and there is self-destruction. The opposite of self-destruction is healing the golf between us and our mind, between our thinking and the Way the Mind would have us think. If you would love your true Self then love Love.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
How do you live your daily life, @Riddlewind ? What do you do? Do you have family?
I'm just interested to know the person behind the words.
And to my way of thinking, the words are very interesting...
I don't mean to be intrusive, and if you'd rather not respond, that's not a problem, I'm totally ok with that. I'm just being curious.
@SpinyNorman said:
You say Mind is the "Source and the Giver of Love". That sounds rather like God?
The reason why the Mind is the "Source and the Giver of Love” is because the experience of Love comes from nowhere else. All experiences in the mind are given by the mind. To have Love is our Natural state of mind; to be without Love is unnatural. The problem is one self-destruction. The fix is to end self-destruction. If the mind were not able to provide Love you would never experience Love at all. If the Mind were not Love then there would be no Love. Ego is the killer of Love. If the Nature of the Mind is unconditional Love, and it is, then, unless you become That then you are not yourself nor in your right mind. To perceive the mind to require ego is a false perception of the mind, to perceive the mind as ego thoughts is wrong perception. When you are as ego is you are not yourself. When you love unconditionally (with no conditional thought) you are your true Self. To be Mindful is to be yourself. Peace has come because you have ended the conflict in your mind that ego caused with its illusions of condition thinking. The message is to empty yourself of any thoughts of self as you would think to perceive yourself. Make the mind blank in this way and the Natural result is to have Love and be what you really are.
There is really no difference between Mind and mind except in the way we perceive the mind. The emphasis on Mind is to show that the mind is other than ego and the disaster ego caused. Ego is the idea that he is all there is and that you have no other mandate in you nor is the mind capable of just bringing you Love without his help. Ego is the idea that you have to bring yourself love with your own thinking. The result is to kill Love and deprive you of the Love the mind would give you. How you perceive the mind itself has consequences. What you believe the mind to be is what you think you are. The correction of perceiving the mind as ego thoughts is to understand that your true Mind is not that. You are Mind, and not ego. Believe in the Mind instead of ego and the Mind will abide in you and give you Love naturally, and with that Love a deep and abiding peace. Love is peace. The mind is no longer divided and in conflict with two opposing views. The Mind itself has only one simple Thought: Love is unconditional. This is the changeless Mind that we need conform to if we are to be in our right Mind and our Natural Self.
As long as we use ego thinking and abide in the ego-illusion we are not ourselves because we are not in our right Mind. If to abide in unconditional Love is Mindfulness, and it is, then, to abide in the ego-illusion is mindlessness. The consequence of the ego illusion is that we do not live in reality and our thoughts are insane in flights of vain fantasies and imaginations to somehow delusionally provide love for ourselves. Mindfulness is then to empty the mind of mindless thoughts so that the mind is made empty of the thoughts of self so that what is left is only the truth of what we really are. This is the Natural state of the mind: to be as Love really is. Else, you make yourself the enemy of your Mind and you are at war with yourself and there is self-destruction. The opposite of self-destruction is healing the golf between us and our mind, between our thinking and the Way the Mind would have us think. If you would love your true Self then love Love.
Er, OK.
So you see "Mind" as something purely individual, and not as part of something bigger?
@federica said:
How do you live your daily life, @Riddlewind ? What do you do? Do you have family?
I'm just interested to know the person behind the words.
And to my way of thinking, the words are very interesting...
I don't mean to be intrusive, and if you'd rather not respond, that's not a problem, I'm totally ok with that. I'm just being curious.
There is no intrusion. I am just a guy. I am married and retired. We have between us some eleven grand children and five great grand children. I do my best to live as simply as I can. I ride motorcycle and snowmobile also. Gave up hunting long ago because I did not want to kill anything. My wife, now retired, had a business and I did the office. Before that I was a computer tech in a small computer store, before that I worked at a mill that made moldings and other wood products, before that I worked at Hughes Aircraft in California. We live in a rural setting on a small hill with a view.
