THE ZEN WAY TO CALM YOUR MIND

There are many interpretations of this piece of Zen wisdom. Here’s my take on it---but first a few words on the mind and the brain.

The materialist view that asserts that the mind and the brain are one and the same---the so-called mind-brain identity theory is wrong ... very wrong. Recent discoveries in neuroscience as respects the mind and the brain, and in quantum physics as respects the nature of reality, have shown that the mind and the brain are not co-extensive or identical, and that mind or consciousness is the creator and governor of so-called matter. 

Now, the brain uses the mind---to think, feel, and so on---but the mind is ‘larger’ (for want of a better word) than the brain. The brain is infused with mind, as are all parts of the human body. Mind exists outside of and even beyond the brain. Mind is consciousness, and there is mind wherever there is life in any shape or form. The brain is a physical object that can be seen by the eye. It is perceptible by the senses, and like all material objects it has size, weight, and form. Not so the mind, which has no parts. The mind is non-physical, immaterial, and spiritual. (A 'spiritual' substance is something which, although real, is not perceptible by the senses. We only know 'it' by its effects.) The brain perishes with the human body. Not so mind, which is the very essence and substance of life itself. Life is forever changing shape and form, but life itself is indestructible.

In a sense, we have no mind at all. That means there is no mind to calm. So, what exactly are we---each one of us? Well, each of us is a centre---an inlet and an outlet---of consciousness from which all things are a matter of observation. We are made up of ‘mind-stuff’ and awareness or consciousness is the ‘stuff’ or very ground of our being. Yes, you have a body, but you are not that body. You experience sensations in your body, but you are not those sensations. You have a brain, but you are not that brain. You have thoughts, but you are not those thoughts. (Note. I didn't say, 'you think thoughts.' It is thought that creates the supposed 'thinker,' but neither thought nor the thinker has any permanence.) You have emotions, feelings and desires, but you are not those emotions, feelings or desires. All those 'things' are impermanent and insubstantial. So, what are you? You are that in you that lives and moves and has its be-ing in and as you. You are the impersonal, and you are the personal. You are your be-ing.  Life is be-ing, and its be-ing is your be-ing.

Mind is be-ing, or rather be-ing-ness, and only that is permanent. Mind is the All-in-All, overall all and through all. We are immersed in mind. We have our very be-ing in mind. Mind is infinite. Any attempt to find it will fail. Mind is life, and life is consciousness. Mind within you is the only presence there is. It is the ‘silent voice’ that speaks into visibility all the life there is. Mind---your ‘I Am-ness’---is what is, and that is what in truth you are.

There is no need to calm your mind. For starters, where is your mind? Can you find it? You cannot calm it---or for that matter do anything else with it---unless you can first locate it.

In the Zen exchange set out above the master does the only thing any teacher or so-called guru really can do. The master manages to get the pupil to have an enlightening experience in which the pupil comes to ‘see,’ know and understand for himself … perhaps for the very first time. Here, the master successfully leads the pupil to experience, in that Zen direct intuitive way, the fact that he (the pupil) has no mind to calm. All the pupil---and all of us for that matter---has to do is to … BE CALM. 

Stop looking for your mind. Stop analyzing and judging the contents of what you take to be your mind. And stop identifying with those contents as if they were you, the person among persons that you are. Do you want to be calm? If so, practise calmness. Practise stillness. Practise quietness. Practise silence. You see, the very truth of your be-ing is calmness, stillness, quietness, and silence. A good way to start---and finish for that matter---is to get the body calm. Yes, the body. If the body is calm, you will soon be calm. Be still ... and know.

That is all you have to do. It sounds too amazing to be true, but truth is always like that.

There, you see, I’ve calmed your mind already.

Calligraphy: Mushin---'empty mind.'

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THE TIMELESS IN YOU---AND THE DEATH OF MATERIALISM

'ENTER ZEN FROM THERE,' SAID THE MASTER

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THE TIMELESS IN YOU---AND THE DEATH OF MATERIALISM

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,

And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and

tomorrow is today's dream.

And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still

dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which

scattered the stars into space.

  ---Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.

