Manjushri: Wiseguy

CG Jung: “The human mind will fit into a universal archetype.” My mind’s inner workings are interesting enough to me to devote hours per day focused on it, examining and mastering it, whether at an ashram, monastery or Vipassana center with a strict regimen of behavior, or outside, in whatever situation I find myself. I say “my mind" while remembering that Mind is an aspect of nature—not I, not self. Mind is a natural phenomenon, continually arising and passing away, with sensations, perceptions, cognitions, recognitions, thoughts and emotions in such rapid succession that they appear as an unbroken stream; but every mind-moment can be seen in the light of awareness. Alexandra David-Neel writes about this mind-moment vs. stream paradox in Secret Oral Teachings of Tibetan Buddhist Sects.

In Collecting Gold Dust, Sayadaw Tejaniya writes, “When we talk about the process of conditioning, remember there’s a stream of minds in the conditioned process. The conditions in one mind bring the effect into the next mind and then, whatever the mind chooses to do in the next moment adds a little to that quality, or takes away from that quality. It then passes away, and then this condition gives rise to the next mind, and then it passes away and the effect is given to the next mind. Every mind begins with something, a condition, but that mind has a moment in the present to choose its contribution to the moment in terms of action or non-action, before that mind passes away. ‘Everything is conditioned’ just means that there is a stream that’s going on, and the present moment has been conditioned by the past. At the same time, there is an element of choice in the present through wisdom, because wisdom has free will. As a result, that wisdom has the ability to choose to take whatever action or non-action it would like. All things are conditioned but, also, you cannot imagine the vastness of karma that you have accumulated that has the potential to flower in every moment.

“If somebody has developed a lifetime habit of anger, the person will become angry with a little trigger. If the person has studied meditation, starts practicing and understands the benefits of meditation in the present moment, this person may gradually develop to the point where, with awareness and wisdom, the person may possibly be able to consciously decide what to do [and not simply react]…This choice constitutes free will.

“If only delusion were present, then the conditioning is set, and this person would act entirely according to that conditioning. When this kind of mind is not interested in wisdom, the mind is just a push-button system that is triggered by external forces. Conditioning will dictate all outcomes.

“Awareness allows the mind to choose. You might hear someone talk about something, or you might come across a book that opens up a bit of wisdom. You may borrow some wisdom from a book or person, consider it, and apply it to your life to bring about more wisdom….[but] it is easy to get lost in conceptualization and abstraction on these topics, and thus to drift far from the present moment. One of the conditions for wisdom to arise is to think deeply about the Dharma, but it absolutely needs to be grounded in Right View [*rigpa*]…Often, insight minds are momentary and this is normal…The repeated arising of insight impresses that understanding into the mind, and each mind that arises then passes along its qualities to the next mind. When insights arise repeatedly, the inheritance of that insight for each successive mind becomes stronger. That’s how we get lasting insights.

“We always need to remember the difference between personal exertion and the energy of the dharma taking over. If you are personally very involved in trying to do the practice, you will not be able to see what is going on naturally. When you step back, you are able to see that the process of awareness is already happening quite naturally. That’s why I sometimes ask yogis: Can you notice that you can hear even though you are not listening; that seeing is happening even though you are not trying to look at anything? Can you notice that, even though you are not paying attention, your mind already knows things? …Without focusing or paying attention, knowing is happening. After many years of meditating, a yogi needs to step back in order to see that this is happening. At that point, you need to switch from doing to recognizing. When the Dharma takes over, there is just a doing of what is necessary. It is not possible to immediately change the paradigm, but it is good to have this information, because this will enable you to sometimes switch into this new mode… That’s why momentum is so important, when things continue under their own steam and you can really see that you are not involved. If you just practice continually and correctly, understanding will arise. Once you gain [experiential] understanding that this process is just happening, the mind will start seeing things more and more from this perspective.”