Heaven of No Thought: the realm of meditation where all mental activity is stopped. (Tanahashi, 291)Inner Chamber: literally, inside the house. Domain. This stands for oneself, or the inner meaning of the teaching. (Ibid., 296)
Mind Ground: Foundation of all things, sometimes called mind-nature or mind-field. Limitless mind which is identical with all things. (Ibid., 307)
Buddha nature: All sentient beings, all things, are buddha nature. (Ibid., 266)
| 6.0000 | Genesis of Mind |
|---|---|
| 6.0010 | By genesis we mean "the origin or coming into being." (Woolf) |
| 6.0020 | By mind we mean the particular theoretical construct we have of mind and/or the reality we are attempting to describe or define by the theoretical construct. |
| 6.0021 | We note that the literature, in the main, does not deal with genesis of mind per se. Thus, we mention in this section three general views. |
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| 6.1000 | The Mind-Dust Theory |
| 6.1100 | The mind comes into being as a result of mind particles, analogous to atomic particles, combining to form mind. |
| 6.1200 | C.f. 5.1100. |
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| 6.2000 | Emergent Mentalism |
| 6.2100 | Things have a degree of organization. |
| 6.2200 | The degree of organization is relative to the degree of complexity of the organization. |
| 6.2300 | The compositional parts of things are non-mental. |
| 6.2400 | When these parts attain a certain degree of complexity, they generate a particular quality. |
| 6.2500 | This particular quality is mind. |
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| 6.3000 | Systems Theory |
| 6.3100 | The mind is the organizational principle of the brain (cf. 0.1231). |
| 6.3200 | The mind and the brain come to be interdependent with each other contemporaneously. |
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| 6.4000 | Concluding Remarks |
| 6.4001 | We could have presented more theories about the genesis of mind. Any more than the three presented here would belabor the point. |
| 6.4002 | The point of this section is that the theory generating the theoretical construct generates the process by which mind comes into existence. We generate the theory. |
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| 6.4010 | We have seen that what we think the mind is nothing more than a theoretical construct. |
| 6.4011 | The mind as we conceive it, as well as that it is, exists only in our thought of it--in mind. |
| 6.4012 | Therefore, given our previous understanding of existence (cf. 4.0100), the mind has no true existence in this phenomenal realm. |
| 6.4013 | Therefore, the mind exists in the mind rather than on earth, using our paradigm set forth above. (C.f. 4.0300) |
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| 6.4020 | The question then arises: what is the source of the theoretical construct of mind, that is, a thought about mind? |
| 6.4021 | Let us reframe the question. Let us describe the mind as an ocean. An ocean gives rise to waves. As the ocean gives rise to waves, so too does the mind give rise to thoughts. The process of wave-making is the process of thought or thinking. What, then is the source of waves? |
| 6.4022 | Our knowledge of waves tells us that the total environment around the potential wave gives rise to the wave: the planet itself in its position relative to the moon and the attending gravitational pulls upon the water along with the atmosphere all allow for the wave itself to arise from the depths of the ocean while only appearing as such upon the surface and just below it. What sources the wave? The space within which the wave to be can be, may be, and is the source of the wave. |
| 6.4023 | We are the space within which our thought can be, may be, and is. Just as waves arise in the ocean, so too do thoughts arise in mind. Just as the environment around the wave gives rise to the wave, so too does the environment around thought give rise to thought. |
| 6.4024 | We are the source of the thoughts we have about mind. |
| 6.4025 | Thus, are we the source of our mind. |
| 6.4026 | In so far as we have historically defined mind as somehow and in some way being the end-all and beginning of all that we are, one way or another, we can readily state that what our life is is our mind. |
| 6.4027 | Our mind is our life. |
| 6.4028 | In so far as we source the thought of our mind, we source our life. |
| 6.4029 | We are the space, therefore, within which our life arises. |
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| 6.4100 | The question then arises: what is the source of the environment that sources the wave? Of course, we are actually asking, what is the source of us sourcing our thought of our mind? |
| 6.4110 | We readily must answer that the solar system, our galaxy, the universe itself, and all that which non-universe gives rise to our planet's environment which gives rise to waves. Equally so does our discussion run in terms of what sources us sourcing our thought. |
| 6.4111 | The Whole, that which is and is not, is the space within which our life arises, our thought of it, its content, and the like. |
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| 6.4200 | The genesis of mind, therefore, is our own self generating our thought of mind as either having or not having a genesis in the first place. Further discussion about who we are as a self is the subject matter of the next section. |
| 6.4201 | The genesis of mind we source from within our self-identity of one before one and two, of cause before cause and effect. |
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White Robed Monks of St. Benedict