The Ship of Death

The Ship of Death
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THE LUMINOUS NATURE OF THE MIND

by Peter Morrell
...the mind itself is a sentience or awareness that is a factor of luminosity

and knowing...preceded by a similar factor of luminosity and knowing. [1]
Mind...[is] described as being in essence empty, but nevertheless exhibiting
natural clarity and unimpeded manifestation... [2]
...consciousness is that which is luminous and knowing...not something
physical...does not have shape or color...its nature is luminous, clear, and
capable of knowing any object through reflecting the aspect of that with
which it comes into contact. [3]
...our consciousness is in the nature of luminosity and knowing... [4]
********
Once the details of impermanence and death have been thoroughly

contemplated in depth, one then arrives at the conclusion that samsara is a
pretty unpleasant place to be and one feels inspired with a wish to leave it.
Uncompounded phenomena are considered to be permanent things; forms,

consciousnesses, and non-associated compositional factors...are considered
to be impermanent things. [5]
Impermanence confronts us with the immanence of death and the utter
groundlessness for our hopes that anything we now enjoy will outlast the
moment. We are urged to use our fear of death as a motivation for religious
practice. [6]
http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/buddhism/luminous.htm
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However, this is just the beginning of the Buddhist path. Once these ideas are
thoroughly absorbed and understood, then the mind truly becomes a tool
suitable to contemplate impermanence more closely - even until the finest and
most subtle aspects of it can be apprehended.
...every moment we have many different levels of consciousness - coarse

and subtle. [7]
Truly useful contemplation begins when we can place our mind in a neutral or
natural state. That state is often referred to in the great texts. It means when
there is neither attraction nor aversion, neither love nor hatred, no desire and
no repulsion. In that state where there is no thought of good or of ill, in which
one is truly in a neutral frame of mind, it is as if the mind is dampened, reacts
to nothing but remains in a neutral, lucid and steady state at all times.
Since desire, hatred, and ignorance cause birth into cyclic existence, the
only way to become free is to eliminate your own desire, hatred and
ignorance. [8]
Once that is the case, then the mind can be used to contemplate
impermanence, undistracted by any such thoughts or biases and then we can
begin to make some real progress in understanding the way the world is, the
way mind is and the way we ourselves are, and the situation we find ourselves
in.
...the reason it is hard to identify the nature of the mind is that it is as if

covered over by our own conceptions. [9]
...let the mind flow of its own accord, without conceptual overlay. [10]
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The neutral state of the mind is like a mind without any bias or preoccupation.
It means that the mind has no strong feeling either way about things. It is like
a state with no drugs, no alcohol, no anger or aversion, no strong desire, no
sex, no appetite for anything - a very bland and neutral state. The mind is
calm and flat like water, not choppy or agitated. Bright, yet empty at the same
time.
...meditation...[is] withdrawing this scattered mind on one object inside...

[11]
Only when the mind is in such a state can it be truly considered suitable for
contemplating impermanence and death and such subtle subjects in the type of
depth Buddhism requires of us.
If you repeatedly meditate on impermanence, attraction to the things of

this life will be lessened...there are many types of meditation in Buddhism,
and the best is impermanence...in the jungle the elephant has the biggest
footprint, and in meditation the greatest mark or effect is left by meditating
on impermanence. This is a great quintessential instruction...keep this
understanding of impermanence in your consciousness, never allowing your
mind to lose it. [12]
When you pay the closest attention to transitoriness by death, above all
you give yourself a push on entering the Dharma, which creates a
favourable condition for persevering in the practice of good, and lastly you
acquire an intimate understanding of the sameness of all constituents of
reality. [13]
...if you generate an understanding of impermanence in your mental
continuum, it will ultimately release you into the clear light of your own
mind. [14]
Meditation on impermanence begins with reflection on the impermanence
of the external world. [15]
All compounded phenomena are necessarily impermanent... [16]
...life ebbs from moment to moment, means that life continually passes
away and so approaches death. [17]
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The mind itself also becomes a subject of study for itself and that also gives
rise to a degree of subtle detachment. It is a state beyond ego, beyond desire,
beyond all attractions and desires, beyond art and aesthetics, beyond I like
this and I don't like that - even in its most subtle sense.
In order to recognize and identify the essential nature of the mind, it is

