Limitless-Mind-Orientation
Monday, December 5, 2011 at 6:56AM 
The other day, I heard Marianne Williamson say "Our resistance to Love is greater than our resistance to fear. Fear is what we know…. Limitation is what we know. Limitation is our comfort zone. It's an odd and bizarre comfort zone and place to live from." As soon as I heard it, there was a seamless connection, to my life experiences. Limited-Mind-Orientation.
Limited-Mind-Orientation is connected to confusion. In our confusion about things we can feel powerless over, what might end up with feelings of fear, guilt, shame, anger, depression or anxiety. Any of these feelings can be a powerful fuel for what some call “Negative ego,” or in some circles “Self-centeredness” and “Self-obsession.” We’re perpetual arsonist, setting ourselves on fire, physically, mentally and spiritually. There’s often a high degree of suffering involved. And despite the pain, suffering and disconnections, we can get so messed up emotionally or become so fearful, we can think or feel that we can survive the unmanageability and refuse to let go of what’s hurting us. I’ve read many times, a specific sentence in a book I’m fond of that goes, “There’s a certain comfort, in old familiar pain.”
What does limited-mind-orientation look like? Comically, when I looked at my past experiences, it wasn’t that hard. There have been times when I’ve said or felt things like, "I can't, you can't, It’s not fair, I've always been this way, they've always been like that, I'm not ready for _____, why would you do that for me, what are you gonna get out of this, you must want something back in return, I can't handle this, Do you have any idea what ____ did to me, I can only think of one thing right now," and pretty much any time we are engaging or entertaining our defects of character. It’s fear-based-living that gets has us showing up small in our life, instead of showing up big, settling for less that what we’re actually capable of.
On the other side of the coin, there’s “Limitless-Mind-Orientation, that’s connected to discovery, happiness and courage. Life is lived more as smile than a frown. My feeling is that this is what Shunryu Suzki Roshi meant by “Zen-mind Beginners-mind.” It comes from perhaps “Positive ego,” setting it aside altogether or what some might say is “God, Higher-Power or Love Centered.” Instead of perpetual arsonist to others and ourselves, we’re more like perpetual firemen, focusing on spiritual principles like, surrender (letting go of everything we think we know or making ourselves available to the process of healing) physically, mentally and spiritually. It’s Loving-Kindness and compassion-based living. In Zen when would maybe call this Bodhisattva-Mind or Compassionate-Minded living.
When I was a kid, I was described by some as a kamikaze. I’d pretty much try any dare-devil act, strike up conversations with other kids I never met before, because I was excited to see what was going to happen. It’s because anything could and I had a “Don’t know mind,” everything was discovery. As I got older, I was described as “Introverted.” I didn’t want to meet other people or make serious connections with people, predicting it was going to end up bad and the experience would as my kids sometimes say, “Suck.” The reason why it sucked is cause I thought I knew everything and considered myself a card carrying member of psychic-friends-network.
Since things are expected to go less than spectacular, we might give up and settle. At least that’s what I did, landing me square and chin deep in my addiction. Instead if living in self-caring and self-helping ways, we focus more on surviving and “Just getting by.” We end up on our knees, whether we realize it or not. We might have a dream, but we offer no effort or energy to make our dreams happen. Instead of showing up 100% to see if that’s where we’re supposed to be, we show up at 30 or 40% and complain that the world is against us, pretty much hating, loathing, despising, having anxiety and being depressed about almost everything and everybody. And without moving towards our dreams we naturally become emotionally, mentally and spiritually smaller, smaller and smaller. Things can get so bad that people can give up on life and just bump along until it’s over or end it intentionally, because they may feel so bad about themselves, circumstances or other reasons.
Limitless-Mind-Orientation is about being at home to our "True-Nature," in the present moment. To arrive at Home to ourselves, takes continuous work and effort on our part. I hear people all the time people say, “I prayed, but nothing happened.” Which leads me to ask, did you work and co-create with your Higher Power? What did that look like? I only ask, because of what I friend once said to me. The guy said, “Pray like everything depends on God or your Higher Power, but please work like everything depends on you.” When I was told that, it was more than timely and things improved, because I moved out of limited-mind-orientation.
One thing I’ve heard repeated many times is that “There’s no point in dealing with our past. There’s nothing we can do about it now, so leave that crap where it is.” But my experience is, it’s not true. Our past experiences always have a way of seeping into our present moment, whether we want them to or not. Some of our reactions seem almost hardwired. This becomes the value of going back and working with our past. With the help and support of others, working through some (it doesn’t have to be all of our past experiences), the meaning of the things that happened to us can change. And if that changes for us, it can change how we respond to things in the present. That activity and action can help not only ourselves but many others, directly and indirectly.
In our present moment, working on our relationship with spiritual principles, learning how to use them well, with the people, places and things we encounter, we can expand loving-kindness and compassion. Rather than having uphill battles, in our day-to-day lives, spiritual principles can improve our mental, emotional and spiritual balance by keeping us in discovery-mode or “Don’t know-minded.” Instead of repeating failure patterns, we make new and different mistakes. This in and of itself is like winning the super-bowl. It’s from that place, we can have a feeling of appreciation, gratitude, happiness, because we are learning so much and not being suffocated by situations and problems that never seem to have a real endpoint.
The nature of Zen… the unification of heart/mind… loving-kindness and compassion is to connect with limitless-mind-orientation. My teacher, Genjo Marinello Roshi sometimes calls this "Blue-sky Mind, It’s vast... open... free... unrestricited... unhindered... seamless... and your inherent True nature." Things may happen that may be hard and difficult, but those storms will not tear the sky, because limitless mind is so much bigger. We're already Home. All we have to do is open our heart and mind to It and live It, by "Surrendering," to that which is "Caring, Loving and Greater," than our limited-mind-Orientation.
May Your Life Go Well,
Jaye Seiho Morris 淸峰, Curator
digitalZENDO
Reader Comments (2)
This post was amazing. Thanks Seiho.
Neal, thank you so much. Its appreciated. PS, I did get your email and will be responding to you soon.
Namasté
~Seiho