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THE NEW MIND WISDOM – Candice ODenver

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The sources discuss the nature of the mind and its relationship to awareness, primarily through the concepts of “old mind” and “new mind”.

Old Mind vs. New Mind

• The “old mind” is characterized by holding onto thoughts, discriminating between positive and negative thoughts, and then accepting or rejecting them. This process leads to the accumulation of disturbance.
• The “new mind” is not separate from the “old mind,” but rather a shift in perspective where there is no distraction by thoughts. Thoughts continue to arise, but are not judged as positive or negative. There is a complete relaxation in relation to anything that appears.
• This shift is not a dissociation from thoughts, but rather an understanding that awareness is the root of everything, and is inseparable from thoughts.

Mind and Awareness

• The mind is not a physical thing located in the brain, but rather it is synonymous with awareness and is not limited or divided.
• The mind only seems to have a location because we have trained ourselves to believe it does.
• When we relax into the openness of infinite space, we realize that the mind has never been trapped anywhere.
• Awareness is the basic space of all appearances, including thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
• All thoughts are equal within the expanse of awareness. They are just the dynamic energy of awareness and are not inherently troublesome.
• It is when we take thoughts to be troublesome that they become so.
• Awareness is synonymous with wisdom, love, benefit, contentment, and ease.

Freedom and Perception

• Complete mental freedom does not mean stopping thoughts, but rather relaxing perception and not being distracted by thoughts.
• Distraction occurs when we get caught up in the elaboration of a thought, such as judging it or creating a story around it.
• Complete freedom comes from resting completely in all experiences without distraction by anything that appears.
• Relaxing perception opens us up to a space of wisdom beyond good and bad and allows for solutions to appear that are not trapped in conventional ways of thinking.

The Importance of Rest

• The path to this understanding involves resting without needing to make anything out of anything.
• Resting allows belief systems to be understood as points of view rather than fixed realities.
• Through rest, one can come to a complete understanding of concepts like karma, reincarnation, and original sin.
• Resting in the immediacy of the perception of any point of view allows it to vanish naturally.

Mind as a Collection of Points of View

• The mind is not a special entity that stores points of view, it is the all encompassing peer view of awareness that contains all points of view.
• All points of view are unpredictable, and not bound by time or cause-and-effect. They are spontaneous appearances of awareness.
• These points of view include feelings of unworthiness, impending doom, anxiety, and worthlessness. All these are just points of view that can be resolved through resting in complete perceptual openness.
• The mechanical regeneration of the mind, like a potter’s wheel continuing to turn after the pedal is released, can be observed, but there is no need to try to figure it out or describe it, just rest and allow things to be as they are.

In summary, the mind, in its “old” mode, is a process of judgment and accumulation of disturbance around thoughts, while the “new” mind is a relaxed state of awareness, where thoughts are simply appearances in the expanse of awareness. True freedom comes from relaxing perception and resting in the present moment, which allows for the inherent wisdom of awareness to be revealed.

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