To be aware is to observe what our senses are continually handing us from the outside, but also to observe what is going on inside of our heads (which for most is a madhouse). I am aware of trees or a butterfly fluttering by some flowers next to the house. Then my awareness turns inwards. I am now thinking about getting the car gassed up and going shopping. Not any of this discloses the Buddha Mind. This Mind is absolutely empty of sensory determination. It is like space. For one who is engaged with Mind it is a pure field which is profoundly empty yet vital and absolutely real.
To first realize the thoroughly empty field of Mind together with its vitality is an amazing feat. But we can't realize it if we are immersed in being aware of our psycho-physical being (the Five Aggregates or skandhas) with its respective sensory fields; believing what we perceive is all there is. Making such ignorance more difficult to jettison is our insistence that Mind somehow be presented to us via our senses. This stubborn demand only reveals our level of attachment to the world of samsara in which the cycles of birth and death are endless.
Most people will never see the nature or substance of Mind. They firmly believe this present world is all there is. They are so deeply tuned into it that a Buddha might as well be from an another planet. In such a condition, no bridge of communication yet exists between a Buddha and an ordinary being. It is only when ordinary beings become disgusted with their futile lives and turn to religion or spirituality for answers that it becomes possible to realize Mind. But not always. In fact, a new set of problems will arise.
What the vast majority of people turn to as religion or spirituality is more than often so superficial so as to be deemed spiritual materialism, spiritual materialism being loosely defined as a deep attachment to emotional states of mind which are felt to be ecstatic. Such states are described in Buddhism. They are the fifty false enlightenments, ten for each of the Five Aggregates, which are found in the Surangama Sutra. Here is an example from this Sutra. (You can find the entire Sutra at ZEN STUFF on this blog.)
"Ananda, you should know that as a cultivator sits in the Bodhimanda, he is doing away with all thoughts. When his thoughts come to an end, there will be nothing on his mind. This state of pure clarity will stay the same whether in movement or stillness, in remembrance or forgetfulness. When he dwells in this place and enters Samadhi, he is like a person with clear vision who finds himself in total darkness. Although his nature is wonderfully pure, his mind is not yet illuminated. This is the region of the form skandha. If his eyes become clear, he will then experience the ten directions as an open expanse, and the darkness will be gone. This is the end of the form skandha. He will then be able to transcend the turbidity of time. Contemplating the cause of the form skandha, one sees that false thoughts of solidity are its source."
Ananda, at this point, as the person intently investigates that wondrous brightness, the four elements will no longer function together, and soon the body will be able to transcend obstructions. This state is called 'the pure brightness merging into the environment'. It is a temporary state in the course of cultivation and does not indicate sagehood. If he does not think he has become a sage, then this will be a good state. But if he considers himself a sage, then he will be vulnerable to [Mara] the demon's influence."
These fifty false enlightenments are extremely subtle and always temporary. Not a single one discloses Mind. Still, many under the spell of spiritual materialism fall prey to them and imagine they are godmen or godwomen, or Buddhas (my teacher once told me he was the Tathagata!).
To realize Mind one needs to become more like a scientist when looking within as if to discover a new element, only in this case Buddha Mind. Discovering it, to use an old Zen analogy, is like thieves breaking into a mansion only to find it empty.
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