Posted 2007-09-29 12:48:37
 Brucenkhamen, on 2007-09-29 09:27:23, said:
Grover, on 2007-09-29 02:05:37, said: Along these lines, in Buddhism the mind is given far greater emphasis than the spirit.
Thus, the question can be turned around... "Are you mindful?"
The Pali word we translate as mind is Citta, or jit or jitjai in Thai. I understand this is more accurately translated as heart-mind.
Def. from the buddhist dictionary:
http://www.budsas.or...dict/dic3_c.htm
citta: 'mind', 'consciousness', 'state of consciousness'
Posted 2007-09-29 13:17:59
Grover, on 2007-09-29 12:48:37, said: Brucenkhamen, on 2007-09-29 09:27:23, said: Grover, on 2007-09-29 02:05:37, said: Along these lines, in Buddhism the mind is given far greater emphasis than the spirit.
Thus, the question can be turned around... "Are you mindful?"
The Pali word we translate as mind is Citta, or jit or jitjai in Thai. I understand this is more accurately translated as heart-mind.
Def. from the buddhist dictionary:
http://www.budsas.or...dict/dic3_c.htm
citta: 'mind', 'consciousness', 'state of consciousness'
Perhaps the word nama would be more useful. Mental phenomena.
I'd say the word citta is used more as an alternative to cetasika, citta being a moment of stimulation or experience, cetasika being also an experience but an internally manufactured reactive experience produced on the back of the citta. (example: experience from an external source....we see a puppy whining.... cetasika.....we react and feel sorry for it....a real experience but not from outside). Of course in truth there is no inside and outside. Perhaps I am more abhidhamma oriented.
The emphasis on citta being instantaneous is useful. The word mind is thought of as a noun whereas perhaps it would be more useful to think of it as a verb. As usual we tend to reify or "thingify" things. Actually that's the whole point about this soul business. IMO it's a reification. We are trying to thingify the unthingifiable (human minds just tend to do that, it's been useful as a framework to our reasoning mechanisms) and we're setting ourselves up for delusion.
Edited by sleepyjohn, 2007-09-29 13:25:24.
Posted 2007-09-29 15:27:03
Grover, on 2007-09-29 05:48:37, said:
Here's a rather long article http://www.budsas.or...nd/01_chap1.htm I can't say I've read more than the first couple of paragraphs but at the beginning it discusses the way Citta is sometimes translated as heart.
The way I've always heard it explained is that Westerners generally think of the mind in terms of the brain, this is not the true meaning of the word as used in Asian cultures.
Posted 2007-09-29 15:29:45
sleepyjohn, on 2007-09-29 06:17:59, said: The word mind is thought of as a noun whereas perhaps it would be more useful to think of it as a verb. As usual we tend to reify or "thingify" things. Actually that's the whole point about this soul business. IMO it's a reification. We are trying to thingify the unthingifiable (human minds just tend to do that, it's been useful as a framework to our reasoning mechanisms) and we're setting ourselves up for delusion.
Nicely thingified!
Posted 2007-09-29 23:01:09
Brucenkhamen, on 2007-09-29 15:27:03, said: Grover, on 2007-09-29 05:48:37, said:
Here's a rather long article http://www.budsas.or...nd/01_chap1.htm I can't say I've read more than the first couple of paragraphs but at the beginning it discusses the way Citta is sometimes translated as heart.
here is a relevant quote from that article.
Quote ...the meaning of citta as given in PALI-ENGLISH DICTIONARY can be presented as the heart usually in psychological sense, and further explained as the center and focus of man's emotional nature as well as that intellectual element which inheres in and accompanies its manifestations[11]. Emotional, conative, and rational or mental as the three sides...
I recall the ancient Greeks made a sharp distinction between the emotional and rational sides of the human, I think in the west it has carried to modern times, we also distinguish between the heart and mind.
In Buddhism they are lumped together as the quote above shows.
Posted 2007-09-30 12:15:23
Sorry I really think that citta as a definition of mind, and certainly of spirit, is off base, and I beg to differ with the compilers of the Pali dictionary.
Here's why:
The whole point about citta is they are impermanent, and by human standards very impermanent.
Even if one is not using the "soul" type definition of spirit, but more the "enduring quality of a person" aspect, citta is way off I'd say.
The whole thing about citta is that they come and go all the time. They arise and fall away by the moment.
