I believe my ideas about vinnana were wrong. I was inclined to see it as some seperate and unique phenomena that arises and ceases. Now i begin to see it is not like this.
Vinnana is more like a mode of knowing. And this mode of knowing can arise and cease.
Minds ability to know has an sich no direction,. An sich it is desireless and it is uninclined. But due to grasping a direction can develop, and the naturally undirected awareness gets seemingly a direction and becomes caught by something seen, heard, felt, known. This is a karmically loaded knowing moment. Kamma vinnana. But in fact, it is still minds natural awareness that knows. Only something is added to it: direction, engagement, load. But we are still speaking about minds natural awareness, its natural knowing ability. Only now developed into a special mode of operation, a sense vinnana.
We can know things in a very passionate, loaded, obsessive, way, very engaged and involved in it. But this is not some special phenomena, but this is how the natural awareness of mind can develop.
So, i believe, it is best NOT to think about vinnana as some special phenomena that arises and ceases but a mode of knowing that arises and ceases. It refers to a defiled devolopment of the natural awareness of mind. (i believe this is supported in Abhidhamma)
Knowing is, i believe also not the same as sensing something. That is also why Sariputta says that when nothing is felt, that is ultimate peaceful, happiness. Because then there is only minds undirected awareness.
The natural awareness of mind is an sich not directed, but uninclined. It is also an sich not passionate, but dispassionate.
But vinnana moments are not uninclined. They arise with inclination as support.
I do not know. I have heard that vinnana can be seen as vi-nana, a distorted way of knowing. But i am not a Pali expert, so i cannot judge if this is etymologically true.
If it is, i would choose to translate it this way. Translating vinnana as consciousness is a bit misleading because it is more, i feel.
The key to understanding vinnana seems to be that there is cetana involved, i.e. an element of volition. So this is never about the dispassionate dimension. Never about Nibbana and the pure.
Cetana refers to that element of volition that we call arising plans, intentions and tendencies (SN12.38). In short, passion. Tendencies well up in a subconscious way, and not per choice.
All these things together: a plan, an intent, a tendency, are a ways to desribe how direction arises in the mind. In practice one can see this, right? All mental factors are directed towards something. In certain sense one can say that mind develop a tunnelvision. It looses her natural empty openess and sublety.
If the natural awareness of mind tends towards a sense-domain and connects to it, a sense-vinnana arises. The general opinion is that sense vinnana arise if there is an sense-object, a sense and contact. But MN28 explains this in more detail. It explains that when the eye and an object is present in the visual field, eye-vinnana does not yet arise. There must also be an element of engagement too. I believe this is cetana, an element of passion.
In other words, vinnana refers to a knowing inclined towards something, a directed knowing, and it also has an element of desire in it. So this does not refer to dispassion, the nature of mind.
Sanna is also not perception. That is also not really a good translation. I have become more and more convinced of this by reading the sutta’s.
The sutta’s are also not vague about this because without sanna there is still an ability to perceiving.
Sanna is that mental function that recognises what presents via the senses. It is that mental function that sees the specific characteristics, labels them, and when such an object again presents to the mind, it immediately recognises it as this and that. This is a much more developed kind of knowing then a bare awareness.
It also means that when this function of the mind ceases, this does not mean the natural awareness of mind ceases. If one translates sanna as perception that implies that one becomes unaware, but this is not supported by the sutta’s. In stead one sees the uninclined! It is very strange that sanna is always translated as perception while it is much more a conception of what is perceived.
I intuitively see that the natural awareness of mind has no direction or inclination. An awareness which becomes directed always arises. It is surely not some basic state of mind. It is because of defilements that such inclination arises.
And when it arises it gives rise to vinnana.
In other words, this:
“It’s hard to see what they call the ‘uninclined’, for the truth is not easy to see. For one who has penetrated craving, who knows and sees, there is nothing.” (ud8.2)
…refers to the pure state of mind or a pure awareness which is very subtle. It is not a sense vinnana.
