IIRC from a paper I read about it, he also worked to prove that the Madhyamakasastra doctrines were founded in the Agamas.
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Certainly some/most of them. I posted a quote from it here a while ago under the name Mādhyamikopadeśa. It was the section in which Venerable Vimalākṣa comments on the Ātmaparīkṣā of Venerable Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.
The part that I didn’t include (it wasn’t relevant) was this:
Question: If the Buddhas do not teach self, non-self, and the cessation of all mental activities and the cutting-off of ways of verbal expression, how do they make people understand the real character of dharmas?
Reply: All the Buddhas have unlimited powers of skilful means, and dharmas have no fixed characteristics. In order to save all living beings, they may teach that everything is real, or they may teach that everything is unreal, or that everything is both real and unreal, or that everything is neither unreal nor not unreal.
This idea of the Buddhas teaching selfhood (controversially stated in the Chinese recension of the MMK that accompanies this section of commentary), or the idea of the Buddhas teaching the reality of all dharmas, could likely be in reference to the confusing multitude of not-always-interally-coherent Mahāyāna sūtras, some of which, an infamous few, heretically acclaim the ātma, or it could be a reference to Sarvāstivādin Abhidharmika metaphysics.
The only thing in the āgamas it could perhaps be a reference to is IMO the Sarvāstisūtra, T99.91b4/SA320, parallel with the Sabbasutta, but that is a stretch to say that it proclaims the reality of the dharmas.
But, yeah, a lot of the material in it is pretty old Buddhism. And when it is distinctly Mahāyāna-only, one can usually tell.
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not sure about the impact of this article on other readers. In my personal case inmmediately I had the vision of an elephant dancing inside a porcelain shop.
One can say a lot of things on this although the time would be not enough. Neither it is a task for people who is not professional in producing such papers.
Some points. First of all, I believe there is the necessity to remember the issue of the numinous nature of the mind is not an exclusive Buddhist topic but an universal ancient issue
“As sight is the most highly developed sense, the name Phantasia (imagination) has been formed from Phaos (light) because it is not possible to see without light.”
- Aristotle, De Anima Book III ,3.
therefore, the hypothesis of some “agenda” placed by the author in a footnote seems to be qute conspiranoic and out of point. From a more humble approach, perhaps there is something that the whole human kind has noticed in all the times in this issue. And sounds logical keeping some care and contemption.
I believe the mixture of confusion and temerity inside the article can exists because different factors. It is amazing how somebody can deal with this complex issue with such precipitation. Not only because its universal reach but also because the numinous nature of the mind can be an immediate fact of knowledge for anyone. For that reason it was noted even for the ancient people. Because in the same way the objects of our room are manifest because there is a light and without need to point to the source of that light, also the objects arising in the mind are manifest to us because there is a numinous nature to enlighten these.
This numinous nature becomes so logic as the needed light for the external objects. This is not something of difficult discernment, and then it becomes obvious the possibility of a direct contemplation and knowledge of this nature when the mind can be detached of its own mind-contents, by taken the knowledge of that nature as the object of knowledge in itself. In that situation, it sounds logics it can be revealed like something naturally luminous. That knowledge wouldn’t be the essential nature of nibbana neither a mechanical requisite to get it but just the manifestation of the nature of the mind when the knowledge turns the look to himself
For that reason it sounds logical when the Buddha said:
“This mind is luminous, monks, and it is defiled by adventitious defilements”
In the Mahayana tradition there are similar examples. One very famous is seeing a ray of light entering by the window and then seeing the dust floating. Similar examples were provided also by Aristotle and the ancient Greeks trying to profile a picture for the Greek soul:
“This is what led Democritus to say that soul is a sort of fire or hot substance; his ‘forms’ or atoms are infinite in number; those which are spherical he calls fire and soul, and compares them to the motes in the air which we see in shafts of light coming through windows; the mixture of seeds of all sorts he calls the elements of the whole of nature (Leucippus gives a similar account)”.
the seeing of light and the dust floating is an universal example because it remember quite well what happens with the nature of knowledge and the arising objects.
In the Buddhist thought the dualism and the origin of the existence is timeless, and the problem is not knowing if the light or the dust was previous as the article suggest. Those descriptions are descriptions about the nature of the mind instead about the nature of nibbana. There is no any contradiction in the Suttas because the different descriptions exists when they are empathizing a contemplation or a discernment. Same when we point to the light enlightening the grasped objects in our room or just the action to know: there is a contemplation and/or discernment.
