What kind of mind do Buddhas have

[Tsongkhapafan]

Does anyone know what sort of practices he teaches? Apparently his background is Nyingma.

BTW, today he said that the only thing he has been teaching for the last ten years, which he is going to keep teaching for a very long time, is "Drop your mind".

Become like a plank of wood - not very contructive!
Buddhas have minds.

[Malcolm]

Does anyone know what sort of practices he teaches? Apparently his background is Nyingma.

BTW, today he said that the only thing he has been teaching for the last ten years, which he is going to keep teaching for a very long time, is "Drop your mind".

Become like a plank of wood - not very contructive!
Buddhas have minds.

What they have is jñāna, not vijñāna, it's a little different a "mind (citta)."

Buddhas do not have thoughts, they do not minds (citta) or mental factors (caitta), but they do have two kinds of omniscient wisdom (sarvajñāta jñāna).

[BuddhaFollower]

but they do have two kinds of omniscient wisdom (sarvajñāta jñāna).

Which is synonymous with dharmakaya?

[Nicholas Weeks]

[Buddha says] “Mañjuśrī, as an analogy, when the sun rises, it first shines on high
mountains, then low mountains, and then the ground. Likewise a Tathāgata has
no mind [citta], mental faculty [manas], or consciousness [vijñāna]. He has no
appearance, and is apart from any appearance and free from all appearances. He
is attached to neither this nor that, abides on neither this shore nor that shore
opposite this shore, nor the flow in the middle. He is inconceivable, neither
high nor low, beyond one’s thinking. He has neither bondage nor liberation,
neither cognition nor no cognition, neither afflictions nor no afflictions, neither
wisdom-knowledge nor no wisdom-knowledge. He is neither real nor unreal,
neither conceivable nor inconceivable. He has neither thinking nor no thinking,
neither mind nor no mind, neither mental faculty nor no mental faculty,
neither form nor no form, neither names nor no names. He neither takes nor
does not take action, neither grasps nor does not grasp anything, neither speaks
nor does not speak. He is neither describable nor indescribable, neither visible
nor invisible, neither a guiding teacher nor not a guiding teacher, and has
neither acquired nor not acquired the [bodhi] fruit.

From Sūtra of Entering the States of All Buddhas Adorned with Wisdom, Rulu translation.

[Malcolm]

but they do have two kinds of omniscient wisdom (sarvajñāta jñāna).

Which is synonymous with dharmakaya?

Both.

[dzogchungpa]

Does anyone know what sort of practices he teaches? Apparently his background is Nyingma.

BTW, today he said that the only thing he has been teaching for the last ten years, which he is going to keep teaching for a very long time, is "Drop your mind".

Become like a plank of wood - not very contructive!
Buddhas have minds.

Now that you mention it, he might have said something about love and compassion towards the end.

[Tsongkhapafan]

Buddhas' minds are non-conceptual but they do possess the five all-accompanying mental factors as this is the valid basis upon which mind is imputed. They have omniscience and therefore they also possess the object ascertaining mental factors.

[Tsongkhapafan]

Now that you mention it, he might have said something about love and compassion towards the end.

If you drop your mind there is no love and compassion.

[Ayu]

Now that you mention it, he might have said something about love and compassion towards the end.

If you drop your mind there is no love and compassion.

It becomes obvious, that the term "mind" is not specified in this discussion.

Whenever I was able to drop my thinking, the empty space in the head was not similar to "nothing". There was room for much light and all these wonderful dharmas that are normally covered by th conventional mind of judging, guessing, interpreting, fearing and wishing. A space for love, compassion, joy and deep knowing faith.

[Malcolm]

Buddhas' minds are non-conceptual but they do possess the five all-accompanying mental factors as this is the valid basis upon which mind is imputed. They have omniscience and therefore they also possess the object ascertaining mental factors.

and what is your citation for this?

[Tsongkhapafan]

Whenever I was able to drop my thinking, the empty space in the head was not similar to "nothing". There was room for much light and all these wonderful dharmas that are normally covered by th conventional mind of judging, guessing, interpreting, fearing and wishing. A space for love, compassion, joy and deep knowing faith.

