Can True Mind Be Measured?

In Tea Words Volume II, Master Sheng Yen continues his discussion of consciousness when he remarks:

By now we can see that the Western understanding of consciousness does not cover all of the meanings of consciousness in Buddhism. In Western science, mental activities are researched, analyzed, and recorded, but is true mind, the mind of wisdom, a mental activity that can be scrutinized? (p.10)

I found this to be a very interesting remark. So much of Western science and research is now trying to focus on the psychological and emotional benefits of meditation, using traditional measurements such as brain scans and MRI imaging to see what areas of the brain are most affected by meditation practice. Is there in fact a mental activity that cannot be scrutinized at all? This "true mind" is unobservable by methods precisely because it is always present; it doesn't fluctuate over time or based on phenomena. I think this is one of the reasons why Master Sheng Yen suggests that this true mind may not be analyzable in the way that moods, thoughts or stream of consciousness might be evaluated.
  Put it in this way: everything that can be measured is essentially a phenomena. To try to reduce mind to phenomena is to say that the mind actually fluctuates, when in fact, mind is the very basis for phenomena itself. Without mind, is phenomena at all possible? Similarly, it's impossible to measure true mind for exactly the reason that it is always present in the midst of all phenomena. Whether I am feeling ecstatic or depressed, angry or content, that mind is always the true mind, and it doesn't suddenly fade due to these ups and downs in moods. This is why we cannot say that the true mind "comes and goes" with phenomena since it is always with every phenomena. In meditation practice, we say that the true mind is always with the present, regardless of what is arising in mind. I need not seek such a mind nor try to capture it in any way since that very "thing" which seeks is still the true mind; there is simply no getting around it.
   If I could take such a mind and measure it, where would I most likely be able to see the true mind? Is it more prevalent in my happy thoughts, sad thoughts or no thoughts at all? Even trying to measure something so present as the mind requires a reference point for comparison, but can such a comparison be found for the mind? This is why science can certainly find advantages to meditation in terms of observable traits (such as blood pressure, serotonin levels, and so on), but it cannot measure the actual mind itself.

Sheng Yen Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum Publications

St Neot's Margin

 I read a very interesting book when I was a teenager called The Outsider by Colin Wilson (1956). In many ways, I enjoyed reading this book because it spoke to my own desire for a higher experience than what I had at the time: a kind of expanded field of consciousness that would lift me out of the boredom or the despair of suburban existence. One of the more complex ideas that Wilson relates is that of St. Neot's Margin.
  I don't quite remember the gist of the story of St. Neot, but Wilson was apparently travelling through a town called St Neots when he suddenly became lost, and panicked over the fact that he didn't know how to get back to a familiar town or road. When Wilson approached a stranger there and was confirmed that he was in the right place, he suddenly felt a veil lifted from him-- what has sometimes been described as "peak experiences" by psychologists such as Maslow and William James. Wilson theorized that by enforcing a kind of mini-crisis, a person can induce a peak experience. Many of his writings were devoted to figuring out how to do this, and how the mind can get out of its self-induced rut of staying too close to things that it becomes easily irritated or frustrated by trivialities.
    I would have to say that one example of a St. Neot experience I had was related to a foot problem I had last year. At that time, I literally panicked over the fact that I might not be able to walk properly, knowing how much I value walking in my life. It was only after the foot gradually began to heal that there was this strange feeling: not only of gratitude toward not having a problem with the foot, but over what having the problem did for me. What having a crisis does is that it forces a person to realize that so many things they take for granted are so precious: walking, being pain-free, being able to move one's body without having to strategize about it, socializing with loved ones, and so on. All of these things were suddenly clear to me when the crisis of "losing" them was imminent. What this experience also did for me was to erase all the minor irritants that might have consumed my life had the problem not been present. There are so many vexations that a person has in a day to day life that, when looked at from a distance, don't mean very much. But if a person does not have a sufficient focusing device such as a challenge to resolve or even a deep regret those little things will just get into a person's skin, like an itch that cannot be fully scratched or removed.
   The question then becomes, how can one retain this state of being without having to go through an anxiety-inducing crisis? I think that part of the answer is maintaining a spiritual practice that keeps a person awake rather than becoming a mechanical recitation. The practice of slowing down and really appreciating what one has, as well as being able to do one thing fully and with a full heart, are ways to let go of trivial thoughts and desires, as well as settle into what is truly important to a person, including their physical and mental states of being. At the end of the day, one can have a whole rack full of trophies on their bookshelves, but what do these trophies mean if one is not content in their own present mind and body?
    Master Sheng Yen's explanation about Chan and its distinction from Buddhism in general is very similar to the mind that is always present and is not clinging to vexations. In Tea Words Volume II, he remarks:

