Luminious mind

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
Kenshou
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by Kenshou »

Don't mistake my bluntness for harshness here Sherab, but the answer to your last question is simply no.
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Sherab
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by Sherab »

Kenshou wrote:Don't mistake my bluntness for harshness here Sherab, but the answer to your last question is simply no.
No worries, I'm here to learn.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by tiltbillings »

Sherab wrote: My question is related to the idea of "collective karma" that you basically implied was non-Theravadin.
I did not imply. I stated it was not found in the suttas. The Buddha did not teach it.
To be specific, some form of collective karma bring into existence the various realms of existence and the arising and ceasing of realms of existence would be related to teachings on cosmology.
This was not what I was talking about. If you are here to learn, then listen to what is being said and quit trying to jam what you hear into small boxes.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by dhamma follower »

Lazy_eye wrote:
dhamma follower wrote: IMHU, the luminous mind is the natural quality of the mind to know things as they are before defilements come in. This is also the mind of an arahant. An ordinary person can also experience this luminous mind when he attains the stage of equanimity toward all formations. The minds is extremely sharp, is aware of the minutest details and totally equanimous. It has the quality of being luminous but there's no light, it's simply the luminosity of wisdom or fredom from defilements.
How different is this, really, from Ch’an/Zen “original mind”? Don’t throw rotten fruit at me, peeps – it just seems glaringly evident. You don’t have to read far in any Ch’an text to see a similar concept described in similar language...almost to the letter, in fact, down to the sharpness of mind during satori, the freedom from defilements, equanimity towards formations, etc...

[/digression]
Really ? "I" am however rather strictly Therevadin. I wouldn't call it "original mind" though. It is just the way the mind is experienced in absence of defilements. Could you please show some Ch'an/Zen texts for comparison ?

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jcsuperstar
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by jcsuperstar »

its a mistake to confuse the two things as the same , even if the language is similar. you see this sort of mistake in regards to taoism and zen, since translations of Buddhist texts into Chinese used similar language to those of taoist texts people assume they are meaning the same thing, but it's simply an accident of language. the problem with an original pure mind is how did it then become impure? what this implies is a pure mind (the mind of an arahant) can regress to an impure state. this is a claim of the Mahayana and part of the propaganda used to push the Bodhisattva path instead of the "hinayana path" of the arahant.
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by Lazy_eye »

dhamma follower wrote:Really ? "I" am however rather strictly Therevadin. I wouldn't call it "original mind" though. It is just the way the mind is experienced in absence of defilements. Could you please show some Ch'an/Zen texts for comparison ?
Sure! You write of the "natural quality of the mind to know things as they are before defilements come in". Similarly, Hui-neng in the Platform Sutra writes: "when one is free from defilements, wisdom reveals itself, and will not be separated from the essence of mind."

Chinul, a Korean Seon master, describes this essence of mind as "uniformly equaninimous". Kueifeng sees it as "immaterial and immaculate, with radiant awareness".

You mention that an "ordinary person can also experience this luminous mind when he attains the stage of equanimity toward all formations". This is also true in Zen. As Chinul puts it, "the true mind is basically the same in sages and in ordinary people, but ordinary people perceive things in an arbitrary, subjective way, losing the inherently pure essence and thus being obstructed by this."

Finally, you say the mind is extremely sharp and aware of minute details. Likewise, Zen teacher John Daido Loori describes the mind during zazen as "alert and aware. The same kind of alertness as a deer in the woods hearing a twig crack." Hakuin says that when the mind awakens, "the light of insight shines forth, splitting even an atomic particle".

I'm not denying that Theravada and Mahayana have an different overall paradigm -- just saying the actual experience of awakening seems to be described in rather the same way. In Zen, as I understand it, satori is not the end of the path -- the awakened person then progresses through the bodhisattva stages towards eventual buddhahood.

LE
Last edited by Lazy_eye on Wed Jul 07, 2010 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Lazy_eye
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by Lazy_eye »

jcsuperstar wrote:its a mistake to confuse the two things as the same , even if the language is similar. you see this sort of mistake in regards to taoism and zen...
But whereas Zen and Taoism have separate points of origin, Zen and Theravada are two branches of the same religion. Mahayana, as far as I know, acknowledges the validity of the Pali Canon and Shakyamuni as our teacher. We could expect some flow of ideas between the traditions.
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by dhamma follower »

Lazy_eye wrote:
dhamma follower wrote:Really ? "I" am however rather strictly Therevadin. I wouldn't call it "original mind" though. It is just the way the mind is experienced in absence of defilements. Could you please show some Ch'an/Zen texts for comparison ?
Sure! You write of the "natural quality of the mind to know things as they are before defilements come in". Similarly, Hui-neng in the Platform Sutra writes: "when one is free from defilements, wisdom reveals itself, and will not be separated from the essence of mind."

Chinul, a Korean Seon master, describes this essence of mind as "uniformly equaninimous". Kueifeng sees it as "immaterial and immaculate, with radiant awareness".

You mention that an "ordinary person can also experience this luminous mind when he attains the stage of equanimity toward all formations". This is also true in Zen. As Chinul puts it, "the true mind is basically the same in sages and in ordinary people, but ordinary people perceive things in an arbitrary, subjective way, losing the inherently pure essence and thus being obstructed by this."

Finally, you say the mind is extremely sharp and aware of minute details. Likewise, Zen teacher John Daido Loori describes the mind during zazen as "alert and aware. The same kind of alertness as a deer in the woods hearing a twig crack." Hakuin says that when the mind awakens, "the light of insight shines forth, splitting even an atomic particle".