necessary to peel away the different conceptual layers and clear the
obscurations... [18]
Unless and until the mind is freed from these biases which distract it from
perceiving itself and the world in their raw suchness, then it is not a clear and
naked mind and thus cannot perceive clearly and neutrally very much at all.
...there is utterly no such thing as non-mind becoming mind or mind

becoming non-mind. [19]
...matter cannot serve as the substantial cause of a consciousness. [20]
Once we see that mind can be separated out from the impermanent evanescent
flux that is samsara, on the basis of its qualities, properties and how it
operates, then it follows logically, that because the mind can be so separated,
then it must be of a very different nature compared thereto.
Without a preceding mind a later mind cannot be produced...there is no

beginning to consciousness, and in the same way there is no end to the
continuum of a persons consciousness. [21]
Thus it follows, that mind is not so subject to impermanence or the forces of

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change, loss and decay, as are samsaric forms. The mind essentially stands
above the impermanent flux of samsara and must go forwards and be
indestructible. It is in the world, but not of the world.
...there existed a mind that was the earlier continuum of the present
mind... [22]
This empty mind, which is happy and sad, not physical and not just
nothing, cannot possibly end. [23]
Any instance of consciousness requires a substantial cause in the form of
another preceding moment of consciousness...consciousness is infinite and
beginningless. [24]
The main reason establishing rebirth is the continuation of mind. [25]
An eye consciousness is generated as an entity of luminosity and knowing
is due to an immediately preceding moment of consciousness that serves as
its immediately preceding condition. [26]
This therefore begins to become a very joyful matter. Once this vivid and
luminous nature of mind is realised, then it follows that none of the changes
that occur in the outer world of samsara can really affect it unless it allows
them to. Thus, to believe that the mind must have become a slave to its own
constructs and a slave to its own perceptual field.
...phenomena exist only nominally, or conventionally...there is a disparity

between the way things appear to us and the way they exist. This is why
they are said to be illusory...but conventional reality cannot be logically
proven. [27]
It sees what it wants to see, but it does not see what it chooses not to. This is
a great shame, as it means we follow the transient nature of outer forms and
believe that the same processes also apply, by reflex, to our minds. Thus, we
actually come to believe that death is the end and that when a physical
machine is broken or destroyed, so the body is the same and thus the mind
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goes with it. We rarely conceive that because impermanence does not apply to
the mind, therefore mind is a cut above and thus not so transient.
...the mind...is essentially empty, without limiting characteristics or

ultimate reality. This empty mind, however, has its projection, which is the
whole phenomenal world....once we see, through meditation, that the nature
of mind is fundamentally empty, we become automatically aware that the
projections of mind are fundamentally empty too... [28]
The universe is a projection of mind. [29]
...the experience of the illusion of waking reality. [30]
Mind thus appears like a part of a timeless realm with only some transient
qualities pertaining to it. In many respects, it is unlike the physical forms of
the outer world, which are all such fundamentally perishable items that will
pass away so soon and disappear.
Our body is like a boat which takes us across the oceans of samsara. [31]
Nothing we experience is anything more than the minds perception of its
own projections, the reality of which is only conventional. [32]
Although people die, we can posit that their mindstreams have not passed
away, but endure somewhere, maybe not here with us, but they are
imperishable. This is a very joyous realisation.
...you will develop conviction that these physical things as well as your life,
have an end. [33]
It is comforting to be reassured that we are indestructible. That those we have

loved, and who have loved us, are still nearby and are not gone for good. Fate
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brings us back together many times. The mind is really the mover of the
machine, it is the ghost in the machine and being the organiser and
controller, moves on into an unknown realm. How can the controller of the
biochemical machine perish when the machine is tired out and old and about
to perish? How can that vital, organising principal, which has kept us alive for
so long, suffer the same fate as the molecules which it used to control so
effortlessly? But we believe this - through our association with matter, mind
has come to believe that the same rules also apply to it.
Rebirth in the wheel of existenceis always based on causality and the