While I learned much of what I learned in more turbulent times, relatively speaking, I find that with fewer distractions from the world I am able to formulate and articulate what I learned to put them into words that once eluded me. You guys are testing me by making me answer things on the fly. I am a tenacious "Why" person. I have to understand why and what. I came to be aware of my thoughts and emotions and the question of what is Love and what is ego and why were questions I felt I needed to answer as they constantly intruding into my emotion awareness?
While I have done some comparative studies of religions, along with Buddhism, for the sake of curiosity, I am otherwise self-taught. I have no credentials. I am just a guy.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Your perception of being tested, is of course, just that. Your perception. You may find it a test of what you propose, but our questions are not intended to be hostile, I hope you understand that....?
But of course, we are bound to be curious and to try to understand how you have come to the conclusions you have reached.
As students and followers of Buddhism, many of us came by a circuitous route; that is to say, the majority of us were not born into Buddhist families. We were more often than not born into Practising Christian families, or those which were largely atheist.
So we all have different stories to relate and we're all at different 'levels' of practice and understanding...
Just as you are a 'tenacious "why" person' it must be understandable to you how we seem to be too...
Buddhism is essentially a study and understanding of the mind, Mind, Self/Not-Self and co-dependent arising.
The Buddha's 'Raison d’être was to teach the Origin of Suffering and the Transcendence of Suffering.
That's really why we're all here.
So you see "Mind" as something purely individual, and not as part of something bigger?
>
The answer is both. If you can accept that that Mind of unconditional Love is in you, and is your true Self, then, so is that same Mind of unconditional Love in everyone. You are in them as they are in you, the same Self.
I think however you are looking for me tell you whether I am speaking of God or not, or only of Mind as the individual. And the answer is still both.
I hope you think clearly of what I am to say.
First I would have you consider that ego itself has been made God because we think that without ego we cannot have love in the acceptance and love ourselves, or have identity, or be happy, or have life in us, or that the mind could never be satisfied. Ego has convinced us that he is God because we think that without him we are but a dead and empty carcass that only he can fill and make alive. Ego can be personified as well as Love, but both would be only metaphors of our understanding of what is occurring in our thoughts and choices in the workings of the mind.
Consider that ego itself is our idolatry, even as we worship those images and idols of self that we make for ourselves, each one a little God we worship as ourselves. They are not real but we have made them real to us. And we think that we would be empty and mindless without them. In this devotion to our images and idols we have made ego a God to us regardless of any religious belief or other idea of what God is. The effect of our devotion to ego is that ego is God to us.
We have come under the illusion, not only that our thoughts constitute what the mind is, but that we are in control. This is the great illusion. We will always be slave to either ego or Love, and this by choice. The only control you have is of this choice. Whichever one you have the faith to believe is true and will provide Love is the one you will follow and abide in. This is because we are a slave to what we believe. We abide in the way that we believe would nourish us. Our thoughts will follow what we believe is true.
The trouble is that because the Mind of Love is always active in us, and let’s be grateful, and while we still believe in ego, the mind is not only divided but we have two masters working in us. This leaves us confused not only as to what we are and what the mind is but in what we should think. Consider that you often make the choice whether to go with ego as in something prideful, or of Love that is the Voice of your Conscience that tells you the opposite of ego, that rather than being stern and unforgiving that you be loving and forgiving. As long as we believe in ego we have these two voices going on in our head. Only one is real while, however, the other is a hallucination.
We have the illusion we are in control when ego is in control because we think we are ego. But we are not in control, he is, and we have lost control of our mind. You will always have the choice to give yourself over to be slave to Love, or ego, but you are never master of yourself. The only time that you have the effect of being in control is when you have given yourself over to the Mind. Are we so arrogant and ignorant to believe that we are wiser and smarter than our Mind? The idea is ridiculous. When we chose to need ego we chose his needs and his desires and to fear what he fears, as we chose confusion and conflict. He is in control. And so we spend all our time and effort in trying to satisfy ego and be something or someone and to remove confusion and conflict, when none of it is at all real. This is results from our thoughts and our wisdom.
