There’s a scene in The Last Samaurai where the Tom Cruise character is learning martial arts and getting pummeled. A young man says to him, “too many mind.” He gets it, calms his many emotions and thoughts, projections and expectations, and discovers a zone of equipoise from which he can enter the art of the martial arts.
In the Eastern traditions, mind refers to the comprehensive complex of thoughts, emotions, sensations, personal ego, perceptions, and such of a being. As such, mind basically means one’s full spectrum consciousness through which one lives. Thus, when one understands that mantra translates as “that which protects the mind,” or “to protect the mind,” it is this comprehensive definition of mind that mantra refers to.
We take up the word Mani in this meditation. It means Jewel.
Downloadable: Inter: the Jewel of Pure Being