The Moving Mind

A classic Zen story begins like a bad joke…Two Monks are staring at a flag waving in the wind…

But, as it continues, it turns out the two monks are arguing about the nature of the flag and the wind.

One asserts, “The flag is moving,” while the other insists, “The wind is moving.”

Upon hearing this, an enlightened Master interjects, “Not the wind, not the flag; Mind is moving.”

The concept of the endless chatter of the mind that clouds our thinking is also common to Advaita Vedanta as well as Yoga.  In those moments, we are deluded into a trick of perception and perspective. As when we are sitting in a train that is stopped in the station, and suddenly the train next to us begins to move, it is almost impossible NOT to feel like our train is moving. Though our body does not feel it, our mind literally tricks our neural pathways into “feeling” our train move…

In Shankara’s Aparokshanubhuti, he has a series of such deceptions borne out in a string of similes, though all repeating the same concept. Namely, we are often our own best deceivers.

Abhreshu satsu dhãvatsu somo dhãvati bhãti/

Tadvadãtmani dehatvam pashyajñãnayogatah//

Just as when the clouds pass over the moon, it too appears to move, so too on account of ignorance does one see the Ãtman to be the mortal body.

A Crown Jewel

One of the seminal texts of Advaita Vedanta is undeniably Sri Shankarãcãrya’s Vivekaçudãmani, or “The Crown Jewel of Discretion,” in which he outlines the progression of the path a devotee needs to follow in order to rid oneself of false ideas because of our mental prejudices.

Much less accessible than Shankara’s Aparokshãnubhuti, it is, however, much more explicit in its program. It is as Plato’s Republic to his Phaedo. Ultimately the same message comes out, it is a difference of degree rather than kind.

The goal (a dubious term, for like Zen, or the Tao, to define it is to destroy it, or worse, to show that one does not understand it), being a paradox in itself, is the cessation of erroneous judgment, caused by delimiting our experiences into pigeonholes, all the while missing the interconnectedness of everything. The Mãyã, or illusion that we “perceive” is that we distinguish and create boundaries and borders, rather than finding the underlying comparison.

P.D. Ouspensky, in his A New Model of the Universe, describes this spurious activity as being within the visible, or exoteric world, while we meanwhile have forgotten the underlying truths within the esoteric, or invisible world. One is reminded of the recent Nobel Prize in Physics, celebrating the discovery of the “God Particle,” or the Higgs Boson, “invisible” to us, but "found" all the same borne out of theory, and perhaps is a building block of the Universe. However, the mystery of the vast majority of the Universe still eludes us, namely, the yet “invisible” Dark Matter.

So, with all of this confusion buzzing around us, what is one to do?

For me, various types of meditation have emerged as the most effective means of calming the storms of thought, or the fluctuations of the mind, the first step in the practice of Yoga. Over the years, swimming has been my meditation of choice, but I have recently added the practice of zazen, which is proving to be a perfect complement to “losing myself” in the water. As such, this passage struck me as appropriate for this stage of my journey.

Virajya vishayavrãtãddoshadrshtyã muhurmuhuh/

Svalakshaye niyatãvathã manasah shama ucyate//  22

After having detached (itself) from the multiplicity of sensory perception, again and again contemplating their defects, the continuous resting of the mind upon its aim, is called Shama, or serenity.

Was it a Snake, or was it a Stick?

In Ancient Indian philosophical treatises, one of the favorite mind games to play with someone is the question of whether it is a Snake or a Stick. Nagarjuna, sometimes called the Indian Socrates, was famous for this conundrum.

Essentially, the question is posed, if the mind thinks a stick is a snake, is it then really a snake, or is it a stick? In other words, what is more important, the perception of reality, or the reality itself?

That seems like a rhetorical question on the surface, but not quite. If one were to see a stick, and thought it was a snake, and turned and fled in fear and ran to the neighbors to tell them there is a snake in the road, and they then decided to go and investigate after calming the ophidiophobe down and assuring him that it was probably just a stick. However, in the meantime, an actual King Cobra has decided to mosey on down the lane, just about the same spot that the branch had been, that had been mistaken for a snake, and then lo and behold, there is a snake.

So, the “Truth” that will then be recorded from that day on is that it was indeed a snake and not a stick. It would have to take an eyewitness observer to have seen the whole incident to ever prove this “Truth” to be a fallacy, but if there were no perfect eidetic eyewitness to be found, this fallacy would forever be considered a truth.

For me, the take-home message is that we should be wary of what we are too quick to call THE Truth, and moreover, just because many people engage in that fallacy, does not make it any more truer than before. Not that we should doubt everything we see, but sometimes, things might need a closer look before we create the dogma that surrounds it. And, as my illustration suggestions, numbers do not necessarily make it any better.

So, next time I see a stick and perhaps think it is a snake, or vice versa, I might need to pause a bit longer, though we always run the risk of being bitten if the Truth is a snake and not a stick, so we take our chances in life.