Many people baulk at the words 'empty mind' and I have heard many such 'baulk's. Its a crazy Zen Buddhist Monk, an extreme existentialist, a person who is simple docile and a bit imbecilic, bordering on senility and Alzheimer's, a drop out, dope head, a brain befuddled alcoholic and many more such colorful adjectives.
To me it is a mind without thought or very little. The consensus of people have been inculcated ( instil (an idea, attitude, or habit) by persistent instruction)and so the thinking can be based on very narrow lines although most think they think they are broadly free and unbiased and are very tolerant until a button is pressed and they will guard their corner to extremes and some to death. As above the instilling process becomes brain washing and this brain washing brings beliefs, programmes and conditioning and although one truly believes they are not brain washed, sadly they fool themselves. This whole set up becomes one's reality and so becomes so fixed as to be safe, secure, the known and a platform for life.
Some have an awakening and realise that they have been taught to be who they are and on investigation realise one can chose to have another set of programmes and think they are free until the honeymoon is over and the same thoughts arise as when one had the awakening.
Then follows questions; what then is reality if ones concepts and programmes can be interchangeable and impermanent, this can lead to anxiousness and feeling unsafe, depression and even suicide and then it can lead to an addiction. The reasoning can then be; well if all this is impermanent and as is my body and nature and so on then I might as well be in a programme and deaden the thoughts or live a compromise.
Then one may take courage and seek and explore; what if my mind is without a programme, not by suppression and silly games to eliminate thought which is the appearance of or comprehension of the beliefs and concepts in tangible comprehension but examining them without fear, that is without judgement and bias, opinion or condemnation or welcoming. To sit, watch be brave and courageous and go into the 'so called inner space' of mind, as if one were looking inwards, not by sight of cause, but an inner attention that is consciousness or awareness.
It may occur at any moment that one may see thought as having no actual substance and that you are the witness, the watcher, the observer is not connected to the thoughts and feelings that pass by like clouds in the sky, some slow and enticing, others black and foreboding and then others skittering and scurrying by.
Then the attentive
awareness is suddenly aware of itself as an awareness an awareness without
thought, a witness to its own consciousness and is free of thought and feelings arising from the content of the mind and this awareness is beautiful, calm and
yet dynamic, it is pure potential and then one can become aware of a another
kind of thought. It is a whisper of knowing, knowing beyond anything or
anybody, it has a completely different feel, it is intuitive and spontaneous,
not to be confused with instinct, gut feeling, ah ha’s or any of the programmed
conditioning of one’s former inculcated past.
This is the empty mind and here there is no tangible programme, conditioning, brain washing and as such has no safety net, however one has the feeling this is me before the conditioning process began and may allude to the Zen Koan 'who were you before you were born?' 'Show me your original face?' 'Who am I?'.
There is a caution to bear in mind or no mind;the ego which is the collective past programming will not like to be usurped and is a hard but cunning and resourceful entity; it will endeavour to sabotage the 'no mind' by incessant attacks of thoughts, threats, desires and other gross and subtle strategies gleaned from the stored graphics of the past held in the library of the unconscious and will like a magician conjure up a memory of the feeling of the 'no mind'.
So one has to sit still and just watch and know by the feel that any intrusion no matter how grand or softly enticing this is not the 'no mind' in fact 'no mind' just happens when one sits without expectation and not wanting 'no mind' it is merely sitting that's all, that's why sometimes when washing up and drying, just unfocused mind can suddenly bring one to the emptiness and one smiles, relaxes spontaneously with seemingly no effort of the 'no mind'.
SHACK
Hello my friend do you question and seek 'no mind'?(SHACK)
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