[Cliff WMember]

“once you’re a stream-enterer can you switch to the Mahayana tradition.” IF indeed you are a stream -enterer why switch? I think this story is appropriate.

A HERMIT AND 3 THE MONKS…
Three monks heard about a hermit who lived alone on an island and was reputed to be very accomplished. They decided to pay him a visit and ask him about his practice. The hermit told them he had given himself to the recitation of the mantra “OM MANIE PODA BOOM”.
The monk listened as the hermit did his mantra and, with a slight smile and the best intention in the world, leaned over to him and whispered:
“I think you have got the pronunciation wrong. This mantra should be chanted this way…” and proceeded to demonstrate “OM MANI PADME HUM”. The hermit listened attentively and then watched as the 3 monks walked back to their boat to leave the island.

Ten minutes later when the boat was halfway across the lake the monks saw the Hermit running across the surface of the water towards them. Astounded, the monks saw the hermit then standing on the water next to their boat when he cried out to them “Dear Monks, could you tell me that mantra again I’m not sure if I got it right?” I think I may have forgotten what you told me and the hermit proceeded to chant the same mantra but with the monk’s intonation.
The monks looked at each other in amazement and said to the hermit “Please forgive us we are sure that whatever you are doing is perfectly OK.”

[Cliff WMember]

Dear Alex
I think things might be clearer for you if we made a distinction between moments of consciousness and mind moments. Moments of consciousness would be moments of knowing so it would be pretty difficult to have an “unconscious moment of consciousness”. Its hard to come up with a good definition of mind but one I like is by Dr. Dan Siegel from a post by David Korsunsky
First and foremost he explained that of all the psychologists and all the psychiatrists he has spoken with, none of them have a working definition of what the human mind is. According to Dr. Siegel, these professionals can certainly explain what the brain is, but the brain is not the mind, it is only one component of mind. So Dr. Siegel presented his definition for what the human mind is and then proceeded to explain this definition. According to Dr. Siegel, the mind can be defined as follows:

“The human mind is an embodied and relational process that regulates energy and information flow”

It’s embodied because there are several important components of mind that are contained within the body, namely the brain and the central nervous system. It is relational because a healthy mind is equally dependent on having healthy relationships with other people. We are social creatures by nature, and being social with others is part of the default programming in humans. Healthy relationships are thus a key to a healthy mind. For example, if we are in unhealthy relationships (whether it’s a marriage, a relationship with a family member or a relationship with a co-worker) this has an effect on how we feel and how we behave. Similarly, if we had a lesion or damage in the brain, this would also affect how we feel and how we behave, hence mind is equally dependent on both the embodied and relational.

As for dullness, it is related to non-perceiving moments of consciousness. The relation would be between the number of perceiving moments of consciousness vs nonpreciveing moments in a given time period. When the moments are overwhelmingly nonperceiving you are asleep.

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