All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a corrupted mind,
And suffering follows
As the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.
All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a peaceful mind,
And happiness follows
Like a never-departing shadow.
— Dhammapada (translated by Gil Fronsdal)
This old wisdom has never been more alive in my life nowadays. All experience is preceded by mind. Every experience is colored by how my mind perceives it, before it happens. Depending on my mind state, it could be an amazing or “meh” experience. Even the most mundane daily experience such as having a conversation with a friend could be so amazing or boring, depending on my mind state. The mind might have been thinking about some random words my coworker said the day before, which annoyed me.
In the Diamond Sutra, it ends with these four lines (translated into English):
All composed things are like a dream,
a phantom, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning,
That is how to meditate on them.
That is how to observe them.
The words of my coworker that annoyed me are examples of “all composed things”. They are objects of my mind that arise, exist for a while, and then disappear. Everything in life follows this pattern, even the seemingly permanent law or social norms. It doesn’t mean things don’t exist. However, although things look real, they are actually more like the things a magician conjure up. Thích Nhất Hạnh, the Vientnamese Zen master, said, “We can see and hear them clearly, but they are not really what they appear to be. A bubble is an image that we can use to describe appearances. Or if we rub our eyes vigorously and see many stars, we may think the stars are real, but they are not.”
The wisdom is to see the things in themselves, as they are, without letting the mind color them. Then I can see that I am only grasping the fleeting images, when I may think I have already grasped reality — that my coworker was wrong and I need to go correct him by ending this conversation with a friend quickly.
As I observe my mind and look deeply into things as they are, I am able to free myself from the illusion. The illusion that I am “at risk” as my coworker treated me unfairly with his words. The illusion that this conversation with a friend is boring. The illusion that there is something more important than what I am doing now — having a conversation with a friend.
