There is mind and then Mind
What we know of the ordinary mind or citta, is that it is perceiving, appropriative, in the sense of desiring, and assimilative. Mind is also a subtle and dynamic force capable of being constructive. We only know its potential power by what issues forth from out of its mysterious wellspring. In other words, we only know mental structures which make up the very foundation of our everyday world which are in every sense of the word, illusory or myalthough quite useful and necessary. Such a mind turns iron into steel, builds a human world, plants crops, invents useful machines, and so on.
This mind is also highly inventivewe could even say, intuitive. It is capable of creating many structures and even elaborate meta-structures. But not a single structure allows mind to commune with itself, directly, that is, to know itself ontologically in mystical contemplation. Mind as substance is left out of the picture, except for the mendicant who has achieved one pointedness of mind (P., ekaggacitto) in which mind is Mind-onlyrevealed as the mysterious stuff of its structures.
This Mind (now with a capital M) is radiance (prabhsa). At least this is its effect upon the entire corporal body including even our thoughts and emotions. What is substance has become awake (bodhi). Wisdom (praj), too, is born which is the ability of Mind to distinguish between itself and its structures or phenomena. To go back a little, awakening is mind discovering itself, now Mind. Mind is the absolute substance. Its development and unfolding after awakening, by which it is able to behold the universe as a fictional display or my, is the real path. The rest makes no difference.
Lest we believe that Mind is somehow awareness, which seems to be the case in some Buddhist circles these days, we need to be disabused of this pernicious belief. Awareness is only sensory consciousness, that is, awareness of sensory p! henomena . This is the fifth aggregate of the Five Aggregates which, incidentally, belong to Mara the Evil One.
The idea of pure awareness fares no better than sensory awareness. It is awareness of asmimna (the I-concept), that is, awareness of the immediacy of the corporeal individual as a singular abstract determination. This means the Five Aggregates are mis-taken for the true self. According to the Buddha the removal of asmimna is the greatest happiness because before its removal it served to bind us to what we should not be bound down to, viz., the temporal body including the world it discloses to us.
