The Mind - 心
Hello Steemians,
today I want to write about the concept of 心 (Xin). If you search for this character in a dictionary it‘s normally translated as heart. But it‘s way more than just the heart.
In the Chinese philosophy 心 designates the place where your thoughts are generated. You have to understand this if you want to read Buddhist scriptures like the Heart Sutra which doesn‘t make any sense if you just refer to 心 as heart. If the mind is the place of your thoughts you could also translate the Heart Sutra as Mind Sutra (心經). This Buddhist text is one of the most important scriptures in Chinese Buddhism and I will explain it more in another blog post.
At a museum in the Chinese city Wuxi (無錫, 無 means there is no, 錫 means tin), close to Shanghai (上海,上 means above, or by, 海 means sea) I took a photo of the following Chinese proverb (成語):
You have to read old Chinese characters from right to left, so it says 境由心造 (境 means area around you, 由 origin, 心 (you already know the meaning :)), 造 to produce, create). The meaning is something like: Everything around you is created by the mind
I think it‘s interesting to contemplate about these words. You will find that the mind indeed is the creator of everything: Your stress, your sorrows...and your HAPPINESS :)
If you learn to control your mind you won‘t be a slave anymore to your thoughts or emotions and you will be finally under control of your life again.
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Thank You tezcatlipoka for this illuminating article, and inclusion of the characters in photographic as well as digital text.
Interesting, as just today I was discussing Theory of Mind, and it's role in our appreciation of art and music. Theories mesh well from neuroscience to eastern philosophy; it's affirming to hear your experience.
Yes there are many connections between neuroscience, psychology and eastern philosophy. I once took the coursera course "Buddhism and Modern Psychology" which exactly is about this subject. https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation
Chinese and Japanese are so interesting!
Wünsche dir einen schönen Start in die Woche ;)
Greets!
Vielen Dank, ebenfalls! Das stimmt..ist vor allem so fundamental verschieden von unserem westlichen Denken, dass es genau die richtige exotische Substanz hat, die man für die Motivation braucht, sich damit zu beschäftigen :D
You got a 1.95% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @tezcatlipoka!
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Thank you Lena!
Hello @tezcatlipoka! Really interesting - found it valuable. Will definitely share this to my 100+ followers.
Thank you Lena, that would be great, I just started here and as you know, the more followers you have the more motivated you will be to continue writing :)