Buddhist thought and applied psychological research: transcending the boundaries (original) (raw)
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Consciousness: How do the Buddhist texts define it? (a draft paper
We all know that consciousness is central to human cognitive process. Yet the questions of how and where consciousness emerges are quite difficult for us to answer. The fact that the science community has attempted to answer these questions for a while. Nevertheless, these questions have remained a hard problem that has been unsolved yet. So, based on the Buddhist texts, this paper aims to figure out (a) what consciousness is, (b) how it emerges, and (c) how vipassanā meditation (or mindfulness mediation) and neurobiology correlate to the states of consciousness.
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The present paper is concerned with a qualitative, analytical, and comparative method of exploring Buddhist perspectives on phenomenal consciousness. The phenomenal consciousness sciences have offered a mechanical explanation of the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of consciousness, but have failed to explain the ‘why’ of consciousness. The Buddhists have given a systematic explanation of conscious experience in Pancha–skandha, and it is in relation to the material world. In this scheme of things, consciousness is overly conditioned and arises from an interaction with other factors (physical or mental). Consciousness, in turn, influences one or more mental factors. Thus, consciousness and the mind–body (nama– rupa) are interdependent: there is no arising of consciousness without conditions. This is to say that there is an unbroken series of consciousnesses. I would like to demonstrate that the Buddhist notion of phenomenal consciousness not only goes against the possibility of a scientific explanat...
2014
The burgeoning field of cognitive studies in the West is motivated by a renewed interest in conscious experience, which arose in the postmodern zeitgeist in response to the positivist, scientific ideal of objectivity. This work presents a historical overview of Western philosophy from its dawn, focusing on the evolution of key concepts in metaphysics, ontology and epistemology, to arrive at the examination of modern theories on consciousness. The monist systems of pre-Socratic philosophers, the empiricism and rationalism of the Humanism, Kant's critique and the post-Kantian split of traditions in the analytic and continental branches are surveyed. A summary of the key historical concepts of consciousness in the continental tradition, and especially in German idealism and phenomenology is presented. Modern physicalist theories of mind based on epistemological realism, in the analytic tradition are sketched, and critical aspects of the realist viewpoint discussed. The reintroduction of the phenomenal perspective in philosophy of mind, is argued, represents an important turning point in analytic philosophy. In the second part, the philosophic-religious traditions of Advaita Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, in its Madhyamaka branch, are presented, and their respective notions of self, mind and reality confronted. The concept of consciousness as an ontological substance is, in Buddhism, deconstructed through the analysis of impermanence and interdependent origination of phenomena. In Advaita philosophy consciousness is equated with the universal Brahman, although no duality is admitted between Brahman and the world. The phenomenological analysis of self in this tradition differs from the Western notion of "transcendental ego" through an understanding of intentionality as a superimposition of subject-object duality on pure consciousness. A core theory of nonduality between the conscious principle and the world is then extracted from the apparently opposite ontological stances of Mahayana and Advaita. This theory is finally compared with the Western idealist and realist conceptions of consciousness, intentionality and subject-object duality. The nondualism of the Indian systems, is argued, represents a possible resolution of the ontological and epistemological problems of Western philosophy.
Religions. Special Issue Buddhist Psychology: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Buddhist Theories of Mind, 2023
The Nibbānasukha-sutta contains Sāriputta's statement that the pleasure (sukha) of nibbāna lies in the fact that nothing is experienced (vedayita). This statement may be seen as complementary to the proclamation in the Kaḷāra-sutta that all that is experienced is unpleasant (dukkha). In this paper, I attempt to reconstruct the ideas serving as a philosophical backdrop to these radical and seemingly counterintuitive claims. I use a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, reexamining several key Nikāya passages, as well as drawing on modern cognitive science and philosophy of mind. I suggest that vedayita and the closely related concept of the five khandhas (and in particular viññāṇa) refer to various aspects of the type of consciousness whose content is phenomenal, introspectable, reportable and may be integrated into memory. I suggest that such consciousness is not a constant feature of our being engaged in the world and that its absence does not entail insentience or being incognizant. I hypothesize that a relatively low frequency of occurrences of such consciousness in the states known as absorption or flow contributes to their pleasurable nature and the altered sense of the passage of time and selfhood. I attempt to explain how the presence or absence of such consciousness is related to the states of dukkha or sukha, with particular focus on the role played by saṅkhāra. I also discuss the limits of introspection as a means of understanding what exactly makes experiences pleasurable or painful, and consider the possibility of nonintrospectable forms of pleasure. In conclusion, I suggest that psychological transformation in early Buddhism is connected with a radical change of perspective, which involves no longer identifying with one's own consciousness.
