Mind and No-mind

[This is a just-finished, raw and unedited, excerpt from a chapter of the Zen book I'm writing (concurrently with one on Dzogchen). Any suggestions for improvements from the cognoscenti would be appreciated.]

There is nothing in Buddhism more confusing than the usage and meaning of the terms Mind, mind, no-mind, Awareness, and awareness, which are often used loosely, contradictorily, and/or synonymously. It would take a book to properly consider this subject, but in the confines of a couple-thousand-word article, I’ll attempt to shed some light on it by briefly elaborating these terms.

Mind

When “Mind” is capitalized, it should mean universal, transcendental Mind, or Consciousness, or Awareness. This Mind, in Sanskrit, is Cit. This unborn, unmanifest Mind never enters creation, and is a synonym for Ultimate Reality.

In his Introduction to the Lankavatara Sutra, D.T. Suzuki writes: ‘Mind- only’ means absolute mind, to be distinguished from an empirical mind which is the subject of psychological study. When it begins with a capital letter, it is the ultimate reality on which the entire world of individual objects depends for its value. To realize this truth is the aim of the Buddhist life.”

The Lankavatara Sutra states: “I say there is nothing but Mind. It is not existence, nor non-existence; it is indeed beyond both existence and non-existence… Out of Mind spring innumerable things, conditioned by discrimination (i.e. classification) and habit-energy; these things people accept as an external world… What appears to be external does not exist in reality; it is indeed Mind that is seen as multiplicity, the body, property, and abode—all these, I say, are nothing but Mind.”

The great Zen master Huang Po, in accordance with the Lanka, says: “Only awake to the One Mind and there is nothing whatsoever to be attained. This is the real Buddha. The Buddha and all sentient beings are the One Mind and nothing else.”

Mind, or the One Mind, has become everything; hence it is the True Nature of all existents. When a Zen student awakens to his Buddha-nature, he realizes Mind as indwelling; when he recognizes all existents as manifestations of Mind, he realizes It as universal.

The real problem is that many Zen writers, unlike John Blofeld in The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, don’t capitalize Mind, which creates confusion between the finite, discursive “mind” and the infinite, non-discursive “Mind.”

Mind is Consciousness, is Awareness, is the Dharmakaya. Mind, immanently (or in the context of a human), is Buddha, is Self, is Nirmanakaya. Mind as Cit (or pure Consciousness) should not be conflated with mind as manas (or mental content). Mind is Buddha, mind is not.

In Buddhist literature (especially that of non-Cittamatra Yogacara), one sometimes reads that the world is a projection of one’s mind. This is absurd, because the world is still there when your mind isn’t. If you fell over dead in front of your computer, your computer would still be there for others sans you and your mind. Cittamatra has it right: the world is a manifestation of Mind; hence everything, including one’s mind, is (or derives from) Mind.

mind

The empirical mind consists of mental formations. When these formations are organized to function as discriminating intelligence, this, in Hindu yogic parlance, is referred to as buddhi (or “higher mind”). Just as manas (or “lower mind”) should not be conflated with Mind (or Buddha), neither should buddhi. Buddha (or immanent Mind) is awakened Awareness, or Consciousness, in the context of an individual; buddhi is the function of “knowing,” via mental formations.

In the Pali Nikayas (the Buddhist texts of the Sutta Pittaka), three terms—manas, vijnana, and citta--are used to refer to the mind. Manas, often described as “mind-stuff” by those who translate/commentate on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, means the same in Pali Buddhism. It is the general mental activity that arises from one’s tendencies and volitions.

Vijnana, the fifth of the five skandhas (empty-of-self aggregates), is generally translated as “consciousness,” and because it is, many Buddhists ignorantly assume that the Buddha rejected consciousness (or Consciousness) itself as non-Self. In reality, vijnana is not consciousness itself, but consciousness functioning as the act of (binding, dualistic) attention that grasps hold of objects, including mental ones. As such, it is akin to the seventh consciousness (of eight) in Yogacara, improperly, in my view, termed manas, which describes consciousness as the mental activity of self-contraction. (See the chapter The Lankavatara Sutra for more on this.) Manas in Yogacara (sometimes, appropriately, modified as klista-manas, which identifies it as taint-ridden self-grasping) is also cognate to the term ahamkara (ego self- sense) in theYoga Sutras.

According to Wikipedia.org, “The Pali-English Dictionary suggests citta is heart/mind, emphasizing it as the more emotive side of mind, as opposed to manas as the intellect in the sense of what grasps mental objects.” This is patently wrong. Citta is Consciousness itself (Cit) intertwined with manas and contracted by grasping (or acts of binding attention) engendered by vijnana. It is a synonym for the Alaya-vijnana, which is the Alaya (universal Consciousness) conjoined with manas by vijnana in the Heart-center/cave, the Tathagatagarbha. The locus of the immanent Alaya (Cit, or Mind) is felt-experienced two digits to the right of the center of the chest by advanced yogis. And it is here, in the Heart-center, where the “storehouse” of karmic seeds (bijas that “sprout” into vasanas), is located. When, through the Grace of Dharmamegha (the full-blown descent of the Sambhogakaya, which severs the Heart-knot), Cit is forever freed, and so is citta, meaning Cit in relation with manas. In other words,in the Mind of a Buddha, mind (meaning thoughts) still arises, but because the binding (or self-contracting) function of vijnana has been rendered obsolete, citta now unobstructedly reflects (or shines as) Cit, while still allowing for the function of thinking. This freed citta is Bodhicitta, signifying that the bodhisattva has been fully Awakened, or En-Light-ened, by the Light-Energy of the Sambhogakaya, which is realized in the Tathagatagarbha as inseparable from the Dharmakaya (Mind, Alaya, or Cit). The Enlightened State of Bodhicitta represents the “conversion” of the Alaya-vijnana (or citta), from a self-contracting “storehouse” consciousness into the immanent Alaya (or Cit), no longer bound by vijnana-skandha.

