BE NOT DETAINED: DON’T LET YOUR MIND STOP

In my most recent post I quoted from The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master, by the Japanese Zen monk, calligrapher, painter, poet and master of the tea ceremony Takuan Sōhō (pictured left, as well as below right).

Sōhō is remembered for a number of good reasons, one of the more important ones being this---he fused the art of swordsmanship with Zen ritual, inspiring many swordsmen of the Tokugawa (or Edo) period (1603–1868). Most importantly, Sōhō had a number of Samurai students to whom he taught the art of swordsmanship primarily through the means of meditation. In particular, he taught swordsmen how to enter into a seemingly timeless state where they could be aware of what was happening in more-or-less slow motion such that they could then respond to any exigency with complete and unerring accuracy.

I urge you to read the The Unfettered Mind, copies of which can be found online on various sites. You may not have any interest in martial arts, Zen, or Eastern spirituality generally, but if you are in any way interested in self-development and self-improvement you will find much that is valuable in the book.

Now, much of the book is devoted to stressing the importance of what is referred to by Sōhō as a ‘non-stopping’, ‘correct’, ‘right’, ‘immovable’ mind of ‘No-Mind’. Such a mind is clear and tranquil, and moves about anywhere. It is a flexible, mindful mind.

The opposite type of mind---a mind which is 'afflicted' and 'lost'---is an ‘existent’, ‘confused’ ‘abiding’, ‘stopping’, ‘occupied’, ‘one-sided’, 'arrested' and ‘lost’ mind. Such a mind suffers from 'bias in one place,' having congealed and settled in one place. It is a rigid, mindless mind.

Here are some gems of wisdom from the book:

‘It is essential that the mind not be detained.’

'In not remaining in one place, the Right mind is like water. The Confused Mind is like ice, and ice is unable to wash hands or head. When ice is melted, it becomes water and flows everywhere, and it can wash the hands, the feet or anything else.'

‘The Right Mind is the mind that does not remain in one place. It is the mind that stretches throughout the entire body and self.’

‘The mind that becomes fixed and stops in one place does not function freely.’

‘Glancing at something and not stopping the mind is called immovable. This is because when the mind stops at something, as the breast is filled with various judgments, there are various movements within it. When its movements cease, the stopping mind moves, but does not move at all.’

‘The non-stopping mind is moved by neither colour nor smell.’

‘The mind that stops or is moved by something and sent into confusion---this is the affliction of the abiding place, and this is the common man.’

‘Therefore, one should engender the mind without a place for it to stop.’

‘The mind of attachment arises from the stopping mind.’

‘The mind that thinks about removing what is within it will by the very act be occupied. If one will not think about it, the mind will remove these thoughts by itself and of itself become No-Mind.’

Calligraphy by Takuan Sōhō

Sōhō gives several illuminating examples of a ‘correct’ mind.

Take this one for example. ‘It is like a ball riding a swift-moving current: we respect the mind that flows on like this and does not stop for an instant in any place.’

Then, there’s this graphic illustration:

To speak in terms of your own martial art, when you first notice the sword that is moving to strike you, if you think of meeting that sword just as it is, your mind will stop at the sword in just that position, your own movements will be undone, and you will be cut down by your opponent. This is what stopping means.

Although you see the sword that moves to strike you, if your mind is not detained by it and you meet the rhythm of the advancing sword; if  you do not think of striking your opponent and no thoughts or judgments remain; if the instant you see the swinging sword your mind is not the least bit detained and you move straight in and wrench the sword away from him; the sword that was going to cut you down will become your own, and, contrarily, will be the sword that cuts down your opponent.

What about this one?

The meaning of the word seriousness is in holding the mind in check and not sending it off somewhere, thinking that if one did let it go, it would become confused. At this level there is a tightening up of the mind and not an iota of negligence is allowed.

This is like a baby sparrow being caught by a cat. To prevent a recurrence, a string is then always tightened around the cat, and it is never let go.

