Ordinary Mind

  Today, I was able to attend a very special event with Abbott Venerable Guo Dong from our Dharma Drum lineage, where he talked about using the ordinary mind to deal with extraordinary circumstances. At first, I wasn't too sure what ordinary mind means. When we refer to "ordinary", we might tend to think of it as something mundane, such as the mind that we use to process the five senses. This might be considered opposed to an extraordinary 'genius' mind that is capable of processing complex intellectual ideas, or even having super-sensory experiences. But in fact, this 'ordinary' mind refers to a mind that does not accord special significance or importance to any particular being or situation. Rather, it sees all beings with a spirit of equanimity, not preferring one person to another. Similarly, when encountering diverse situations, ordinary mind approaches the world without the attitude of getting ecstatic about some things and upset about others. This ordinary mind just approaches things in a spirit of knowing that they are impermanent and interconnected at the same time.
   I found that the Abbott's concept of ordinary mind is quite appealing and useful as well. All too often, people on a spiritual path tend to feel that they are inferior or do not have the same element of mind that other 'more seasoned' practitioners do. Hence, they will go around with this notion of trying to be something else or acquire a special state of mind, rather than starting with mind as the basis upon which all phenomena naturally tend to arise. It is as though a person needs to 'become' extraordinary in order to 'face' what is extraordinary. In fact, however, it is us who determine what is ordinary and extraordinary, based on the way we evaluate situations around us. Even though my work may seem stressful and overwhelming at times, there is a deeper sense that how I view it is based on my evaluation of the experience and my expectations around it. So far as I can drop expectations and attend to my present state of body and mind, then there is less pressure to face the extraordinary with anything but an ordinary mindset. In this way, I would say that a person can experience peaceful heart and mind without exaggerating the conditions.