Seeing danger where there is none; not seeing danger where it is –
by grasping at mistaken views, beings move toward a bad end.
– Dhammapada, verse 317. Translated by Christopher J. Ash.
If we are to know peace, no matter when – in life, and in dying – and if we are to gift the torn world with our peace, it’s fundamental to take care of the mind. ‘Mind’ is such an inadequate word, but in that last sentence I want it to mean the deepest, most all-encompassing, spacious, pregnant-with-all, luminous, responsive, warm and incomparable knowingness that you can possibly imagine.
There are several Pali words for ‘mind,’ but the one which I most favour is ‘citta.’ It’s interesting that when I look up the Pāli-English dictionary, there, I find:
“The meaning of citta is best understood when explaining it by expressions familiar to us, as: with all my heart; heart and soul; I have no heart to do it; blessed are the pure in heart; singleness of heart; all of which emphasize the emotional & conative [intention; will] side or “thought” more than its mental & rational side (for which see manas & viññāṇa). It may therefore be rendered by intention, impulse, design; mood, disposition, state of mind, reaction to impressions.”
So, do you get the feel for the kind of mind we need to care for? It’s something core to a human, and to being the particular human that you are. (There have been periods in European history when soul did the job in that slot in the sentence, but it’s a tainted word, now.)
Some of our mind’s patterns render the mind incapable of balanced perspective, though – at least temporarily. The following is an extreme example, but he’s been on my mind.
I met a man once, who said that there was nothing to stop him from doing anything he liked. That’s what he believed. It was painful to see how a preferred part of his personality had no sense of perspective on how karma works. This person thought he was king, dealing in heavy drugs. However, he was in grave danger; because he was not master of his own heart. I don’t mean in danger from the law. Sure, that’s there; but it’s trivial compared to losing perspective on one’s own citta. The way karma works is totally of the mind. It’s not something ‘out there,’ which only turns up to reward or punish you. I feared for him, because his well-being was at the mercy of a grandiose sub-personality.
As just a hint of the complexity of this topic, just consider that when you are experiencing something, your intelligent organism (body-mind) is versioning the situation, unconsciously. Science has demonstrated this. You can even be seeing something consciously one way, but your organism is experiencing it another. So, let’s just say, in broad brushstrokes, that this versioning of the situation is going on, consciously and unconsciously. And, the present versioning is crossing with the relevant previous versions of situations (all of which, by now, is indistinguishable from your organism).
This produces an odd situation. A totally new, fresh, unique experience is occurring, of a kind which has never happened, ever, in the universe. Yet why? Because it’s crossing with all previous, relevant kinds of experiences. That is, the past is in the now, but as the utterly unique present situation. This is an organism with a continuity of versioning process, unfolding seamlessly.
Mindfulness and Focusing keep us in touch with that unfolding now, which is the flow of the re-versioning of the past. Mindfulness and Focusing empower us to ‘kind’ situations freshly, by grounding us in the unfolding now, which contains more than we know. Mindfulness and Focusing bring attitudes (citta) which boost positivity, and birth wisdom.
Now, if you managed to stay with me during those last paragraphs, I mean this: from one point of view, we can’t just do anything. We can only surf the leading edge of the wave of the unfolding, with all the presence and skill we can muster. If we honour that there are processes here much bigger than our little perspectives, and if we have the kind of openness that will carry us forward healthily, then we can find freedom in this, and this, and this situation – making unsurpassable states of citta possible. This precious human being whom I met, he was also intensely fearful, paranoid. He saw danger everywhere; but as he talked, he couldn’t see the danger of the one who was talking. His own mind was torturing him with delusion, but he trusted those thoughts.
This may seem irrelevant to your life, because extreme, but he is only degrees away from you and I. It’s a kind of dynamic. What mind are we to trust, then? To define mind, again, would be to trivialise that great matter. But, if we take care of the real qualities mentioned above – spaciousness of heart, singleness of heart (self-possession), presence and healthy intentions in heart and soul – we are tending toward peace You then you can find that the mind is an actual presence, though it’s not an object to be found. Then the mind will reveal its depths. We can grow in peace. It was painful to meet this man. His ice habits were wrecking his discernment.