flappy

What controls the mind ? Is it that third person that you experience in the dream state...that which watches, with unattachment, all your adventures. Like you are watching a movie. Who/what's watching that movie?
Maybe intellect is a lower state of awareness.

Mikey

I think we control our mind.

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RIP Gov

Nug_King

I agree with Mikey. Why does something have to control our mind? Our mind is the control. Although some would then argue, that the input to the mind controls it. I do not follow such a strict dirtiministic view however.

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NASA found out in the beginnings of the space program that pens would not work in space. SO NASA spent millions of dollars and a good year and a half developing a pen that does not need gravity to draw the ink down.
The Russians just brought pencils...

Silverleaf

Is the mind the brain?

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SageTree

I think that thoughts arise often without cause, we aren't in control of that valuve. What I feel we are in control of is what to do with those thoughts, and how much we pay attention to them based on their usefullness or correctness, in our own experience.

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verklingen

i think we control our mind, and our mind controls the brain.

some questions:

if i'm really "in control" of my brain, what separates that process from other things which are "controlled?" things such as physical laws which determine the rules of existence and the composition/distribution of matter/energy. . . are they in turn directed by some force similar to consciousness? and if not, does that mean my "control" is a mere illusion?

i think you can experience it either way, so i'm partial to the fun concept of consciousness being behind everything. did you ever notice how physicists/chemists are always discovering new ways to do things that are supposed to be impossible; discovering new states of matter/molecular structures with exotic and truly fantastic properties? i think it's because physics is no limitation to unlimited consciousness.

technologically, politically, socially, even emotionally and spiritually. . . i see us following a definite trend of revealing and subsequently repealing the limitations barring our progress toward whatever wonders we dream up. what reason is there for it to stop? we are so obviously part of a greater consciousness which writhes in every nook and cranny of the universe: what can't be accomplished with all existence at your side?

but maybe it's just an illusion

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“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

SageTree

Mind monkey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just to add some reading for further discussion or prompting there of.

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The Rev

The mind is just another experience, and it only controls other experiences to the degree that you identify with it, and are unaware of it (like a bad habit you've decided is an indispensible part of your "personality")



The Rev

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SageTree

Like placing labels on phenomena Rev?

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Mydriasis

I think we control parts of our mind. But to harness the sheer power behind it would be unweildy.

I like to believe the mind works in layers. There are so many different personalities in our mind and depending on the situation we must pick and choose the appropriete one. EX you don't pull out "Party mind" when your at a funeral. Nor do you pull out "funeral mind" while your having a night on the town with a beautiful girl.

I think the mind does a lot of subconscious work highly linked to the "astral body", but at the same time I believe we are governed by infinity. I'm just not so sure if I'm a passenger, or the driver.

Is it what I think that influences my behavior,
or is it what influences my behavior(chemicals) that makes up what I think?

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The Rev

As long as when we talk about said phenomena, we are aware of where the labels end and the phenomena begin, it's a helpful practice.



The Rev

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SageTree

I have been reading alot of emptiness lately Rev, trying to intellectually understand, what I can sense in my heart and logic.

I just wish to know more about to talk with people about it, which is obviously a paradox, but that element of mindfullness is essential, in trying to talk absurdities.

Just working on my skillfull means of helping.

I know what you are talking about though, Buddah says 'we can talk about it, but remember that we are only using cold words.'

Metta
Sage

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The Rev

The idea is not to escape the concepts, or the abstractions that we use to represent reality, any more than to escape from thinking. As goals that we could work toward (total mental silence, for example), they too are just abstractions. The idea, instead, is to simply allow thoughts, words, and their imperfect representation of reality to be, and simply strive to recognize them for what they are. Like Pema Chodron said, it's important to know thinking for the thinking it is, not to escape it because it is only a representation of actual experience. Because, as a representation, it's real too. When you get lost in thought, you are experiencing thought; the mistake is when you forget that it's just thinking, and not the voice of holy reality talking to you.

Once you strive to experience experiences as experiences (and you do this not by trying to experience, but by allowing the experience to simply be in your attention) then you will understand emptiness, because it is impossible to experience directly. There's really nothing there to experience. It's just like Indra's net of jewels, in which each jewel reflects all the others. The only experience is the reflections. The substance, the reality, is simply inferred.



The Rev

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SageTree

I'm with ya Rev. This is what I wished people knew more of when they go to sit and meditate. Many get so frusterated about 'not being able to stop the mind'. I try to explain it as seeing your thoughts as a parade, and as you do they move twords the perifrial regions, almost like you can see them walking by, as with reading a book in public. You got the focus to read, but that doesn't mean you don't stop seeing movement else where.

Getting to the phenomena experiencing phenomena level of consciousness is no doubt challanging, and I wish there were more accounts of what meditation is and what you is happening, relatively speaking, versus what people think aught to be happening. That is when the guilt of being a bad meditator comes in, of which shouldn't even be thought of as that way. I realize that in some traditation you are to talk with no one other than your teacher, so there is no competition and what not, but I feel the support group connections in 'this is the best way I can explain this' would do us all good.

Like you and I talking. I always like to hear you explain why what you are talking about doesn't exist, and then is more paradoxically fun when I reply to you relative, non-existant post!


Sage

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Bodhisattva

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Bodhisattva

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flappy

Yes, experiences set up thoughts. Let's view thoughts from the dream state. That which observes our adventures while we dream. It merely observes without emotion, not trying to control the outcome. A complete detachment. Non emotion, complete unattachment are alien to most minds. Maybe that which watches "the dance" without getting involved, is that which is above the mind. Call it spirit, soul, consciousness.

Geeno

the brain being the pinnacle of intelligence, controls itself enough to know when it shouldnt control itself and therefor has domain over itself. You are your mind and thats up in the brain so thats... whats up

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flappy

The mind can debate forever, always defending it's supremecy. We will never win any one opinion.
Cult-comedian giant Stephen Wright put it this way :
" I was thinking the other day that the mind is the greatest power in all the universe. Then I thought, ' what's telling me this? '

420smokeman

your not the mind!! your consciousness itself

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cause there aint nothing else to do and any where i go i know im you and i keep coming back forward through to myself