Kahlil Gibran [pictured right] speaks of the ‘timeless,’ but what is that? Well, there is a state of mind or consciousness that is timeless in the sense of being beyond time. This timeless state is more than a state of mind for in a very real sense it is a state of ‘no-mind’ or ‘no-mindedness.’ The mind dwells on nothing, stops on nothing. It just is. The mind has even gone beyond awareness---that is, awareness of ‘things’ as such---although there is an awareness of awareness itself. Gibran refers to this awareness as ‘that which sings and contemplates in you.’ It is the self-knowing mind out of which all things came, that which fashioned and brought matter into existence. It still does. The mind that is aware that it is aware is the self-knowing, creative mind. It observes, explores, but never stays or stops. Some call this ‘Presence’ the Eternal Now, and that is not a bad turn of phrase at all.

Time is a scale we have created to ‘divide’ the occurrence of happenings into so-called past, present, and future. At best it is not a thing in itself (like a flower or a bus is a thing) but rather a medium in which all things exist and have their being. Space and time---they're really one---are largely 'tools' of the mind, with time in particular being a most ‘relative’ construct. The truth is we live both in time and eternity.

Eternity is a big word. Christian preachers talk about eternity as if it were something we ‘enter’ when we die, but the truth is we are ‘in’ (that is, immersed) in eternity right now. In a sense, we live out our existence in both time and eternity. For the most part, the difference lies in the quality of life being experienced by us. For example, when we are anxiously waiting for the expected occurrence of some future event we are existing---note, I didn’t say living---in time. When we are bound up in attachments and addictions we are also existing in time. But when we are truly and fully present in the Now, then we are living---yes, living---in eternity. Wow! What a difference there is!

Life is ceaseless movement and constant flux even though in and of itself life is timeless and spaceless and unchanging. Unchanging, yet forever changing. Nothing moves yet nothing stands still. What a paradox! Everything---and I mean every thing---is contained within ‘the Now.’ All time is total and complete---that is, has its fulfilment---in the Now. There is an eternal quality about the Now, for the Now is forever new. What we somewhat ambiguously call ‘the present’ is simply that content---occurrences, both internal and external, in space-time---which presents itself before us in consciousness in and as the Now. That is why Gibran speaks about the present embracing the past, the so-called present, and the future. The Eternal Now is that ‘present’---yes, it's a problematic word---which is forever renewing and re-presenting itself in and as each new moment. This Eternity supersedes time itself. In other words, there is a ‘present’ beyond the ‘present,’ but if you try to 'chase' the next present you will fail. Everything is---here now! Life is eternal, and we are in eternity now. Few people know that. Few people are truly alive. Most lead ‘lives of quiet desperation’ (to use Thoreau’s turn of phrase).

If quantum mechanics has shown us anything---and it has shown us plenty---it has shown that consciousness or mind is fundamental, eternal and all-creative, and that what we call mass, together with what we refer to as matter, is derivative, being constructed wholly from the interactions between massless---yes, that’s right, massless---elementary particles. Those massless elementary particles constitute the ‘innerness’ of all physical things, even so-called inert matter. I am not referring to some omnipotent creator God prior to and 'above' (whatever that means) time. Quantum mechanics appears to provide no support for any such hypothesis or religious belief, but it does provide enormous support for the proposition that mind or consciousness is both fundamental and all-pervasive, that is, that mind or consciousness constitutes the fundamental undifferentiated nature of reality.

So-called matter is a derived aspect of a process of reality that is, in essence, insubstantial. That seems to be where the discoveries of quantum mechanics are leading us, and it is all very exciting. The philosophy of materialism (or 'physicalism'), in its traditional and uncompromising strictness, with its central notion of the existence of solid material stuff independent of mind, is now a very damaged philosophical and metaphysical position. One might even say ‘discredited’ or ‘demolished,’ but I am trying to be kind. You see, I am still an Andersonian realist when it comes to teaching the law and logic, especially when explaining to my students what are 'facts' (namely, occurrences in space-time) and how facts are related to other facts (that is, facts always exist in spatio-temporal situations). The findings of quantum mechanics do not disturb any of that. You see, I have slowly come to the view---everything comes slowly to me----that idealism and realism are not in conflict at all, indeed they need each other.

