Monday, August 17, 2015

Nama-Rupa (mind and body) (1)

The followings are important messages from Thay.

In the neuroscience, they speak of the background consciousness which is the very equivalent to our store consciousness. In Buddhism, we speak of the store consciousness as the part of consciousness that operates always day and night. Store (consciousness) is capable of receiving information, storing information, and process information and learn.
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Mind consciousness is much slower and more expensive also. Because our brain spends a lot of energy. While, our store (consciousness) spends much less energy. And mind consciousness is a kind of consciousness that can from time to time stop operating all together, while store (consciousness) continues always. In a case you are in a coma, mind consciousness may stop completely. Or when you enter a kind of concentration called "no-mind concentration", you also stop completely your mind. There in no thinking at all. 

And mind consciousness can operate jointly with the eye consciousness, with the ear consciousness, with the nose, tongue, body (consciousness). And the mind can operate alone. When you shut out all the windows of five senses, mind can work by its own. And when you practice deep concentration, you can ignore everything happening. You close all the five sense doors and you are deep in the object of meditation with the mind consciousness. And the mind consciousness can be in a state of concentration. Mind consciousness can be in a state of dispersion. And the mind consciousness can be in a state of psychosis.

But in the teaching of the Buddha, whether it is mind consciousness or store consciousness, it has to lean on the body. We can not manifest without the body. And the body also can not be on its own without consciousness. So, the body and mind, they inter-are. It's like the left and the right. If you think that the body can be without the mind, that is wrong. That is not a living body. That is a dead body. So, that is why mind must lean on the body to be mind, and body has to lean on mind in order to be body. Mind and body inter-are. And they manifest at the same time. You can not say that the body first and mind later. No. That is the process of mutual manifestation.

(to be continued)