A Glimpse of the Buddha-nature

The Avatamsaka Sutra says:

"Such as the True Thusness, which is a body of shining light."

A couple of days ago, while dozing in my chair, I had experienced for myself what the above verse means. My mind was in a dreaming state when suddenly I found myself engulfed by a nimitta (mental image) of very powerful light, covering the entire dream universe. For a short period of perhaps 10 secs, I experienced a profound bliss, something which I have never experienced before in my life. Could this be the infinite light of our true mind, the Buddha-nature? Is this the same light that people see when they have near-death experiences (NDE) or when they first enter the Bardo state (described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead) after death?

Whatever it is, it was quickly over and my mind fall back into its normal dreaming state, after which I woke up in a short while. I believe the entire episode only lasted a few minutes, but it left a deep impression on my mind.

I read in the past when some practitioners experience this clear light they find themselves losing all sense of time & space. One guy related that he was walking to his car in the car park from his office when he suddenly had this awakening experience. His conceptional mind was dissolved at the moment and a walk that normally took 5 mins was reduced to like, a few seconds. This is also the same as meditators who enter Jhana for hours, but they themselves thought that it was only a few mins. Here is a story to illustrate this point:

One autumn, Ven Xuyun was travelling with a companion when he decided to rest in an abandoned hut for the night. He started a fire to boil water inside the hut, but while waiting for the water to boil, his mind converged into Samadhi there & then. When Ven Xuyun came out of the state, the fire was long dead and the water in the pot was already frozen, because it was already winter! Not knowing what happened he asked his companion who happened to be sitting nearby. The companion informed Xuyun that he had been sitting by the fire place for more than a month. Knowing that he would eventually "wake up", & not wishing to leave him just like that, the monk had somehow waited in the vincity faithfully all this time. Ven Xuyun was quite surprised to hear that, but he also had new found respect for his companion. This story tells us that the true mind is beyond all physical laws. Concepts of size, distance, time, space cease to exist, overrided by the omniscient & omnipresent virtues of the Buddha-nature.

The Buddha & all the Noble Ones must have experienced the same thing when they attained enlightenment, but at a much more intense & permanant level. I may still have a long way to go, but surely I too, will attain enlightenment in this lifetime if I never give up my Dharma practice. Let us all work hard.