Bilingualism as an analogy and factor for realizing the Buddha Mind?

Science has some interesting results on bilinguals, which are collectively known as the bilingual effect:

> When you learn a language, you permanently improve your memory— you’ll be able to memorize faster and easier. You’ll multitask better. Bilingual people are better at focusing on tasks and ignoring distractions. They’re more creative. They’re better problem solvers. Bilingual students beat monolinguals in standardized tests of English, math, and science.

> Bilinguals also forget labels more frequently than monolinguals, because they have twice as many words to search through. Bilinguals sometimes have a harder time naming simple objects—that’s a table, that’s a cat. While they usually find the words they’re looking for, they take longer to find them.

Anyone who speaks multiple languages knows there some quirky things that happen in your brain when you become bilingual.

1. You start by memorizing and translating every time you speak, but eventually one day something “clicks” and suddenly you can speak directly, no translation. This is almost a zen style realization as something permanently changes in your mind afterwards — one day you aren’t fluent, the next day you are.

2. Your personality can be drastically different in each language. In English you might be a stuffy bookworm and in Spanish you might be a tequila loving salsa dancer. Yet, your mind can easily switch between these personalities like changing CDs in a car! This begs a very zen question — who or what is changing the CDs? It also begs the question — how can one create a new “self” so easily just by learning a new language...

3. If someone asks you a question in English, you simply answer in English. If someone asks you a question in Spanish, you simply answer in Spanish. This is fluidly switching between “personal selves” instantly, fluidly, without thinking.

All of this is starting to give some clues about the nature of enlightenment...

When someone asks Joshu, “Which way does the sun move in the sky?” He answers easily, “It rises in the east and sets in the west.”

Yet when someone asks Joshu, “Does a Dog have Buddha Nature?” He answers easily, Mu!

1. How does Joshu switch between answering “East and West” (factual) and “Mu” (zen) in seconds?

2. How can a zen master like Joshu answer complicated koans in mere seconds, as if he was listing off facts from kindergarten?

3. What * languages or minds* he is switching between when he answers such questions?

Switching between English Mind and Spanish Mind.

Switching between Personal Mind and Buddha Mind.

If you are bilingual there’s already a trail of bread crumbs on the ground which leads all the way to Joshu’s Mu...

Any other bilinguals notice these quirky things in relation to zen?

Submitted May 07, 2019 at 08:40PM by chadpills http://bit.ly/2DVjr7R