One thing that I haven't yet found in Buddhist thought is the concept of the Core. I found some information and pointers in both spiritual and esoteric literature and articles. Here's my take and introduction.

In dreams, there is no waking Consciousness. Yet the fluid phenomena (in dream realities even more fluid) revolve around a "core", a "centre". There's the same spacial orientation!

This was quite difficult to grasp... that this is the case. It took me like a lot of time, before there was one instance where I was able to remember a dream-state where I had no consciousness. How did I remember it? I don't know. Lucky, I guess. And yet there was no consciousness, but there was something still that made things go around it...

On a side note: usually we remember only (and as soon as) consciousness appears, maybe a denser form of dream consciousness - and then there is remembrance, memory appears as if it were inseparable from consciousness. In lucid dreams consciousness varies from almost as dense as waking consciousness to even more dense consciousness - resulting in dreams more vivid than reality.

Anyways, there must be a reason that despite there NOT being a consciousness - things still revolve around... "here", the center... what is it?

Conclusion is - there must be a core, a thing that determines that phenomena revolve around it, and it must be a thing apart from consciousness. To the consciousness, as Buddhism says, for shorter or longer periods of time all forms tend to stick through contact. I would add following the esoteric thought - that chakras and subtle bodies stick to the consciousness as well - in all sorts of configurations and allowing for endless sorts of sensations... those I perceive as organs of sensitivity - so for example - open heart equals let's say plus hundred possible feelings. Closed - hundred possible feelings less in the repertoire of everyday experience. And so on with every organ, maybe in other worlds there is an infinitude of chakras, therefore I understand that Buddhism doesn't focus on the concepts of chakras, and therefore I think that what I wrote is in line with it - because I don't encourage any manipulation - only a way of perceiving it as an organ - similar to touch or smell - those would be the organs of the physical body, and chakras of... consciousness? Invisible bodies? They say that, but I'm not sure. And I don't really know if it matters unless one wants to bring about a change in those areas of experience.

I know Hinduism describes and recognizes a concept of Shushumna - but does Buddhism as well? Is it a part of the dependent origination chain?

Here is a Hindu definition:

Definition - What does Sushumna mean?

Sushumna is a Sanskrit word meaning "very gracious" or "kind" and is also the name for the central nadi in the body. Anatomically, the sushumna runs down the central axis of the body, through the spinal cord.

The sushumna nadi is the most important nadi of the astral (emotional) body. When prana flows freely through the sushumna, the yogi can attain a still mind; however, when impurities exist in the other nadis of the body, prana is not able to freely flow through the sushumna.

It looks like this.

Now the fun begins here - the esotericist that introduced the concept of the core in my country and extended on it a bit in a direction irrelevant to the topic of this discussion, drew it as a line and said it's basically shushumna... but - what makes shushumna stick here? Stick to the... core!? So it can't be the core if it sticks anywhere. Anything that is a form ultimately sticks to the core, revolves around it, including consciousness, so what is the core? Does it have a shape? If it's a line similar to shushumna - is the top of the line on top/above? But above relatively to what? To a center. So where is the center and what is it's shape? It seems to be there! Here... somewhere.

To go back to the topic and conclude - without consciousness, there still is a core, this is experiencable in dreams... is what I'm saying, and this may be a reason why certain spiritually evolved people still talk of I and yet they don't seem like "their I" is similar to ours... they maybe dissolved the consciousness but the core is still there, shushumna as well, maybe some chakras as well? The core may just be somehow melted into some version of an absolute, a universal self or something else, nobody knows. But yet it becomes evident when you contemplate different masters - they emanate with different things, and yet their words may be the same. Conclusion is - the emanation is from two different sources. But maybe the words and teachings only help to melt the consciousness, they just don't talk about the fact that their cores are in different "places"... thoughts?

I think the esotericist that introduced that concept drew it as a line to schematically demonstrate what he was talking about. But as I stated above - why would the top feel like it's the top? It could only as relative to the center? Where is the center? I remember some spiritual thought talked of void - center of being as located around the navel. Recently I read that Nisargadatta Maharaj said that the center is on top of the head. I guess - everyone would have to see for themselves, is it really the same for everybody? The method would be asking - where is bottom? where is top? is here top or bottom, and through trial and error reaching the center... right?

What do you think, what are your experiences? Would you say that Buddhism aims to dissolve or move beyond the core in it's innermost form? It seems so to me because only Buddhism seems to disregard all those concepts as form of sorts... but it doesn't name the core that way and I haven't really read about shushumna from strictly Buddhist sources neither. Would you offer a helping hand in finding possible literature or teachings? And please feel encouraged to share all your thoughts about this topic! :)

​

Edit: minor corrections.