Mind is Moving - Understanding the Mechanics of Mind Behind Ordinary Experience

Mechanics of Mind

The mind is moving... so said some sage or saint. As a poetic observation on the contemplative path, it may catch the eye for a moment, then fade from the memory. As an assessment of the human condition to be integrated into an understanding of the mechanics of mind, however, it stands to spur revolutionary change.

Indeed, the movements of mind and the turnings of thought are themes we've addressed from multiple angles already. Understanding the mechanics of this process, whereby we get lost and tossed about in a mess of our own creation, is the key to unshackling ourselves from it. Understanding the mechanics of mind allows us to harness its potential and re-route, channel, re-orient its power in an adaptive direction.

A bit of background on the mechanics of mind may be helpful, first. We recommend taking a look at another recent article on the "currents of construing" before plunging into this one.

Ordinary Mind

Here, we find ourselves back in Tang dynasty China, this time walking alongside the Sixth Patriarch of the Chan (Chinese Zen) tradition, whose name was Huineng.

Born in southern China to a working class family, Huineng is widely known in the Chan tradition as an "illiterate barbarian" whose kitchen rice threshing and chopping wood for the monastery embodied the spirit of Chan in ordinary activity. As evidenced by its record, the Chan tradition sought to shatter preconceived notions and upset the status quo. By some accounts, it is even said that "ordinary mind is the way," that the everyday, ordinary mind, even in lacking education or embellishment, is the very embodiment of the contemplative path.



Like Hanshan, the "Cold Mountain" poet-recluse, Huineng also composed several famous poems, which completely overturned the conventions of his time. Rather than drawing on literary expertise, the ordinary mind and its capacity to immerse fully in ordinary activity were the basis for Huineng's poetic insights.

Although illiterate, Huineng's "spoken-word" was written down with the aid of a scribe, allowing him to win a poetry contest and prove his worthiness as an heir to the Chan lineage. His teachings were later compiled and recorded in the Sixth Patriarch's Platform Sutra (六祖壇經), which documents major events in his contemplative career as well as teachings from the Chan school on the nature of the mind.

Mind is Moving

On the nature of the mind, Huineng is short but sweet in his reflections.

Telling of his ordinariness and reflecting his on-the-ground approach to contemplative practice, one such teaching unfurls in an exchange with a pair of fellow monks. While observing them squabble over a seemingly trivial question of whether a flag blowing in the wind is moving, or if the wind blowing the flag is moving, Huineng interjects. Their exchange unfolds as such:

At that time there was a [flag] waving in the breeze.

One monk there said, “The wind is moving.”

Another monk said, “The [flag] is moving.”

They argued on this incessantly.

I stepped forward and said, “It is not the wind that is moving, nor is it the [flag] that is moving. It is your minds that are moving, Kind Sirs.”

Everyone was startled.

(Trans. Buddhist Text Translation Society)

In quibbling over whether the wind or flag moves, the monks are swept away and wrapped up in fruitless debate. With precision, Huineng intervenes in order to halt their flailing about. A sort of stillness of mind amidst the flow of experience seems to be in order.

Without further comment, he points at their minds as the source of confusion.

Merely Discussing

But their question was the epitome of ordinary, you may note. They weren't debating the nature of the cosmos or other such lofty topics. What was the issue in their discussion?

Even in being ordinary, flag vs. wind, much like chicken vs. egg, mind vs. matter, nature vs. nurture and other such dichotomies, lends itself to argumentation and debate, seeking to prove one view right and others wrong. Such discussions seldom attend to the ordinary mind. Even ordinary questions may be pursued mindlessly. Perhaps the monks were merely discussing in a casual or playful tone, but they nonetheless lost sight of their own minds. When we engage in idle chatter, whether about the wind or flag, the weather or politics, we, too, often lose track of our own minds. While there's nothing inherently unwholesome about such discussions, they nonetheless tend to lead us astray. Our task is to keep track of the mind that gives rise to these habits.

Importantly, overhearing this remark by Huineng, another more senior monk by the name of Yinzong joins the conversation. Perhaps his interest was piqued, finding Huineng's response impressive. Yinzong cross-questions Huineng's meaning and discovers Huineng's “responses were direct, concise, and did not come from written texts” (Ibid). Meanwhile, Huineng reflects on "merely discussing."

