mind

I guess we know now that we have to be careful with our words, because the internet is full of variations on what everything means. I can’t get away from the term “meditation” because it is nearly universal. But when I use it, I use it in a specific way, as do my many teacher friends.

When we talk about meditation, we mean an inner practice of mind and awareness that releases us from fear and confusion.

Sometimes, this is phrased as “freedom from suffering” and I’m fine with that too, as long as we don’t get mired in the many, many things suffering can mean. Thus, fear and confusion is a better summary statement, according to my experience and training.

terms are special words

When we start our journey into meditation we really need to know what things mean. Even the most obvious and simple words you see in every book or hear in every talk need a little care. Because they aren’t just words, they’re terms. Terms are words, but words with superpowers. Meditation has a whole language of superpowered words.

And that’s what we’ll go through today.

Let’s start with our first point: meditation.

Meditation is the inner practice of mind and awareness …

Let’s look at the two words at the end: mind and awareness. And in the process, we’ll look at another, the most mainstream word from the meditator’s vocabulary, mindfulness. But we have a few days to do all this. For today we’ll tuck into the word mind.

I know these are nothing new, but within meditation, there’s a lot we can learn and say about each of these.

Meditators have a lot to share, but of course so do doctors, scientists, gym teachers, etc., and they all use these same terms. But they use them differently. And in this series of articles, we are interested in what meditators have to say about these three. Doctors have their own platform, and so do scientists and gym teachers (don’t they?). Meditators need to speak up and own their words!

mind is a big topic

Mind is a major topic in meditation. I could get lost in an attempt to make it all clear, so I am going to give you the basics, the stuff you need to know to take a next step.

What is mind?

Mind is that which knows other.

And that’s that.

But…. What does that mean?

It means that the part of our experience that recognizes the presence of another thing (a cup of coffee, a cat, a headache), and knows it as something else (something “other”), is called mind.

Mind is that which knows, but in this case, it doesn’t just know, it knows something other than itself. It knows the thing over there. It knows that thing is something else.

The part of us that knows itself is called awareness. And that is a different thing from mind. And also, that is a different email in this series.

It sounds philosophical, but it’s really a very simple idea: mind is just the part of us that knows the things in the world. Our hands don’t know the things of the world, and our liver doesn’t know the things of the world. It’s our mind that has this quality. And let’s be frank: on its own this hardly seems like anything we needed to know. It seems kind of academic, right?

But boy oh boy does all that change when you start experiencing things in meditation. Then, as my first teacher told me, “you’ll be racing through all your notebooks looking for this information.” And he was right.

When you begin to have genuine meditative experience, all these ideas come to life and you are relieved to have them. It’s like you find yourself lost in the woods, except that you remember that you have a map and a flashlight in your pocket!

Scenario: Your hands touch a cup of hot coffee and feel warmth.

Breakdown: Your hands feel (physical sensation) the warmth, but don’t know that warmth. The mind is what knows that warmth.

Your eyes see this cup steaming in front of you, but it is your mind that registers this experience. Without mind, your eyes seeing the cup of coffee would not register in your experience, just like when my eyes see a hot cup of coffee, you don’t get a memo, because your mind is not connected to my eyes. But my mind is, so I both see and know there is a cup of coffee in front of me. And usually, even far past noon, there is.

parts of the mind

Where the topic of mind gets interesting is when we talk about the parts of the mind. Because oh yes, the mind, the part of us that knows, has another characteristic: it has faculties. Faculties are parts that perform unique functions. Anger is a faculty, and so is conscientiousness. And they are not the same, they perform functions that are unique to them.

In the books, these are called “mental factors” which is a technical way of describing emotions or character traits, such as:

• self-respect
• diligence
• jealousy
• pride

And much, much more. There’s a lot of interesting stuff the meditation teachings have to say about all of that. And if you stick with it, it will all find its way to you without overwhelm. It’s an organic education made possible by the practice of meditation.

wrapping up: mind

Here’s our expanded summary, with yesterday’s and today’s discussion:

Meditation, the practice of freeing ourselves from fear and confusion, involves working with the mind, the part of us that knows the things it comes into contact with.

And how does the meditator work with the mind to free themselves from fear and confusion? They do so by isolating the most important faculties and making them strong: mindfulness and awareness!

And that’s what we’ll talk about tomorrow!