Some think that Buddha does teach that vinnana knows…but this need more explanation, i feel. What the sutta’s teach is that vinnana is a certain kind of knowing. A knowing connected to a sense domain, distinguishing characteristiscs of what is known, always with an element of cetana, i.e an element of passion.
A subtle knowing that was initially undirected and dispassionate develops into becoming engaged and directed and passionate. I believe this in practice happens al the time. Vinnana seen arising and ceasing , i think, does not refer to the arising and ceasing of knowing, but the arising and ceasing of knowing moments with direction and desire.
The nature of mind is uninclined and dispassionate. There is no element of cetana in this. But in vinnana there is. This also means that it is possible to go beyond merit and demerit.
Cetana appears as the sangkhara group, that is, the group of mental formations. Cetana itself is a will, but there is not necessarily an element of passion. The passion element appears as an inner formation from the tanha group, not cetana. So it is possible that the mind appears with cetana but without passion.
In the case of someone who has just emerged from the state of nirodhasamapati, three types of samadhi can arise, including appaṇihito samādhi, namely undirected samadhi ; which is also said to be samadhi without will (cetana). This is because the vedana and sanna are still extinguished.
In the event that cetana does not appear in this appanihito samadhi, then it is said that this is the highest, calmest and purest samadhi, but not because cetana is passion. This is because sankhara itself, with included cetana itself, even without passion (for example in the daily life of arahat), is still an “arising”. Meanwhile, every “arising” is dukkha, which if we may categorize it as “inner ripples that remain uncomfortable even without passion, when compared with undirected samadhi”
So there is no “natural condition” that internally can be said to be a natural characteristic of the mind, because the emergence of the mind is always conditioned. The mind can be directed or undirected, with both still conditioned on the state of mind that is currently being developed.
The problem is, i feel, that people see Paticca Samuppada as some linear proces. I do not believe this is true. Avija and passion are both in the axel of the wheel of samsara. Together they drive the wheel and keep it rolling.
This also means that as long as this wheel drives forward, all factors of PS are included/infected, based upon avijja and passion. They are not seperated from it. For example, if there is avijja also phassa is an avijja phassa. And if there arises a vinnana that is also a vinnana with passion and with wrong understanding.
All nidana’s are infected by avijja and passion. It is not that avijja or passion is at the beginning of the wheel but in the axle.
Regarding passion. Passion in Dhamma, i believe, refers to those volitional formations that arise unfreely, unwillingly, they well up from our make up. The end of these passions, these habitual energies, is not the end of will. A Buddha can use will-power but is never governed by passion, like we are. Passion is like an inner energy flood that overwhelmes the mind easily. It tends to blind the mind. It takes possesion of the mind. As long as the wheel turns this happens.
Suppose you see an insect on the wall of the bedroom and you habitually kill it.
I see this as arising from passion and also as cetana, a dark karmically loaded action. There is passion and also dark cetana. How would you judge this?
An arahant is also beyond good and bad but if cetana is always present how can this happen? Do you think that a arahant only produces good kamma?
What does it mean that we can make an end to bright, dark, and mixed kamma of cetana is always present?
Strange that people resist this so much i feel, while i believe that we can all notice that awareness does not have to be directed and engaged with something. For me it is very clear why Buddha spoke about the uninclined, undirected, empty, dispassionate nature of a pure awareness. It just does not drift away.
I also do not even know what it means that mind arises. What exacty arises when mind arises? If you awaken in the morning has now mind arisen? Was there no mind while asleep?
No experience or any lack of experience can be a proof for the arising and ceasing of mind, i believe. Not blacking out, not sleep, not unawareness not even death.
vijañana; described as an objective clear awareness
i also saw that there is such a thing as ceto in Pali which is apparantly sometimes translated as mind but also heart (bodhi).
I think in general what the sutta’s refer to as mind can point to different things.
