It would not be unfair to say that Buddhism and Zen are in fact practical on going research projects into the nature of mind.
Modern materialist, doctors and scientists see the mind as an emergent property of the brain. In essence the mind is the by product of a certain configuration of cells and chemicals associated with the organ of thought housed in your head. We see ourselves as an organic machine. We also tend to see the mind as an object, a single thing, a monolithic structure contained within itself. We may see it as intellect itself, or the power to reason, to do analysis. But essentially we see it as a unity.
From the beginning the Buddhist science of the mind was and is a system of understanding and observing the mind with the mind. The purpose of the Buddhist science and analysis of the mind is not to give a scientific definition of the mind but to develop a functional description that allows the practitioner to observe his own mental process's and use those observations to over come delusion.
In Buddhist philosophy the mind is not a product of biological processes, but something that has existed without beginning or end . Mind will be drawn into a physical shell, trapped in a body, time and again. This is what we call being trapped in Samara. The only way it can escape this infinite cycle of rebirth is by the training and experience we call practicing the Dharma. This is the path to liberation which the Buddha taught.
The fourteenth Zen patriarch Acharya Nagarjuna was perhaps the first Buddhist philosopher to write extensively on mind and body having two separate natures. He wrote that mind can only arise from mind, that the body has a different nature and can itself only arise from another physical process. He said that the truth of this can only be demonstrated by your own practice of the Dharma.
Buddhist mind science defines "mind" as Luminous" and "knowing". Another translation might be that which is clarity and cognizes. In either case Luminosity or clarity refers to the nature of mind while knowing refers to it function.
OK you say, my mind; it's mind is Luminous and knowing. Now - STOP Right There.
Dislodge your usual conceptual frame work of analysis, -- remove your underlying assumption of the mind as a monolitich object.
In Buddhist mind science:
"Consciousness" "awareness" and "knower " are synonymous: they are the broadest terms among those dealing with the mind. Any mind or mental factor is a consciousness, is an awareness, is a knower. These terms should be understood in an active sense because "Mind are momentary consciousness", which are active agents of knowing. In Buddhism mind is not conceived to be merely a general reservoir of information or just the brain mechanism. but to be individual moments of knowing, the continuum of which makes up our sense of knowing. "
The above Quote is from "Mind in Tibetan Buddhism" by Lati Rinbochay
Mind then in traditional Buddhism (not just Tibetan Buddhism) is an event of knowing. The period of each discreet event being the time it takes to have that single cognition. Thus we can be said to "generate" a mind such as in the phrase to generate a bodhi mind or bodhicitta.
Now you know what Dogen took from granted seven hundred years ago. That mind is a discreet event occurring in a series of discreet events. That the true nature of the mind occurs only in the present. That our reality is a product of a mind or conventional consciousness which arises from moment to moment usually generated by fluctuating causes and conditions. Our unenlightened consciousness is nothing more than false discrimination's and imaginings.
Now perhaps we can more easily understand Dogen's writings. When he states that "Thus the whole of existence , the whole universe is present in each moment of time. " "Real time is always the time present." Your entire "mind" your existence is a momentary event.
In Zen we seek our Buddha nature, which is the true nature of our mind. When Dogen says to allow the body and mind to drop off, he is saying to reach for that true mind unaffected by the fluctuations of the events around you. To drop off that deluded consciousness we discriminate with, make plans with and are tortured by from moment to moment.
That is the essence of the Buddhist science of the mind. It has been tested and tried for almost three thousand years. When you are mindful you are not meant to become self fixated or self obsessed but just observe. when you sit you observe the mind until it simply drops away.
"The way seeking mind arises in this moment. A way seeking moment arises in the mind."
Dogen.
Minding mind is may be just a state of mind but that is both everything and nothing..
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