The original mind
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I have been listening a bit to Osho discourses the past few days, sections where he talks about being an original being, about not being programmed. It has left me asking myself, truly how original am I? Recently I was told I am quite good at analysis, and if I look at my mental habits, I have to concede this is something that goes back a long way. When I was a student in physics and engineering, analysis is something you had to learn. It became a habit.
But in reality analysing things is not always a good thing. You are forever taking things apart, looking at their roots, at how they grow. It seems to me that by analysing things you obtain a limited understanding of how they work, you increase your knowledge of the functioning of things. But from a more mature standpoint you lose somewhat the connection with creativity and originality, you are seduced into logic and reasonableness.
This describes my life path quite well. When I was five I used to get very angry sometimes. That stopped happening later. I became much more easygoing and reasonable. Much of my life I worked with computers and technology. But I now think that that is somewhat a dead end. It now seems to me better for one’s overall joy to work with what gives one happiness, to try to find a talent in creating things of beauty, not in the function of things.
Maybe I am over analysing things 😂😂 have you ever tried to figure out where the search for your original mind would take you?
Comments
Not a bad description of a practice of Zazen. Soto Zazen might say it's more about about allowing than searching just to lesson the chance of just switching one set of identities for another.
I'm not a zennie so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that is their understanding of original mind. It sounds to me like you're talking about some sort of genuine personality underneath learned behavior. I've understood the idea as some sort of enlightened state or ground of being.
Also, many people find joy and fulfillment in structures and functions.
If by figure out you mean by thinking about then yes, like a dog chasing its tail, going round and round in circles....driving one around the bend...
However tis said..If you want to enter the gates of Zen...Do not give rise to thinking
Such a tiny yet powerfully packed statement seed and when nurtured with calmness, openness & compassion, has the compacity to germinate and grow into wisdom beyond one's wildest dreams (Well thus have I heard)
In other words When the intellect ventures into where it does not belong, it becomes lost in its own confusion
The original mind so it would seem is a mind without thought clutter, clear knowledge in its purest form ...
Where thoughts come and go...Mind pays them no mind
How do we lessen the less ons? In other words removing rather than swapping persona/wise fill ups?
In a sense we have to exhaust the better muddying. The clear stream of being, washes away our crud.
... hear or here?
There is no original mind. Original mind is gone ...
Gone, Gone, Gone beyond Gone utterly beyond
http://sanghalou.org/oldsitebackup/heart_suttra.htm
I used to be one of them. For many years I enjoyed the function of a well-tuned section of computer code. But I’ve come to realise there is something more about things of beauty, which gives them a durability beyond just their function. If I look at what I enjoy from the past, it’s more about photographs than past triumphs of coding.
Maybe that’s just me. I’ve come to realise that a lot of the journey of discovering what is your original mind is about finding out anew what you were inclined towards when you were young. Personally when I was young I was fascinated by Lego and toy guns. The Lego was about building things and being involved with fantasy... I used to build moonbases.
Nowadays the imagination lives less for me. If I were to play with Lego now I would be much less involved with it. It’s like that fire has somewhat died out. But at the same time I appreciate some things more, such as films. It’s a shift, from being inward focussed to more outward, I think.
Anyway... don’t mind me... my tendency to analyse has once again gotten the better of me.
From a Buddhist dictionary:
hongaku (Jap): A term meaning 'original' or 'innate enlightenment'. The concept originated in The Awakening of Faith (see Mahayanasraddhotpada-sastra), where it referred to the inherently enlightened and *luminous mind that all beings possessed, and was opposed to 'acquired enlightenment', or the practices that lead to the gradual realization of the endowment that the practitioner had all along. In Japanese Tendai school and the schools that branched off from it in the *Kamakura period (Zen, *Pure Land, and *Nichiren), this basic idea was developed in a number of ways that allowed for many ways of understanding the relationship between the absolute and the contingent.
This reminded me of the difference between architecture made with beauty in mind and that made solely for utilitarian considerations. I suppose this is part of modern consciousness, so you're definitely not alone. I remember Roger Scruton illustrates this well:
ALTHOUGH, I do think there is much modern architecture that is quite nice.
Interestingly enough, I was just reading an article in Popular Mechanics about a neurologist and a astrophysicist comparing notes and coming to the conclusion that the universe resembles and even behaves like a brain.
"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself"
-Carl Sagan
Indeed the Sufi Bodhi have been saying that and similar for centuries.
“It is He who is revealed in every face, sought in every sign, gazed upon by every eye, worshipped in every object of worship, and pursued in the unseen and the visible. Not a single one of His creatures can fail to find Him in its primordial and original nature.”
-- Ibn Arabi
It is even deeper. Though the universe talks and thinks for itself, without the space/emptiness it would be nothing ...