For example, if one purifies mind one certain does not purify some sense-vinnana.
And of course mind is also not the same as mentality but one can have a certain mentality in the mind. Mind is also not the same as mano-vinnana (often quit weird translated as mind-consciousness??) but i think it can be used that way. Is the subconscious also mind?
It is not that strange that all kinds of theories about mind are developed.
If what you mean is based on the paticcasamuppada chart, it is only a visual aid. Meanwhile, the emergence of mental factors (sankhara), both in the form of subtle toxins (asava) and those that are active in the mind, appear simultaneously and always collaborate to condition each other when thoughts arise.
This is the part of the paragraph that I agree with.
Yes right, what you call “habitually”, in patthana (the law of conditioned relationships) is what is called the root. When, for example, the bad roots (lobha, dosa and moha) are still there then it will become a concomitant for cetana to do bad deeds.
Karma is only generated when there is still avijja in the mind. There is still asava that poisons the mind. Because an arhat’s mind is no longer polluted by asava, no longer contains avijja, when cetana appears in an arhat it is pure and does not contain karma. The will that arises no longer contains good or bad karma. In abhidhamma it is called kiriya-citta (functional mind) or abyakata-dhamma (neutral, neither good nor bad dhamma).
Of course, directing the mind, directing vinnana, is not a form of “controlling”, not a form of self. But there is a natural mechanism in the “law of mind” that certain mental elements have a natural function to direct. For example, this mental element or function called “manasikara” will automatically (without control) direct (invite) the mental elements to lean and direct it towards the object, depending on what vinnana it holds, whether the vinnana is related the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, etc. body or mind. So it’s natural like that. Therefore, in high level meditation practices such as nirodhasamapati, the emergence of vedana and sanna which usually automatically arise naturally accompanying the phasa (sense contact) can be extinguished. Because vedana and sanna are extinguished there is no condition for the emergence of sankhara. Inner (mind) attraction naturally arises when vedana arises together with perception (meaning), when vedana does not arise the direction of the mind does not occur. But this is because certain conditions have been extinguished (i.e. the emergence of vedana and sanna is extinguished). So this is a mechanism in special conditions. But in normal conditions, when mind is far from nirodhasamapati, the mind will again work according to a natural mechanism that is interdependent with phase (with vinnana)-vedana-sanna-sankhara.
The state of mind always changes conditionally. This change in mind can be felt by the presence of its qualities which can also be felt by the mind itself. This alternation of the existence of the quality of the mind which is triggered by the sense contacts (phases) is called the mind arising and falling. One quality of mind (i.e. sankhara qualities) falling, replaced by the arising of the next sankhara qualities.
Thanks for the oppertunity to reflect on all this. I have quit strong opinions about all this when i start thinking and writing about this, i notice. I hope it does not bother you to much. It feels for me as combination of enthousiasm and defilement.
Indeed, lobha, dosa and moha are causes for kamma, like also alobha, adosa and amoha (AN3.34, AN3.111, AN3.112, AN6.39, AN10.174).
Kamma refers to a willed deed in mind, in speech and physical. Such volition instigates deeds by speech and body ,but also what happens in the mind then, is a deed. For example, if the intent to kill an insect develops in me, that is a deed, or a plan or a tendency to kill. It is kamma, even when i do not kill.
At such moments mind becomes passionate and goal-oriented. With such volitional activity present, the mind becomes directed upon a goal. It develops a determination. All those karmically loaded deeds have an element of determination. Unlike , for example, killing an animal accidentaly.
Also deeds that are impulsive, instinctive, reactive are karmically loaded deeds. If i see an insect in my room and almost thoughtlessly i kill it, there was still that determination to kill. Determination can be very short and almost unaware but that does not mean it is not kamma.
This is also why i believe the sutta’s sum up tendencies as part of cetana. Cetana does not only refer to that kind of volitional that is well-adviced.
