What is No-Mind?

[ZenSwift]

Time and time again I hear: The Mind is the wrong tool for enlightenment. For grasping the absolute. Etc. 

 

Well, could you help point me to making the distinction between mind and no-mind? 

 

I feel like this would help. 

[puporing]

The keyword is the 'no' or 'not'-mind, or without mind. Mind can be thoughts, feelings/emotions, states, body, etc. What is left when you throw those out the window? It's like an open sky without any clouds. The open sky persists while the clouds come and go. 

 

Also words are just pointers. The other path is "everything is mind".

 

Words are not great for grasping. Direct experience is what does it. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by puporing

[Ananta]

11 hours ago, ZenSwift said:

Time and time again I hear: The Mind is the wrong tool for enlightenment. For grasping the absolute. Etc. 

Use the mind for Self inquiry, "not this-not that", until you are left only with the ever present witness, consciousness/awareness...

The no-mind state. But, that's not a permanent state, it's meant for Self-realization.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Ananta

[hyruga]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAj0mjLtQcU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPH80MGsypk

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by hyruga

[Leo Gura]

It's not a good teaching for several reasons:

1) Everything is Mind. You're never escaping mind. There is technically no such thing as no-mind.

2) Even people who have supposedly reached no-mind still think. Which paints a false picture of what no-mind refers to.

3) God-realization and awakening can be had with a fully active mind and thoughts, and in fact it's useful and important for the mind to contemplate and make some sense of God.

4) The mind can technically be used to grasp the Absolute. But this mind has to be fueled properly with psychedelics so it becomes a transhuman mind.

5) Mind is not what prevent awakening. Your state of consciousness prevents awakening. The key is not to shut off the mind but to raise one's state of consciousness. Which can be done by shutting off the mind but not necessarily. If you raise your state without shutting off the mind, it works just as well, and perhaps even better.

6) An empty mind works well in a mediation retreat setting, but doesn't work so well in a complex world of survival which intellectual problems exist.

7) An empty mind can still be ignorant and wrong and full of dogma and bad believes and opinions. You cannot solve intellectual problems by just shutting off the mind. This is like sticking your head in the sand.

- - - - - -

By no-mind what they basically mean is a meditative state free of thoughts. A still mind for a certain period of time, in contrast to monkey-mind.

[Raze]

https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/art_emptying-mind.pdf

[Michal__]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not a good teaching for several reasons:

1) Everything is Mind. You're never escaping mind. There is technically no such thing as no-mind.

2) Even people who have supposedly reached no-mind still think. Which paints a false picture of what no-mind refers to.

3) God-realization and awakening can be had with a fully active mind and thoughts, and in fact it's useful and important for the mind to contemplate and make some sense of God.

4) The mind can technically be used to grasp the Absolute. But this mind has to be fueled properly with psychedelics so it becomes a transhuman mind.

5) Mind is not what prevent awakening. Your state of consciousness prevents awakening. The key is not to shut off the mind but to raise one's state of consciousness. Which can be done by shutting off the mind but not necessarily. If you raise your state without shutting off the mind, it works just as well, and perhaps even better.

6) An empty mind works well in a mediation retreat setting, but doesn't work so well in a complex world of survival which intellectual problems exist.

7) An empty mind can still be ignorant and wrong and full of dogma and bad believes and opinions. You cannot solve intellectual problems by just shutting off the mind. This is like sticking your head in the sand.

- - - - - -

By no-mind what they basically mean is a meditative state free of thoughts. A still mind for a certain period of time, in contrast to monkey-mind.

No mind has nothing to do with a quiet mind and everything to do with who's thinking the thoughts including the thought called "the thinker". 

Quieting the mind is called samatha, not no mind.

Quiet(er) mind is just a middle man some teacher believe is important. 

Quiet mind is neither mind nor not mind.

It doesn't matter whether you realize no mind with the help of psychadelics or by accessing nice quiet concentration states.