After discussing Citta, we verify Citta, one of the Buddha’s most important teachings, through the enlightenment experiences of three enlightened individuals: a contemporary American, Adyashanti, and two prominent monks from the Tang Dynasty in China. Verifying the existence of Citta through third-party enlightened individuals is critical because it shows that faith in Buddhism is not blind.
As discussed in many earlier posts on epistemology, the hallmark of a Buddhist enlightenment is the vanishing of the universe. This is because, as discussed in Post 13 on Five Aggregates, the universe is observer-dependent, meaning that it is conceptualized in the mind into an image and then projected from the mind during the process of observation.
However, the observation process cannot occur because it requires an active mind, but the mind is quiescent upon enlightenment. When these processes of observation cannot occur, the universe cannot be manifested and, therefore, disappears upon enlightenment.
Adyashanti, “meaning ‘primordial peace,” is “an American born Stephen Gray on October 26, 1962,” and a “former spiritual teacher and author from the San Francisco Bay Area who offered talks, online study courses, and retreats in the United States and abroad.”
“At age 25, Gray began experiencing a series of transformative spiritual awakenings. While sitting alone on his cushion, Gray describes how he had a classic kensho, or awakening experience, in which he “penetrated to the emptiness of all things and realized that the Buddha I had been chasing was what I was.” “Besides his meditations and prayer, he also studied books about Christian mystics and the Gospels.” “For the next few years, he continued his meditation practice while also working at his father’s machine shop. In addition to sitting, he spent many hours in coffee shops writing answers to questions that spontaneously came to him. Finally, at 31, Gray had an experience of awakening that put to rest all his questions and doubts. In 1996, Adyashanti began teaching with the approval of his teacher, Arvis Joen Justi.” Today, “he is the author of numerous books, CDs, and DVDs, and, together with his wife Mukti, is the founder of Open Gate Sangha, Inc., a nonprofit organization established in 1996 which supports and makes available his teachings.”
In this guided meditation, “What is the Nature of Self?” Adyashanti stated his goal: “In this meditation, we are looking at the nature of self, or what we call ourselves. The nature of this thing called me. In this meditation, we are looking for ourselves. We are looking inside, so the attention gets directed inside. Where is this thing called self, me? Surely, it’s not simply a thought, a feeling. Surely, one is not simply a body, for there is always something more primary. There is what is seeing the thought. That which is feeling the feeling. That is that which is aware of the body.” “So, the attention gets directed inward. What is that that notices the thought? What is that that is feeling the feeling? What is it that is aware of the body?” “What is this thing called me, called I?“
Yet, “as we direct our attentions inward, we find something unexpected. The more we look for the essential nature of ourselves, the more we look for ourselves, the less we find.” “This elusive self never seems to appear. The more we look for ourselves, the less we find of it. Instead, we seem to bump into an ineffable mystery, a silence, a void.” “And yet, what is it that notices that void, that silence? What is it that is aware?” “Can we find a someone? Can we find a something?” “As we look from our own experience, we keep not locating this owner of awareness, this owner of consciousness, this me. And in looking at our whole definition of ourselves, it’s wordlessly called into question. This whole definition of ourselves, however we define it, must be called into question because when we look for it, we don’t find it.” “We have assumed that we are a something and a somebody.”
Finally, Adyashanti acknowledged, “You are presented with a mystery. You can’t find yourself, and yet, whatever you are, it’s obviously here, obviously aware. Whatever you may be, whatever you are, obviously is here.” “This confuses the mind because the mind only thinks in terms of you being a thing, being a someone.” “As we look in this way, our whole notion of the self can begin to transform because you begin to see for your own self that what you are isn’t a somebody, isn’t a something, it cannot be found.” “So what is there in the absence of somebody? What is there in the absence of something? This that notices the absence of the self, this awareness that notices the complete lack of entity is an opportunity to open to what you are beyond a thought. Maybe you are not a thing at all, a somebody at all. It cannot be found. So, maybe, just maybe, you never were a something or a somebody. Maybe it couldn’t be found because it doesn’t exist.” “What can this thing called I be?”
In summary, when Adyashanti searched for the nature of his being, he was “presented with a mystery” because “you can’t find yourself.” Instead, he found himself in a “void.” However, even though he couldn’t find himself, he was aware that “whatever you are, it’s obviously here, obviously aware.” Furthermore, even with “the absence of somebody,” “the absence of things,” he was aware that the “void” he was in is an “ineffable mystery,” with a “complete absence of definition.”
In other words, with everything absent, the only thing left with Adyashanti was his awareness that he was in a “void,” of which he was a part.
Adyashanti now teaches that “You Are Awareness” and “you and awareness are not two different things.” Additionally, Adyashanti teaches that “resting in awareness is not a state of doing; it is a state of being.” Indeed, in awareness, Adyashanti has not only found the true nature of his being but also that of everything that can be called “somebody” or “something,” i.e., everything that is usually considered “physical.”
1) Awareness as The Nature of the Self
Adyashanti’s acknowledgment that “You Are Awareness” and “you and awareness are not two different things” means that he understands that awareness is the nature of his self.
