Question
Hello!
I'm not quite sure if you are the rigt person to ask you this question but maybe you are.
Some time ago i was reading the code of samurai and some of the lines were not quite clear to me for example these two:
"I have neither life nor death; I make A Um my Life and Death" Do you have any idea what A Um means?
The second line: "I have no sword; I make No Mind my Sword" I remember that i have already read somewhere about the notion of No Mind but can't recollect where i read it and what it meant, could you help me with these two questions?
Thank You!
Answer
Hi, Luke.
I have no idea about A Um, though I suspect it refers to something like No Mind, so we can talk about that.
No Mind is a Buddhist term. Like many such terms it can have an exotic feeling to it, something sort of super human. It is easy to make a challenging goal out of such a thing. But let's talk about what it really means to us in our ordinary life.
No Mind refers to that aspect of who and what we are that is, lets say, larger, more comprehensive, than our usual mind of learning patterns and abilities to protect ourselves, trying to understand our life through what we remember, fearing about our future, reacting to people and situations in old patterns that are usually painfully inaccurate, thinking about the difficulties of our past and trying to create a mental image of a path to a better life.
To get a sense of No Mind we can begin to see and feel the little mind that I just described a bit. This means simply letting oneself notice how we think and act without being afraid to see it. This is actually already the operation of No Mind, because the usual mind cannot be seen without a larger openness, a quiet presence that allows the inner turmoil to be revealed.
However, the nature of No Mind may not be clear at first. You may sit quietly and report that all you see is confusion or deadness. But you can also notice that there is an openness that allows this to be seen. So your focus changes from our usual preoccupation with the inner storm, to rather noticing it clearly in an open space that also reveals the hot air of the furnace and the movement of a tree branch outside the window laden down with heavy wet snow.
No Mind is simple. It takes care of itself. It is what we are and yet we focus on what we think we know and so are confused about it. No Mind does not depend at all on knowing. No need to ignore the details of our thinking. They usually ring out loud and clear and can be noticed sensitively, without having to change them or avoid them or protect against them or get rid of them, just as the sound of the fan or the movement of the warm air is revealed in a sensitive presence.
No matter what is revealed in presence, you can also ask or be curious about the nature of this simple presence, this No Mind. What you feel, hear, see, think, is not all there is. What else is it? This is a good question that wants to be awake and inquire, not through thinking but through entering deeply into this presence.
No need to get too hung up on the phrase No Mind. This can also be referred to as simple presence, as choiceless awareness. We are not talking about a warrior's tool but about a simple being in which the concern is to reveal what one actually is rather than to defend what one thinks one is.
Well, I hope that is a help. I don't know if it has anything to do with what you were asking about, but maybe it can be a start of a dialogue for us. You are welcome to write back and clarify what you were asking or ask about something I said that didn't make sense.
Best wishes,
Jay Cutts
