Mind without government

As long as `something` leads it, the mind is not free.

Tamara

Probably this falls into the category:

To describe an enlightened mind is not possible........

The next question then is:
Why is it so frustrating when we are told that ?



Tamara

True, but that does not mean that folks won't take a stab at it. This is a quote from a short article by Robert Thurman called Hail to the Vagina, that Dan sent me a link to the other day. I think it answers the question well, though it is talking about it in a specific context, that of an enlightened feminine aspect:

"As the source of truth on the absolute level, we enter into the Dharmodaya Vagina triangle, go through it into the most profound transcendent reality of bliss-freedom indivisible. In this context, the triangle’s corners represent the “three doors of liberation,” three ways to approach the absolute freedom that is the ultimate reality of all things. These three are voidness, signlessness, and wishlessness, the visceral understanding of which leads to the enlightened realizations of freedom, peacefulness, and blissful satisfaction, respectively.
When you realize you are devoid of absolute, fixated, alienated essence, you discover the blissful freedom of infinite interconnection with all beings and things, a freedom that allows you to play harmoniously with all other relational things. When you realize that each thing, just as it inconceivably is, is whole within itself as flowing nexus of interconnection with
everything else, you are released from the compulsive drive to push it into processes of signification and causation, and you discover the unexcelled peacefulness of the reconciliation of all dichotomies and the adamantine tolerance of all cognitive dissonances that is enlightenment.
And when you realize that all beings and things are ultimately and primordially essentially fulfilled in their freedom and peacefulness, you discover the superbliss energy that is the actual reality of all things, and you effortlessly enjoy the wisdom of innermost, supreme, realistic satisfaction that transcends all suffering of both yourself and all others."

The article is here, it is very short and worth the read:

www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/turning/PDF/Hail%20to%20the%20Vagina.pdf

Who leads a free mind?

I'll do it...but it'll cost ya.

But really, wouldn't it be something like presence? In other words, the doing or not doing what is appropriate to the present situation. Buddha Shakyamuni taught out of compassion and according to the predisposition of the the mindset of those in attendance. And spontaneous teachings arising out of all kinds of mundane situations seem to be traditional in all buddhist traditions.

So, is the free mind free when it perceives others aren't? It seems to me almost contradictory, but that a free mind as we "understand" it would be inseparable from compassion and the wisdom available in any given situation, unfettered by any contrived intention, to help others.



I think it may be similar to the way I've been thinking in regard to the paramita of patience lately. It seems to me that transcendent patience doesn't actually invoke or involve patience since a cause for patience will not arise. In other words, a self-defined bright red flag which would provide a practitioner a reason to take a deep breath and relax, to consciously not indulge whatever sense of urgency we have about something we are very concerned about, doesn't even show up on our radar. So where did (the mind invoking) patience go?

So it seems the consensus is that a "free mind" is without intention but spontaneously acts, compelled by compassion.

Where is the "personality" in the enlightened mind? Why don't all enlightened beings act the same way in the same circumstances?

And in many ways it is more accurate to say there is no mind, than one mind. This is true of all of us, but Buddhas are awake to it. Now that is probably really confusing, but there is wisdom consciousness, but that is different from what we know as sentience or ordinary consciousness. But our ordinary consciousness is empty and has all the potentials that are manifest in wisdom consciousness. So in wisdom consciousness we have realization of emptiness: wholeness, devoid of distinctions, the void which is all things and qualities like omniscience, clear light…

Tayata gate gate, paragate, parasomgate bodhi soha!

gone gone gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awakened, so be it!

```Where is the "personality" in the enlightened mind?``


I find we `pesonalize` the mind here and that`s not how it probably is.

What about:
Mind is cognizing energy and according to how it cognizes it produces either samsara or nirvana.

I do not see a `personality` here.

Let`s take the term `rigpa`.
Rigpa is the knowledge of the primordial state.

Either one knows or one does not.
Either the ultimate is cognized or not
There is nothing more to say about it.

Unfortunately in English we say ``re-cognized`` as if there was a cognition already before and then it was lost and found again.
This is not how it works, I was told.


```Why don't all enlightened beings act the same way in the same circumstances?```

As Matt said:
There are no same circumstances.
Nobody is ever in the `same` circumstance like somebody else.

Dependent origination includes countless of previous circumstances/action/non-actions (i.e. karmic results)
in one single moment (talking in tems of linear progression here).



Tamara

In discussing this with Lama Sonam Tsering in 1997, I used the term "style," how realized beings may have different styles, especially the solitary realizers I was most familiar with at that time, but I asserted (we were both in heightened awareness at the time) that fully enlightened beings are beyond even that small amount of personhood, and this he agreed with.***

Yet we know there are different Buddhas, and different manifestations and they have different forms, abide in different realms, have different names and seem to perform different functions. So I would say enlightenment reflects the diversity of sentient beings in some ways.

But the actions of enlightened beings are unpredictable, and there are differences in beings. There may be differences between the Dalai Lama, and Buddha Shakyamuni for example, or Guru Rinpoche, or my Teacher or Lama Zopa or Yeshe Tsogyal. But when I meditate on any of these beings, I feel the same powerful boost to my usual concentration. Things continue to dissolve, but faster and in a more powerful way. In that way I can feel their non dual awareness, immediately know they are not confined by space and time, and it feels exactly the same for any one of them and many others. I would say then that the real point, the important point for my practice is that all difference is relative and any distinction is illusory, and enlightened beings are awake to that. So then any questions of personality are back in my hands and the result of my not having pure vision.

So that is the way I look at it, but it took me a long time to get to my point of view, and I think you might want to take your time developing your own.

Anyway, I think they are good questions. I am glad you asked them, but they are really good to meditate on with an open mind, too.


*** Reflecting on this the other day it occurred to me that what I was saying was that a Buddha has all five Kayas. But this is using more vocabulary and conceptual understanding than I had at that time. But I think the Kayas, and what they mean are good things to meditate on. The more you understand them, the more sense the question of multiple enlightened beings and multiple, even infinite manifestations will make. These issues can give a person insight into the nature of mind and emptiness. That is why there are teachings on them, in my opinion. So these are big questions, but not necessarily a waste of time. If you stay grounded and they lead to an insight that helps your practice, then they have helped. Otherwise… well, you know what a distraction feels like.

Who should enlightenment help with their practice, who should they help with their suffering. Me? or Jeff? or Tamara? or Rudy? or Dan? or maybe someone else altogether?

You see, even dummies like ourselves can get this, it makes no sense does it? We have to say AND to make sense. Now so many of the questions we ask are like that. They have the same conceptual premise. Is it this OR that? Is it like this OR that? THis is because to make sense of things, our conceptual minds create distinctions, then we reify those distinctions, then we habitually reify those distinctions and instinctually reify those distinctions. Our attitudes are so competitive and selfish because we have practiced saying OR, one way or another for eons. Those momentums to say OR or think and sense and asses in those terms, they are really ingrained, and have a lot of power to obscure.

And, we need to ingrain AND in our minds, and on many levels, in my opinion, our study and practice is working to do just that.