Are We the Unborn

By Michael Erlewine

This all started when I casually questioned to myself what does the phrase “Out of Our Mind” mean, not that I am. If the mind is all encompassing, how do we get out or beyond it. The short answer is we don’t.

And there is nothing behind or beyond what we call the “Beyond,” because beyond is beyond. There is nothing beyond the beyond. It’s just beyond. Leave it go at that. No one is serious about the phrase “out of our mind.” Yet this led to the following.

The pith dharma texts say that the “Mind itself is Unborn,” meaning that it never was born, never was not here and never will it cease to be, not ever. It is born-less. In the dharma texts, I have read that phrase over and over.

Well, I can’t just let that statement slip by and not question it. I hear what it is saying, and yet I do have some questions. The dharma prides itself in demanding we should question it. Thank you, I will.

The dharma texts say that the Mind is “unborn.” And that it ‘IS’ unborn, never was born. It always was just as it is. There is nothing behind or beyond it. So, it’s not going anywhere else other than where it is. It never was not and it never will be other than it is.

So, I can’t help but ask where do we who are born and apparently reborn fit in? Are we also unborn? Are we also unborn despite being reborn? Where is the caveat here?

And does it not matter who we are, personality-wise, as long as we are? Do we care who we were or are if we are right here now? Is that not enough?

Life, living, and this world, how marvelous it is and why don’t we, who have been born and reborn unlimited times by now, know more about what the Mind is? Why are we not more familiar with our own mind?

If the process of the Mind, which is wrapped up in this samsaric world as the teachings state it, is Unborn, why are we not also unborn? How did we miss that train? I can’t think of any reason that we should not be ‘unborn’ as well. Can you? Please explain it to me.

There are some big scene changes in this play of life, apparently especially the change from life to leaving the body at death.

I realize that perhaps none of us are in a position to comment on this, but we should at least try. Why not?

The last horizon to cross is no longer Mt. Everest or landing on the Moon. It’s what we don’t know and have never bothered to get to know unless we are some yogi in a cave. How about the enormous vast multitudes the rest of us make up?

This, not this. You and not me or me and not you. What a waste of time. We are all in the same boat caught in a rising tide of karma.

What the dharma seems to be saying is not that we are not eternal, but rather that there is no ‘Soul’ that is impervious to change from life to life. There is only change and no permanent states of mind. Nothing is permanent other than change itself. That is permanent.

So, what I say is: here we are, are we not? Our memory of previous personalities and names is faulty. We agree to forget what we find too hard to remember, perhaps because we can’t remember. Period, end of story.

If the process of consciousness is continual one way or another, like that great dharma movie “Groundhog Dog” so vividly points out, then if we are in for the fix, then we are in for the wash.

We have never and never had a permanent ‘Soul’ like we imagine because we don’t. However, there is no doubt we have what we have, call it the process of being that is most becoming, or whatever you like. And so, by the rule of inclusion, if we are in for a nickel then we are in for a dime. There is no caveat!

[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]

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As Bodhicitta is so precious,

May those without it now create it,

May those who have it not destroy it,

And may it ever grow and flourish.