Luminous mind

Theravada

The Theravadin Anguttara Nikaya Atthakatha commentary identifies the luminous mind as the bhavanga, the "ground of becoming" or "latent dynamic continuum", the most fundamental level of mental functioning in the Theravada Abhidhammic scheme. The Kathavatthu also explains the luminous mind sutra passage as the bhavanga, which is the mind in its nature state (pakaticitta) and is described as luminous. This interpretation is also used by Buddhaghosa in his commentary on the Dhammasangani. Buddhaghosa also mentions that the mind is made luminous by the fourth jhana in his Visuddhimagga.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu holds that the commentaries' identification of the luminous mind with the bhavanga is problematic, but Peter Harvey finds it to be a plausible interpretation.

Ajahn Mun, the leading figure behind the modern Thai Forest Tradition, comments on this verse:

The mind is something more radiant than anything else can be, but because counterfeits—passing defilements—come and obscure it, it loses its radiance, like the sun when obscured by clouds. Don’t go thinking that the sun goes after the clouds. Instead, the clouds come drifting along and obscure the sun. So meditators, when they know in this manner, should do away with these counterfeits by analyzing them shrewdly... When they develop the mind to the stage of the primal mind, this will mean that all counterfeits are destroyed, or rather, counterfeit things won’t be able to reach into the primal mind, because the bridge making the connection will have been destroyed. Even though the mind may then still have to come into contact with the preoccupations of the world, its contact will be like that of a bead of water rolling over a lotus leaf.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu sees the luminous mind as "the mind that the meditator is trying to develop. To perceive its luminosity means understanding that defilements such as greed, aversion, or delusion are not intrinsic to its nature, are not a necessary part of awareness." He associates the term with the simile used to describe the fourth jhana, which states:

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.

Mahāsāṃghika

The Mahāsāṃghikas also held that the mind’s nature (cittasvabhāva) is fundamentally pure (mulavisuddha), but can be contaminated by adventitious defilements. Vasumitra's Nikayabheda-dharmamati-chakra-sastra discusses this theory, and cites the sutra passage the Mahāsāṃghikas drew on to defend it. This passage is quoted by Vasumitra as:

The self-nature of the mind (cittasvabhāva) is luminous (prabhāsvara). It is the adventitious impurities (āgantukopakleśa) that defile it. The self substance of the mind is eternally pure.

K’ouei-ki's commentary on Vasumitra adds: "It is because afflictions (kleśa) are produced which soil it that it is said to be defiled. But these defilements, not being of the original nature of the mind, are called adventitious."

The Kathāvatthu (III, 3) also cites this idea as a thesis of the Andhakas (i.e. Mahāsāṃghikas in Andhra Pradesh).

Vaibhāṣika

In contrast, the Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika school held that the mind was not naturally luminous. According to Skorupski for Vaibhāṣika, the mind:

is initially or originally contaminated by defilements, and must be purified by abandoning defilements. For them a primordially luminous mind cannot be contaminated by adventitious defilements. If such a mind were contaminated by adventitious defilements, then these naturally impure defilements would become pure once they become associated with the naturally luminous mind. On the other hand, if adventitious defilements remained to be impure, then a naturally luminous mind would not become defiled by their presence. For them the constantly evolving mind is in possession of defilements.

Mahayana

In Sanskrit Mahayana texts and their translations, the term is a compound of the intensifying prefix pra-; the verbal root bhāsa (Tibetan: 'od), which means light, radiance or luminosity; and the modifier vara (Tibetan: gsal ba), which means "clear" or "the best of, the highest type". Jeffrey Hopkins's Tibetan-Sanskrit dictionary glosses the term compound as:

clear light; clearly luminous; transparently luminous; translucent; brightly shining; transparent lucidity; splendor; radiance; illumination; spread the light; lustre; come to hear; effulgence; brilliance.

Mahayana texts

Mahayana sutras generally affirm the mind's pure and luminous nature, adding that this is its natural condition (prakṛtiś cittasya prabhāsvarā). In the Pañcavimsati Prajñaparamita sutra, the prabhsvara-citta is interpreted thus:

This mind (citta) is no-mind (acitta), because its natural character is luminous. What is this state of the mind’s luminosity (prabhsvarat)? When the mind is neither associated with nor dissociated from greed, hatred, delusion, proclivities (anusaya), fetters (samyojana), or false views (drsti), then this constitutes its luminosity. Does the mind exist as no-mind? In the state of no-mind (acittat), the states of existence (astit) or non-existence (nstit) can be neither found nor established... What is this state of no-mind? The state of no-mind, which is immutable (avikra) and undifferentiated (avikalpa), constitutes the ultimate reality (dharmat) of all dharmas. Such is the state of no-mind.

A similar teaching appears in some recensions of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā (8000 lines) Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra. Edward Conze considered the teaching on the "essential purity of the nature of mind" (prakrti cittasya prabhasvara; xinxiang benjing, 心相本淨) a central Mahayana teaching. According to Shi Huifeng, this term is not present in the earliest textual witness of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, the Daoxing Banruo Jing, attributed to Lokaksema (c. 179 CE).

Mahayana texts like the Ratnagotravibhanga also associate prabhsvara with awakening (bodhi) and another term, natural or original purity of mind (cittaprakrtivisuddhi).

In some Mahayana treatises, natural purity is another term for Emptiness, Suchness and Dharmadhatu. Asanga's Mahayanasamgraha, for example, states:

The essential purity (prakṛtivyavadāna), i.e., the true nature (tathatā), emptiness (śūnyatā), the utmost point of reality (bhūtakoti), the signless (animitta), the absolute (paramārtha), the fundamental element (dharmadhātu).

