Possessed

YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND: The Greatest Obstacle to Enlightenment

Question: Enlightenment - what is that?

I love the Buddha's simple definition of enlightenment as a state where there is "the end of suffering." There is nothing superhuman in that, is there? It only tells you what enlightenment is not: no suffering .

He uses a negative definition so that the mind cannot make it into something to believe in or into a superhuman accomplishment, a goal that is impossible for you to attain. Despite this precaution, many Buddhists still believe that enlightenment is for the FEW, not for them, at least not in this lifetime .

Question: What is the greatest obstacle to experiencing this reality?

Identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered "normal". This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering.

Thinking has become a disease. Disease happens when things get out of balance. For example, there is nothing wrong with cells dividing and multiplying in the body, but when this process continues in disregard of the total organism, cells proliferate and we have disease.

Note: The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It uses you.

This is the disease.

You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.

Question:I don't quite agree. It is true that I do a lot of aimless thinking, like most people, but I can still choose to use my mind to get and accomplish things, and I do that all the time.

Just because you can solve a crossword puzzle or build an atom bomb doesn't mean that you use your mind. Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get its teeth into problems. That's why it does crossword puzzles and builds atom bombs. You have no interest in either. Let me ask you this: can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? Have you found the "off" button?

You mean stop thinking altogether? No, I can't, except maybe for a moment or two.

Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know that you are its slave. It's almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself.

The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not this possessing entity - the thinker.

Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated . You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind.

You begin to awaken.