Advantages of starting from No-mind

[exorcist_1699]

A persistent No-mind is a status you can't skip if you want to accomplish something great in your practice; that means, if you not limit yourself to attain a peaceful mind or cure a disease ,then 'playing ' with no-mind for long hours a day is a hurdle you can't avoid.

 

To me , it is only after no-mind has become a practical issue, a status with steps and layers that we can deal with, does its real philosophical significance appear to us .

 

So, whatever ways you start from the beginning: Paying attention to your dantian , focus on your breathing or visualization ... etc., up to certain stage, you have to shift to some kind of no-mind. If such a shift is inevitable, then why not doing it earlier or right at the beginning?

 

Besides , paying attention to your lower dantian, for example, does give rise to some troubles to many guys for the more jing and qi that they accumulate there, the easier for them to leak away ( especially in nighttime ) . Visualization is a method most people like to start with , it gives people a feeling of grasping and accomplishing something quick; however, the possibility of nourishing an illusory Dan (幻丹) by adopting this method is greater than others; you are more liable to end up achieving something mediocre, yet you imagine it something superb..

 

How about paying attention to emptiness before our eyes ? Some people may ask .

 

Or, paying attention to something , then forgetting it ( that attention)..

 

It sounds like some kind of compromise , but it not better than chopping off that stream of minds before it arises..

Edited December 28, 2012 by exorcist_1699

[GrandmasterP]

Cultivation is essentially energetic, and can nullify the mind's need for ideas and answers and dissipate the contracted sense of the self and its fear of unconditional freedom.

That presumes cultivation as a beginning point rather than starting out from No Mind.

Some may be able to do that you do hear of folk getting it out of the blue in a flash but , hard work that it can be; for plodders such as me it's maybe the discipline of daily cultivation year after year that fits the bill best.

Edited December 28, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[adept]

So, whatever ways you start from the beginning: Paying attention to your dantian , focus on your breathing or visualization ... etc., up to certain stage, you have to shift to some kind of no-mind. If such a shift is inevitable, then why not doing it earlier or right at the beginning?

 

Good topic !

I, like many others, started out with focussing on the dantian. I tried visualizations, and more recently the mechanism of breathing, which led me to a void-like state.

Since reading more of Northern Complete Reality, Ch'an and Zen, I've took the no-mind approach to meditation and to everyday life situations when I'm not meditating.

I've found zazen refreshing in that I 'just sit', without any goals or attainment levels. I'm not looking for any state or to achieve any level of wisdom. I get there instantly. The same with everyday activities such as work, playing with the kids, shopping, video games etc etc... Allowing things to be as they are, as they are happening is the most joyous by-product of the practice of no-practice. Those Buddhist lists are so confusing and unnecessary for me.

[Marblehead]

I practice no mind (empty-minded) meditation. I never thought about empty-minded functionality in any other aspect but I believe that there is something to be said in favor of this concept. I guess it would feed to the concept of 'practice makes perfect'. Once we are so good at doing anything it becomes intuitive and there is no need for mindful action.

[Marblehead]

Those Buddhist lists are so confusing and unnecessary for me.

Hehehe. To me too. I guess that is one of the reasons I am not a Buddhist.

[joeblast]

Good topic !

I, like many others, started out with focussing on the dantian. I tried visualizations, and more recently the mechanism of breathing, which led me to a void-like state.

Since reading more of Northern Complete Reality, Ch'an and Zen, I've took the no-mind approach to meditation and to everyday life situations when I'm not meditating.

I've found zazen refreshing in that I 'just sit', without any goals or attainment levels. I'm not looking for any state or to achieve any level of wisdom. I get there instantly. The same with everyday activities such as work, playing with the kids, shopping, video games etc etc... Allowing things to be as they are, as they are happening is the most joyous by-product of the practice of no-practice. Those Buddhist lists are so confusing and unnecessary for me.

good stuff, that's why it was said its as easy as turning one's hands over.

 

but...

 

finding out how to get there via the rote method is imho the best way to unequivocally get there, especially if you havent gotten there before.

 

it is a natural outflow of proper execution of fundamentals

[exorcist_1699]

Given that we are talking about no-mind, it seems strange to mention "steps and layers"...

