“Life is not full of problems, but rather full of events that become problems only when the mind is corrupt.”
Question:
“If soldiers coming to your village and murder half the people and that troubles you, then your mind is corrupt?”
Answer and Quote Interpretation:
In the mentioned quote, a corrupt mind means a mind overloaded with mental formations of any kind (thoughts, scenarios, mind movies, recalled and edited memories, etc.) and accompanied by excessive emotions.
To take a given example, when someone returns to his village and finds that half the village has been burned down, villagers have been killed or injured, the first reaction would mostly be shock, which will move further in different directions: some people may feel anger, hatred or desire for revenge, some may fall into depression or excessive anxiety and some may feel deep sadness but will still be able to stay in the “Present Moment” where thoughts and emotions are neither accumulated nor blocked. Instead, all of it passes by and appropriate action/ non-action can take a place.
Depending on how far the person has progressed in mastering the principles of non-attachment and letting go, the latter response will be easier or more difficult to implement. But even without having mastered this, everyone can experience the moments of awakened awareness from time to time. The best example is the direct experience of natural disasters when many people would awake to the “Presence” and would act out of it. It is this moment when the best faculties of mankind will show, manifested as compassion, generosity, selflessness or forgiveness. Unfortunately, for most, this will only last until the Ego catapults the person into self-preservation and expansion (i.e. when the Ego takes over, using conditioned strategies to achieve its goals or meet its own needs).
When the Ego is strong and the conditioning great, automatic (learned and unconscious) response pathways will be activated, causing the intellectual mind (thinking mind) to begin intensely analyzing, categorizing, evaluating, and judging. The resulting flood of thoughts, scenarios or mental movies will fill and darken the mind (i.e. corrupt the mind) leading to an increase in emotional and mental energies. (It is important to understand that emotions are a natural response to any, especially intense, events, as they are part of how the human system works). This further leads to an internal pressure, which is perceived by the human systems as a threat and will so trigger the automatic (conditional) mechanism in order to release excess energy. If conditioning is high, such energy release will be either in form of an explosion (release of accumulated emotional and mental energy to the external environment) or in form of an implosion (release to the internal environment). Mind dwelling in such a state will perceive every event as a problem*.
On the other side, when Ego is weakened, degree of conditioning lower and greater proportions of karma is already purified, the initial energy, caused by some intense event, will be accumulated to a lesser extent, stagnate for a shorter time, or will flow freely, releasing any excess through alternative energy pathways (in person who has attained higher levels of awakened consciousness). In such a state of mind, an event will still trigger emotions and thoughts, but they will not cloud the mind (the mind remains uncorrupted), nor will the event be perceived as a problem* (the event remains only a teachable life-obstacle).
* Problem is meant as a life-obstacle associated with suffering
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