When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend. And when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way. When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.
Seng-T'san Third Patriarch of Zen, Hsin Hsin Ming
I have read the Third Patriarch a few times but every time I read it, I seem to be learning like I am reading it for the first time. Every time I read the Tao Te Ching, it is an absolutely novel experience. Every time I hear or read the Vasisthas it is like I am learning something new. Every time I read a passage from the Holy Bible ...blown away...I see it in a way I never remotely considered seeing it before. And every time I hear any great teacher speaking to this ancient wisdom I become a brand new student in the classroom. I don't know what is up with that, but I listened to Michael Singer addressing these amazing truths in his podcast, Looking into the Lake of Life for the third time today and it was like it was the first time. I even wrote about it a month or so ago. The notes I took then were so different than the notes I took this time and I have pages. And it always seems to tap into things I learned before and addressed even before I tapped in to these specific pieces of wisdom. Like the poem I wrote about Narcissus over a year ago and added to another recent entry. It all just comes together. All this learning comes together to one major truth. We are not what we see...in fact we are in the way of what we see. (And I use the term "see" loosely.)
Breaking Down the Quote
Let's take the quote above and understand that a bit better first.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way...
Four key words here: mind, exists, undisturbed, and the Way.
The Mind
The mind is this tool we are equipped with to help us make sense of this physical world as well as our inner world. It extends beyond the limits of the body ( the 'brain') but is not near the level of importance as the spirit, soul, Deeper "I", Self, Higher Consciousness (whatever term suits your fancy). It is like a radio by which we can pick up the vibrations of the inner and outer world, of consciousness.
Patanjali explained the mind as Citta and taught that within this Citta were different levels ( different knobs or ban widths maybe?) . The first three are simply "modifications of the mind" that are like clouds over an open sky. The forth level is the natural state of mind, like the sky itself.
At the most basic level, where most of us operate nearly 100 % of the time, we have the "ego mind", the mind that is wrapped in "I" and "me". Then we, from there, have the "intellectual- mind" , that part of us that discriminates, judges, perceives...makes those distinctions between "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong", Should be" or "shouldn't be". And then we have the "desiring-mind", the mind that gets attracted or repulsed by outside things because of the senses. ...the part of us that says, "I want that. That will make me feel better." or "I don't want that. That will make me feel worse." Finally, underneath these three levels is the natural, open, spacious and peaceful state of mind. I call this "True Mind". The first three mental modifications get in the way ...filtering our experience and preventing peace from coming through. All the while consciousness is available to come through each of these levels if we clear the path for it to do so. (Satchidananda , 2011)
The other Terms
Exists...refers to the process of being...being here and now...what is.
Undisturbed...the ability to remain calm, peaceful, smooth, unaltered, stable, in harmony with what is...not bothered, not "offended" .
The Way...the Taoist term for the flow of Universal Life. We may refer to it as the Will of God, the energy of the Universe...it really doesn't matter what terms or words we use because they could never adequately explain what this is.
So when our mind is in its natural state , when it is operating without mental modifications, flowing with Life rather than against it, present moment focused and is therefore calm and undisturbed,....
... nothing in the world can offend.
When we are absent of "ego-mind" and any notions of "I" or "me"; when we are not discriminating, judging and perceiving aspects of Life as being "good, right, should be" or "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" we are not rocked by what shows up in our experience, we are not blown here or there, we do not feel the need to react.
What is Offence?
Offence is simple a mental reaction brought on by little me's attempt to grasp or push away what it judges and perceives as pleasant or unpleasant to the senses and is therefore able to "disturb". There is disturbance in the mind and therefore in the body when we are offended. It is, however, never the forth level of mind that gets disturbed ...only the first three. We are just too lost in the first three to notice.
And when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way.
Seeing from the Forth Layer of Mind
When we realize that how we see the world is determined and distorted by these three levels of Citta and learn to see from the forth layer of the mind instead...external things become what they are and not what we imagined them to be. Everything we look upon is a projection of our inner experience. The emergence of this world is no more than thoughts manifesting itself. ...The universe is a long dream...we create worlds as the natural expression of our beings. (Deepak Chopra on the the Vasisthas).
Not Woo-Woo
This is not as woo-woo as it may seem. If you are really depressed one day and you look outside you are more than likely going to see any dark clouds in the sky that might be there, you may be more likely to notice and store any less than kind remarks made toward you, noticing the frowns on some rather than the smiles on others. Right? If you wake up happy and well, on the other hand, you are more than likely going to notice the silver lining in a sky that is quite cloudy and dark, and the kind words and smiles from others. Are you not? And if you are like most humans on this planet absorbed with this idea of you as a separate little person, and as this separate little "me" see yourself as the center of the universe you look upon... everything you see and experience you are going to perceive as personal to you, are you not? You are going to fail to see the impersonal nature of the universe and will be "offended", and at the mercy of being disturbed by it if it doesn't go "your" way. So you will do what we are all conditioned to do...grab for that which will bring pleasure and disturb you less...push away that which is unpleasant and has the potential to disturb more, while you completely ignore the billions and billions of neutral things Life unfolds in front of you every day. (Neutral only because the intellectual and desiring parts of your mind sees no use for them).
The point is: We tend to see Life not as it is but how we assume it should be in order to meet the needs of an idea ( reflection on a lake) we have of "me".
When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.
This is simple right? If we stop looking out at the world and saying "This is good, right, should be...I want that" and/or "This is bad, wrong, shouldn't be...don't want that!" and therefore stop reacting the way we do to whatever Life gives us or doesn't give us by grabbing and clinging and seeking and striving for the "good stuff" and pushing away, resisting, denying, struggling against, and stuffing the "bad stuff", our whole worlds are going to change aren't they? Both the outer and the inner? First of all we are going to be so much less exhausted. Man, the physical and mental energy it takes from us to live like this! And then we are going to realize that without entanglement in these first three levels of mind, these mental modifications, these Cittas, these judgments, excessive thinking, perceiving, discriminating... all that which makes up " Old Mind", the habit mind so many of us follow, a wonderful thing happens. .Just like clouds, that obscure a spacious blue sky, all aspects of old mind float away to reveal "True Mind". True mind is a clear and spacious mind that is naturally peaceful, that cannot be moved by wind, that cannot be disturbed or agitated by anything "out there" and that doesn't recognize any "little me" for it is everything.
And when we operate from this mind, what type of a world do we see? We see it for exactly what it is. We let go of our obsession with a personal little self that is so easily offended, and does not even exist really and we get to, for the first time, know Life for who and what she is! We stop getting disturbed when she blows this way or she blows that way. We stop trying to fix her, control her, make her go our way and be something she isn't! We just let her do what she is going to, marveling in all of it.
Wow! So much learning!
If you think there is something to fix out there, you are broken. ...Everything that ever ws, everything that ever is, and everything that will ever be...is God. There is nothing else. Life is God made visible. You are looking at aspects of the Divine.
Michael Singer.
All is well!
Deepak Chopra & Adam Plack (2011) The Secret of Healing: Guided Meditation for Transformation. Spotify
Michael Singer Podcast/ Sounds True ( April, 2022) S2 E5 Looking into the Lake of Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G1zvgJvm7Y
Sen T'san / Age of the Sage (n.d.) The Third Patriarch of Zen Versus on the Faith of Mind https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/buddhism/third_patriarch_zen.html
Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville: Integral Yoga
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