The Nature of citta, as Cit in the context of a human bodymind, is to shine, and when the self-contraction is obviated, citta radiates as Luminous Mind. Per Wikipedia.org: “Luminous mind (also, ‘brightly shining mind,’ ‘brightly shining citta’) (Sanskrit prakṛti-prabhāsvara-citta, Pali pabhassara citta) is a term attributed to the Buddha in the Nikayas... In the Anguttara Nikaya (A.I.8-10) the Buddha states:] ‘Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements.’ The discourses indicate that the mind's natural radiance can be made manifest by meditation.’”

No-mind

The Zennist website (zennist.typepad.com) glosses:

“In the treatise On No-Mind attributed to Bodhidharma the term no-mind is never meant nor intended to leave us with the impression that no-mind is against direct intuition or awakening to something transcendent. A more pithy meaning for no-mind is "no discriminating mind." Such a no discriminating mind is the same as True Mind. In fact the treatise says: "Indeed, no-mind is nothing other than true mind. And true mind is nothing other than no-mind" (trans. App). Further on the treatise says: "What is called no-mind is nothing other than a mind free from deluded thought (trans. App).”

In contrast to the Zennist, I say that a no-discriminating mind is not the same as True Mind. When one’s mind is still, True Mind does not suddenly appear in its stead. True Mind is Heart-Mind, the transformed Alaya-vijnana that is free from bondage to all conditioned consciousnesses. But this freedom from conditioned consciousnesses does not occur until one experiences the descent of the Sambhogakaya into the Tathagatabarbha, the Heart-cave, or “womb of Buddhahood.” It’s as if the Light-Energy of the Sambhogakaya (a.k.a. Shakti, or the Holy Spirit) ignites citta (immanent and contracted Cit, or Heart-Mind) and allows it to shine as radiant Consciousness, or True Mind. A still mind, or no mind, is a precursor to realizing True Mind, because it leads to or instigates the descent of the Sambhogakaya. But prior to the downpoured Sambhogakaya conjoining citta, True Mind cannot be experienced. And upon the full and unobstructed descent of the Sambhogakaya into the Tathagatagarbha, which produces the samadhi, or state, the Lankavatara Sutra calls Dharmamegha, the bodhisattva attains Bodhicitta and becomes a tathagata, one who permanently abides in, and as, Suchness (or Being-Consciousness, or True Mind as it IS).

Zen Buddhism fails to explain how the experience of no-mind leads to the realization of Mind. If it explained this, that would also explain gradual and sudden Enlightenment. I’ll now explain what Zen doesn’t. When the no-mind state instigates the descent of the Sambhogakaya, the disciple, over time, experiences progressively more intense, or fuller, samadhis (which the Buddha termed jhanas). The experience of these samadhis, or jhanas, constitutes gradual Enlightenment. This experience does not pertain just to the freeing and intensification of consciousness, but also to the literal divinization (or en-Light-enment) of the body that is concomitant with these states of consciousness. This divinization process is energetic, and involves the opening of subtle-body channels (nadis) though the force-flow of awakened consciousness (which Hindu yogis term Kundalini-Shakti). When this force-flow of awakened consciousness (via the chief and ultimate nadi, termed Amrita-Nadi) “descends” (or, more precisely, is sucked into) the Tathagatagarbha (Hridayam, or Heart-center, in Hindu yoga), which is the “seat” of citta (contracted Mind, or Consciousness), it, for a time, frees citta, allowing it to shine as Cit, or Mind. And when the Heart-knot (or Self-contraction), in a timeless, or “sudden,” moment, is severed through the Power of Shakti (a.k.a. the Sambhogakaya), then Mind (the Self, or Buddha) is forever freed--and so is the empirical mind (manas and buddhi), for whenever thoughts thereafter arise, they are outshone (and thus rendered non-binding) in the Light (or radiant Intensity) of Awakened, or True, Mind.

Awareness and awareness

Whereas the common synonym for the Absolute in Hinduism is “Consciousness,” in Yogacara and Zen Buddhism it is “Mind,” and in Dzogchen it is “awareness” or “Awareness.” The problem with using “awareness” (uncapitalized) as a synonym for the Absolute is that all living animals are aware, and clearly they are not Enlightened. When “awareness” is capitalized, then it is a fitting synonym for the Absolute; when it is uncapitalized, adding a descriptor such as “awakened” before it serves to differentiate it from generic awareness and to identify it as transcendental.

Animals, and most humans, are unconsciously aware; when a yogi practices awareness, he is being consciously aware, which culminates in Awakened awareness, which is tantamount to unbroken Self-Awareness, or Buddha Consciousness.

An argument against the existence of a non-dual State of pure Consciousness (or Awareness) is sometimes made by those who claim that such a State is an impossibility, because consciousness (or awareness)-without-an-object violates the most fundamental of all laws, the law of contradiction. To this, I say that Consciousness is biune, Self-Existing as Subject (Self-Awareness) and Object (Self-Radiance). Thus, through the medium of a yogi, pure Consciousness (or Siva) “knows”, or recognizes, Itself via its own radiant Energy (or Shakti), which reflects Itself back to Itself. In Buddhist terms, the Dharmakaya (Awareness), through the agency of a yogi, beholds Itself via the Sambhogakaya (Light-Energy), which is always inseparable from It, and, in fact, is It, in the “Form” of a formless, mirror-like, Self-reflecting, Spirit-current.