An Auspicious Day

[sky]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

What happens when a person experience Out of Body? The person seems to have a mind outside of the body.

What does Mindfulness have to do with OBE

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by sky

A soft and flexible mind is extremely beneficial, imo...

But then what if one is soft and flexible to bad ideas like wars or violence? Might be better to be hard and inflexible about such bad ideas from mind.

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

What happens when a person experience Out of Body? The person seems to have a mind outside of the body.

I'm glad you brought that up! Humans always think (and speak) of themselves in third person. No idea why. Like saying, "A soft and flexible mind is extremely beneficial," Why not just say "Being soft and flexible is extremely beneficial?" Why add the idea of a "mind" whatever that is imagined to be?

I think it's like saying "I have a soul." That's non-sense to me too. If it is something you have and not what you are, you are doomed! It leaves the body and you behind! I can be soft and flexible. {Because I don't have to identify with my conditioned mind!} Conscious awareness. The mind made by the brain is a whole other subject. But to me that is again pushing self/awareness into some third person concept that is not real or based on reality.

I define "mind" as basically the brain thought conditioned content presented to us, awareness. If one is not identifying with mind, it doesn't matter what it is. One is free of it's effect. Like the raft Buddha left behind in his story. But then awareness can use the brain and thought. I think it's a bit like being merged with a computer. It can use you or you can use it. If you "listen" and believe everything the computer tells you, it is using you in a sense. But then you can use it for your own needs. Ignore it when not needed.

There is only one thing in us that is aware. Well it's not a thing is it? It is us! We are the only thing aware. The brain is not aware or conscious, the brains thoughts are not aware or conscious, the emotions are not aware or conscious. The brain is "aware" in the sense of camera and sound input etc. And it is programmed to process that data and move the body and breathe, make the heart beat etc. It's a super computer biological machine or robot. But into that we are merged. An awareness. Me. I. And awareness contains memory just like the brain. Also contains knowledge and understanding just like the brain. But awareness' is not conditioned and can't be. Though it has aspects and a nature based on it's source energy or "God." To be conditioned it has to identify with the self or mind or person created by the brain.

Whether a person is open minded or closed minded, flexible or rigid, to me is all about the dance between the true self, awareness, and the false self created by the brain and body. A "person" I think is really a combination of the two until we leave the body. Some "people" are pretty much a result of their conditioning and brain and identifications and others are more a projection of their true nature, selfless unconditional love and peace without conflict.

The true self can experience stuff while out of the body, stuff in the body and in the mind like thoughts and dreams, and stuff in the physical world. It's all the same awareness, Me, I. But then we have the filter of "person" we "see or interpret through" created by the brain and it's mind.

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by sky

If we remove our mind from our body, our body is dead. If we take our body out of our mind, our mind is dead. Mindfulness unites body and mind.

See the third person thing there? "If we remove...." Who or what is the "we" that would be doing the removing of the mind? What is your definition for the one that has a mind and a body? Also who or what is aware body and mind have been united?

I would say it is awareness, our true self, the Me or "I." Though awareness cannot remove the "mind" whatever that is imagined to be. Let's define mind as the brains functions. Then yes it is needed to do the various processes the body does to stay alive. Human bodies have electrical systems. I think it's pretty amazing how much we think we are these bodies. We are sure in the mix in an incarnation. I think animal's are pretty much the same boat. The awareness energy merged with them comes to identify fully with the body and brain/mind it has been placed in or merged with. Awareness experiences the life of that animal just like we experience the realities of a human that descended from apes.

Why are we in a body though? Must be some great reason. I think it may be the education and expansion of awareness. If awareness is like this energy sphere, it can become greater through expanding awareness and knowledge and understanding. As this aware energy expands in awareness, it vibrates at higher frequencies and then can visit more subtle and higher/deeper realms maybe. Up and up though higher and higher energy realms filled with other beings until we approach the source itself.

[sky]

Quote Maisy,
[" No idea why. Like saying, "A soft and flexible mind is extremely beneficial," Why not just say "Being soft and flexible is extremely beneficial?" Why add the idea of a "mind" whatever that is imagined to be?"]

Why ? because that is the way I wanted to say it, ok.... This is a Buddhist Section, the Bhaddekaratta Sutta is a Buddhist teaching and a 'soft flexible mind' is an important teaching in Buddhism.....

