The Mind is the Buddha

Imagine you're having a vision. You see the Buddha standing before you. Or if not the Buddha, then Jesus, or Krishna, whoever your favorite religious icon happens to be.

But standing before you.

Perfectly serene. The eyes bright. Ablaze!

Exuding warmth and love, which are filling your heart with devotion.

But amidst this vision, imagine having just enough wits about you that you question, Where is this vision appearing?

The Buddha you are looking upon is just a part of this n-dimensional experience. It is like an idol for your devotion. Not the real thing.

This vision of perfection and beauty, the light, the colors, the love and devotion, all of it is simultaneously being rendered within the one mind.

So, is not the force that renders all this so perfectly, and contains the entire scene, every dimension of it, is it not that which is the Buddha?

The mind itself is the Buddha.

Whatever appears as an object in the mind is a passing phenomena.

But the mind itself is the Noumenon.

The Reality.

We can get lost in words and concepts, and as we escalate, follow down the rabbit holes, the truth which was almost understood right at the beginning, gets ignored.

Is deemed too simple; too simplistic.

But it is true.

We don't need to find another word or have some perfect vision.

The mind itself is the Buddha; is Reality.

Not the content of the mind, but the mind itself.

This mind I'm talking about, never appears as an object in the world.

The world appears within the mind.

At the point of Self-realization, the fact that is understood, the identity that is revealed behind the curtains, is this very same most ordinary mind.

Which has always been there.

Has always been I.

And so this insight is not necessarily transformational.

Someone might say, "So what?"

The mind has always been there. It's most ordinary. Most common. Available to everyone.

In the Buddha's own words, he gained absolutely nothing from complete and unexcelled Enlightenment.

He did not undergo a radical transformation of character at the point of Enlightenment. All of that happened earlier. It started much earlier.

When he left his palace. When he went through his trials and tribulations.

When nothing else is deemed worthy enough, and then when the true position of the mind in the scheme of things is understood, that is when we are willing to acknowledge the truth.

The truth that this mind itself is the Buddha.

Is the Reality.

Is what we were seeking.

Upon Self-realization, this simple truth becomes quite clear. The truth about the mind; what it actually is.

If you take away all the content of it, the essence of it is what is called I.

Is what is Reality.

This is real magic, where anything can be conjured up.

The mind is like an empty void in which anything can appear.

It has the power to contain anything, to give rise to anything.

And that anything and everything that appears here, is made of the same mind stuff. The stuff of dreams.

Only this truth becomes very clear.

but all else that is associated with Enlightenment is based on circumstance. Even the ability to articulate this truth is based on the instrument.

So, there is no need to compare and judge this stream of consciousness by comparing it to your most esteemed guru or sage.

Because as you dream up this perfect idol, this divine form, where does that form take shape?

It takes shape in the mind.

In You.

You can even imagine a God glaring down on you, making you weak in the knees, you falling down in supplication, the awe, the wonder, the fear and devotion.

Where does it all arise?

What grants it reality?

This weak-kneed you, and the God, both appear in the real You.

The mind itself is the Buddha.

And the mind itself is God.

There can be no greater God.

For even if there is a God-like stream of consciousness, it too appears in the mind. The very same mind, made of the very same mind stuff.

This is what made the famous Christian mystic Meister Eckhart declare,

"The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me;

My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love."

This is what made the Zen Master Huang-Po declare,

"All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists.

This mind which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible.

It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance.

It does not belong in the categories of things which exist or do not exist nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old.

It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces, and comparisons.

It is that which you see before you!

Begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error.

It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured."

He went on to say,

"The mind IS the Buddha, nor are there any other Buddhas or any other mind.

It is bright and spotless as the void, having no form or appearance whatever.

To make use of your minds to think conceptually is to leave the substance and attach yourselves to form.

The Ever-Existent Buddha is not a Buddha of form or attachment.

To practice the six paramitas and a myriad similar practices with the intention of becoming a Buddha thereby is to advance by stages, but the Ever-Existent Buddha is not a Buddha of stages.

Only awake to the One Mind, and there is nothing whatsoever to be attained.

This is the real Buddha.

The Buddha and all sentient beings are the One Mind and nothing else."