Understanding the Mind and Human Existence : หน้า 104/164

Luang Por then draws the circle within the circle that follows, regarding languages… “As you can see, the language of the mind is far greater than any other language. And, because of this, the Buddha cannot explain all things: There are limitations in language and our ability to speak and write is limited. “The human being is made up of four elements: earth, water, fire, and wind. But they are all impure and expire in time. If we let them expire, we will die. We breathe, for example, because we must refuel the wind element. Because we are impure, we refuel continuously. But the mind is a knowing element that is invisible to the physical eyes. We can only see it by using our inner brightness. But what, we might ask, does the mind look like? “In the beginning of human life, the parents come together to bring about the human being’s existence. Now the human body has special qualifications: we can stand upright, we can lie down to sleep, and we can position ourselves in many directions. No other animal can do this. We are fortunate to be born human because it is very difficult to get here, into a human body. You should think of all of the animals in this world, and then realize that to be born human is not very common – in fact, it is pretty extraordinary. So we should never use our body to do bad things. We should use this body to only do good things because we have to return it. “Now the mind is the knowing element, as I have just said. The mind resides in the human body and always needs that body in which to reside. Otherwise, without the mind, the body would be dead. The mind is crystal clear when we are born, but it becomes dirty when it is mixed with greed, anger, and delusion. But, in reality, the mind is the master of the body and can be seen to sensitive eyes in meditation. “The mind is spherical-shaped about the size of a person’s eye socket, and is built layer within layer within layer. The outer layer is called perception and it is based on the five senses: seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and touching. When the mind receives information, it is that information in which we perceive something is happening. It is that form of knowing that comes when we superficially perceive information in a specific setting. The next layer as we go into the inner layer is memorization. This is like a video/CD/DVD player that can memorize everything that is going on around us. It records all sounds, visuals, and videos perfectly because the mind is refined as an element – not like the body. The third layer is the thinking layer, and the fourth layer is the knowing part of the mind in which we synthesize all of the information that we have previously known.