This article presents the whole content of the public talk Cico gave on September 13 2021.
If the mind is quite busy, it might be good to stay silent for a while to empty the mind first. (Silent audio guides)
This journey, which is called meditation, is all about understanding and transforming oneself. To find out how to live life properly, peacefully, simply, joyfully, this requires a mind which is very serious, very eager to inquire, learn, observe, give full attention to all the issues we are going through, to really understand the relations in our life.
Without those relations, we don't exist. Our life is born of all kinds of relations, not only the relationship between people but also between the things, between me and things. To live a life without conflict is to understand and have a proper relationship with everything.
To understand the relation, one has to observe each moment in life. See the reaction, see the attachment, addiction, craving and desire. If there's a disorder in the relation, there is a disorder in life, in our beings, creating all kinds of problems, all kinds of mischiefs created by the self, the ego. So this journey is to seriously understand our relationship. And free all the relations from disorder. So life is sane, healthy, orderly.
In many moments of life, we need to trust somebody or something. No matter what you are doing, who you were talking to, living life in this world needs a lot of trust, so to speak.
But what is trust? “What is a trust” is a question we rarely examine. But without examining it, there's so much confusion about it and about life.
Sometimes we trust somebody that doesn't deserve the trust. We get cheated, feel betrayed. There are so many fraudulent things happening everywhere in the world.
If you trust wrongly, the mind keeps getting hurt. And the relationship between me and the world is shaken.
Who to trust? What does trust mean to me? Let’s understand the trust totally, not partially. If something is understood partially, that understanding is distorted by thoughts, theories or ideas.
To understand something totally is to observe, see it in our life. See these common things beneath the life details. Like fear. people fear many things, but to understand the fear is not to understand “many things”, but to understand fear. The common thing behind all the things people fear.
Similar to here. We understand trust not “trust what/whom” because no matter what/whom we trust, the problem lies in the “trust” itself.
To understand trust, we must look at ourselves, look at the relationships, the relations between ourselves and the world, to really pay attention to the subtle details, the quality of trust.
For many people, trust is often mistakenly associated with believing or not believing. I believe you so I trust you. I don't believe you, so I don't trust you. This seems to be the normal notion of the word “trust” to many people.
But here we need to set aside all the knowledge we have accumulated, all the things that have been told by others to look at what is trust in actuality.
If I believe somebody. Who am I? Who is somebody? What do I really believe? I or somebody or the self -- the me. Me here, me there, it is all about me. What is me? So that’s the real question behind “who am I”? “Who are you”? “Who is somebody”?
Me is a concept. It's a concept made up of many images about me: name, title, house, car, estate, money, fame, position, education, certificate -- many, many things that are built up around this concept -- me.
Look around this world, the me becomes so important, almost everybody is holding onto this concept. Me first, which creates such an extremely fragmented society, which is called individualism.
Me becomes the content of the consciousness, or simply speaking, me is the whole consciousness for most people on this planet. The self -- the ego -- the me is a bunch of images and their reactions to the images, all kinds of feelings: proud, self-important. self-conscious, esteem and all the rest of it.
That's why most people are living in thoughts because me is a product of thoughts. And when I say “I believe you”. What do I really believe? Do I really believe you as a person or do I believe you as some image or thoughts?
If there is no image in my mind about you, can I really believe you or not? Or, there's no belief or disbelief at all, when the mind has no image.
When the mind is living with me, the mind is me, me is the mind.
In the “me” world, what's the relation between you and me? Or do we really have a relationship at all?
I have an image about you and you have an image about me. The relation between you and me is actually the relationship between the images. We don't see each other at all, because the mind is always holding the images about others, creating a wall, a filter between you and me.
So when we are living thoughts, we have no relationship at all. We are both isolated by me, the thoughts, the concept. We don't see each other at all.
Then, to believe somebody is the desire to be certain, to be confirmed. The mind is seeking an image from which the mind wants certainty. Or else the mind feels uncertain, shaken, turbulent.
