Tuesday, April 6, 2010

A Fragment of the Mind

The term Prajna in Buddhist teachings is the awakening of consciousness in the unconscious. This awakening functions in two directions. One is towards the conscious and the other is toward the unconscious. The Prajna of consciousness can be called the mind with a small initial letter. From this mind a dualistic world takes it rise: subject and object, the inner self and the external world and so on. In the Mind therefore, two aspects are also distinguishable: Prajna-mind of non-discrimination and dualistic mind. The mind of the first aspect belongs to this world, but so long as it is linked with Prajna it is in direct communication with the Unconscious, it is the Mind; whereas the mind of the second aspect is wholly of this world, and delighted with it, and mixes itself with all its multiplicities.

D.T. Suzuki wrote those thoughts in his work The Zen-Doctrine of No-Mind published in 1969, which was three years after Suzuki’s death. The fact that the book was published attests to the nature of the mind and its ability to function in the state of no-time. Suzuki’s concept of two minds is a very ambitious thought. I don’t consider my self a plural, but the more I delve into consciousness, I begin to understand how plural I am. I express my pluralness in this reality, but look at it as something outside of my self; it’s not me creating my pluralness it’s a higher consciousness, but there is no higher consciousness than what I experience, there is only a more expanded consciousness, which is more aware of the energy which flows through all consciousness.

In this sense I have a mind and a Mind, which is constantly expanding as my mind centered in this reality expands. Each experience brings more awareness to the surface of mind and I experience these moments in order to expand my moment-less Mind. Every aspect of my reality is wrapped in a scented package of awareness that is freshly delivered by the fragrant impulses of Mind. I absorb them and then discriminate in order to sense what I desire physically. The mind is the vehicle of Mind; ever expanding in the waters of my non-discriminating Mind.

Why this happens is the rational question that haunts my Western thoughts. I am a double edge sword that cuts reality into fragments and then pieces them together in order to expand the whole within each fragment. Each thought is instigated by an impulse from Mind and then transformed into a dualistic enterprise that separates one self from another, but no separation actually exists. I live in a state of no-mind where both the mind and Mind interact constantly, but I’m taught and then believe that my Mind does not belong to me; I must earn it, so the mind develops a path of earning filled with duality and separation.

But when there is an awakening of the mind I realize that my unconsciousness is much more conscious than I believed, and a union takes place where fragments of my mind blend with my whole Mind, and I begin to experience the place called no-mind where consciousness senses itself in wholeness rather than in fragments.

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