Radiance

[Aloka]

Dear friends,

This is a sutta quote from Chapter 12 of the book "The Island" by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro.

“Bhikkhus, this mind is radiant, but it doesn’t show its radiance because passing defilements come and obscure it.

(Pabhassaramidam bhikkhave cittam, tañca kho agantukehi upakkilesehi upakkilittham).

The unwise, ordinary person does not understand this as it is, therefore there is no mind development
in the unwise, ordinary person.

“Bhikkhus, this mind is radiant, it shows its radiance when it is unobscured by passing defilements. The wise, noble disciple understands this as it is, therefore there is mind development in the wise, noble disciple.”

~ A 1.61 & .62


https://cdn.amaravati.org/wp-content...pdate_2015.pdf

Here's another version from an Anguttara Nikaya Anthology Part 1 :

This mind, O monks, is luminous, but it is defiled by adventitious defilements.
The uninstructed worldling does not understand this as it really is; therefore for him there is no mental development.

This mind, O monks, is luminous, and it is freed from adventitious defilements. The instructed noble disciple understands this as it really is; therefore for him there is mental development.

(1:6.1–2)

https://www.urbandharma.org/pdf1/wh1...araNikaya1.pdf

Any comments ?

[Aloka]

As it seems as though it might be relevant, i thought I'd add this quote from page 120 of Ajahn Sumedho's book "The Sound of Silence"

We don’t always have to look at something from our acquired conditioning. So when the Buddha talks about the ‘Buddha-mind,’ it’s very flexible and malleable; it’s universal. We can see things in so many different ways. The mind has a radiant quality to it. Consciousness has a radiance; it has a light itself. So when we begin to let go of always limiting ourselves through the distortions of our conditioned mental states, then we begin to understand things as they really are, to know the Dhamma – enlightenment.

This is not something remote and impossible, unless you want to hold to those views from a personal attitude about them. You can be holding your perceptions so high that they’re way beyond your ability to achieve them. This is because you haven’t awakened to what you’re doing. You’re merely operating from a conditioned view of everything.


https://cdn.amaravati.org/wp-content...of-Silence.pdf

[ancientbuddhism]

Obvious is the example of filtering; blind acceptance of our given mental proclivities vs. direct experience and application to the real.

What I find especially helpful is the contextual meaning this sutta gives to a common stock-phrase for what Sumedho summed-up as ‘enlightenment’: yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti “knowing what is actually present”.

[manoPG]

Simply stated - the nature of mind, which we can use either 'mano' or 'citta' synonymously is by itself a luminous, radiant object of awareness. It has 6 doors and when we cling to objects through those doors the light of the mind darkens or is 'stained.'

ābhāsvara-citta is considered the transcendent state of of the 4th jhana as translated by its stock description:

Just as if a man were sitting covered from head to foot with a white cloth so that there would be no part of his body to which the white cloth did not extend; even so, the monk sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness.

And then we can look at it from the opposite direction of what it is not...

2. "Monks, suppose a cloth were stained and dirty, and a dyer dipped it in some dye or other, whether blue or yellow or red or pink, it would take the dye badly and be impure in color. And why is that? Because the cloth was not clean. So too, monks, when the mind is defiled,[1] an unhappy destination [in a future existence] may be expected.

"Monks, suppose a cloth were clean and bright, and a dyer dipped it in some dye or other, whether blue or yellow or red or pink, it would take the dye well and be pure in color. And why is that? Because the cloth was clean. So too, monks, when the mind is undefiled, a happy destination [in a future existence] may be expected.

The following metaphor also suggests that the purity of mind precedes the ignorance of tanha:

Just like a bronze bowl brought back from a shop or a family of smiths clean & pure, that the owners would neither use nor clean, but would throw away in a dusty place. Wouldn’t that bronze bowl eventually become dirty & defiled with time?

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN5.html

Here is more, I have not read, but pertinent: https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamb...minousmind.pdf


No matter where you draw from in the Tipitika is appears that ābhāsvara-citta is achieved via uprooting or at least suppressing lobha, dosa, and avvijha, and this can only be achieved through sati and samadhi.