The Nature of the Mind – The Nature of Reality – The Fascinating Study of Enlightenment and the Karma of Ego

This is IT for me, you know?  Contemplating the nature of the mind and reality makes it all bearable.  No.  Not right.   Much more than bearable; it makes life a total celebratory event.

You see, we all think (or feel) that we have our own personal single mind that is so very real because it experiences and recognizes things.  Yet, how often (if ever) do we stop and examine those experiences that the mind thinks are so real?  Break them apart, open them up, see what’s there at the core–do people do that?

Trauma or crisis can help us contemplate this type of thing (or not)–happiness too; any intense experience.   Many times doing that drives us to addictive distraction instead of some level of enlightenment and joy.  But if we really examine the experiences that the mind is having and we do so carefully, and we really contemplate this experience that this mind has and we look for that mind that has this crisis or happy experience, we cannot find a single thing!  Not one single thing but a blend of many components that we call “consciousness’.    It’s NOT YOU!

Here’s what I mean–there is no solid mind or self at the core of the experience or no real experience-ER.  I know, it sounds crazy if you’ve never thought about it but give me a chance to explain.

Consciousness has many various components–parts!  You know like a car, a vehicle has many components, parts–engine, tires, frame, door and so forth.  Is not our mind and our consciousness the same?  Consciousness has awareness of visual objects (forms, shapes, colors) and then there is awareness of sound, touch (tactile consciousness), taste consciousness and all these are separate parts or functions of the mind.  It’s like the car analogy–separate parts, gas tank, gas pedal, speedometer, steering wheel and so forth.

Consider the experience of anything for a moment–it doesn’t have to be crisis or trauma.  Anything.  Happy experience let’s say.  If we consider that each type of consciousness recognizes a particular field of experience (sound awareness or consciousness recognizes sound and visual consciousness is aware of shapes and colors of forms)… if we consider this as part of any experience we see that each of the types of consciousnesses function in an independent way from the others.

So the mind is a blend of consciousnesses and not one single unit or not one single, unitary thing.  Rather it is a compound object just like the car, the vehicle.

There are said to be six consciousnesses and in some books I’ve read there are eight.  And one of those eight include the consciousness which clings to the notion of EGO or “I”.  And another consciousness that is part of what we think of as “me” is called ground consciousness — and I wrote about this a week or so ago.  

The ground consciousness  stores information from all other levels of consciousness and accumulated past lives.  You can see how this level of mind would easily support the idea of an individual identity called “me”.  It would seem so ‘real’ but it is a grouping of consciousness; a grouping of experiences.

To explain further, it is fairly easy to grasp that the visual consciousness perceives objects–that’s the potential of the visual consciousness.  If you look at a red cloth, you see red.  If you look at snow on a mountain, you see white.  We are able also, quite obviously, to see things in succession–first seeing one thing and then the next with one thing disappearing and the next thing appearing in consciousness.  So visual consciousness is multiple and successive and has the potential to see many things at once and so is not single or solitary or one thing.  Nor is it one single solitary unit of time.

Even if we could isolate a single solitary unit of time, it would only occur within the framework of ongoing consciousness because awareness is never static–its fluid.  So every moment has to relate to a previous moment and a future moment—meaning, it is not any more singular than we ourselves are.  The future moment is the present being the past in relation to it.  Yeah, I know that last sentence is pretty deep; but the point is that time is not solid, solitary and static and neither is consciousness and neither are we!  

There is no single unit of identifiable reality in either the external world of appearances or in the subjective mind.  Even space does not have a fundamentally real, inherent existence. Space is not a compound, and does consist of various parts like the car or like our mind.  Space is not a thing–it seems to exist but it is the negation of a particular appears of anything else.  Even the space in a room only exists because of the walls–take away the walls and the space that you thought existed in the room is not there and only depended upon the walls around it to appear as if it existed.

So the whole point in this blog post brings me to the point of liberation–even if I can’t fully understand it all in a way to describe it in words; in an experiential way I’ve known this truth from meditation…   it’s all true.

For example, in a contemplative meditation last evening, I tried to find… well, I asked, “Where is Joy?  Where am I located?”  It took less than a nano-second to realize I’m not my body and once you get past that basic truth, look for the location and you will find it’s everywhere!  And now here!  and nowhere!

And this, my friend, helps me to chill-ax (chill out and relax) and to see the humor in it all…. appearances are empty forms!  And again, quoting the Beatles once more, in the Strawberry Fields song, “Nothing is real; and it’s nothing to get hung about.”  

DEDICATION:  May this post help another in a way that is in divine order when they come upon this post–for this is my true intent in writing it today!  

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Karma, Ground Consciousness, Habituation and Meditation – mindfulness can create happiness

Karmic imprints.  They accumulate and are latent in ground consciousness or base mind.

This area of psyche gathers up or collects  (through the many layers of it’s nature)   all the karmic latencies that are gathered over eons of lifetimes.

And the responses to those tendencies create more imprints and here in this reality, on the earth,  they are able to be stimulated.

