07.11.2025 What Is Mind?   Recently, I participated in a series of transmissions and empowerments within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. As the teacher was preparing us to receive the teachings, he paused to highlight what he described as a key point in receiving empowerment: the mind. He mentioned that the one thing that allows us to receive the teachings, which qualify us to be practitioners, is the mind. I once asked a teacher, “What is mind?” and he replied, “You are asking about the whole of Buddhism.” So, what is the mind? When we think of the mind, we often think of it in terms of the brain or mental function, but in the Buddhist context, mind goes beyond the mental. In Buddhism, the concept of the mind is expansive; it is both simple yet profound. We all have a mind—yet everything is mind. The mind is both the observer and the observed. There are practices for settling the mind, revealing its true nature, and resting in its natural state. Different Buddhist traditions approach the concept of mind from different angles, but all ultimately point to the same essential understanding. Below are a few articles from various traditions that may help deepen our understanding of what mind is in the Buddhist context. —Mariana Restrepo, deputy editor, Buddhadharma Everything’s Made of Mind All that we are and experience is mind, explains Zen teacher Norman Fischer. That mind is original enlightenment itself. Mind is like this. It is deep, pure, and silent. But when the winds of delusion blow, its surface stirs and what we call suffering results. But the waves of my suffering are nothing more or less than mind. And even as I rage, the depths below remain quiet. Life is the wind. Life is the water. As long as life appears as phenomena there will be the stirrings of delusion. Delusion is in fact the movement, the stirring, of awakening. My ocean mind is inherently pure and serene, always. When I know this, I can navigate the waves with grace. ADVERTISEMENT How to Experience the True Nature of Mind Mingyur Rinpoche shares step-by-step instructions to experience the basic nature of mind. When the three minutes are up, ask yourself, how was that experience? Don’t judge it; don’t try to explain it. Just review what happened and how you felt. You might have experienced a brief taste of peace or openness. That’s good. Or you might have been aware of a million different thoughts, feelings, and sensations. That’s also good. The Mind That Knows Itself Until we begin to make the distinction between observing thoughts and observing the knowing mind, writes Ayya Dhammapida, “we have not yet begun to study or to experience the mind directly.” Until we begin to make the distinction between observing thoughts and observing the knowing mind, we have not yet begun to study or to experience the mind directly. This is due to the deeply rooted tendency to accept thoughts as true and complete representations of reality. They are anything but that, though, because they are used as tools for sustaining the sense of a permanent, continuous self that is a fiction. Therefore, the study of thought is useful, but it is an indirect way to search for the mind.