What's more citta don't belong to anybody, they are universal. Althoguh we think they are happening to a self they simply are happenings in a universe of other happenings 
So can I clarify further?
Citta and cetasika are realities, they arise and fall away.
When we use the term citta it is not a reality but a concept.
Conceptualising, although it is dealing with non-realities, can in itself however give rise to new realities which are citta. In other words we can have real experiences when thinking about things. When those citta occur more realities called cetasika automatically follow.
Edited by sleepyjohn, 2007-09-30 12:36:11.
Posted 2007-09-30 14:46:37
sleepyjohn, on 2007-09-30 05:15:23, said: Sorry I really think that citta as a definition of mind, and certainly of spirit, is off base, and I beg to differ with the compilers of the Pali dictionary.
Here's why:
The whole point about citta is they are impermanent, and by human standards very impermanent.
I'm not sure where you got the impression someone was saying mind is permanent.
Mind is impermanent as thoughts arise and pass away, heart is impermanent as feelings arise and pass away. So Citta is impermanent.
Concepts of soul or spirit might well be permanent but then they arise from a different world view.
Posted 2007-09-30 23:33:15
Lets just say that I'm spiritual enough to know that if you do the wrong things in life, at some point or another, you're gonna get burned! 
Posted 2007-10-01 01:20:17
Brucenkhamen, on 2007-09-30 14:46:37, said: sleepyjohn, on 2007-09-30 05:15:23, said: Sorry I really think that citta as a definition of mind, and certainly of spirit, is off base, and I beg to differ with the compilers of the Pali dictionary.
Here's why:
The whole point about citta is they are impermanent, and by human standards very impermanent.
I'm not sure where you got the impression someone was saying mind is permanent.
Mind is impermanent as thoughts arise and pass away, heart is impermanent as feelings arise and pass away. So Citta is impermanent.
Concepts of soul or spirit might well be permanent but then they arise from a different world view.
Yes I accept that Bruce as long as one defines mind heart or heart-mind as impermanent. Again we see Socrates' point.
I guess I think mind (and heart-mind soul or spirit) are simply poor definitions of citta. Isn't mind more a collection of mental factors and citta something specific?
(probably isn't worth pursuing)
Edited by sleepyjohn, 2007-10-01 01:23:14.
Posted 2007-10-02 02:57:12
Grover, on 2007-09-29 03:05:37, said: sabaijai, on 2007-09-29 05:42:49, said: I've not yet come across anything in the pitakas or commentaries extoling the spirit. Rather than separating the spiritual from the non-spiritual, the Buddhadhamma teaches kusala vs akusala, skilful vs unskilful.
Along these lines, in Buddhism the mind is given far greater emphasis than the spirit.
Thus, the question can be turned around... "Are you mindful?"
Precisely. 
Posted 2007-10-02 05:19:27
tc101, on 2007-09-26 09:41:28, said: The Dalai Lama said:
I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another--an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hel_l. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit--such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others.
I'm not really sure that mindfulness concerns itself with anything other than spirituality as defined by the Dalai Lama.
Posted 2007-10-02 23:08:39
sunrise07, on 2007-10-01 23:19:27, said: tc101, on 2007-09-26 09:41:28, said: The Dalai Lama said:
I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another--an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hel_l. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit--such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others.
I'm not really sure that mindfulness concerns itself with anything other than spirituality as defined by the Dalai Lama.
Not to slight the Dalai Lama, but one could argue that the same shopping list (patience, tolerance, etc) is also evoked by religions and their holy books.
Likewise metaphysical belief and philosophical reality can apply to ontologies that have nothing directly specific to do with religion (eg, Platonian philosophy). So to make a distinction between religion and spirituality based on attributes claimed by a wide variety of human conceptualisations, including secular humanism, doesn't really lead us to any particular conclusion about spirituality, does it?
In the end 'spiritual' just seems like another term for 'religious', or at least there is substantial overlap between the two concepts. I find both terms to be of little use in applying to one's own condition, though they may be useful in describing cultures or judging another person's outward behaviour.
With regard to Buddhism, the concept may have more relevance to Vajrayana Buddhism, which posits transmigration of soul or spirit. In Theravada and Zen Buddhism, to speak of spirituality begs the question, 'What is spirit?' (or 'Who are you?' in more Zennist terms ).
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