Within context of dependent arising and the oneness of the spiritually awakened, the individual mind does not have a separate and permanence existence. Rather, the mind is shared between all living beings. This is the essence of emptiness.
As for the question of the differences between one person and another, they can be explained by the "shattered gem" hypothesis i.e. True Mind, being the Alaya Consciousness, has the ability to deposit in each living being a sliver of itself (Buddha Nature).
Why then are people ignorant of the mind as being one?
Spiritual ignorance leads one to think of the mind as being their own, separate from others. Thus, one of the purposes of meditation is to transform behavioral and mental negativities into their opposite to uncover the pure mind.
In uncovering the pure mind, one develops the siddhi mistakenly called "mind-reading" i.e. telepathy. The actual name for this siddhi is "knowing the mind of others". It is enhanced by careful observation of others.
The use of words (mantra) helps to awaken the mind to the possibility of telepathy.
At the root of telepathy is the siddhi of suggestion, which conditions the mind to being able to hear without ears and to speak without words. The mantra used for this purpose is found in the Flower Sermon.
According to the mundane world and its adherents, this revelation looks like madness.
Thus, it becomes a form of mysticism due to ignorance of the mundane; at the same time, it becomes a revealed truth to the spiritually awakened.
Anyone who is awakened yet chooses to misuse the gift of telepathy is not truly awakened, for such misuse closes one to true awakening.
For clinging to telepathy is at the root of its misuse, and leads the foolish to the delusion that one is truly awakened.
Therefore, the truly awakened will use the siddhi of telepathy to be helpful and of service to others.
2 comments:
The Flower Sermon: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~cgherb/lotus.html
For further enlightenment, the Brahma Net Sutra is useful:
http://www.ymba.org/bns/bnsframe.htm
For further enlightenment, here is a quote from Timothy Brook's book Vermeer's Hat:
"Buddhism uses a similar image to describe the interconnectedness of all phenomena. It is called Indra's Net. When Indra fashioned the world, he made it as a web, and at every knot in the web is tied a pearl. Everything that exists, or has ever existed, every idea that can be thought about, every datum that is true—every dharma, in the language of Indian philosophy—is a pearl in Indra's net. Not only is every pearl tied to every other pearly by virtue of the web on which they hang, but on the surface of every pearl is reflected every other jewel on the net. Everything that exists in Indra's web implies all else that exists."
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