Month: February 2011

Happiness
is but a lie

Upset
is but a mistake

Time
is but an illusion

Form
is but a mirage

Birth
is not the beginning

Death
is not an end

I
is but an error

Everything…
will be understood.

Have you tried uncorking a fruit juice bottle without using a corkscrew? At that point of trying, the mind, if it has past experience before, would have already predicted two experiences that will come up in sequence – the difficulty in pulling out the cork and the experience of relief the moment the cork finally releases itself out of the bottle neck. Both are two opposing experiences, the former in stress, the later a relief.

Observe that the nature of the cork has the ability of holding on to the bottle, else it would not have serve its purpose as a cork. And for you to release it you have to first experience the held on experience of the cork. It can be quite a pain to experience that until the release comes through. The pain is caused by the held on or else you would not have experience what pain is.

This metaphor explains the nature of how the mind works. I am using the word nature to denote how things work without having a personality experience in it. Each time when you experience pain over something, be it mental or physical, instead of detesting the pain, consider the new information that it is the holding on to something that you are not aware of that is causing you the experience of pain.

Without seeing the cause of the holding on, facing the pain can be quite a stress as you will just think of resolving the pain rather than to see what causes the pain. In truth the pain is non-existential as it only arises from holding on. To try fixing the pain is to make the pain stronger as to detest is to hold on to what you don’t like hence making the pain grow. If you have understood this you would not have bark at the wrong tree and instead look for the cause of it.

It is by understanding the cause of the pain that releases the pain, not through fixing it any other way. But before that can happen, you have to experience the pain first then only the cause of the pain. For that matter, all ignorance is suffering as you have to endure the error until understanding comes in, in undoing its process.

Practically the process will be such – imagine an upset arises in your mind due to a certain trigger. Give no heed to the trigger as the upset is what you are experiencing now. You will find yourself detesting this unpleasant feeling of upset which is quite natural. Do you see it as a natural reaction of the mind doing that, without you needing to detest further? Learn to see this as nature unfolding – nature working its way, in the mind. This is right attitude over the existing attitude that is beyond your control. In a way this is acceptance, but this can only happen when you have the right view that nature is taking place in the mind. Once you have this acceptance coming your way, you are already not detesting what is being experienced, in this case, the upset. Observe what happens to upset when you are able to successfully incept the true understanding of seeing it as nature. You will be in for a surprise! You will see the importance of right view working its way in releasing the upset.

Imagine a computer that is not programmed and you have all the potentiality of inserting whatever script into it as to make it run according to how you want it. And when it is done, the nature of the computer will work exactly to what you input, except that you have to run it.

The nature of the mind works exactly what the computer does. It has its own nature according to the one who runs it. It has a life of its own, so to speak, due to what has been programmed. The only difference with the mind is that the programming is constantly changing, in relation to the person who experienced it.

In truth, the person who experiences the mind is not two different or separate experiences. The “person” is the mind, and the mind, the “person”. If you are trained to observe the mind with “you” getting out of the way, the experience of that moment will be such – the mind by itself already knows what to do and each time when an experience arises, which is a mind experience, you will observe that there is an already old attitude responding to it. That respond is a natural mind reaction, responding accordingly to what it has formerly been taught to do so. And that reaction is the new ongoing programme rewriting the mind so that it continues its existence.

Hence if you wish to write a new programme instead of the default rewriting, what do you think can be possibly done? Positive thinking? Not possible if you are not recognizing and first accepting what is already in the old program. But how can you accept the old program if you are not skilled in handling what is already here, especially since the mind will do its already way of reacting? What will be the best solution to this situation, which is in fact, the situation of the mind all the while as how we think and react is constant with what we have always done in the past.

Do you see that you need new information to this situation? Without new information it is impossible for the mind to know anyhow. Consider that the reaction was due to the way you only knew how to respond as you had not been taught any other way. What if you were to consider that the way the mind is already reacting is nature working its way. There is no you there when the reaction occurs as it runs according to what it has been scripted, again and again. You were not there for it as you were totally unaware when it happened or happens.

“Nature working its way” is a new information given to you. The next round when the same happens again, and when you are aware, can you just give the experience a voice but telling yourself that nature is working its way – it is not me who is reacting. By having this right attitude you are writing a new script into the mind. There are times just by having this right view, you will also experience you are no longer re-experiencing the reaction at that moment. It simply means that wisdom has taken place at that time, allowing the mind to move into a new direction, hence the old reaction no longer apply. Will this new experience of non reaction occur again in the future since the new script is written? Depends how strong your old script is and also whether wisdom will visit you the next time when you apply the new attitude nature is working its way…