painted with watercolors
Mind is a convenient fiction. Useful, conventionally.
It allows us to take ownership of thinking and build a cozy little container around it and imagine that we know where thoughts come from and where they disappear into. Instead of thought coming from the inconceivable vastness and there being no one separate from it, thought then comes from ‘my mind’ which ‘I’ can train, control, improve.
And sooner rather than later I start to believe that my mind is what I am — it is my uniqueness. I might think I’m quite the sharp fellow because I no longer believe I’m the body, unlike all those deluded materialists.
I am the poltergeist in the apparatus!
Without knowing it, I have burrowed myself deeper into the mess. I have split mind from body and started French-kissing Descartes.
While René’s tongue is flitting in and out of my mouth, Ockham is standing in the corner shaking his head. The razor he has so graciously bequeathed upon me is rusting away, unused.
Occam’s razor is an ingenious little device — it can cut away all excess, all confounding complexity.
I begin to feel that something ain’t quite right, and it’s not just Monsieur Descartes’s greedy tongue. I could use Occam’s razor to slice it off but the guy is just having his first kiss so I hold back.
Instead, I slice at mind. To my surprise, I find that mind as an entity separate from body is an unnecessary step, only leading to more questions.
I push René and his rapacious tongue away. I didn’t want to tell him but he tastes like sour cheese.
Ockham tips his hat.
But the logic isn’t enough. I need to look into it or rather at it directly. I need to see some proof.
What is this mind? Like seriously, what is it?
An old hobo-looking guy comes along. He has a crazy stare. He’s lacking eyelids.
According to legend, the monk, Bodhidharma meditated in front of a wall for nine years without sleeping. When he found himself dozing off, he cut off his eyelids so he would never again fall asleep during meditation. His chopped-off eyelids were also the source of the first tea plant.
“Produce your mind before me and I’ll purify it for you,” he says.
Another story of Bodhidharma:
Bodhidharma sits facing the wall. His future successor stands in the snow and presents his severed arm to Bodhidharma. He cries: “My mind is not pacified. Master, pacify my mind.”
Bodhidharma says: “If you bring me that mind, I will pacify it for you.”
The successor says: “When I search my mind I cannot hold it.”
Bodhidharma says: “Then your mind is pacified already.”
“Who said anything of purify?” I say.
“Oh,” he says, “I must’ve misheard.”
He shuffles along.
One thing the geezer said echoes: Produce your mind before me.
If there truly is a mind, I should be able to perceive it, like I’m able to perceive a tree or a cat or even a thought or feeling.
So I try really hard, which in itself is silly — how hard should it be to look at something that’s supposed to be right there? — but hey! I’m giving it a sincere shot before calling it a day, and surely the day will be called.
I focus persistently and what I see is thought after thought after thought…, but no container called ‘mind.’
Then I look at their source. Their source must be mind, no?
Indeed no! I find no mind, not even no-mind. (And I don’t mind. No one does!)
What I find is this endless absence — that vast presence. It includes everything I could and couldn’t be.
And incredibly, this is all I see. Once seen, who could unsee it?
Mind, I no longer need to find but acknowledge it as the convenient fiction it is.
Luka
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