Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds
I have not posted about Bob Marley’s Redemption Song for years.
I do listen to his music often, and with the unfortunate news about Jamaica and Hurricane Melissa, today is a good day to feature this song. Actually, given the state of so many things, every day is a good day to listen and dance to many of Bob Marley’s spirit-filled and lyrical messages.
There is redemption from craziness, but it is right here, not hereafter. He sings:
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds… Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?
Old pirates, yes, they rob I Sold I to the merchant ships Minutes after they took I From the bottomless pit But my hand was made strong By the hand of the Almighty We forward in this generation Triumphantly
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds Have no fear for atomic energy Cause none of them can stop the time How long shall they kill our prophets While we stand aside and look? Some say it’s just a part of it We’ve got to fulfill the Book
Won’t you help to sing These songs of freedom? Cause all I ever have Redemption songs Redemption songs Redemption songs
Like other religions, Buddhism describes a time of degeneration. The farther we are removed from original teachings—in Buddhism from the time of the Buddha—the worse the circumstances. Different religions deal with such worsening times with different scenarios for recovery, some of them dramatic and apocalyptic.
In Buddhism there is a less dramatic and more personal scheme for this period of degeneration. If all is a matter of mind, then training and taming the mind is the way.
Following is commentary on the conclusion of the Seven Points of Mind Training. It details the five kinds of degeneration and repeats the benefits of adversity: “The trainings are like fire, and adverse conditions are like firewood.”
The Excellent Conclusion
“This quintessential elixir of heart advice, which transforms the five kinds of rampant degeneration into the path of enlightenment, is a transmission from Serlingpa.”
In today’s world we need the elixir of mind training. We’re living in what’s referred to in dharma teachings as “a period of degeneration,” an era when sentient beings experience great adversity. There are five different kinds of degeneration, and each one affects our quality of life.
The degeneration of life span refers to the many beings whose lives are cut short because of violence and poor living conditions.
The degeneration of afflictive mental states refers to an increase in negative thoughts and emotions.
The degeneration of the quality of beings refers to the selfish inclination of beings and their willingness to harm others, as well as society’s devaluing of positive qualities such as honesty, consideration, and kindness.
The degeneration of views refers to the radical views that dominate people’s minds, which are not in harmony with the way things are.
The degeneration of time period refers to environmental pollution, natural disasters, and the rampant deterioration of the world, which greatly reduce the quality of life for all of the planet’s inhabitants.
But there’s good news. These degenerating times provide unlimited opportunities for us to apply the methods of mind training. In fact, the more adversity, the more mind training. The trainings are like fire, and adverse conditions are like firewood. The more firewood you pile on, the stronger the fire burns. That’s why this is the perfect teaching for right now. As adversity fuels our practice, we become better practitioners and better people.
There are many profound and effective methods for taming the mind within the dharma, but some of them take a long time to cultivate. The methods of mind training explained in this book, however, can bring immediate results when applied properly. They can be used by any practitioner to transform adverse conditions into the path of awakening. Whether you are old or young, experienced or inexperienced, have a highly evolved practice or are just beginning, it makes no difference. These methods work.
The demon in my dream
Had no name or number
Big and terrible
It was safe to sleep in my dream
Only when it slept at its night
In dreamed night
In my night of dream.
An unpredictable terror
Of size with no measure
Chasing me in daytime
Dreamed daytime
In my night of dream.
In the dim waking room
It lingers like fog
Though its power is gone.
Does it have a dream
Where I am the terror
And it hopes that I am asleep
To escape me
For a moment of peace?
Does it know hope or fear?
Do I close my eyes
In the frightened fog
To see?
“Because the mind has no beginning or end, you can’t use the mind to put an end to the mind. Because there’s no inside, outside, or in between, if you look for the mind, there’s no place to find it. If there’s no place to find it, then you can’t find it. Therefore, you should realize there is no mind at all. And because there is no mind at all, demon realms can’t affect you. And because you can’t be affected, you subdue all demons.” Hui-ching (578-650)
The phrase “how to change your mind” is, as are many English expressions, simple and complex:
“How to” as in which method.
“How to” as in which direction.
“Change your mind” as in making a different decision.
“Change your mind” as in transforming it.
Sorting through all that begins with an example.
There is a big colorful overstuffed chair. The fancy fabric is maybe striped or covered with big flowers or designs.
You look at it and think it is beautiful or ugly. You sit in it and think it is comfortable or uncomfortable.
Someone else looks at it and thinks it is beautiful or ugly. Sits in it and thinks it comfortable or uncomfortable.
You two discuss the chair, your thoughts and feelings about it. One may try and explain to the other why one view or experience is better or worse, right or wrong. You might talk about the construction and style relative to the current market for chairs or the historic evolution of chairs.
Yet there it just is. An object with four legs, to keep you sitting up from the floor. There it just is.
You might change your mind about the chair by engaging in the discussion about it, or by sitting in it a few more times.
Or you might realize that it is just that chair. About which your mind is fundamentally changed. Whether the chair is plain wood or elaborately upholstered. Whether you think about it or look at it or sit in it or not.
That is one way to change your mind.
MIND is the forerunner of all actions.
All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one speaks or acts with a corrupt mind, suffering follows,
As the wheel follows the hoof of an ox pulling a cart.
Mind is the forerunner of all actions.
All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one speaks or acts with a serene mind,
Happiness follows,
As surely as one’s shadow.
“He abused me, mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.”
Harboring such thoughts keeps hatred alive.
“He abused me, mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.”
Releasing such thoughts banishes hatred for all time.
From the Dhammapada, translated by Ananda Maitreya.
When you wake up
What is there to do
With your rumpled bed
Sheets twisted
Pillows tossed?
Do you make it immediately,
So orderly that it appears
Never to have been slept in?
Do you casually throw
The pieces in place?
Or do you leave it
As a recording
To be resumed and remixed
Yet again
The next night?
Bob Schwartz 