I used to think that we were completely in control of moods via our thoughts–and while that is partially true, the karmic imprints that settle into consciousness awaken in us as experiences of suffering or experiences of happiness which sometimes are seemingly out of our control.  I’ve been thinking about  karmic latency and habitual tendencies.  Do we say something like, ‘Oh that’s just how I am an I can’t help that‘ or what?  Just how does it all work anyway?   These thoughts that follow are influenced by Buddhist views by the way and they make perfect sense (to me).

Positive or negative karma ,it is said, does not always  immediately express itself. These karmic latencies resting within ground consciousness can arise later, even in future lifetimes.

Sometimes I can correlate karmic events to the Nodes of the Moon (North Node, South Node)  in an astrology chart–imprints remain in ground consciousness to ripen under the appropriate circumstances.  And we can correlate that to aspects to the birth Nodes and the transiting Lunar Nodes.  Anyway…

Negative and positive qualities increase due to habitual patterns–if a person tends to be angry again and again then becomes habituated to anger, it creates an increase of anger-latency in the mind.   The same is true with positive qualities such as love and compassion.  These qualities (either positive or negative) creates the foundation for the mind–ground consciousness.   Even in remembering some experience of the past, the remembering of it strengthens the latency.

For these reasons, we should be ever-aware and mindful–otherwise our disturbing emotions gradually increase from day-to-day and lifetime-to-lifetime.

We can create mindfulness latencies in the ground conspicuousness (habitual pattern of mindfulness).

Through meditation we can create positive latencies of love, wisdom and compassion which does overcome negative imprints when meditation is increased to focus on that love, wisdom and compassion.

We are born with a particular proclivities or latent tendencies developed in previous lifetimes.  We see this within seconds, minutes, hours of a baby’s birth.  Not all babies have the same newborn tendencies—some are restless, some are peaceful, etc.  Some children are naturally very kind due to positive latencies developed and imprinted in previous lifetimes into their ground consciousness.  Other children are very aggressive due to their own latent tendencies.

Some people are unable to deny themselves their desires and cannot say no to themselves–others can deny themselves but have difficulty saying no to others. Yet, we can change through cultivation of mindfulness or being aware of our tendencies and developing positive virtues where needed.

It seems like another lifetime ago when I asked higher mind/spirit guides [_____ fill in your own preferred word (s) here] a question. (Divination)

I really wanted to know why we were here and what we’re doing here and what the whole bottom-line point to our lives here were about.

And I was told that we are here to develop virtue.  And now, many years later, I see how true that answer was; although at the time I wasn’t satisfied with it.

With the correct understanding and with mindfulness in life and developing good qualities through  meditation we will be able to develop new latencies, new habitual  patterns, new tendencies.

Is that easy?  Is being mindful and conscious of our latent habitual tendencies at all times easy?  It’s as easy as that — or as difficult.  It depends on us.

We can develop positive or negative tendencies throughout life!  They come and they go depending upon our own awareness and contribution to the habitual patterns.

Our experience of happiness is based upon ground consciousness no matter which realm we are in.  Creating karmic imprints in the present reality results in experiencing their results in the future.

Just like a child who goes to school and studies hard creates an imprint in the mind that allows the child to later on do something with the imprint like become a teacher or a doctor.  If there was no type of imprint to start with (no schooling, no education) there would be no possibility of becoming the teacher in the future.

Well, this is all I have time to write on the topic for the moment.  I hope some of these words will find their way to the right person at the right time out there in cyber world and in doing so be helpful to that other.  

 

Betrayals of Trust and Emotional Devastation — How to deal with that

TAROT INSIGHT:  sometimes we feel that people we love betray us or turn against us and it can feel crushing.  From a Buddhist perspective this can be a problem of self-cherishing and also attachment to particular expectations of people.  In both cases, life gives us what we need to course correct–painful and disappointing as it may be.  I thought to ask the Tarot to give some guidance or insight about these types of emotional gottcha’s.

First though whether people have actually betrayed us or not (sometimes they do unknowingly or sometimes, yeah, it’s intentional) but either way we still have our own emotional feeling to deal with as the residual.  I’m asking for guidance or insight from the tarot about how to deal with the emotion.  Ha!  sometimes I have to laugh at the divination process and how literal it can be!

What card did I draw to pull insight from?  PAN or in some decks the card of  THE DEVIL.  Instantly one thinks of being caught in the hell realms, chained to a person or an idea.  In any case, the card is an indication of being out of harmony with natural law and relates to the need to break old patterns.

Past lives comes right along with the word patterns in my way of seeing things.

They did it in the past–the betrayal.  Maybe not that person or that group of persons but it’s some old wound we’re still carrying around more than likely.   Pan is thought to be the nature god and the world “panic” comes from this source word “pan”.

Pan suggests we laugh at our selves and our life-predicaments instead of falling back into addictive behaviors, unconscious attachments and self-imposed limitations.  Pan says to laugh and be joyful about our lives.

What type of insight does this card offer?  To lighten up, not take one’s self  so seriously, let goes of cares and worries and play more.  Divination rocks!  Especially if you can follow the advice.

Go out and play in nature and try to lighten up–it’s hard (I know) but try to find some humor.  And if all else fails:  Valerian!