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When talking about the amazing restless of the mind Buddhists often call it the monkey mind. I found this gem from Ajahn Chah on using the mind to understand the mind: Let me give you an example. Suppose you have a pet monkey at home. It doesn’t sit still. It likes to jump around and grab hold of things. That’s how monkeys are. . . . → Read More: If we understood monkeys…. The mind is not separate from the body, the body is not lesser and the mind or spirit greater. They cohabit this nexus which we identify as ourselves. What Buddha would also point out is that identification of a self is in itself a mistake. There is no self there. There are only the co-dependent arising, abiding and disspating of bodies, minds people and things. . . . → Read More: Gentle realizations: Meditation on the body I am starting a series of what I am calling Gentle Realizations with this post. They are things that I come up with when I ask myself what I would like to tell my children and grandchildren concerning the important things in life and the spirit. Some of these are paradoxes at the heart of human being. And this one is one of . . . → Read More: Gentle realizations: The mind is used to investigate the mind In my earlier post on Buddhist psychology I noted that the feeling sense is part of the thought process, prior to understanding, integral to the mind formation as an atom is to a molecule. Now via Kurzweil I came upon new research review which supports the fact that our feelings of attraction and repulsion are basic parts of perception: New research from Carnegie . . . → Read More: Science catches up with Buddhism 
One of the kernels of Buddhist psychology is, in my limited understanding the idea of the cittas. The mind produces thoughts like bubbles on a stream. They arise, persist for a while and pass away. But the mental productions are more than just the thoughts that we identify as ego thoughts in Western psychology and metaphysics. They are also the physical, the world, matter, the universe. The whole of the arising and passing away of these mind things, citta, are what is called samsara, the stream of birth and death. . . . → Read More: The mind, citta and cetasikas The immortality projects of singularity science bring with it a serious question of what it will be to continue to exist as a self. I look at Eastern and Western concepts of self in this thought about transcendent projects. . . . → Read More: The persistence of the self |
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