SPLIT TOPIC: Brain, Mind ... NEVER MIND!

[disastermouse]

Galen,

I read what you wrote a few times and had a difficult time following it. My whole point was to argue against reducing 'mind' to an epiphenomenon of 'brain' - not to limit mind, necessarily. Is 'mind' purely produced by brain? How could you know? Since 'brain' can only be accessed via mind, there is no way to conclusively excise mind from the act of knowing or deducing.

Maybe I've misunderstood what you meant.

Gassho,

Chet

[Jundo]

Actually, this is one perspective on Mind that some (including me) have found problematic. A key work on this is "The Extended Mind" by Clark and Chalmers. They set out a thought experiment (Wikipedia quoted here):[INDENT][I]The fictional characters Otto and Inga are both traveling to a museum simultaneously. Otto has Alzheimer's Disease, and has written all of his directions down in a notebook to serve the function of his memory. Inga is able to recall the internal directions within her memory.

Hi Ted,

If I understand correctly, we are not quite talking about the same thing. The above story seems to be talking about our small "m" inner mind, aided perhaps by an outside notebook, friends' advice, outside maps, street signs and the like.

I was describing your Big "M" mind model, in a Buddhist sense, in which the brain, eyes, light rays, notebooks, friends, maps, street signs, museums, bodily reactions in response, and much more are defined as one single thing, one single unbroken process, beyond all "drawn lines" of inner and outer. In a sense too, anything that has every contributed to the existence of any of the above ... including but not limited to the smallest atoms to distant suns where there atoms where born to make the brain, eyes, notebooks and museums ... are included in the process and definition of Big "M" Mind too.

And there is no reason to stop there. Many Zen Ancestors would go further in pointing to Big "M" Mind. Perhaps the most well known was Huang Po, who would take "Mind" a step beyond ... dropping, not only "in" and "out", but even our categories, divisions and names for "brain" "eyes" "light" "notebooks" "museums" and all the rest in a return to the undivided essence which sweeps all within ...


Only come to know the nature of your own Mind, in which there is no self and no other, and you will in fact be a Buddha.


...

When all the Buddhas manifest themselves in the world, they proclaim nothing but the One Mind. Thus, Gotama Buddha silently transmitted to Mahakasyapa the doctrine that the One Mind, which is the substance of all things, is co-extensive with [Emptiness] and fills the entire world of phenomena.

...

This ultimate pure source of Mind encompasses all Buddhas, sentient beings and the world of mountains, rivers, forms and formlessness. Throughout the ten directions, all and everything reflects the equality of pure Mind, which is always universally penetrating and illuminating. However, those with merely worldly understanding cannot recognize this truth and so identify seeing, hearing, touching and thinking as the mind. Covered by seeing, hearing, touching and thinking, one cannot see the brightness of Original Mind. If suddenly one is without mind, Original Mind will appear like the great sun in the sky, illuminating everywhere without obstruction.

Most Dharma students only know seeing, hearing, touching and thinking as movement and function and are, therefore, unable to recognize Original Mind at the moment of seeing, hearing, touching and thinking. However, Original Mind does not belong to seeing, hearing, touching and thinking but also is not distinct or separate from these activities. The view that one is seeing, hearing, touching and thinking does not arise; and yet one is not separate from these activities. This movement does not dim the Mind, for it is neither itself a thing nor something apart from things. Neither staying nor grasping, capable of freely moving in any direction whatsoever, everywhere, this Mind becomes the Bodhimandala.

...


All Buddhas and all sentient beings are no different from the One Mind. In this One Mind there is neither arising nor ceasing, no name or form, no long or short, no large or small, and neither existence nor non-existence. It transcends all limitations of name, word and relativity, and it is as boundless as the great void. Giving rise to thought is erroneous, and any speculation about it with our ordinary faculties is inapplicable, irrelevant and inaccurate. Only Mind is Buddha, and Buddhas and sentient beings are not different. All sentient beings grasp form and search outside themselves. Using Buddha to seek Buddha, they thus use mind [small "m"] to seek Mind. Practicing in this manner even until the end of [time], they cannot attain the fruit. However, when thinking and discrimination suddenly halt, the Buddhas appear.



Gassho, J

[Jinyo]

Huang's words feel so intuitively correct - but the moment I start 'thinking' about Mind the intuitive connection scrambles and evaporates.

I wish I had an off switch for thinking and discrimination.

Is Zazen the 'off switch' ? - I rarely reach a place where I could say it is so.

Practice very unfocused just now

Gassho

Willow

[galen]

Galen,

I read what you wrote a few times and had a difficult time following it. My whole point was to argue against reducing 'mind' to an epiphenomenon of 'brain' - not to limit mind, necessarily. Is 'mind' purely produced by brain? How could you know? Since 'brain' can only be accessed via mind, there is no way to conclusively excise mind from the act of knowing or deducing.

Maybe I've misunderstood what you meant.

Gassho,

Chet

Understandable Ted......... as far as my post/posts making sense . But I think my take is close to Jundos here, and even to the point, you could not have a brain or anything of the body without the big Mind.


Gassho

[tedmac]

Thanks, Jundo! Reading your response, I think I was talking about two things (memory as mind and other things as Mind); What I think is cool is that that some scientists (not necessarily Buddhists) are saying the same thing based on research that Buddhists have been saying based on intuitive mind-body experience: that Mind can't be restricted to just what is between our ears and actually includes all those other things.

I don't think this sort of academic understanding is the same as a whole-being realization, and I sort of come at it from the other side. Rather than being a scientist whose research brings me into alignment with some Buddhist ideas, I'm a Buddhist whose research inevitably reflects other aspects of my life. At this point, I'm officially rambling. I, I, I. One of my tendencies and one reason I don't post more. Back to the zafu!

