The brain is an important organ but it does not 'create' the
mind. Mind/Awareness is not a side effect of anything --
http://www.parama.com/html/process_enlightenment.html
So the body still feels
pain?
No! The body is oblivious to pain. The body has never felt
anything! The body is an appearance in Awareness. The contrast that
happens gives rise to I am-consciousness in relation to the body.
When any form of experiencing happens it is of this consciousness,
NOT the body.
But, if you cut a finger, it bleeds. If you eat too much, the
stomach bloats and feels uncomfortable
.
Consciousness is the animation of the body. You cut a finger and it
bleeds. This is a product of that animation. Your stomach bloats,
and this animation is also due to Consciousness. The body is, and
always has been, an inanimate object, animated by Consciousness!
The body is no different to a glove puppet without a hand in it.
Consciousness is the hand, as it were, that animates the body. The
body doesnt feel this animation.
Seeing, feeling, hearing, and smelling are attributed to the sense
organs. These organs dont have any experience whatsoever. They are
inanimate objects animated by consciousnessthe manifest expression
of You. Do you get that?
Yes, but the mind still has
thoughts about what you see and feel and experience?
No! The mind doesnt have thoughts. The mind doesnt experience
thoughts. The mind is thoughts, a whole parade of them. The mind is
a reflection of the animating principleYou. Only You, the
animating principle, can be said to have, and experience, thoughts.
The body does not cause its own animation, and cannot feel it. The
mind doesnt cause its own animation, and cannot think or
experience thoughts.
David Carse:
...Look, it's all so incredibly simple. There is no one here. This
is not a figure of speech. I mean there is truly no one here, no
person, no individual speaking to you. You look at me and think
there is a person here talking to you, trying to tell you
something. I assure you, there is not. Look at me. If there were
not Consciousness streaming through this body, what would be here?
What would this body be if Consciousness were not here? A corpse,
of course! Dead matter. There is nothing else here. There is only
the appearance of a body, and Consciousness which animates it. You,
along with the rest of the world, have assumed that there is a
discreet individual person here: that the Consciousness which is
the animating force here is an individual consciousness, unique to
this body and separate from the consciousness in other
bodies.
This is based on appearances: there appear to be separate bodies,
so the assumption is that there are separate consciousness-es. The
belief in this assumption blinds you to seeing What Is, and is also
the cause of your experience of this life as disquieting,
confusing, unhappy, and generally full of fear and suffering. But
it is not the case. There is in no way an individual sitting here
talking to you. This body is nothing, an appearance in the dream.
All there is is Consciousness, and it is Consciousness which is
streaming through this appearance.
There is nothing here that exists in and of itself. What we call
the human being is not an independent being, not an originating
mechanism, not a transmitter. It is a relay station, a pass-through
mechanism for Consciousness, the One Consciousness, All That Is.
That is what I am, talking to you. And it is the same One
Consciousness listening to this, looking back at me out of those
eyes you call your own. What I am when I say 'I Am' is exactly the
same as what you are when you say 'I Am.'....
Ajahn Brahm:
...I gave a simile to a monk the other night. Imagine an Emperor
who is wearing a long pair of trousers and a big tunic. He's got
shoes on his feet, a scarf around the bottom half of his head and a
hat on the top half of his head. You can't see him at all because
he's completely covered in five garments. It's the same with the
mind. It's completely covered with sight, sound, smell, taste and
touch. So people don't know it. They just know the garments. When
they see the Emperor, they just see the robes and the garments.
They don't know who lives inside them. And so it is no wonder
they're confused about what is life, what is mind, who is this
inside of here, were did I come from? Why? What am I supposed to be
doing with this life? When the five senses disappear, it's like
unclothing the Emperor and seeing what is actually in here, what's
actually running the show, who's listening to these words, who's
seeing, who's feeling life, who this is. When the five senses
disappear, you're coming close to the answer to those
questions.
What you're seeing in such deep meditation is that which we call
"mind," (in Pali it's called Citta). The Buddha used this beautiful
simile. When there is a full moon on a cloudy night, even though
it's a full moon, you can hardly see it. Sometimes when the clouds
are thin, you can see this hazy shape shining though. You know
there is something there. This is like the meditation just before
you've entered into these profound states. You know there is
something there, but you can't quite make it out. There's still
some "clothes" left. You're still thinking and doing, feeling the
body or hearing sounds. But there does come a time, and this is the
Buddha's simile, when the moon is released from the clouds and
there in the clear night sky you can see the beautiful full disc of
the moon shining brilliantly, and you know that's the moon. The
moon is there; the moon is real, and it's not just some sort of
side effect of the clouds. This is what happens in meditation when
you see the mind. You see clearly that the mind is not some side
effect of the brain. You see the mind, and you know the mind. The
Buddha said that the mind released is beautiful, is brilliant, is
radiant. So not only are these blissful experiences, they're
meaningful experiences as well.
How many people may have heard about rebirth but still don't really
believe it? How can rebirth happen? Certainly the body doesn't get
reborn. That's why when people ask me where do you go when you die,
"one of two places" I say "Fremantle or Karrakatta" that's where
the body goes! [3] But is that where the mind goes? Sometimes
people are so stupid in this world, they think the body is all
there is, that there is no mind. So when you get cremated or buried
that's it, that's done with, all has ended. The only way you can
argue with this view is by developing the meditation that the
Buddha achieved under the Bodhi tree. Then you can see the mind for
yourself in clear awareness - not in some hypnotic trance, not in
dullness - but in the clear awareness. This is knowing the
mind
Knowing the Mind.
When you know that mind, when you see it for yourself, one of the
results will be an insight that the mind is independent of this
body. Independence means that when this body breaks up and dies,
when it's cremated or when it's buried, or however it's destroyed
after death, it will not affect the mind. You know this because you
see the nature of the mind. That mind which you see will transcend
bodily death. The first thing which you will see for yourself, the
insight which is as clear as the nose on your face, is that there
is something more to life than this physical body that we take to
be me. Secondly you can recognise that that mind, essentially, is
no different than that process of consciousness which is in all
beings. Whether it's human beings or animals or even insects, of
any gender, age or race, you see that that which is in common to
all life is this mind, this consciousness, the source of
doing....
