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What Kind of Mind Do You Have?
There really isn't just Thinking Mind. There's open mind and closed mind. There's rigid mind and flexible mind. There's frightened mind and curious mind. There's still mind and monkey mind.There's joyful mind and fretful mind. There's skeptical mind and gullible mind. There's serene mind and angry mind. There's knowing mind and not-knowing mind. And so forth and so on.
The point I guess is that at some level it probably behooves us to find out what kind of mind we have since in great part its through mind we create the world we inhabit. Both our individual world and collective world. And especially the mind-created sense of self. Which forms the basis for conceptual understanding. Figuring things out.
Sometimes mind gets a bad rap in this process of awareness awakening to itself. It's illusory or its presented as a filter or distorting lens or a hindrance and problematic oxen or horse that needs to be disciplined and tamed. And sometimes that's how it is.
The inquiry doesn't just look at what kind of mind one has but also at one's relationship with mind. Is it intimate or indifferent? Is it knowing or all guess work? Do you know what's under the hood or just take it for a ride?
(This whole discussion presumes some exposure to the deconstructive mantra or variation thereof: I have a body but am not body, I have a mind but am not mind, I have emotions but am not emotion, etc etc, What am I?)
My experience is that Awareness awakening to its formless nature through the mechanism of a biological body-mind needs all the help it can get until full abiding in awareness occurs, or some reasonable facsimile. Until then, formless awareness manifested as human being tends to misidentify its no-self as body, thumps itself on the chest and says, "This is my body. These are my thoughts. These are my feelings. This is my life. This is ME!." And initially it seems self-evident that this is how it is.
Mind as ally is relatively better than mind as hindrance. My intitial response to the question was, "I've got an open, flexible, competent mind." But as any good student knows, if you want an "A" you let the question guide the answer.
As I hung out with the question I saw on some matters I was open minded and others quite closed minded. In some instances my nind was flexible in others quite rigid. But more than anything I noticed mind was conditioned. And not only was it deeply conditioned but it seemed to generate certain trains of thought that exerted an overwhelming gravitational pull on attention. You know "important thoughts" "insights" "epiphanies".
As it turned out, after a million rides or so, all I needed was a moderately open and flexible mind to let the train pull into the present moment and depart without me. Sort of,"Just for the hell of it, let's not get on the train this time and see what happens?" And that's when non-conceptual understanding began to emerge.
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Perhaps there is also something like a mind that's too flexible. But to me it seems for sure you at least need a certain minimum flexibility, like you call 'moderately open and flexible.'
You often hear that people are heavily influenced by J.Krishnamurti (at least I am, although I'm not really conscious of it on a daily basis [and I don't read his books anymore and so on...].)
Yet you seldom (if ever) hear from people that they 'got it' through him. So for most seekers he plays the role of the one who shakes people up. And from there they move on.
Reading your topic I thought, perhaps Krishnamurti can be seen as someone who shakes up peoples mind, so they at least have that minimum openness and flexibility that seems to be required.
The query regarding "What kind of mine do I have?" initially stimulates thinking mind to provide a conceptual answer. But it's really meant to encourage internal looking and listening to see what kind of mind "I" actually have versus the mind I think I should have or want to have.
It's a looking and listening without any agenda of "improving" or "fixing" or "disciplining". It's just relating to mind in a non aggressive fashion. Just this deepening curiousity. Not pulling apart or deconstucting or compartmentalizing.
Just developing an almost bi-furcated awareness, split-screen awareness, "There's mind activity on one side, and external activity on the other side, and isn't that interesting how outside stimuli effects thinking mind, and gee, look how thinking mind alters the way I perceive the external world."
Eventually seeing happens. Listening happens. And something happens to thinking mind as it begins to be seen more and more as a "content" in consciousness. What that is or may be, is something we have to experience for ourselves.
Tony
YouTube Channel: Ordinary Consciousness
By: MTony502