MIND COVERS THE WORLD

Zen practice is about becoming intimate with our own physical and mental life. We watch our inner experience closely, and we also study early Buddhist texts from India, Southeast Asia and China.

One of these texts, from the early Yogacara school in India, describes consciousness, our mental life, as essentially one whole, but also as layered in eight ways.The eighth consciousness is described as the storehouse of our experience, of everything that has happened to us or that we have done. It is described as the repository of our karmic stream and our karmic potential.

The function of the seventh consciousness seems to be to reveal our mind to us. It does this by projecting a part of the eighth consciousness 'outside' as objects of mind. When the thoughts and feelings of the seventh consciousness are kept inside, we don't necessarily notice them because we have no distance or perspective. We know them only as the natural and normal flow of our mind. As soon as we project them onto the world, our mind becomes revealed to us, and thus accessible.

Buddhism teaches that by our mental activities we create the world in which we live. In the Dhammapada, Buddha says:

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it.

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me—those who dwell on such thoughts will never be free from hatred.

He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me—those who do not dwell on such thoughts will surely become free from hatred.

Although we know that some things please us, and some don't, that we find beauty and ugliness, friends and not-friends, boring and interesting—we don't know how the mind makes this division. Zen Master Dogen says sentient beings are deluded about enlightenment, buddhas are enlightened about delusion.

In our practice, our ordinary mind studies delusion, it studies itself. It looks out at the world and sees separation, opposites.The attitudes of our karmic consciousness masquerade as allies, we believe them. We are convinced by our mind's judgment that a particular person is really not a good person or is a fabulous person. Although we find ourselves fully charged with opinions and feelings, often we cannot find a reasonable basis for them. However, because the judging mind is also simultaneously the undivided mind, we find that by paying close attention this mind can learn to see its own wholeness, its own oneness.

Zazen is the means by which we recognize the judgements which we call delusion. Becoming intimate with thoughts and feelings, we gradually catch the mind covering the world with its ideas, thoughts, values. We see that mind is not separate from the objects it perceives, even though it sees itself as separate.

Buddha said the special power of buddhism is our ability to sit with ordinary mind and body, entering the conditioned mind while being free of it.

Remembering our basic practice of intimacy or not turning away, we take on the problem of the passions.

Initially in my practice I completely turned away from my ordinary mind,thinking it was just too boring and embarrassing to study. Who would want to hang out with that mind? But that's exactly what we study, the ordinary divided mind. Buddhas are enlightened about delusion, about how the mind creates a divided world.

If we look at one of the passions, such as jealous mind, we acknowledge our miserable feelings. We focus on jealous thoughtsand feelings. As we make jealousy the object of our meditative awareness, we are no longer experiencing jealousy, we are observing it with equanimity and detachment. We look at the body of jealousy, the stomach of jealousy, the breath of jealousy.

What thoughts accompany jealousy? We study this body-mind until it becomes completely absorbed in jealousy. That's not a jealous mind any more. It's one integrated mind concentrated on jealousy.

Because the mind can divide itself, it can observe itself: I am not afraid of you anymore, jealous mind. I'm not afraid of these contractions and this fear and this insecurity and this shame— and at the same time I am totally focused on this mind and deeply caring about it. I'm acknowledging jealousy and just looking at it. The observing mind relaxes into a non-judgmental, non-directive condition, into not knowing. The more we look at jealousy the more it expands into an energy field. It just is.

When we study our delusions, we're also studying the powerful energy of attachment and resistance. We don't turn away from resistance, either. Noticing resistance one strand at a time, we honor it; give it space.

Years ago, I barely noticed my resistance to being on time for a kitchen assignment. Week after week I conned myself into thinking I had enough time to delay and still arrive "on my time" rather than "on time". The head of the crew was extremely annoyed with me. Finally a friend said, if you want to be on time, you have to go now. His clarity cut through and I was finally able to see my vacillating mind.

When we have "seen through" our desire or aversion, resistance is no longer interesting to us. If we are watching something that's really hot like jealousy, we might have to do this practice for a long time, patiently allowing all our thoughts and memories from the eighth storehouse consciousness to reflect on jealous mind so there becomes a thorough airing of jealousy. A lifetime of experiences and perspectives of jealousy may come into play. The whole point is to look at it as neutral energy, no longer hot, just energy. If you observe long enough you may find that energy shifts.

Student: It is so important to recognize that it takes a long time to let go of the really intense complexes--strand by strand just like electrolysis, root by root.

Katherine: Maybe part of the delusion is that we are going to get rid of this. That's the mind of desire again. It's the mind of resistance to what is. Eventually we let the delusion just be, with intimate attention on it.

Student: In my office there is somebody I don't like, and I don't like what they say, is that all delusion too?

Katherine: From a Buddhist perspective this is the expression of judgments toward things as they are in the world. When your mind is at rest and you go to a candy store, you can enjoy the look of chocolate, or vanilla, without needing to taste it. So our passions express the topography of the unresolved mind, because the reason you don't like somebody, the way they look or what they say, is because you're jealous or threatened by them, an expression of our insecure mind.
But there is another way. That is to be so at home with our own body and mind that we are open to hearing others' suffering and struggles. If we are putting other people down, it's because of our own sorrow and insecurity.

—edited from a talk by Katherine Thanas

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