All this leaves us with the confusion of what the mind is in idea that the mind is this duality of voices/entities/masters. This is an illusion caused by illusion. You can vacillate and devote yourself to Love and then ego, but never both at the same time. It is always this choice of which voice to hear as it is a choice you will always need to make because they are completely opposite thoughts and belief systems. The voice for ego ultimately disappears because we have come to our right Mind. The point is that you are only in control of the choice you make to follow in a way of thinking and believing. And that choice takes you where you should go or where you would not go if you were in your right Mind. While it has always been so, if you recognize this as true, that choice to consciously make is to devote yourself to Love alone, and to discard ego.
All your thinking and doing will follow what you believe in your heart. What you believe in your heart is what will be. And that is a choice. See yourself standing before two gates and choosing which to enter. One will take you this way, and the other another way.
Love is not God in the sense of being something "out there", but Love as ego appeared, surely appears and has the effect to be God to us when Love is our very Need and Being and requires our faithfulness and devotion to receive what the Mind has. This takes recognition. Do not misunderstand. We are speaking of how the mind works. If you are faithful to Love you are faithful to your Self. We cannot command the Mind to give us Love, the Mind commands us what to do and think if we are to receive Love. That command is to Love unconditionally, both ourselves and one another. Conditional love is our disobedience to the Laws of the Mind and Love, whether for ourselves or one another. In this way the Mind of Love has authority over us, and not us over the Mind. It is irrational and insane that we not trust and believe in our Mind. But how can we unless we subject ourselves to the Way of the Mind.
To have Love we must be as Love is. Ego has its laws, but we made them. Love has its Laws that are Laws written in the Mind at the time of our creation. Either we obey and follow the Law of Love or we do not receive what the Mind has for us. If we are not mindful and faithful to be obedient to the Laws of the Mind then the Mind withholds. But the Mind withholds only because in seeking ego instead that we reject the Love the Mind has for us. Do understand that this is only a way of describing the workings of the mind. The cause and effect is that Love would be God to us. I see this as a psychology of faith. You will either have faith in ego or have faith in Love. To have faith in ego is to have faith in nothing.
@SpinyNorman while you are perceptive in asking the question and the ideas I have just presented may be helpful, I was reluctant to put them out there fearing a misunderstanding. The real point is of the choice for what you choose to bring you Love and satisfy the need of the mind. If you cannot recognize that the need for ego is about self-love for the purpose of bringing you Love and failing, then, what I say is otherwise meaningless jibber jabber. If you do understand the “why” then also understand that if you would love yourself then DO NOT TRY. Trying is failing; to not try is to succeed. This is the cause and effect of unconditional thinking.
@federica said:
Your perception of being tested, is of course, just that. Your perception. You may find it a test of what you propose, but our questions are not intended to be hostile, I hope you understand that....?
>
The testing was only of myself to answer to the best of my ability, and often the testing of what the question or the comment was. As said, I am not fluent in Buddhist-speak, and I don't mean that as a slight or poo poo, but am speaking of MY ignorance.
I don't expect anyone to take what I say for wrote. The subject itself encourages our questioning of ourselves. Without questioning we can learn nothing. To me, of course, the subject is to get to the root cause of suffering and transcending.
I have been doing a little studying and I ran across a presentation by the
Dalai Lama as he spoke on mind at Mind Science symposium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, USA. http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/what-mind
The presentation was of the question, What is the Mind?
The Dalai Lama said:
“One of the fundamental views in Buddhism is the principle of "dependent origination”. This states that all phenomena, both subjective experiences and external objects, come into existence in dependence upon causes and conditions; nothing comes into existence uncaused”.
And then he went on to discuss the effects and properties of the physical world and how it plays in the mind. While much of this is probably true and does affect us, and in this particular view it is "dependent origination”. But I would also describe this as a karmic view of cause and effect. “Dependent origination” is an effect on us as a phenomenon that had a cause. While I have no problem with this view of the causes and effects of the physical world, I see this as only something to recognize but not as a doctrine to truly understanding the mind. It is easy enough to understand that the material world has “cause” and that the cause has “effects”. It is should be accepted since most of the idea is obvious. This can otherwise be a distraction.
