The Light of the Mind

Because from a Buddhist point of view, that dawn was the most important moment in the history of the planet, because that is said to be, according to Buddhist tradition at least, the first time in this era that anyone managed to gain enlightenment.

Any previous enlightened people have been forgotten about.

You remember in the reading I gave, he says, this is the place where many...

Previous sages have sat, what's known as the diamond seat of enlightenment.

But they've been forgotten.

Their teachings have been lost.

So it's really significant when somebody recovers the Dharma in that way.

So you think in every dawn, millions of years, the light has swept across the fields, dried in the darkness before it.

But this was something new.

It was a new kind of light that dawned.

which was the light of awareness, this light of a mind very sensitive, very compassionate, fully aware.

And it seems that there's something about the coming together of a deep understanding and a deep compassion, both of those elements very prominent in the description of the three watches of the night, which seems to me to characterize enlightenment.

And I've found this is probably very well known, but Dante, the great Italian poet says, the light of the mind is clarified by love.

the light of the mind is clarified by love.

And that seems to show how there's this, it's all very well being aware, it's all very well being knowledgeable, but there's another element that's required, which is shown in the story of the Buddha and shown also in that quotation from Dante.

The light of the mind is clarified by love.

And the Dhammapada, talking about this image of light, says, in the day shines the sun, in the night shines the moon.

when in his bright armor the warrior shines.

When meditating shines the sage.

But shining all day and shining all night is the radiance of the Buddha." So this sense of the Buddha shining as a beacon.

And in Buddhist tradition you have often a Buddha like here, and a Bodhisattva.

And a Bodhisattva, which means somebody striding towards Buddhahood, is symbolized by the moon.

And very often in these Tibetan tangles, you'll actually see a moon at one side.

And that's the Bodhisattva.

And the Buddha is symbolized by the sun.