He questioned me further, “How exactly was Huangmei’s [i.e., Hongren’s] teaching transferred?”

I replied, “There was no transfer. We merely discussed seeing the nature. There was no discussion of dhyana Samadhi or liberation.”

Yinzong asked, “Why was there no discussion about dhyana Samadhi or liberation?”

I said, “Because those are dualistic teachings, not the Buddha-Dharma. The Dharma of the Buddha is a non-dual Dharma.” (Ibid)

Here, we are reminded of Huineng's exchange with his teacher Hongren. Upon "receiving transmission," a process whereby a teacher recognizes the student's maturity, Huineng was deemed the "Sixth Patriarch" in the lineage of the Chan school, inheriting the prized robe and bowl from his teacher, the Fifth Patriarch. Yet Huineng recognizes that there is nothing substantial to such a title or attainment. Merely discussing, and seeing, the "nature" (one's innate capacity for enlightenment) is all there is to it.

Discussion of seeing one's capacity for enlightenment, however, differs from pompous claims to already being enlightened, holier-than-thou, or above all others. Not only are discussions of attainments potentially dualistic in assuming a hierarchy of identities which lend themselves to attachment, the concept of transference itself also implies dualism.

Huineng may subtly be pointing to the lack of dualism even between conversational partners. His stating, “We merely discussed seeing the nature,” collapses the duality between “Hongren” and “Huineng,” or “Fifth Patriarch” and “Sixth Patriarch.” Only through their selfless spontaneity can transformation be felt, which characterizes “transmission” more than any literal exchange of robe or bowl.

Ordinary Experience

So what relevance does this exchange have for us?

First, it alerts us to a tendency that undergirds much of our ordinary experience. What tendency? The tendency to spiral in thoughts about trivial matters, which distract us from addressing the more salient issues that plague us today, whether societal unrest, climate change, or others. Perhaps our ordinary experience can be a launching pad for extraordinary action, so long as we don't remain superficially attached to the ordinary. Rather, we may skillfully wield the ordinary and re-route the mind's default tendencies away from maladaptive functions toward adaptive functions for the sake of revolutionary change.

Second, it suggests that one means to overcome such a tendency entails seeing through dual notions, such as subject and object, self versus other. Is there a point, a meaningful point, to engaging in debate over something as trivial as whether the wind or flag moves? Why not both? Does it even matter, ultimately? Yes, they are parts of our ordinary experience, but why take them on face value? What about the winds that spread fires or the flags behind which people build a national identity opposed to those who are deemed "other"? Perhaps it is wiser to look at what gives rise to maladaptive, unwholesome, detrimental habits of mind.

How does one see through dual notions? By recognizing their insubstantiality. How does one recognize their insubstantiality? By attending to the quality of emptiness in every act of identification that begins to creep up on us. We will return to the practices that enable such wisdom soon.

Let us know what you think. Many thanks and good wishes.

Thunderous Silence - A Multitude of Words

Unorthodox Paradox

We return here to The Thunder, Perfect Mind, a Gnostic poem belonging to the Nag Hammadi Library, discovered in the mid-twentieth century, and translated into English by George W. MacRae. The origins of the poem date back to a Coptic manuscript from roughly 350 C.E., tracing itself even further to Greek antiquity.



Employing unorthodox paradox, perhaps for the purpose of shaking us from our ordinary stupor, the poem winds up taking us through the contemplations of a mystic. A Gnostic text, it combines Egyptian and Jewish influence and appears to document a goddess or other female divinity speaking of self-revelation. We tease apart a select few of its paradoxes here.

Thunderous Clap: Be On Your Guard

Heed the thunderous clap, "Be on your guard!" A recurring exclamation throughout The Thunder, Perfect Mind is this eerie, thunderous warning. Statements surrounding such a proclamation, from one angle at least, read as almost threatening. Watch your back, one might say. Thunder warns us of lightning to come, and lightning of thunder to follow. For instance, consider the following passage.

Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.



I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.

While no explicit threats are made in the poem, some sort of intimidation is nonetheless apparent. The speaker is everything at once, mother of her father, sister of her husband, and her husband is her offspring, no less! The paradox shines through in glaring audacity. How can one be both bride and bridegroom? Barren yet with many sons? Whore yet virgin? Honored yet scorned?

