Trust in Mind

  What does it mean to trust in mind? I heard this expression during our Buddhist study group today, and I would like to elaborate on it a bit. I specifically had a follow up question and that is, what is the difference between trusting mind and trusting "self" or "ego"? How do we know that we are trusting the original mind and not the ego or the self that we think we are or sometimes identify with (especially the persona)? As I suggested during the meeting today, it's only when we let go of wanting to know the answer to "what is mind" that we can trust in mind. This is a weird paradox that I will describe in more detail.

    We know that when we practice huatou, we are asking a question for which consciousness cannot come up with a cogent answer. As soon as I answer the question "Who is reciting the Buddha's name?" by saying "me" or "I", I have already reduced the answer to a thought object. Anything we say about "I" or the self is going to take the form of language, thought, an image, or something else that we can reduce to the status of something seen or understood. This I is something that I am actively trying to grasp or control: it's like an acting role that I am continually trying to refine by editing parts here and there, just to make it look good or to somehow curate it as a viable answer to the question.

   Whatever the mind is, it's something that cannot be grasped. The mind is what I use to see, hear, and even to type these words. Were I to try to reduce the mind to a bunch of words on a page, this would be similar to the eye trying to see itself. Now, if I were to mistakenly define the mind, is it the true mind itself that makes the utterance, or is it a "false", deluded mind? In fact, regardless of whether the mind says the correct answer or not, it's always the true mind that answers the question. We are simply confused because we take the words as the answer, similar to how we confuse the finger with the moon.

    Trust in mind comes precisely when we realize that the words don't matter as much as the mind behind the words. When I am confident that the mind I use to type these words is the true mind, then what words I type matters less than the spirit in which I am typing the words: the confidence that the source of these words is, in fact, the true mind. This is a bit like looking down at a frozen pond in the winter, and deducing that the dark moving shapes just below the surface must be living beings. The words are like the puppet, so there must be a puppeteer somewhere, and this is precisely what the words are pointing directly to, whether we use huatou or not.

     This is to say that as long as I don't confuse the finger with the moon, then what I say to people and how I act around them will have a certain dignified confidence. I don't need to know where this confidence is from because I am not fixated on making an appearance. My only motivation is to somehow show the fish shapes swimming underneath the surface of frozen water. That means, I don't need to be so ostentatious, or good with words, or ornate. I have the confidence of knowing where the finger is pointing, without needing to paint my fingernails a pretty glossy color.

   The true mind is a form of living grace. We are never out of the grace of mind, because nothing can never be away from mind itself. It's only when I get stuck on words, thoughts, images from mind that I start to create some pretty strange karma. To put it in a different way: instead of being a transmitter of infinite radio signals, I start to mistakenly think that I wrote and performed all those radio songs myself. I stop admiring my ability to be a transmitter of signals, and instead, put all my hopes on claiming ownership of the songs being transmitted. This is where the self begins. It confusedly thinks that the songs belong to it, and that it creates the sounds, when in fact, sounds are only causes and conditions. We are all receivers of the noise of the universe. The noise is beautiful as long as we stop thinking in terms of "my noise", "your noise", etc.