by The Kid | Dec 7, 2020 | Can the human mind be trusted?
“My friend often asks me, half sarcastically, ‘Don’t you trust your own mind? The question always receives a few chuckles. ‘Of course I trust my own mind!… Though, to be honest, no, I don’t trust my own mind at all!’ On a simple human level, the vast majority of us are puppets to the inconsistent, random, ungraspable qualities of our minds. We don’t even know what our minds are. We don’t know what our thoughts are or where they come from. For most of us, our minds are like monkeys or wild horses – and ‘we’ as beings, are completely at the whim of our crazy, chaotic minds. Even in our times of relative tranquility, peace, joy, alignment – we are caught grasping at the experience, hoping that it will not flee us. Why don’t we have the reigns of our own internal landscape? Why must we grasp as though we are servants to a greater power?
The reality is, as Ram Dass famously put it, ‘The thinking mind (or rational mind) is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.’ In other words, the ‘mind’ as we think of it, aka the brain, is a tool. Like the stomach, it has a very important function for our well-being. However, should it be the one with the finger on the nuclear bomb? Perhaps not. Perhaps the heart-mind, intuitive mind, or ‘Hsin’ as the Chinese would put it, is more equipped for such a job.
Naturally, our being is not this black and white. However, perhaps we can begin by feeling into the intelligence of our inner being and come to our own conclusions. As our society functions right now, we are a temple to the ‘rational’, ‘thinking’ mind. We idolize it. We do not recognize the magnificent tool that is the heart-mind. We do not see the short-comings of the thinking mind in being the ‘governing agent’ of the self. Naturally, each of us who idolize the ‘thinking mind’, are contributing to a macrocosmic societal model. So it is no wonder that in a society of folks who idolize the thinking mind, our society as a whole takes on that model – and vice versa.
However, in truth, we CAN trust the human mind. Just a different ‘mind’ than what we are used to trusting. We can trust the ‘heart-mind’ as the control center, and the ‘thinking mind’ as the lead general. This is a recipe for a compassionate, wise society.
by The Kid | Nov 30, 2020 | What is the most dangerous addiction in our society?
“Technology? Drugs? Money? Materials? Worldly appearance? Power? Feeling good?
These are all certainly monstrous addictions plaguing our societies today. But is there a deeper level to each of them?
I believe, yes. There is an umbrella covering each of these facets of our societal addictions…. and that umbrella is an addiction to… SUFFERING. Hear me out:
I suffered today because a girl from a dating app didn’t text me after saying she would. I suffered for hours, and still feel a twinge of suffering – almost a full day later. Never mind the million things to be inexplicably grateful for – I would rather choose to focus on suffering. But why?????
Since each of our infancies, we have been cultivating an addiction to suffering. Why? Because it is easy. It is familiar. It is constant. It is predictable. It is not ‘suffering’ inherently, however. Ultimately, what we are cultivating from infancy is a delusional sense of self that exists ‘separately’ from the world outside our bodies.
This notion is a complete confabulation, yet it gets drilled into our identity. Now, what happens is that this fundamentally mistaken view of the world naturally branches off into every facet of our lives. We feel separate from the world, and thus, we act selfishly. We do so in order to protect ourselves from perceived ‘threats’. There is an underlying ‘dis-ease’, anxiety, and disequilibrium within each of us – the voice of the ‘true self’ speaking through the facade, saying “Look deeper! Break free!”
We must decipher between “liking suffering” and “choosing suffering because it is familiar.” For the vast majority of us, the case is the latter. We choose suffering over and over again – why? Because it is the most familiar thing in the world to us. We know it back and front, head to toe.
When we attempt to solve any other addiction, I believe we are only putting a band-aid on a deeper wound. We are simply doomed to liberate ourselves completely until we liberate ourselves from our primary addiction to suffering.
I could go on forever talking about this – but to conclude: Everyone has the ability to break free from the chains of suffering. It is simply the effect of a delusional view of reality. The moment we see things for how they are, our suffering will cease. When we habituate this new view, the suffering will never see the light of day. It really is that simple.”
by The Kid | Nov 22, 2020 | If you were to give a speech to everyone you will meet in your life, what would you say?
“Having researched this topic previously, I know that the average person will come in contact with between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people over the course of their life. Some of these people will pass as the cashier at the hardware store, and some will be as close as family or lovers. However, all these people will cross paths with us at some point in our lives, and some part of ourselves will be exchanged with some part of each of these people. Thus, I imagine an auditorium full of people, ready to hear a pithy, yet profound message – my deepest offering, deepest aspiration, for each of these beings. Having said that, here is my speech:
‘May the light that is within me, though often skewed by my own afflictions, reach you in some way. And may the corresponding aspiration – for your deepest wellbeing, for your path out of suffering, and for your own journey to truth – be realized in this lifetime.’
This is all. May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness. May all beings be free from suffering and the cause of suffering. May they never part from happiness that is free from suffering. May they abide in equanimity – free from attachment and aversion.”
Recent Comments