Kyle Dixon:

Our cognition is the foremost characteristic and defining attribute of what we call our mind. It is our consciousness, awareness, knowing, noetic capacity etc. whatever name you want to call it.


When that cognition is conditioned, it mistakes
itself to be a subjective reference point that is relating to conditioned objective entities. Conditioned in this context means something that can either (i) exist, or (ii) not-exist. And likewise we take our mind to be something that we possess, something that originated at some point, and likewise then something that is susceptible to cessation, death, etc. All of this arises due to the fact that we are ignorant of the actual nature of our mind.

When we say that this allegedly conditioned mind/cognizance has an unconditioned nature, it means that this noetic capacity is fundamentally free from the myriad forms of extremes and dualities that are mistakenly imposed upon it through our ignorance.

And recognizing the nature of mind means we, for the first time, realize directly and experientially that our mind is not located in a specific place, or that it is not extended in time between a point of origin and a point of cessation. That our mind is not a subject that is relating to objects that reside at a distance. This goes back to what Soh and others often speak of when they say they have realized anatman (anatta), where it is realized that there was never a core identity or reference point of our mind/cognition. That the expression of visual appearances we refer to as "seeing" is simply occurring without a "seer" and without a object that is seen. And the same applies to all sense doors. That 'nature' of cognition has already always been the case, it is just that we have failed to recognize it.

This means it is recognized that the mind, as a subjective knower was an artificial byproduct of a fundamental species of ignorance and the habitual patterns of grasping (at appearances) that resulted from that ignorance.

....
The bright vivid presence is what is what is ultimately essenceless.

The "nature of mind" is defined as non-dual cognizance and emptiness.


The "bright vivid presence" is the cognizance, and the point is to recognize that presence is empty i.e., essenceless.
0 Responses