Enlightened Mind
Continuing to read Kosho Uchiyama’s
Opening the Hand of Thought (Massachusetts, 2004), I read this rather, to me, striking statement: “…What Shakyamuni became enlightened to was . . . universal self.” (p. 82)
“Universal self” is Uchiyama’s term for a self that is “living out a life connected to all things” (p. 85), a life that is “inclusive of the entire universe” (p. xxxi).
Reading this triggered in me a concept of enlightened mind as an ongoing experience of life as a grand, interconnected whole, which experiences everything to be within himself or herself, and experiences every person and thing as lovable.
Enlightened mind emerges gradually and unnoticeably to a practitioner of zazen. The practitioner can’t imagine it so can’t aim at it. It happens simply of itself.