one more dot in the digital universe

Jun 07

You are the Diamond, not the sparkle.

The Diamond Mind and it’s sparkling facets of mental images and internal talk: if the sparkle is taken for the diamond, we become lost.

This is an examination of the discrimination between Mind and mind;
where one is experience itself, awareness: capital M Mind.
And the other, the common mind supplies content-
in the form of word- and picture-based thoughts.

We can call them simply Awareness and thinking.

These two aspects of our nature get confused. They both seem like ‘ourselves’. But consider this issue closely, for everything depends upon it.

In the great unity of Mind, the power of thought is an extension, an expression of Mind itself. It is in direct connection with the infinite. Thoughts are so powerful because they are rooted in the absolute. But rooted as they are, the thoughts themselves are not absolute — far from it.

Once the thinking mind is activated within the Realm of Awareness, the thought of a self is imminent. This self-thought proliferates, that is it becomes a bunch of thoughts, which in turn becomes a self. Remember that the self is no more substantial or real than thinking. It’s as empty your own last thought. (It is empty, but it’s tricky. It fools itself into thinking it exists. In fact, it thinks it’s the only real thing and that when everything else vanishes, it necessarily goes somewhere or becomes something else!)

The self is the thought and the thinker of the thought all at once and so believes it’s
own thoughts quite automatically, and loses itself in itself. (The big-M Mind is not fooled, but it is concealed at this point—behind the scenes as it were—like the sun behind the clouds or, better, the canvas behind a picture.) The self, this new bundle of thoughts, (what we know as our regular mind) thinks not only of itself, of course, but of all manner of possible things: it pontificates, it wants, it grasps, it worries. It invents, declares, praises and blames. It imagines and dreams. It remembers and plans. It communicates and analyses. It functions and flourishes, it stumbles and falls.

Our self-thoughts, however, remain our biggest and most important thoughts, they are us and we are nothing without them. The thinking self (the idea mind) cannot conceive of the not-self. (This despite the ramblings of the zen masters.)

In this way one can see how we get stuck in the ‘idea mind’. We think of it as the mind,
my mind, me, myself; everything. Thoughts, and thoughts of self are so compelling, they perpetuate themselves over and over. The Mind of Reality, the pure and unobstructed awareness of the present moment as it is, is concealed in plain sight. Welcome to Samsara in the very Midst of Nirvana.

With the very thought of self in the great unborn Mind, a self is born. This is how our very story unfolds, within the limited dimension of our thinking selves. We are tangled up in it, and in it we remain. All the while, though, we are perfectly connected to who we truly are, our most noble selves, our enlightened selves - Pure Awareness, Pure Suchness, Pure Emptyness..

****
Diamond mind sparkles
with facets of words and pictures.

Don’t mistake the sparkle for the diamond.
Don’t mistake your thoughts for Reality.

Realize and dwell in Awareness itself. You are the Diamond, not the sparkle.

****
Realization
When the confusion is lifted on this matter,
Mind ceases to take refuge in thoughts, it is
no longer dazzled by the reflections of mind,
but comes to rest in the Mind itself, as itself.

Awareness resting in awareness.
Seeing images as images, thoughts as thoughts,
sensations as sensations —
letting each arise and disappear within itself.

You are the Diamond itself, perfectly clear and empty,
experiencing the world, the whole of suchness
without any filter whatsoever because after all,

You Are That.

#DiamondMind #dharma #buddha #realization

May 20

Kali via 1bit camera. Love how this turned out.

#DharmaArt @prannatimer Beautiful Lotus Image. May all beings find their own best selves, the one beyond self and other. May all beings be the Buddhas they are.