I Am The Silence

Seeming contradictions abound as the paradox further unfurls. I am the silence, she says. In speaking, she is no less silent. In silence, she no less speaks. How do we make sense of it all?

I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.

Perhaps such utterances are intended to shake us awake from the slumber in which we lay. The mind whose self-proclaimed duty is to make sense of it all is left confounded. This may be exactly the point. Such a mind cannot fathom the non-dual and so must be transcended. Not obliterated, not annihilated, not repressed, mind you, but overcome so that one may see from above, taking an aerial view.



Such a view is all-encompassing, much like the identity of the speaker, who continues with a series of further paradoxes.

Why, you who hate me, do you love me,
and hate those who love me?

You who deny me, confess me,
and you who confess me, deny me.

You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,
and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.

Here, too, the sense-making mind is at a loss. One is perhaps reminded of the turnings of thought, the process whereby the gears of logic start turning, thereby churning through a calculative process of attempted sense-making. In cases of the mystical, such an approach backfires.



Such seeming contradictions in logic aren't intended to be made-sense-of. Rather, perhaps they are intended to reorient the mind, away from the habitual tendencies of calculative thought, toward a more meditative style.

The following lines further illustrate this sort of reorientation.

You who know me, be ignorant of me,
and those who have not known me, let them know me.
For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.

In speaking such paradoxes, the speaker may be nudging us toward the non-dual.

Poverty and Wealth

Similarly non-dual in orientation, as we tread deeper onto the poem's winding path, we encounter yet another juxtaposition, this time with socio-economic ramifications.

Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.

While presumably a reference particular to time and place, we may also consider such a command in light of contemporary conditions. We are asked to give heed to her poverty and her wealth.

What does she mean?



Perhaps with poverty and wealth, she alludes to the divisions of class. Collapsing such divisions, rendering them arbitrary and without inherent substance, she demands that we give heed to both. Perhaps such an invocation is relevant in light of the ever-growing gap between rich and poor throughout much of the world today. Give heed to both the rich and poor equally, without worshipping the rich as a concrete category while relegating the poor to the wastebin or gutter, as is so often the case. The politics of power must be actively challenged. Political commentaries aside, to see beyond such divisions while at the same time acknowledging their felt realities at the very least allows for a more fluid approach to the exchanges, transactions, we undergo economically, socially, and contemplatively.

Compassionate and Cruel

Before we know it, however, we are swept into another pair of paradoxes.

I am compassionate and I am cruel.

I am senseless and I am wise.

What may initially appear cruel may actually be profoundly compassionate. Imagine a parent shouting profanities at their child who runs into the street to chase after a ball. While ideally harsh speech may be set aside, the intention in such a situation is not to hurt the child, but to protect him. Likewise, the child may act senseless at times but exhibit wisdom all the while. Perhaps the speaker is the parent and the child.



Both compassionate yet cruel, senseless yet wise, she navigates the juxtaposition by refusing to inhabit a single position. Her nature is to shape-shift. She is malleable, conforming, deforming, and reforming to the conditions she encounters rather than fruitlessly forcing a fake, fixed identity, which has no ground on which to stand in the first place.

Life and Death

She hovers above this ground, while at other times plunging deep into it and unearthing what no others dared to excavate. Life and death so happen to be one such excavation.

I am the one who has been hated everywhere
and who has been loved everywhere.

I am the one whom they call Life,
and you have called Death.

I, I am godless,
and I am the one whose God is great.

Moving seamlessly between the hated and loved, life and death, the godless and God, she again manifests her malleability. She is like liquid gold, melted under heat, capable of being shaped into any form she chooses. Once she assumes one form, she liquefies once more and dissolves before assuming the next.

I Myself Will Appear, I Myself Will Hide

In this process, she alternates between that which appears and that which is hidden. She proclaims:

But whenever you hide yourselves,
I myself will appear.
For whenever you appear,
I myself will hide from you.

Here, she seems to follow us, yet when we attempt to follow her, she vanishes. She cannot be pinned down.

Come forward to childhood,
and do not despise it because it is small and it is little.
And do not turn away greatnesses in some parts from the smallnesses,
for the smallnesses are known from the greatnesses.

Collapsing even the great and small, she razes the ground so both yet neither may occupy it.

I am the one who is honored, and who is praised,
and who is despised scornfully.

I am peace...



...and war has come because of me.

And I am an alien and a citizen.
I am the substance and the one who has no substance.

