Mark Forstater's Blog

How we use our mind

April 23, 2009 at 3:34 pm Leave a comment

The way we use our mind is usually to gain some kind of advantage. That is, we try to work out how to increase the things we want to have and how best to avoid the things we don’t want to experience. In this way, most of our thinking is based on the discriminatory mind- the mind that decides what gives pleasure and what gives pain.

This kind of thinking is an extension of animal sensation, and is really not particularly human. Animals act this way through instinct. We have similar instincts but have added to that the thinking process as well. We use thinking to amplify these ‘instinctual’ desires. That is, the thinking is done for an end and not for itself. It is in a sense an extension of instinctual thinking, and is not really rational.

If we were to really evolve in our thinking, we would be doing something else. That something would be along the lines of the contradictory, non-instinctual Taoist idea- “When there is nothing I enjoy, then I am able to enjoy everything”. Think about that. What does it mean to enjoy nothing and yet enjoy everything. It is not nonsense.

Rather than think about how to achieve or heighten our sensations of pleasure- whether that pleasure involves money, fame, power, drugs, drink or sex-  we would be thinking of ways to go beyond or above the dualities. The dualities we are talking about here are rich-poor, sex-celibacy, power -weakness, high-depressed, fame- non- entity.

Entry filed under: Thoughts.