ZEN AND THE ART OF CALMING THE MIND

‘Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day,’ wrote Etty Hillesum, ‘is the rest we take between two deep breaths.’

Here’s a famous bit of Zen. A pupil goes to the master and says, ‘I have no peace of mind. Please calm my mind!’ The master replies, ‘Bring your mind here and I will calm it for you.’ The pupil then says, ‘Yes, but when I look for my mind, I can’t seem to find it.’ The master replies, ‘There, you see, I’ve calmed your mind already.’

There are many interpretations of this piece of Zen wisdom. Here’s my take on it, but first I want to say a few words on the subject of the mind and the brain.

The classical materialist view asserts that the mind and the brain are one and the same. However, recent discoveries in neuroscience and quantum physics suggest that the mind and the brain are not co-extensive or identical. There is mind—or intelligence—throughout the whole body. 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. In addition, mind exists outside of and even beyond the brain. Mind is intelligence and there is intelligence 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 constituent parts. 

In a fundamental sense, we have no individual mind at all. Hence, there is no mind to calm. So, what exactly are we, each one of us? Well, each of us is a centre—both an inlet and an outlet—of consciousness from which all things are a matter of observation and awareness. We are made up of ‘mind-stuff’ and consciousness is the ‘stuff’ or very ground of our be-ing. Let me explain. 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. 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 very own be-ing.  Life is be-ing, and its be-ing is your very own be-ing.

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 or herself, perhaps for the very first time. Here, the master successfully leads the pupil to experience, in that Zen direct intuitive way, the fact that they have no mind to calm. All the pupil—and all of us for that matter—has to do is to … be calm.

Do you want to be calm? If so, practise calmness. Practise stillness. Practise quietness. Practise silence. 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. Dr Norman Vincent Peale offered this gem of advice: ‘Sit still, be silent, let composure creep over you.' Got that? Sit ... be ... let ... .

So, stop looking for your mind. Stop analyzing and judging the contents of what you take to be your mind (eg your thoughts, feelings, memories and mental movies). Stop identifying with those ‘things’ as if they were you, the person among persons that in truth you are. 

Sit. Be. Let.

There, I’ve calmed your mind already. You're welcome.

Note. The photos in this post were taken by the author in the Topes de Collantes, which is a nature reserve park in the Sierra del Escambray mountain range in the central region of Cuba. The bottom photo is of the famous Vegas Grande Waterfall located in the park.

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How well do you know your ‘self’? Well enough to know that your ‘self’ does not exist? Please read on.

More and more psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors are drawing upon the insights of Buddhism to better understand the nature and activities of the human mind. In my own therapeutic practice, I apply, quite eclectically and unashamedly, ideas and teachings from a number of different traditions, both Eastern and Western. A pragmatists, all I am interested in is results---and changed lives.

When we turn to Buddhism we discover that its ideas, teachings and practices espouse a psychological realism that expressly acknowledges the reality of cognitive and other mental processes. The mind is seen as both relational and ‘extended’ to situations in the external world. Yes, mentality belongs to the spatio-temporal world along with everything else such that a person’s mental things and processes are not wholly internal to that person.

In addition, Buddhism views a person as being a human body-mind as a whole, that is, an autonomous and dynamic system that arises in dependence upon the natural world as well as human culture. So-called ‘consciousness’---not so much an entity in its own right but a dynamic, ever-changing process---emerges when the mind and the body cohere. The physical body is essential for the emergence of the mental, but having said that, Buddhism has never regarded the body and the mind as being separate. Mind is said to ‘extend’ into the body, with the body also ‘extending’ into the mind.

When Buddhism uses the word ‘illusion’ it does so in a special way. Referring to a thing as an ‘illusion’ does not mean that the thing does not exist. It simply means that the thing in question has no separate, independent, unchangeable and permanent existence. Buddhism psychology aims to treat what Buddhism often calls an 'illusory [or a 'false'] mind' (that is, a mind characterized and dominated by wandering, oppositional and discriminatory thoughts) with a view to bringing into manifestation a 'true [or 'pure'] mind' (being a mind which is not in opposition to itself).

Buddhist psychology teaches the doctrine that ‘self is illusion,’ and that belief in the existence of some supposedly permanent and substantial ‘self’ or soul is a delusion. t There is no actual ‘self’ at the centre of our conscious---or even unconscious---awareness. The ‘self’ does not exist---at least it does not exist in the sense of possessing a separate, independent, unchangeable, material existence of its own. In words attributed to the Buddha, whether ‘past, future, or present; internal or external; manifest or subtle...as it actually is ... “This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am’” (Majjhima Nikāya I, 130). Buddhist scriptures are very firm on this teaching of ‘not-self’ (anattā):

Even as the word of ‘chariot’ means

That members join to frame a whole;

So when the groups [the ‘five aggregates’] appear to view,

We use the phrase, ‘a living being.’  (Milindapantha, 133.)

Just as the word ‘chariot’ is but a mode of expression for axles, wheels, chariot-body, pole, and other constituent members, placed in a certain relation to each other, but when we come to examine the members one by one, we discover that in the absolute sense there is no chariot; … in exactly the same way the words ‘living entity’ and ‘Ego,’ are but a mode of expression for the presence of the five attachment groups [again, the ‘five aggregates’ (see below)], but when we come to examine the elements of being one by one, we discover that in the absolute sense there is no living entity there to form a basis for such figments as ‘I am,’ or ‘I’; … .   (Visuddhi-Magga, 133-34.)

Our so-called consciousness goes through continuous fluctuations from one moment to the next. As such, there is nothing to constitute, let alone sustain, a separate, transcendent ‘I’ structure or entity. We ‘die’ and are ‘born’ (or ‘reborn’) from one moment to the next. Whence comes our sense of ‘I-ness’? To quote Robert C Lester, author of Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia:

The ‘I-ness’ or selfhood of man, perceived as unchanging --- his sense of individual being in time, having experiences --- is an unwarranted extension or assumption from experience to experiencer, from knowledge to knower, thought to thinker.

No wonder Jesus exclaimed, ‘I of myself can do nothing’ (Jn 5:30). Perhaps he understood the illusory nature of the ‘self.’

To be continued.

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