If my mind is treated like a tied-up cat, it will not be free and will likely not be able to function as it should. If the cat is well-trained, the string is untied, and it is allowed to go wherever it pleases. Then, even if the two are together, the cat will not seize the sparrow. Acting along these lines is the meaning of the phrase "engendering the mind with no place for it to abide."

Letting go of my mind and ignoring it like the cat, though it may go where it pleases, this will be using the mind in the way of not having it stop.

And this ...

To make a scarecrow for the mountain fields, one fashions a human figure and puts in its hands a bow and arrow. The birds and beasts see this and flee. Although this figure has absolutely no mind, if the deer become frightened and run away, insofar as it has fulfilled its function, it has not been created in vain.

This is an example of the behaviour of the people who have reached the depths of any Way. While hands, feet and body may move, the mind does not stop any place at all, and one does not know where it is. Being in a state of No-Thought-No-Mind, one has come to the level of the scarecrow of the mountain fields.

Sōhō quotes an ‘old poem’:

To think, 'I will not think'--
This, too, is something in one's thoughts.
Simply do not think
About not thinking at all.

So, in order to be free of a ‘mind of attachment’, observe but don’t stay, look but don’t stop, be aware but don’t analyse, judge or condemn. In the words of Sōhō, ‘Make it a secret principle in either seeing or hearing not to detain the mind in one place.’

We always have a choice---at any moment. We can act mindfully---or mindlessly. One ‘way’ is correct. The other ‘way’ is not. The rightness and wrongness of each ‘way’ can be empirically tested by its consequences. It is as simple as that.

And the one thing that, more than any other thing, results in a 'stopping' or 'confused' mind is this---a misbelief that we are the innumerable false selves (the hundreds and thousands of 'I's' and 'me's') that wax and wane in our consciousness. Until we let go completely of this false self---and recognise that 'it' is not the real person each of us is---our mind will continue to 'stop' and be 'occupied' in useless, self-defeating ways.

There are many ‘ways’ but only one ‘Way’ as such, according to Sōhō:

While hands, feet and body may move, the mind does not stop any place at all, and one does not know where it is. Being in a state of No-Thought-No-Mind, one has come to the level of the scarecrow of the mountain fields.

There is no 'way' to that Way of No-Thought-No-Mind. The Way itself happens of its own accord---effortlessly---when we just let it happen.

Let it happen---now!

Note. I am Zen-ing off to Japan in a few hours for a week or so. I will be back with you soon. In gassho, IEJ.

RELATED POSTS

THE MINDFUL MIND OF NO-MIND

MINDFULNESS MARTIAL ARTS THERAPY

MINDFULNESS AS SOFT FOCUS AWARENESS

HOW TO BE FREE OF THE PAST---OR WHY ANALYSIS DOESN’T WORK

So, you want to be free of the past? Really? If so, you can be, provided you really want freedom and are prepared to go to any length to get it.

Listen to these wise words from the Indian spiritual philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti ['K'] (pictured left and below right):

We are the result of the past. Our thought is founded upon yesterday, and many thousand yesterdays. We are the result of time, and our responses, our present attitudes, are the cumulative effect of many thousand moments, incidents and experiences. So the past is, for the majority of us, the present, which is a fact, which cannot be denied. You, your thoughts, your actions, your responses, are the result of the past.

So, the question becomes---how can we be free of the past?

Most methods of psychology and psychiatry involve varying degrees and types of analysis including traditional psychoanalysis as well as self-analysis, but can analysis of any kind really give us the freedom from the past we seek? K's view, which is also mine, is that analysis cannot relieve us of an unwanted past. Here is K again:

Now, what is the past? What do we mean by the past? … We mean, surely, the accumulated experiences, the accumulated responses, memories, traditions, knowledge, the subconscious storehouse of innumerable thoughts, feelings, influences and responses, With that background, it is not possible to understand reality, because reality must be of no time: it is timeless. So, one cannot understand the timeless with a mind which is the outcome of time. The questioner wants to know if it is possible to free the mind, or for the mind, which is the result of time, to cease to be, immediately; or must one go through a long series of examinations and analyses, and so free the mind from its background. You see the difficulty in the question.