karmic influences that go with it. [34]
Through the power of ignorance...we are reborn into samsara... [35]
Attachment is the origin, the root of suffering; hence, it is a cause of
suffering... [36]
...attachment to cyclic existence acts as a cooperative condition for the
production of suffering... [37]
...it is said that as long as one is in cyclic existence, one is in the grip of
some form of suffering. [38]
Cyclic existence has a nature of suffering...thus it is important...to develop
a revulsion from it, thereby engendering an attitude seeking liberation [from
it]... [39]
Regarding the defilements, these are adventitious rather than primary, they are
more like stains within the fabric of the mind and carried along with it.
...delusions and afflictive emotional and cognitive states, are adventitious,

they are occasional...they are not enduring... [40]
Yet the fundamental Buddha consciousness is present in all of us, regardless

of what non-virtues may also be present. If we compare the Buddha nature
[Tathagatagarbha] to a bright mirror, then the defilements are like smears and
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fogs that cloud that mirror. The polishing of the mirror has been described as
one function of religious practice.
The fundamental threefold nature of mind - empty, clear and unimpeded is Tathagatagarbha, the seed of enlightenment, possessed by every living
being, human or otherwise...the fundamental purity of the minds intrinsic
nature...all beings are innately enlightened but...adventitious obscurations
block the experience of enlightenment. [41]
...the various contaminated states of mind, such as delusions and afflictive
emotional and cognitive states are adventitious, they are occasional; they
arise in a certain moment but soon disappear...they are not enduring. [42]
...the conventional nature of the mind is clear light, and thus defilements do
not reside in the very nature of the mind; defilements are adventitious,
temporary and can be removed. From the ultimate point of view the nature
of mind is its emptiness of inherent existence. [43]
The defilements comprise bad habits of mind from previous lifetimes,

negative traits of desire and hatred which have been indulged repeatedly in
past lives. These repeated actions have set up grooves of habit in the mind
such that they are acted out repeatedly over many lifetimes.
...your own virtuous and non-virtuous actions determine what your mind
will undergo during death and afterwards. The effects of these actions
follow the mind like a flower and its scent. [44]
It is like the drug addict always wanting his fix, so the mind has become
accustomed to doing whatever it does.
Transmigrating beings first conceive of a truly existent I and then in

dependence upon that, conceive of truly existent mine. Through the force of
such, beings wander in samsara, like a bucket powerlessly travelling up and
down in a well. [45]
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Removing these defilements is an important part of religious practice that

enables a person to train their mind over many years to relinquish bad habits
and establish good ones.
Through my own experience, I know that the mind can be trained, and by
means of that training we can bring about a profound change within
ourselves. [46]
I am convinced that through constant training one can change ones
mind...our positive attitudes, thoughts, and outlook can be enhanced, and
their negative counterparts can be reduced. [47]
...over time as years pass, it will improve - the amount of anger will
decrease...the situation will change, if you work at it wisely and not just
with stubbornness. The mind is such that if we make a plan...and carry it out
with strong determination, the mind will definitely change. [48]
...since the mind is an entity of mere luminosity and knowing, when the
basis of training is the mind, it is possible through gradual familiarisation
to develop salutary attitudes limitlessly. [49]
...qualities that depend on the mind can be increased limitlessly. [50]
...good attitudes can be increased limitlessly. [51]
...mental pangs and regret disappear, and when those are absent, one
attains physical lightness and pliancy. Consequently, mental joy and bliss
increase, through the power of which the mind comes to abide onepointedly. [52]
The mind is fundamentally pure from first to last in its innate, natural and
naked state. It is pure and undefiled, stain-free and radiantly pure as if no nonvirtues are present. It is like a clear flowing stream of fresh water - carrying
little, crystal clear and always moving. This is the absolutely pure state of the
mind as a radiant, clear and knowing consciousness, the mind we see reflected
in the little babys eyes.
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...all of us have the fundamental substances necessary for the attainment of

