Dalai Lama's answer:-
http://hhdl.dharmakara.net/hhdlquotes22.html
A: I understand the Primordial Buddha, also
known as Buddha Samantabhadra, to be the ultimate reality, the
realm of the Dharmakaya-- the space of emptiness--where all
phenomena, pure and impure, are dissolved. This is the explanation
taught by the Sutras and Tantras. However, in the context of your
question, the tantric tradition is the only one which explains the
Dharmakaya in terms of Inherent clear light, the essential nature
of the mind; this would seem imply that all phenomena, samsara and
nirvana, arise from this clear and luminous source. Even the New
School of Translation came to the conclusion that the "state of
rest" of a practitioner of the Great Yoga--Great Yoga implies here
the state of the practitioner who has reached a stage in meditation
where the most subtle experience of clear light has been
realized--that for as long as the practitioner remains in this
ultimate sphere he or she remains totally free of any sort of veil
obscuring the mind, and is immersed in a state of great bliss.
We can say, therefore, that this ultimate source, clear light,
is close to the notion of a Creator, since all phenomena, whether
they belong to samsara or nirvana, originate therein. But we must
be careful in speaking of this source, we must not be led into
error. I do not mean chat there exists somewhere, there, a sort of
collective clear light, analogous to the non-Buddhist concept of
Brahma as a substratum. We must not be inclined to deify this
luminous space. We must understand that when we speak of ultimate
or inherent clear light, we are speaking on an individual
level.
Likewise, when we speak of karma as the cause of the universe we
eliminate the notion of a unique entity called karma existing
totally independently. Rather, collective karmic impressions,
accumulated individually, are at the origin of the creation of a
world. When, in the tantric context, we say that all worlds appear
out of clear light, we do not visualize this source as a unique
entity, but as the ultimate clear light of each being. We can also,
on the basis of its pure essence, understand this clear light to be
the Primordial Buddha. All the stages which make up the life of
each living being--death, the intermediate state, and
rebirth--represent nothing more than the various manifestations of
the potential of clear light. It is both the most subtle
consciousness and energy. The more clear light loses its subtlety,
the more your experiences take shape.
In this way, death and the intermediate state are moments where
the gross manifestations emanating from clear light are reabsorbed.
At death we return to that original source, and from there a
slightly more gross state emerges to form the intermediate state
preceding rebirth. At the stage of rebirth, clear light is apparent
in a physical incarnation. At death we return to this source. And
so on. The ability to recognize subtle clear light, also called the
Primordial Buddha, is equivalent to realizing nirvana, whereas
ignorance of the nature of clear light leaves us to wander in the
different realms of samsaric existence.
This is how I understand the concept of the Primordial Buddha.
It would be a grave error to conceive of it as an independent and
autonomous existence from beginningless time. If we had to accept
the idea of an independent creator, the explanations given in the
Pramanavartika, the "Compendium of Valid Knowledge"
written by Dharmakirti, and in the ninth chapter of the text by
Shantideva, which completely refutes the existence per se of all
phenomena, would be negated. This, in turn, would refute the notion
of the Primordial Buddha. The Buddhist point of view does not
accept the validity of affirmations which do not stand up to
logical examination. If a sutra describes the Primordial Buddha as
an autonomous entity, we must be able to interpret this assertion
without taking it literally. We call this type of sutra an
"interpretable" sutra.
/\
This is a good explanation. The Dalai Lama is clear about the
difference between Buddhism and non-Buddhist traditions like
Advaita Vedanta, even though both of them experiences the Clear
Light.
Buddhism, with the correct cognition of Anatta and Emptiness,
does not reify Clear Light into a fundamental, over-arching, cosmic
source of all things and beings.
Instead, it sees clear light for what it is - the individual
stream of consciousness. So while it is true that everything
experienced comes forth from mind, and IS mind, this mind is not an
ultimate universal consciousness, a God or Brahman of some sort.
Consciousness is an individual source that interdependently
originates.
What is clear light? The Dalai Lama explains:
These two features - luminosity, or clarity, and
knowing, or cognizance - have come to characterise 'the mental' in
Indo-Tibetan Buddhist thought. Clarity here refers to the ability
of mental states to reveal or reflect. Knowing, by contrast, refers
to mental states' faculty to perceive or apprehend what
appears.
All phenomena possessed of these qualities count as mental.
These features are difficult to conceptualise, but then we are
dealing with phenomena that are subjective and internal rather than
material objects that may be measured in spatio-temporal
terms.
Perhaps it is because of these difficulties - the limits of
language in dealing with the subjective - that many of the early
Buddhist texts explain the nature of consciousness in terms
of metaphors such as light or a flowing river. As the
primary feature of light is to illuminate, so consciousness is said
to illuminate its objects. Just as in light there is no
categorical distinction between the illumination and that which
illuminates, so in consciousness there is no real difference
between the process of knowing or cognition and that which knows or
cognizes. In consciousness, as in light, there is a quality of
illumination.
~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "The Universe in a Single
Atom"
Here, the Dalai Lama clearly expresses the insight of
Anatta.
