Ramana Maharshi on nature of Mind

Question : What is the nature of the mind?
Ramana Maharshi : The mind is nothing other than the `I'-thought. The mind and the ego are one and the same. The other mental faculties such as the intellect and the memory are only this. Mind [manas], intellect [buddhi], the storehouse of mental tendencies [chittam], and ego [ahamkara]; all these are only the one mind itself. This is like different names being given to a man according to his different functions. The individual soul [jiva] is nothing but this soul or ego.

Question : How shall we discover the nature of the mind, that is, its ultimate cause, or the noumenon of which it is a manifestation?
Ramana Maharshi: Arranging thoughts in the order of value, the `I'-thought is the all-important thought. Personality-idea or thought is also the root or the stem of all other thoughts, since each idea or thought arises only as someone's thought and is not known to exist independently of the ego. The ego therefore exhibits thought activity. The second and the third persons [he, you, that, etc.] do not appear except to the first person [I]. Therefore they arise only after the first person appears, so all the three persons seem to rise and sink together. Trace, then, the ultimate cause of `I' or personality.

From where does this `I' arise? Seek for it within; it then vanishes. This is the pursuit of wisdom. When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as mind. This is the direct path for all. The mind is merely thoughts. Of all thoughts the thought `I' is the root. Therefore the mind is only the thought `I'. The birth of the `I'-thought is one's own birth, its death is the person's death. After the `I'-thought has arisen, the wrong identity with the body arises. Get rid of the `I'-thought. So long as `I' is alive there is grief. When `I' ceases to exist there is no grief.

Question : Yes, but when I take to the `I'-thought, other thoughts arise and disturb me.
Ramana Maharshi: See whose thoughts they are. They will vanish. They have their root in the single `I'-thought. Hold it and they will disappear.

Question : How can any enquiry initiated by the ego reveal its own unreality?
Ramana Maharshi: The ego's phenomenal existence is transcended when you dive into the source from where the `I'-thought rises.

Source: from David Godman Excellent Book "Be As You are"

Jiddu krishnamurti - society

I have no name,

I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.
I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.
I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.
I am not in the incense
Mounting on the high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.
I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.
I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.
I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.
I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
I am free.
My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.
I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.

Jianzhi Sengcan - Faith in Mind

Faith in Mind

The Supreme Way is not difficult
If only you do not pick and choose.
Neither love nor hate,
And you will clearly understand.
Be off by a hair,
And you are as far from it as heaven from earth.
If you want the Way to appear,
Be neither for nor against.
For and against opposing each other –
This is the mind’s disease.
Without recognizing the mysterious principle
It is useless to practice quietude.
The Way is perfect like great space,
Without lack, without excess.
Because of grasping and rejecting,
You cannot attain it.
Do not pursue conditioned existence;
Do not abide in acceptance of emptiness.
In oneness and equality,
Confusion vanishes of itself.
Stop activity and return to stillness,
And that stillness will be even more active.
Merely stagnating in duality,
How can you recognize oneness?
If you fail to penetrate oneness,
Both places lose their function.
Banish existence and you fall into existence;
Follow emptiness and you turn your back on it.
Excessive talking and thinking
Turn you from harmony with the Way.
Cut off talking and thinking,
And there is nowhere you cannot penetrate.
Return to the root and attain the principle;
Pursue illumination and you lose it.
One moment of reversing the light
is greater than the previous emptiness.
The previous emptiness is transformed;
It was all a product of deluded views.
No need to seek the real;
Just extinguish your views.
Do not abide in dualistic views;
Take care not to seek after them.
As soon as there is right and wrong
The mind is scattered and lost.
Two comes from one,
Yet do not even keep the one.
When one mind does not arise,
Myriad dharmas are without defect.
Without defect, without dharmas,
No arising, no mind.
The subject is extinguished with the object.
The object sinks away with the subject.
Object is object because of the subject;
Subject is subject because of the object.
Know that the two
Are originally one emptiness.
In one emptiness the two are the same,
Containing all phenomena.
Not seeing fine or coarse,
How can there be any bias?
The Great Way is broad,
Neither easy nor difficult.
With narrow views and doubts,
Haste will slow you down.
Attach to it and you lose the measure;
The mind will enter a deviant path.
Let it go and be spontaneous,
Experience no going or staying.
Accord with your nature, unite with the Way,
Wander at ease, without vexation.
Bound by thoughts, you depart from the real;
And sinking into a stupor is as bad.
It is not good to weary the spirit.
Why alternate between aversion and affection?
If you wish to enter the one vehicle,
Do not be repelled by the sense realm.
With no aversion to the sense realm,
You become one with true enlightenment.
The wise have no motives;
Fools put themselves in bondage.
One dharma is not different from another.
The deluded mind clings to whatever it desires.
Using mind to cultivate mind –
Is this not a great mistake?
The erring mind begets tranquillity and confusion;
In enlightenment there are no likes or dislikes.
The duality of all things
Issues from false discriminations.
A dream, an illusion, a flower in the sky –
How could they be worth grasping?
Gain and loss, right and wrong –
Discard them all at once.
If the eyes do not close in sleep,
All dreams will cease of themselves.
If the mind does not discriminate,
All dharmas are of one suchness.
The essence of one suchness if profound;
Unmoving, conditioned things are forgotten.
Contemplate all dharmas as equal,
And you return to things as they are.
When the subject disappears,
There can be no measuring or comparing.
Stop activity and there is no activity;
When activity stops, there is no rest.
Since two cannot be established,
How can there by one?
In the very ultimate,
Rules and standards do not exist.
Develop a mind of equanimity,
And all deeds are put to rest.
Anxious doubts are completely cleared.
Right faith is made upright.
Nothing lingers behind,
Nothing can be remembered.
Bright and empty, functioning naturally,
The mind does not exert itself.
It is not a place of thinking,
Difficult for reason and emotion to fathom.
In the Dharma Realm of true suchness,
There is no other, no self.
To accord with it is vitally important;
Only refer to “not-two.”
In not-two all things are in unity;
Nothing is excluded.
The wise throughout the ten directions
All enter this principle.
This principle is neither hurried nor slow –
One thought for ten thousand years.
Abiding nowhere yet everywhere,
The ten directions are right before you.
The smallest is the same as the largest
In the realm where delusion is cut off.
The largest is the same as the smallest;
No boundaries are visible.
Existence is precisely emptiness;
Emptiness is precisely existence.
If it is not like this,
Then you must not preserve it.
One is everything;
Everything is one.
If you can be like this,
Why worry about not finishing?
Faith and mind are not two;
Non-duality is faith in mind.
The path of words is cut off;
There is no past, no future, no present.

