Zen: Mind

One of the most fundamental tenets of Zen is that life is meant to be experienced moment-to-moment. Some aspects of this are probably not new. ("Live every week like it's Shark Week!" -- Tracy Jordan). So let's move beyond the basic level, the level of "Enjoy your life!". What am I really talking about?

1. Time is Indistinguishable to Mind

Think about your mind for a minute, and the images you see:

1. As you walk through your world every day
2. As you remember what happened yesterday
3. As you imagine what might happen in the future

Think about the quality of the images, the content, and how they might appear differently to your brain/mind/mindgrapes. Is there any difference at all? Or are they indistinguishable? Or are they are the same? Do you only know the difference because other parts of the brain provide context? Is your mind is time-agnostic?

Current view =(is the same as) Halloween as a kid = Me as homeless bum = Me as Pro Hockey Player! = Me walking down the hall = Me not walking down the hall

Do you feel happy thinking of a past relationship? Do you feel excitement thinking about winning a poker tournament? In both cases, you would experience real feelings now, based on something that doesn't actually exist. I just thought about my first girlfriend, and I feel very warm, nostalgic, blissful. But she isn't here, in fact nothing happened at all, except "I" steered my Mind's thought patterns. And yet I feel my body chemistry change to reflect that feeling.

The big question: If your mind can't distinguish between past, present, future/never happened, do you trust your mind to make choices for you? Is it possible you (as your Mind) have made choices because of some imagined, generated feeling? Because of some false memory?

2. Your Mind IS The Past

What parts of your Mind are based in the present? Zero. It's impossible to think about the present, because you can only think about things selected from your memories. Which are by definition, in the past.

When you "think about the future", you are really thinking about "some re-imagining of the past". Your brain can "invent new scenarios", but you'll find that they're still an altered version of some combination of past experiences. You are pretending to be in some recombination of your past (even if you change ALL the facts), instead of existing, now, in your present.

Go ahead, take a second, and think of something new. Not random (i.e. A flour-covered lion on a bicycle), but truly new. Personally, I'm playing along, and I'm finding it to be very significant to truly have a new thought.

Still thinking...("A coffee-warmer that tells time!")

Okay, so I'm unable to do it this time on command. I certainly think that new, creative things come from people, but true moments of inspiration are currently rare, because most people cannot distinguish them from the other crap that our minds try ("Duck-flavored ice cream!") to pretend ("A man with red STOP sign pants!") is "new".

In Zen terms:

Creation comes from Source, and flows through you. Anything that comes from your mind is just a recombination of the past, based on your life experiences (aka 'programming').


3. Forming an Alliance With Your Mind

I'm going to take a minute and explain what this whole "Mind" thing is. It's the part of your brain that's in charge of your body. Everything in your brain that's not "you", in whatever form that may take. "Soul", "consciousness", "will", whatever that might be, your Mind is the rest.

So, when you read me talking about Zen, it may seem like often it's "Zen = GOOD, Mind = BAD". This is for a specific reason. Unconsciousness IS letting your Mind run your life. So when I'm saying "Mind is like X,Y,Z", I'm pointing this out to add it to your awareness. Once it's in your awareness, you can choose whether or not to let your Mind continue to control that. Or, more likely, realize that YOU CHOOSE to control that instead.

A personal example:

When I think "I already know this" when reading or hearing something, I first think about what my Mind is doing. It's telling me that any memories I have are sufficient for this situation, and that my Mind would prefer to think about something else.

For me, revelations like this can be pinholes, letting in light, allowing me to make my new choice. Now, if I "already know" something, I check in to see if that's really true. Sometimes it is "yes", because I have this information already. But sometimes it's "no", and the reasons continue to surprise me:

it's too much work,
it's too hard,
it doesn't agree with my worldview,
it sounds lame,
it's later so I can just forget it now,
etc.

Notice that none of these "reasons" have anything to do with (in this case) "already knowing the material". But I let my Mind answer the question, and when it did that, it based its answer on a separate list of criteria. Such as the list above and thousands of others.

So, the difference is, now:
- when I "already know something", it's because I truly already know it.
- when my Mind "already knows something", I recognize that it could actually telling me anything (even as simple as "I have to pee, so I don't need to be here for this part of class").

Awareness and clarity are recongnizing this. Being present means checking in ("do I know this?") and hearing the specific answer ("I have to pee"), and CHOOSING, not letting your mind decide because it ran down some arbitrary list.

You create your life, you choose your destiny, you are the will that runs the body you currently inhabit. Love this, cherish this, respect this. YOU be your life, don't delegate it to your mind.

Getting back to "Forming an Alliance". Yes, it seems that Mind does a lot of bad stuff, but that's only because we let it. And on the flipside, we require our minds to live, to breathe, to communicate, to evolve, to be conscious in the first place.

So, in true Zen fashion:

Love your Mind. Forgive your Mind. And find how you can team up with your Mind to help you live your highest choices each day. Because obviously some of the things it does for you are great, like breathing and pumping your blood. It's ironically our human, societal experience that both enriches and sculpts our minds over time, such that most people today find themselves stuck in their own heads, persistently, indefinitely. It's the very process of learning that teaches our mind to "shut off" to other ideas, because we teach it exclusion.

As you become aware of the multitudes of ways in which your Mind used to run your life, you might experience some anger, some regret, some sadness. That's good, feel it, use it. Empower yourself with it to increase your awareness and clarity.

Then remember to forgive your Mind. It was only running that particular part of the show because you told it to.

In the past, you used to delegate some or all of your life to your Mind, letting it make some or all of the choices in a given circumstance. Living moment-to-moment? That's your new choice. To always be present and aware in your life, to live each moment as new.