Last time I wrote I spoke rather disparagingly about the small mind (what I have also here called ego or simply mind). I made the distinction between this small mind and the larger mind (which I choose to call consciousness).
I don't mean to denigrate the small mind, though. This aspect of our being has only our best interest at heart. All of that fear, that list-making and planning, that obsessive worrying, all of this is designed to make us feel more secure and safe. The small mind is operating on extremely limited information and believes quite thoroughly that it is doing not only the right thing but the only thing possible.
An example: I get into a conflict at work. The small mind perceives this as a threat. It is not very skilled at classifying the degree of threat; everything, from bad drivers to rattlesnakes, is THREAT, and that's all it knows. The sole strategic framework the small mind has available is elimination of the threat. It resorts to the deeply programmed response of "flight, fight, or freeze". So, my coworker is likely to get blasted with my anger, frozen out by my inability to deal with them in a humane and reasonable way, or scorched by my gossip about them. Obviously none of these can do any work toward healing and all are based in fear.
The point I am making here is not that the small mind is wrong to respond in this way. This pattern is very deeply grooved and even in our very genetic material, in the recesses of the reptilian brain. Indeed, I hope that I can accept that the mind is doing its very best to protect me. As my teacher Heather Martin likes to say, "The mind is actually very dear."
What I am doing in meditation is seeing this mind clearly and recognizing that there is a larger consciousness that is free of the reactivity that characterizes the mind. When I can train the mind to take a break from its habitual frenzied activity (very much as one might train a puppy), to relax and realize that every little thought is not a threat ("Sit. Stay".), then I can know some degree of the peace the Buddha promised is available to each and every one of us.
I don't mean to denigrate the small mind, though. This aspect of our being has only our best interest at heart. All of that fear, that list-making and planning, that obsessive worrying, all of this is designed to make us feel more secure and safe. The small mind is operating on extremely limited information and believes quite thoroughly that it is doing not only the right thing but the only thing possible.
An example: I get into a conflict at work. The small mind perceives this as a threat. It is not very skilled at classifying the degree of threat; everything, from bad drivers to rattlesnakes, is THREAT, and that's all it knows. The sole strategic framework the small mind has available is elimination of the threat. It resorts to the deeply programmed response of "flight, fight, or freeze". So, my coworker is likely to get blasted with my anger, frozen out by my inability to deal with them in a humane and reasonable way, or scorched by my gossip about them. Obviously none of these can do any work toward healing and all are based in fear.
The point I am making here is not that the small mind is wrong to respond in this way. This pattern is very deeply grooved and even in our very genetic material, in the recesses of the reptilian brain. Indeed, I hope that I can accept that the mind is doing its very best to protect me. As my teacher Heather Martin likes to say, "The mind is actually very dear."
What I am doing in meditation is seeing this mind clearly and recognizing that there is a larger consciousness that is free of the reactivity that characterizes the mind. When I can train the mind to take a break from its habitual frenzied activity (very much as one might train a puppy), to relax and realize that every little thought is not a threat ("Sit. Stay".), then I can know some degree of the peace the Buddha promised is available to each and every one of us.
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