Mind, the absolute substance

From time to time I find it necessary to re-read Christian Lindtner’s translation of Âlokamâlâ (A Garland of Light) which is the work of Kambala or Kambalâmbara who lived somewhere between 450–525 A.D.  So allow me to share a little bit of the book with you.  Here we learn from Lindtner what Mind is.

In its original or subtle state as believed to be personally experienced, or “seen”, by a Buddha, “mind” (citta) is eka without parts, it is pure, without form and defilement in contradistinction to the mind of common people in samsara, which is defiled by passions and falsely appears as subject versus object.  This bifurcation is really unreal, actually a “mistake” (bhrânti), but nevertheless an empirical fact held to have been asserting itself since time without beginning.  The basic bifurcation and all its subsequent mental ramifications is engendered by the residues of previous volitional actions (samskâravâsanâ) stocked as “potentials” (bîja) in “the store-consciousness” (âlayavijñâna), the basic but not the ultimate form of citta accounting for the samsaric continuity of recording and reproducing.

Yes, this is some pretty subtle and heady stuff, but accurate.  From the standpoint of The Zennist, Mind is the absolute substance of reality, substance meaning essential nature.  This is a very important point.  It means that Mind is different from our consciousness, the latter being the reflective or split mode of Mind: a mode whereby consciousness is a bifurcation of Mind into subject and object.  We can gather from this that samsaric life is the deadly play of consciousness, its ultimate ground being the âlaya/store vijñâna/consciousness.  This is the great prison of samsara in which we are all trapped.  It is only when we directly “see” pure Mind (cittamatra) that the the poisonous spell of consciousness is broken (in the Âlokamâlâ all things are said to be the “poison drops of consciousness” [vijñânavisaviplusa]).  It is revealed that subject and object are just two sides of the same substance, like heads and tails of a copper penny.  These sides, in themselves, have no essence; they are empty and illusory.  From the very beginning there as been really only the One Mind (ekacitta).

Comments

[dooyen]

Thanks, Jure! I was not up to date on this, Lindtner has surprised me once again, see
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-with-ex-denier-christian.html

Prof. Lindtner had once generously granted me to have one of his published books (Catuhshataka, transl. by Karen Lang)made available in German. We had a brief talk on the phone when his position on the gas chambers had not changed yet. It is a rare event to see an adult having the guts to throw his old views overboard.

[Jure K.]

Dooyen, thanks for the insightful comment: "Human mind cannot and never be just one as it is attached to a certain life time. The universal mind is the eternal mind that does not rely on any individual mind ..."

I find this to be the truth.

By the way, I think that Lindner changed his mind and is no longer a holocaust denier.

[dooyen]

Store consciousness is to be seen as empty, too. How could it ever independently exist when "true reality" is universal mind, pure and eternal? Alaya is a rhetoric construct, when an enlightened mind believes in it, this mind is actually still defiled. The enlightened mind leaves no room for a samsaric mind, as it is seen here, but is not possible without common consciousness (the comatose and braindead do not develop Buddhist ideas). But the samsaric mind is the one that never leaves anyone as it is a characteristic of his life. The samsaric, deluded mind actually is the one which enables one to detect the universal mind (as animals do not suffer from our illusions, there is no necessity for them to go through such a process). Once detected, it is not that a person never feels any attachment anymore at all (Lindner e.g. believes there have never been gas chambers in German concentration camps, others attach to habits like soccer, cooking etc). Seeing the pure mind does not destroy samsaric mind, therefore the saying that nirvana and samsara become one is correct. The samsaric mind is seen as it is, the universal mind is experienced as it is. Human mind cannot and never be just one as it is attached to a certain life time. The universal mind is the eternal mind that does not rely on any individual mind and therefore is also the Buddhanature of a stone and a cockroach.