 One important phrase used in Chan can be translated as “to illuminate the mind and perceive buddha-nature." Why does the mind need illumination? It is because the mind of sentient beings is clouded in darkness, and this darkness must be lifted to see the true nature of reality. Thus, to illuminate the mind and perceive buddha-nature means leaving behind the mind of vexation in order to attain wisdom. So the goal of Chan practice is identical to the goal of Buddhism. (p.10)

The lifting of the darkness of attachments is part of what Wilson must have experienced when a crisis brought him to a state of this moment attention. Being lost in an unfamiliar place suddenly jolted him awake, thus giving him the impetus to let go of the small details that might have consumed his moment to moment existence (such as "getting somewhere on time" or "completing everything I want to do"). However important these things might be, there is a habit of clinging to these things as though they were really the only reality that there is. This is a pity; as Master Sheng Yen remarks, lifting the veil of vexations, self, desires, etc., one can behold a mind that is luminous, and that sees the whole world itself as contained in its own light. This mind is wisdom mind, not the mind of karma (fundamental mind) or vexations (discriminating mind). It is also a mind that can really feel the relief of just being, not having to become something for anyone or anything.

Sheng Yen, (2013) Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst NY: Dharma Drum Publications

Wilson, C. (1956). The Outsider.  London: Golansz

Vexation and the Self

In Tea Words Volume 2, Master Sheng Yen asks, "how can we truly tell when we have overcome vexation and reached wisdom?" He then continues thus: "Vexation and wisdom are both mental activities, but the crucial difference is that vexation is centered on the self; it is this centering on the self that causes suffering. However, with wisdom one sees things as they are, unconcerned with the self, untainted by personal subjectivity" (p.9).

According to Master Sheng Yen, vexation is always marked by self-attachment. It's not the phenomena themselves that are "vexations", as one might suggest, but rather the self that attaches or clings to these vexations as pertaining or referring to a self. If I see a swarm of flies, for example, am I going to see them with reference to how I feel around them, or am I going to instead see them for what they really are (namely, flies)?  A wise perspective is to gradually rid oneself of the perceptions that surround a particular object and to see it for what it really is, without the reactions of the self.

This practice is admittedly not easy to do. Has anyone ever seen something they really love, such as a chocolate cake, and seen it as a cake rather than giving into their mental associations of craving and desire? I am sure that many people do try to do this, but deep down inside, have they attained the mind of wisdom? As long as there is even a subtle attachment, then there is no true wisdom there...and nor, for that matter, is there compassion, since the associations one has are entirely centered on one's own feelings about the cake. As soon as I get into that habit of craving something, I then come to falsely conclude that others crave the same thing as well. I assume that everyone in the world must like chocolate, just like me! This is hardly very wise either.

Quite often, what appears to be wisdom is really a kind of self-centered form of knowledge gathering or seeking. Watching the movie Three Identical Strangers the other day, I came to realize that (as I suspected from my early years of reading), many so-called "scientific" experiments in the 50s and 60s were using the debate of nature vs. nurture to bolster all sorts of "absolute" claims about the way people raised in totally different families might be determined by their genes. By separating the triplets at birth, the researchers intended to create controlled experiments which focused on the way family parenting styles influence the children's future behavior. In none of these experiments was there any recognition of the damage it would do to the children to be experimented in this way, as well as the families. In this way, what looks like valuable knowledge lacks wisdom and compassion. There is an "ulterior motive" behind the research that relates to particular interests, such as governments who might want to cut back on education that is designed to give children equal access to resources. After all, if we are determined by our genes, why bother investing in education that helps all students equally?