I'm not denying that Theravada and Mahayana have an different overall paradigm -- just saying the actual experience of awakening seems to be described in rather the same way. In Zen, as I understand it, satori is not the end of the path -- the awakened person then progresses through the bodhisattva stages towards eventual buddhahood.

LE
The similarities pointed out are interesting. However, such terms like "original mind" or "pure essence" are not used in Theravada. The reason for it, IMO, is to avoid the likely misleading effect on most people, who ,because of their tendency of grasping, would take it as their true self, having not directly realized the selfless nature of the experience,and let's not forget that it also arises and pass away.
In Theravada, experiences such as this are not considered the end of the Path either, not even first stage of enlightenment if the experiences have not been deepened to the experience of Nibanna. The End of the Path is permanent eradication of all defilements. Then, the luminous mind becomes a moment to moment reality of the Perfectly Awakened One (Arahant). What is to be done is done !

It kind of makes sense if aspirants of the Boddhisattva Path continue to cultivate their paramis from this point onward (equanimity toward all formations or satori ? - not arahanship). It is echoed in some Theravada commentaries as well, it seems to me.


D.F.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by tiltbillings »

Lazy_eye wrote:
jcsuperstar wrote:its a mistake to confuse the two things as the same , even if the language is similar. you see this sort of mistake in regards to taoism and zen...
But whereas Zen and Taoism have separate points of origin, Zen and Theravada are two branches of the same religion. Mahayana, as far as I know, acknowledges the validity of the Pali Canon and Shakyamuni as our teacher. We could expect some flow of ideas between the traditions.
It could easily, and with considerable justification, that the Theravada and the Mahayana are different religions coming from the same source.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by jcsuperstar »

tiltbillings wrote:
Lazy_eye wrote:
jcsuperstar wrote:its a mistake to confuse the two things as the same , even if the language is similar. you see this sort of mistake in regards to taoism and zen...
But whereas Zen and Taoism have separate points of origin, Zen and Theravada are two branches of the same religion. Mahayana, as far as I know, acknowledges the validity of the Pali Canon and Shakyamuni as our teacher. We could expect some flow of ideas between the traditions.
It could easily, and with considerable justification, that the Theravada and the Mahayana are different religions coming from the same source.
i wonder about this sometimes. i did a project involving Ganesha and the only rational way to understand the differences in his representation is to see that there are many different Hinduisms. different religions just being lumped together, in some he is the only god, others just one of many, still in others he is the entire universe, and there are more "sects" seeing him in different ways. these are fundamental differences. so perhaps this same type of thing was true of Buddhism in India (would explain a lot i think) but what we ended up with is a "mistake" of the Chinese to just grab any text called Buddhist and then try to fit them all into one religion, now this is just a really dumbed down version of my hypothesis but i think one can fill in the gaps on their own, the nature of the Buddha is different in different schools, there are different texts, practices, deities, understandings. it wouldn't take much of a leap of faith to see this as true in an Indian religious context.
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the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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kc2dpt
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by kc2dpt »

jcsuperstar wrote:i did a project involving Ganesha and the only rational way to understand the differences in his representation is to see that there are many different Hinduisms. different religions just being lumped together
I thought this was common knowledge. I had a friend who was from India and he explained Hinduism as exactly that: every wise person who ever lived in India shoehorned under the same umbrella called "Hinduism".
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jcsuperstar
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by jcsuperstar »

Peter wrote:
jcsuperstar wrote:i did a project involving Ganesha and the only rational way to understand the differences in his representation is to see that there are many different Hinduisms. different religions just being lumped together
I thought this was common knowledge. I had a friend who was from India and he explained Hinduism as exactly that: every wise person who ever lived in India shoehorned under the same umbrella called "Hinduism".
i think it is and it isn't common knowledge. i guess you have to be paying attention. but what i was getting at is there may be a reason to assume the same thing may have been true for indian Buddhism.
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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kc2dpt
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by kc2dpt »

jcsuperstar wrote:but what i was getting at is there may be a reason to assume the same thing may have been true for indian Buddhism.
It may be or it may not be. I don't know nor, frankly, do I care. It's enough on my plate to just learn and practice this one set of teachings without worrying about other sets of teachings. For my own sake, I consider all non-Theravada Buddhism to be another religion entirely. But maybe this is a topic that deserves it's own thread?
- Peter

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Re: Luminious mind

Post by Sanghamitta »

I agree entirely :goodpost:
And I don't think that I am a narrow sectarian. It seems quite clear to me that the Mahayana and Theravada are completely different religions that share some symbols and a handful of concepts.
Analogous to the relationship between Judaism and Christianity.
This seems so obvious that in my view the onus is on the Mahayana to demonstrate beyond debate that their religion is the same as the Theravada. I have never seen a convincing argument to that end yet,
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

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Lazy_eye
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Re: Luminious mind

Post by Lazy_eye »

A fascinating and unresolvable question, in my view. Early Mahayana, from what I understand, is quite close to Theravada -- Ven Pannasikhara, if he's around, might have something to say about this.

Also, Mahayana recognizes and incorporates the original tipitaka. The Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, karma and rebirth, dependent origination, the "three marks of existence" (anicca, dukkha, anatta) are core teachings in Mahayana. Meditation practices in Zen could be described as a kind of radically condensed form of samatha-vipassana.

I agree that some later developments start to look like an altogether different religion, though it can be hard to identify a precise dividing line. The dynamic in Buddhism generally seems to be that any innovation has to be justified somehow with regard to the existing canon and the life/work of Shakyamuni Buddha. Of course, sometimes these justifications may be pure invention on the part of the innovator.

Maybe this should be a new thread?

LE
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