Looking For the Mind

 Consciousness is not a thing that exists but an event that occurs.

Andrew Olendski

There is a Zen tale relayed in Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening (page 314) that I would like to share. It is a dialogue between student and Zen master/teacher. 

Student: My mind is anxious. Please pacify it.

Teacher: Okay.  Bring me your mind and I will pacify it. 

Student: Although I sought it, I cannot find it.

Teacher: There, I have pacified your mind. 

Huh?

The mind is said to be the source of all our problems.  We tend to believe that pacifying this mind...making it quiet will bring the peace we long for. (Well that is what I tend to believe).  Is that not what we are trying to accomplish by awakening.

It is, however, very easy to get attached to this striving goal and thereby increase the mind's tendency to desire and cling...and therefore allow for even more suffering in our attempt to end suffering.

We want to pacify the mind but...

What pacifies the mind? Truth...showing the mind what is true so it becomes aware and knowing.  Awareness, we are taught, will be the answer to our suffering tendencies .  And like I often do, we can become very attached to finding and then clinging to the "knowing mind" or awareness. Since the mind's tendency is to slip from knowing aware state and into busy, stressed out monkey state, we are constantly seeking to pacify the "personal"  mind.

Yet,  if we are asked to find the mind so that it can be pacified we cannot find it.  Why?

Because the mind is not a "thing", it is just an event that occurs. The mind is empty and selfless. There really is no "My" or "mine" we can attach to it. We therefore are wasting our energy becoming attached to the idea of pacifying  that which does not exist....the personal mind.   

Looking for the mind will pacify it

The moment we attempt  to find the mind, we realize it is nowhere to be found because it is "no-thing".  In that moment of "not-finding", the mind's empty, selfless nature is revealed. We pacify through not-finding.

Hmmm! Something to think about. 

Joseph Goldstein (2016) Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Boulder: Sounds True