That is why intention is not really a right translation, i feel, because that has a connotation of well-advised. But that is not really the nature of cetana.
We as humans can even be deceived about what really drives us.
Habitually and almost thoughtlessly killing an insect is also a deliberate deed, right? The dark kamma of killing. Kamma is not about well-adviced acts but the more time one spends on a certain unwholesome plan, intention, the stronger the karmic load becomes of such a deed, i have always learned. If one would kill someone after having for long invested in this plan, the karmic seeds is then stronger, because it is fed. It has more potential to ripen. It is a stronger seed. The strenght of seeds also depends on who is killed (killing as example). The killing of an arahant is described as such a strong seed that it cannot but ripen as birth in hell after death.
I have heard about this. I believe this cannot be true because a cause of kamma are the roots (see references above). The three dark roots (lobha, dosa and moha) are a cause for dark kamma, and the three wholesome roots (alobha, adosa, amoha) are a cause for bright kamma. An arahant has no actions rooted in these 6 roots. There is no cause for kamma. There is no cause for willed deeds rooted in both categories of roots. Meaning, deeds arise from purity. The sutta’s call this an entirly wholesome base. I believe this refers to the supramundane dimension in our lifes. That dimension that is stilled, empty, peaceful, dispassionate of nature, without roots, Nibbana. Those deeds are not based upon conditionings (6 roots) and therefor they arise from the unconditioned dimension, from inner peace and openess, emptiness. Those deeds have no roots in the conditioned. It is, as it were, that the arhant has transcended his/her disposition. The mind-programms, the conditionings we are yet slave of. He/she is freed from the inner fetters. I believe this means that the arahant has transcended any bhava. Bhava nirodha is realised in this very life.
Direction of mind does not depend on vedana, i believe, but on tanha, that kind of passion that causes engagement. If there is no cause for engagement (no anusaya, no grasping) there is no direction in the mind. It remains as it were uninclined even when formations come and go.
Yes, this makes clear we do not really talk here about mind arising and ceasing but different mind-states arising and ceasing. States with greed, states with stress, states with hate, states with joy etc. This is not really about the arising and cessation of mind, i feel. This is about changing colours of mind. Mental factors like greed, hate, jalousy, joy, delight colour the mind. That colour can change very quickly. But like the sky can change in colour, it is not that the space really changes in colour. It is are adventitious incoming things that cause such change in colour (AN1.51). Mind likewise. Mind does never really change in colour. Mind is always clear. It can only appear to be coloured because adventitious incoming defilements are still habitually grasped as me, mine and my self. But when, for example, anger arises and it is not grasped at all, the mind does not colour angry. It is only due to grasping that the delusional impression arises that mind really changes in colour.
I feel, i have not yet a satisfactory answer to the question what exactly arises when mind arises. But thanks for your answer.
If we look at the paticcasamuppada chain, all the causes of karma are avijja; be it good karma or bad karma. So it’s not just bad karma that arises because of avijja, but also good karma is caused by avijja.
Because avijja is a lack of understanding of the four noble truths, it gives rise to various illusory desires in the mind that are karmic in nature. When illusory desires are based on the roots of loba, dosa and moha, bad karma arises. Meanwhile, if the illusory desire is rooted in alobha, adosa and amoha then what arises is good karma.
So from here we know that good karma and bad karma are both illusions because we have not yet penetrated and understood the four noble truths; and both (good and bad karma) are the fuel of becoming, the fuel of rebirth; the only difference is that the nature in which life leads is good or bad… When we have penetrated and understood the four noble truths, “destroying karma” will appear, namely “magga” which will destroy both good and bad karma.
People’s views about mind are heavily influenced by the opinions of masters, especially those based on abhidhamma, for example from Myanmar. Indeed, it is explained as if there is a “mind entity” that is different from the “mental factors” (sankhara). So there is a mind that is clear, for example, pure, then it is polluted by mental factors that “color” the mind, it becomes dirty because of greed or anger, for example. We have to be careful because this is what is meant by atman in the beliefs of the first non-Buddhists in the time of the Buddha or the time before the Buddha.
