“Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements.”
“Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements.”
– Pabhassara Sutta
When I first heard this concept of the mind being naturally “luminous,” I thought it was an allusion to the fact that there’s something in the mind that’s secretly pure and awakened already. That underneath everything else, enlightenment is already there.
But that’s not what the Buddha meant by this. What he was really saying was that the mind is naturally good, and ready to be enlightened, but not enlightened. The quality of the mind that allows it to be good and ready to find awakening or enlightenment is that the mind can know. When the mind knows, it means that it is shining a light on an experience, on whatever’s happening. The question is, how do we train our minds to do that?
It can feel really crowded in inside our minds. Have you ever had a meditation when it was just like Grand Central Station in your mind? Sometimes we describe it as standing under a waterfall. Thoughts, images, and stories pounding down on you, all these experiences coming up one after another. All that phenomena is fueled by three classic things: greed, anger, and delusion, or the three poisons in Buddhist practice. And these three poisons drive suffering in the world.
For a lot of us, when we see these qualities come up in ourselves—anger, greed, or delusion—we tend to think it’s baked into our brains, into who we are. One of the gifts of practicing meditation is that we can get unstuck from that idea, because if we sit long enough, we’ll see that what’s going on will arise, and then it will go away.
So it turns out that greed and anger and delusion are not hardwired into the mind. Rather, they’re visitors, and that’s really good news, because we can work with that. We can change it.
There’s a good illustration of this idea of darkness. What if you were in a room that had been dark for a thousand years, and you lit a match? The darkness goes away, and there’s light. The darkness doesn’t stand up and protest and say, “I’ve been here a thousand years, what do you think you’re doing?” It just goes: when light is shined on it, it leaves.
That’s a moment of clarity. It may be brief, but in practice, when it comes up, it’s those moments when the thoughts slow way down. We talk about hindrances in practice: desire, aversion, sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, and doubt. They come up for everybody, no matter how seasoned a meditator you are. These experiences cloud what we’re seeing. The good news is that when we shine a light on these experiences when we’re having them, they go away. And in those moments, you see a glimpse of what the mind is like when it shines a light on things — it becomes clear.
It’s equally important to notice when the hinderances are not there. When you see you’ve gotten lost in aversion—irritability, disdain, hatred—and you say, “This is aversion,” that’s great. That’s the first step. When the mind shines a light, it sees what’s present, and it sees if the hindrances are present, but it also sees when they’re not there. It’s just as important to note what’s not there as what is there.
Part of what helps with this is discernment. Discernment is your wisdom coming into a situation. It can be used internally in practice and externally in what you see. When we’re not using discernment, the hindrances come in like fog. The fog gets thicker and thicker, and we don’t see.
The world is sort of designed to promote us not seeing what’s coming up in our experience clearly. It can be your smartphone, and doomscrolling. Hanging around with people who aren’t wise. Hearing teachings and not really taking them to heart. These things cloud over what’s happening, and fuel inappropriate attention. We’re looking in the wrong place.
Instead of being lost in status, comparison, and blame, discernment suggests we use a different question. We back up and say: Where’s the suffering here? That’s the kind of suffering the Buddha talked about — it’s happening right where you are. If you turn and ask, “Where’s the suffering? What am I experiencing? And why?” you’re changing direction.
On a 14-day retreat, I spent a whole morning lost in things that happened when I was 5 or 7 years old. I was upset to the point of tears. I went to my teacher and told her I was lost in all this awful stuff from the past. She listened patiently and then said, “Stop it. This is all a delusion.”
That was her lending me her discernment to kickstart mine. I was lost in a story about my life. When we turn to suffering, we can apply the Four Noble Truths: Suffering exists. There’s a cause for suffering. There’s a way for suffering to be relieved. And there’s a path to do that. Then we can ask questions: What is the suffering I’m experiencing? What’s causing it? There’s a good chance it’s craving. Why can’t I let this go? It might be clinging. How can I start to let go?
In order to do this, it takes willingness. Sitting can be tough. Sometimes it’s wonderful, and there’s great insight. But awakening isn’t guaranteed. There’s no mechanism inside of us that’s going to drag us across the finish line against our will. We have to want it.
There are three things that are important: the desire for happiness, a mind that can know—and you have one—and the ability to train ourselves.
There’s a quote from Ajaan Mun: We are warriors fighting defilement. Defilements are those things that trash up your mind. Our weapon is discernment. And the warrior in us is the determination not to suffer again. Without that determination, the path won’t unfold.
That’s why the teaching on the luminosity of the mind matters. If the mind were permanently stained with greed, hatred, and delusion, there would be no hope for change, but it’s not permanently stained. And if awakening were guaranteed, there’d be no sense of urgency, but it’s not guaranteed.
Those are extremes. The middle path is this: the mind can know, the mind can be trained, and the mind can let go. How do we do that?
The first teachings in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness: mindfulness of the breath and mindfulness of the body. Without changing your posture, just find your breath. Gently land on your breath. All sorts of things may come up. When they do, look at them as visitors. They’re not permanent.
You have the breath to sustain you, and you can always come back to it. No matter how confused or complicated the mind gets, you can come back. Relax into the breath. Just as surely as these visitors come, they go. Letting your mind be the light.
It’s like that old Motel 6 commercial: “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Well, guess who’s going to leave the light on for you? You. Because you’re going to realize the light is right there: it’s in your mind. When you let the process happen, the mind will shine the light on what’s going on. And you’ll see.
Warmly,
James
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