I like to think that consciousness or vijñâna is dyadic in the sense of being made up of a determining or perceiving subject and a determinate, perceived object. In a word, this is a mode of pure Mind, that is, a particular form of it. Still, this mode of consciousness is not pure Mind because pure Mind is substance/essence, not mode.

There is no way in hell, under the mode of consciousness that pure Mind can be realized. Truth be told, pure Mind is devoid of determining subject and determinate object. There is no perceiver or perceptual images to be perceived. Pure Mind is not a percept, in other words, or something determinate to see for a perceiver.

When it comes to Bodhicitta it is to see pure Mind as it really is; not by way of the mode of consciousness.

“Lord of the Secret Ones! What is Enlightenment? It is to know your mind as it really is. That is the supreme, full and perfect Enlightenment. Therein neither exists nor can be perceived any phenomenon whatsoever. Why is that? Because Enlightenment has the same attribute as space. Therein there is neither that which becomes enlightened nor that to which one is enlightened. Why is that? Because Enlightenment is without attributes. Lord of the Secret One! All phenomena are also without attributes just as space is” (trans. Stephen Hodges, The Mahâ-Vairocana-Abhisambodhi Tantra, p. 55).

In seeing Mind as it really is, which is devoid of attributes, i.e. perceptual determinations such as color and size, is also to realize that phenomena, since they are nothing but configurations of pure Mind are, likewise, fundamentally, without attributes. On the other hand, where consciousness is still at work, there appears an illusory perceiver and an illusory world of percepts out there—but nothing is really real. This also includes the psychophysical organism where, presently, our life takes place.

To transcend this illusory mess, that is, to attain Bodhicitta is somewhat like answering the koan, Before my parents conceived me, what was my original face? This koan properly orients us away from the mode of consciousness that, frankly, can drive us crazy when we try to realize pure Mind through it. This leads us to the skill of a good Zen master who has realized pure Mind; who has the ability to paralyze consciousness, so that for a split second, the presence of pure Mind (bodhicitta) is given birth to (utpâda).