Sheng Yen (2013) Tea Words. Elmhurst. NY: Dharma Drum Publications

Defusing Karma

 During the 1 day meditation retreat today, I started to contemplate on how life often gets in the way of one's practice, and there can be all kinds of conditions that prevent one from being truly on one's practice. Illness is one that I have been contending with recently, as well as the spate of assignments that have come my way. I am fortunate to have the blog as a way for me to settle my mind and really think about the right view of practice.
  Continuing the reading of Tea Words, Volume II, Master Sheng Yen further clarifies what he means by the "fundamental" mind as opposed to the "discriminating mind". He remarks:

     The goal of Buddhist practice is to free living beings from the vexations that arise out of the habit       of making discriminations. To attain true mind we must also be freed from fundamental          consciousness because our karma is centered there; in other words, the seeds of our previous actions and the forces that they exert upon us are “stored”there. [This is the reason why fundamental consciousness is sometimes called “the storehouse consciousness.”] Put another way, to attain the true mind of wisdom, sentient beings must liberate themselves from discriminating consciousness, and they must defuse the karmic force of fundamental consciousness. This is the ultimate direction of Buddhist practice (p.8-9)

Most practitioners that I know are familiar with discriminating mind, which at times I have heard has been referred to as the Seventh consciousness. However, are practitioners as familiar with this fundamental consciousness? I think of it as perhaps the difference between the individual will to live in daily life and a more diffuse sort of will that makes existence take on a particular shape and form. Many people rely on making discriminations to help them to decide a course of action, but most people are not able to see the wider patterns of living that are stored in the eighth consciousness, ready to be activated in lifetime after lifetime. "Defusing the karmic force" is a very interesting remark as well, because it suggests that karma is not influenced by the will. For example,I can be born with a long-standing aversion toward something (spiders, for instance) and this may be due to a previous karmic encounter with a spider that did not turn out well. In this life, my aversion toward spiders is unrealistic and not founded on anything I have experienced using discriminating consciousness, but because it is planted as a seed in the eighth consciousness, it's hard to defuse the habit of having an aversion toward spiders. In this case, what can we do? Buddhist practice, from what I know, does not advocate trying to actively eliminate karmic seeds. Rather, the idea is often to plant new karmic seeds in the mind, such as cultivating a wholesome attitude even toward those creatures that we would rather avoid. Even though such karmic seeds might not reverse the previous negative karma, they can make a difference in terms of the direction that a person takes across different lifetimes, having a better connection with other beings in particular.
   Ultimately according to Sheng Yen, the goal of Buddhist practice is not just to "liberate from discriminating consciousness" but also to "defuse the karmic force of fundamental consciousness". Are these processes co-terminus with each other or are they distinct processes? I believe that the more a person can reduce their tendency to make discriminations, the less severe the karmic force will be, and this leaves a kind of light "footprint" on one's existence. In this way, defusing karma is likened to not watering seeds that are impure or unhealthy, while watering the ones which will produce less vexations.

Sheng Yen Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum Publications

Mind in Animals

Continuing the discussion of Tea Words Volume Two, Master Sheng Yen remarks: "We speak of consciousness in human beings but do we recognize such a faculty in animals? In Western thought this question is usually answered in terms of the species in question." (p.8). However, Master Sheng Yen goes on to relate that when we differentiate between animals with and without consciousness, we are usually referring to the discriminating consciousness rather than the fundamental consciousness. Hence, he further remarks:

In the Buddhist view, lower life forms may lack discriminating consciousness but they still have fundamental consciousness. In other words, all living beings have consciousness. For this reason Buddhist compassion is directed to all living beings—human or otherwise, that all can evolve to buddhahood. (ibid)

This is a very remarkable statement to reflect on, and it makes me wonder, do people normally view compassion in this way? I have a feeling that when people practice "compassion" toward animals, they are often looking at the ways that animals might behave similarly to humans. Apes are one example of a species which often appears to have human capabilities and gestures; in fact, humans have even tried to communicate with such species for this very reason. But Master Sheng Yen goes even further than this, suggesting that because all life forms have "fundamental" consciousness, they are therefore to be objects of compassion. It seems, however, that in order for a person to practice this kind of fundamental compassion, they would have to stop discriminating between animals "with" and "without" the ability to discriminate.

Today, I saw a cat who was in the mid-town area who frequently sits on the steps. This cat is very beautiful and likes to meow whenever he is pet by people. What do those communications mean? I can only tell from the wag of the cat's tail that perhaps he is happy to be pet. However, can I ever know how that cat thinks and feels from my own limited perspective as a person? Using my discriminating mind, I might try to infer that the cat has certain thoughts or feelings about things, but in fact, I am not able to know what this cat is conscious about. Does this mean that I cannot practice compassion on the cat? If I am only compassionate to those I deem as having the same consciousness as myself, then I am limiting the scope of what compassion can and does do. In fact, when petting a cat, perhaps the best thing to do is to meditate, and stop trying to figure out what the cat is thinking! In this way, just interacting with the cat, one can have some glimpse into a fundamental consciousness that is beyond the intellectual thoughts of discriminating consciousness.