But if we dig deeper into the sutta, coupled with the practice of satipatthana, actually a “mind entity” that is different from the mental factors (sankhara) does not exist.
What exists is what we detect as greed, hate, cruelty, joy, etc… this is sankhara; then the unity of the sankhara qualities (greed, hate, cruelty, etc.) forms a unified state of mental quality moment by moment which we recognize as mind (citta).
When Buddha said that the citta is pure and radiant, what he meant was that it was still a conditioned citta, a citta which was a state of mind at one moment depending on the quality of the beautiful, good and pure sakhara that appeared at that moment.
I do not know this really happens. For me it lives more like this: Avijja in the past has caused that we have over time build up an reactive system in the mind. An energy potential or load. In short: Passion. For long there was reactive aversion to what is disagreeable and attraction to what is agreeable and ignoring the neutral. By this our minds have become more and more loaded. We were convinced this is also the best way we protect ourselves from suffering. All beings samsara have this idea.
Buddha saw this Path of passion and increasing load does not lead to the end of suffering, in fact this is the cause for the continuation of suffering. This energy potential in the mind which is nothing but what Buddha called passion, is fed by avijja, and passion again feeds avijja.
It comes down to: during endless lifes mind has build up this energy load and it has becomes increasingly unable to just see, hear, feel, know, without release of this energyload or passion. But it does not help to end suffering and find peace of heart.
We must as it were unload ourselves.
If we see that passion/load is not the Path to peace, does not protect, we stop feeding these passion. Avijja is what supports this whole system of energy release.
I do not think so. This is not about atta but about asankhata. About peace, coolness, the signless, the undirected, the empty which is any moment a dimension in our lifes never seen arising, ceasing and changing. It is not an aggregation. And because this is, there is also an escape from the constructed (Ud8.3). Buddha teaches this Path to what is unconditioned, not desintegrating, stable, refuge, protection (SN43).
This is not about some personal soullike, atta like thing. It is about asankhata, that in our lifes which is not an aggregation, and is not seen coming, going or changing.
That mind is clear and becomes coloured by incoming defilements is literally said in AN1.51. And it also says that if one does not understand it this way there can be no development.
Mind is like water in which one can throw different pigments. But those pigments are always incoming and adventitious and can be removed. Minds nature without pigment is clear, clarity, luminous, empty too.
Indeed, mind is no entity. I accept that too.
Such are mind states. If your mind has become greedy, suppose, that cannot be without grasping at arising greed. Mind cannot become greedy, jalous, angry, conceited without grasping such formations arising.
If one sees this, one sees that mind is very different from such temporary coloured mindstates based upon grasping. Mind without grapsing is empty, peaceful, has never a colour, it is at ease, it has no inclination, it is completely dispassionate and subtle.
Strange that people seem to overlook these teachings.
I believe that when people start to rely on some model of the mind as described in Abhidhamma, they start to leave the field of direct experience and direct knowledge. I do not think this is wise.
If one does rely on experience, one can also see that when there is no grasping, mind cannot be found nor expressed as this or that. At best one can say that there is a dimension in ones life that is open, empty, peaceful, without grasping, and there is nothing filled in yet. There one is not a human nor a buddhist. It is never seen coming and going nor changing. It is very different from a formation arising like greed, hate, etc. It is also not a temporary build-up mindstate.
If all would only be unstable in our lifes and any base for stability or peace would be absent, then a stable person is also most defiled and deluded. Does such make sense?
I feel, some people just seem to resist stability/peace as real part of their lifes. Probably because they associate this with atta in stead with the teachings on asankhata. We all have to make up our own minds about this. But we can safely say that the concept of atta is different from the concept of asankhata. And asankhata is really part of the teachings of the Buddha. Moreover, Buddha teaches the Path to asankahta (SN43) that what does not desintegrate. They idea is: that what is not build up can also not desintegrate.