Be that as it may, classical materialism---together with classical ‘static’ physics in terms of three-dimensional substances---belongs to a pre-quantum world. Materialism asserts that all of reality is reducible to matter and its interactions. Really? Thanks to quantum mechanics we now know---yes, know---that the universe is a single gigantic field of energy and that so-called matter is a 'slowed down' form of energy. Some quantum physicists refer to this energy as 'light’ (cf the Biblical metaphor of God as light [1 Jn 1:5]), with the purest ‘form’ of this energy or light being wave forms of probability existing within an infinite field of probabilities. We are immersed in a world of largely indeterminate flux (‘mind stuff,’ or ‘dream stuff’ in the words of the Polish-American physicist Wojciech Zurek [pictured left]) consisting of seemingly endless possible actions and a quantum field of potentialities. 

That's not all. What emerges from that quantum field depends to a very large degree upon---consciousness! Yes, mind or consciousness is primary and fundamental, ‘the creator and governor of matter’ (in the words of that great English physicist of yesteryear Sir James Jeans). Consciousness is an essential quality or characteristic—if not the defining one---of the quantum field … at least in potentiality. That is, consciousness may well be the ‘thing’ (that is, process) that produces so-called material reality from the quantum ‘dream stuff’ of potentiality. No wonder the great New Thought teacher and writer of yesteryear Dr Emmet Fox wrote, ‘Life is a state of consciousness.’ He said:

I believe the whole of existence is a state of consciousness in the Mind of God, being re-created perhaps a billion times a second. We might compare it to the electric sign with moving lights. It seems as if the light were travelling around the sign but we know that is an illusion caused by the each bulb lighting up in turn for a fraction of a second---what we might call metaphysically ‘flashes of consciousness.’ The same thing is true with motion pictures. The actors seem to move, but actually the movies are a series of still pictures.

Needless to say, the 'MInd of God' to which Dr Fox refers is very different from the traditional concept of God. (Thank God for that!) 

There is an eternal motion---the Now---of which each of us is a part, that never stops … not even for a nanosecond. Each of us, at the quantum level, is a frequency of consciousness, and there is something very timeless yet veridical about that. And, as Gibran writes, the timeless in one person is the timeless in every other person and thing. It was ‘there’ even before the beginning of time, it was ‘there’ when it scattered the stars into space, and it will be ‘there’ long after you and I have ceased to exist as conscious centres of life’s self-awareness.

Live that truth as the awe-inspiring truth that it verily is.

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MINDFULNESS AND THE LIVINGNESS OF LIFE

I often say to my students as well as to those who come to listen to my public addresses, ‘If you can go away from here today with just one new thought – one hopefully life-changing thought – then my mission has been accomplished.’ In that regard, I have always loved these words of Friedrich Nietzsche:

‘Even a thought, even a possibility, can shatter us and transform us.’

So it is, when reading a book or an article – or even a blog  – on some important topic. If you can pick up some new idea or thought-form which opens up some new understanding, then it has been worthwhile.

Some years ago I was president at the same time of both the Humanist Society of New South Wales and the Council of Australian Humanists. I still consider myself a humanist because it is obvious to me that human problems can only be solved by human beings acting rationally. In that regard, I fully and unashamedly embrace the sentiment in these words from Humanist Manifesto II: 'While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.' Got that? We must save ourselves. Nevertheless, I tire easily of old-fashioned dry, unadulterated rationalism that is not accompanied by some emotion in the form of compassion and humaneness. I should, however, add that I tire even more easily, and much more quickly, of superstition and notions of ‘supernaturalism’.

Now, well before I joined the Humanists, I had on my shelves a most illuminating book entitled A Humanist View, which was edited by one Ian Edwards (a former chairman of the NSW Humanist Society, which was instrumental in causing the book to be brought about), and which contained chapters written by some 16 then-prominent Australian humanists.

