Karma For Today's Traveler 14: Iceberg & Protomind

Managing Our Relationship With Our Iceberg For a while now,

We've been talking about rebirth and the possibility of developing ourselves.

But when we mention rebirth,

It is clearly not our normal self,

Whatever that is,

Which is reborn.

After all,

We usually can't remember our past lives.

It is something else,

A kind of subconscious knowledge or information imprint created from our past experience and especially our past intention.

This is mind.

My mind.

Your mind.

Not the busy local mind that remembers where I left my keys,

But the mind beneath that mind.

The mind that makes me,

Me.

If we imagine an iceberg,

I picture the mind that is reborn as the part beneath the surface,

And the mind that stores the details of this life as the part above that surface.

The subsurface part of each of us contains the past wisdom that we've accumulated through our countless,

And I do mean countless,

Lives.

It also contains a lot of confused data at cross purposes.

Yet even though this vast subsurface part of us may not be directly accessible or observable to our conscious mind,

It is still attached to us.

It houses not only our wisdom and treasure,

But also our foolishness and filth.

Our layer of ice.

The subsurface iceberg has two distinct parts.

The huge part that comes along as historic baggage from our past lives,

And the part closer to the surface that we have added in this present lifetime.

This part near the surface,

Our present lifetime contribution,

Is of great interest.

It is key.

This top layer is our interface with our deep,

Subsurface mass,

And all the good and bad that is there.

Communication between our waking consciousness and the deep ice must pass through this upper layer.

We are building this upper layer,

Even now,

Moment by moment.

We can control this layer.

We can make this layer,

This connection zone,

Work for us.

Our thoughts in the present can create a buffer or filter in this top layer interface zone.

For example,

A person who is locked into the five precepts has a powerful filter that will prevent any and all subconscious urges from arising that would lead to breaking a precept.

So while our final thoughts at the moment of death lead us into our next life or movie,

The billions of thoughts and intentions during the moments of our lives continually form and reform our connection to our subconscious iceberg.

And this connection moves with our iceberg through the chain of our lives.

This top layer is always in place,

Just beneath the waves,

As the next moment,

Or the next lifetime,

Begins.

Such is the tremendous journey of our minds.

We are all developing and gaining wisdom,

In our own way,

At our own pace.

But the development of even the slowest of us,

When viewed from the long,

Long,

Long time frame of our chain of lives,

Is not in question.

We are evolving.

You and me.

Our minds are on an amazing journey of evolution.

The evolving mind.

Imagine a single cell in our body,

Let's say a neuron.

It is taking in nutrients,

Expelling waste,

Moving and controlling chemicals,

Manufacturing molecules,

Reading RNA messages and converting them into physical action,

Interacting with other neurons,

Firing or not firing,

And in general,

Maintaining a vast array of physical,

Electrical and chemical conditions.

And a whole lot more.

Not bad for a single cell.

What is coordinating all of this intricate behaviour?

I say,

It is proto-mind.

A different,

Perhaps simpler kind of mind than you or I have now,

But a kind of mind nonetheless.

What I would like to discuss now is the idea of the evolving mind.

It is a feeling and concept that has come to me from many different sources and directions.

From personal experience,

My studies of the Buddhist teachings,

Conversations with my teachers and everything else that goes into making an idea.

This idea is not explicitly found in the Buddha's teaching,

But in my view,

It goes along with the doctrine very well.

Yet,

As the Buddha always admonished,

Use your own judgement and make up your own mind as to what is true and useful and beneficial.

My idea could be wrong.

The duty of the colony.

Okay,

Back to the neuron.

I say that it is a kind of proto-mind that is coordinating,

Overseeing and managing all of that intricate behaviour.

Definitely not a trivial task.

Is this proto-mind conscious?

I imagine that it is conscious of its activities and its duty.

It is a neuron.

A neuron has a job to do as part of a larger whole.

A neuron is part of a colony,

Part of a larger body.

It is not independent.

It has to function as a piece of a greater whole.

Eventually,

This neuron dies.

Maybe dying with the larger body,

Maybe before.

For the neuron,

It's death either way.

But rebirth is not just for us Homo sapiens.

It is the rule for all.

The proto-mind behind the neuron is then reborn as another cell in another body or colony.

Probably as another neuron,

After all,

It has the right qualifications.

