Following on from the previous post: in his “Instructions to the Cooks”[mfn]I like this teaching’s analogies because in my apprentice days in the Foundation, after being a gardner, I became a cook…[/mfn] Dogen, the Japanese founder of the Soto Zen school, wrote that someone working to benefit others should maintain three minds: magnanimous mind (daishin), parental mind (roshin), and joyful mind (kishin).
Jisho Sara Siebert writes: “Dogen wrote this for a community of people. In a monastic community (or in a more communal society) it is more difficult to fall into the delusion that our practice is all about creating the perfect conditions in which we personally can feel happy. In community, someone else’s bright eyes, snoring sleep, or smelly clothes will prod our egos and remind us that no one of us is the only little frog croaking in this pond. … Finding creative ways to be in community with other humans, animals, plants, and minerals can be helpful as we continue to study [our] “mind.” Awakening is a collective endeavor.
What is Mind? In Zen, body, heart, mind, and the environment are not separate. The Chinese character Dogen used for “mind” actually includes both heart and mind; it’s heart–mind. Translators, however, typically drop the “heart.” It is important to be aware of the cultural values that led to this favoring of mind, and the implications they have for our lives and society. In our lives, do we prioritize head over heart and body, creating false separations?”[mfn]Faith in some indescribable feeling or fear of something else appearing real to the mind? Fiction, according to Mark Twain needs to be more believable than reality–as science can attest! [/mfn]
Below are the inspiring definitions of the 3minds for caring cOMmunal-individuals!