Luminosity is not a Knower, Cognizer, but is simply the
self-luminous essence of the process of experiencing, knowing. It
is the individual stream of mind that we are talking about - its
self-knowing quality.
The Dalai Lama also understands the tendency of Consciousness,
Clear Light to be reified (like in non-Buddhist religions) into an
ultimate God, Brahman, etc.
He said:
Through the gates of the five sense organs a being sees,
hears, smells, tastes and comes into contact with a host of
external forms, objects and impressions. Let the form, sound,
smell, taste, touch and mental events which are the relations of
the six senses be shut off. When this is done the recollection of
past events on which the mind tends to dwell will be completely
discontinued and the flow of memory cut off. Similarly, plans for
the future and contemplation of future action must not be allowed
to arise. It is necessary to create a space in place of all such
processes of thought if one is to empty the mind of all such
processes of thought. Freed from all these processes there will
remain a pure, clean, distinct and quiescent mind. Now let us
examine what sort of characteristics constitute the mind when it
has attained this stage. We surely do possess some thing called
mind, but how are we to recognize its existence? The real and
essential mind is what is to be found when the entire load of gross
obstructions and aberrations (i.e. sense impressions, memories,
etc.) has been cleared away. Discerning this aspect of real mind,
we shall discover that, unlike external objects, its true nature is
devoid of form or color; nor can we find any basis of truth for
such false and deceptive notions as that mind originated from this
or that, or that it will move from here to there, or that it is
located in such-and-such a place. When it comes into contact with
no object mind is like a vast, boundless void, or like a serene,
illimitable ocean. When it encounters an object it at once has
cognizance of it, like a mirror instantly reflecting a person who
stands in front of it. The true nature of mind consists not only in
taking clear cognizance of the object but also in communicating a
concrete experience of that object to the one experiencing
it.* Normally, our forms of sense cognition, such
as eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, etc., perform their
functions on external phenomena in a manner involving gross
distortion. Knowledge resulting from sense cognition, being based
on gross external phenomena, is also of a gross nature. When this
type of gross stimulation is shut out, and when concrete
experiences and clear cognizance arise from within, mind assumes
the characteristics of infinite void similar to the infinitude of
space. But this void is not to be taken as the true nature of mind.
We have become so habituated to consciousness of the form and color
of gross objects that, when we make concentrated introspection into
the nature of mind, it is, as I have said, found to be a vast,
limitless void free from any gross obscurity or other hindrances.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that we have discerned the
subtle, true nature of the mind. What has been
explained above concerns the state of mind in relation to the
concrete experience and clear cognizance by the mind which are its
function, but it describes only the relative nature of
mind.
There are in addition several other aspects and states of
mind. In other words, taking mind as the supreme basis, there are
many attributes related to it. Just as an onion consists of layer
upon layer that can be peeled away, so does every sort of object
have a number of layers; and this is no less true of the nature of
mind as explained here; it, too, has layer within layer, slate
within state.
All compounded things are subject to disintegration. Since
experience and knowledge are impermanent and subject to
disintegration, the mind, of which they are functions (nature), is
not something that remains constant and eternal. From moment to
moment it undergoes change and disintegration. This
transience of mind is one aspect of its nature. However,
as we have observed, its true nature has many aspects, including
consciousness of concrete experience and cognizance of objects. Now
let us make a further examination in order to grasp the meaning of
the subtle essence of such a mind. Mind came into existence because
of its own cause. To deny that the origination of mind is dependent
on a cause, or to say that it is a designation given as a means of
recognizing the nature of mind aggregates, is not correct.
With our superficial observance, mind, which has concrete
experience and clear cognizance as its nature, appears to be a
powerful, independent, subjective, completely ruling entity.
However, deeper analysis will reveal that this mind, possessing as
it does the function of experience and cognizance, is not a
self-created entity but Is dependent on other factors for its
existence. Hence it depends on something other than itself. This
non-independent quality of the mind substance is its true nature
which in turn is the ultimate reality of the
self.
Also, the Dalai Lama explains this luminosity of mind to be
eternal, but not an unchanging eternal but a changing
eternality:
The fundamental mind which serves as the basis of all
phenomena of cyclic existence and nirvana is posited as the
ultimate truth or nature of phenomena (dharmata, chos nyid); it is
also called the ‘clear light’ (abhasvara, ‘od gsal) and
uncompounded (asamskrta, ‘dus ma byas). In Nying-ma it is called
the ‘mind-vajra’; this is not the mind that is contrasted with
basic knowledge (rig pa) and mind (sems) but the factor of mere
luminosity and knowing, basic knowledge itself. This is the final
root of all minds, forever indestructible, immutable, and
unbreakable continuum like a vajra. Just as the New Translation
Schools posit a beginningless and endless fundamental mind, so
Nying-ma posits a mind-vajra which has no beginning or end and
proceeds without interruption through the effect stage of
Buddhahood. It is considered ‘permanent’ in the sense of abiding
forever and thus is presented as a permanent mind. It is permanent
not in the sense of not disintegrating moment by moment but in the
sense that its continuum is no interrupted…