One of the chapters was entitled ‘Life Without Magic’, which was written by the eminent zoologist Dr Ronald Strahan AM (1922-2010) (pictured right) who was at that time and for many years the director of Taronga Zoo, Sydney – truly one of the world’s greatest zoos. Now, getting back to my original point, this article contained what was, and still is, for me one really life-changing, transformative thought – namely, that there is no such thing as the ‘life force’.

New Agers love to waffle on and pontificate about the existence of the supposed ‘life force’, as if it were some mysterious vital principle which animates all life (cf the totally discredited notions of vitalism). However, the reality of so-called 'life force' or 'universal life energy' is completely unknown to natural science. Now, Dr Strahan convincingly demonstrated that there is no such thing. That's right. There is no vital force or power distinct and separate from the various mechanical and physico-chemical forces of nature. Strahan wrote:

‘The word “life” has been avoided intentionally. Instead, we have considered what certain material structures known as “living things” do. What they do is what we call “living”. “Life” is the abstract noun from the verb “to live”.

‘And it is an abstraction. To say that a living thing is matter plus life is as nonsensical as to say that a motor car is matter plus locomotion, or a “motive principle”, or an “élan locomotif”.’

This is a most important point. What we call ‘life’ is simply the sum total of living things, all living out their ‘livingness’ in time and space. The so-called ‘life force’ is nothing more than the self-livingness of living things. The self-livingness to which I refer is characterised by living things self-moving, self-directing, self-adjusting and self-regulating. Is that not amazing enough? Why do some feel a need to interpolate some additional supposed vital energy or force?

It is the same with the 'universe' [see below]. I have not difficulty in accepting that what we call the universe was either unmade or self-made. I rejoice in the fact that there is no concept in Buddhism of ‘creation’, let alone any doctrine of ‘special creation’ (as in Christianity), nor is there any sense of there being a ‘Creator’, whether personal or otherwise. Buddhism teaches that everything is ‘fundamentally uncreated’ and that life exists through and as things as opposed to in things. All that makes perfect good sense to me.

Life is simply an abstract noun – a word – but in a very important sense there is no such thing ... just as there is no such thing as the universe. Yes, that’s right. The word ‘universe’ is simply an abstract noun that refers to the sum total of all there is (that is, A + B + C + D + E ... and so on). The various things A, B, C, D, E and so on do indeed exist as separate things in their own right, but not the supposed thing called the ‘universe’. I thank Professor John Anderson for that insight.

I remember the day when I first read what Strahan had written. It was a 'wow' moment for me. I felt a tingling sensation in my head, and down my spine, knowing that I had read something new (at least for me) which had the effect of opening up new ‘channels’ (for want of a better word) of understanding. Yes, I said to myself, that has got to be right. There is no life force as such, just living things living out their livingness as occurrences in time and space. Each living thing has internal differentiation and interacts with other things ... all on the same level or order of reality and observability. In addition, living things are constituent members of wider systems and exchanges of things, with the forms of things constantly being transmuted.

Mindfulness is a lifelong inquiry into what it means to be fully present and alert in the present moment. Each moment of our existence is but a brief occurrence in what is otherwise a state of flux. Life is nothing but the very livingness of all things living out their livingness from one moment to the next.

The unity of all things derives, not from all things being one, nor from the presence of some supposed ‘life force’, but simply from the fact that a single logic applies to all things.

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WHAT I LIKE ... AND DISLIKE

What I like:

* Integrity, honesty, compassion and loving-kindness

* Spiritually-minded people who believe in open, free and tolerant religion, with reason, and devoid of superstition

* People who are committed to showing reverence for the Spirit of Life present in all creation

* People who are working towards a regeneration in our world that will allow the Earth to heal and to sustain life for all.



What I dislike:

* Lack of integrity and dishonesty, and people who are overly secretive and duplicitous

* People who are quickly destroying the planet, especially those in the big end of town who believe in unregulated free market capitalism, growth economics and the billable hour, and those who are climate change skeptics

* People who go to church solely or primarily for social purposes or to network for business purposes as opposed to worship of the Divine

* Fundamentalists of all kinds (whether Christian, Islamic or militant atheist)

* Political party hacks and corrupt politicians

* Social climbers, hedonists and those whose religion is consumerism.