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Manopubbangama dhamma manosettha manomaya; manasa ce padutthena bhasat va karot va tato nam duddham anveti cakkam va vahato padam
The Twin or Dual verses are the two first verses in the 423 verse Dhammapada. The Dhammapada, in my opinion, ranks first in Buddhist scriptures.
"Mind precedes all mental states."
Buddharakkhita Thera translation
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought:it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts."
F Max Muller/Irving Babbitt translation
The scriptures go on to say that if a man speaks or acts with an evil thought; pain follows him. If a man acts or speaks with pure thought happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
I read the Dhammapada as a sophomore in college, and it changed my life. I even memorized the Max Muller translation, which was a mistake, because there are issues with the translation.
You are what you think. This is the basis of Buddhist Psychology of Being. Jack Kornfield is one such scholar. There is much material on you tube about the Buddhist Psychology of Being as applied to psychology. What a fascinating development. This is very reminiscent of cognitive therapy, teaching people that a snake is only a snake, nothing more.
A man came to a known monastery and asked head monk to be accepted as his disciple. Master looked at him and said - no, I can't. Go work at the kitchen. So man went.
He worked there for 6 years until time came, when old Master felt that his time approaches. So he decided to choose a replacement for him.
He announced that he will judge who to choose by a wisdom one will speak on a certain day.
One of his best disciples, afraid to be mocked or fail, wrote on a wall of the hall, where judgement was to be:
Mind is a mirror
Covered in dust
Wipe the dust
And mirror shines.
Next day morning, Master stepped into the hall and saw inscription. He announced that whoever wrote this, will be his replacement.
This was discussed in the kitchen. Man, who was sent there by the Master and never even spoke a word, who was considered a fool by monks, chuckled to that story. One of the monks said - What are you, dimwit, laughing at? What do you know?
Man said - As it is wrong. There is no mirror.
This somehow was relayed to the Master and that night, Master came to man's cell and asked him to leave the monastery. he said - You are absolutely right. There is no mirror. But those monks are fools, that is best they can accomplish. You, on the other hand, are not. I sent you here as there was nothing I could do for you, as my disciple. You had accomplished aura, when you came to see me. Go and be, or they might kill you here.
Brian, there is no mind. One that you are, is no mind. It does not think. It is in The Light of Intelligence. It thinks by not creating thoughts. And thinks is a poor choice of word but better is naught.
Your quotes are applicable to human mind, which is unsteady fluctuating consciousness.
In true One, consciousness is still. hence, there is no mind.
So this premise: You are what you think
is inherently wrong.YOU as in true you, are not what you think. No mirror.
Manopubbangama dhamma manosettha manomaya; manasa ce padutthena bhasat va karot va tato nam duddham anveti cakkam va vahato padam
The Twin or Dual verses are the two first verses in the 423 verse Dhammapada. The Dhammapada, in my opinion, ranks first in Buddhist scriptures.
"Mind precedes all mental states."
Buddharakkhita Thera translation
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought:it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts."
F Max Muller/Irving Babbitt translation
The scriptures go on to say that if a man speaks or acts with an evil thought; pain follows him. If a man acts or speaks with pure thought happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
I read the Dhammapada as a sophomore in college, and it changed my life. I even memorized the Max Muller translation, which was a mistake, because there are issues with the translation.
You are what you think. This is the basis of Buddhist Psychology of Being. Jack Kornfield is one such scholar. There is much material on you tube about the Buddhist Psychology of Being as applied to psychology. What a fascinating development. This is very reminiscent of cognitive therapy, teaching people that a snake is only a snake, nothing more.
Comments
You are certainly not merely what you think. But you indeed can only think of what you are, with thoughts, and thus can wrongly associate and define yourself thusly. There is no other process for thinking of what you are than by your thoughts. That is a human limitation in sentience. It could be that there are beings out there that can think about these things with more than just thoughts. It could be that such capabilities are awaiting our arrival in the future.
What we are is a river. What we are is a lit candle. We are not merely the splashing of the river, although that is the only way a river can communicate with itself. We are not merely the flickering of a flame, although that is the only way that a flame can sense itself. Indeed, a river can in no way be a river without its moving water. Indeed, a lit candle cannot be lit with an unchanging flame.
Also, pain follows fast and follows faster, after the nice and mean alike. And happiness springs forth in both the nice and mean, when they are content in their niceness or meanness. You will find that even those who force themselves to be persecuted to the point of pain, can faithfully believe that how they have acted and spoken is pure. You will find that there are those in pure ecstasy, who in some others' judgment have acted and spoken impurely and full of evil.
The Buddhist scripture is flawed, but its a nice poem anyway. Almost perfectly correct, but highly colored towards an ignorance bias. It needed to be more carefully thought-through and expanded to incorporate the more legitimate reality which is obvious upon careful contemplation of the evidence and research.
Comment? Everything you wrote is correct.
Mind precedes all mental states, ha....
'Spirit trumps all matter...and why, because there is no matter.' - Miss Hepburn
You are certainly not merely what you think. But you indeed can only think of what you are, with thoughts, and thus can wrongly associate and define yourself thusly. 1.There is no other process for thinking of what you are than by your thoughts. That is a human limitation in sentience. It could be that there are beings out there that can think about these things with more than just thoughts. It could be that such capabilities are awaiting our arrival in the future.
2. What we are is a river. What we are is a lit candle. We are not merely the splashing of the river, although that is the only way a river can communicate with itself. We are not merely the flickering of a flame, although that is the only way that a flame can sense itself. Indeed, a river can in no way be a river without its moving water. Indeed, a lit candle cannot be lit with an unchanging flame.