Gracias,
T

[galen]

Hi Ted,

If I understand correctly, we are not quite talking about the same thing. The above story seems to be talking about our small "m" inner mind, aided perhaps by an outside notebook, friends' advice, outside maps, street signs and the like.

I was describing your Big "M" mind model, in a Buddhist sense, in which the brain, eyes, light rays, notebooks, friends, maps, street signs, museums, bodily reactions in response, and much more are defined as one single thing, one single unbroken process, beyond all "drawn lines" of inner and outer. In a sense too, anything that has every contributed to the existence of any of the above ... including but not limited to the smallest atoms to distant suns where there atoms where born to make the brain, eyes, notebooks and museums ... are included in the process and definition of Big "M" Mind too.

And there is no reason to stop there. Many Zen Ancestors would go further in pointing to Big "M" Mind. Perhaps the most well known was Huang Po, who would take "Mind" a step beyond ... dropping, not only "in" and "out", but even our categories, divisions and names for "brain" "eyes" "light" "notebooks" "museums" and all the rest in a return to the undivided essence which sweeps all within ...


Only come to know the nature of your own Mind, in which there is no self and no other, and you will in fact be a Buddha.


...

When all the Buddhas manifest themselves in the world, they proclaim nothing but the One Mind. Thus, Gotama Buddha silently transmitted to Mahakasyapa the doctrine that the One Mind, which is the substance of all things, is co-extensive with [Emptiness] and fills the entire world of phenomena.

...

This ultimate pure source of Mind encompasses all Buddhas, sentient beings and the world of mountains, rivers, forms and formlessness. Throughout the ten directions, all and everything reflects the equality of pure Mind, which is always universally penetrating and illuminating. However, those with merely worldly understanding cannot recognize this truth and so identify seeing, hearing, touching and thinking as the mind. Covered by seeing, hearing, touching and thinking, one cannot see the brightness of Original Mind. If suddenly one is without mind, Original Mind will appear like the great sun in the sky, illuminating everywhere without obstruction.

Most Dharma students only know seeing, hearing, touching and thinking as movement and function and are, therefore, unable to recognize Original Mind at the moment of seeing, hearing, touching and thinking. However, Original Mind does not belong to seeing, hearing, touching and thinking but also is not distinct or separate from these activities. The view that one is seeing, hearing, touching and thinking does not arise; and yet one is not separate from these activities. This movement does not dim the Mind, for it is neither itself a thing nor something apart from things. Neither staying nor grasping, capable of freely moving in any direction whatsoever, everywhere, this Mind becomes the Bodhimandala.

...


All Buddhas and all sentient beings are no different from the One Mind. In this One Mind there is neither arising nor ceasing, no name or form, no long or short, no large or small, and neither existence nor non-existence. It transcends all limitations of name, word and relativity, and it is as boundless as the great void. Giving rise to thought is erroneous, and any speculation about it with our ordinary faculties is inapplicable, irrelevant and inaccurate. Only Mind is Buddha, and Buddhas and sentient beings are not different. All sentient beings grasp form and search outside themselves. Using Buddha to seek Buddha, they thus use mind [small "m"] to seek Mind. Practicing in this manner even until the end of [time], they cannot attain the fruit. However, when thinking and discrimination suddenly halt, the Buddhas appear.



Gassho, J

Jundo.... thank you for this!

To feel this to the bone, it seems only the embodiment of such really matters, the rest can fall away. It seems, only goaless sitting and more sitting can hold the possibility of any releasing of everything we so cling to, when there is nothing to cling to but ego and suffering it entails.

Wow, this is so simple, yet so unobvious and unavailable to most in phenomena.



Gassho

[Jundo]

Jundo.... thank you for this!

To feel this to the bone, it seems only the embodiment of such really matters, the rest can fall away. It seems, only goaless sitting and more sitting can hold the possibility of any releasing of everything we so cling to, when there is nothing to cling to but ego and suffering it entails.

Wow, this is so simple, yet so unobvious and unavailable to most in phenomena.



Gassho

Actually, Huang Po and others who speak of "let all fall away" are only 80% there, for then all must fall back (though ultimately no place to fall). One cannot live without ego, without phenomena, only in Emptyness. One should not just stay with Emptyness Only, but come back to all the seeing, hearing, touching and thinking, mountains, rivers, the concrete and abstract, clinging without clinging, throughout the ten directions, each also Emptyness all along. Dogen was a master of bringing this "up in the Empty airness" back down to earth ... into the kitchen, the toilet, the garden of the monastery. In modern term, we might say that "Mind" is the home, the children's nursery and sickroom, the office or factory, the bus and city streets, you, me and the other guys.

Don't get lost in the high atmosphere, keep one's feet planted on the ground.

Gassho, J

[Jinyo]

Huang's words feel so intuitively correct - but the moment I start 'thinking' about Mind the intuitive connection scrambles and evaporates.

I wish I had an off switch for thinking and discrimination.

Is Zazen the 'off switch' ? - I rarely reach a place where I could say it is so.

Practice very unfocused just now

Gassho

Willow

Sorry to quote myself (!) - but I don't want to lose this question. In 'coming back' have we ever really moved away?

....... I think something's just cleared writing that .....

Gassho

Willow

[galen]

Understandable Ted......... as far as my post/posts making sense . But I think my take is close to Jundos here, and even to the point, you could not have a brain or anything of the body without the big Mind.


Gassho

Of course this was meant for Chet and not Ted... daaaaaaaa !


Gassho