Talk:Mindstream

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This article is over-Wikilinked. Many of the links should be removed. Generally understood words which are not specific to the topic should not be linked. Words which are pertinent to the topic should only be linked from their first occurance. Thank you. Ekajati (yakity-yak) 16:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I was looking to see if there was a tag for overlinking, but I couldn't find anything... Dj stone 15:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Flowery obscuration

Apart from overlinking, some of this article seems a celebration of flowery obscuration. Consider the opening definition:

"Mindstream, not to be conflated with (though informed by) stream of consciousness, is a compound conjunction of mind and stream and in Vajrayana and Tantric Buddhism creatively defines the nonlocal metaphoric stream of moments or quanta of consciousness proceeding endlessly from lifetime to lifetime and beyond."

Is this earnest or tongue-in-cheek? - Geronimo20 06:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yantra dialogue

  • Yantra in Sanskrit denotes "loom", "instrument" and "machine". Yantra is an aniconic temenos or tabernacle of deva, asura, genius loci or other archetypal entity. Yantra are theurgical device that engender entelecheia. Yantra are realised by sadhu through darshana and samyama. There are numerous yantra. Shri Yantra is often furnished as an example. Yantra contain geometric items and archetypal shapes and patterns namely squares, triangles, circles and floral patterns; but may also include bija mantra and more complex and detailed symbols. Bindu is central, core and instrumental to yantra. Yantra function as revelatory conduits of cosmic truths. Yantra, as instrument and spiritual technology, may be appropriately envisioned as prototypical and esoteric concept mapping machines or conceptual looms. Certain yantra are held to embody the energetic signature of both the Universe and consciousness. Some Hindu esoteric practitioners employ yantra, mantra and other items of the saṃdhyā-bhāṣā (Bucknell, et. al.; 1986: p.ix) in their sadhana, puja and yajna. Though often rendered in two dimensions through art, yantra are conceived and conceptualised by practitioners as multi-dimensional sacred architecture and in this quality are identical with their correlate the mandala.
The aforecited was informed through the mindstream of Herbert V. Günther, teacher, writer and scholar.
सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः। B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 02:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what citation you are making. I don't know what you mean by the term "mindstream". Buddhipriya 03:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Please don't be sorry Buddhipriya, be joyful! You have nothing to be sorry for, asking mindful, thoughtful and insightful questions is honourable and so are you. Your tireless devotion to Wikipedia and mapping various knowledges inspires me with joy. There is too much for any one to hold except in direct Communion. In answer to your question, Mindstream may be nailed as the resolution of Atman and Anatman and it may be envisioned as, and has the functionality of, Indra's Net. You are the first formidable person I have encountered in a very long time. Thankyou for honing my facility.
Aum
B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 01:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tears of joy

Tears of joy during sadhana is the most sublime primal emotion in my lived experience: a bodily manifestation of the limbic bubbling forth of the divine mindstream, springing eternal from the Wellspring of Mysterium Magnum. But by the grace of Guruji Yoga go I!
Wheels within wheels
B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 16:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Synthesis: unveiling the unveiled

"The anusaya are so-called passions that lie dormant in a person's stream of consciousness (citta-santana) that is called bhavaṅga citta in Theravada and the Alāyavjñāṇa in the Yogācāra school. It is like a sleeping serpent existing from unknown time but it may cause the mental patient to act in an unreasonable manner."[1]

NB: Citta-santana is the triunic trikaya aka kundalini.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Source: [1] (accessed: November 28, 2007)

[edit] To the medicine, the energetic signature, the yidam of the hummingbird totem...my root guru...

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1996: unpaginated) in contextualizing and redressing the general misconception of anātman (rendered as "no self") and ātman (rendered as "self"), in relation to the view he holds of the intention of Shakyamuni Buddha, states:

...the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible.[1]

This clear evocation of what later became canonized in Buddhist discourse as Madhyamika or "middle way", is key to tender a description of the ineffable Mysterium Magnum of the "Great Continuüm" that is rendered in English as "Mindstream": the nondual resolution of ātman and anātman.

