Amusing, but not so amusing
Spirituality is based on mind. In Buddhism, mind is what distinguishes sentient beings from rocks or trees or bodies of water. That which possesses discriminating awareness, that which possesses a sense of duality--which grasps or rejects something external--that is mind. Fundamentally, it is that which can associate with an "other"--with any "something" that is perceived as different from the perceiver. That is the definition of mind. The traditional Tibetan phrase defining mind means precisely that: "That which can think of the other, the projection, is mind."
So by mind we mean something very specific. It is not something very vague and creepy inside our heads or hearts, something that just happens as part of the way the wind blows and the grass grows. Rather, it is something very concrete. It contains perception: perception that is very uncomplicated, very basic, very precise. Mind develops its particular nature as that perception begins to linger on something other than oneself. Mind makes the fact of perceiving something else stand for the existence of oneself. That is the mental trick that constitutes mind. In fact, it should be the opposite. Since the perception starts from oneself, the logic should be, "I exist, therefore the other exists." But somehow the hypocrisy of mind is developed to such an extent that mind lingers on the other as a way of getting the feedback that it itself exists, which is a fundamentally erroneous belief. It is the fact that the existence of self is questionable that motivates the trick of duality.
This mind is our working basis for the practice of meditation and the development of awareness. But mind is something more than the process of confirming self by the dualistic lingering on the other. Mind also includes what are known as emotions, which are the highlights of mental states. Mind cannot exist without emotions. Daydreaming and discursive thoughts are not enough. Those alone would be too boring. The dualistic trick would wear too thin. So we tend to create waves of emotion which go up and down: passion, aggression, ignorance, pride--all kinds of emotions. In the beginning we create them deliberately, as a game of trying to prove to ourselves that we exist. But eventually the game becomes a hassle; it becomes more than a game and forces us to challenge ourselves more than we intended. It is like a hunter who, for the sport of practicing his shooting, decides to shoot one leg of a deer at a time. But the deer runs very fast, and it appears it might get away altogether. This becomes a total challenge to the hunter, who rushes after the deer, now trying to kill it completely, to shoot it in the heart. So the hunter has been challenged and feels defeated by his own game.
Emotions are like that. They are not a requirement for survival; they are a game we developed that went wrong at some point--it went sour. In the face of this predicament we feel terribly frustrated and absolutely helpless. Such frustration causes some people to fortify their relationship to the 'other' by creating a god or other projections, such as saviors, gurus, and mahatmas. We create all kinds of projections as henchmen, hitmen, to enable us to redominate our territory. The implicit sense is that if we pay homage to such great beings, they will function as our helpers, as the guarantors of our ground.
So we have created a world that is bittersweet. Things are amusing but, at the same time, not so amusing. Sometimes things seem terribly funny but, on the other hand, terribly sad. Life has the quality of a game of ours that has trapped us. The setup of mind has created the whole thing. We might complain about the government or the economy of the country or the prime rate of interest, but those factors are secondary. The root of the problem... is called mind.
-Chogyam Trungpa, "Mind: The Open Secret," 1976 (Published in The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology, 2005)
So by mind we mean something very specific. It is not something very vague and creepy inside our heads or hearts, something that just happens as part of the way the wind blows and the grass grows. Rather, it is something very concrete. It contains perception: perception that is very uncomplicated, very basic, very precise. Mind develops its particular nature as that perception begins to linger on something other than oneself. Mind makes the fact of perceiving something else stand for the existence of oneself. That is the mental trick that constitutes mind. In fact, it should be the opposite. Since the perception starts from oneself, the logic should be, "I exist, therefore the other exists." But somehow the hypocrisy of mind is developed to such an extent that mind lingers on the other as a way of getting the feedback that it itself exists, which is a fundamentally erroneous belief. It is the fact that the existence of self is questionable that motivates the trick of duality.
