where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post Reply
User avatar
tomschwarz
Posts: 778
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:31 am

where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by tomschwarz »

Konchok Namgyal wrote: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?
is it empty or does it exist solely on its own ?
please consider these most treasured audio recordings from his holiness the dalai lama's commentary on the heart sutra from 2002/australia here: http://www.lamrim.com/hhdl/
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
User avatar
Konchok Namgyal
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 1:39 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by Konchok Namgyal »

Now that is an interesting question....
mind ? explain to me where exactly mind is and ill explain where it came from ...fair enough ?
Recognize that your mind is the unity of being empty and cognizant, suffused with knowing. When your attention is extroverted, you fall under the sway of thoughts. Let your attention recognize itself. Recognize that it is empty. That which recognizes is the cognizance. You can trust at that moment that these two – emptiness and cognizance – are an original unity. Seeing this is called self-knowing wakefulness. ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
User avatar
tomschwarz
Posts: 778
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:31 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by tomschwarz »

i could say two things about the location of the mind. but please remember that words are not so precise, there are many meaning for the words in your question: "where" and "mind". for example, "where" depends on time/state. i believe that the mind immediately prior to birth is in the bardo of rebirth, after death in the bardo of dieing, and after human birth is in a human body. also the "mind" as the dalai lama has said, has thousands of parts. and my dreams have shown me that clearly those parts can be quite independent, one part can actually surprise another part ))). also one day a monk in bhutan explained to me that the mind has no center and no border which i also agree with from the perspective of the mind from within the mind/radiant perspective.

so there are a lot of complex variables that i must fix to give a reasonable answer. let me then rephrase the question, where is the gross levels of mind for a normal human being during his/her life? the answer there clearly starts with the head and body of the human. there is sense consciousness (sight, hearing, taste, tactile, and so on...) that is the most gross level of mind. and they actually can be manipulated by the position, location, movement, etc... of the physical body. then there is more subtle levels of mind that we see when we sleep. for example, when we sleep, the eyes are closed, we do not hear, we do not react to touch (usually) and so on... but still that active sleeping human consciousness does seem to be in the head/body; if you call out to the sleeping person, they may imagine something like a person calling to them in their dream. then as we get more subtle, i do believe that the mind becomes less associated with the body, but i have limited experience there so i can not say where exactly the mind is located when we begin to talk about very subtle levels of mind such as after fainting or approaching death.
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
User avatar
Konchok Namgyal
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 1:39 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by Konchok Namgyal »

you quote :


"so there are a lot of complex variables that i must fix to give a reasonable answer. let me then rephrase the question, where is the gross levels of mind for a normal human being during his/her life? the answer there clearly starts with the head and body of the human. there is sense consciousness (sight, hearing, taste, tactile, and so on...)"

So a corpse would then have mind ? it has a head and a body . is that where it exists ? is there somewhere else ?
what part of the body contains mind ?

you had the good karma to study with a monk in Bhutan..perhaps you should be explaining these things to me. :namaste:
Recognize that your mind is the unity of being empty and cognizant, suffused with knowing. When your attention is extroverted, you fall under the sway of thoughts. Let your attention recognize itself. Recognize that it is empty. That which recognizes is the cognizance. You can trust at that moment that these two – emptiness and cognizance – are an original unity. Seeing this is called self-knowing wakefulness. ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
User avatar
tomschwarz
Posts: 778
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:31 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by tomschwarz »

)))) i am an intermediate practitioner )))

...i think that when our dear loved ones lay dead and no longer answer us, no longer able to reach out to us with their soft words and touch, when their warmth and space is truly gone, it is very lonely for us. that is the first noble truth, the truth of suffering which results from fundamental ignorance, the 2nd noble truth; the truth that their individual existence was an illusion from the start supported by dissonant mental states (kleshas) based on the three poisons attachment, anger and fundamental ignorance itself.

so with that context, i must say that the dear mind is gone from the body which lay limp and utterly exhausted (in most cases). to really understand if/where the mind goes at that time, we must open our hearts to the most subtle/sensitive levels. i think that practically speaking, the most available opportunity to get an immediate experience of that bardo (of dieing) is either the moment of loosing waking consciousness when we fall asleep. or generally when we have strong, stable seated meditation in our dreams; when we know that we are dreaming and use that time for meditation.

