The False Idea that using the Mind is Bad

[Aaron p]

There seems to be a paradox between the inability to use the mind to awaken and the requirement of the mind to be allowed to become more conceptual in the stages leading up to the psychological stillness found in turquoise levels of development.

 

In layman's terms, we cant use the mind (thoughts and concepts) to attain spiritual awakening (which is true)…but i feel like this may create a problem when stage blue, green and orange people simply stop thinking and stop using concepts altogether (like a religious person trying to stop sinning as if it'll get them into heaven). Or like when someone says that watching your breath is enough to attain awakening where leo clearly states it isint enough.

I feel like it would be useful to note here that there are different stages in the journey, the most advanced of which focus on the stillness of the mind, where yellow stages focus more on advanced levels of conceptual growth etc. I feel like there is a trap for stage orange and green people, in that they hear turquoise teachers telling them to shut off their mind permanently, leaving out the fact that this stillness is designed to create space for more conscious, effective and heightened use of concepts, thoughts and ideas in a more pragmatic, survival oriented fashion concerning levels lower than that of awakening, levels that are [for most] required to pass through before moving wholeheartedly into the domain of actual enlightenment.

 

I feel like for the longest time i was avoiding using my mind at all because turquoise teachers were teaching how to move into awakening by stilling the mind, failing to mention the fact that the conceptual mind has to be increased massively before the pendulum swings back in the direction of psychological stillness. 

green, orange and yellow level individuals need to know that the mind is not just some rabid beast in the corner to be caged and punished, it is a beautiful, loud instrument to be vibrantly expressed...especially when (unlike our Buddhist friends) psychedelics are our strongest weapon, not silence..

Edited April 21, 2022 by Aaron p

[Breakingthewall]

I agree, the mind must understand itself, if not, the silence will be artificial, forced. To create empty space in the mind, all knots must be undone, the labyrinth solved. then silence comes naturally.

[BipolarGrowth]

In my opinion, the deepest possibility is for the mind to be still whether thoughts are present or not. 
 

Viewing only one possibility as ideal is a sort of prison. 

[Flyboy]

22 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

In my opinion, the deepest possibility is for the mind to be still whether thoughts are present or not. 
 

Viewing only one possibility as ideal is a sort of prison. 

Spot on.  Also be really careful with the idea that conceptuality increases with higher spiral stages.  I do not think this is true.  Spiral development is multifaceted and involves increasing nuance, not necessarily complexity.  The simplicity of intuition moving towards Turqoise actually requires a letting go of the complexity that was nurtured in Yellow, allowing the models to be subsumed into the reality of flow. 

The journey towards awakening is mostly about finding and unraveling subtler and subtler levels of concepts.  This goes way deeper than you realize at first.  At first you notice big, normal, verbal thoughts and images.  Eventually you notice thoughts that are like micro-blips, ephemeral and subtle, which create the sense of self (e.g. the seer of vision, the hearer of sound, the thinker of thoughts).  Other thoughts turn colors and shapes into space.  Other thoughts turn conceptual memory echoes, anticipation, and confirmation of anticipation into the sense of time.  This goes DEEP, and is not accessible all at once.  You can't get there until you get there (which is admittedly a struggle for me, I'm impatient ).

[Aaron p]

its just interesting that the only thing leo communicates to us is concepts and the only way in which something can be conveyed at all is through concepts. Concepts seem to be super important for enlightenment, i mean at the most basic level, if someone hadn't have told you the concept of enlightenment then you wouldnt know to do the practices at all. Then of course these clever concepts are designed to be meta, and denote the limited nature of themselves and eventually they end themselves to give way to awakening to reality that exists independent of concepts...the fact stands that concepts are extremely important and using the mind is not a bad thing at all. 

15 hours ago, BipolarGrowth said:

In my opinion, the deepest possibility is for the mind to be still whether thoughts are present or not. 
 

Viewing only one possibility as ideal is a sort of prison. 

@BipolarGrowth i like what you say here...its just i feel like there is this unhealthy idea around mindfulness that you just have to force your mind to stop and thats it. But that gets loads of immature buddhists into trouble, where they're just sitting there in silence thinking their enlightened. I think i agree with you bipolar, stillness of mind doesent necessarily mean stillness of thoughts. and mind-emptiness is very similar to mind-fullness. 

its a strange one. most people treat mindfulness as something that you just sit and dont question anything and be silent until you die...where our approach is use the mind infinitely more than normal people...

 

perhaps mindfulness isint the lack of thought, but the lack of attachment to thought...

my intuition says that i need to be pressing further into the mind, not forcing it to shut down...its almost as if ive got this idea in my head of silence, and im focusing on that idea of silence. I get the strong feeling that anything other than relaxation is just an idea, and the mind opens when its relaxed, it doesent close...it becomes more full, and its full of emptiness, but not an emptiness that i can anticipate, manipulate or force....only surrendered to.

