NO MIND

No-Mind Is the Meeting Point Between Outside and Inside

A Zen student came to his master and said,

“In what state should I seek the Truth?”

The master replied, “There is no mind, so you cannot put it in any state; and there is no truth, so you cannot seek it.”

The student was puzzled, “If there is no mind and no truth why do these students gather around you to study?”

The master looked around and said, “I don’t see anyone.”

The student asked, “Then who are you teaching?”

“I don’t have a mouth, so how can I teach?”

The student said sadly, “I cannot be your student; I cannot understand.”

The master replied, “I don’t understand myself.”

You cannot stop the mind. Stopping requires doing. It’s a reaction to something. Since a reaction is also something, now you have one thing against another, which leads to conflict. You can’t take any action against the mind because it will always result in the mind fighting against itself. You can’t stop thinking. You can only be a witness of the mind-space. This witnessing comes from a place of spaceless no-mind.

What does spaceless mean? It means no space in it, which is no-thing-ness. The spaceless no-mind is a beautiful gift from existence. On one side of no-mind, there is the center of external spaceless existence, and on the other side is the center of internal spaceless existence. No-mind is the meeting point between outside and inside. It’s the middle point where awareness celebrates oneness.

Imagine no-mind to be like an open flute on which the divine plays the harmonious music of silence. It contains the freshness of existing in the moment, the now. This moment, which is found in the center of the empty flow of spacelessness, is the oneness. It’s the constant rebirth of awareness.

Action from consciousness in spaceless no-mind is total action, which produces completion. Total action begins and ends in the now, since the now is always complete in itself. Such action happens free of doer-ship—without a “doer.” Action from unconsciousness is incomplete action, which is more like an activity and leaves deep wounds in your being.

When you are unoccupied, you can’t be unconsciousness. When you act with consciousness, you are acting out of no-thing-ness, out of no preoccupations, no preconditions, no pre-conclusions. In the now, you aren’t acting: consciousness is the act. The whole is in the conscious act that flows from you, through you, to you. From activity to no-activity, from thought to no-thought, from mind to no-mind, from unconsciousness to consciousness—this is what it means to act from emptiness.

No stress is generated when you are engaged in an act that flows from the innermost core of the energy field in your being. However, the mind feels more effective dealing and coping with stress. It feels that through stress it’s actually doing something. There’s no actual stress in existence itself; it’s the mind-structures that create the habit of being stressed, believing stress to be the way to live.

Be the Master of Your Mind, Not a Slave

From early childhood until death, all of humanity lives with the mind as master. Mechanical thinking is a 24-hour process, without a second of rest. Since the body is linked to the mind, and the mind is never at rest, it stands to reason that the body can’t rest either. When the mind is filled with non-stop thoughts that are dis-eased, the body fills with illness. When the mind is filled with non-stop thoughts that are emotionally charged, the body soon shows health complications.

If, out of the blue, your mind can briefly switch into spaceless no-mind, it can change your life forever. Just one moment of real awareness can start you on the journey of self-discovery. Those first one or two moments are like a seed. A deep urge arises to extend these blissful moments into a minute, an hour, and ultimately the whole of your life.

No-mind doesn’t mean you can’t use your mind. You can switch your mind on and off whenever you need to take action, communicate, designate, or interact with others. Mind is meant to be a servant, not a master. When there’s no need to communicate on any level, you can switch the mind off and return to the spaceless blissful state of just being.