PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Tainer: Studying No Mind 691. the ground of mind: Some Mahåyåna Buddhist sutras, theC’han/Zen tradition, and higher levels of Vajrayåna all emphasizethat the “top-level” ground and real nature of mind is a timeless,originary purity. I see no way this level of realization could berepresented in a scientific theory in the near future, but I definitelythink it would inform the scientist herself, in her understanding ofwhat science does and doesn’t give us. So here “understanding”splits between that yielded by science and that vigorously held bythe human being whether science can credit it or not.2. the job of cognition: Cognition is relational, linking us to ourdefining context and thereby preserving some degree of appreciationof our own significance.3. the character of cognition in the mature human being: Followingfrom the previous point, the central organizing theme of cognitionis the appreciation of our own worth as human or humane, and theconnection to our fellow human beings as a shared commitment toupholding this significance.4. the full range of cognition’s substance and function: This is seenin the Vajrayåna practice I mentioned, where the connection isrepresented as a center/periphery without distance or loss of theessential character (acknowledging satisfaction and celebration).5. the principle of its operation: The ma√∂ala level of cognition ismade possible by a higher kind of time that enfolds everything anddoes not obscure the link back to the center.6. degenerate cases: Each of the above admits of down-shiftedversions where the essential point of connection and preservationof significance is retained only negligibly, hence apparently not atall (like collapsed dimensions that appear to have zero extent). Weare left with only intransigent “facts,” distinct circumstances andcompelling needs that do not admit of complete satisfaction in thecircumstantial domain.What is at issue in all these suggestions is a larger sense of the context orecosystem of cognition that preserves the spiritual aspects of our nature,and the further notion that ordinary cognition is an excerpt that exists codependentlywith other limited representations of that original context.Direct access and satisfying intimacy become distance, effort, and frustrationin a landscape where fundamental significance seems fictional (it can