So it lives another life,

Or hundred or thousand lives as a neuron,

In the body of a human,

A bear,

A worm,

Or a bird gathering experience.

And,

As always,

Death comes.

But from the experience in each life,

Incremental changes occur in the tiny iceberg of subconscious knowledge ever-growing beneath the surface.

This proto-mind traveller also gets reborn as a different kind of colony cell,

As its experience allows.

A hundred lifetimes as skin.

A hundred in the stomach.

A thousand in the heart.

One life,

A hair cell,

And the next,

A kidney cell.

Each life is gaining experience.

And over so many lifetimes in the various colony cell stations,

Our friend masters what needs to be known.

Its iceberg has grown,

And it is ready to leave the colony.

Our friend is ready to take control.

Independence.

In a glorious moment in our friend's story,

It is reborn as an independent single-celled organism.

Some simple bacteria,

Perhaps,

Independent and mobile.

A young spirit dependent only upon its own wits for its survival.

No ectoplasm to bring the food.

No friendly red blood cells bringing oxygen.

No one to regulate body temperature.

Hard work.

There is no colony for our friend to depend on.

Proto-mind has evolved to the simplest form of true mind.

Duty drops away and is replaced by a survival instinct,

Which is driven by a happiness or pain polarity.

Happiness attracts and pain repels.

Avoiding being eaten,

Enjoying eating.

Again,

Lifetimes come and go.

Avoiding pain and looking for happiness.

Experiencing different kinds of single-celled forms of increasing complexity.

And the iceberg grows.

Dream leader.

The next big milestone that occurs in our friend's evolution is the step from single to multi-celled organism.

Here,

The mind must be powerful enough to organize and manage a group of cells.

Our friend is back to the colony,

But this time as the mind organizing the colony.

And,

As when our friend was a member of the colony,

All the cells that make up his or her body are organized by proto-minds,

Each on their own evolutionary path.

Our friend's mind is no longer confined to a single cell,

But is sort of overlaid or distributed across the cells of the colony,

Interacting with the proto-minds.

The happiness slash pain polarity continues as the engine driving development.

New tricks are learned to avoid being eaten.

New tricks are learned to find food.

And now,

As a multi-celled life form,

Gender has become hardwired into the body.

Our friend is now a he or a she,

And for the physical form to reproduce,

These he's and she's must come together.

Lifetimes come and go.

Our friend passes through many,

Many different forms.

Jellyfish,

Flatworm,

Insects,

Vertebrates,

Slowly growing the iceberg.

When enough knowledge and capability has been amassed,

Our friend is ready for the most amazing opportunity thus far on his journey,

The chance to operate the human form,

The chance to get behind the wheel of intention and free will.

For the first time,

Our friend will have the power to amplify his or her intentions throughout the levels of creation using the amazing mind slash brain transducer,

Behind the wheel without a man.

At this point,

Our friend's heaven and hell are more or less empty.

Prior to mind using the human form,

The level of intention is so low that it does not have the power to create any substantial structures in the angelic or hellish realms.

Remember,

Those heavenly palaces and hellish furnaces are created by our own human intention.

These structures and forms are built up human lifetime after human lifetime by ourselves.

Now,

If you're conscious enough to be reading this book,

Then it is quite evident from a Buddhist standpoint that you've been around for countless lives as a human.

You've developed enough so that abstract metaphysics is of interest to you.

So,

Having been human countless times,

You and I have hells and heavens of our own creation.

Our friend though,

At this point,

Has a clean slate,

And so this next most important and creative phase of his journey begins.

With time and experience,

His field of knowledge will increase,

Until he can wisely exercise his intention and free will.

Advice for the new kid.

So what sort of advice can we give our friend as he begins the human adventure?

The same advice that is suitable for ourselves as well.

We should protect ourselves and our mental realms.

First,

Begin with the five precepts,

The foundation of human morality.

Once the harmlessness of the five precepts has become completely integrated and fixed into our worldview and behavior,

We will no longer be reborn lower than humanity.

Why?

Because we will no longer generate hellish tickets.

That doesn't mean that we never feel bad or get upset,

Because we do.

It means that we don't get so upset or so angry that we become,

Momentarily,

Less than human.

With the five precepts permanently locked as our baseline,

Our negative feelings and intentions remain within the human sphere,

And we can move beyond the five precepts to cultivate positive states of mind,

Which work to safeguard our mental equilibrium.