"All I brought back was a soft and flexible mind." To find real peace and contentment, we need a mind that is flexible and a heart that is soft so we can adjust and adapt to whatever conditions we encounter in our lives."
Dogen.

[sky]

Quote Maisy.
["See the third person thing there? "If we remove...." Who or what is the "we" that would be doing the removing of the mind? What is your definition for the one that has a mind and a body? Also who or what is aware body and mind have been united?"]

Practising/experiencing 'Mindfulness' will answer your questions.

[eezi-ulgen]

Originally Posted by sky

Why ? because that is the way I wanted to say it, ok....

Okey-dokey

[sky]

Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen

Okey-dokey

I find it difficult to write or use words that are not what i'm actually thinking at that present moment

[eezi-ulgen]

Originally Posted by sky

I find it difficult to write or use words that are not what i'm actually thinking at that present moment

Words are a puzzle, to me...

[Maisy]

For me this Dogen saying is more to the point:

Under Rujing, the thirteenth patriarch of the Cáodòng lineage of Zen Buddhism, Dōgen realized liberation of body and mind upon hearing the master say, "cast off body and mind" (身心脱落 shēn xīn tuō luò). This phrase would continue to have great importance to Dōgen throughout his life, and can be found scattered throughout his writings, as for example in a famous section of his Genjōkōan (現成公案)

Dogen placed a great deal of importance on the words "cast off body and mind." To cast off the mind is a very different idea from having a "flexible and soft" mind or feeling a mind can help one in some beneficial way. How could he have two opposite ideas? Well to me casting off mind is obviously about enlightenment and liberation. Perhaps telling people to have a soft flexible mind was to offer some advice to those unable to understand liberation or enlightenment. To give egos a way to be less troublesome.

Notice also Dogen is said to have realized liberation of body and mind. Transcendence of mind in other words. Dogen also was a poet among other things and from my reading disagreed with a lot of other Buddhists. For example leaving one school or teacher for another as he did not like their teachings. For example he disliked a place that emphasized Koans as he liked to study sutras more. Of course he was also involved in Chan or Zen schools and the founder of Chan or Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma, said the study of sutra's was worthless if one did not know their true nature. Though I'm not sure Bodhidharma was into Koans either. I'd guess he was not into seeking so why need or emphasize either. His focus was finding ones true nature or as some labeled it "original mind."

But then to label true self a mind (even adding the word "original" to me is again to be conceptualizing oneself in third person. I am not something I have or a thing. That's the way I see it anyway. But I think I get it. Say I am awareness. Say that's the word I use to refer to myself. I can be less aware or more aware. I can be very understanding or not very understanding. I can be at peace or in conflict or stressed. So then as awareness is imagined to not have these changing things, we need a new word to describe what is changing. So we invent words for others things we "have" like a mind or soul or ego or whatever.

But the way I see it, the self is like the plate in a camera where the image is focused. Or like a mirror. It "becomes" and "experiences" whatever is focused on it. But awareness has a "will" and potentially can decide what to focus on or pay attention to, can decide what to give energy to. What we are focused on or paying attention to results in a certain experience. Add in paying attention to thoughts and words and one is experiencing quite a lot. Dogen believing we can "cast off mind" I agree with. It's just a matter of not letting the attention go or be there. To stay focused on emptiness or silence.

But then a common mistake in the teaching is to make "emptiness" or "silence" a concept or thing the mind has. "Emptiness" or liberation from mind is literally no mind. That means no ideas about emptiness nor silence. It is truly "nothing" or "no thing" but if one also is not limiting this with mind, by conceptualizing "no-thing" or nothing then one finds expansion of consciousness or awareness. More is known or seen, not less. Without mind or the mental interpreter one sees more clearly and fully what is. Nothing is everything in a sense. There is no gate or filter blocking what is. It is full immersion in life.

"To learn the Buddha’s truth is to learn ourselves. To learn ourselves is to forget ourselves. To let our own body and mind, and the body and mind of the external world, fall away."

Dōgen also described zazen practice with the term hishiryō (非思量, "non-thinking", "without thinking", "beyond thinking"). It is a state of no-mind which one is simply aware of things as they are, beyond thinking and not-thinking - the active effort not to think. In the Fukanzazengi, Dōgen writes:

...settle into a steady, immobile sitting position. Think of not thinking (fushiryō). How do you think of not-thinking? Without thinking (hishiryō). This in itself is the essential art of zazen. The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma-gate of repose and bliss, the cultivation-authentication of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the presence of things as they are.