Tibetan Book of the Dead: One does not err by perceiving

One does not err by perceiving, one errs by clinging; but knowing clinging itself as mind, it frees itself. – Tibetan Book of the Dead

Is your ‘inner self’ mind or heart or heart-mind?

EXPLANATION OF ‘HEART-MIND’ – OUR INTERIORITY – EXTRACT FROM DOCTORAL THESIS

My answer is the human spirit – her own and her pupils. How might we construe that spirit? My answer is as the flow of ‘spirit-as-the-life-force’ (chi?)

One analogy for the ‘flow of spirit-as-the-life-force’ is water flowing. Another analogy lies in the flow of energy as dancer dances. Another metaphor for ‘the flow of spirit-as-the-life-force’ is that of white light. These metaphors are the opposite of the mechanistic ‘human-as-computers’ or the older ‘humans-as-machines’ metaphors.

Since I see teachers as ‘developers of consciousness’ I here am focusing on the idea of the life-force, in a normal person, culminating in (raised) consciousness. I also use the term interiority to refer to consciousness. By interiority I mean ‘affective awareness’ and ‘moral awareness’ as well as ‘cognitive awareness’ – hence my preference for ‘heart-mind’ as a term for interiority.

I am grateful to Martin Cortazzi for pointing out that a unitive presentation of heart-mind has a long history. He tells me that heart-mind corresponds to ‘xin’ in Chinese, (sometimes transcribed as ‘hsin’). (Professor Peter Harvey of the University of Sunderland also points out that ‘citta’ in Sanskrit, as used in Indian Buddhism, has the same meaning)

Hansen (1989 p. 97) explains that ‘We use ‘heart-mind’ to translate xin. This is because the philosophical psychology of ancient China did not use a cognitive/affective contrast in their talk of well-honed human performance…’

He also points out (1992 p. 20) that ‘The common translation of xin as heart-mind reflects the blending of belief and desire (thought and feeling, ideas and emotions) into a single complex dispositional potential.’
Tu ( 1985 p. 32) provides further evidence in saying:

…the Confucian hsin [xin] must be glossed as ‘heart-mind’ because it involves both cognitive & affective dimensions of human relations. This ‘fruitful ambiguity’ is perhaps the result of a deliberate refusal rather than an unintended failure to make a sharp distinction between conscience & consciousness. To Yang-Ming [Wang Yang-Ming, neo-Confucian philosopher 1477-1529] consciousness as cognition & conscience as affection are not two separable functions of the mind. Rather, they are integral aspects of a dynamic process whereby man becomes aware of himself as a moral being. Indeed, the source of morality depends on their inseparability in a pre-reflective faculty.

Transcend but include – Ken Wilber

“Transcending the ego” thus actually means to transcend but include the ego in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper psychic, then with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage taken up, enfolded, included, and embraced in the radiance of One Taste.

And that means we do not “get rid” of the small ego, but rather, we inhabit it fully, live it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher truths are communicated.

Soul and Spirit include body, emotions, and mind; they do not erase them.

Ken Wilber

Source: The Essential Ken Wilber: An Introductory Reader., Pages: 33

How many words the world contains But all…

How many words the world contains! But all have
one meaning. When you smash the jugs,
the water is one.
Rumi quoted in Chittick (1989 p. 8)

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect.
The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.
— Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

A fact only becomes knowledge when it has meaning, when a student can see where it fits into the world in general.

(First line of description of the curriculum at the
Heschel-inspired Columbus Jewish Day School.)
http://www.cjds.org/curric.html

This supreme emblem of God the human mind…

This supreme emblem of God (the human mind) stands first in the order of creation and first in rank, taking precedence over all created things. Witness to it is the Holy Tradition, “Before all else, God created the mind.” From the dawn of creation, it was made to be revealed in the temple of man.

(Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 1)

There is a road from the eye to…

There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. ~ G.K. Chesterton

DO YOU HAVE SEPARATE ORGANS OF ‘HEART’ and…

DO YOU HAVE SEPARATE ORGANS OF ‘HEART’ and ‘MIND?

The singleness of our ‘interior world’ is a vitally important idea in the SunWALK model. Much is written about the separation of mind from body in post-Enlightenment thinking. I think the head-heart separation is of the greatest consequence. There are no separate organs for head and heart in our interior as experience there is simply ideas that have affective charges and feelings that transmute into ideas. I came to this conclusion before I was told of the following;

‘We use ‘heart-mind’ to translate xin. This is because the philosophical psychology of ancient China did not use a cognitive/affective contrast in their talk of well-honed human performance…’ (page 97)
Hansen, C. (1989) Language in the Heart-Mind, in R.E. Allison (ed.) Understanding the Chinese Mind, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 75-123.

‘The common translation of xin as heart-mind reflects the blending of belief and desire (thought and feeling, ideas and emotions) into a single complex dispositional potential.’ (page 20)
Hansen, C. (1992) A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought, a philosophical interpretation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(Tweaked from an earlier article here http://sunwalked.wordpress.com/6-personal-development-matters/new/faqs-to-the-underlying-sunwalk-model-of-holistuic-education/)

YOU ARE THE AWARENESS When you recognize that…

YOU ARE THE AWARENESS

When you recognize that there is a voice in your head that pretends to be you and never stops speaking, you are awakening out of your unconscious identification with the stream of thinking.

When you notice that voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice — the thinker — but the one who is aware of it.

Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.

The egoic self is always engaged in seeking. It is seeking more of this or that to add to itself, to make itself feel more complete. This explains the ego’s compulsive preoccupation with future.

~ From: Stillness Speaks, by Eckhart Tolle http://www.eckharttolle.com

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN TO BREATHE Someone asked Eckhart…

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN TO BREATHE?

Someone asked Eckhart Tolle if he could recommend one or two courses. His reply, “Be aware of your breathing as often as you are able… Do that for one year, and it will be more powerfully transformative than attending any course.” A New Earth p244

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.”
― Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. He also says; “Breath is my anchor.”

PS Breath is also the number 1 nutrient!

TAGS: breath, breathing, Thích Nhất Hạnh, A New Earth, Tolle, breath is my anchor, consciousness, yoga, life, life-force, mind, focus, focused mind, concentration, mindfulness,

‘Love Ego & Presence’ Kabir Helminski The Knowing…

‘Love, Ego & Presence’ – Kabir Helminski The Knowing Heart: A Sufi Path of Transformation pp49-50

“We do not reach love completely on our own. If we are loveless in and of ourselves, it is because we are living with our center of gravity in the false self. The false self is created from the desires and compulsions of our own separateness. This false self believes strongly in its own existence as separate from the rest of life, and it recruits the intellect to help defend this illusion at the expense of the whole of the mind.

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