Mind the mind

 People come to me and they ask, “How to attain a peaceful mind?” I say to them, “There exists nothing like that: peaceful mind. Never heard of it.”

Mind is never peaceful; no-mind is peace. Mind itself can never be peaceful, silent. The very nature of the mind is to be tense, to be in confusion. Mind can never be clear, it cannot have clarity, because mind is by nature confusion, cloudiness. Clarity is possible without mind, peace is possible without mind; silence is possible without mind, so never try to attain a silent mind. If you do, from the very beginning you are moving in an impossible dimension.

Osho

 

I was driving with my wife who presented a thesis she had heard at work. I shot it to pieces in one sentence. Her remark, ‘you have such a penetrating mind!’ What an odd phrase, yet it resonated. The mind analyzes, classifies, dissects, cuts to pieces. It’s the heart that does the mending and makes the pieces whole again. Silence gets you to the heart-centered state of ‘no mind’ that Osho refers to, but so does understanding. The mind can grasp its own aggression and restlessness, and then it becomes still, entirely open to the blessed moment at hand.