Q: I personally found that trying to intuit pure Mind is proving difficult—more than I could imagine. There seems to be no bridge across, from my ignorance, at the moment, to the other side of pure Mind. Any advice to help me?
A: We are unawares that in our search we are stuck in the dyad of consciousness. Subject A is looking for object B. Consciousness in Sanskrit is vi-jñâna. Vi expresses ‘separation’ or ‘between’. Jñâna is knowing. Consciousness is split knowing which, of course, can totally deceive us if we are trying to intuit pure Mind which is singular. There are not millions of minds. There is only one. It is substance (or essence if you prefer). And there is only one substance. Now let’s imagine—you’re fully awake—and I collapse your consciousness with my trusty old walking stick (I have great timing). Whack! You shout out “Holy shit!” And why? You just steped into pure Mind. Then right after that, I ask you, “What did you see?” You just grin. You know it’s an inside joke in a manner of speaking. You know I know it and now you know it. We see Mind to Mind, in other words.
Q: That helps—it makes the problem clearer. I mean I see consciousness is really a hindrance. I can’t do anything about it. I am habituated to it. Yep, subject A is looking for object B. I am like a consciousness drug addict. That separation in my knowing, the vi, is hard to give up. Why is that?
A: It’s because that’s what our temporal world is focused on, including its individuals like you and me. It started for us with consciousness attached to mom’s fertilized egg. At this level, it is hard to recognize the deception, let alone how to escape from it. So we go with the flow. One day, much older, maybe with a family, a job, bills to pay and our life not looking so good, we begin to wonder about life and its meaning. Maybe we can do something about it. Some of us will pray to God and hope that if we do the right thing—follow his rules—he’ll take care of us. There are no guarantees here. We are still stuck in the modality of consciousness. Some of us try Buddhism. We follow all the rules. Sit in meditation or do Tibetan Buddhist practices. But we are still operating under the mode of consciousness. We are still asleep. We haven’t got a clue as to what pure Mind really is. Making matters worse, when some guy starts talking about it to his fellow Buddhists, they think he is stark raving mad even though, they know, there is a mountain of literature out there about Mind in Buddhism. But they don’t want to hear about it. The mode of consciousness rules. Nobody, at the moment, wants to go where the substance of pure Mind is. Maybe it’s too scary. I don’t know. But I know that most people are not interested in it.
Q: The more I think about what you say and write the more I sense myself beginning to see where you are coming from; that we have to intuit this pure substance otherwise we are caught it a maze-like trap from which there is no escape. Let me ask you maybe a dumb question. Is death in consciousness?
A: Yes, along with birth which I mentioned before. While materialists believe death is an escape, from the mode of consciousness it is not. Consciousness never escapes from itself through its subject-objectness. It always, to put it crudely, reborns itself. This is why in Buddhism it is consciousness that is the transmigrant.
Q: But I thought that consciousness doesn’t transmigrate. Didn’t Sati say that it did and was admonished by the Buddha?
A: That is not what happened. Sati believed that consciousness continues unchanged—not changed. That is why he was admonished by the Buddha. Consciousness transmigrates loaded with habitual tendencies somewhat like a particular radio signal. It is always in a subject-object mode. It could be a god or in the hells. Without this split, no consciousness. There is only pure Mind. This is why it is so important to realize Mind and not play in the sandbox of consciousness.
Q: It seems like you are suggesting that pure Mind is the substance of consciousness, in fact, of everything. Is that right?
A: Yes, and that substance is the most basic part of us. However, it is not subjective or objective. What would its object be? Without an object there is no subject either. There is nothing in the entire universe that can detect it or measure it. The only way we can intuit it is to pass through consciousness. Care to be whacked?
Thought there would be more comments. Commenters often ask you for more concrete "how to" advice and thought this post was one of the best in that regard.
Posted by: Neal | February 19, 2013 at 02:26 PM