Is the use of "our mind" when referring to the mind of each individual in a group correct or at least acceptable?
I translate and proofread Buddhist philosophy and meditation teachings.
Teachers and translators frequently use the term "our mind" when talking to a group. For example: "If we gain control over our mind, it is the same mind that can achieve the state of buddhahood." My understanding is that this goes against proper English grammar. We don't share one mind; each individual has their own mind. Therefore, a correct sentence would look something more like this, "If we gain control over our minds, they are the same minds that can achieve the state of buddhahood."
But that's so awkward.
And there's another wrinkle.
Here's another example sentence: "Normally, our mind is very busy with the samsaric outer world. It is like a wild animal—it doesn’t stay in one place." Although the teacher is using "we," the explanations refer to distracted mind in general. If I switch to plural and use this sentence, "Normally, our minds are very busy with the samsaric outer world. They are like wild animals—they don't stay in one place," the emphasis on the nature of distracted mind in general gets lost.
Would it be appropriate to use "our mind" as a singular subject in this context? With the adjacent subtext that it simultaneously refers to "each of our own minds" and "distracted mind in general?"
Or is that just bad grammar and unfair to any readers who are new to the subject? Or am I just overthinking this?
I've read the question concerning "everybody's using a cell phone nowadays," ("Everybody's using a cell phone nowadays" vs. "Everybody's using cell phones nowadays"), which explains the uses of distributive plural and singular in common contexts. I'm asking here specifically in terms of Buddhist teachings. Thank you.
1 Answer
If we gain control over our mind, it is the same mind that...
Normally, our mind is very busy with... it doesn’t stay in one place.
In "the hikers split up, took different routes, and soon all lost their way", the singular NP doesn't denote a single shared way, because "lose one's way" is an idiom meaning "become lost" (not necessarily literally). In contrast, "our mind" indeed usually feels somewhat marked in neutral prose: a distributive construal would use "our minds", whilst a generic/conceptual construal that avoids individuating separate minds would normally use "the mind".
However, neither alternative feels fully satisfactory for Buddhist or meditation teachings: maintaining the distributive reference throughout the passage gets cumbersome, while a more abstract framing may resonate less strongly.
"Our mind", though, has greater rhetorical force, at least in the register you're writing in: it combines the immediacy and suggestion of shared experience conveyed by "our", with the conceptual generality of "mind" in the singular. And the grammaticality of the possessive use of the representative singular is supported by the following analogous examples:
- Music speaks to our heart.
- Chronic stress takes a toll on our body.
Addendum (tangential)
Expanding on Stuart F's examples of non-count uses "mind":
- She is of sound mind.
- The distinction exists only in mind, not in reality.
By contrast, in "our mind", "mind" is geunuinely a count noun, since the noun phrase stands representatively for each person's mind. The same applies to the other examples discussed above. The phrase "(of) one mind", mentioned in TOOGAM's answer, also contains no uncountable noun. And, since "our mind" isn't actually expressing unity and agreement, it differs in meaning from the NP "one mind".
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