My late Uncle Ivan collected elephant art, in particular elephants made from ivory, brass, clay, cloth, and carved wood. One I especially recall was his carved wooden elephant. It was carved from a very hard dark wood (its name escapes me at the moment). Over the years that particular elephant served to remind me of some important Buddhist ideas. One of which I am fond is in regard to the substance of Mind itself and its phenomena. When I first saw my Uncle’s carved wooden elephant it was easy to get carried away with the elephant devoid of wood. To be sure, it was very intricately carved and quite beautiful. Yet, there wasn’t actually an elephant there. Not one bit of that carved wooden elephant was other than wood.
The artist who made this elephant put a great deal of craftsmanship into carving the elephant. Still, it was only wood. But let’s imagine that this wood is now luminous Mind and the more this same Mind shapes itself the more the natural luminosity becomes overshadowed by the shape it is making, the shape becoming very captivating. As we might expect, there would eventually come a point when the luminosity disappeared. What would be in its stead would be a living, breathing, big elephant, not to mention a world made of the same Mind for the elephant to roam around in.
But now what if it were possible to also sense the luminosity and also see the elephant, itself, at the same time so we could say, “This beautiful creature is glowing with Mind’s luminosity. It is Mind’s phenomenon.” When we think about this, that the luminosity should not be present is unnatural. And why? Because there is no part of the elephant we see in his world that is not made of Mind or is Mind-only (cittamatra).
In our ignorance and enchantment with the elephant phenomenon made of Mind we have inadvertently blocked out the Mind substance. Such extreme attachment is negation—negation of Mind’s luminosity. In order to return to the natural order in which all phenomena are sensed to to be luminous forms of absolute Mind we have to go through a course in the restoration of absolute Mind. In order to accomplish this we first need a glimpse of the luminous Mind. Put another way, we need an initial awakening then expand this awakening finally reaching the stage where we see the whole universe as one vast exhibition of Mind’s power and in this realization know that we are fundamentally Mind.
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