This mind is our working basis for the practice of meditation and the development of awareness. But mind is something more than the process of confirming self by the dualistic lingering on the other. Mind also includes what are known as emotions, which are the highlights of mental states. Mind cannot exist without emotions. Daydreaming and discursive thoughts are not enough. Those alone would be too boring. The dualistic trick would wear too thin. So we tend to create waves of emotion which go up and down: passion, aggression, ignorance, pride--all kinds of emotions. In the beginning we create them deliberately, as a game of trying to prove to ourselves that we exist. But eventually the game becomes a hassle; it becomes more than a game and forces us to challenge ourselves more than we intended. It is like a hunter who, for the sport of practicing his shooting, decides to shoot one leg of a deer at a time. But the deer runs very fast, and it appears it might get away altogether. This becomes a total challenge to the hunter, who rushes after the deer, now trying to kill it completely, to shoot it in the heart. So the hunter has been challenged and feels defeated by his own game.
Emotions are like that. They are not a requirement for survival; they are a game we developed that went wrong at some point--it went sour. In the face of this predicament we feel terribly frustrated and absolutely helpless. Such frustration causes some people to fortify their relationship to the 'other' by creating a god or other projections, such as saviors, gurus, and mahatmas. We create all kinds of projections as henchmen, hitmen, to enable us to redominate our territory. The implicit sense is that if we pay homage to such great beings, they will function as our helpers, as the guarantors of our ground.
So we have created a world that is bittersweet. Things are amusing but, at the same time, not so amusing. Sometimes things seem terribly funny but, on the other hand, terribly sad. Life has the quality of a game of ours that has trapped us. The setup of mind has created the whole thing. We might complain about the government or the economy of the country or the prime rate of interest, but those factors are secondary. The root of the problem... is called mind.
-Chogyam Trungpa, "Mind: The Open Secret," 1976 (Published in The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology, 2005)
posted by Stephanie at
12:01 AM
3 Comments:
"They are not a requirement for survival . . . " Not true. The opposite infact. It is passion that drives us to suceed, not calculation.
The root of the problem is not mind. There is no problem with existence, Mind is not 'getting it wrong' - it is just a limitted tool. We might meditate to find truths we cannot easily see but we also need to feed our kids and keep our streets safe. This requires us to overcome obstacles and mind is the tool to do this, (albeit one that is likely to create more obstacles as it does so). Many Buddhists give the mind a bad press so they miss the need to have a strong socio-political dimension. I want Praxis to have that - this has been growing on my mind of late . . . . ( Dave )
Hey, Dave... enjoyed your comment on this one! And I agree, for the most part, in particularly in regard to the importance of passion and emotion for survival. I find that they are also the heart of the spiritual life.
But I think Trungpa was trying to make a particular point here, that I can relate to quite a bit (I meant to write a short piece tying together the three things I just posted, maybe I'll finally get around to it today): that we often don't realize the extent to which we are choosing, and creating, our own emotional experience. That we get caught in our own game and then forget it was a game we started in the first place.
I usually love the play of my emotions, but sometimes I end up in a place I really don't want to be, and can feel quite helpless... until I realize how my own choices have brought me to this state, and that I don't have to continue to choose to be in it. Now, this isn't always the case; there's some biochemical stuff that goes on that's not in my control, but I almost always find that if I'm in one of those really bleak, dark, impossible places, I've to some extent brought myself there, because of some belief I had, or vision I fancied... the gift of Buddhist teaching to me is the ability to realize it's all empty, that this little puzzle you've put together isn't some cage someone has locked you in from the outside, but something you created, and you can stand up and walk away from it.
hi Stephanie . . . this is something we would really need to explore face to face at length over a beer (or few). we are not disagreeing here at all but there is something quite complex at play that needs fully unpacking. For now, I would just add that, when you ". . .stand up and walk away from it", you create something else. perhaps better but there is still a "creation" there.
good luck ! . . . (Dave)
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