Sheng Yen (2013) Tea Words Volume Two. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum Publications

Not Assigning Value to the Mind

    I am reflecting on the identification that people have with various kinds of work. The very first thing that people normally ask when you go to a party is "what do you do for a living" or "what is your work?" And I have experienced many times in life where I became so caught up in a particular project that the work becomes "me" or an image of who I am. In fact, everything I do models the work itself, and I start to base my value on it.
    It's interesting to reflect this back on the discussion on Master Sheng Yen's Tea Words. Throughout history, even in spiritual life, there is a tendency to try to reify one's existence; to attach some solid sense of value to it, whether it's a work of art or some project that one has worked on for many years. Even among spiritual seekers, there is a tendency to see the mind or soul as some tangible thing that moves from one lifetime to the next. Hence, Master Sheng Yen remarks:

"According to the Yogachara school, fundamental consciousness makes a person what he or she is; it is tempting to say that this fundamental consciousness is the core, essence, or true identity of someone, but these terms are misleading, since they make one think of substance, of something material, and this is not the understanding of Buddhism." (p.8)

I am thinking that what would it be like not to assign any value to this existence: to simply observe it as a witness, yet confident that this observer is indeed real?  Better still, perhaps there is neither real nor unreal about this observer or witness, which isn't even considered "valued" or "unvalued". It's hard to get this point because we always have in mind this consciousness that is moving from one work to another work, and so on down through time.
   Can work be done in this way? Yes, I believe that it can, but it takes a long time to let go of the sense that I am doing something to gain something else or to maintain a certain sense of oneself. In a way, people who are just starting a new job are often gifted with the opportunity not to make any assumptions. For example, when I first started my job, I had no expectations of even surviving one week, and I was only glad to have a paycheque at the end of the week. Why is it that years later, one's inclination is to protect what they have at all costs? This is because one no longer is working in faith  in the moment, but is resting on their previous works and taking those to be one's self.

Sheng Yen (2013) Tea Words Volume II Elmhurst NY: Dharma Drum Publications

True in False

Continuing Master Sheng Yen's discussion of "True" and "False" mind in Tea Words Volume Two, we read the following:

It is important to understand that false mind is really what we call ordinary human consciousness. Consciousness itself has two aspects: discriminating consciousness and fundamental consciousness. Discriminating consciousness includes cognition, apprehension, and discrimination (commonly what we take to be memory, judgment, and reasoning). However, there is an aspect of consciousness which does not make discriminations; for the sake of discussion we will call this fundamental consciousness (p.7-8)

I have always been fascinated by the idea that the "true" mind is hidden in the "false" mind, and I have tried to grasp an example of this happening. The closest I can come to understanding this is to talk about the water and waves. If a person gets really caught up in the shapes of waves, they will think that truly they are the waves. Think of the example: I start to get more and more involved in a particular course I am taking, only to find myself identifying "me" with the ups and downs of the course. When I am submitting good posts and assignments, I am "up"; when I am not inspired to submit assignments, I am "down". These "ups" and "downs" become a drama that I play out, with me playing all the characters. All the while, what happens is that I build a kind of collection of actions around this course. Then, when the course finishes, what happens? I typically go "now what?" and then either get sick or become down, because I have become hooked on the ups and downs. The course has infiltrated and conditioned me to the point where I can't imagine myself as functioning without it.

The true mind, then: what is it? First of all, Master Sheng Yen notes "there is an aspect of consciousness which does not make discriminations". This seems to mean, from my limited understanding, that this true mind is even there when there is false mind. After all, you can't separate the waves from the water. This means that even in the midst of my ups and downs, I am never separate from this mind. I only believe I am separate, because I have attached myself to narrow patterns of being. If I apply the analogy to taking a course: course materials are always limited to one special topic, but if I am deeply involved in that course, I have to clear my mind of all other topics or ways of thinking that don't accord with that topic. Soon, I start to see the world through the methodological lens of the course itself. If the course is about critical pedagogy, I will start to look at everything through that lens; if Marxist, everything becomes "Marxist", etc. But what I forget is that all of these ways of seeing are only one of many potential forms. I can adopt any one of these forms, but what I can't change is the underlying mind that engages those forms. If I am overly attached to the form itself, I will suffer when that form disappears. But if I remind myself that the true mind is already in the false, discriminating mind, then I can interact with all the forms of false consciousness without attachment.

Sheng Yen (2013). Tea Words Volume Two. Elmhurst, NY: Dharma Drum Publications.