The author take those descriptions on the nature of the mind as essential descriptions of the nature of nibbana, and from here he build his own scenery of contradictions despite in the Buddhist thought there is no mind in nibbana. The only description of nibbana inside the Suttas are related with anatta, and this is not incompatible or opposed with a numinous nature for the mind. Because anatta is not a nihilistic concept and there is no need to delete the nature of anything, except atta, which is not the nature of the things but a delusion for our knowledge.
However, we read in example this:
"26 Thompson 2015: xxi proposes that “according to Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy the definition of consciousness is that which is luminous and knowing. Luminosity means the ability of consciousness to reveal or disclose.” It seems to me, however, that this is not necessarily the case for early Buddhist thought, where consciousness is something that is receptively aware not something that actively illuminates, hence luminosity is not part of a general definition of the functions of consciousness."
the supposition is wrong, because to say “consciousness is something that is receptively aware not something that actively illuminates” become a non-sense. There is not awareness outside a knowledge process, and the act of knowledge needs the prefiguration of the object under space and time, in where arise the inner vision that we name “to know”. Even the non-buddhist people from all times were aware of that fact.
The numinous nature is not a factor in the process but the scenery of knowledge. Again, as happens in the process of knowledge of the outer objects in our room. The light is nor part of the process but the nature of the whole event as it is. When there is an object in the mind, that numinous character is so needed for the knowledge as happens with the common light for the seeing of the external objects. The reason because the nature of knowledge is numinous is unknown. This is as is. This mystery not only belongs to the inner dimension of mind but also to the presence of light in the perceived universe. Our primitive science still doesn’t have a solution for the mystery and nature of light, and she is walking supported in a logical phantom named photon.
The Nobel Prize in Quantum Optics, Roy Jay Glauber, said:
“A photon is what a photo-detector detects.”
which is not really different of what happens with that inner light of our mind: that light is what the mind knows it is.
In a first view, sounds logical the mystery of the light is related with space, time and causality, which are not only magnitudes for the outer universe but also are needed for the existence of knowledge. However, the mystery goes beyond logics when it is referred to the cease of the individuation and of that threefold jail of the conditioned world. Some descriptions for that realization leave some tracks about that nature seems to be so indestructible as happens with the light in the outer universe
When a person attains realization, it is like the moon reflecting on the water. The moon never becomes wet; the water is never destroyed. Although it is a vast and great light, it reflects itself on a small amount of water. The whole moon and even the whole sky reflects on even a drop of dew on a blade of grass, or a single tiny drop of water. Realization does not destroy the person, as the moon does not make a hole in the water. The person does not obstruct realization, as a drop of dew does not obstruct the moon in the sky.
- Dogen Genki
philosophically, some ideas could derivate in the typical easy and non-rational materialism (“there is only active awareness” like the reactive sensors of a machine). This would be a very simplistic notion for the old problem of the nature of knowledge. Still more when in the scientific world neither there is a solution for the nature of light.
Well, I believe the level of the article is quite poor. Deep topics like this should be treated with more historical care and philosophical depth.
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It’s not too bad, but note that it persists in offering Thanissaro’s incorrect translation, saying “the mind is radiant”, whereas the Pali says “This mind is radiant”, i.e. the kind of mind under discussion, i.e. the mind developed in jhana. It is a statement about jhana, not about the nature of the mind in general.
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Perhaps experiences vary 
Ajaan Maha Boowa (Arahattaphala):
Even now that extraordinary Dhamma moves and amazes me. It is all-embracing, an encompassing luminosity that lights up the entire cosmos, revealing everything. Nothing remains hidden or concealed. (page 75)
The destruction of that suffering [arising from the kilesas] marks the emergence of Supreme Happiness; that is, the arising of the Supreme Dhamma. And it happens precisely where the luminosity of Dhamma was concealed by a thick covering of kilesas, preventing its light from streaming forth in all its brilliance. (page 85)
Once the citta—their caretaker—collapses, these conventional realities, being its enemies, are then torn asunder. Then the pure nature of the citta shines forth in all its brilliance, following its own natural principle. This is one aspect of the experience. (page 86)
Ajaan Dun Atulo (Gifts he Left Behind)
Right there is where everything ends. All that remains is pure, clean, bright — great emptiness, enormously empty. (100)
Knowing is the normality of mind that’s empty, bright, pure, that has stopped fabricating, stopped searching, stopped all mental motions — having nothing, not attached to anything at all. (103)
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for sure. Although at least I believe this is more a problem of logics and precipitation instead experience
Some Analayo claims only can be understood when that luminosity should be absent or destroyed because anatta. It seems he identify that luminosity in opposition with anatta, although we cannot read the reasons for that. A perception of a radiant mind or its absence are not described in the Suttas as a key neither some essential nature of nibbana. There are not special perceptions or situations to be the key for that. It can be a key situation or not
Why the experience of a radiant mind cannot be realized as anatta as happens with any other?.