I understand the importance of dropping distractions, but not thinking. Love and compassion are conceptual minds. Worryingly, I think some people are too keen to abandon conceptuality when ALL of the minds that we need to make spiritual progress are conceptual to start with.

[Tsongkhapafan]

Buddhas' minds are non-conceptual but they do possess the five all-accompanying mental factors as this is the valid basis upon which mind is imputed. They have omniscience and therefore they also possess the object ascertaining mental factors.

and what is your citation for this?

You know I can't give my citations because of the TOS, however, I will quote Dharmakirti's definition of mind which is 'that which is clarity and cognising'. Buddhas have minds, minds cognise, cognition requires mental factors, ergo, Buddhas have minds with mental factors. Bliss for example is experienced by mental factor feeling.

Buddha are not like stones.

[Ayu]

Whenever I was able to drop my thinking, the empty space in the head was not similar to "nothing". There was room for much light and all these wonderful dharmas that are normally covered by th conventional mind of judging, guessing, interpreting, fearing and wishing. A space for love, compassion, joy and deep knowing faith.

I understand the importance of dropping distractions, but not thinking. Love and compassion are conceptual minds. Worryingly, I think some people are too keen to abandon conceptuality when ALL of the minds that we need to make spiritual progress are conceptual to start with.

I suppose, you misinterpret. Dropping intellectual mind is not for starting, I think, and it is not recommended for every situation in life. But it is needed for to find insight at a certain point of the journey.
And it is not dangerous.

[seeker242]

I doubt the teacher is teaching people to become like planks of wood or stones. When he says "drop the mind" he's not telling you to drop something that is good to keep, like compassion, etc. He must be talking about something else. Something that is appropriate to drop.

[Astus]

Buddhas have the mind of sentient beings.

"to recognize the sentient being in one’s own mind is to see the buddha-nature in one’s own mind. If you wish to see the Buddha, just recognize the sentient being [in your mind]. It is only sentient beings who are deluded as to the Buddha; the buddhas are not deluded about sentient beings. If you are enlightened to your self-nature, then the sentient being is the Buddha; if you are deluded as to the self-nature, then [what might be] a ‘buddha’ is [only] a sentient being."
(Platform Sutra, ch 10, p 89-90, BDK Edition)

"It is only this One Mind that is Buddha; there is no distinction between Buddhas and sentient beings. However, sentient beings are attached to characteristics and seek outside themselves. Seeking it, they lose it even more. Sending the Buddha in search of the Buddha, grasping the mind with the mind, they may exhaust themselves in striving for an entire eon but will never get it. They do not understand that if they cease their thoughts and end their thinking, the Buddha will automatically be present.
This mind is the Buddha; the Buddha is the sentient being."
(Essentials of the Transmission of Mind, ch 1, in Zen Texts, p 13, BDK Edition)

"Since there is neither more of it in the saint nor less of it in the ordinary man, how are the Buddhas and patriarchs any different from other men? The only thing that makes them different is that they can protect their minds and thoughts―nothing more."
(Bojo Jinul: Secrets on Cultivating the Mind)

"this very awareness or sentience is the bodhi mind that is originally pure. When enlightened, this mind is the buddha; this mind is the Way."
(Ven. Weijue: Gradual Cultivation and Sudden Enlightenment)

[Tsongkhapafan]

Buddhas have the mind of sentient beings.

Yes, in the sense that the only difference between a sentient being's mind and a Buddha's mind is that Buddha is free from the two obstructions.

[Malcolm]

Buddhas' minds are non-conceptual but they do possess the five all-accompanying mental factors as this is the valid basis upon which mind is imputed. They have omniscience and therefore they also possess the object ascertaining mental factors.

and what is your citation for this?

You know I can't give my citations because of the TOS, however, I will quote Dharmakirti's definition of mind which is 'that which is clarity and cognising'. Buddhas have minds, minds cognise, cognition requires mental factors, ergo, Buddhas have minds with mental factors. Bliss for example is experienced by mental factor feeling.

Buddha are not like stones.

Of course you can give your citations. But I meant from Sutra.

