It occurred to me recently that the concept of mind and body commonly referenced in the mainstream literature was not consistent with the principle of yin and yang. Human beings, first and foremost, are spiritual beings. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has said: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Yin and yang are polar opposites but they are always bound to one another, transforming into one another, and generating one another. What is not obvious is that in any yin-yang relationship there is always third force that holds the two opposing forces in check. Taken together, they represent the sublime relationship of the Holy Trinity. Some of the more well-known examples are Father-Son-Holy Spirit, Conscious-Subconscious-Super conscious, and Mind-Body-Spirit.
The Mind-Body concept at first appears seemingly to be opposite. We have all heard of popular debates between brain-versus-brawn, jocks-versus-geeks, and looks versus personalities. Perhaps the reason why the spirit goes unnoticed is because the body and the mind are just too obvious to ignore. The body is concrete. We get confirmation of its existence on all sensory levels. The mind is also hard to ignore with its constant talking inside our heads. It's easy to see why the spirit got passed over when it is so naturally unassuming.
It dawned on me one morning why the mind could NEVER be the "yang" in the yin-yang relationship that exists within all of us. It happened one morning when I was enjoying an exhilarating walk looking at trees and clouds while breathing in the fresh air. As usual my mind was drifting from one subject to another...always thinking...like a constant humming of an AC in the background. However on that day, there wasn't much for me worry about. So for the first time in my life, I suddenly noticed how heavenly it was to have a "true quiet moment". My mind actually had nothing to say. It was eerily quiet. Someone had finally turned off the AC and its familiar constant humming was suddenly no longer there. It was only at this moment that I realize that the culprit that has been suppressing my spirit was actually my own mind all along.
I understand now that the mind could never be the spiritual part of ourselves. The mind's job is to create our individual realities. Each of us lives within a certain reality, and it is the job of the mind to maintain that reality. Certain realities are common knowledge, such as physical laws. Things fall to the ground because of gravity. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west because the earth rotates from east to west.
Other realities are more individually specific. For example an Asian male immigrant who had to abandon his native country when he was only nine would have a different perspective (and reality) than a black female who was raised in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. Whatever the circumstances maybe, the mind takes those circumstances and create a certain reality for each of us. Realities are nothing more than personal beliefs. The more we believe in something (whether it be true or not) the more real it seems to us.
I picture the mind as a self-contained maze that holds inside its walls both the yin and yang elements. How freely yin flows into yang and vice versa depends on how complicated the maze is. The less twists and turns we have built into our mazes, the easier the flow of our yin and yang energies. Of course, the yin and yang energies here refer to the energy of the body and the spirit. I have personally felt much more alive when my mind is quiet. There is no longer a barricade to impede the flow of yin and yang. The body respond quicker to the energy fed by the spirit. The spirit is also much more intuitive from all the sensory information it receives from the body. Pain and stiffness also seem to be things of the past. Qi and blood stagnation disappears when the mind stops ruminating.
We can "liberate" ourselves by simplifying our minds. The less cluttered the mind the easier is the energy flow. The easier the flow, the more we are in touch with our spiritual selves...or rather our actual TRUE selves. We can kick start this spiritual liberation by first taking our most rigid beliefs and make them flexible. Once they are flexible, they can be altered...and eventually even be eradicated.
In truth, true living is simply BE. There isn't much thought needed to live in a spiritual manner. I look to my cat for this inspiration. Every motion he makes is deliberate without much hesitation. He is tense when there is an unusual noise, but he is also able to relax completely when the threat is no longer there. He can go from deep sleep state into a state of full alert in a flash. And conversely he can go back to sleep within seconds after the threat is gone.Without the act of thinking, there is no hesitation going from one impulse to the next. There is only unimpeded flow.
Most of the stress we experience in our daily lives are caused by our own doing. The realities that we have constructed for ourselves are so convoluted, so twisted, so full of what-ifs, so full of "his faults" and "her faults", that the mind never has a chance to rest. It constantly has to process all the complications and facts we feed it because that is its job...to take our circumstances and our beliefs and put them all together into a cohesive reality. And when the mind is constantly talking, no one notices the spirit stuck waiting in the corner.