 

strangely, i feel like grasping too much onto this idea of silence, makes the mind go into this obsessive, prison state like you said...where, instead of becoming full, it focuses relentlessly on the image or concept of silence 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Aaron p

[BipolarGrowth]

@Aaron p Well, I’ve talked to three very experienced Buddhists, and none of them have this obsession with removing thoughts like you see in many modern, online spiritual teachings. 
 

One of them actually heavily emphasizes the usefulness of thought in practice by using wholesome thoughts to enter the first jhana which is unfortunately a bit of a forgotten element of the Buddha’s teachings. Introducing wholesome thoughts is a step in Ānāpānasati (mindfulness of breathing) as it was taught in the original sutta given by the Buddha. When I say wholesome thought it is to say a thought which is bringing someone away from the hindrances such as “this is comfortable, this is great, etc.” Wholesome thoughts increase satisfaction while unwholesome thoughts increase dissatisfaction. 

Mindfulness in the Buddhist context could be said to be to “wake up to the senses”. Oftentimes, people might turn away from thought as the focus of their attention to be able to get into the senses more fully, but any meditator with a notable degree of skill should be able to be more mindful even if thought is present than a normal person or beginning meditator would be with no thoughts. 

I think the key here is to not be “lost in thought” in such a way that you lose attention of the other aspects of the present moment picked up by your other senses. 
 

Any Buddhist teacher worth their salt will emphasize the fact that mindfulness needs to be cultivated during daily life outside of sitting meditation practice, and the suttas talk about this extensively as well. Much of daily life involves thought, and one cannot hope to become a well-developed practitioner if they cannot maintain a good degree of mindfulness in situations where thought is necessary. 
 

It is also a common element in some Buddhist spheres that the mind is seen as a sense door the same as the five physical sense doors. In later stages of practice in this school of Buddhism, all six sense doors fuse into one, and thoughts are perceived as just more sensations on equal footing to any others. 

Edited April 22, 2022 by BipolarGrowth

[Leo Gura]

Finite mind creates suffering by incessantly relating everything to its own survival. That's really the issue. Finite mind is incessantly judging things as good and bad, which creates suffering for itself.

[BuddhistLover]

@Leo Gura Oh, so that's why I can't sleep at night if my mind is running. And that's why we feel so recharged when we meditate, cause the mind is turned off. Like, I was in the car going to the doctor the other day feeling like shit, then I meditated for like 10 minutes before I went in there. Then I was good man, I was open to convo, alert, refreshed, and the headache went away after meditation. Meditation is Medicine. 

[Leo Gura]

@BuddhistLover Of course. Mind is constantly surviving and it's exhausting.

[gettoefl]

22 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Finite mind creates suffering by incessantly relating everything to its own survival. That's really the issue. Finite mind is incessantly judging things as good and bad, which creates suffering for itself.

bring finite mind to heel

it is just a dog, teach it to be a good doggie

you CAN teach an old dog new tricks

don't banish mind, cherish it

change its bias from ego to god

then everything is good

[VeganAwake]

@Aaron p Check out books by J Krishnamurti. This topic was his forte!!

❤ 

 

[Aaron p]

On 4/24/2022 at 4:40 AM, VeganAwake said:

@Aaron p Check out books by J Krishnamurti. This topic was his forte!!

❤ 

 

thanks bruv

[Consilience]

Leo has spread this very false idea that Buddhists fixate on stilling the mind. Stilling the mind is not only not the goal of Buddhist meditation, but it is not necessary for entering incredibly deep states of samadhi through mindfulness or even more concentration based practices. The “stilling” of the mind is really the stilling and falling away of the hinderances, unwholesome thoughts and mental defilements that obstruct wisdom, clear seeing, and samadhi. Eventually one becomes so mindful that the activity of thinking is itself seen so clearly that all meaning, attraction and fixation on thoughts fall away. Again, even amidst the activity of thoughts. Thoughts can only have meaning when one is ignorant of the reality of time/impermanence. When one truly sees into the nature of impermanence, thoughts along with the rest of one’s sense of reality, have no ground for existence or for the activity of self clinging or craving to arise. 
 

I wouldn’t trust someone who hasnt actually explored Buddhist meditation very deeply on this subject. 

[Shambhu]

The Western concept of the "mind" and the Eastern concept are not identical, and it creates confusion when the two are conflated.

In the West, we are inclined to think that there is an entity called the mind, and it produces thoughts.  Furthermore, there is no distinction between Consciousness and mind in this model.  