Additionally, Rupa, representing everything in the universe, also vanished into the same “void,” meaning that its nature of reality is also awareness. As discussed in Post 3, this is what Buddha teaches in Mohe Zhiguan: that in the cosmos there is only Citta (Chinese: 心) and Rupa (Chinese: 色), and that “all are essential mental (Chinese: 全體是心).”
2) Experiential Content and Samadhi.
One can be confident that Adyashanti did not understand Citta as the nature of reality through study. If he did, he would not have needed to inquire into it through meditation.
Instead, as discussed in Post 22, Adyashanti’s knowledge could have come only from the “experiential contents” of Citta, which, upon his enlightenment, he became one with in the presence of Samadhi.
3) Emptiness – No Empirical Forms
As discussed in earlier posts, the “void” Adyashanti experienced is known as Emptiness in Buddhism.
Emptiness (Chinese: 空), according to The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, also known as “void,” is a “central notion of Buddhism….Shunyata is often equated with the absolute in the Mahāyāna since it is without duality and empirical forms.”
Indeed, the “void” that Adyashanti experienced is the “void” of Citta because, with no “somebody” or “something” present, the “void” is the “void” of a quiescent mentality that, like natural gas, cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.
4) Citta as the Ultimate Reality
In Buddhism, Citta, as a quiescent mentality, is the Ultimate Reality because, without fluctuations, its “realness” can never change. In other words, it is always a state of being aware. Its permanence can be attested by the fact that Buddha taught it after understanding it through meditation more than 2600 years ago. 2600 years later, Adyashanti confirmed it in the twentieth century. In between, two monks from Tang Dynasty China also witnessed the universe vanish, although they did not use the term “awareness” to describe the “void” they were in. They did not use “awareness” to describe the void because China at that time had no distinct words to separate being aware from being conscious.
5) Mind Over Body
As Adyashanti exemplified, being enlightened enables one to choose to exist with or without their “physical” body. An enlightened person can meditate until his body disappears. When he awakes from the meditative state, his body reappears. In other words, enlightenment gives the enlightened person the power of mind over body.
An enlightened person is known as an Arhat, who, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, has “destroyed all causes of future rebirth.” Known as samsara (Chinese: 輪迴), cycles of births and rebirth are also known as Paricchedajaramarana, which, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, ‘determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese: 分段生死),’ which is ‘experienced by ordinary sentient beings taking rebirth within the three realms of existence.'”
In other words, by being enlightened and having the power of mind over body, Arhats are liberated from samsara and, therefore, from existential suffering, meaning death no longer inevitably follows birth.
Additionally, after liberation from ‘determinative birth-and-rebirth, Arhats enter parinamikajaramarana (Chinese: 變易生死), which, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, transfigurational birth-and-death: “while these beings have already achieved some measure of enlightenment, when they undergo rebirth and death, these occur as a ‘transfigurational birth-and-death’ of the mind made body, not a ‘determinative birth-and-death.’ Although these beings have overcome afflictive obstructions that tie one to the cycles of samsara (and specifically to paricchedajaramarana), they may still be subject to cognitive obstructions that block full understanding (Romanized Sanskrit: jnana; Chinese: 智); thus, while they may engage in actions, these are not karma-producing actions (viz., ‘uncontaminated actions’ (Romanized Sanskrit: anasravakaraman; Chinese: 無漏業) that do not lead to a determinative rebirth. While such beings may then appear to be reborn, these rebirths are actually transfigurations of their mind-made bodies (Romanized Sanskrit: manomayakaya; Chinese: 意生身), which may be manipulated at will to change their appearances or to extend their life spans indefinitely.”
In other words, while an Arhat no longer exists with a physical body, he exists with a “mind-made” one that his mind can “manipulate at will to change their appearances or to extend their life spans indefinitely.” Additionally, if an Arhat desires to continue on the Buddha path and become a Bodhisattva, this power remains with him.
That a person can exist without a physical body but with the mind alone can be understood from the various stories of near-dead people returning to life after claiming that they watched from above their bodies lying on the surgical table, went through tunnels of light, even returned from heaven, etc. How do you think they existed between these events? Obviously, they could not have existed with their bodies, which lay on the surgical table.
People often describe their lives in between with mysterious terms like souls, spirits, etc., without defining what they mean. In Buddhism, this kind of existence is known as a bardo (Chinese: 中陰身). What exists is not something mysterious, but the person’s mind. Occasionally, the bardos return to their bodies on the surgical table and tell stories their bodies never experienced. The same happens when a person dies. As the body degenerates, the mind leaves and reincarnates in a new body. Occasionally, the person in the new body can tell stories about what the old body experienced.
Post 36 discusses the widely broadcast reincarnation story of a US fighter pilot who was shot down during WWII. The amazing part is that, while existing between two lives, the bardo chose a couple as his future parents while they were vacationing in Hawaii. This time, the story he tells in the new body is about what the old body experienced.
Indeed, what seems impossible in a world deemed “physical” is very much possible in a universe where there is Nothing but Mentality, and what is deemed “physical” is actually illusory.
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