Yin and yang are polar opposites but they are always bound to one another, transforming into one another, and generating one another. What is not obvious is that in any yin-yang relationship there is always third force that holds the two opposing forces in check. Taken together, they represent the sublime relationship of the Holy Trinity. Some of the more well-known examples are Father-Son-Holy Spirit, Conscious-Subconscious-Super conscious, and Mind-Body-Spirit.
The Mind-Body concept at first appears seemingly to be opposite. We have all heard of popular debates between brain-versus-brawn, jocks-versus-geeks, and looks versus personalities. Perhaps the reason why the spirit goes unnoticed is because the body and the mind are just too obvious to ignore. The body is concrete. We get confirmation of its existence on all sensory levels. The mind is also hard to ignore with its constant talking inside our heads. It's easy to see why the spirit got passed over when it is so naturally unassuming.
It dawned on me one morning why the mind could NEVER be the "yang" in the yin-yang relationship that exists within all of us. It happened one morning when I was enjoying an exhilarating walk looking at trees and clouds while breathing in the fresh air. As usual my mind was drifting from one subject to another...always thinking...like a constant humming of an AC in the background. However on that day, there wasn't much for me worry about. So for the first time in my life, I suddenly noticed how heavenly it was to have a "true quiet moment". My mind actually had nothing to say. It was eerily quiet. Someone had finally turned off the AC and its familiar constant humming was suddenly no longer there. It was only at this moment that I realize that the culprit that has been suppressing my spirit was actually my own mind all along.
I understand now that the mind could never be the spiritual part of ourselves. The mind's job is to create our individual realities. Each of us lives within a certain reality, and it is the job of the mind to maintain that reality. Certain realities are common knowledge, such as physical laws. Things fall to the ground because of gravity. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west because the earth rotates from east to west.
Other realities are more individually specific. For example an Asian male immigrant who had to abandon his native country when he was only nine would have a different perspective (and reality) than a black female who was raised in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. Whatever the circumstances maybe, the mind takes those circumstances and create a certain reality for each of us. Realities are nothing more than personal beliefs. The more we believe in something (whether it be true or not) the more real it seems to us.
I picture the mind as a self-contained maze that holds inside its walls both the yin and yang elements. How freely yin flows into yang and vice versa depends on how complicated the maze is. The less twists and turns we have built into our mazes, the easier the flow of our yin and yang energies. Of course, the yin and yang energies here refer to the energy of the body and the spirit. I have personally felt much more alive when my mind is quiet. There is no longer a barricade to impede the flow of yin and yang. The body respond quicker to the energy fed by the spirit. The spirit is also much more intuitive from all the sensory information it receives from the body. Pain and stiffness also seem to be things of the past. Qi and blood stagnation disappears when the mind stops ruminating.
We can "liberate" ourselves by simplifying our minds. The less cluttered the mind the easier is the energy flow. The easier the flow, the more we are in touch with our spiritual selves...or rather our actual TRUE selves. We can kick start this spiritual liberation by first taking our most rigid beliefs and make them flexible. Once they are flexible, they can be altered...and eventually even be eradicated.
In truth, true living is simply BE. There isn't much thought needed to live in a spiritual manner. I look to my cat for this inspiration. Every motion he makes is deliberate without much hesitation. He is tense when there is an unusual noise, but he is also able to relax completely when the threat is no longer there. He can go from deep sleep state into a state of full alert in a flash. And conversely he can go back to sleep within seconds after the threat is gone.Without the act of thinking, there is no hesitation going from one impulse to the next. There is only unimpeded flow.
Most of the stress we experience in our daily lives are caused by our own doing. The realities that we have constructed for ourselves are so convoluted, so twisted, so full of what-ifs, so full of "his faults" and "her faults", that the mind never has a chance to rest. It constantly has to process all the complications and facts we feed it because that is its job...to take our circumstances and our beliefs and put them all together into a cohesive reality. And when the mind is constantly talking, no one notices the spirit stuck waiting in the corner.