The Dalai Lama in the same discussion also stated:
“According to tantra, the ultimate nature of mind is essentially pure. This pristine nature is technically called "clear light." The various afflictive emotions such as desire, hatred and jealousy are products of conditioning. They are not intrinsic qualities of the mind because the mind can be cleansed of them. When this “clear light” nature of mind is veiled or inhibited from expressing its true essence by the conditioning of the afflictive emotions and thoughts, the person is said to be caught in the cycle of existence, samsara. But when, by applying appropriate meditative techniques and practices, the individual is able to fully experience this “clear light” nature of mind free from the influence and conditioning of the afflictive states, he or she is on the way to true liberation and full enlightenment”.
The question is, “What is a clear light mind”? If it is the pristine mind then it has no “dependence origination”; it is what it is and has no cause for its existence other than itself, it is of itself, Cause. Sine it is the pristine mind it is not for us to produce the “clear light mind” but remove the afflictions that prevent and veil us from the “clear light mind” that exits. This mind is exists independent of anything even the physical world, because it is itself unaffected by phenomenon, but only that its essence can be veiled and hidden from our perception of its existence. The difference is that I call this “clear light mind” the “unconditional Mind of Love”, which is the original and unchangeable Cause.
Comments
Is mind really doing the thinking or is thinking just the brains way of interpreting mind?
Yes, lovely day, isn't it...?
Consider what I said the Mind is. I said the Mind was “unconditional Love”. Consider what this means. It means that the Mind is the authority of what Love is, that Love is unconditional. If I love conditionally, whether for myself or for another, then my love is meaningless. If I hate conditionally my hate is even meaningless. Conditions are of an opinion and of my conditional thinking, which is judgmental thinking. My opinion is meaningless. Unconditional thinking means no-opinion. Consider what unconditional actually represents: It is nothing; it is empty and void of everything; there is no thought, no pictures, no images or idols of self, no-opinion; there is only the acceptance of the absence of these. Unconditional thinking is the absence of everything. Stillness is in the unconditional Thought, where there is no thought at all of what you are.
The term unconditional in itself has no meaning. And yet this is where the unconditional Mind is. This Mind is empty of thought but not empty of itself because it is for us the Source and the Giver of Love. To be in the presence of the unconditional Mind my thoughts must then be emptied of any thoughts of self. This is what is important; not to be empty of thought, but empty of thoughts of self. This means to let go of any clinging to any attachment that I might use to define what I am. Nothing I have or do in the world can I use to define what I am, as these attachments can only reinforce the illusion of what I am.
Our choice is reality or illusion. My opinions of what I am are always an illusion not only because I must imagine what I am but because it is not what the Mind is, which is what I am. If you know that the Mind is unconditional Love it is not an opinion, it is knowledge. The unconditional Mind is beyond all imaginations, beyond all definition except to say that it is unconditional Love. And who knows what Love is? Love is a mystery of the Mind. All we can know, and the choice we make, is that love must be conditional or unconditional. Ego is to believe that Love is conditional.
You say Mind is the "Source and the Giver of Love". That sounds rather like God?
No, because it's unconditional. God's Love, if we believe everything we hear, is far from Unconditional....
I was trying to clarify whether Riddlewind sees "Mind" as purely individual, or as part of something bigger. As I observed earlier in the thread, there seems to be a similarity with Hindu belief in Atman/Brahman.
Clarification is good....I'm having difficulty following the discussion itself, but I'm persevering. There are some good points being made, all round....
Seems like a Mindful unconditional plan for the Luvvies.
There is a huge difference between the unconditional and being guided/aware/attentive to a state or condition no matter how free/open/realised it appears/manifests.
In other words Mind/Love is a peak - no doubt. It is also a stage. A being. A realisation.
The point of expression/manifestation is how to reveal without veiling or how to share unconditionally without confusing.
“When the mind is somber, broad daylight gives birth to demons and evil spirits. When the mind is clear, a dark room has its blue sky. That which is self-concious and ulterior is far from the Truth. That which is Mindless, is near.” – Taoist poem.
http://opcoa.st/Pdyyl
... and now back to the nature of the unconditional ...
The Dairy Lama ( NBUH ) is a big fan of the film "The Sound of Music", which he says contains many spiritual truths, like "climb every mountain, ford every stream".
Maybe he just has a thing for Julie Andrews though.
