The Mind

All that we are is a result of what we have thought.” —Buddha

Ever had a bad day and felt the world was feeling down with you? Or experienced joy so great that good fortune greeted you around each corner? This section takes a closer look at the workings of the mind, through lenses like Yogacara (“Consciousness Only”) Buddhism, Western and Eastern philosophies, psychology, and our own personal reflections.

ABC – Am I Asian or Western?

The Mind  |  The Tribe   |   Bhikshu Jin Chuan  |   June 25, 2014, 1:57 pm

Growing up as an ABC (American-Born Chinese) was quite challenging because I often had to navigate two different worlds.  At school and with my American friends, I lived one existence.  Back home, with my family, another. I find that Asian and American value systems are often quite different, sometimes even in opposition. I find that [...]

How Do I Get Free?

The Mind  |  The University   |   Douglas Powers  |   June 17, 2014, 11:00 am

“The capacity of the mind is vast and far-reaching; like empty space, it has no boundaries. It is neither square nor round, large nor small. Nor is it blue, yellow, red, or white. It has no above or below, no long or short. Moreover, it has no anger or joy, right or wrong, good or [...]
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Requisites of a Bodhisattva

The Mind  |  The Scene   |   Lauren Bausch  |   March 31, 2013, 2:14 pm

Although these figures may use different words to express their ideals and look after separate communities, they all share one thing in common. They do not live for themselves. In the eight months that I have spent in India so far this year, I have encountered a number of modern day gurus. I stumbled across [...]

Dispatch from a Chan Session

The Mind   |   Jason Tseng  |   March 14, 2013, 10:00 pm

I went to the City of Ten Thousand Buddha in January and most of the residents were in the midst of the final week of a three-week Chan meditation retreat. I dropped by the DRBU building and only a few staff were there. The entire building and the surrounding campus were completely silent. It was a wonderfully quiet feeling. The atmosphere was alert, clear, and crisp, yet quiet and pleasant. The spirit of shared collected effort across the campus gave it a sense of not solitude, not loneliness.  I was trying to reflect on why that is. [...]

In a Land of Lotus Blossoms

The Mind   |   James Roberts  |   February 18, 2013, 1:14 pm

For the past several months, I’ve been part of a translation team that is working on the verses of the Lotus Sutra. I think of translating as a practice; it contains a lot of different opportunities to learn about the Buddha’s teachings and about myself at the same time. I’ve been finding that translating verses [...]

Mental Habits and the Criminal Justice System

The Mind  |  The Scene   |   Alexandra Gross  |   December 13, 2012, 5:00 pm

… we are born with particular mental tendencies … and over time, certain tendencies are repeatedly reinforced, creating ever-deeper tracks for our minds to follow. When the Buddha taught about the human mind, he put forth an idea that has been developed independently by psychologists and neuroscientists in more recent years: that we mainly interpret [...]

Higgs Boson

The Mind  |  The Scene   |   Lauren Bausch  |   November 28, 2012, 9:49 pm

On July 13th, UC Berkeley physicists, including Professors Beate Heinemann and Marjorie Shapiro - collaborators in the ATLAS experiment, explained the discovery of what could be the Higgs Boson. Their explanation of the decades long search for the Higgs Boson serves as an interesting comparison to Buddhist practice - not as a comparison of ultimate claims about the nature of reality, but a comparison of deep and prolonged investigations in subtle, invisible fields. This deep and prolonged investigation is at the heart of Buddhism as a personal practice, in contrast to Buddhism as a set of philosophical or religious assertions. [...]

Contemplating Sounds of Difference

The Mind   |   James Roberts  |   October 28, 2012, 8:43 pm

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? With the upcoming Guanyin session, many of us at CTTB will be spending the week contemplating the nature of sound. Just as the Buddha was pragmatically agnostic when questioned about a world beyond perception, the [...]