 

People who have created a status of no-mind after hours of spiritual labors, like having blown out a pretty bubble, are desperate to maintain that delicate balance; any move of their minds is carefully avoided for whenever there is any idea of step or move arisen , you break that balance... yet it really can be some applications of it, as a famous Taoist poem tells us :

 

( my translation)

 

 

恰恰用心時

( whenever trying to make use of my mind )

 

恰恰無心用

( I find there is no mind to use )

 

無心恰恰用

( no mind really meets my purpose)

 

用時恰恰無

(in usage , it is no mind that applies )

Edited January 2, 2013 by exorcist_1699

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

We enter the 'mindless' state more than we usually realize.. like when we hear instrumental music that captures our 'attention' without engaging the thinking processes, being aware that 'words' distract the mind's awareness in some greater or lesser ways.. or, when working on some project where the mind goes still and we 'feel' the process happening, often a physical endeavor..

 

The issue is balance, mind/no-mind..

 

Be well..

[hydrogen]

A persistent No-mind is a status you can't skip if you want to accomplish something great in your practice; that means, if you not limit yourself to attain a peaceful mind or cure a disease ,then 'playing ' with no-mind for long hours a day is a hurdle you can't avoid.

 

 

I used to think that when you have "no-mind", you're back to the original state and be one with it, and a few minutes of "no-mind" would bring great bliss and insight.

 

If you can have "no-mind" for several hours a day, you must be a enlightend being.

[ChiDragon]

I believe 無心 should be read as "no intention" rather than "no-mind'.

[Protector]

Actually I have permanent no mind and I don't feel all that enlightened

[ChiDragon]

Actually I have permanent no mind and I don't feel all that enlightened

 

It is because you know what "enlightened" really means........

[Protector]

It is because you know what "enlightened" really means........

 

Yup, it's like Tao personified and I don't have advantages like that

 

We are living in a material world, let's call that yang world. Our thoughts are yin and the only way for some of us to communicate them is to turn our thoughts into yang so the other person wold turn the into yin again. Spoken words are yang, they can be recorded on tape and held in hand. When we hear these words we have an idea what they mean and they turn into thoughts in our heads. The whole world is perceived by senses like touch taste hearing and such, but the real world is still strange to us because we live in our heads with our thoughts. Shout out to Vmarco lol.

 

Tao is a yin thing for our yang world which we perceive through our thoughts. The world that we think is yang is actually yin by nature. To understand Tao we need to translate it into yang, but that's impossible. Things that we express that were previously just in our minds are not the same the moment they materialize. When you're humming a song, it doesn't sound the same as the one you heard. The song the artist wrote doesn't sound the same way in their head, our instruments are made by hands and not the minds after all. So like that music we can make a yang container for Tao and just point in the right direction.

 

It can be pointed at but it can never be brought into spotlight, it's like a vampire, it will stop being Tao. A person who is like that doesn't see the difference between yin and yang worlds and exists beyond that. When there is an accident somewhere in a desert where someone is dieing of thirst, they might see a person who have walked for days before an accident who sat on a plane for this very moment so they could walk towards the thirsty person with a bucket of water. A Taoist Master is like that, they see past the illusions and know the right time to be somewhere, walk down the street with their hand raised and have something fall right into it.

 

You know about people with a strong manifestation power, whatever they want is found when they in any direction, it's like that. The world stays the same but the mind is different, get hungry and find some money for food. The money was always there but they weren't always hungry. The money was left by them long ago or someone dropped it. This money is energy and this energy is everywhere, they just found a way to notice and gather it. Another name for this energy is Shen Chi. A person has external wei chi and internal nei chi, chi that belongs to the world is called shen.

[ShenLung]

... and sometimes I walk along, and deliberately drop money beside the path that I'm walking,

so it will be there when "I" needs it later

 

 

(edit) that is not a typo.

Edited January 3, 2013 by ShenLung

[exorcist_1699]

Actually I have permanent no mind and I don't feel all that enlightened

 

 

A state of No-mind is far from Enlightenment, but a persistent form of it is some kind of precondition for making people enlightened;

 

I think no-mind is a spiritual state , like a crystal onion, that has many layers; so after having entered the deeper layer, you can 'apply' it without undermining that balance; And, it is the reason why in practice Taoist alchemy repeatedly emphasize the term : real intention (" 真意") ...Otherwise, any intention is a rise or shift away from our mind, hardly does it not break that precious balance...

 

 

This is why Wuwei can accomplish something : Doing without ( the intention to ) doing (" 無為而無不為" ) ; accomplishing without ( the intention to ) accomplishing ( " 無為而成")..The highest achievement of Tao.

Edited January 4, 2013 by exorcist_1699

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

the mind is an infinite fractal segrigation of too many categorizations than i care to consider.

 

However, that being said, "no-mind" is the "true" mind whereupon ALL fragments of the mind can "submit thought" for "you", the no-mind centre, to adhere consciously to or not.

 

 

The "no-mind" is the "place" where all thoughts must travel past or through in order to be observed by any individual.

 

Starting from no-mind is.... starting. period.