The reason why the Mind is the "Source and the Giver of Love” is because the experience of Love comes from nowhere else. All experiences in the mind are given by the mind. To have Love is our Natural state of mind; to be without Love is unnatural. The problem is one self-destruction. The fix is to end self-destruction. If the mind were not able to provide Love you would never experience Love at all. If the Mind were not Love then there would be no Love. Ego is the killer of Love. If the Nature of the Mind is unconditional Love, and it is, then, unless you become That then you are not yourself nor in your right mind. To perceive the mind to require ego is a false perception of the mind, to perceive the mind as ego thoughts is wrong perception. When you are as ego is you are not yourself. When you love unconditionally (with no conditional thought) you are your true Self. To be Mindful is to be yourself. Peace has come because you have ended the conflict in your mind that ego caused with its illusions of condition thinking. The message is to empty yourself of any thoughts of self as you would think to perceive yourself. Make the mind blank in this way and the Natural result is to have Love and be what you really are.
There is really no difference between Mind and mind except in the way we perceive the mind. The emphasis on Mind is to show that the mind is other than ego and the disaster ego caused. Ego is the idea that he is all there is and that you have no other mandate in you nor is the mind capable of just bringing you Love without his help. Ego is the idea that you have to bring yourself love with your own thinking. The result is to kill Love and deprive you of the Love the mind would give you. How you perceive the mind itself has consequences. What you believe the mind to be is what you think you are. The correction of perceiving the mind as ego thoughts is to understand that your true Mind is not that. You are Mind, and not ego. Believe in the Mind instead of ego and the Mind will abide in you and give you Love naturally, and with that Love a deep and abiding peace. Love is peace. The mind is no longer divided and in conflict with two opposing views. The Mind itself has only one simple Thought: Love is unconditional. This is the changeless Mind that we need conform to if we are to be in our right Mind and our Natural Self.
As long as we use ego thinking and abide in the ego-illusion we are not ourselves because we are not in our right Mind. If to abide in unconditional Love is Mindfulness, and it is, then, to abide in the ego-illusion is mindlessness. The consequence of the ego illusion is that we do not live in reality and our thoughts are insane in flights of vain fantasies and imaginations to somehow delusionally provide love for ourselves. Mindfulness is then to empty the mind of mindless thoughts so that the mind is made empty of the thoughts of self so that what is left is only the truth of what we really are. This is the Natural state of the mind: to be as Love really is. Else, you make yourself the enemy of your Mind and you are at war with yourself and there is self-destruction. The opposite of self-destruction is healing the golf between us and our mind, between our thinking and the Way the Mind would have us think. If you would love your true Self then love Love.
How do you live your daily life, @Riddlewind ? What do you do? Do you have family?
I'm just interested to know the person behind the words.
And to my way of thinking, the words are very interesting...
I don't mean to be intrusive, and if you'd rather not respond, that's not a problem, I'm totally ok with that. I'm just being curious.
Er, OK.
So you see "Mind" as something purely individual, and not as part of something bigger?
There is no intrusion. I am just a guy. I am married and retired. We have between us some eleven grand children and five great grand children. I do my best to live as simply as I can. I ride motorcycle and snowmobile also. Gave up hunting long ago because I did not want to kill anything. My wife, now retired, had a business and I did the office. Before that I was a computer tech in a small computer store, before that I worked at a mill that made moldings and other wood products, before that I worked at Hughes Aircraft in California. We live in a rural setting on a small hill with a view.
While I learned much of what I learned in more turbulent times, relatively speaking, I find that with fewer distractions from the world I am able to formulate and articulate what I learned to put them into words that once eluded me. You guys are testing me by making me answer things on the fly. I am a tenacious "Why" person. I have to understand why and what. I came to be aware of my thoughts and emotions and the question of what is Love and what is ego and why were questions I felt I needed to answer as they constantly intruding into my emotion awareness?
While I have done some comparative studies of religions, along with Buddhism, for the sake of curiosity, I am otherwise self-taught. I have no credentials. I am just a guy.
Your perception of being tested, is of course, just that. Your perception. You may find it a test of what you propose, but our questions are not intended to be hostile, I hope you understand that....?
But of course, we are bound to be curious and to try to understand how you have come to the conclusions you have reached.
As students and followers of Buddhism, many of us came by a circuitous route; that is to say, the majority of us were not born into Buddhist families. We were more often than not born into Practising Christian families, or those which were largely atheist.