A familiar account of the debate between Buddhists and the brahmanical schools over the nature and existence of the self: the brahmanical schools accept the existence of the tman (the substantial self), while the Buddhists reject the tman, adopting a reductionist or irrealist account of persons. Thus while the Buddhists are similar to Hume, Locke, and Parfit, the tmavadins are, though diverse, basically Cartesian in their approach to the self. Yet, as a number of scholars have pointed out, this view of the debates on the nature of the self is far too simplistic. Indeed, as Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad (2011) argues, there are (at least) two distinct debates going on. The first debate concerns the nature of the empirical person (pudgala) and the ego-sense (ahakra), whether the person (or ego) is constructed or ontologically fundamental, as well as questions of synchronic and diachronic personal identity. The second debate concerns the existence and nature of an 'impersonal subjectivity' which may constitute the (formal) ground of empirical personhood. In this debate questions such as the reflexivity, unity, and continuity of consciousness are emphasised. My concern here is with second type of debate over the nature of consciousness and its relation to tman. In particular, I want to examine the similarities and differences between the Advaitin notion of tman as pure consciousness, or sheer reflexive subjectivity and the Buddhist notion – found in some Yogcra, Yogcra-Madhyamaka, and tathgatagarbha texts and well developed in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition – that the deep nature of consciousness is non-dual reflexive awareness. Both traditions, I will argue, recognise the empirical and the transcendental aspects of consciousness, and both link the inherent reflexivity or luminosity of consciousness to its transcendental aspect. So, have the Buddhists smuggled in the tman through the back door? Or have the Advaitins so separated the tman (as pure consciousness) from the first-person perspective of the individual self that they have become proponents of no-self in all but name? To try to get a better grip on the distinction between these two views, I will discuss akara's critique of Buddhist theories of mind, paying special attention to his argument that recognition (pratyabhijñ) requires a robust notion of the diachronic unity of consciousness. Finally, drawing on ntarakita's account of luminous consciousness and Husserl's discussion of the complex temporality of consciousness, I will argue that a Buddhist view, properly modified, has the resources to respond to the Advaita critique. The view of consciousness as ever-present self-luminous awareness does not require a commitment to even the Advaitin's attenuated notion of tman.
Consciousness in Buddhist Philosophy
Evotos Lonard University, 2019
Abstract : Existing in a way is consciousness. In the absence of consciousness no ‘being’ exists in the sentient world. Without consciousness, life ceases to exist. In the eastern religious philosophy consciousness is one of the most inevitable part of discussion which leads to total awareness of awakening or enlightenment. In the Pali Canonical Texts (Tipitaka) of Buddhism consciousness is referred as Vinnana, Manas and Citta which are translated as “life-force”, “mind” and “discernment”. In the first four Nikayas of the Sutta –Pitaka Vinnana is one of the three overlapping Pali terms used to refer to mind. The others are being manas and citta. Each is used in the generic and non-technical sense of mind in general but the three are sometimes used in sequence to refer to one’s mental process as a whole. Their primary uses are however distinct. Consciousness is one of the twelve links in the Theory of Causation or the formula of Dependant Origination (paticcasamuppada) is an application of the casual relativity to suffering and repeated existence in the cycle of births and deaths. Dependant on the rebirth-producing volitional formations (belonging to previous births) arises consciousness (re-linking or rebirth consciousness). In other words dependant on the kamma or good and evil actions of the past, is conditioned the conscious life in this present birth. Consciousness therefore is the first factor or first of the conditioning links belonging to the present existence. Ignorance and volitional formations belonging to the past together produce consciousness in this birth. Consciousness is re-linking, re-uniting, re-joining vital force of re-birth, reentry into the womb. Dependant on consciousness there arises mentality –materiality (nama-rupa) or full form of body and mind. Here consciousness plays as re-generating force of a new life. Mentality stands for mental states (cetasika) in other words the three mental groups, namely feeling (vedana) perception (sanna), volitional or mental formation or disposition (sankhara) and materiality here stands for our physical body. The so called “being” (satta) is nothing but the composed of five aggregates or group (pancakkhandha). If consciousness is taken as the mind then feeling, perception and volitional formations are the concomitants or factors of that mind. Hence consciousness is one of the inter-related chain of five-aggregates. Consciousness again classified when mental functions take place in accordance with the sense faculties. There are six kinds of consciousness by way of their relationship to sense-faculties: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, and mind-consciousness. Very many functions of the mind are recorded in the canon revealing its nature and function in different contexts. According to the foregoing definitions of the multi-faceted nature and function o f mind, it is quite clear that Buddhism recognizes three functions of it: 1. Affective 2.Conative 3.cogntive
The Great Debate in Mahayana Buddhism: the Nature of Consciousness
This work examines how one might study religion from a Mahāyāna point of view. It then proceeds to elaborate a much-disputed topic among all schools of Buddhism: the nature of consciousness. This work focuses on the so-called "Cittamātra" section of the siddhānta text of lCang sky II, Mongolian preceptor of the Manchu empire. point of view (as the Gelukpa pejoratively refer to it) and the Madhyamaka counter-perspective. lCang skya II homes in primarily on the Mahāyānasaṃgrāha, but we bring in counter-arguments from a number of other sources. The principle issue homes in on the nature of self-awareness in particular.
A New Theory of Consciousness Coming from Empirical Materials of Theravada Buddhist Meditation
“Consciousness” in the sense of qualia and “self-consciousness” are not a two-tier and parallel relationship like that of Cartesian Theatre or “Cogito, ergo sum”, but a single-tier and serial relationship. “The sense of self” just emerges out of the process of alternating of “awareness” and “awareness of awareness”. This view on consciousness comes from an original interpretation of “non-self” in Buddhism which is based on the empirical materials of Theravada Buddhist Meditation. Intrinsically, this model strongly supports “Higher-order theories” and opposes “Reflexive theories”. Furthermore, this model reveals the mechanism of how self-consciousness arises and solves the infinite regression problem of "Higher-order theories".
Cracking the Enigma of Consciousness An Indo-Western Model of Understanding
Cracking the Enigma of Consciousness, 2020
This article proposes a dualist model of consciousness and finds its relationship to the mind and matter. In doing so, special note of two dualist theories from two different arenas has been taken; one is Pātañjala Yoga, a major dualist school of classical Indian philosophy, and the other is the Dualist Interactionist Theory of Consciousness, advanced by Sir John C. Eccles. The theory proposed herein is not a foolproof one since the existence of the psychons is not experimentally proved. It helps to resolve the doubts in both the Yoga school and the modern dualistic theory of consciousness, and tries to show that a dualistic model following the Yoga ontology with a psychon-dendron model of interaction may lead to a reasonable theory of consciousness, mind and the relationship between them.