Neuroscience tells us that the subconscious controls 95 percent of our lives. This is like tapes that we continually play over and over again at somewhat of an unconscious level, of which many are necessary so we don't forget behaviors such as walking, for example, or driving our car. But others are not useful such as the bad behaviors we learned from our family and culture beginning as far back is when we were in our mother's womb. Hopefully, our mother was not under a lot of stress when she was carrying us otherwise we would become physically affected with a somewhat larger hindbrain in addition to being more muscular so that when we left the womb we might have a better chance to survive. This is not good. The cost is a smaller brain, one less intelligent. This person would be better suited for sports or war.
The other 5 percent of our brain is what Zen Buddhism is interested in. Call it our consciousness or mind, which alone has the power to see our true nature. The other 95 percent doesn't. The problem that the 5 percent faces, besides trying to see the true essence of reality, is dealing with the part of the 95 percent that is really screwed up in which the tapes keep playing the bad stuff again and again as in the example of depression or addictive behaviors. This, in my opinion, is why it is necessary to have monastic or quasi-monastic institutions. They help to make the negative tapes less operable and demanding. This is somewhat like bootcamp in the military, minus the hazing. This frees up the 5 percent to begin its difficult work of trying to see true nature, or the same, the pure Mind.
Monastic institutions offer no miracle cures. They are just a way for us to escape from our bad tapes so that we might better utilize the 5 percent and reach the goal of kensho or at the least appreciate its necessity; that Zen is not just about sitting which can become a ritual. There is more. It's the difficult part because the pure subject has to see the pure object which is the only way the consciousness of rebirth can be transcended. This process of the subject and object letting go in which various opinions, preconceptions, presuppositions, images and beliefs are much less, is the only way we can reach the summit where lies the luminous Mind-substance.
If the negative tapes are still rolling even when we are in a monastery or doing an intense retreat for three months, how can the 5 percent stop this? It is difficult to bring one's awareness to the unconscious side of ourselves since it is still quite powerful. It almost requires a teacher to make us aware that we are still playing these negative tapes too much; at the expense of the 5 percent where all of our faith must be put. Very few if any teachers have the time or are willing to pay so much attention to a person dominated by the bad tapes. It is a question of triage. First, helping those who have only a few negative tapes.
Excellent article!
Say are you a friend of Bruce Lipton, btw? :)
Bodhiratna
Posted by: Bodhiratna | October 28, 2015 at 11:34 AM