So we all have different stories to relate and we're all at different 'levels' of practice and understanding...
Just as you are a 'tenacious "why" person' it must be understandable to you how we seem to be too...
Buddhism is essentially a study and understanding of the mind, Mind, Self/Not-Self and co-dependent arising.
The Buddha's 'Raison d’être was to teach the Origin of Suffering and the Transcendence of Suffering.
That's really why we're all here.
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The answer is both. If you can accept that that Mind of unconditional Love is in you, and is your true Self, then, so is that same Mind of unconditional Love in everyone. You are in them as they are in you, the same Self.
I think however you are looking for me tell you whether I am speaking of God or not, or only of Mind as the individual. And the answer is still both.
I hope you think clearly of what I am to say.
First I would have you consider that ego itself has been made God because we think that without ego we cannot have love in the acceptance and love ourselves, or have identity, or be happy, or have life in us, or that the mind could never be satisfied. Ego has convinced us that he is God because we think that without him we are but a dead and empty carcass that only he can fill and make alive. Ego can be personified as well as Love, but both would be only metaphors of our understanding of what is occurring in our thoughts and choices in the workings of the mind.
Consider that ego itself is our idolatry, even as we worship those images and idols of self that we make for ourselves, each one a little God we worship as ourselves. They are not real but we have made them real to us. And we think that we would be empty and mindless without them. In this devotion to our images and idols we have made ego a God to us regardless of any religious belief or other idea of what God is. The effect of our devotion to ego is that ego is God to us.
We have come under the illusion, not only that our thoughts constitute what the mind is, but that we are in control. This is the great illusion. We will always be slave to either ego or Love, and this by choice. The only control you have is of this choice. Whichever one you have the faith to believe is true and will provide Love is the one you will follow and abide in. This is because we are a slave to what we believe. We abide in the way that we believe would nourish us. Our thoughts will follow what we believe is true.
The trouble is that because the Mind of Love is always active in us, and let’s be grateful, and while we still believe in ego, the mind is not only divided but we have two masters working in us. This leaves us confused not only as to what we are and what the mind is but in what we should think. Consider that you often make the choice whether to go with ego as in something prideful, or of Love that is the Voice of your Conscience that tells you the opposite of ego, that rather than being stern and unforgiving that you be loving and forgiving. As long as we believe in ego we have these two voices going on in our head. Only one is real while, however, the other is a hallucination.
We have the illusion we are in control when ego is in control because we think we are ego. But we are not in control, he is, and we have lost control of our mind. You will always have the choice to give yourself over to be slave to Love, or ego, but you are never master of yourself. The only time that you have the effect of being in control is when you have given yourself over to the Mind. Are we so arrogant and ignorant to believe that we are wiser and smarter than our Mind? The idea is ridiculous. When we chose to need ego we chose his needs and his desires and to fear what he fears, as we chose confusion and conflict. He is in control. And so we spend all our time and effort in trying to satisfy ego and be something or someone and to remove confusion and conflict, when none of it is at all real. This is results from our thoughts and our wisdom.
All this leaves us with the confusion of what the mind is in idea that the mind is this duality of voices/entities/masters. This is an illusion caused by illusion. You can vacillate and devote yourself to Love and then ego, but never both at the same time. It is always this choice of which voice to hear as it is a choice you will always need to make because they are completely opposite thoughts and belief systems. The voice for ego ultimately disappears because we have come to our right Mind. The point is that you are only in control of the choice you make to follow in a way of thinking and believing. And that choice takes you where you should go or where you would not go if you were in your right Mind. While it has always been so, if you recognize this as true, that choice to consciously make is to devote yourself to Love alone, and to discard ego.
All your thinking and doing will follow what you believe in your heart. What you believe in your heart is what will be. And that is a choice. See yourself standing before two gates and choosing which to enter. One will take you this way, and the other another way.
