Zen & Buddhism

Unborn Mind

The mind that was never born and can never die.

Before your birth, what were you? After your death, what will you be? The Unborn Mind is the deathless awareness that precedes all experience. It was never born, so it can never die.

Written about in

  • What Zen says about death

    Awareness that precedes experience is described as never having been born, and so unable to die. This is a claim, and the tradition hands it over as a question rather than a proof.