The Awareness Issue, Essays

Meditation as Bodhicitta 15 v1
By Rudolph Bauer, Phd Mon, Dec 27, 2010 Rudolph Bauer,Ph.D. Author, Mimi Malfitano Editor 1. In meditation we become aware of awareness..suspending the mind, we free awareness to experience within its own self its own self.within awareness we experience the nature of awareness..we experience the qualities of awareness: Spaciousness, energy, light, the purity, the onenessand arising out of oneness is the true affection, the true compassion.

2. This awareness is a field, a multidimensional field, vast and infinite in its horizons. The dharmakaya is the very base of our awareness, the pure beingness of being.Pure openness, pure potential out of which everything manifests and appears. The very nature of dharmakaya is love, creative lovethat is why it is often described as the mother, the dakini. Arising out of dharmakaya is the sambhogakaya dimension: Clear light, luminosity of the primordial qualities taking form, the archetypical dimension of our own being, the deities, the dakinis, the devasinherent within all beings. And then, arising out of sambhogakaya is nirmanakaya: The earth element, the human dimension, the manifesting of us, embodied luminous flesh. Everything, all experience, is the manifestation of the fieldthis field of being. Through our awareness within us we experience the beingness of our own being, and through the experience of our own awareness we can experience the beingness of being of others. It is the same beingness of beingwhich is love.

3. Mantras are most useful in the fieldactually, mantras are manifestations of the field; so mantras configure and are configurations of the field of innate awareness, which can be both articulated and non-articulated. Mantras can be spoken or simply felt. The more subtle the mantra, the more deeply experienced within the field.within the innermost field, the more mantra actually brings forth the experience of the qualities of the fieldof consciousness. The mantras begin as words and sounds, and then becoming more and more subtle, as subtle as gnosis, direct perception, then the mantra becomes what it isthe subtle reality of beingness.

4. A wonderful mantra is the bodhi mantra OM AH HUNG, BODHICITTA MAHA SUKHA JNANA DHATU AH.

[Bodhi is both a Pali and Sanskrit word usually translated as enlightenment, but more accurately translated as awakening.]

OM opens up for us the nirmanakaya dimension.

AH opens up for us the sambhogakaya dimension.

HUNG opens up for us the dharmakaya dimension.

BODHICITTA means the aspiration for realization, which is realization itselfbodhicitta is the love of realization for ourselves and othersbodhicitta is the very nature of awareness itself as love, pure love, creative lovebodhicitta brings forth love.

MAHA SUKHA means the great vast sweetness, the great bliss of awareness, the bliss of oneness.

JNANA means direct perception, knowingness, gnosis.

DHATU AH means in every situation.

6. So this mantra brings forth the experience of bodhicitta of awareness of pure love, of gnosis, of knowing oneness in every situationIt is the mantra of pure love.

7. This is also a mantra of deathlessness.

As you enter the doorway of death, and the body begins to drop away, and the mind begins to drop away, what remains is your awareness. What remains is the bodhichitta, and so your pure awareness enters into the pure awareness of being itself; the light meets the light, and the beingness of your being enters the beingness of being itself. Your awareness is love, and through love you will becomethe dharmakayawhich is vast love. This love of awareness does not depend on your mind or the qualities of your mindwhether you are nuts or not, does not matterthe nature of awareness is love, is bodhichitta. To know this is to become fearlessand so this is the mantra of fearlessness. It is unbound, and it takes one beyond the polarities, takes one beyond causality, take one beyond judgments.

8. The great bodhi mantra allows us to hold love and fear, to hold love and terror, to hold love and hatethe bodhi mantra which brings forth bodhichitta dissolves fear, dissolves terror, and dissolves hatred.

9. Through love, the beingness of being is felt though a beingthrough love of a being, the beingness of being is felt. Of course, with the loss of a being, the beingness of being is never lost. The loss of the being who was the vehicle for the beingness of being is unbearably sadand so sadness and bodhichitta exist together, and the bodhichitta absorbs and dissolves all sadness. Through all of the various affects, the beingness of being can manifest itself when held in the bodhichitta.

10. There is even a more subtle meaning to the bodhichitta, which is the releasing of light, which is the releasing of the bodhichittabodhichitta is actually the light of love or the love of the lightthe heart essence is lightthe innermost lightwhich actually at times manifests as a dropthe heart drop of dharmakayathis heart drop can be released into the field and can be released into a human beingand so one cultivates the heart essence, one cultivates the heart drop, and one can release this blessing, this liquid-like light.