In the entwined Dzogchen traditions of Bönpo and Nyingmapa, the Mindstream is constituted by a continuüm of gankyil comprised of the Five Pure Lights of the Five Wisdoms which unite the trikaya. These 'tantric correlations' (or Twilight Language) are evident in the iconographic representation of the Five Jinas[2] and visualization of the gankyil and mandala in Dzogchen sādhana and discourse. The 'supreme siddhi or 'absolute bodhicitta of the Dzogchenpa is when the Mindstream of their bodymind (a rendering of namarupa) is 'released' (a rendering of Nirvana) as the Rainbow Body. —Preceding unsigned comment added by B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 03:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Simultaneous versus successive operations of plural consciousnesses

Nobuyoshi Yamabe (2004: p.176-177) states:

Since the Yogācāra model of eight consciousnesses means that two layers of unconscious mind are always operating behind the conventional six consciousnesses, it naturally presupposes the simultaneous operations of different types of consciousness. This position, however, was not uncontroversial among Buddhist traditions. Since the stream of consciousness represents a personal identity in Buddhism, there was a strong opinion that more than one stream of consciousness could not exist simultaneously in any sentient being at a given moment. According to this position, strongly advocated by the Sarvāstivāda school, when one feels, for example, that one is seeing something and listening to something at the same time, the visual consciousness and the auditory consciousness are in fact operating in rapid succession and not simultaneously.
It is recorded that some schools belonging to the Mahāsāṃghika lineage did not share this opinion, but it seems to have been widely accepted by other schools. The Sautrāntika (Those Who Follow Sūtras) tradition, which, according to the common view, was an offshoot of the Sarvāstivāda school, was considered to have shared the Sarvāstivāda opinion on this matter, but this has been questioned recently by some scholars.[3]

[edit] Evolution of mindstream

Alex Wayman (1965: p.2) states:

Early Buddhism emphasized karma ("action") as what transmigrates - and this is as surprising to a first reading as is the Samkha theory of evolutes. If one goes further into the Buddhist texts he finds out that the karma that determines destination (gati) after death is explained as an important meaning of manas-karma ("acts of mind") and finds out that this particular manas-karma is cetana ("volition"). This word "cetana" has the root cit- ("to think"), which is the root of the word citta, often translated "mind," as in the expression "Mind Only" (cittamatra), a frequest title for doctirnes of the Yogacara school. Later Buddhism used the expression "citta-samtana" or "citta-samtati" both: "stream of thoughts") for the transmigrating entity. Thus, the words "karma" and "citta" are doctrinally equivalent to indicate the transmigrating entity. If a "stream of thoughts" can bring about a set of external circumstances compensatory and retributeive of past acts, we have at once the idealistic picture of a subjective element of a conscious or subconscious nature projecting the "world." If this is true for early Buddhsim, it cannot be the whole truth, because early Buddhism was certainly realistic and pluralistic also.[4]

Verhaegen (2002: p.11) states that:

Price writes that "Karma is the force or energy created by human thoughts, words and deeds",[5] a law of action and reaction, of cause and effect which shapes our destiny in terms of future lives. Buddhists believe that the attitudes and patterns of this life determine our next life. Cessation of this continuous cycle leads to nirvana, which, according to Smith, is an extinction of the boundaries of the finite self, or, more literally, a going out of the fires.[6] The Buddha regarded nirvana as the highest destiny of the human spirit, and referred to it as bliss, a bliss that is incomprehensible and indescribable.[7]

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche (2001: p.254) states:

[Ground mahamudra][8] is present within the mind-stream of all sentient beings. It is the inseparability of appearances and emptiness, awareness and emptiness, and bliss and emptiness. It is spontaneously present as the nature of the three kayas and the five wisdoms. It is free from arising, abiding, and cessation, and from the extremes of the conceptual elaborations of existence and nonexistence.[9]

Laird (2006: p.24) states:

As I listened carefully to the Dalai Lama, an image took shape in my mind of how reincarnation shaped the history the Dalai Lama spoke of. I thought of different human "souls" as strands braided together, down through time, forming a rope. The lineage of fourteen Dalai Lamas has not been a reincarnation of one human soul. Several human souls have been the vessel for Chenrizi in their own time, and a few of these have reincarnated several times. At the same time, they all interact with one another, as humans, during different incarnations. This was completely different from the idea I had previously had that the Dalai Lama was the fourteenth reincarnation of a single human soul, who was also a manifestation of the compassion of the buddha.[10]

