Human consciousness is the awareness or perception of something by a person. The Sixth Patriarch of Zen, Huineng taught us that the essence of mind is Consciousness. And Consciousness is characterized as no birth no death, no increase nor decrease, neither clean nor filthy, as defined in the famous Heart Sutra.
As legend has it, Huineng was a poor, illiterate young man from southern China who was selling firewood when he heard the customer reciting the Diamond Sutra, and he had an awakening experience. Following the customer’s lead, Huineng set out to search for enlightenment in Monastery, and started the journey of self discovery and actualization. The fifth Patriarch noticed Huineng’s exceptional gift. Several months after Huineng’s arrival, Hongren challenged his monks to compose a verse that expressed their understanding of the dharma. If any verse reflects the truth, Hongren said, the monk who composed it will receive the robe and bowl and become the Sixth Patriarch.
Shenxiu (Shen-hsiu), the most senior monk, accepted this challenge and wrote this verse on a monastery wall.
The body is the bodhi tree.
The heart-mind is like a mirror.
Moment by moment wipe and polish it,
Not allowing dust to collect.
When someone read the verse to the illiterate Huineng, the future Sixth Patriarch knew Shenxiu had missed it. He knew it did not express the essence of true nature. So Huineng dictated the following verse for another to write for him:
Bodhi originally has no tree,
The mirror(-like mind) has no stand.
Buddha-nature (emptiness/oneness) is always clean and pure;
Where might dust collect?
While Shenxiu explanation is applicable to earlier stage of practice, for the laymen, beginner and intermediate level of practitioner, Huinengs poem illuminate the ultimate meaning of the mind, and so is the best commentary to answer the question about “what is the essence of mind”. This can be understood as advocating the sudden awakening to emptiness/oneness. It was a masterpiece that revealed the transient and illusory nature of everything. Shenxiu used the bodhi tree as a metaphor for the body, so Huineng pointed out that bodhi — the enlightenment of the soul — was not dependent on the body. It is the spiritual self that experiences the awakening to a greater reality. The physical self is only a temporary means for us to journey through the material world, and work toward that awakening.
Shenxiu compared the soul to a mirror, and the mind as the stand holding it, so Huineng pointed out that this, too, was not the ultimate truth. The soul is your true self, and it is eternally constant. The mind, like the body, is a tool created by the soul for the purpose of perfecting itself. This is why your mind is always changing — learning new things, evolving various ideas, and so on — but no matter how much it changes, you are still you. This “you-ness” that never changes is your true self, and it does not depend on the constantly changing states of your mind.
In the clarity of Huineng’s view, we can see that all the temptations and distractions of the world are just as illusory as the body and the mind. The difficulties we face may be challenging and exhausting, but they cannot last forever. Similarly, all the things we chase after — money, material possessions, fame and fortune — become completely meaningless when we die. Huineng said “nothing’s there initially” because none of it is real compared to the true self.
Oneness is the idea that everything in the universe is interconnected. Therefore the idea of being separate from the matter we can see around us is considered an illusion. This point of view is mirrored in science in a phenomenon in wave mechanics called quantum entanglement. This relationship connects both particles so that whatever happens to one particle is reflected by the other particle instantaneously, irrespective of time and space. This experiment implies that everything we see or experienced has one single interconnected source. Again modern science proved the truth of the universe simply captured in the Buddhist belief.