The Mind - Heart & Consciousness

Our mind comprises both the heart and the consciousness.

The heart is sometimes referred to as the "Monkey Mind" (心猿).  This is because the heart contains feelings and emotions, it is restless, unstable and always seek attention.  It has potential energies that are always waiting to be released.

The consciousness is sometimes referred to as the "Horse Mind" (意馬).  It is a dynamic energy of thought, knowing and awareness. It can be thought of as a kinetic energy.

The heart needs the consciousness to bring out its feelings and emotions or releasing its potential energies; that is when feelings and emotions are effectively experienced at consciousness level.

The heart has a strong energy that attracts and charges the consciousness with the polarity of its prevailing energy.  You can think of it as the monkey that is always chasing after the horse in order to jump on its back and ride on it (心猿意馬).

When you are feeling angry, that means the energy of anger has ride on your consciousness.  The energy of anger is always in your heart; only when it rides on your consciousness do you experience or feel the anger.

Knowing this is important because you can then explain the awareness of your feelings and emotions even while you are experiencing it because your consciousness (horse) is not your emotion (monkey).

The monkey can be agitated in two ways; when it sees a horse and it get excited, or when it gets really excited by itself and start looking for horses.

The monkey sees the horse and gets excited is when any of your five senses triggers the emotions in your heart (example, you see, hear, smell, taste or touch something that makes you angry, sad, jealous, greedy, etc).

The monkey gets excited by itself and start looking for horses is when your emotions are overwhelming and eventually determine the perception of what you see, hear, smell, taste or touch.  So when you are jealous, whenever your see, hear, smell, taste or touch will make you more jealous.

Things are not so simple.  Each time a monkey rides on a horse, it makes the monkey stronger and more skilled at riding horses later.  In other words the potential energy that charges the kinetic energy will be feed back into the potential energy and making it more dominant and strong.

Another discovery is that our consciousness - the horse, has direct relationship with our mental strength (神).  If your mental strength is low, your horse is slow that makes it easier for the monkey to jump on top and ride on it.  So when you are lack of sleep or when you are exhausted or sick, you tend to be more emotional.

And hence the saying, "cast the heart aside - 制心於一處", meaning you need to isolate your feelings and emotions and let it not surface to the consciousness.  As and when feelings ride on your consciousness, be aware and cast it aside immediately, i.e. do not react on it and let it go immediately.  Do not chase a second thought of emotion and do not entertain the flow of emotional thought, drop it instantly.

This is why meditation is important because you are training your mind to be aware of your consciousness and you are learning to let go of sticky thoughts all the time while in meditation.  As time goes by, you learn how to identify consciousnesses that arise from the heart and isolate or ignore these. You will have less distraction from the mind and will be able to focus deeper and longer on the object of meditation and develop concentration.

When you have strong concentration, you can control your consciousness and your mind becomes strong and powerful.  This allows you to contemplate on things and understand the reality which have so far been clouded by your heart.  This is how wisdom is developed.