The Radiant Mind Is Unawareness
Normally the mind is radiant and always ready to make contact with everything of every sort. Although all phenomena without exception fall under the laws of the three characteristics — stress, inconstancy, and not-self — the true nature of the mind doesn”t fall under these laws.
The extent to which the mind does follow these laws is because the things that fall under these three characteristics come spinning in and become involved with it, so that it goes spinning along with them. Even then, though, it spins in a way that doesn”t disintegrate or fall apart. It spins with the things that have the power to make it spin, but the natural power of the mind itself is that it knows and does not die. This deathlessness is something that lies beyond disintegration. This non-disintegration is something that lies beyond the three characteristics and the common laws of nature, but we”re not aware of it because conventional realities become involved with the mind and surround it, so that the mind”s behavior conforms thoroughly to theirs.
The fact that we”re unaware that birth and death are things that have always been with the mind infected by defilement, is because ignorance itself is an affair of defilement. Birth and death are an affair of defilement. Our own true affair, the affair that”s ours pure and simple — the affair of the mind pure and simple — is that we don”t have the power to be our own true self. We have been taking all sorts of counterfeit things as our self all along, and so the mind”s behavior is not in keeping with its true nature. Its behavior falls under the sway of the deceits of defilement, which make it worry and fear, dreading death, dreading everything. Whatever happens — a little pain, a lot of pain — it”s afraid. If even the least little thing disturbs it, it”s afraid. As a result, the mind is filled with worries and fears. Even though fear and worry aren”t directly an affair of the mind, they still manage to make it tremble.
We”ll see — when the mind is cleansed so that it is fully pure and nothing can become involved with it — that no fear appears in the mind at all. Fear doesn”t appear. Courage doesn”t appear. All that appears is its own nature by itself, just its own timeless nature. That”s all. This is the genuine mind. ”Genuine mind” here refers only to the purity or the ”saupadisesa-nibbana” of the arahants. Nothing else can be called the ”genuine mind” without reservations or hesitations. I, for one, would feel embarrassed to use the term for anything else at all.
The ”original mind” means the original mind of the round in which the mind finds itself spinning around and about, as in the Buddha”s saying, ”Monks, the original mind is radiant” — notice that — ”but because of the admixture of defilements” or ”because of the defilements that come passing through, it becomes darkened.”
The original mind here refers to the origin of conventional realities, not to the origin of purity. The Buddha uses the term ”pabhassaram” — ”pabhassaramidam cittam bhikkhave” — which means radiant. It doesn”t mean pure. The way he puts it is absolutely right. There is no way you can fault it. Had he said that the original mind is pure, you could immediately take issue: ”If the mind is pure, why is it born
Those who have purified their minds are never reborn. If the mind is already pure, why purify it
” Right here is where you could take issue. What reason would there be to purify it
If the mind is radiant, you can purify it because its radiance is unawareness incarnate, and nothing else. Meditators will see clearly for themselves the moment the mind passes from radiance to mental release: Radiance will no longer appear. Right here is the point where meditators clearly know this, and it”s th…
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