Like those that came before them, these lines are mind-bending. Perhaps the author again intentionally pulls the rug from under our feet in order to stir her reader from his ordinary ways of thinking. The line “I am the substance and the one who has no substance” in particular hints at her amorphous aspect. She assumes a form only to leave it behind, to transform.

Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,
and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me.
On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me,
and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.

Such lines illustrate that perhaps being too close to something prevents our seeing it as a whole. Our vision grows myopic, or rather, shrinks. The resulting perspective is limited in the sense that one cannot see beyond what is already close. We take for granted that which is already present. Those with some distance may accommodate a broader view.

Multitude of Words

In this way, by taking a step back, we paradoxically move closer to the meaning.



Referencing a multitude of words yet without speaking, she says:

I am a mute who does not speak,
and great is my multitude of words.
Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.
I am she who cries out,
and I am cast forth upon the face of the earth.
I prepare the bread and my mind within.
I am the knowledge of my name.
I am the one who cries out,
and I listen.

Indeed, a multitude of words could be employed to unpack and interpret her paradoxes, but by this point, we hope the potential intent has made itself all the more clear. In contemplative contexts such as these, paradox cannot be analyzed to any fruitful degree while preserving the non-dual import of the message. Certainly one may try to dissect the dualities, to unconfound the conundrum, but in so doing, one misses the contemplative call.

For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,
and the one who fashions you on the outside
is the one who shaped the inside of you.
And what you see outside of you, you see inside of you;
it is visible and it is your garment.

Ultimately, it seems that we are asked to dissolve the boundary between within and without, to access the divine that is present and pervasive in full unmediated immediacy.

Perfect Mind

Where does that leave us?

Embracing the thunderous silence seems to be at least one of the major themes woven throughout the lyrical cadence of The Thunder, Perfect Mind. We are left with the impression that it remains possible to see through the discriminating tendencies of the mind under siege by its own churning activity. Such tendencies otherwise give rise to perception of discrete aspects of the phenomenal world. We are left with a reality that seems full of contrasts and contradictions. Yet one may transcend this myopic perspective and thereby bring the mind to perfection. Rather than being led astray by the default tendency to dichotomize, one may consciously shift toward an equanimous receptivity to multiple points of view, without needing to attach or cling to any of them.

Such radical reorientation entails coming face to face with one's own strengths and weaknesses. I am compassionate and cruel, the poem reflects. Perhaps the poet hints that we have the opportunity to radically accept both the positive and negative at once. That's not to say we should allow cruelty to go unquestioned, but rather, we may dissolve its reputation of solidity. Perhaps neither compassion nor cruelty exist in any concrete way, being culturally conditioned constructs. Again, that's not to say we should downplay their differences, only that they're not permanent states. Clinging superficially to such categories sets us up to be disappointed. For those who understand and see through the so-called “ordinary” world, the poet asks for ignorance. And for those who are ignorant of themselves, the poet demands knowledge.

What say you?

Becoming a Sage at Peace - Stillness Amidst the Currents of Construing

Stillness Amidst the Currents

From the movements of mind to the turnings of thought, contemplative traditions have devised myriad metaphors for the makings of mental mischief. Such contemplative traditions also point toward a means out of this madness, by returning to an original state of stillness.



Here we turn to stillness as a source of solace, stability, security, and strength. While we draw from the early Buddhist tradition in this case, such emphasis on stillness stretches across contemplative traditions of antiquity up to the present. We wish to encourage further probing of this topic from the various traditions that address it. Each deserves to be heard.

On the subject of stillness, we first wish to invite contemplation of the following passage from the Pāli Canon's "Dhātuvibhaṅga Sutta," purportedly spoken by the historical Buddha some two and half millennia ago to a group of contemplatives-in-training in the township of Rājagaha while the Buddha was wandering the Magadhan lands of present-day northern India.



We are asked to reflect thus:

"'He has been stilled where the currents of construing do not flow. And when the currents of construing do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.' Thus was it said. With reference to what was it said? 'I am' is a construing. 'I am this' is a construing. 'I shall be' is a construing. 'I shall not be'... 'I shall be possessed of form'... 'I shall not be possessed of form'... 'I shall be percipient'... 'I shall not be percipient'... 'I shall be neither percipient nor non-percipient' is a construing. Construing is a disease, construing is a cancer, construing is an arrow. By going beyond all construing, he is said to be a sage at peace." (MN 140, trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Stilled where the currents of construing do not flow...



