Mind is a very comprehensive word. It refers to:
- creative processes,
- intuitive processes,
- emotional processes,
- and sorting out daily living processes.
In order to accomplish all of these, mind has three primary qualities: contracting or exacting, expanding and opening, and empty mind or mind in a state of peace.
Human beings are unique in that we have all three. Because we do, we can use them to accomplish tasks – great or mundane – and discover important things. Yet, modern society conditions people to a default of the contracting mind. This generates the feelings of fear, doubt, worry, anxiety, limit, powerlessness, and hopelessness, and reinforces a separated or isolated feeling. A contracted mind state is one of clamp-down control or thinking that we can control things. None of these lead to peace or harmonious shared well-being. By the same token, this contracting or exacting quality of mind is necessary to accomplish most daily tasks. Balance within oneself through accessing all qualities of mind is the key.
When we combine this quality with the open, celebratory, listening quality of the expanding mind, then we have creativity, new thought, an openness to change, and the capacity to listen. Interest is born from combining these two qualities, though is only possible because of the expansive quality of mind.
The empty state of mind does not refer to emptiness, but instead to a mind at rest, uncluttered, and free. It is the mind in a state of not needing to do anything and at peace within its own simple radiant space and ease.
We need all three;and human beings are unique among the life forms of this planet because we can utilize all three states of mind.
Downloadable podcast:Of three minds