Meditation training has one overall function: Awareness. With awareness in any moment is potential insight which can be lived and used as benefit to self, others, and all one’s interactions with the world.
Awareness self-includes empathy, warm-heartedness, patience, and a desire to see things from the expanded perspective that Awareness, itself, is.
“mind, no mind, mind is luminous” seems to be saying three things. Yes/And. All three are right now.
Right into meditation: “mind, no mind, mind is luminous”
The Great Ones have spoken about the light of Awareness and how it expresses as human compassion and wisdom. The Christ said, “You are the light of the world”, for example. This is a statement of lightness of Being lived as a radiance of being. Christ’s statement indicates that each person has the capacity to be an agent of benefit, beatitude, fearlessness, and courageous compassion for others through the common affairs of day-to-day living. Christ said “You” pointing directly at each of us, pointing to our heart, pointing to now.
Lao Tzu, through the Tao te Ching, describes the all-embracing, soft, unmitigated power of the Tao and then says “how do I know this? I look inside myself.” Similar to the Christ’s statement, the Tao te Ching directs one’s attention within, to the already present qualities of Compassion-Being.
The Buddha also points to our heart; and the heart of the mind. “Mind is luminous.” The layers of this statement are still being unfolded twenty-six hundred years after he walked.
This week we will play with ‘luminous is the mind’ for the freshness it offers each moment.
When asked ‘who benefits when meditatively exchanging the hardship and suffering of others for one’s good fortune, he said, “I do.” He explained that such practices calm one’s mind through empathy.
That question and comment are part of this film on YouTube: The Last Dalai Lama?
