Dichotomies: Talk

So we'll start with verses one and two, uh, the mind we are creating.

All experiences preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind.

Speaker act with a corrupted mind and suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ax.

All experiences preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind.

Speak or act with a peaceful mind and happiness follows like a never departing shadow.

This is kind of a famous, um, verse, one of the most well-known ones.

And that first line, all experiences preceded by mind, this is a really core Buddhist teachings, right? And the idea is there's not really an objective neutral reality that exists, you know, that like if I just settled my mind down enough, there's just one reality that we all experience the same way.

Everything we experience comes through our perceptions, our conditions, our memories, habits of mind.

So in, in a way, our minds are co-creating our experience, right? And so how we care for the mind profoundly shapes how we experience our lives.

And so caring for the mind isn't just about, right, like filling the mind with knowledge, but it's about how we work with the mind we already have, at least in this context.

Right? It says, "Speak with an unskillful or corrupted mind, and suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox." And I know that word corrupted.

[laughs] Sometimes these translations sound very intense.

Like, I don't know if I ever wake up and feel like my mind is corrupted today, but, um, yeah, maybe, maybe, uh, unskillful or, um, yeah, maybe that can land a little easier.

But that next line I love.

Does anyone relate to this feeling of suffering following them like a wagon behind an ox? Any s- forms of suffering that just seem to wherever you go, there's this thing that kind of comes with you.

So it's kind of an ancient m- metaphor obviously, but like, at least for me, pretty relatable, right? Like the same rumination, the same grasping, the same, for me, often like depression.

It feels so familiar.

It's like different but the same since I was a kid, right? And it arises again and again, and it arises often, you know, it's not all on me, but often because of how I'm engaging with my mind.

I can easily get pulled into that story of how messed up I am or everything is, right? It's has a stickiness to it.

So it's followed me- Because I followed it in a way.

And then it switches, right? And it says, "Speaker act with a peaceful mind, and happiness follows like a never departing shadow." And I think this is where the teaching becomes kind of empowering, right? The mind is not a fixed entity.

Uh, it's malleable, it's adaptive.

We now have so much neuroscience to kind of back this up, right? The idea of neuroplasticity, the idea that neuroscientists often say that neurons that fire together wire together, that the mind is adaptable.

It's, it's not fixed.

And so what we practice or what we cultivate strengthens.