Love is not God in the sense of being something "out there", but Love as ego appeared, surely appears and has the effect to be God to us when Love is our very Need and Being and requires our faithfulness and devotion to receive what the Mind has. This takes recognition. Do not misunderstand. We are speaking of how the mind works. If you are faithful to Love you are faithful to your Self. We cannot command the Mind to give us Love, the Mind commands us what to do and think if we are to receive Love. That command is to Love unconditionally, both ourselves and one another. Conditional love is our disobedience to the Laws of the Mind and Love, whether for ourselves or one another. In this way the Mind of Love has authority over us, and not us over the Mind. It is irrational and insane that we not trust and believe in our Mind. But how can we unless we subject ourselves to the Way of the Mind.
To have Love we must be as Love is. Ego has its laws, but we made them. Love has its Laws that are Laws written in the Mind at the time of our creation. Either we obey and follow the Law of Love or we do not receive what the Mind has for us. If we are not mindful and faithful to be obedient to the Laws of the Mind then the Mind withholds. But the Mind withholds only because in seeking ego instead that we reject the Love the Mind has for us. Do understand that this is only a way of describing the workings of the mind. The cause and effect is that Love would be God to us. I see this as a psychology of faith. You will either have faith in ego or have faith in Love. To have faith in ego is to have faith in nothing.
@SpinyNorman while you are perceptive in asking the question and the ideas I have just presented may be helpful, I was reluctant to put them out there fearing a misunderstanding. The real point is of the choice for what you choose to bring you Love and satisfy the need of the mind. If you cannot recognize that the need for ego is about self-love for the purpose of bringing you Love and failing, then, what I say is otherwise meaningless jibber jabber. If you do understand the “why” then also understand that if you would love yourself then DO NOT TRY. Trying is failing; to not try is to succeed. This is the cause and effect of unconditional thinking.
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The testing was only of myself to answer to the best of my ability, and often the testing of what the question or the comment was. As said, I am not fluent in Buddhist-speak, and I don't mean that as a slight or poo poo, but am speaking of MY ignorance.
I don't expect anyone to take what I say for wrote. The subject itself encourages our questioning of ourselves. Without questioning we can learn nothing. To me, of course, the subject is to get to the root cause of suffering and transcending.
May the blessings of Love be with you @federica.
I have been doing a little studying and I ran across a presentation by the
Dalai Lama as he spoke on mind at Mind Science symposium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, USA.
http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/what-mind
The presentation was of the question, What is the Mind?
The Dalai Lama said:
“One of the fundamental views in Buddhism is the principle of "dependent origination”. This states that all phenomena, both subjective experiences and external objects, come into existence in dependence upon causes and conditions; nothing comes into existence uncaused”.
And then he went on to discuss the effects and properties of the physical world and how it plays in the mind. While much of this is probably true and does affect us, and in this particular view it is "dependent origination”. But I would also describe this as a karmic view of cause and effect. “Dependent origination” is an effect on us as a phenomenon that had a cause. While I have no problem with this view of the causes and effects of the physical world, I see this as only something to recognize but not as a doctrine to truly understanding the mind. It is easy enough to understand that the material world has “cause” and that the cause has “effects”. It is should be accepted since most of the idea is obvious. This can otherwise be a distraction.
The Dalai Lama in the same discussion also stated:
“According to tantra, the ultimate nature of mind is essentially pure. This pristine nature is technically called "clear light." The various afflictive emotions such as desire, hatred and jealousy are products of conditioning. They are not intrinsic qualities of the mind because the mind can be cleansed of them. When this “clear light” nature of mind is veiled or inhibited from expressing its true essence by the conditioning of the afflictive emotions and thoughts, the person is said to be caught in the cycle of existence, samsara. But when, by applying appropriate meditative techniques and practices, the individual is able to fully experience this “clear light” nature of mind free from the influence and conditioning of the afflictive states, he or she is on the way to true liberation and full enlightenment”.
The question is, “What is a clear light mind”? If it is the pristine mind then it has no “dependence origination”; it is what it is and has no cause for its existence other than itself, it is of itself, Cause. Sine it is the pristine mind it is not for us to produce the “clear light mind” but remove the afflictions that prevent and veil us from the “clear light mind” that exits. This mind is exists independent of anything even the physical world, because it is itself unaffected by phenomenon, but only that its essence can be veiled and hidden from our perception of its existence. The difference is that I call this “clear light mind” the “unconditional Mind of Love”, which is the original and unchangeable Cause.