Clear Light Mind

The Dalai Lama says that the goal of Buddhism is to achieve the state he calls, "Clear Light Mind." If you can do this then you will be free of suffering. It therefore seems important to understand what is Clear Light Mind if you are interested in relieving yourself of suffering and you think the Dalai Lama someone who might know what he is talking about.

I will get to some ideas on Clear Light Mind, but I first want to start by asking you to imagine what you think Clear Light Mind might be?

I am guessing that you are thinking about it being a higher level of experience. A soaring, brilliant, blissful state. Something that you construct through practice until you have a new ability to see the world in a different way. If so, this is because you are a western person.

The Dalai Lama says that Clear Light Mind is the fundamental nature of the mind, and exists independently of material existence. This means that (and he expressly says so) those mental actions that require the brain are not part of Clear Light Mind, in fact he calls them gross or course aspects of the mind. This includes all of our senses, all of our thoughts, all of our memories, all of our emotions.

The Dalai Lama also says that although he is certain that amoebae have Clear Light Mind, he is unsure about whether plants have it or not. So, the proximate goal of Buddhism, according to the Dalai Lama is to achieve the same state of mind as an amoeba, and this takes a vast amount of practice. If you can readily do this it will release you from suffering.

I find this fascinating. The "highest", "best" goal of one of the most stringently applied, longest lasting philosophies in the world is to remove all of what the west thinks of as the "highest" and "best" from ones mind in order to remove suffering. The counterpoint in the west to this concept is probably Stoicism in which happiness is achieved by the moral and intellectual perfection which removes the errors that lead to emotions.

If you think about this for a bit you realize that from a western perspective what Buddhism is about is mental suicide, explicitly the destruction of the ego, what is considered to be "I". Once there is no you, there is no suffering. Buddhism posits a Universe whereby this Clear Light Mind is eternal, being reborn in body after body until a perfect realization of its own state is achieved, and then Nirvana, release, extinction.

This fundamental goal is the reason why I am not a Buddhist. I spent several years in sporadic meditation until I found myself at one point in a traffic jam coming home from work. I was totally at peace, without thought, without emotion while around me was frustration and anger. I realized that I hadn't been frustrated or angry in weeks. Then I realized I hadn't been ecstatic, or sad, or wildly happy in weeks either. I realized that if I kept doing what I was doing it would become a permanent state. A state without much emotion, a state without suffering but also without passion. I decided I would take the suffering if it meant I got the passion too.

As an aside, I don't claim to have been a great Buddhist. It may be that I am missing a great swathe of Buddhist teachings and understanding that leads to a greater richness of life in addition to the removal of suffering. I also want to say that from my experience Buddhism really, really works. It probably saved my life in that it has stopped me from becoming deeply, deeply depressed since I started using it. Even at the dark times in my last job, when I would get to the point of weeping frequently in public, I wasn't in the darkest depths of despair because I was suffering in sympathy for others. It was compassion that led to the trauma of my last job, not depression. I still meditate infrequently to this day when I feel the Darkness coming on. I still concentrate on Mindfulness, which I believe to be the greatest gift you can give someone.

I think an important thing to think about when looking at any philosophy or religion is to place it into the circumstances in which it was produced. Buddhism was produced in India 2500 years ago. I have talked about the paradigm of the ancient world before, in which life was short, death was everywhere, inexplicable and sudden. There was no concept of rights or freedom, justice simply meant that you did what the powerful told you or they killed you. Under these circumstances the First Noble Truth, Suffering Exists (or life means suffering, or etc.) makes nothing but sense. In the modern western world I think an objective, reasoned look around would show that life really is mostly not suffering, but rather wonderful.

I bring up this matter in the main because I think it interesting. I also think it useful for people to think about the way they think by introducing concepts so foreign to our basic understanding that at first glance they seem incomprehensible. I also bring up this idea as a possible tool for people to use - sincerely think that anybody who has heard of Buddhism and not spent two weeks, fifteen minutes a day, trying it to see what it is about is a fool.

On the other hand I am greatly wary of those who say that something is the highest truth, the only way, the best view of things. We are all different, in different situations. The great wisdom of the ancients applies differently to all of us. As advised by the Buddha, you should examine all of the teachings that are given to you, try them, and if they don't work for you, reject them.