i should mention here that his holiness, the dalai lama, who in my experience never said anything that was incorrect, in his 4 noble truths (1996), chapter on the truth of suffering (pp 88), wrote:
"To this we must add that in bhuddism there is an understanding that consciousness can not arise from nowhere or without a cause; and at the same time, that consciousness cannot be produced from matter. This is not to say that matter cannot affect consciousness. However the nature of consciousness is sheer luminosity, mere experience; it is the primordial knowing faculty, and therefore it cannot be produced from matter whose nature is different. It follows that since consciousness cannot arise without a cause and since it cannot arise from a material cause, it must come from a ceaseless continuum. It is on this premise that Buddhism accepts the existence of (beginningless) former lives".
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
User avatar
Konchok Namgyal
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 1:39 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by Konchok Namgyal »

His Holiness really answered your question if you read between the lines.

My point is this, you cannot find "mind" existing anywhere in the body, otherwise even a dead body would have mind.
mind really goes beyond extremes, beyond definition and beyond boundary.
The Buddha knew these things, and fully understood them and explained them.



"However the nature of consciousness is sheer luminosity, mere experience; it is the primordial knowing faculty, and therefore it cannot be produced from matter whose nature is different" ~ His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Recognize that your mind is the unity of being empty and cognizant, suffused with knowing. When your attention is extroverted, you fall under the sway of thoughts. Let your attention recognize itself. Recognize that it is empty. That which recognizes is the cognizance. You can trust at that moment that these two – emptiness and cognizance – are an original unity. Seeing this is called self-knowing wakefulness. ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
User avatar
tomschwarz
Posts: 778
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:31 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by tomschwarz »

))) you are like a migrating bird with a beacon clearly indicating the route south. And I am like an ant with insatiable curiosity to touch each obstacle ))). So please indulge me ...is sight consciousness not part of the mind? Clearly sight consciousness has a component in the eyes no?
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
User avatar
Konchok Namgyal
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 1:39 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by Konchok Namgyal »

Seems how one can see in the Bardos I would say sight is in fact part of conciousness
Recognize that your mind is the unity of being empty and cognizant, suffused with knowing. When your attention is extroverted, you fall under the sway of thoughts. Let your attention recognize itself. Recognize that it is empty. That which recognizes is the cognizance. You can trust at that moment that these two – emptiness and cognizance – are an original unity. Seeing this is called self-knowing wakefulness. ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
User avatar
tomschwarz
Posts: 778
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:31 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by tomschwarz »

yes konchok. i think that you are right. but let's start with dreams. there the eyes are clearly no longer functioning, they are closed. but we can see so much. last night i saw billy and stephanie williams very clearly and i told billy that i think about him every day. and in waking life, i have not seen (or heard from) billy or stephanie williams in 35 years (since 5th grade, age 11, now i am 46).

but tell me konchok, don't you think that certain parts of the mind cease to function when we die? i think that as buddhists making progress on the 5 paths we can already see parts of ourself (our mind) die off. in the end, we can become more gentle, more caring, more open and so on... my more aggressive feelings have mostly died off.

but isn't that really what is going to happen when we die? like the "rubber will meet the road" and all those promises (you can't take material possessions with you, even your friends will not be able to help you, we must recognize all that we see as our mind, and so on....) will come true. and also that dual, conceptual truth was an illusion and all illusions will fairly quickly become not workable when we have only our subtle mind and subtle body (after death). look at how different the mind is when we sleep and when we are awake -- there are clues there too....
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
User avatar
tomschwarz
Posts: 778
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:31 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by tomschwarz »

his holiness the dalai lama:
according to buddhist psychology there are thousands of different minds
(see 1:57:00)

phpBB [video]
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
Simon E.
Posts: 7652
Joined: Tue May 15, 2012 11:09 am

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by Simon E. »

tomschwarz wrote:his holiness the dalai lama:
according to buddhist psychology there are thousands of different minds
(see 1:57:00)

phpBB [video]

this...
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
User avatar
Wayfarer
Former staff member
Posts: 5150
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 8:31 am
Location: AU

Re: where is mind ? where does it originate from ?

Post by Wayfarer »

Bodhidharma sits facing the wall. His future successor stands in the snow and presents his severed arm to Bodhidharma. He cries: "My mind is not pacified. Master, pacify my mind."

Bodhidharma says: "If you bring me that mind, I will pacify it for you."

The successor says: "When I search my mind I cannot hold it."

Bodhidharma says: "Then your mind is pacified already."
'Only practice with no gaining idea' ~ Suzuki Roshi
Post Reply

Return to “Gelug”