Practice enables us to become aware of the causes of our suffering. When we start sitting we are very aware of thoughts and emotions, and in due course can see this as the manifestation of karmic mind, our personal karmic mind, which has its own way of suffering. It could be anxiety, dissociation, agitation, boredom, fear, it could be many many things.
It is completely understandable that we might want our practice to eradicate this noise, to void the mind. But voiding the mind would be a small practice. It is not our practice; it lacks dignity. It is a miser’s practice.
The ideogram in Chinese for delusion looks like it has little legs. The idea is that delusion is the little legs of our karmic mind. Taking us this way, this way, this way, and this way, ceaselessly.
On top of these little legs is the self. Practice is not to cut off the legs, but to unseat the self.
When seen in this way, the karmic mind is not our possession and is not our burden. It is the expression of the aliveness of everything. We can’t reach that aliveness from a void.
We can’t get to the heart by cutting.