There are so many words and phrases that are difficult to immediately understand in Buddhism. One is the word ‘mind’, which in Sanskrit is ‘chitta’ and in Tibetan ‘sems’. One of the immediate problems is that these two words don’t really even mean mind as we generally understand it. They mean something that could be better translated as ‘heart-mind’, and it is interesting that if you ask a Tibetan where their mind is they will touch the centre of their chest. There is also another problem which is even bigger. When we think of mind we are usually thinking of my mind - a mind that feels like ‘me’ and is full of thoughts and emotions. A mind that is seldom quiet and which has a default mode of wandering around in the past or future, usually caught up in some concern, unless it is absorbed in an activity that requires concentration. However, when the Dzogchen tradition speaks of mind it means something entirely different. Mind in this instance is the most fundamental thing in the universe. In fact it is so fundamental that the universe - something that has no edges - arises within it. That big? Yes, really that big. Because of this it is also called the base or the ground out of which the whole universe emerges - but this is not quite right because, in the same way a mirror is not seperate from the reflections that come and go over its surface, the mind, as the ground of being, is not seperate from the manifest universe. This difficult to understand indivisibility between mind and the universe - or we could say between mind and appearances - is also described as the indivisibility of emptiness (the ground) and clarity (appearances). This begins to sound all rather complicated but the point I want to make here is that we have two quite different understandings of this one word mind: my mind full of my thoughts and emotions which I entirely identify with, and the mind which is the ground of being out of which (or within which) everything I consider to be me arises. In Tibetan this distinction is described as ‘mind’ - ordinary dualistic mind, and the ‘nature of mind’ - the ground of being. And when we practice the ‘doing nothing’ type of meditation that these blogs continually speak of, what we are doing is unhooking from ordinary mind and resting in the nature of mind which experientially is a special kind of spacious awareness in which thought and emotions may be present but, when not followed or identified with, simply immediately dissolve of their own accord - they ‘self-liberate’.
OK, that will do for mind for the moment. Now the next one is Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s ‘mantra’, “Who cares, so what”. While this has no Sanskrit or Tibetan origin, it can still be a source of confusion unless properly understood. This is fact is much simpler. What he intends with this is that we let go of any ambition to experience the ‘nature of mind’ - we could say Big Mind - when we are practicing doing nothing meditation. What he doesn’t mean is that we are indifferent to ourselves and others. A kind of callus cut off-ness. Actually we have been cultivating this attitude from the beginning of our first mindfulness meditation. Noticing I have become caught up in thought, I name it thinking, and return to the breath. What I do not do is beat myself up for thinking again or congratulate myself for not thinking, (which is plainly delusional anyway!). In this way we gradually cultivate equanimity which means our practice (and our life) is less driven by the wanting and not wanting that can and does drive us crazy. And there is another purpose to the mantra which is entirely practical. Just as long as we are focusing on whether we are resting in the nature of mind or ordinary mind we are most definitely in ordinary mind. The only way this is going to happen is when we stop trying and trust that if we follow the instructions to a T it will do itself. ‘I’ can’t make this happen - so I sit and whatever happens, happens. “Who cares, so what”. It’s my job to sit but nothing more.
Lastly I do realise how very frustrating this all is. The deep habit of imagining something before we actually know it just doesn’t work in this instance. We normally ‘fake it until we make it’. All of us have an some kind of idea of what is being talked about here: the nature of mind, the big mind, the ground of being and the experience of just resting in non-dual awareness, the nature of the big mind. But on this occasion, the one thing we can guarantee is that what we’re imagining is wrong. It has to be because it is merely a thought and this ‘thing’ is infinitely bigger than any thought. So it demands we tolerate not knowing - which for many of us makes us feel vulnerable and this is why it’s not an easy path … but there is also an ease in “I really don’t know” and meaning it.
NW. 10 May 2024. Thanks to our sangha again - a source of continuous inspiration.
Such a helpful explanation of ordinary mind and nature of mind , as the sense of “my mind” seems to want to create an understanding, what would unlimited, unbounded , timeless awareness be perceived as - and attach itself to the concept . So I find this distinction you describe of wanting to know nature of mind , and with this path of “I” can’t make this happen , and “I” don’t know , perhaps this is as Philippa suggested to trust