Chapter Five, The Mind System
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Then Mahamati said to the Blessed One: Pray tell us, Blessed One, what relation ego-personality bears to the mind-system?
-The Blessed One replied: To explain it, it is first necessary to speak of the self-nature of the five grasping aggregates that make up personality, although as I have already shown they are empty, un-born, and without self-nature. These five grasping aggregates are: form, sensation, perception, discrimination, consciousness. Of these, form belongs to what is made of the so-called primary elements, whatever they may be. The four remaining aggregates are without form and ought not to be reckoned as four, because they merge imperceptibly into one another. They are like space, which cannot be numbered; it is only due to imagination that they are discriminated and likened to space. Because things are endowed with appearances of being, characteristic-marks, perceivable-ness, abode, work, one can say that they are born of effect-producing causes, but this cannot be said of these four intangible aggregates for they are without form and marks. These four mental aggregates that make up personality are beyond calculability, they are beyond the four propositions, they are not to be predicated as existing or as not existing, but together they constitute what is known as mortal-mind. They are even more Maya-like and dream-like than are things, nevertheless, as discriminating mortal-mind they obstruct the self-realization of Noble Wisdom. But it is only by the ignorant that they are enumerated and thought of as an ego-personality; the wise do not do so. This discrimination of the five aggregates that make up personality and that serve as a basis for an ego-soul and ground for its desires and self-interests must be given up, and in its place the truth of image-less-ness and solitude should be established.
Then said Mahamati to the Blessed One: Pray tell us, Blessed One, about Universal Mind and its relation to the lower mind-system?
-The Blessed One replied: The sense-minds and their centralized discriminating-mind are related to the external world, which is a manifestation of itself and is given over to perceiving, discriminating, and grasping its Maya-like appearances. Universal Mind (Alaya-Vijnana) transcends all individuation and limits. Universal Mind is thoroughly pure in its essential nature, subsisting unchanged and free from faults of impermanence, undisturbed by egoism, unruffled by distinctions, desires and aversions. Universal Mind is like a great ocean, its surface ruffled by waves and surges but its depths remaining forever unmoved. In itself it is devoid of personality and all that belongs to it, but by reason of the defilements upon its face it is like an actor and plays a variety of parts, among which a mutual functioning takes place and the mind-system arises. The principle of intellection becomes divided and mind the functions of mind, the evil out-flowings of mind, take on individuation. The sevenfold gradation of mind appears: namely, intuitive self-realization, thinking-desiring-discriminating, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and all their interactions and reactions take their rise.
The discriminating-mind is the cause of the sense-minds and is their support and with them is kept functioning as it describes and becomes attached to a world of objects, and then, by means of its habit-energy, it defiles the face of Universal Mind. Thus Universal Mind becomes the storage and clearinghouse of all the accumulated products of mentation and action since beginning-less time.
Between Universal Mind and the individual discriminating-mind is the intuitive-mind (manas), which is dependent upon Universal Mind for its cause and support and enters into relation with both. It partakes of the universality of Universal Mind, shares its purity, and like it, is above form and momentary-ness. It is through the intuitive-mind that the good non out-flowings emerge, are manifested and are realized. Fortunate it is that intuition is not momentary for if the enlightenment, which comes by intuition, were momentary the wise would loose their "wise-ness" which they do not. But the intuitive-mind enters into relations with the lower mind-system, shares its experiences and reflects upon its activities.
Intuitive-mind is one with Universal Mind by reason of its participation in Transcendental Intelligence (Arya-jnana), and is one with the mind-system by its comprehension of differentiated knowledge (Vijnana). Intuitive-mind has no body of its own nor any marks by which it can be differentiated. Universal Mind is its cause and support but it is evolved along with the notion of an ego and what belongs to it, to which it clings and upon which it reflects. Through intuitive-mind, by the faculty of intuition, which is a mingling of both identity and perceiving, the inconceivable wisdom of Universal Mind is revealed and made realizable. Like Universal Mind it cannot be the source of error.
The discriminating mind is a dancer and a magician with the objective world as his stage. Intuitive-mind is the wise jester who travels with the magician and reflects upon his emptiness and transiency. Universal Mind keeps the record and knows what must be and what may be. It is because of the activities of the discrimination mind that error rises and an objective world evolves and the nation of an ego soul becomes established. If and when the discriminating mind can be gotten rid of, the whole mind system will cease to function and universal Mind will alone remain. Getting rid of the discriminating mind removes the cause of all error.
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The first part of this sutra mostly made me mad. Lot of blaming and talk about ignorant and simpleminded and clinging as opposite of those wise ones. It disturbed me as everyone is not ment to awaken.
This part however tries to explain how it works. Even if don´t think that a ruffled surface perfect. What they say here is that there is “impurities” in the Universal Mind. And that causes the mind-system to arise, with all that comes with it.
That is actually what science has found in later years. After Big Bang there was small parts where it was more dense then elswhere. Causing the worlds to arise and with them, us. And, to me, this is exactly as I always thought. Put on paper in two different ways.
They do make a lot of effort in structuring life, just to dismiss it. But in this part they actually say that the Universal Mind is the cause that creates us. Yet they claim the Universal Mind is perfect. That part does not match. The whole ideá seem to be to calm things down and make the Universal Mind perfect. But they don´t say it as the Universal Mind is supposed to be perfect in the fist place.
2007-04-25
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