Yes, in the respect that it clears the mind of defilements/delusions, awakens the being, and leads to development of the mind.
Pahassara Sutta: Luminous
"Luminous, monks, is the mind.
[1] And it is defiled by incoming defilements." {I,v,9}
"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements." {I,v,10}
"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements. The uninstructed run-of-the-mill person doesn't discern that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person — there is no development of the mind." {I,vi,1}
"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements. The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones discerns that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — there is development of the mind." {I,vi,2}
Yes, those were the verses I had in mind. I just couldn't recall their specific location in the
Tripitaka.
The notion that once the mind is freed from "
incoming defilments" one becomes aware of its inherent luminosity, always struck me as perhaps being a Pali canon-cognate of the Mahayana doctrine of
Buddha-nature.
From my limited forays into Tibetan Buddhism, I became aware of an interpretation of this
luminosity of mind doctrine which described it in terms of a primordial "
Ground", "
essence" or
"nature" identified with
tathagatagarbha (Buddha-nature) and which is characterized by "
emptiness" and "
clarity".
Obviously, this takes it far away from any conservative
Therevadin understanding but in this articulation it sounds strangely familiar to someone like myself, who has a longstanding background in the Catholic contemplative tradition.
The fundamental issue for Abba
Evagrius (345-399 AD), the first hesychast, and the Desert Fathers was "clear thinking" or "clear sight" of the image of God within one's heart, untainted by the obscuration of the passions and
logismoi (disturbing thoughts)
- the kind of passionate, wild thoughts that distract our attention and scatter the focus of the mind away from God. The Desert Fathers called this '
apatheia' which means a state of imperturbable calm. If this state of mind was achieved, this
apatheia, the monks believed that they could understand God's purpose "undistorted" and attain union with Him.
The early ascetics identified this state with Jesus' teaching about the
the kingdom of God, as Abba Evagrius explained:
"...The Kingdom of Heaven is apatheia [imperturbable calm, dispassion] of the soul along with true knowledge of existing things.
The proof of apatheia is had when the spirit begins to see its own light, when it remains in a state of tranquillity in the presence of the images it has during sleep, and when it maintains its calm as it beholds the affairs of life.
The spirit that possesses health is the one which has no images of the things of the world at the time of prayer.
The ascetic life is the spiritual method for cleansing [the mind]..."
- Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD), Early Desert Father
Yes, you read that: the proof that one has apprehended the Kingdom of God within oneself, and found this dispassionate state of imperturbable calm without any images mediated through sense-perceptions or impressions coming in from outside, is had "
when the spirit begins to see its own light".
The true nature of the mind is described as "luminous" like sapphire when freed of incoming defilements (that is attachment to sense-impressions and mental images). Abbas Evagrius again:
"...If one wishes to see the state (katastasis) of the mind, let him deprive himself of all representations, and then he will see the mind appear similar to sapphire or to the color of the sky. But to do that without being passionless (apatheia) is impossible...The mind would not see itself unless it has been raised higher than all the representations of objects...
Apatheia (passionlessness) is a quiet state of the rational soul. It results from gentleness and self-control...
A man in chains cannot run. Nor can the mind that is enslaved to passion see the place of spiritual prayer. It is dragged along and tossed by these passion-filled thoughts and cannot stand firm and tranquil...
The ascetical mind is one that always receives passionlessly the representations of this world...The state of the mind is an intellectual peak, comparable in color to the sky. Onto it, there comes, at the time of prayer, the light of the holy Trinity..."
- Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD), early desert father
As you can see from the date, this is an extremely ancient teaching at the heart of the Christian contemplative tradition, that would undergo significant further development in the Eastern Orthodox Hesychast and Catholic mystical traditions.
Saint John Cassian ( c. 360 – 435 AD), the founder of Western monasticism, was a disciple of Abba Evagrius and his works
(Coenobitical Institutions and the
Conferences) represent a transmittal of Evagrius Ponticus' ascetical doctrines to the West. These works formed the basis of much of the spirituality of the
Order of Saint Benedict and its offshoots.
