Mind out of control

General discussion, particularly exploring the Dharma in the modern world.
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tomschwarz
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Mind out of control

Post by tomschwarz »

Hello friends,

there are these themes in western culture... ...one i would like to discuss typically comes from younger people, musicians and christians. It is this idea about giving up control (for evangelist Christians, that is giving control to God). I understand the virtues of giving up control in terms of music, it is a way to avoid a "didactic" or "contrived" result. And it applies to all arts, it is important to just get into a "flow of consciousness" and let it out naturally. This way you can, for example, write "romeo and juliet" where two star crossed lovers are forever and again confused. It takes a lot of patience to write that story, and to resist the temptation to resolve the conflicts, and so on...

But enter Buddhism, I suggest that we are not concerned with creating the next Mozart, or free wheeling Van Gogh or Picasso.... That we set our minds on other sights, specifically controlling the mind. True? Untrue?

28:15
"what are the causes of our suffering, and therefore you should understand that to the extent that your mind in uncontrolled, there is suffering. where as, to the extent that you are able to control your mind there is happiness."




Om Ara Baza Nadee ))))) ...so, let's here from people who think that we should not try to control our minds, better to give up control, even for the 4th Noble truth, the truth of the path to enlightenment. Why?
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
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Mind out of control

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Language gets weird here, but any "control" you exert over your mind is relative, it might appear to be "control", but is actually just management of something already in motion, sort of like directing a stream by placing obstacles to direct the current. What you can control are some of your habits, and you can work on karmic impulses and kleshas, you can slowly transform the current, nad try to push the stream in a different direction - towards liberation and away from samsara- that's the approach of gathering the accumulations. To stop grasping is giving up control on a deep level. As is surrendering to the path in various forms, Guru Yoga, prostrations, etc. It is different than the notions you are talking about, because those notions come from an assumption of what the mind is, what an individual is that don't square with Buddhism.

Trying to "control" your mind...if you go deep into it much of what's there is not accessible to you as a transmigrating being, what you are working with is the very tip of a huge iceberg. You can't control what you can't see or know. Part of the path of accumulation - the wisdom part- is slowly making sure the part you can see is getting larger, so that you can hope to have some idea about parts of the iceberg that weren't visible before.

So I think maybe you are digging through a thoroughly relative statement to find an ultimate meaning, this sort of "control your mind' thing is quite nice for teaching a notion of cultivation, but that's all it's for, in my opinion. If we go deeper into how it really is to be with our minds, I think we find that the control' is mostly an illusion. Giving up control in a Buddhist context (I think) doesn't mean to allow your afflictions to rule you or anything like that, it means giving up the idea that your ego and all it's plans (including fancy ideas ideas about using Dharma to control things) can somehow direct things, and thereby make everything better. That's a fun fairy tale in some ways, but we are destined to fail if we believe we really have that much control over samsara.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
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Rick
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Re: Mind out of control

Post by Rick »

You know me, I'm an eclectic, so I frame things in a non-100% Buddhist way:

You don't work on IT (truth, realization, enlightenment, awareness, whatever) ... IT works on you.

So the strategy is to get out of the way and let it do its work. This means having an open and receptive and relatively quiet mind. To the extent that this can be achieved by some kind of self/mind-control, that control is a good thing. But attempting to control IT or the getting of IT ... probably doomed to failure.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily ...
muni
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Re: Mind out of control

Post by muni »

You don't work on IT (truth, realization, enlightenment, awareness, whatever) ... IT works on you.

Emaho.

Merrily Merrily Meryly Streep... actors of our own dream we are. Still so very very sad! Identification with a self and its world, thereby jealousy, greed, frustrations, anger unfortunately causes long suffering dreams.

Being aware of dream and so jealousy, greed, frustration by aversion, attachment is then not a selfs' action. The shining awareness, or awareness seeing nature of ‘craziness’, is 'not person’. (see Diamond Sutra.)
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