What normally happens is this. The more analysis, structured or unstructured, the more internal division and conflict. The conditioned mind is, in varying degrees, a sick and divided mind. It is the result of time, and thus the past. Do you think that such a mind, which is the result of the past---which is time---can be liberated from time, such that it can ‘look at reality directly’ (K’s words), by and as a result of a process of analysis over time and in time?

Self-analysis fails because of the problem of self-bondage---you need to understand that the analyser (the so-called witnessing, judging or transcendental self) and that which is being analysed (mental manifestations of self in myriads of forms and thousands of ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ over a considerable time period) are what K referred to as a ‘joint phenomenon.’ The first mentioned ‘self’---the so-called witnessing self---is just another of those annoying little, pesky ‘selves’ that we all too often allow to run riot through our mind, and need I remind you that no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own introspection and mental machinations.

Here is an example. A thought of anger arises in the mind. The part of the mind which analyses the anger is part of the anger. There is simply no way, by that means, to free ourselves from the background. So, intellectual analysis and all other forms of introspective dissection are not the way to go. No, true psychological transformation can only arise when one is entirely free of the ‘background’ (or ‘mental furniture’). It is a total re-creation of the person we are without dependence on time or any method grounded in or otherwise dependent on time. Look and observe. Be aware---choicelessly. Don’t analyse or interpret. Just look, observe and see things as they are---both the things outside of us as well as the contents of our own mind. The insight you gain will change you forever---that is, if you want such change in your life. This is the ‘much simpler … more direct way’ spoken of by Krishnamurti and many other teachers.

What if someone else---say, a professional psychoanalyst---does the ‘analysing’? Well, once again, there are huge difficulties inherent in such an approach. To quote K:

To be free of the background, many of the analysts say that you must examine every response, every complex, every hindrance, every blockage, which implies a process of time, obviously; which means the analyser must understand what he is analysing; and he must not misinterpret what he analyses. Because, if he mistranslates what he analyses, it will lead him to wrong conclusions, and therefore establish another background. Do you follow? Therefore the analyser must be capable of analysing his thoughts, feelings, without the slightest deviation; and he must not miss one step in his analysis, because to take a wrong step, to draw a wrong conclusion, is to reestablish a background along a different line, on a different level. And this problem also arises: Is the analyser different from what he analyses? Are not the analyser and the thing that is analysed a joint phenomenon?

Although I am sure that various methods of analysis as well as insight-oriented psychotherapy have helped many, many people, there is that real problem described by K. Just the process of analysis, introspection and evaluation creates more ‘background’---that is, more past, and more conditioning. But isn’t the goal to be free from all that?

The good news is that you can be totally free of the past---at any moment. It’s entirely up to you. No one else can do ‘it’ for you. Yes, there can indeed be that ‘total revolution’ (or psychological mutation or transformation) of which Krishnamurti constantly spoke. I am not talking here about change as a result of intellectual analysis or any form of traditional psychology including psychoanalysis. My view on the latter is encapsulated in that well-known phrase ‘analysis paralysis.’ Whether you want to hear it or not, the truth is that we can instantaneously liberate ourselves from the past and from past conditioning (including beliefs and misbeliefs of all kinds)---all thought is nothing but memory---if we refuse to analyse or dissect the content of our consciousness (the ‘background’ or ‘mental furniture’) and we see things as they really are, without judgment or evaluation.