Why that luminosity should be destroyed in anatta ?
The author shows here his understanding of the issue, when he believes the Sutta could be corrected:
"Applied to the present context, a proposal in line with the procedure adopted elsewhere in the discourses would be that the unlearned worldling and the noble disciple differ in their ability to distinguish between a defiled mind and a mind that is not defiled. Whereas the worldling is not able to recognize this indeed crucial difference, the noble disciple does recognize it. Such a contrast could be expressed in a statement of this type:*
This mind is defiled by defilements, monastics; an unlearned
worldling does not understand that as it really is. I declare that
therefore there is no cultivation of the mind for an unlearned
worldling.This mind is freed from defilements, monastics; a learned noble
disciple understands that as it really is. I declare that therefore there
is cultivation of the mind for a learned noble disciple.*A statement of this type would be fully in line with the position taken in other early discourses. Lack of understanding of what defiles the mind will make it indeed impossible for the worldling to cultivate it"
the problem with this proposal to rectify the Sutta, is the mind cannot be defiled when there is no other nature to know except the same defilements, which will be the only nature of the mind.
The mind cannot be defiled if there is no some nature which is not defiled. Or the same notion of “defilement” can become an absurdity. What he is bypassing here is the -self. Because some nature of the mind should be grasped in order to know she is defiled or purified by another thing = we say “my mind”. There is need to grasp a mind like the object for knowledge in itself to know that she can be purified or defiled by defilements. Like a cinema needs some screen to project the images. And in that realm, any object is something “real” as soon it can be grasped and known.
Without that knowledge, only the defilements would be the only nature of the mind for the knower, and without possibility of purification, because nothing could be purified. Neither the knowledge of a nature free of defilements can be a “dark hole”, a nothingness, because it can be known. Therefore the experience of some numinous nature of the mind in that situation becomes a necessity.
I fear the Buddha was fully right, no need to change the Sutta. Not because some “early Buddhist thought” could be this or that but because pure logics.
"This mind is luminous, monastics, and it is defied by adventitious
defilements; an unlearned worldling does not understand that as it
really is. I declare that therefore there is no cultivation of the mind
for an unlearned worldling"
well, he seems to be a methodic and intelligent author. Although there is some precipitation in some of his recent articles as happened with the Two Paths discussion. Or perhaps are heavy issues with difficult conclussions
Yes, as Bhikkhu Anālayo points out in the paper, it is an idea that is pervasive in many Buddhist traditions, and within the Theravāda tradition, it is usually found among some teachers of the Thai Forest tradition (e.g. Ven. Mahā Boowa and Ajāhn Amaro are referenced in the paper, and here’s an old video of Bhante Sujāto talking about this). We can acknowledge that this is something not in accordance with early Buddhist texts, while giving due respect for these traditions for their wonderful teachings.
Thanks for these quotes. After studying the four Nikayas, I got the sense that many modern day interpretations of the EBTs are a little colder and more reductionistic than the gist I got from reading the four Nikayas. It’s interesting to see a different interpretation of some key EBT concepts by an apparently accomplished monastic.
Fascinating study of a controversial passage. An interesting thing that I think is left out is that the Dharmaguptaka version of many stories agrees with the Theravada versions. The two canons seem closer to each other than the Theravada is to the Sarvastivada. So, it’s not particularly surprising to me that the Sarvastivada version of the Kevaddha Sutta doesn’t agree with the Theravada (saying that consciousness is vast rather than luminous). They often diverge in these cases.
I personally wouldn’t change the Theravada reading given that it’s very close to the Dharmaguptaka reading; DA 24’s verses are a strong confirmation of the reading in DN 11 given the overall agreement between DA and DN compared to the Sarvastivada parallels that exist.
