A recent profile in People Magazine of Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted of fraud in 2022, shows the nature of the mind at work.

What Is Hell?

Key to the story is not the monastic schedule she follows–for many “secular monks” today follow similar enough schedules outside of prison. Nor is it her stated commitment to helping improve healthcare for others upon her release. This is just another example of the I-am-the-doer conception. It’s rather this: “[I]t’s been hell and torture to be here.”

She’s referring, of course, to the loss of physical mobility as well as to the separation from her family. But what is the real meaning of “hell and torture”?

The first insight–and it can take many of us years to experientially grasp–is that the mind is hell, that the mind is torture. The spiritual path, really, begins at this very point.

What Is, Actually, Not Hell?

Some serious contemplation and spiritual practice later on negate, or overturn, the first insight.

In fact, the mind is not hell or torture because there is no mind in the first place.

On this score, the Zen master Huineng writes, “Since there is nothing from the start, / How can any dust alight?”

There has never been any entity. As a result, there cannot be any mind-entity, nor any real suffering. The further implication is that all suffering is merely apparent.

No mind. No self. No real suffering.

The final understanding is that one’s original nature is, as Huineng says, “always clean and pure.” In a word: perfect.

There’s no “you”; there’s only This!