Three Minds of Meditation

Seven Dharmachari and Ven. Vivekananda (Bodhi Vihara), Wisdom Quarterly

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly" - the Buddha (Cadi-cliff/flickr.com).

  

Three "minds" become evident while meditating. There is the Automatic Mind, the Choice Point (conscious awareness or adverting power), and the Peaceful Mind.

Automatic Mind is the thinking that just happens. It can hardly be stopped or slowed down sometimes. It is the source of "monkey mind" (restlessness, worry, clutter, angst, and anxiety) and awkward creativity, projections into the future, and recollections/reconstructions of the past. It is usually miserable and what we call NOT-meditating.

  

And while this may be true, it leads to meditating. 

  

Peaceful Mind is a wonderful state of serenity, a non-judgmental receptivity of perception. It is one of the preliminary goals of meditation called samatha. It purifies and intensifies the mind and is best used in the service of developing insight (vipassana). It itself, however, does not lead to insight or enlightenment, but it does lead to many other good things.

 

When people experience this state of mind, they call it "meditation." And they call the previous work that got them there not-meditating. It can also be called zen (jhana, dhyana, ch'an) if it is particularly deep and "absorbing."
  

• NOTE: Peaceful Mind should not be confused with sleep or unconsciousness. It is the exact opposite. For it is fully conscious but centered on a single object. Or it can be strong but divided among just a few objects post-absorption, as in when one is engaged in insight-practice (vipassana). Stop first, then insight.
• George Quant speaks of a Fourth State of Consciousness, one beyond sleeping (dreaming), waking, and unconsciousness. It may be referred to as a super-conscious state, a thoughtless awareness, an effortless peace (usually preceded by lots of successful effort).

How can one go from restless automatic thinking to restful peace? It is possible because in between these natural states there is a Choice Point (to borrow Sarah McLean's term). This is when our active consciousness elects to catch itself daydreaming, wandering, nodding off, or engaging in discursive thinking when we are trying to meditate. We are meditating.

 

Meditation is catching ourselves and consciously (and blamelessly) returning to the object we have chosen to sit with for a predetermined span of time. Whereas wandering is not meditating, looking out for wandering and doing something about it when it happens is being actively engaged in mediation.

This behavior eventually leads to mastery, to a very strong and well controlled Peaceful Mind, or what most everyone agrees counts as "successful meditation."

We are successful much more often than we think just for noticing and applying the antidote rather than giving the mind free rein, which it has most of the day on most days.
  

"Ordinary mind" and "beginner's mind" take on new meaning in Zen. Ordinarily, we are just wandering discursively. Beginners struggle. But after considerable practice, we return and see it with different eyes. There's nothing supernatural about Peaceful Mind. It is  our birthright; it is how we were as infants and beginners; it is our ordinary (original) mind. But beginning meditators have a hard time believing that. When we come back to it as if for the first time, as C.S. Lewis noted, we can really appreciate the work we have done and how we have evolved.

So the next time you sit and watch, be glad to catch the mind wandering away. It gives rise to the Choice Point, that mind that knows-and-sees and does something about it. It is the way to Peaceful Mind.

Bring it back gently and without shaming or scolding. That noticing and doing something about it was "meditating." And it is soon blessed with Peaceful Mind, heightened consciousness, and a new normal -- being cool, calm, and collected with no apparent effort. Then if this mental state, this Peaceful Mind, is put to the task of developing liberating-insight, one may see and touch nirvana here and now.

 
Example: Farmers in the Fields

What would you grow if you could grow anything?

A farmer works her field for months. Others laugh because nothing is seen growing there, whereas their fields naturally have useful things growing on them. Finally after months of this, the other "farmers" come to laugh and criticize the one farming fruitlessly.

They ask, "What are you doing wasting your time here?"

"Wasting my time?" the farmer asks. "I have been preparing my field, weeding it, plowing it under, fertilizing it by letting it lie fallow, fixing the soil, getting it ready for seeding. How about you? How did you prepare your field?"

"No, it just grew that way naturally. We're very good farmers because we didn't have to do anything but sit and watch it grow."

"How will y'all control it, master it, guide it to your ends? That is, how will you get it to grow what you want? How will you increase your yields with useful plants you favor and minimize plants and pests you do not want?"

"We have no idea about that," the others confessed.

"Yet you call yourselves 'farmers'?"

In just the same way, a person who struggles in meditation is actually meditating -- if s/he learns to recognized the departing mind and keeps bringing it back (without criticizing it for having departed).

Then when she or he sits down to gain Peaceful Mind, it is accessible. And when insight is desired, or when a persistent problem (e.g., one of the Five Hindrances) arises, an antidote (e.g., one of the Five Factors of Absorption) is applied to regain Peaceful Mind. This, then, is indeed a "farmer."
  
The others are just watching plants grow. And when a problem arises, they are put off their farming to go in search of a solution. They have little access to anything beyond Peaceful Mind to imperturbable peace founded on wisdom. For there is a wisdom that has gone beyond, gone beyond beyond.

When that is reached one will exclaim, "Oh, what an awakening!"