So this belief is driven by that desire from a mind which is trapped in thoughts -- the me. For such a mind, for such a life, when talking about trust, it is actually about the desire to be certain. to feel confirmed.
Where is the trust? Oh, this trust is only self-deception. I don't even see you. How can I trust you? I only have the image of you and I want to have another image of you so I can feel certain.
That's what is taking place all over the world, right? So there are all kinds of exhibitionism to show how trustworthy “I am” by creating an image to impress you to make you feel that I'm really trustworthy.
From politics to business, to education, all kinds of certificates are everywhere. They are all the evidence that the world which is trapped in “me” in the self is seeking certainty.
People don't see each other at all. I have to see you through your certificate, through your degree, through all kinds of measurement, but I don't see you at all.
To understand this trust, we have to go beyond the words to understand the dynamics of the mind, the desire, all kinds of self-centred activities.
To see the false of this trust, or actually, there's no trust at all, because the mind is only seeking an image to be certain – a typical self-deception.
Seeing the false, we have to look at what real trust is – not who trusts whom, but trust. If there's a relation “who trusts whom”, then all the image things pop up.
There's only trust, not who trusts whom, this trust means that the mind is empty, free from the past, so we can learn and observe at this moment at each moment. The mind doesn't hold bias or preconception or conclusion. The mind is fresh at each moment to learn and observe.
And there is no belief or disbelief because one is always observing and learning. And the mind stays unknown. Everything becomes very simple. The mind that is fresh to observe this moment neither believes nor disbelieves.
So the mind won't be cheated by an image and there's no attachment to images at all. In such observation at each moment, there is trust. Where there is no me, there is no belief or disbelief, there is trust; where there's me, there's fear and the fear drives me to believe or disbelieve. There's no trust at all. There's no relationship at all when “me” is there.
Someone asks what's the relationship between images, matter and spirit.
First, we have to pay attention to the language. English language, which is not the mother tongue of the speaker, but to the speaker's observation, this language is very rich, has lots of words but sometimes those words can bring about the unnecessary subtleties which can give us a lot of misunderstanding.
Thoughts are matter. The whole process of thinking is a material process. Images are actually thoughts or the carriers of thoughts like the words, the symbols are all images.
The memory stores all kinds of images, the image can be visual. it also can be sound or words. All of those things are material processes because they are all the consequences of the neural activities of the mind. It is not something mysterious.
But when the mind is trapped in the known, in the knowledge, the mind always wants to know, always wants to find out the knowledge about this, but this stuff can be only perceived, can't be known. That's why the mind feels “Oh, this is very mysterious”. And that's why the spirit has this meaning potentially.
To really understand how the mind works is to understand how the neurons work, which is beyond our consciousness, one has to learn, observe in one's life to perceive it.
To get this total picture of the mind, of course, is beyond words and beyond any description. That description is not the described.
The only thing we can do is to empty the known – not to be ignorant, but just empty the mind, so the knowledge can stay in the right place.
When we really stay unknown, the mind can then possibly come upon the true spirit, which is always in a field of the unknown, beyond consciousness.
When life is functioning in that dimension (not necessarily cut off from the old dimension), one can really find out how to live life properly, how to find the harmonious peace between this new dimension and the old dimension.
But if the mind sticks to the known, the mind is trapped in this material process. And everything becomes superficial, as it is taking place now all over the world.
To live a life full of trust is to empty the mind, empty the known, empty the consciousness.
The mind is always fresh to learn to observe at each moment. And no one can really hurt this mind, because “me” is totally absent.
And only then, there's trust, there is a real relationship. And there's real certainty, not the self is seeking but the real certainty when there is no seeking when the mind really understands this deeply.
When the mind stays at this moment, no image to attach to, the mind is fresh, is observing, is learning. There is no belief or disbelief, then there’s real trust. Not who trusts whom, just trust.
The mind is clear, alert and sane. And everything is simple. Life is beautiful in a simple way, also simple in a beautiful way. When the me is totally absent, there is real trust. And this world, which is me, would be ultimately transformed.