When one says that a Buddha has jñan̄a, but not vijñāna, this does not mean a Buddha is inert, it means the opposite.

Cognition for an ordinary sentient being requires mental factors, but a Buddha's jñāna does not require mental factors.

For example there is a sutra passage cited in the Yogācārabhūmi viniścayasaṃgrahanī that states:

• "Bhagavān, how should the mental factors of the tathāgatas be known?"
  
  "Mañjuśrī, the mind (citta, sems), intellect (yid, manas) or consciousness (vijñāna, rnam shes) of tathāgatas are indeed not differentiated in discerning wisdom, but the mind of a tathāgata arises without formations, and should known to be like an emanation."
  
  "Bhagavān, it being the case the dharmakāya of the tathāgatas is free from all action of formations, on the other hand, do mental factors arise without the action of formations?"
  
  "Mañjuśrī, it is due to past cultivation of method and wisdom.
  
  Mañjuśrī, one awakens [from sleep] because of the power of past formations, but though there are no formations for arising in the concentration on cessation, one arises [from concentration] only through the power of past formations. Just as like the mental factors of sleep and the concentration on cessation, the mental factors of the tathāgatas should be known to be formations of past cultivation of method and wisdom."
  
  "Bhagavān, do the emanations of the tathāgatas have minds or not?"
  
  "Mañjuśrī, Though they do not have minds, they are also not mindless, because minds are neither independent nor dependent."

In other words, the mind of a tathāgata is like an emanation, it appears to function in all the ways that a mind functions, but in reality, there are no present active formations happening. Everything that seems to happen in the mind of a Buddha is based on some past cultivation of method and wisdom on the path.

So Buddhas seem to have minds, but in reality, all they have is wisdom.

[Challenge23]

Whenever I was able to drop my thinking, the empty space in the head was not similar to "nothing". There was room for much light and all these wonderful dharmas that are normally covered by th conventional mind of judging, guessing, interpreting, fearing and wishing. A space for love, compassion, joy and deep knowing faith.

I understand the importance of dropping distractions, but not thinking. Love and compassion are conceptual minds. Worryingly, I think some people are too keen to abandon conceptuality when ALL of the minds that we need to make spiritual progress are conceptual to start with.

I suppose, you misinterpret. Dropping intellectual mind is not for starting, I think, and it is not recommended for every situation in life. But it is needed for to find insight at a certain point of the journey.
And it is not dangerous.

With respect, in some cases it can be extremely dangerous. As we see from Willoughby Britton's work your experience in meditation, where the room that was freed up by not thinking was automatically filled with things that are thought of as good, though it could be thought of as relatively common it is by no means universal.

It is entirely possible for some meditators when they succeed in stopping thinking for there to be simply nothing there at all. No thoughts, feeling, love, compassion, faith, or anything else. Imagine if you were a security camera where you simply took everything in without elaboration or comment. And this state, or ones very similar to it, can last for a long time as the quote below says.

Britton's findings corroborate many of Young's claims. Among the nearly 40 dark night subjects her team has formally interviewed over the past few years, she says most were "fairly out of commission, fairly impaired for between six months [and] more than 20 years."

And to answer the OP's question, I think that this is in the category of things that can't be explained as much as accomplished. If one is a Buddhist they have to have faith that the kind of mind the Buddhas have is better than the mind that they currently have because it(like so much on the higher end of Buddhism) is non-conceptual which makes it basically un-explainable. Like a lot of things that happen in the more advanced form of Buddhism, this is where we realize that Buddhism is, in fact, a religion in that it requires faith.

[Ayu]

Hello Challenge23,

yes, that sounds dangerous. But you have to mention that Willoughby Britton's research is not especially about Buddhadharma, isn't it? https://vivo.brown.edu/display/wbritton

There must be a reason that people are talking until they are blue in their face: "You need a genuine teacher. You better follow the tradition as it is transmitted."
Meditational experiments with any kind of people who have no backround must not end successfully. Would be the same if there are experiments with nails from glass and the scientist blames the hammer to be too hard.

[Nicholas Weeks]

Chapter 37 of the Avatamsaka Sutra is focused on the nature of a Buddha - body, voice, mind etc.