Of Two Minds: intuition and memory

The complex world in which we find ourselves will sometimes place us in a situation where we are "of two minds". Chocolate or vanilla, go or stay, buy or sell: ambivalence is not confined to trivial matters, and it is important to understand what's involved in choosing choices.

People's minds are as different as their faces, and as similar. When faced with a difficult decision two things are at work: intuition and memory. Intuition relies on subtle immediate perceptions while memory provides a complex network of preconceptions, experience, and primitive impulse. Intuition and memory always work in conjunction with one having primacy. "Letting one's heart overrule one's head" and "buyers remorse" are examples of the negative sway of the memory side of the equation: consciousness has been seduced by mental artifacts and lost the advise and consent of intuition.

Intuition could be likened to the sense of smell in that is is immediate and non-ideological. Intuition is an awareness not a thought. The utility of thought is unquestionable. But thought is the product of consciousness and consciousness is mechanical. Mechanical things are things of time. Intuition is the product of Awareness, and Awareness is transcendent. Awareness is atemporal.

From that Awareness which is "no mind" emerges the consciousness which is everyday mind. The practice of meditation is the cultivation of intuition, and it is intuition which determines the meanings of memory.






Choosing Choices



Cows choose grass

Dogs choose bones


People make all kinds of choices

Impossible!

The flow of existence is a flux of Inevitability. The fact of the living moment is an unfolding of trajectories (physical and moral inertia) that received all impetus in some mysterious natal urge, and all subsequent occurrence is a nexus of trajectory and resultant Inevitable which in turn has a trajectory. And so the Now ever unfolds as it must. It is by manipulating such trajectories (this and some luck) that we accomplish anything.

There are no degrees of impossible.

Gnomes of the Moor

It has recently come to my attention that people are being damaged, their lives perhaps ruined, by epiphanies occurring at meditation camps. This does not surprise me. There are those teaching meditation for whom enlightenment remains a fairytale. They know and can teach the mechanics of meditation but are ill-equipped to deal with it's fruits. They have a secular understanding of enlightenment and fail to recognize that the sweeping away of one's illusions without preparation must all but inevitably be devastating.

The smashing of illusions can happen in many ways. As a combat veteran it seems to me that what shows up as PTSD is often that one's illusions have been smashed to powder, and no amount therapy could reassemble that powder into a functioning illusion in a million years. All therapeutic attempts at the reconstruction of the former state just lead to further hopelessness and despair because the impossible can not be done: once an illusion has had it's cover blown its over for the little man behind the screen. No amount of encouragement or medication can put things back the way they were, and something radically real must enter into life if life is to ever find meaning again.

Most people leading normal lives are in no danger of enlightenment. They can go to a meditation retreat without fear or hesitation of any kind. They will learn what the teacher has to teach and do as the instructor instructs and they will get something out of it. But there are those (with the right push) who without knowing it are capable of a dramatic transformation. These are human beings in whom, for what ever reason, the necessary elements exist for the dropping of the veil; and once dropped the veil is irretrievably gone. The illusions which sustained them in their day to day lives have been beneficently smashed. What now?

Meditation practices that we have today come to us from ancient religious traditions which had (and have) an intact philosophical matrix. To pluck the practice of cultivation of awareness from it's ancient estuary without drinking the water is like unto courting the curse of the Buddha's ruby. You may get more than you bargained for. Enlightenment is like a loaded gun. It's not for those without some formal knowledge. Truth is not a pathless land, but to be turned out into the land of Truth without guide or map or compass can destroy the personality leaving just a raw nerve.

The Atlantic Ocean blows up mists that ingulf the British moors, and weeks go by where one will see neither sun nor stars. The land is all but featureless and in legends of old we find tales of gnomes offering to guide travelers across the moor, only to leave them to perish in that vast vagueness.

Separating meditation from the dangers of enlightenment can not be done, but the unenlightened will teach meditation.

Unwelcome Guests of the Mind

Our home is a "private residence". It is one place in the world where others may not intrude without express permission. Unwelcome guests can be a problem if we are not firm in our refusal to entertain them. The mind is not different.

Awareness is the ultimate nature of life and Awareness is the stuff of which mind is made. Mind is a construct and is decorated according to our culture, our tastes, and to the latent contents of the unconscious mind. All that considered, one's "mind" is a place where one might expect some degree of autonomy and privacy and (one hopes) some comfort. Unwelcome guests of the mind will make autonomy, privacy, and comfort quite impossible.

As with any unwelcome guest the first thing is: don't entertain them. If you can not "not entertain them" then your mind is not your own. An Awareness in thrall of mind is the world's beach-ball. A mind not lit within by Awareness is like a paper cup to the winds of fate.

If Awareness is not host then one's mind is not one's own, and unwelcome guests can take up residence as they will.

So far as I know, meditation is the only practice by which Awareness awakens as host within the mansion of the mind.