What is viṇṇāṇa?

Hi friends ,

What is vinnana or consciousness ?

:anjal:

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The Buddhist ‘Vinnana’ is only similar to the concept of Consciousness in that it brings mental and maternal phenomena into awareness. Otherwise it isn’t constant. It isn’t Self. It isn’t an entity that goes from life to life. It’s existence is dependent on a live body (Maha-nidana sutta).

It arises and passes away almost immediately:

Dependent on the eye & forms there arises consciousness at the eye. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition there is feeling. With feeling as a requisite condition there is craving. Dependent on the ear & sounds there arises consciousness at the ear…[and so on]. MN148

Ear and sounds (Material-Rupa) gives rise to ear-consciousness.
No matter, no consciousness.
Mind and mind objects (Mental-Nama) gives rise to mind-consciousness.
No mental phenomena, no consciousness.

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@Gabriel_L
@Mat

It does not really
defined clearly and exactly
What consciousness is !!!
Does it equate To Awareness ?
Or cognition ?

Gnana -> Congnition/Analysis
Pra-gnana -> Skillful analysis
Vin-gnana -> Unskillful analysis

A Sankara (thought) laced with greed, hatred or delusion is born.

  • If one uses Pragnana he/she no longer allows the dependent-origniation process to linger post-Sankara .
  • If one uses Vinnana he/she allows the dependent-origniation process to linger forming contact with the senses.

Vinnna means un-skillful cognition of the object. So the word ‘consciousness’ does not do justice to the idea.

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English is not my first language. So I hesitate to pontificate on an alternate term to express the idea.

Although the word “ill-cognition” (not sure if that is a word) would be a good candidate I feel. You need to bear in mind the vinnana process appears at the beginning of the DO and later coupled with the senses.

The word must make sense in both places.

@Rajitha

Still not clear ,
Perhaps I can use a simile :

Camera (ours eyes) focus on a tree
a " image " shown on the lens
So, Is that " picture "
is the vinnana ?

Well, if you want to use the camera as a simile then you are dealing with the chakku vinnana.

A camera can control the Depth of Field (DOF). You use the aperture of the camera to set the DOF. Normally when taking a scenic shot you use a shallow DOF. You have no special object you wish to focus.

But then lets say you want to highlight an object. Here you increase the depth using the focus ring of the camera. Everything in the background is blurred but the object you have an interest gains focus.

This is chakku vinnana. More precisely, if the camera lens had auto-focus i.e. autonomous operation - that would be similar to chakku vinnana.

@Rajitha

is seeing equal to vinnana ?

Your eye always sees things. Most do not get special attention. Your mind probably won’t cope if it gave absolutely everything blanket attention.

You see an object that is attractive. Your eye grabs the attention of the object. This requires a level of cognition. This is vinanna. This is how the Sankara is born with greed or hatred.

If you keep attention on the object and allow the DO to process, the Sankara deposits a kamma beeja in your being. As a result, you have just extended your existence in the Bhava.

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Sorry , DO means what ?

DO stands for the 12 links of Dependent Origination (see below). Being a Buddhist you know about the DO. So you should not have (1. avijja) that opens the gate. What we are talking here is 2nd link in the chain - sankara.

If you allow the DO to process all the way to link 9, you have earned yourself future existence. The idea here is to stop this process from occurring.

  1. Ignorance (avijja) in DO is the ignorance that leads us to create volitions during javana cittas
  2. Formations (sankhara) in DO corresponds to the volition cetasika of a javana kammic citta in SP.
  3. Consciousness (viññana) in DO corresponds to the resultant (vipaka) sense-consciousness citta of a later SP (either in this life or in a subsequent one)
  4. Nama-Rupa in DO is the experience that results from the arising of the sense consciousness in SP
  5. 6 Sense-Bases = ?
  6. Contact in DO is the contact cetasika of the sense-consciousness in SP
  7. Feeling is the feeling cetasika of the sense-consciousness in SP
  8. Craving & 9. Clinging are the 7 javana kammic cittas and their volition cetasikas that follow the sense-consciousness in SP and that generate new kamma
  9. Becoming is the new kamma that leads to suffering (11, 12) but also conditions a new Consciousness (3) for a new cycle of kammic ripening followed by generation of kamma.

Old film projectors have a light and a film reel.
The light is vinnana. The picture frames are the objects seen with its support.

image

with metta

This is from the sutta Majjhima Nikāya 148 (mn148#6)

The six classes of consciousness should be understood as:
dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises;
dependent on the ear and sounds, ear-consciousness arises;
dependent on the nose and odours, nose-consciousness arises;
dependent on the tongue and flavours, tongue-consciousness arises;
dependent on the body and tangibles, body-consciousness arises;
dependent on the mind and mind-objects, mind-consciousness arises.

Strictly and logically speaking, should it be:
No matter, no matter-consciousness.
No mental phenomena, no mental-consciousness.

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Still don’t answer what is vinnana ?
I don’t get Film projector simile.
The light is vinnana ,
seeing is vinnana ?

Seeing is the final result -how a combination of Rupa, Vinnana, Phassa, Vedana, Sanna, Cetana etc. is experienced. MN148

With metta

It is misleading to ask what the pali word for consciousness is. First of all we are not really aware of what we actually mean with ‘consciousness’. When we have collected all sorts of connotations in every day language, philosophy and science, we can start and see which areas are covered by vinnana, citta, and mano.

Like Bh. Sujato mentioned, they overlap and don’t have clear definitions - be it because they come from different contexts or because they were synonymous to begin with.

Some scholars who tried to make sense out of it:
Rune E. A. Johansson - Citta, Mano, Vinnana—A Psychosemantic Investigation
Dickwela Piyananda - The Concept of Mind in Early Buddhism

I would simply say consciousness is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching & mental cognising.

The six classes of consciousness should be understood as:
dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises;
dependent on the ear and sounds, ear-consciousness arises;
dependent on the nose and odours, nose-consciousness arises;
dependent on the tongue and flavours, tongue-consciousness arises;
dependent on the body and tangibles, body-consciousness arises;
dependent on the mind and mind-objects, mind-consciousness arises.

MN 148

“‘Consciousness, consciousness’: Thus is it said. To what extent, friend, is it said to be ‘consciousness’?”

“‘It cognizes, it cognizes’: Thus, friend, it is said to be ‘consciousness.’ And what does it cognize? It cognizes ‘pleasant.’ It cognizes ‘painful.’ It cognizes ‘neither painful nor pleasant.’ ‘It cognizes, it cognizes’: Thus it is said to be ‘consciousness.’”

“Discernment & consciousness, friend: Are these qualities conjoined or disjoined? Is it possible, having separated them one from the other, to delineate the difference between them?”

“Discernment & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It’s not possible, having separated them one from the other, to delineate the difference between them. For what one discerns, that one cognizes. What one cognizes, that one discerns. Therefore these qualities are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference between them.”

“Discernment & consciousness, friend: What is the difference between these qualities that are conjoined, not disjoined?”

"Discernment & consciousness, friend: Of these qualities that are conjoined, not disjoined, discernment is to be developed, consciousness is to be fully comprehended.

MN 43

“And why, bhikkhus, do you call it consciousness? ‘It cognizes, ’ bhikkhus, therefore it is called consciousness. And what does it cognize? It cognizes sour, it cognizes bitter, it cognizes pungent, it cognizes sweet, it cognizes sharp, it cognizes mild, it cognizes salty, it cognizes bland. ‘It cognizes,’ bhikkhus, therefore it is called consciousness.

SN 22.79

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