The Ordinary Mind in Chan/Zen Buddhism and its psychological significance

The Ordinary Mind that Chan masters Mazu and Nanquan defined in medieval China is chiefly a non-dual, non-discriminative spiritual and ontological state of freedom. This dissertation explores the context and phenomena of the Ordinary Mind and articulates a distinction between Ordinary Mind, mindfulness-based ordinary mind, and ordinary mind that has received no meditation training Hermeneutics and a psychological lens are used as the main tools for interpreting nuances of the three states, which answer the research question: What is pingchangxin?. This dissertation posits that there is a shift from an ontological and non-discriminative state (the Ordinary Mind) to a meaningfully engaged and functional state (the mindfulness-based ordinary mind).