In the Indian traditions, there is chitta, which is Consciousness (Chit in sanskrit) with a limiting adjunct (creates the illusion of many limited Consciousnesses vs one universal Consiousness), and this chitta takes the forms of manas (mind or thoughts), ahamkara (ego or literally, "I-doer"), and buddhi ( the faculty of intellect or reason).  In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, Yoga is defined as "chitta vritti nirodaha" or "Yoga is the stilling of the waves of the mind stuff."  What is the purpose of calming the waves of the chitta?  The next two verses provide the answer; I'll paraphrase.  "Then, pure Awareness can abide in its true nature.  Otherwise, Awareness takes itself to be the waves."  The stilling of the chitta allows for the opportunity to see who you are when there are no thoughts.  This is called nirvikalpa samadhi in sanskrit.  It is samadhi (or meditative absorption) without thoughts.  It would be easy to believe this is the pinnacle of spiritual achievement, but that would be a mistake.  Once nirvikalpa samadhi is achieved, then thoughts need to reemerge and be transformed into sarvikalpa samadhi, or samadhi with thoughts.  What was experienced without thoughts must be reflected in thoughts; there must be a "Brahmaakara vritti" or a thought that is absolutely clear and certain that you are that singular, unlimited Consciousness that has produced the illusion of an individual and world.  The problems of bondage and suffering are in the mind, and they must ultimately be resolved in the mind.  In reality there are no problems at all.

Now, the individual cannot accomplish the above (stilling the waves), since the individual (ahamkara) is itself a wave.  Let me repeat, a wave cannot still a wave.  To enter nirvakalpa samadhi, the individual must be dissolved.  There is nothing "you" can do to enter that state.  Every technique is performed by a doer, but it will only take you so far.  There must be a Guru or a God(dess) (or a psychedelic, idk) that ferries you there.  The only thing you can do is surrender. 

[Consilience]

@Shambhu Absolutely beautiful, high quality post. Thank you. 

 

3 hours ago, Shambhu said:

Every technique is performed by a doer, but it will only take you so far.

This too is my understanding, however the teacher I'm training with actually intentionally has me using either noting or following the breath and wants me to do these until I recognize the illusory nature of a doer doing a technique. He knows my go too technique is the do nothing technique or surrender as you've described it in other posts. At the highest level, there is no doer involved in intentionality and the mind following this intention, yet the possibility for integrity and honesty remains. How can one do, act, intend, and be trust worthy while no one is there? How can one directly experience this lack of doer within the doing? Quite mysterious. 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Consilience

[Salvijus]

@Consilience

36 minutes ago, Consilience said:

At the highest level, there is no doer involved in intentionality

I think doer does exist and that intention and the doer are one and the same imo and ime. Doer is made out of intention.

When your teacher is saying find the doer who's doing the technique. Try to become aware of the intention to meditate. Or the intention to focus. And that will lead your to a doer. Doer is an observable phenomena. Once the doer is found as an observable phenomena, final insight happens that doer itself is just a sensation.

Sorry for my lecturing. ?

Edited May 1, 2022 by Salvijus

[Galyna]

Watch as the thoughts arise, don’t go into the direction of thoughts. I agree no need to make a conscious effort to stop the  thoughts process. Becoming aware of all the thoughts and how they form identity and reality is a great tool to not be sucked again. Just pure observation. 

[Shambhu]

@Consilience

18 hours ago, Consilience said:

@Shambhu Absolutely beautiful, high quality post. Thank you. 

This too is my understanding, however the teacher I'm training with actually intentionally has me using either noting or following the breath and wants me to do these until I recognize the illusory nature of a doer doing a technique. He knows my go too technique is the do nothing technique or surrender as you've described it in other posts. At the highest level, there is no doer involved in intentionality and the mind following this intention, yet the possibility for integrity and honesty remains. How can one do, act, intend, and be trust worthy while no one is there? How can one directly experience this lack of doer within the doing? Quite mysterious. 

There is a place for "doing" in our practice, but eventually it must be abandoned to progress further.  Certainly outside our practice, we take up the role of a doer, but toward the end, this also gives way.

If you have found a competent teacher, then by all means, follow their instructions.  The various paths have worked out the means for accomplishment, and we must be committed to the process and not try to hop scotch to some higher teaching before we have adequately laid the foundation for receiving it.  I don't believe you are guilty of such; I'm only saying that for the benefit of others.    

My first teacher actually encouraged her students to become successful doers before surrendering the role.  Get a higher education, start a career, make some money, have a family, help others, or whatever ethical goals you may have for this life.  Once you have a strong, healthy ego, see through the illusion that it was your effort that gave results.  Then give it all up for Lent. :-D

Until her students were prepared for full surrender, she provided them with various techniques according to their nature.  Even while pursuing worldly attainments, there must be a parallel pursuit of spiritual development, and that can include different meditation techniques, mantras, etc.

As the proverb goes, there is only one mountain top, even if the mountain can be climbed from many sides.

[Aaron p]

@BipolarGrowth your beard is righteous