We plant merit with our minds, and commit crimes with our minds.

With our minds, we imprint images.

This one mind is like an artist. It can draw anything, and what draws is realized.

If you surrender your impressions, ideas, thoughts, and so on at the moment they arise without imprinting them on your mind, your minds will not be tainted.

Just as the lotus flower is not tainted by the muddy water whence it grows.

–Jae Woong Kim from “Polishing the Diamond”

(Transcribers Note : The authors use of “one mind” is referring to the all pervading source unmanifest from which all occurrence arises. Consciousness. Awareness.

This passage is pointing to a distinction between our minds and “one mind”. Our mind is the voice in our heads running dialogue, descriptors, and value assessments about ourselves & the world around us. It thinks and decides and judges, which, left unchecked, become beliefs and worldviews.

Beliefs and worldviews, left unexamined, form an identity that operates as a distinct entity from the world in which it experiences. This sense of separation is the cause of a lot of problems.

The author is encouraging us to let go of thoughts, ideas, and impressions as they arise so we may experience clarity & peace of mind.)