"To understand the original mind yourself is to see into your own original nature."
Master Hui-neng, The Sixth Patriarch of Ch'an/Zen
The Original No-Mind
Living in Zen, we live with the awakening of the Original No-Mind, no longer hindered by the subjectivity stemming from the dualistic mind, mana. We adaptively live with an universal altruism, rooted in wisdom and objectivity. We are fully aware, attentive, and cognizant to other people and to society. We recognize the circumstances within our life journey, as it truly is: a ceaseless stream of non-self-originating arising and departing karmic events. We remain unswayed by the outer physical environment. Our mind does not give rise to subjective thoughts, in the face of the material manifestations and appearances. With our recognition that all things in life are ultimately impermanent and transitory, we freely let-go of all egocentric clingingness and attachments.
There is no transcendence from the duality innate inside life stream, until we acknowledge life, as it truly is, and we no longer live with mana, our ego mind shaped by empirical subjectivity and bias.
A Zen life path is an active realization of the life journey. We live without any isolation from the daily life. We merge into the continuous life stream, while remaining self-stabilized within its constant fluctuations. Integrating into the normalcy of everyday life is an essential mean to reach Zen. To truly experience each present moment, we face reality head-on with full awareness. Our mind not resting on any objective thing or on the subjective thought. The Timeless Inner Peace must be personality realized and experienced, within the ever-changing life circumstances and our daily interactions with others.
It is not a matter of rote memorization or robotic recitation of the Dharma to attain Wisdom. The enduring Zen meditation state of the Timeless Inner Peace is not attained through enforced discipline, habitual self-assessment, nor self-forced application of Wisdom. To mindfully force oneself into a state of inner peace is itself binding oneself to a state of polarity. Additionally, it is not a matter of forced-silencing of the thought, nor reaching a state of indifferent voidness. One would still be bound by the relativity of tranquility and turbulence. Recognition and living within our self-realization extinguish mana, and we once again live with the Original No-Mind.
As we engage with the outer world, our awareness streamed inwardly through our physical body via its five sensory organs: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, corporal. The data gathered through our physical receptive organs become our perceptions: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. These various senses are passes onto the mind awareness. Our various information are continually gathered into the aggregated memory storehouse of the collective consciousness stream. The information from the mind awareness are processed through our mind conscious, and we form a response to the outer world based on our interpretation of the information. The mind conscious is named mana, while it exists within a dualistic state. Once the mind conscious transcends duality, it becomes the Original No-Mind. We outwardly respond to the outer world based on our interpretation of the collective information.
Facing the outer circumstances, our senses give rise to thoughts. We let our awareness innately flow freely and ceaselessly from one to next, without the entanglement of subjectivity and clingingness. The Mind sees the streaming thought with insight, neither clinging nor rejecting the arising and departing knowledge.
When we rest our thought in objective things and the subjective mind, our thought flow is cut off and we live within the duality of the mind. Thoughts continuously abide and the Dualistic Mind consciousness, manas, is engaged. Each arising thought deviates from the previous one, then cascades into countless divergent thoughts. The instant that the mind grasps, deciphers, and reacts to outer events, thought jumbles, deviates and side-tracks from the original thought, the flow of though is hindered and we become entangled within a dualistic condition.
Living with the Original No-mind, the thought flow is continuous, unobstructed and non-abiding. The passing thought merges into the present thought to become future thought successively, without any interruptions nor deviation. The thought awareness flow is seamless, without the blockage and interruption from egocentric subjectivity. The mind does not become emotionally affixed to any one arising thought within the flow, to hinder the objectivity of awareness.
We recognize the continuity of awareness, yet we do not filter any one thought though our subjective mind conscious nor become emotionally entangled to take action from an egocentric perspective. We adaptively interact with an inner neutrality. As we face life, we respond with an objective clarity, neither inserting our hope, nor desire for a particular outcome. We actively respond to the outer circumstances and all the physical manifestations without being affected. As our viewpoint returns to objectivity and clarity, Mana transforms back to the Original No-mind. We exist at the enduring Zen state of meditation…the state of Timeless Inner Peace.
Attaining the enduring Zen state of meditation, the Timeless Inner Peace, is a matter of comprehension of the Dharma and living with the Dharma. It is a matter of recognition using our innate Inner Light and living with the all-embracing universality of the Original No-mind consciousness. Our thoughts no longer abide nor be affected by mana. The self-realization of life’s impermanent and dualistic nature, along with the self recognition of the mind’s subjectivity empower us to transcend the karmic existence. We live at a Timeless Inner Peace and be at Nirvana, in the here and now.
Diana Zen
ZenMoon
August 3, 2018
Published on ZenMoon and ZenEnergy with Permission from Diana Zen
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