Jianzhi Sengcan (Chinese: 僧璨) (died 606) (Wade-Giles: Chien-chih Seng-ts’an; Japanese:Kanchi Sosan) is known as the Third Chinese Patriarch of Chán after Bodhidharma and thirtieth Patriarch after Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha.

Huang Po - The Real Buddha

 

The Real Buddha

People perform a vast number of complex practices
hoping to gain spiritual merit as countless as the grains
of sand on the riverbed of the Ganges:
but you are essentially already perfect in every way.
Don’t try and augment perfection with meaningless practice.
If it’s the right occasion to perform them, let practices happen.
When the time has passed, let them stop.
If you are not absolutely sure that mind is the Buddha,
and if you are attached to the ideas of winning merit from spiritual practices, then your thinking is misguided and not in harmony with the Way.
To practice complex spiritual practices is to progress step by step:
but the eternal Buddha is not a Buddha of progressive stages.
Just awaken to the one Mind,
and there is absolutely nothing to be attained.
This is the real Buddha.

- Huang Po (750-800)

Hafiz - Now is the time

Susan Kahn - Song of Emptiness

 

image source 

There is movement in stillness,
A blossoming of emptiness.
All hope binds the infinite heart.
No need for it here.
In the peace of this divine space,
A white cloud would clamor.
To this joy of Being,
There is the light of eternity alone.
It is silence that truly sings,
Before the world is dreamt.
No thought can know
This invisible truth.
No earth dream
Can touch this aliveness.
Mind is a great prison
Invented and owned by “I.”
Silence this phantom thought.
Beyond the veil of concept
Emptiness is singing.

emptiness teachings

Ulla AllU - Empty Space/Sovereign Madness!

Empty Space!

Empty Space is Grace.
Yet feared, because of all that which disappeared.
Particularly everything that was once so revered.
Empty space is uncomfortable to embrace,
Because of what emptiness replace,
Does not leave any trace,
And is void of familiar reference, foundation and base.
It comes across as a loss,
Until revealed in an instant toss.
Grace BEING empty space!


 UNMASKING DUALITY
TWO to ONE and NONE
A Poetic Philosophical JourneyUnmasking Duality
by Ulla AllU

Read this beautiful book HERE

Sovereign Madness!

When consciousness express,
From the standpoint of sovereign madness.
There is no concern for success or progress,
There is NONE to impress and NONE to possess.

Sovereign madness matters not over claim or fame,
The underlying source BEING ONE and the same,
Effortlessly flowing, impossible to tame!

Sovereign madness stand sole and whole,
ABSOLUTE and TOTAL BEING in immanent patrol.