You can start doing that right now---if you're prepared to do what it takes. But first you must see the falseness in the analytical process. Analysis involves thought, and, obviously, the analysis of thought in greta detail. Thought is a thing of time, and the result of time. Self-evidently, thought itself cannot free itself of the process of time, the latter including the unwanted past. K said, 'you can be free of [the past], not tomorrow, but in the present, in the now.' He went on to say, 'That can be done only when you realize that which is false; and the false is obviously the analytical process.'

So, this is what you can choose to do---if you really want to be free, forever, and instantaneously, from the bondage of the past. Watch, almost with disinterest, whatever happens, as if it were happening to someone else. Let there be no comment, judgment or attempt to change anything. Note the presence of any unhealthy, painful thoughts or emotions, but give them no power or attention. Don’t suppress or deny them, and do not ‘resist’ them, for whatever you resist, persists. The law of non-resistance—how very important, and true, that metaphysical law is! Dr Norman Vincent Peale (pictured left), writes:

The power of non-resistance removes certain blocks and limitations in the human mind or soul. … Stop resisting your problems so furiously in your mind. Stop struggling to solve them yourself. If you do that, a great sense of peace followed by a great sense of power will come to you.

As K puts it, ‘your mind, when you discard the analytical process with all its implications and see it as false, is freed from yesterday, and therefore is capable of looking directly, without going through the process of time [that is, analysis], and thereby discarding the background immediately.’ That is the way ‘a mind that is the result of time, of many thousand yesterdays, [can] be instantaneously free of this complex background.’

Mindfulness, involving the presence of choiceless awareness of, and bare attention to, the action of the present moment, from one moment to the next, is the way to go forward. Note that word---forward. At any ‘point’ in time, you are in direct and immediate contact with what is, and in that directness and immediacy there is your ‘salvation,’ if you can but mindfully experience it, but you must be prepared to stop doing certain things which will otherwise keep you forever in bondage to the past. In what follows, K describes, much better than I could ever hope to do, the essential features of a mind that is ‘mindful’ (or, K's word, 'tranquil'):

Now, to put it very simply, when you want to understand something, what is the state of your mind? When you want to understand your child, when you want to understand somebody, something that someone is saying, what is the state of your mind? You are not analysing, criticizing, judging what the other is saying; you are listening, are you not? Your mind is in a state where the thought process is not active, but is very alert. Yes? And that alertness is not of time, is it? You are merely being alert, passively receptive, and yet fully aware; and it is only in this state that there is understanding. Surely, when the mind is agitated, questioning, worrying, dissecting, analysing, there is no understanding. And when there is the intensity to understand, the mind is obviously tranquil.

There you have it. The insight that can and will change you---indeed, transform and re-create you---is to be found not in or as a result of analysis, introspection or self-knowledge but only in and as a result of the creation and maintenance of a ‘tranquil’ mind, that is, a mind that is not analysing, criticising, evaluating or judging what is parading before you, at any point in time, as the content of your mind and life experience.

One of my favourite books on spirituality is The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master, by the Japanese Zen monk, calligrapher, painter and poet Takuan Sōhō. Here is some wisdom from that book:

The mind that thinks about removing what is within it will by the very act be occupied. If one will not think about it, the mind will remove these thoughts by itself and of itself become No-Mind.

Effort defeats itself in all mental workings, and analysis requires effort---great effort---on the part of at least one person. Don't try---instead, let. Let the past stay in the past. Refuse to analyse it, and walk forever from this day forward in the eternal now with a tranquil mind, that is, a mind that is not analysing, criticising, evaluating or judging what is parading before you. That is the way to go!

Bless you all.

Acknowledgment is made, and gratitude is expressed,

to the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Ojai, California, USA.

Krishnamurti Excerpts: Benares 2nd Public Talk, 23 January 1949.

RELATED POSTS

THE MINDFUL MIND OF NO-MIND

MINDFULNESS, PSYCHOLOGICAL MUTATION AND HEALING

BE NOT DETAINED: DON'T LET YOUR MIND STOP

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