THE WHOLE, COMPLETE MIND AND THE DEFECTIVE, FRAGMENTED MIND.
What is Mind? Some may consider it as brain. But according to Buddhism and many other spirituality, brain is part of the body, which we never detect even as body. Then what do we detect as Mind?
They are awareness, happiness, joy, thinking, memory, observation, attention, sorrow, sadness, etc., etc.
Some of the Mind attributes we detect are Mind States, some are Mind actions.
Disregarding all of the Mind States and taking only a few of the Mind actions (functions), Buddhism defines what is to be the Mind. So what is that?
Mind is a function or a set of actions which happens one after the other. It starts with Sensation -> then Cognition -> then Memory -> then Perception (Thinking).
How does this function or the actions are started off? When one pays 'Attention' to some 'object', one 'observes' the object and that observation makes one to 'Sense' (Sensation) it, and kicks of the function of the mind. But remember all the functions of the mind are one's intentional actions. Therefore, if one decides he can stop at any point in the function.
What is the outcome of the Mind function? One becomes 'Aware' of the object he perceived.
This is how the WHOLE, COMPLETE mind works. Then how a DEFECTIVE mind work?
In a defective mind one or many of the component of the Mind can be missing or not working. If the Memory is not working, then it is a defective Mind. The result is Fear, insecurity, doubt and sufferings instead of Awareness of the object.
For instance, if there is a failure in the 'Cognition' then what happens? Then the correct Memory will not come up to perceive the 'object'. So if one 'observes' a Tree and then what comes up as Memory is the 'Image of a Cat', then mind would try to perceive the 'Cat', which another part of the mind would not accept and would resist. This would create Fear, insecurity, doubt and sufferings instead of Awareness of the object.
This situation of Defective Mind can be defined as a Fragmentation of the Mind, not a 'whole' complete mind.
Hence, people having Fragmented Minds, without being able relate the 'observation' that with perception, would think that 'Thoughts' are cropping up on its own without a reason, drop by drop, sometimes having 'Gaps'.
When occasionally, the people who have Fragmented mind, may find that 'thoughts' are not taking place, even that is due to Mind function of thinking becoming absent, as same as Memory Gap or Cognition Gap, resulting in an Awareness of thoughtless state. This would bring peace to them, but it is not Samadi.
In Samadi, one intentionally stops the 'Function' one by one, still having the Attention on the remaining functions. Hence, the Samadi is called as a Skill.
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