The Bhadrapala-sutra states that the element of consciousness (vijñanadhatu) is pure and penetrates all things while not being affected by them, like the rays of the sun, even though it may appear defiled. This sutra states:

Furthermore, Bhadrapāla, the element of consciousness is completely purified; it encompasses everything, yet it is not tainted by anything.

Alaya-vijñana

According to Walpola Rahula, all the elements of the Yogacara store-consciousness (alaya-vijnana) are already found in the Pali Canon. He writes that the three layers of the mind (citta, called "luminous" in the passage discussed above, manas, and vijnana) as presented by Asanga are also used in the Pali Canon.

According to Yogacara teachings, as in early Buddhist teachings regarding the citta, the store-consciousness is not pure, and with the attainment of nirvana comes a level of mental purity that is hitherto unattained.

Svasaṃvedana

In Tibetan Buddhism, the luminous mind (Tibetan: gsal ba) is often equated with the Yogacara concept of svasaṃvedana (reflexive awareness). It is often compared to a lamp in a dark room, which in the act of illuminating objects in the room also illuminates itself.

Tathagatagarbha

In the canonical discourses, when the brightly shining citta is "unstained", it is supremely poised for arahantship, and so could be conceived as the "womb" of the arahant, for which a synonym is tathagata. The discourses do not support seeing the "luminous mind" as "nirvana within", which exists before liberation. While the Canon does not support the identification of the "luminous mind" in its raw state with nirvanic consciousness, passages could be taken to imply that it can be transformed into the latter. Upon the destruction of the fetters, according to one scholar, "the shining nibbanic consciousness flashes out of the womb of arahantship, being without object or support, so transcending all limitations."

Both the Shurangama Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra describe the tathagatagarbha ("buddha womb") as "by nature brightly shining and pure" and "originally pure", though "enveloped in the garments of the skandhas, dhatus and ayatanas and soiled with the dirt of attachment, hatred, delusion and false imagining." It is said to be "naturally pure", but it appears impure as it is stained by adventitious defilements. Thus the Lankavatara Sutra identifies the luminous mind of the Canon with the tathagatagarbha. Some Gelug philosophers, in contrast to teachings in the Lankavatara Sutra, maintain that the "purity" of the tathagatagarbha is not because it is originally or fundamentally pure, but because mental flaws can be removed—that is, like anything else, they are not part of an individual's fundamental essence. These thinkers thus refuse to turn epistemological insight about emptiness and Buddha-nature into an essentialist metaphysics.

The Shurangama Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra also equate the tathagatagarbha (and alaya-vijnana) with nirvana, though this is concerned with the actual attainment of nirvana as opposed to nirvana as a timeless phenomenon.

Bodhicitta

The Mahayana interprets the brightly shining citta as bodhicitta, the altruistic "spirit of awakening". The Astasahasrika Perfection of Wisdom Sutra describes bodhicitta thus: "That citta is no citta since it is by nature brightly shining". This is in accord with Anguttara Nikaya I,10, which goes from a reference to brightly shining citta to saying that even the slightest development of loving-kindness is of great benefit. This implies that loving-kindness—and the related state of compassion—is inherent in the luminous mind as a basis for its further development. The observation that the ground state of consciousness is of the nature of loving-kindness implies that empathy is innate to consciousness and exists before the emergence of active mental processes.

Vajrayana

Luminosity or clear light (Tibetan: འོད་གསལ་, Wylie: 'od gsal, THL: ösel; Sanskrit: prabhāsvara) is a central concept in Esoteric Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Bon. It is the mind's innate condition, associated with buddha-nature, the realisation of which is the goal of meditative practice. It is said to be experienced when the coarse and subtle minds dissolve during deep sleep, during orgasm, and during the death process. All systems of Tibetan Buddhism agree that the mind's clear light nature is non-conceptual and free from all mental afflictions, and that tantra is the superior method of working with this nature of the mind.

The Indian tantric commentator Indrabhuti, in his Jñanasiddhi, writes:

Being luminous by nature, this mind is similar to the moon's disc. The lunar disc epitomises the knowledge (jñāna) that is luminous by nature. Just as the waxing moon gradually emerges in its fullness, in the same way the mind-jewel (cittaratna), being naturally luminous, also fully emerges in its perfected state. Just as the moon becomes fully visible, once it is freed from the accidental obscurities, in the same way the mind-jewel, being pure by nature (prakṛti-pariśuddha), once separated from the stains of defilements (kleśa), appears as the perfected buddha-qualities (guṇa).

Luminosity is also a specific term for one of the Six Yogas of Naropa. In his commentary, Pema Karpo says that all human beings briefly experience the clear light at the very first moment of death, while advanced yogic practitioners do so in the highest states of meditation, and Buddhas experience it unceasingly.

Various Vajrayana practices involve the recognition of this aspect of mind in different situations, such as dream yoga. In this case, the practitioner trains to lucidly enter the deep sleep state. If one has the ability to remain lucid during deep sleep, one can recognize the luminosity of death and gain Buddhahood. This is called the meeting of mother and child luminosities, resulting in the state of thukdam at death.

Dzogchen

In Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen literature, luminosity ('od gsal) is associated with the sambhogakāya aspect of the Ground, termed "spontaneous presence" (lhun grub), a presence that is uncreated and not based on anything causally extraneous to itself. This term is often paired with the dharmakāya aspect of "original-purity" (ka dag), associated with emptiness (shunyata). The two are seen as inseparable (zung 'jug) aspects of the Ground. Other terms used to describe this aspect are dynamism or creative power (rtsal) and radiance (mdangs).