Pacifying the Mind in the Midst of the Mundane World
When the Second Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, Huike, attained the Way, there is the following famous gong'an (encounter dialogue) about pacifying the mind:
Huike asked Bodhidharma: "Can I hear the seal of the Buddha's dharma?"
Bodhidharma replied: "The seal of the Buddhas' dharma is not obtained from another person."
Huike did not understand and pressed him: "My mind has no peace; I beg the Master to pacify it."
Bodhidharma said: "Bring your mind here, and I will pacify it."
Huike paused for a long time and answered: "I have sought the mind, but cannot find it."
Bodhidharma then said: "I have finished pacifying your mind."
Hearing this, Huike attained great enlightenment on the spot, and from then on received Bodhidharma's robe and bowl as successor.
According to Buddhism, the mind belongs to the category of "originally not a single thing"; it is because people have countless idle thoughts that the mind knows no peace. Once these boundless idle thoughts are cut off, the mind naturally settles. Only by understanding that these idle thoughts are not the essence of the mind can one suddenly awaken to the Way. But understanding this is no easy thing.
Even those who leave the world to study the Way find it hard to pacify the mind; for those living in the mundane world, it is harder still. Society is a great dye vat; once you step into it, it is hard to keep yourself untainted, and greed, anger, delusion, pride, and doubt well up in the heart at any moment.
Human beings are animals with the capacity for thought. Schopenhauer once said that humans differ from other species by only a little bit of consciousness, yet that little bit of consciousness brings us infinite suffering. The "mind" in ancient Chinese philosophy—the concept that Western philosophy and psychology often refer to as human thinking, thought, and consciousness.
If one understands this gong'an of Huike pacifying his mind and attaining enlightenment as meaning that the mind does not exist, that goes too far and is one-sided. A living person cannot be without thought and consciousness; to force oneself to cultivate to the point of having no thought or consciousness, to achieve a "mindless" state, is not studying the Way but going astray into demonic frenzy. But one can indeed sweep away the various idle thoughts in the mind.
What are idle thoughts? Any thought that does not arise from one's original mind is an idle thought. Any distracting thought produced under the influence of others, of material things, of public opinion, of prejudice, or of emotion is an idle thought. Children have the fewest idle thoughts and are the most innocent. In my humble view, most adults at some point in their lives return to this innocent state; it is a process of returning to simplicity. It is, after experiencing life, suddenly awakening to the fact that all distracting thoughts are illusory, then laying down every mental burden and returning to the original mind.
Generally speaking, the fewer mental burdens one carries, the more the mind can settle. Living in the mundane world, the less one craves wealth, sex, fame, and position, and the fewer prejudices one holds about the world and others, and the closer one approaches a state of "contending with no one and bearing grudges against no one," the more the mind settles.