Tag Archives: Four Levels of Dhyana

In the Sutra, Ānanda continues to equate Mind’s essence with transient discrepancies. The Tathagata even jokingly says at one point, “Now where is it???” Ānanda actually goes through “seven locations” wherein Mind can be positioned until he reaches the logical end of assuming that Mind is equivalent of total “non-attachment” to anything in the created order of existence; the Tathagata here as well, shatters his last assumption, indicating that in itself, non-attachment is equivalent to being separate from some-thing that apparently exists within the scope of the skandhic hemisphere, and hence has some kind of solid location. All in all, any form of temporal “location” is skandhic-dependent. The Pure Dharma-Mind is not dependent upon any temporal and environmental “dharmas”, but rather radiates from the imageless plane of the Dharmatā—or the deathless and Luminous Realm of the Dharmakaya.  Ānanda was relying exclusively upon the Skandhic-Mind, thus being sequestered in the dark forest of illusions and isolating himself from the unsoiled Realization of the Nirvanic Mind. read more