Thanks Jundo for pointing our my mistake. I'm a bit of a bumbler where computers are concerned.
Hello Jundo, Raindrop, Ohesho and Jishin,
And thank your for your posts, I appreciate the time you have taken to criticise them and I will now try to address those criticisms.
First, I am keen to assert the usefulness, no , the absolute necessity of using CMA in our daily lives. We would never have left the stone age without it. The main point I tried to make was that the untrained mind overuses it. CMA is the tool we use to satisfy our appetites and solve our problems but it plays no part in our being happy. Once we bring this realisation into our daily lives, not theoretically but practically (through meditation), the nature of our everyday experiences change. Every waking moment is underpinned by feelings of contentment and peace-of-mind. That is the great "treasure" of Zen.
Ma-tsu (died 788) said: "Only let a man exhaust all his thinking and imagining; he then holds the unparalled treasure."
I was also very impressed by this quote:
Hsi Yun (a Zen Master who lived about 840 A.D.) had this advice to give:
" ...To make use of the mind to think (in the ordinary sense of the word) is to leave the substance and attach yourself to forms.... The pure mind, the source of everything, shines on with all the brilliance of its own perfection, but the people of the world do not awake to it, regarding only that which sees, hears, feels and knows as mind. Because their understanding is veiled by their own sight, hearing, feeling and knowledge, they do not understand the spiritual brilliance of the original substance. If they could only eliminate all analytical
thinking in a flash, that original substance would manifest itself like the sun ascending through the void and illuminating the whole universe without hindrance or bounds.... Neither hold to them (sight, hearing, etc.), abandon them, dwell in them nor cleave to them, but exist independently of all that is above, below
or around you...."
But the article I posted (the psychology of happiness) is mainly intended to ground Zen in an everyday experience we are all familiar with - happiness. Practising zazen enhances ordinary feelings of happiness, giving us access to extremes of it. Humanity thinks that CMA is an end in itself. It is not . It is merely a means to an end. We have to learn how to be happy in much the same way as we have to learn how to walk and talk. It is not intuitive.
Meditators can of course pass through the "blissful zone" and experience states of mind that are totally dissociated from the useful functions accessible to awareness. They can enter the void.(Dogen's "dropping body and mind") I am not sure this is at all useful. It can be frightening and debilitating if such contact is prolonged (as a friend of mine found out!). Its far better just to confine CMA to it's proper role and get our just and proper rewards for successful actions.
I hope this clears up a few points.
Colin
Hello Jundo, Raindrop, Ohesho and Jishin,
And thank your for your posts, I appreciate the time you have taken to criticise them and I will now try to address those criticisms.
First, I am keen to assert the usefulness, no , the absolute necessity of using CMA in our daily lives. We would never have left the stone age without it. The main point I tried to make was that the untrained mind overuses it. CMA is the tool we use to satisfy our appetites and solve our problems but it plays no part in our being happy. Once we bring this realisation into our daily lives, not theoretically but practically (through meditation), the nature of our everyday experiences change. Every waking moment is underpinned by feelings of contentment and peace-of-mind. That is the great "treasure" of Zen.
Ma-tsu (died 788) said: "Only let a man exhaust all his thinking and imagining; he then holds the unparalled treasure."
I was also very impressed by this quote:
Hsi Yun (a Zen Master who lived about 840 A.D.) had this advice to give:
" ...To make use of the mind to think (in the ordinary sense of the word) is to leave the substance and attach yourself to forms.... The pure mind, the source of everything, shines on with all the brilliance of its own perfection, but the people of the world do not awake to it, regarding only that which sees, hears, feels and knows as mind. Because their understanding is veiled by their own sight, hearing, feeling and knowledge, they do not understand the spiritual brilliance of the original substance. If they could only eliminate all analytical
thinking in a flash, that original substance would manifest itself like the sun ascending through the void and illuminating the whole universe without hindrance or bounds.... Neither hold to them (sight, hearing, etc.), abandon them, dwell in them nor cleave to them, but exist independently of all that is above, below
or around you...."
But the article I posted (the psychology of happiness) is mainly intended to ground Zen in an everyday experience we are all familiar with - happiness. Practising zazen enhances ordinary feelings of happiness, giving us access to extremes of it. Humanity thinks that CMA is an end in itself. It is not . It is merely a means to an end. We have to learn how to be happy in much the same way as we have to learn how to walk and talk. It is not intuitive.
Meditators can of course pass through the "blissful zone" and experience states of mind that are totally dissociated from the useful functions accessible to awareness. They can enter the void.(Dogen's "dropping body and mind") I am not sure this is at all useful. It can be frightening and debilitating if such contact is prolonged (as a friend of mine found out!). Its far better just to confine CMA to it's proper role and get our just and proper rewards for successful actions.
I hope this clears up a few points.
Colin
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