In this post, we discuss the relationship between Citta and enlightenment.
Astasahasrika-Prajnaparamita (道行般若波羅蜜經), “is a Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtra in the category of Prajñāpāramitā sūtra literature. The sūtra’s manuscript witnesses date to at least c. Sigma ranges from 184 BCE to 46 BCE, making it among the oldest Buddhist manuscripts in existence. The sūtra forms the basis for the expansion and development of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtra literature. In terms of its influence on the development of Buddhist philosophical thought, P.L. Vaidya writes that “all Buddhist writers from Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva, Maitreyanātha, Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, down to Haribhadra concentrated their energies in interpreting Aṣṭasāhasrikā only,” making it of great significance in the development of Madhyāmaka and Yogācāra thought.”
According to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, in Astasahasrika-Prajnaparamita, Buddha teaches that “the thought of enlightenment is no thought since in its essential original nature is transparently luminous (Romanized Sanskrit= prabhasvara; Chinese=光明).”
Indeed, as discussed earlier, for a person to be enlightened, he must practice Samathavipasyana (Chinese=止觀) until the “mind is completely still,” and has “no thought.”
In the previous post discussing the Ultimate Reality, we discussed that the “realness” of Citta must be permanent to be the Ultimate Reality. However, for the “realness” of a mentality to be permanent, it must be quiescent, or its “realness” will change with every fluctuation. Consequently, as a quiescent mentality, Citta qualifies as “no thought.” Therefore, by Buddha’s definition, Citta is enlightened and luminous. Additionally, since a quiescent mentality is the definition of awareness, and Citta is spread throughout the cosmos, Citta is the enlightened and luminous cosmic awareness.
In a previous post on direct perception, the definition of Samadhi (Chinese=三昧) is, according to The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, “a non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing “subject” becomes one with the experienced “object” – thus is only experiential content. This state of consciousness is often referred to as “one-pointedness of mind;” this expression, however, is misleading because it calls up the image of “concentration” on one point on which the mind is “directed.” However, Samadhi is neither a straining concentration on one point nor is the mind directed from here (subject) to there (object), which would be a dualistic mode of experience.”
In the mentioned dual pair of consciousness, while the “experiencing subject” refers to the “no thought” mentality of the enlightened person, the “experienced object” refers to the “no thought” mentality of the quiescent Citta. When the two become non-dualistic, the enlightened person mentally becomes one with cosmic awareness.
As discussed when discussing A Few Fundamental Concepts“, a Buddha is one who “opens his consciousness to encompass all objects of knowledge.” While encompassing “all objects of knowledge” is how one becomes a Buddha, “opening one’s consciousness” is how one forms a non-dualistic mentality with the cosmic awareness and becomes a part of it.
As discussed in several posts in Epistemology, whether it is called the “contents” that can be experienced, “all objects of knowledge” that can be perceived directly, or “empirical facts,” facts that can be “felt,” as described by Dr. Fisch, all three refer to the information of nature embedded in the mental structure of the cosmos. This information informs “how things stand in themself,” as Dr. Fisch describes it, or “how the world really is,” as Dr. Kuhn put it. Whether the information is called “how things stand in themselves” or “how the world really is,” the info represents nature as nature is.
Since Citta is spread throughout the universe, it is ready to be the “experienced object” to anyone prepared to be the “experiencing subject” anytime, anywhere in the universe.
Indeed, this compilation of individuals who have achieved enlightenment since the time of Buddha, the List of Enlightened People, shows that enlightened people have come from all corners of the world and across the centuries. Indeed, Buddha from ancient Nepal is on that list. So is Adyashanit, a contemporary American who was enlightened recently and the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Chan Buddhism, Dharma Master Hui-Neng and one other from China in the seventh century in China. Their enlightened experiences are located here and here, respectively.
Transforming Consciousness to Prajna.
The Mahayana Buddhists use the phrase “transforming consciousness to prajna (Chinese=轉識成智) to delineate Buddha’s two means of knowledge: inference and direct perception.
Inference (Chinese=比量), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “allows us to glean knowledge concerning objects that are not directly evident to the senses.” Inference refers to the inferentially connected knowledge that unenlightened people use to understand the world. Because they are unenlightened, their knowledge comes not from a quiescent mind but from the conscious, active mind. This is the meaning of “Consciousness” in the phrase “Transforming Consciousness to Prajna.”
Prajna (Chinese=般若), according to the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, typically translated as “wisdom.” “The term has the general sense of accurate and precise understanding but is used most often to refer to an understanding of reality that transcends ordinary comprehension.”
Direct perception (Chinese-現量), Buddha’s other means of knowledge, is, according to the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “non-conceptual in the sense that it does not perceive its object through the medium of an image, as does thought.”
Because direct perception does not go through thought, “experiential contents” avoid “reading-in of the mind” and being conceptualized “in ways we do not govern. By not getting conceptualized, the distortion of the”experiential contents” of nature is prevented. Therefore, this “non-conceptual” understanding of nature leads to an “accurate and precise understanding” of nature.” Buddha calls that level of understanding of nature prajna because the undistorted “experiential contents” inform nature as nature is.
Therefore, like reality in nature is divided by whether mentality fluctuates, it is the same with understanding nature. Inference and direct perception are similarly divided.
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