Fabio Rambelli Lecture 6 The Status of the Mind in

Mind is an extremely complex and important subject in Buddhism in general and in esoteric Buddhism in particular. It is partly due to the fact that Buddhism envisions liberation as based on the acquisition of a special wisdom, that is, a different cognitive approach toward reality. Such new cognitive approach is called in the Japanese tradition satori or kakugo, usually rendered in English as “enlightenment” or “awakening.” “Enlightenment” refers to the attainment of “light” as a new, and correct, vision that dispels the “darkness” of ignorance. “Awakening” is closer to the Buddhist original as the realization that ordinary, profane reality is just a dream and therefore is unreal. Here we should stress once more that satori/awakening is, contrary to common understanding, a cognitive state, not a mystical experience. Esoteric Buddhism builds up on previous theories of the mind and expands them to connect mind directly to the body on the one hand and to reality on the other. It also tries to develop in more concrete terms the mechanics of the transformation of the deluded mind that is necessary in order to attain awakening. In this respect, it is interesting to note that the sentence from the Dainichikyø “know your mind as it really is” (nyojitsu chi jishin) is considered to be the quintessence of the Shingon teachings. This sentence has generated countless commentaries, including the monumental Ten Stages of the Mind by K¥kai. In this work, K¥kai describes ten stages of