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Well, the issue is that there is not one single Theravada reading, as Analayo notes. So the reading of “giving up” is also a Theravada reading. I think in these cases, when you have alternative readings from the same tradition, you can use historical comparative studies like Analayo’s to choose which way to go. So I think Sujato’s choice here is apt (especially since there are already other translations that have the other reading).
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Yes, it’s one of those passages that turned into a focal point of attention, perhaps used as evidence in debates. It seems sometimes what happened with those passages is that each canon rewrote them to make refuting the others a simple matter. “Oh, well, we don’t recognize that reading. Our sutra says this.” The result is that the original reading is probably lost to the proliferation of meanings, as it were.
DA 24 obviates the issue of consciousness being essential by immediately saying that it ceases after saying that’s luminous. So, it wouldn’t serve as a way to argue otherwise. Tough call to make in the Pali translation. Sometimes a translator ends up playing, “Eeny-meeny-miney-moe, with which of these readings shall I go.” People will be unhappy if it’s already controversial.
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It seems the term or idea, the luminous mind (Skt: prabhāsvara-citta or ābhāsvara-citta, Pali: pabhassara citta; C. 光明心 guangmingxin; J. 光明心 kōmyōshin) is not found in SA/SN, particularly the major portion of SA/SN.
I can’t speak to SN, but I just clicked through every occurrence of 光 in SA. The vast majority of cases was the light of the gods, the Buddha, or natural light (the sun, moon, lamps, etc). In fact, there’s a sutra that says those are the three kinds of light.
The only metaphorical use of light I saw was that of Dharma or wisdom light vs. the darkness of ignorance.
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Is there any parallel to the following passage?
So too, bhikkhus, there are these five corruptions of the mind (cittassa), corrupted by which the mind is neither malleable nor wieldy nor radiant (pabhassaraṃ) but brittle and not rightly concentrated for the destruction of the taints. What five? Sensual desire … ill will … sloth and torpor … restlessness and remorse … doubt is a corruption of the mind, corrupted by which the mind is neither malleable nor wieldy nor radiant but brittle and not rightly concentrated for the destruction of the taints. (SN V 92 and A III 16, cf. AN I 257 and MN III 243)
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Yes, there’s a parallel to that gold metaphor in SA (SA 1246), though it’s not exactly the same (doesn’t use the five hindrances). The Chinese uses a term (光澤) that means “luster” or “shiny” like a polished metal or a cut gemstone, so it’s not quite the same as being radiant. It connects the four dhyanas to the purification of the mind to be like pure gold, but the Pali version would imply that since the five hindrances are what one is rid of in order to achieve samadhi.
Looking closer, I see that the same term occurs a few other times, usually when talking about purification, like sentient beings being purified by the abodes of mindfulness. So, that would be a second metaphorical use of light-like qualities for samadhi. It’s interesting that wisdom shines and samadhi is shiny, as it were.
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SA 1246 is in Piyu Xiangying 譬喻相應 ( = SN 20. Opamma Samyutta) which belongs to Vyākaraṇa-aṅga portion of SA. But the Pali parallel of this SA 1246 is the first part of AN 3.100 Suvaṇṇakāra (CSA vol. 3, pp. 707, 721 note 2).
Ah, cool, thanks!
I think this is pretty solid evidence that terms like radiance and shining are metaphors for the mind in samadhi as Brahmali argues, and not prefiguring some kind of Mahayanistic pure consciousness as some believe. It’s quite a widespread practice to take the “mind is luminous” passage and say that it’s equivalent to Mahayana Buddha nature ideas or to ideas of the mind being pure in Mahayana (of course that gets interpreted in different ways too).
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Yes, you’re right, it’s closer to this AN sutta.
Okay. I would say we’d need to think about what gold represents to really make that case. Or even the whole concept of purification in Buddhism. Apparently something is being purified, which begs the question as to whether it requires some quality that makes it purifiable. I mean, this is all these metaphors are really saying to me. It’s like the clouds and sky metaphor.
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Well, I think my main point is that it is a pragmatic metaphor for meditation. It’s not positing a metaphysical position about the mind. So when he uses the gold metaphor or the moon and clouds metaphor, we shouldn’t try to draw some kind of ontological theory out of these statements. Their context is always in descriptions of mental culture.
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Hey y’all, just so you know, my friends at the Dharma College in Berkley have invited me to give a talk on this topic.
I am refreshing my understanding by re-reading this thread!
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