○Consciousness [3]

     Negative thoughts generate negative emotions, which in turn manifest as stress and symptoms in the body and mind. While some individuals have naturally positive personalities and others have naturally negative personalities, both can experience spontaneous thoughts. Therefore, it is important to exist as consciousness and maintain a state free from captivity.

    If one is not conscious of consciousness, they become unconscious of the spontaneous thoughts that arise and are swayed by them. Both happy and painful memories, depending on the case, can be deeply ingrained and affect the individual. The person may not realize that they are being swayed by their thoughts. And the words and actions that come from there become their character. For example, people with many happy memories tend to have more positive words and actions, while people with many dark memories tend to have more negative thoughts. In other words, being unconscious of spontaneous thoughts means that memories from the past, which the person may have forgotten, are affecting their daily words and actions. This leads to people with good or bad characters, strong or weak desires, and proactive or passive attitudes.

    Everyone is suffering from something. Whether they have a job or not, whether they have money or not, whether they are famous or not, whether they have friends or not, they are suffering. This is because there is a self, "I". When you become no-mind and there are no thoughts, there is no "I", so suffering disappears. If you are always conscious of this, no-mind becomes a habit. When you are not conscious, thoughts dominate emotions and actions. The inner fork in the road between no-mind and thought determines whether life is peaceful or full of suffering.

    Race, gender, religion, ability, status, assets, and so on do not indicate human superiority or inferiority. These are superficial measures of larger or smaller, more or less, superior or inferior, famous or unknown, seen from the perspective of the self, "I". On the other hand, being as consciousness, there is only a stage of how much one can remain in no-mind without being swayed by the self, there is no superiority or inferiority. There are people who have impressive titles socially but are swayed by their self, and there are people who own nothing but continue to exist in no-mind.

    The degree to which one can consciously become no-mind in a day indicates their progress.