Luminous Mind

I think sometimes people reading Zen literature get confused as to what, in particular, is Mind (in the highest sense) often confusing it with thought which is the action or process of thinking.

When Mind or the same, pure Mind is realized it is found to be luminous (S., prabhāsvara).  Upon the realization of Mind, after surpassing consciousness in its various forms, it is strictly luminous which suffuses every part of the adept’s  body, from head to foot. (I hesitate to bring this up for the reason that people have the bad habit of talking themselves into fantasy states which, I hate to say, is a process of self-delusion.) 

Westerners reading about Buddhism are handicapped by materialism which doesn’t understand mind as being anymore than thought which originates in the brain and dies when the brain dies.  So the idea of a higher Mind which is altogether luminous seems rather strange to their cultural ears.  Yet, if anyone has actually experienced this luminous or pure Mind as I have, the Buddha is very accurate when he says the pure Mind suffuses every part of his whole body.  To be sure this is not the description of a thought or thinking by any measure.

One thing to keep in mind, the primary validating experience of having realized pure Mind is luminosity which engulfs the entire body including even thought.  Nothing is outside of its range.  In this state, one has become for the first time what they truly are rather than what they imagine they are, or bound down to what they are not, such as the psychophysical body.  From this awakening or bodhi experience, which is our spiritual birth, we are then able to clear away the habit energy (S., vāsana) of the past which is not ours although we imagined it was.

 

 

Comments

[Jung]

I have noticed the past years that even veteran Buddhists have a hard time distinguishing between Mind and Consciousness.

A Zen "Giant" like Tsung Mi tried to make the difference clear and even went hardcore on the consciousness only propagators within the Buddhist Community, but alas the latter has dominated and survived till this day, while Mind Only has shrunk dramatically.

What we have from this "perversion" of the original buddha-dharma is among a few things Buddhist authors whom been almost immortalized as sources by their community of scholars, propagating the consciousness only side, where the absurdity of this ingrained delusion even goes so far that the term Bodhi (or bodhicitta) is likened to "awakened thought", or "Enlightened Consciousness". You can´t make this stuff up.

The latter cannot suffuse, much less permeate anything at all, because contrary to Mind and its powerful singular essence, it is not a LIFE FORCE able to animate anything at all. It is merely an arisen field of perception of various qualities, depending on the active filters (read senses). Different beings in Samsara possess various forms of this consciousness, all depending on their karmic propensities.

The contemporary materialism that currently evolves into a technocratic society of artificial intelligence and consciousness pursuit will not make this delusion easier. It is certainly here to stay, with a new clergy, ready to fool the masses by the millions with experiences of augmented consciousness, all produced as proof of enlightenment and happiness.