American Buddhist NetTop of the mind cogno-linguistic layer explained in Buddhist terms
1. Humans are highly cogno-linguistic. We perceive reality largely by the language that we use to describe it. Most everyone believes and presumes that you have to be able to think something before you can say it. The more dominant-reality is that, above a certain base-level of perception and communication, you have to have the words, language, grammar, and comprehensive-concordance-syntax by which to say something before you can think it. Whosoever controls language – controls the mind – for better or for worse.
2. The world is ever-increasingly controlled and administered by people who genuinely believe whatever is necessary for the answer they need. Administrative agents of broadly-defined entrenched-financial-power have solved the criminal-law enigma of mens rea or guilty-mind by evolving or devolving (take your pick) into professional-schizophrenics who genuinely believe whatever they need to believe for the answer they need, and who communicate among themselves subconsciously by how they name things, and by how things are named for them. They suffer a cogno-linguistically-induced diminished-capacity that renders them largely-incapable of perceiving reality beyond labels.
3. Their core business-model or modus operandi is called a systematized-delusion:
“A “systematized delusion” is one based on a false premise, pursued by a logical process of reasoning to an insane conclusion ; there being one central delusion, around which other aberrations of the mind converge.” Taylor v. McClintock, 112 S.W. 405, 412, 87 Ark. 243. (West’s Judicial Words and Phrases (1914)).
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The top of the mind cogno-linguistic layer as described in paragraph one above, with paragraph two providing a good example, has another very important application. That application is spiritual or religious. Virtually all people have very stubborn language at the top of their mental and spiritual cognition. Examples of this are words such as God, Jesus, Buddha, science, politics; or texts such as the Bible, sutras, the Talmud, philosophy, Marxism, etc. From a Buddhist POV, the best thing you can do with this top cogno-linguistic category is leave it entirely open and never cling to any linguistic rendering of what it is. Rather than believe you know what God wants or means, just leave that top category open. Metaphorically, Tibetan Buddhist traditions call this the ‘sky mind’, our natural, unconditioned state of awareness — vast, clear, and open like the sky. No human can seriously claim they ‘hold’ the sky mind or know what God wants, but all humans can experience ‘the reigning principle of nature that inheres in both the universe and in us’, as Marcus Aurelius puts it. Buddhists also call the sky mind the Buddha Mind, the Tathagata, original enlightenment. Some philosophers today call it ‘mind at large’, the ‘thinking universe’ or the ‘conscious universe’. When we claim we know this ‘reigning principle of nature’ or ‘mind at large’ specifically and know verbally precisely what it wants, we prevent ourselves from actually experiencing it or being in respectful harmony with it. We delude ourselves. This is why the Buddha never answered questions about the top cogno-linguistic layer of our minds. Rather than follow words in a text that is purported to be the exact word of God, in Buddhism it is better to simply experience God or the conscious universe or the sky mind. If we remain open, humble and in awe before the sky mind and refrain from cogno-linguistic rigidity, we will free ourselves from a linguistic cage at the top of our minds. When we cling to specific cogno-linguistic stated ‘truths’ we block our minds from actually experiencing mind at large, which is all around us, God who is much bigger than we are, higher beings who do not communicate with words. No one needs a self, an identity, a rigid value or belief system. In fact, just having a self we ‘believe in’ leads to greed, anger, pride, ignorance and doubt. The freshest and most recent example of this is all three Abrahamic religions and many of their sects are at war with each other, led by false prophets and deluded leaders. Nirvana in Buddhism means the ‘going out’ or ‘extinction’ of delusion. Nirvana is enlightenment. When delusion ‘goes out’ or is ‘extinguished’ in our top cognitive categories, we are enlightened to the sky mind, we experience it. All good religions prepare us for enlightenment or experiencing the sky mind. A good Christian is better than a bad Buddhist. No human should claim within themself that they have full knowledge of God nor proclaim to others that they know what God wants of them. Leave the top category of your mind open so God, mind at large, or the sky mind can fill you with guidance. For normal mundane concerns, use you rational mind to determine what to do, supported by the best practical and moral parts of any religion, philosophy, science or art you know. ABN
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