There is no mind as asankhata. All mind is sankhata dhamma.
“these teachings” is advaita vedanta teaching. Not buddhism. May be you should dig a little into Advaita Vedanta’s teachings regarding Atman. That’s exactly the teaching you describe here about the mind. Atman according to Vedanta is not pancakhanda, but outside the pancakhanda. Atman is a very subtle, stable and pure consciousness; not polluted by sankhara such as greedy, joy, hate, etc. Swami Sarvapriyananda, a Vedanta teacher explains this atman well, just like you explain the mind from your point of view.
Please take the time to listen to Swami Sarvapriyananda’s lecture on atman, before we continue this discussion. So you don’t always say “I think…”.
There is knowledge of mind from a defiled and (so) deluded perspective.
And there is knowledge of what mind really is in its sublety and purity.
Mind for example has an sich no inclination, tendency, signs, desires. It is not directed towards anything! All such things like desire, signs, direction arise always in the moment. Those are not inherent to mind. They are incoming of nature.
Only an Enlightened One can reveal what is the true nature of mind. For us it is extremely hard to see its sublety because we are so used to living in a desireful world, a world of conceit and conceiving, a world of me, mine and my self. How can we understand this way what mind really is?
The sutta’s often align with our wrong understanding of mind but of course they do not mean to say that the nature of mind is a stream of coming and going vinnana’s.
No this is buddhism. But people are not really in touch with the real meaning is my judgement. Like you have also your judgement. I have mine about all this.
What i notice is that people just continue what they have always done…being only aware of formations arises and ceasing and only aware of temporary states.
There is no attention at all, no awarenes, of that dimension in their lifes that is fully open, empty, peaceful, dispassionate and it NOT like a formation or temporary mindset. Asankhata. I feel, these people again ignore it, even while the Buddha teaches this Path to peace, the unconstructed, the unproduced, unmade, not desintegrating (SN43)
People still cannot ,or maybe do no want , to believe or see there is this dimension that is unlike a formations or temporary mindset. That is my judgement. So they only have attention for formations and temporary states and have decided there is nothing else. I believe this is a mistake. That is how this lives for me.
I believe, ignoring asankhata is what we have always done in former lives: Ignoring that what is no formation and temporary state and does not take part in the world.
I know i am seen as an annoying pushing person but i am sincere in this. I sincery believe that people just continue doing what they have always done…ignoring that dimension in their lifes what is not a construction, no formation or temporary state.
It is really asankhata what Buddha teaches as the refuge, the island, protection.
For me it feels dishonest, unfair to judge people who can connect to this dimension as Hindu’s, Brahmans, people with strong sense of self, and all kind of negative judgemens. I believe it is the heart of buddhim that one can connect to this dimension, i feel.
It is just not true that the sutta’s teach that there is only change in our lifes.
People can also insist that Buddha discovered something completely new and different then what was ever taught and seen before. I am not one of them. If a pacceka buddhha can find the truth without the teachings of a Buddha, for me it is certain that finding the Truth is not exclusively for people who meet the teachings. Moreover …Buddha was also not a buddhist. And a pacceka buddha is also not a buddhist. We speak about people who seek the Truth and find it.
Atman is very different concept from asankhata. Asankhata points to that element in our lifes that is unlike a formation and temporary mindset. If people do not want to see it this way, what can i do about it? There is so much resistance i feel. But i know there are also many people who can relate to this.
Asankhata points just to that dimension in our lifes that is already dispassionate, empty, free of ego, undefiled, not aging, unconstructed, it knows no direction. It is also called the Nibbana element with and without remainder. The khandha’s are not apart from it. Such is impossible. Nothing can be apart from this dimension that is selfless and is without any acquisition, no possessions of a self. This total open and empty dimension in our lifes. It cannot be grasped.