In the medieval mystical tradition of the Catholic Church, this concept of the "
sapphire light of the dispassionate mind" was embellished further by our monks, friars and mystics into the idea that the mind was a dual phenomenon: with a lower seat rooted in the imagination and emotions, and the intellect; while above this (or below it, if you like) was the "
apex", "
ground" and "
essence" of the soul, wherein contemplative prayer takes place, and union with God.
As the Benedictine monk Dom Cuthbert Butler explained in his 1922 book,
Western Mysticism (p.140):
Western Mysticism
It is a common teaching of mystic writers that introversion is effected by a successive silencing of the faculties of the mind and of the powers of the soul, till the actuations become blind elevations to God; and in the 'Quiet' thus produced, the very being of the soul the "Ground of the Spirit', the later mystics call it comes into immediate relation with the Ultimate Reality which is God.
This at least will be held by all who regard the mind as something other than a bundle of sensations, phantasmata, emotions, cognitions, volitions. This essence of the soul, the soul itself, is what the mystics mean when they speak of the centre of the soul, or its apex, or ground, or the fund of the spirit, or the synteresis. 2 It has been called also in modern terminology the core of personality, and the transcendental self.
For the Catholic mystics it is this essence of the soul that enters into union with God. This we learned from Pope St Gregory the Great: he says that the mind must first clear itself of all sense perceptions and of all images of things bodily and spiritual, so that it may be able to find and consider itself as it is in itself, i.e., its essence; and then, by means of this realization of itself thus stript of all, it rises to the contemplation of God
At the end of his
Book of Spiritual Instruction Abbot Louis de Blois, O.S.B., (1506 – 1566), a Flemish monk and mystical writer, sets forth at some length the doctrine of the Catholic mystics on this hidden essence of the soul/mind:
Few rise above their natural powers; few ever come to know the
apex of the spirit and the hidden fund or depth of the soul. It is far
more inward and sublime than are the three higher faculties, for it
is their origin. It is wholly simple, essential, and uniform, and so
there is not multiplicity in it, but unity, and in it the three higher
faculties are one thing. Here is perfect tranquillity, deepest silence,
because never can any image enter here. By this depth, in which
the divine image lies hidden, we are deiform. This same depth is
called the heaven of the spirit, for the Kingdom of God is in it, as
the Lord said:
'The Kingdom of God is within you';
and the Kingdom of God is God Himself with all His riches. Therefore this naked
and unfigured depth is above all created things, and is raised above
all senses and faculties; it transcends place and time, abiding by a
certain perpetual adhesion in God its beginning; yet it is essentially
within us, because it is the abyss of the mind and its most inward
essence. This depth, which the uncreated light ever irradiates, when
it is laid open to a man and begins to shine on him, powerfully
affects and attracts him. . . . May God, the uncreated Abyss, vouchsafe
to call unto Himself our spirit, the created abyss, and make it
one with Him, that our spirit, plunged in the deep sea of the Godhead,
may happily lose itself in the Spirit of God.
A later monastic writer, Pere Noel, in summarizing the thought of the earlier German mystic and Catholic preacher
Johannes Tauler (c. 1300 – 15 June 1361), explains it thus:
Do you wish to live truly of the divine life, to submit yourself fully to the illuminations of the Primary Truth, to experience the direct irradiations of the Divinity?
Leave matter and the senses, go forth from this visible world, quit creatures, pass over the matter that encloses you, the sensations that hold you in, the imaginations that keep you captive, the thoughts and sublime concepts which you take for the Primary Truth, but which are only a magnificent though fragile scaffolding of your reason. Raise yourself above your reason, above your human intelligence which nourishes itself on phantasms, images, sensible species; descend into the fund and the inmost recess of your soul: there you will find the pure and subsistent spirit; there you will find the dwelling-place of God; there you will find God.
This spirit by nature resembles God, God has made it for Himself. There God descends by grace and love, and only there can He descend. We are accessible to the visit of God only by those summits of our soul that, like Himself, are wholly spiritual (p. 351). There the divine Essence places itself, without intermediary of any kind, in face of the intelligence (p. 340).
I have much more to say on this but would like your thoughts first. It's the primary goal of Eastern Orthodox and Catholic contemplation (apatheia/theosis), indeed of our entire monastic and mendicant traditions. In my earlier postings, I demonstrated how it is ultimately derived in its germinal state from the New Testament.
