Wednesday, September 23, 2009

keeping your head about you

A popular conception is that the mind is inside the body.

At least two judgments have been made here. One is that the mind and body are two separate "things." So we have the phenomenon of our being aware that we have (or are) a mind and a body. Now we are three: awareness, mind, and body. And now that we are aware of our awareness, we are four. And now that we are aware that we are aware of our awareness, we are five. There is no logical end to this splitting, though experientially we stop because we get a splitting headache, a metaphysical migraine, or we say pshaw! (folk do still say that don't they?), pshaw! the floor needs vacuuming.

The second judgment we have made is that our mind is nestled "in" the body, somewhere around the head usually. But as Douglas Harding has pointed out, if we observe more closely, we have no head. Everyone else does, but I (or you) do not. Where there should be a head is a wide open space, as wide and as open as the entire universe. For many, I suppose, that proves too scary. Also it is societally unacceptable. We are supposed to behave as if we are small units with little heads. No one expects more than that and we tend to go along with expectations.

Our mind is not inside our body. Our body is inside our mind.

And to take it even a step further, or really a few steps back before the splitting: What body? What mind?

1 comment:

  1. It all comes down to perception and how one perceives. Thinking or perceiving outside of the box or boundaries is the only way we progress as individuals and as a species. Unfortunately, most people are conditioned to be comfortable with the current conceptual box or boundaries. They don't wish to lose what they have or wish to gain more, and nonconformists are either ignored or punished for their dangerous ideas that show that there isn't a comfortable box of ideas and concepts that encapsulates the current human condition. Nonconformists (original thinkers) wish to see or change the world for the better, but the human world generally resists with an equal and opposite force out of fear of change.

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