Also, pain follows fast and follows faster, after the nice and mean alike. And happiness springs forth in both the nice and mean, when they are content in their niceness or meanness. You will find that even those who force themselves to be persecuted to the point of pain, can faithfully believe that how they have acted and spoken is pure. You will find that there are those in pure ecstasy, who in some others' judgment have acted and spoken impurely and full of evil.
The Buddhist scripture is flawed, but its a nice poem anyway. Almost perfectly correct, but highly colored towards an ignorance bias. It needed to be more carefully thought-through and expanded to incorporate the more legitimate reality which is obvious upon careful contemplation of the evidence and research.
1. There is. You simply are not aware of it. You need to know what thinking actually is to understand it. Simple example is meditation. meditation is NO thinking. Still mind.
2. Actually, we are drops of water in the river. Or ocean. Or flames in bonfire, if you want to use fire as example. We are all individual yet one in Sameness.
And btw.
There are no Buddha texts. Shakyamuni never wrote a single canon or sutra.
There are buddhist texts but they are years and years past His living flame. Technically, they are same value as say Bible or NT.
You are certainly not merely what you think. But you indeed can only think of what you are, with thoughts, and thus can wrongly associate and define yourself thusly.
There is no other process for thinking of what you are than by your thoughts.
That is a human limitation in sentience.
Well, whenever I see 'only'...it gives me pause.
But, regardless...we are what we were before we learned a language to even think in.
Before the "I' even developed.
I happen to remember well being in a playpen on the kitchen floor before I knew any words at all...
I was just aware...Awareness looking out from behind eyes. Later as a child i had experiences of the same...that this ''Awareness or Consciousness'' or even some Higher Self in me was looking out from inside.
Thinking had nothing to do with it...in fact the intellect, thought and ego can never reveal
who you are.
Direct experience giving insight is where it's at! You were correct that senses can not bring you
any answers or direct experience of who you are, either....sound odd?
Well, one must go beyond thought, the mind and the senses.
Has a lot to do with Being still, Psalm 46...(esp in your thoughts) and know...see, this is very old wisdom.
It's a feedback loop. The brain is changeable, but its hard and takes a long time. The quickest way to readjust the brain is a reformat, write zero's and a reinstall. For humans, The quickest way seems to be negative reinforcement. This process, also, gets harder as we age.
you are what you think and I wanted to write a grant for studying the chemicals given off the body as we are thinking ... I know it as "Karma".
Also, today, we are beginning to see that the whole body is the brain. "brain" is a good way to talk about organs, but today, more than ever, we know to treat the whole body like it's the brain to help people with their minds. Its an ol' notion for sure, its just that we know it today. they talk about holistic and what not, but its true. Its not just a ride on the whoo whoo choo choo, its fact.
milli/fudies will fight it. Just like a child fights to eat candy for dinner. We don't have to listen if-en we don't want to. And what steps would be needed to help the child eat good food? Now picture helping an adult. Any given moment could seem inhuman to a person that can't see past this "now".
Last edited by Arach Angle; 10-01-2017 at 09:01 AM..
1. There is. You simply are not aware of it. You need to know what thinking actually is to understand it. Simple example is meditation. meditation is NO thinking. Still mind.
2. Actually, we are drops of water in the river. Or ocean. Or flames in bonfire, if you want to use fire as example. We are all individual yet one in Sameness.
1. There might be even more. Yet, not thinking is not thinking. Meditation isn't you. Just like your stomach by itself thinks by itself and your heart by itself thinks mostly for itself and neither is fully you. Your reptile brain also thinks for itself in its own way when you try to shut off your higher order consciousness. None of this would mean that you are thinking about your full and real self/identity with more than just thoughts. I would need better explanations and evidence from you in order to grant my suppositions as in agreement with yours.
2. A drop of water doesn't demonstrate what a "process-being" is, as much as a river or fire do. But a river cannot exist without a bank, and a flame cannot exist without its fuel. A drop of water is thought by most as representative of something which is only-material, rather than an identity-process. A drop can also exist as a drop, independent. Humans need food and water flow for thought, so we are not independent material. One drop is unique from other, although they are more similar than they are different, but this is true of everything similar.
It should. Anyone can be wrong. Analysis and Skepticism are important for any claims, even ones deemed not all that uncommon due to repetition.
Quote:
But, regardless...we are what we were before we learned a language to even think in.
Before the "I' even developed.
That is like saying that a Butterfly is what it is even while it is still in its egg about to burst forth as a caterpillar.
Quote:
I happen to remember well being in a playpen on the kitchen floor before I knew any words at all...
I was just aware...Awareness looking out from behind eyes. Later as a child i had experiences of the same...that this ''Awareness or Consciousness'' or even some Higher Self in me was looking out from inside.
I wouldn't doubt that images can be memorized before language develops. One could assume that spiders don't have language, and yet they can memorize images. You can certainly be aware without language, just not without thought. Memories are also restructured to fit our new biases every time we go to sleep (and even before then).
Quote:
Thinking had nothing to do with it...in fact the intellect, thought and ego can never reveal
who you are.
Well, whenever I see 'never'...it gives me pause.
Quote:
Direct experience giving insight is where it's at! You were correct that senses can not bring you
any answers or direct experience of who you are, either....sound odd?
Well, one must go beyond thought, the mind and the senses.
Human experience is human and fallible. Some Buddhists consider "thought" to be a sense. All the senses bring answers and experience, and thus more questions too.
I've already agreed that there could be more senses for identity than just human-thought (or vertebrate ones in general) I just don't see any real convincing evidence for them yet.
Quote:
Has a lot to do with Being still, Psalm 46...(esp in your thoughts) and know...see, this is very old wisdom.
One can freeze and choose to believe that they know anything that they choose to. At least that has been my experience. Not much value in something like that, other than for idea-based fraternity. The waters must be stirred in order to know what does lay hidden at the bottom.
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