What / How do you understand Mind / the Mind to be?

"Mind is where thought and speech cannot go . . . To call it mind is already a mistake--however necessary."

Thought makes all differentiation, separation, and language, which is the creation of dharmas.

In Zen drinking tea points to this. It is impossible to replicate the sensation of tea for someone who asks about it. Sure we can say it was good or hot, but we cannot speak the taste into another's mind. It has to be experienced.

But who is the one experiencing?

As you know, no person at all gets liberated. And, as you say here, it is the mind that recognizes it's true nature - recognizes it's empty luminous nature. It is found to be empty of any inherent existence. This recognition often comes as an unmistakable sense of completeness or a surprising coming home and maybe also the recognition of the utter simplicity of all things where the personality is totally relaxed and out of the picture. There is an "is-ness" very present that has no words useful to describe and even may be sensed as a kind of holiness or intimacy of the clear awareness present that cannot be associated with previous personality. Previous life may be clearly seen as like a dream or even a trick having been played on the small mind that obscured the clear mind that has arisen.

This awakening is also understood as sudden samadhi or even moksha. If this happens suddenly and without much preparation or information, it will likely take time, maybe many years, to understand what the actual experience has been and what it means - especially in Western countries. Eventually, one of the ways of speaking about this is to regard the mind as a clear totally impersonal mirror that has no agenda and only reflects all experience with total equanimity. It is sometimes said that the small, grasping kind of mind is nothing but dust on the mirror, obscuring the clarity. The clear mirror is always there in case the dust is blown away.

The thing called enlightenment or self realization is actually a process that deepens inward over time and illuminates outward in compassion for others which it touches. It is an impersonal process of becoming utterly natural, uncontrived, and without formula or template for all the phenomena of experience that continues exactly the same as for the un-awakened. Such a person will often be unnoticed, and will usually exhibit humility without trying to do so. If deep enough, there is no longer a "you" from time to time who knows that this has happened - is happening.

Best wishes...

"The Buddhist Perspective on Mind: the term 'mind' refers to the experiential, cognitive, intellectual, and feeling part of us. It is non-material in nature, while our body, made of atoms, is material. Within the broad category of mind, we find many types of mind. Among these, are the sense consciousnessess - which perceive external objects such as sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches and also our mental consciousness, which thinks, dreams, sleeps and can experience spiritual consciousness. The word 'mind' may also be translated as 'heart', as in "that person has a kind heart." Buddhism does not make the same distinction between thinking and feeling that we often make in the United States where we believe that thought is conceptual and emotions are not. Indeed, Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan - all languages in which Buddhists Texts are written - have no word which is a direct translated of 'emotion'. From a Buddhist perspective, many emotions, such as anger, have a feeling component but are conceptual, for they know their objects by means of a mental image. Example, we can be angry when the person at whom we are mad isn't even in the room. At that time, we are not perceiving the person with our eyes, but we are thinking about him in that a mental states image of him appears to our mind." In Buddhism, the mind or mindstream is liberated through mindfully practicing The Noble Eightfold Path, including The Five Precepts - until reaching enlightenment.

May all beings be happy and free from suffering.

When a mind is free, it has no bias: such a mind knows nothing and inter-acts with what is actual.

There is nothing to understand, the thinking brain makes theater only: theater is not reality. The conceptual understanding of that sustains the illusion. The brain is therefore a myth which is self sustaining. One cannot be liberated from oneself by oneself. Can the movement of thought stop moving: because only then, what ever else is moving (reality) is observed in full. If oneself (the movement of ones thoughts) is in operation; that attention is propagating self and not attending to reality.

I actually think Mind, is the mind of God, or Spirit. And since God/Spirit is omnipresent, that means Mind is omnipresent, including within each of us. So the Mind we use, is not necessarily our own individual minds, but we are using the one omnipresent Mind. We "partake" of the one Mind, and make use of the one Mind, individually, as best we can.

Also, since God/Spirit is Omniscient / all knowing, then that means that we can also partake of that omniscience, when we open ourselves to that radical idea, and truely believe it.

How is it liberated? It is liberated, when we stop thinking of ourselves as seperated individuals, and start knowing ourselves as individuations of the One Mind/God/Spirit. You'll know when it is liberated, when you have the experience of being liberated.

Thanks for asking a thought provoking question.

Peace and Namaste!

There is a difference between mind, a lump of cholesterol, a biological number crunching machine. And ones conscious awareness.

One is physical the other is pure energy. :)

Practicing Shaman,... quantum physics rocks.

Learning to observe the mind is the Key

love is the key to lots of things including understanding and the mind itself is free to choose it's own path to the truth.

When your mind is so open that your brain can actually escape by falling out, it is "Liberated".

When it is no longer important to you