Minding Buddha

A monk asked Baso, “What  is the Buddha?”
Baso answered, “Not mind, not Buddha.”

Case XXXIII, Mummonkan, Blythe translation.

I can understand one (1), one thing, one discrete complete thing separated from all the other things.  Thing is a wonderful word, its a actually a concept that we use as if it real.  In this seemingly  “Sisyphustic “ search for  scientific knowledge we endlessly discover larger and larger things   and smaller and smaller things in this universe.

Things which we thought were things we  later find are made up of smaller or bigger things and then we find that those things are made of smaller  or larger things. Air is a term people commonly use or mentally assume it as no thing generally in common human interaction air historically served as and today  serves as boundary between things. Me here , mountaine there, the air differenciates us.

Every “thing” is unique. that is what the word means.  It needs tostand by itself, when the name of the thing is written or spoken we the people involved in communication share the same meaning, everyone clearly understands what it means. That house, that tree, that dog, the fire  exit door.

Things do not have to be physically separated, I say hand and  you know what I mean but the hand is a part of the body, and not a separate thing.

We can also differentiate  degrees of things. Jane has more compassion than Dick, Jack is stronger than Jill.Â

The thing is., one thing is fine but where I have trouble is two of the same thing.  Every thing is unique, it not just that no two things are the same,  its also some things are part of other things and if they are a part of other things, where does thing s begin and stop.

People have hand, with fingers, apes have hands with fingers,  while ape  and people hands are different,  when you compare to a dog with paws,  the ape hands are people hands may count the same  while paws are contest as different.

It is our language, created by people  that gives us the ability to move through a mass of levels of different meanings, and use concepts—things which are concepts— to instantly, in conversation, move around in this “field of multi dimensions.”

None this stuff is really there, no dogs, no trees, no photons, no electrons, no molecules, theses are just concepts we move around in to interact with each other in this universe, or is it this life? or perhaps some dream?

Oh come on, all these things are real, I am born, I die,  I cut myself, if a car hits me it will hurt me, All this stuff has got to be real!!!

Still physics is very clear, while to humans its very real, in physics  it is very unclear what is real.

Its similar with a photograph. People  commonly believe a photograph is a  real record of something, Still even when they see a “reality image” they cannot agree on what they see, but they do agree its real.

Could you feel lonely in a crowd with a common purpose ?  ?   ?    ?     ?

Loose your footing on the way,  it may seem  confusing, but after that decision there will  be more.

Perhaps best to  find that things are not things except when you want them to be.