Mind Shifts

Change is something we experience every day, be it tiny or huge. Look above and pay attention to the sky, and the next time you see the same sky, say, five minutes later, you’ll notice the difference.

This is an ordinary sort of change, but what if someone said “mind changes” or “mind shifts?” Would you have any idea whatsoever about what that person means? It sounds so conceptually advanced that you’ll go out of your “mind.” Then you’ll most certainly start wondering, “What’s mind, first of all?”

Descartes’ dualistic view of body and mind seems to have become a norm to folks of our day, and as soon as we hear the word mind, the term body pops up in a quasi-automatic manner. But here it goes: “Mind shifts its shape according to myriad of situations; the change is indeed sublime.” To say the very least, this “mind” seems to be a bit different to what we think mind to be. This, by the way, I’ve quoted from a famous Zen saying.

The quote can readily converted into a Koan: “"What is mind?” A lot of people may associate mind with thoughts, so let’s take a look at what thoughts are. And that leads us to another Zen phrase, which was coined by Dogen: “Think of no-thinking.” He included this phrase as a instruction for how to sit Zen meditation (zazen), in relation to thoughts that pop up during the sit.

Here’s how you deal with, or examine thoughts. Just like how it is said in a typical mindfulness instruction, begin by observing the thoughts without any judgment whatsoever on their contents. Here’s one additional tip for doing it: observe them as if they were the “sixth sense” (not talking about the famous movie), namely, as something being in the same category as sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.

When you notice you have been attentive, never mind; the moment you notice that, you’re already attentive. Resume your observation, and as you continue, something extraordinary is happening, where you aren’t observing the thoughts anymore, and there are only thoughts (“think of no thinking”), no subject observing it, which you can’t simply be aware, but rather notice right after that happened.

This is when thoughts are YOU, constantly appearing and disappearing, changing its form. Would this be what the Zen saying quoted at the beginning of this post is suggesting? This can be neither confirmed or negated unless we try it ourselves, as many of the older posts in this blog already point out. But still, we are now being encouraged by the testimonials by past Zen masters stating that you will grasp it, however many lifetimes it would take, as long as you don’t give up. It’s up to you whether you give it a sincere try or not.