In Zen we often see this term "No Mind" or "Original Mind". This is known as Mushin.
Was looking at a definition and went down a bit of a trail. Here's the trail for you to take. The following definitions are from The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Hinduism published by Shambhala.
Mushin:
Jap. colloquial, lit. "innocence"; in Zen an expression for detachment of mind, a state of complete naturalness and freedom from dualistic thinking and feeling. (Also -> Mosshoseki).
Mosshoseki:
Jap., lit, "leaving no trance"; as a flaying bird leaves no trace in the sjy and a swimming fish no trace the water, according to the Zen view, the person who has realized - > enlightenment should live leaving no trace. By this is meant that he should live with a complete naturalness to which no trace of his knowledge of having attained "enlightenment" clings.
This is the state of "second naturalness" (the "first naturalness" is the state of innocence of an infant, a state from which the infant soon falls); basically it is the discovery of the primordial naturalness, which is present even before the "first naturalness."
Attainment of the state of mosshoseki presupposes realization of profound enlightenment. Nevertheless, the one who still betrays traces of this enlightenment, or as it is said in Zen, who "stinks of enlightenment," has not yet entirely integrated the lightenment he has experienced into his everyday life. (Also -> goseki).
Goseki:
Jap., lit. "trace of enlightenment"; in Zen it is said that profound -> enlightenments leaves no traces behind. Of someone whose behavior suggests that he has experienced enlightenment, it is said that he shows "traces of enlightenment," or, in the drastic style of expression so typical of Zen, that he "stinks of enlightenment." Only after the "stink" has fully settled and a person lives what he has experienced of enlightenment in a completely natural way without being away of being "enlightened" or giving any outward signs of it--only then in Zen is the authenticity of his enlightenment acknowledged.
From the Zen Doctrine of No-Mind by D.T. Suzuki:
What is mu-shin (wu-hsin in Chinese)? What is meant by “no-mind-ness” or “no-thought-ness’7 It is difficult to find an English equivalent except the Unconscious, though even this must be used in a definitely limited sense. It is not the Unconscious in its usual psychological sense, nor in the sense given it by the analytical psychologists, who find it very much deeper than mere lack of consciousness, but probably in the sense of the “abysmal ground” of the mediaeval mystics, or in the sense of the Divine Will even before its utterance of the Word.
Mu-shin, or mu-nen, is primarily derived from muga, wu-wo, anatman, “non-ego”, “selflessness”, which is the principal conception of Buddhism, both Hinayana and Mahayana. With the Buddha this was no philosophical concept, it was his very experience, and whatever theory developed around it was a later intellectual framework to support the experience. When the intellectualization went further and deeper the doctrine of anatman assumed a more metaphysical aspect, and the doctrine of Sunyata developed. So far as the experience itself was concerned it was the same, but the doctrine of Sunyata has a more comprehensive field of application, and as a philosophy it goes deeper into the source of the experience. For the concept of Sunyata is now applied not only to the experience of egolessness, but to that of formlessness generally. The Prajnaparamita Sutras all emphatically deny the notion of a person, of a being, of a creator, of a substance, etc. Anatman and Sunyata are practically the same teaching. Along with Sunyata there comes Prajna, which now becomes one of the principal topics of the Sutras.
In Hui-neng’s T‘an-ching the Buddha-nature and self-nature are subjects of constant reference. They mean the same thing, and they are primarily by nature pure, empty, Sunya, non-dichotomic, and unconscious. This pure, unknown Unconscious moves, and Prajna is awakened, and with the awakening of Prajna there rises a world of dualities. But all these risings are not chronological, are not events in time, and all these concepts — Self-nature, Prajna, and a world of dualities and multiplicities — are just so many points of reference in order to make our intellectual comprehension easier and clearer. Self-nature, therefore, has no corresponding reality in space and time. The latter rise from self-nature.
Another point I have to make clearer in this connection is that Prajna is the name given to self-nature according to Hui-neng, or the Unconscious, as we call it, when it becomes conscious of itself, or rather to the act itself of becoming conscious. Prajna therefore points in two directions, to the Unconscious and to a world of consciousness which is now unfolded. The one is called the Prajna of non-discrimination and the other the Prajna of discrimination. When we are so deeply involved in the outgoing direction of consciousness and discrimination as to forget the other direction of Prajna pointing to the Unconscious, we have what is technically known as Prapanca, imagination. Or we may state this conversely: when imagination asserts itself, Prajna is hidden, and discrimination (vikalpa) has its own sway, and the pure, undefiled surface of the Unconscious or Self-nature is now dimmed. The advocates of Ummen or mushin want us to preserve Prajna from going astray in the direction of discrimination, and to have our eyes looking steadily in the other direction. To attain mushin means to recover, objectively speaking, the Prajna of non-discrimination. When this idea is developed in more detail we shall comprehend the significance of mushin in Zen thought.
Suzuki then explains about how our self-nature, is no-nature emptiness, and how Zen is about a transcendental wisdom.
In the traditional terminology of Buddhism, self- nature is Buddha-nature, that which makes up Buddha-hood; it is absolute Emptiness, Sunyata, it is absolute Suchness, Tathaga. May it be called Pure Being, the term used in Western philosophy? While it has nothing to do yet with a dualistic world of subject and object, I will for convenience’ sake call it Mind, with the capital initial letter, and also the Unconscious. As Buddhist phraseology is saturated with psychological terms, and as religion is principally concerned with the philosophy of life, these terms, Mind and the Unconscious, are here used as synonymous with Self-nature, but the utmost care is to be taken not to confuse them with those of empirical psychology; for we have not yet come to this; we are speaking of a transcendental world where no such shadows are yet traceable.
Who is digging through the sand in an attempt to discover mushin?
Who is clearing their tracks and burying mushin in the sand?
Submitted November 14, 2018 at 04:41AM by Dillon123 https://ift.tt/2PuazOz
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