emptiness of mind

The mind is not truly existent. Nothing is truly existent -- all phenomena are empty -- but as Tulku Urgyen Rinpoché points out, the mind is a special kind of phenomenon, empty in a different way (Buddha Nowhere Else, Quintessential Dzogchen p. 165).

Phenomena such as material objects, like tables and bodies, and phenomena such as mental objects, like thoughts and ideas, are empty in the sense of impermanence: they arise as a relative conglomeration of other phenomena, and then they pass. For a time there is an appearing substance that we name and grasp at, a thing we call "table" or "idea", before the thing metamorphoses into something else. The truth of phenomenal emptiness is that there is no period during which change is not taking place. Objects are either in the process of arising or in the process of passing away. Angela once told me that we can not in good faith call a table a "table", but should use nothing but verbs, calling it "tabling". Phenomena are just that unstable.

Mind, which I intend to mean not the objects of mind but the subject or that which does the thinking, is not like that; mind is no-thing. The emptiness of the mind is not in its impermanence but in its no-thing-ness. As much as we can observe the arising and passing away of a thought, and as much as we can know of the arising and passing away of seemingly stable mountains or planets, we can not say the same for the mind. There is no substance whatsoever, not even temporarily appearing, that we call "mind".

Is the mind then permanent? In a sense, it is permanent. It is, as I have been posting about lately, primordially pure and not dependent on causes and conditions. It is and has always been since beginningless time clear and brilliant, cognizant and aware, untainted by any samsaric arisings, indestructible: "Its original nature is the dharmakaya of all buddhas" (Tulku Urgyen Rinpoché, p. 165). But I don't think we can really say it is permanent, since it doesn't truly exist. Relatively speaking, we do assume or infer that the mind exists, and upon analysis, we can see it as primordially pure, but on an absolute level there is nothing to be found, nothing of which permanence can be an aspect.