Venerable Thubten Chodron (undated) when asked the question "Is there one universal mind that we are all a part of?" answers:

According to Buddhism, no. Each of us has our own mindstream. However, when we purify our minds and become Buddhas, we will no longer have the feeling of being separate, isolated individuals. We will each be an individual Buddha, but we will have the same spiritual realizations. We won't feel cut off from each other.[11]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Bhikkhu, Thanissaro (1996). No-self or Not-self?. Source: [2] (accessed: December 5, 2007)
  2. ^ Bucknell, Roderick & Stuart-Fox, Martin (1986). The Twilight Language: Explorations in Buddhist Meditation and Symbolism. Curzon Press: London. ISBN 0-312-82540-4
  3. ^ Yamabe, Nobuyoshi (2004). "Consciousness, Theories of" (p.175-178) in Buswell, Robert E. (Editor in Chief) et. al. (2004). Encyclopedia of Buddhism: Volume One; A-L. New York, New York, USA: Macmillan Reference. ISBN 0-02-865910-4(set).
  4. ^ Wayman, Alex. "The Yogachara Idealism." Philosophy East and West. Volume 15 (1965). University of Hawaii Press. p.65-73. Source: [3] (accessed: January 23, 2008)
  5. ^ Joan Price, "The Life and Teachings of the Buddha", Quest, vol. 8, no.1. Spring, 1995, pp.54-5.
  6. ^ Smith, Huston (1991). The World's Religions. San Francisco, USA: Harper. p.113.
  7. ^ Verhaegen, Ardy (2002). The Dalai Lamas: The Institution and Its History. Emerging Perceptions in Buddhist Studies, no. 15. New Delhi, India: D. K. Printworld (P) Ltd. ISBN 81-246-0202-6. p.11.
  8. ^ [Ground mahamudra] is what is realized and actualized by the nondual mind of the buddhas...and noble individuals. It is the basic state (Tib. gshis kyi babs) of the three realms of samsara and the true nature of all phenomena from the beginning. It is connate wisdom (lhan gcig skyes pa'i ye shes), which pervades the entire ground. It is present within the mind-stream of all of us sentient beings, from the insects that live inside grass stems up to the buddhas. It is the natural purity (rang bzhin rnam bdag), which is neither positive nor negative, large nor small, and so forth.
  9. ^ Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche (2001). "Introduction" within the 9th Karmapa, Wangchuk Dorje's Mahamudra: The Ocean of Definitive Meaning (translated by Elizabeth Callahan). Refer p. 254.
  10. ^ Laird, Thomas (2006). The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama. Grove Press. Source: [4] (accessed: January 31, 2008)
  11. ^ Source: [5] (accessed: January 31, 2008)

[edit] Thrangu Rinpoche

His Holiness the Dalai Lama bestowed upon Thrangu Rinpoche the title of Kagyu Khenpo, and at the main seat of the Kagyu lineage in Rumtek, Sikkim, the glorious Karmapa showered him with praise, bestowing the title of Great Khenpo and stated that his mindstream was one with that of Ngokchö Kudorje, Gyedze Marpa Lotsawa's close disciple, who held his exegetical lineage.[1]

[edit] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness (need date) By Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho, Francisco J. Varela, Jerome Engel (p.84):

"From the biologist's point of view," I insisted once again, "the only possible inheritance consists of a physiological and a morphological organism. The idea that we can inherit what our parents have learned is called a Lamarckian evolution, which standard biology sees as false. Instead, I can only inherit from my parents such things as constitution and features; anything more I learn as a young child in contact with my parents. In biology this is the difference between phylogeny (the genetic inheritance) and ontogeny, which is what I learn, one I start my life. It seems that in Buddhism the notion of mindstream is neither phylogenetic nor ontogenetic, but represents a different kind of lineage, because it comes from a transindividual mindstream. This doesn't make too much sense in current science..." [2]


[edit] This term is a neologism / original research?

I haven't encountered the term "Mindstream" before, and I don't find any independent sources online that use it with the same meaning as this article.
Can we produce any cites to show that this term is not a neologism (Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms) or original research (Wikipedia:No original research)?
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 20:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting...

...to see so many expert minds at work here... and no beginners, apparently. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.205.92.153 (talk) 21:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)