Buddhahood. [53]
It is the pure and bright [vivid and clear] consciousness of the waking mind,
and by analogy, the same mind of the young child. It is a mind that has no
preconceptions or biases, it has no strong conceptual overlay - it travels light.
What karmic patterns it may contain remain dormant and undeveloped,
inactive and thus do not interfere with its radiant clarity. This is the waking
mind, the mind of meditation, the mind referred to in texts as the mind in its
naked state.
In its most fundamental sense, mind is not something we can limit...it has
no particular shape, size, location, colour or form, or any other limiting
characteristic...it has the illuminating potential to perceive anything
whatsoever [54]
...on the ultimate level the empty, clear and unimpeded nature of mind
exhibits no limiting qualities such as maleness or femaleness, superiority or
inferiority...even in the various realms of rebirth, there is no ultimate
difference between one mind and another. [55]
The mind comes and goes successively like night and day, but a very subtle
level of consciousness is always present.
...between the arising of different moments of conceptual thought, the clear

light nature of mind occurs uninterruptedly. [56]
This is the same level of consciousness, which passes through sleep and
through death and re-emerges at the other side of both. Mind, like a light, is
always aglimmer and can never be utterly destroyed or extinguished.
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At the moment of death a separation occurs between...physical body and

mind, and the mind is plunged into a state in which there is no conscious
mental activity...the mind dissolves back into its own fundamental state of
unconsciousness... [57]
Even after death, the mind of clear light is pure and undefiled. It is this mind
that passes on from life to life, as a small corpuscle [bindu = droplet].
At death...what continues is the individual consciousness, the

mind...[which] continues to follow its habits and to manifest its set
patterns...what happens [in the after-death state] resembles what happens
in the dream state and waking consciousness. [58]
...at the moment we are experiencing a certain level of consciousness;
again, when we are dreaming, it is another, deeper level. Then, in
dreamless deep sleep, we experience another, deeper level of
consciousness. [59]
In the new body, at incarnation [the embryo at conception], the corpuscle of

mind, like a small pea, resides at the heart. Gradually it unravels its subsidiary
minds, which take up residence in the sense organs, and the pervasive mind
that fills the body through the nervous system. In this way, over months and
the first year or two, the incarnated mind gradually gains full control of the
body and all its sense faculties.
...our eye consciousness is dependent upon the physical eye organ;

therefore, if something has happened in the organ, the consciousness cannot
function normally... [60]
Each of the five sense consciousnesses is really a small offshoot [outpost]

from the main consciousness, and conveys to it the impressions deriving from
the sense organ in question.
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The eighteen constituents are...the six constituents that are the sense
powers - the eye, ear...the six consciousness constituents...eye, ear,
nose...the six constituents that are objects - the observed objects - forms,
sounds, odors... [61]
During the onset of sleep, as in death, the mind goes through the reverse
process, withdrawing from and shutting down each sense consciousness in
turn and withdrawing back, like tentacles, those subsidiary minds into the
corpuscle at the heart, re-packing them before it leaves the body entirely [in
death]. The sense consciousnesses diminish in power and clarity in successive
waves until only the bright consciousness at the heart is left.
...during dreams, we inhabit a different kind of body, and experience a

different state of being...we see, smell, touch, hear, feel, think and
communicate - we experience a complete universe. But when we awaken it
becomes obvious that the universe of the dream has no ultimate
reality...when the dream is over, its reality simply disappears - it was only
a projection of mind...our experience in the waking state is of the same
general nature... [62]
Sleep and death have so many strong and interesting parallels. Indeed, the
very fact that daily we can sleep and then awaken is almost personal, positive
proof in itself that life follows death over and over again. In both cases the
coarse and bright consciousnesses of the waking self [what we might term the
day mind] is closed down, and progressively diminished in clarity, until
only the more subtle internal consciousness remains [the night mind].
The dying process begins with the dissolution of the elements within the
body... [63]
...[leaving only] the fundamental innate mind of clear light - that is, the
subtlest level of mind... [64]
...the most subtle is the mind of clear light... [65]
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...this subtlest consciousness is what transmigrates... [66]