Stillness is an inner quality of imperturbable mental fortitude. Such stillness, by nature of being where the currents of construing do not flow, is sagely. Such stillness, by virtue of going beyond all construing, is peace.

While such stillness amidst the currents, even where the currents cease resists being put into words, we offer an attempt at understanding its purport, based on both the text itself and direct experience in contemplative practice.

Currents of Construing

It is said that one is stilled where the currents of construing do not flow. What does this image of "currents" tell us? What does "construing" entail?



An unusual feature within this passage is the word "construing," which doesn't usually appear in everyday vocabulary. Even more unusual is the depiction of such construing in the form of "currents," which conjures the image of flowing water. Except this water isn't simply flowing smoothly; it's churning in torrents. Such churning, as we've discussed in our explication of Patañjali's Yoga Sutras, characterizes the mind on the move, as it races from thought to thought, churning out imaginative ideation seemingly without end. While there is a time and place for such imaginative ideation, for it to continue unrelentingly, wreaking havoc upon the psyche through maladaptive self-reference, is an unpleasant reality for far too many.



Construing actually has a story behind it. Translators have rendered it in various ways. For instance, where Thanissaro Bhikkhu uses "construing," Ajahn Sujato uses "indentification" while Bhikkhu Bodhi uses "conceiving." The Pali is maññati, which also means "to imagine" and occurs in the "Dhātuvibhaṅga Sutta" in the form maññassavā and maññassave, both containing variations of the appended term assava, as well as maññitametaṃ, a compound of maññitaṃ + etaṃ.

Rather than getting bogged down in terminology, however, we merely wish to draw attention to the process in question, the process of conjuring ideas from the imagination, a process which has even been associated with illusion. "I am..." is a construing. "I shall be..." is a construing. "I shall not be..." is a construing. Such construing is likened to a disease, a cancer, an arrow. The harm inflicted through such construing occurs on account of ego-obsession. Why must our thoughts orbit incessantly around this "I"?

The essential piece to note with regard to such construing is that the "currents" of construing do not flow in the sage at peace. The waters are stilled. The mind grows calm and clear. How does one achieve this sagely stillness? How does one achieve such peace?

Becoming a Sage at Peace

A sage at peace is thus one who has brought the "currents of construing" to a stand-still. She is no longer tossed about by the churning current, no longer tossed about by the waves of thought that previously surged and ran rampant through the mind. Yet it should also be noted that for the sage at peace, stillness can be found even in the midst of movement.

Movement captures our attention, captivating the mind and holding it captive in chaos. Movement hogs the spotlight. Movement takes center stage.



Without a backdrop of stillness, we would not be capable of perceiving movement.

The rushing torrents of a mighty river move faster than we can register them, sweeping away our attention, turning it into a blur of movement. Yet the banks of the river, its basin, its foundation, are still and unmoving. Yes, technically the coursing of water erodes them slowly but surely. Everything is in constant flux. Yet even embedded in these changes is an undercurrent of stillness.

When we examine the mind, it seems to be rushing between thought formations in rapid fire. We thereby confuse the mind for the thoughts that race through it. If we're captivated and held captive by these thoughts, then the stillness beyond them remains outside our scope. The stream of thoughts running wildly through our minds can seem relentless, like a tumbling avalanche of thoughts cascading down to crush us beneath their weight.



How does one go about becoming a sage at peace under such avalanche-like torrents of thought, as depicted by the image of the currents of construing? Such a process can be halted simply through abstention. When any thought centered on some interpretation of "self" arises, thoughts like "I'm not good enough" or "I'm better than him" or other such comparative statements that orbit around ego, do not engage with it. Likewise, do not repress it. There is no use in stamping it down. Weeds trampled retain their roots. Such repressed thoughts will resurface with a vengeance.

Rather, maintain a watchful eye over the process of arising and subsiding.

When such a thought arises, watch it closely. Scrutinize it. Do not feed it. Do not fuel it. Watch it fade. Watch it dissolve. When we cease giving intrusive thoughts power, when we cease to nurture them, they wilt away. The currents dry up on their own. Where the currents of construing do not flow, she is said to be a sage at peace.

Stay tuned for more and leave us a comment if you're so inclined.