This consciousness is the innermost subtle mind. We call it the Buddha
nature, the real source of all consciousness. The continuum of this mind
lasts even through Buddhahood. [67]
Eventually, both in sleep and in death, only the most subtle of all
consciousnesses is left, and that passes forward into the next life. Without
exploring these subtle forms of mind in meditation, Buddhists would be as
oblivious of their existence as the rest of us. Because they have made it their
business to explore these matters, so that forms the basis and authority of
what they say.
Citations
[1] Dalai Lama, 1985, Opening the Eye of New Awareness, Wisdom Books, London,
p.36
[2] Kalu Rinpoche, 1986, The Dharma that Illuminates all Beings Impartially like the
Light of the Sun and the Moon, SUNY Press, New York, p.16
[3] Dalai Lama, 1988, The Dalai Lama at Harvard, Snow Lion, pp.49-50
[4] Dalai Lama, 1995, The World of Tibetan Buddhism, Wisdom Books, London, p.48
[5] Geshe Lhundup Sopa & Jeffrey Hopkins, 1989, Cutting through Appearances:
Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, Snow Lion, USA, p.182
[6] Jamgon Kongtrul, 1977, The Torch of Certainty, Shambhala, USA, p.29
[7] Dalai Lama, 1988, op cit., p.29
[8] Khetsun Sangpo Rimbochay & J Hopkins, 1982, Tantric Practice in Nyingma, Rider,
London, p.64
[9] Dalai Lama, 1984, Kindness Clarity and Insight, Snow Lion, p.20
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[12] Rimbochay & Hopkins, op cit., p.62
[13] sGampopa, 1959, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, Translated and Edited by
Herbert V Guenther, Rider, London, p.54
[16] Sopa & Hopkins, op cit., pp.194-5
[17] sGampopa, op cit., p.46
[18] Dalai Lama 1995, op cit., p.152
[23] ] Rimbochay & Hopkins, op cit., p.64
[28] Kalu, op cit., p.48
[30] Lama Lodro, 1987, Bardo Teachings, Snow Lion, p.2
[31] Lama Sherab Gyaltsen Amipa, 1987, The Opening of the Lotus, Wisdom Books,
London, p.49
[34] Amipa, op cit., p.52
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[35] Amipa, op cit., p.54

[37] Dalai Lama, 1988, op cit., pp.37-8
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Sogyal Rinpoche, 1992, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Random House,
London
Lati Rinbochay & Jeffrey Hopkins, 1981, Death, Intermediate State & Rebirth in
Tibetan Buddhism, Rider, London
...realisation of bodhicitta - [is] the altruistic aspiration, based on love and

compassion, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings.
[wotb, p.94]
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The Ship of Death

THE LUMINOUS NATURE OF THE MIND

...the mind itself is a sentience or awareness that is a factor of luminosity

Once the details of impermanence and death have been thoroughly

Uncompounded phenomena are considered to be permanent things; forms,

The Ship of Death

...every moment we have many different levels of consciousness - coarse

...the reason it is hard to identify the nature of the mind is that it is as if

The Ship of Death

...meditation...[is] withdrawing this scattered mind on one object inside...

If you repeatedly meditate on impermanence, attraction to the things of

The Ship of Death

In order to recognize and identify the essential nature of the mind, it is

...there is utterly no such thing as non-mind becoming mind or mind

Without a preceding mind a later mind cannot be produced...there is no

Thus it follows, that mind is not so subject to impermanence or the forces of

The Ship of Death

...phenomena exist only nominally, or conventionally...there is a disparity

The Ship of Death

...the mind...is essentially empty, without limiting characteristics or

It is comforting to be reassured that we are indestructible. That those we have

The Ship of Death

Rebirth in the wheel of existenceis always based on causality and the

...delusions and afflictive emotional and cognitive states, are adventitious,

Yet the fundamental Buddha consciousness is present in all of us, regardless

The Ship of Death

The defilements comprise bad habits of mind from previous lifetimes,

Transmigrating beings first conceive of a truly existent I and then in

The Ship of Death

Removing these defilements is an important part of religious practice that

The Ship of Death

...all of us have the fundamental substances necessary for the attainment of

...between the arising of different moments of conceptual thought, the clear

The Ship of Death

At the moment of death a separation occurs between...physical body and

At death...what continues is the individual consciousness, the

In the new body, at incarnation [the embryo at conception], the corpuscle of

...our eye consciousness is dependent upon the physical eye organ;

Each of the five sense consciousnesses is really a small offshoot [outpost]

The Ship of Death

...during dreams, we inhabit a different kind of body, and experience a

The Ship of Death

...this subtlest consciousness is what transmigrates... [66]

The Ship of Death

[11] Dalai Lama, 1984, op cit., p.20

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[35] Amipa, op cit., p.54

The Ship of Death

[60] Dalai Lama, 1988, op cit., p.30

...realisation of bodhicitta - [is] the altruistic aspiration, based on love and

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