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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c9.s3: 3. The Empirical Self and the Process of Consciousness

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c9.s3

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3. The Empirical Self and the Process of Consciousness

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The account of the empirical self given in the Canon is in the highest degree naïve, and, if it is an advance on earlier thought, that is merely because in the Upaniṣads mysticism pervades the ideas, and observation is at a discount. The possibility of precise and effective observation in Buddhism was in large measure annulled by the ethical aspect given to all psychical states; throughout Buddhist philosophy states of mind are looked at as essentially good or bad, a point of view which is fatal to precise psychology.

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As we have seen it is difficult to form any precise picture of the nature of consciousness as it appeared to early Buddhism; that it was an ‘intermittent series of psychic throbs associated with a living organism beating out their coming to know through one brief span of life’ is a conjecture² based on the instruction of Sāti alone, and doubtless misrepresents that text. No other passage in the Canon even suggests that thought is to be treated as an intermittent series of thought-flashes or of mental electrification of the organism. We are, in fact, in the presence of primitive ideas, and to interpret them in the terms of modern psychology is fundamentally to misrepresent, though doubtless largely to improve, the doctrine of the Canon.

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² Mrs. Rhys Davids, *Buddh. Psych.*, p. 16, whose collection of matter is as valuable as her theories, dominated by an obsolescent psychology, are unsubstantial; cf. Barth, RHR. xlii. 72.

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Intellect (*viññāṇa*) is undoubtedly the chief term which comprehensively covers mental phenomena in the Canon, as might be expected from the earlier Brahmanical tendency to use the word in this generic way. It represents such unity as there is in the self of experience. Synonymous with Viññāṇa, according to Buddhaghosa and to usage, are Citta and Manas, but there are obvious preferences in use; Viññāṇa often occurs in special connexion with sense cognition; Manas again is, in accordance with Brahmanical usage, preminently the intellectual function of consciousness, and Citta the introspective aspect of self-examination, but these are only nuances. From Brahmanical tradition the compound Nāma-rūpa serves to denote spirit and matter, specialized normally to denote the concrete individual, in which both are united, while the old term self (attā) constantly occurs in those phrases which are the source of its reflexive use in grammar, when the person is divided mentally into a dominant part and its object.

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By a division,¹ which seems to have no precedent in Brahmanical texts, and which has certainly no merit, logical or psychological, the individual is divided into five aggregates or groups (khandha), the Sanskrit equivalent of which means ‘body’ in the phrase Dharmaskandha in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. The first is Rūpa, which denotes simply matter, or material quality, and covers the elements and their compounds; the term aggregate has obviously considerable appropriateness as applied to the complex admixture which makes up the human body, and it is clearly absurd to infer from it any conception of constant dynamic conditions in the body, which, indeed, is treated by the Canon as relatively stable and long-lived.

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¹ Beckh (Buddhismus, ii. 81 f.) compares the three imperfect conceptions of self as body, made of mind, and made of ideas (saññā) in DN. i. 195 ff.

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Of the four psychical aggregates the first in the stereotyped order is feeling (vedanā), a term wide enough to cover sensation but predominantly indicative of pleasure or pain. But, in addition to these two aspects of feeling, there is recognized a third which is neutral; pleasure has stationariness as pleasant, change as unpleasant, the opposite applies to pain, while neutral feeling has knowledge as pleasant, ignorance as unpleasant, a statement which is not enlightening. The psychological heresy of neutral feeling is prompted doubtless by ethical considerations, for it is the aim of man in his process of attaining perfection to rid himself of all positive feeling of any kind. The term aggregate applied to feeling is obviously intended to indicate that the individual is constantly experiencing one feeling after another.

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Perception (*saññā*), covers both sense-perception and the wider form of perception which takes place, not through the sense, but by the agency of mind; the former in the technical terminology of the *Vibhaṅga* is resistance-perception (*paṭigha-saññā*), the latter designative perception (*adhivacana-saññā*), denoting, for instance, the understanding through speech of the mental state of another, although an alternative interpretation assigning to this form of perception the giving of names to objects cognized by sense is suggested by Vasubandhu.¹ The term aggregate here is presumably collective, but the mention of Saññā along with Viññāṇa is otiose and decisive proof of the lack of psychological interest or acumen of the observers.

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¹ AKB., pp. 50 f. ; above ch. iii. § 1. This simple sense is found e. g. MN. i. 293; Mil., p. 61; Asl., p. 110; the term, however, also denotes higher mental activity; its ambiguity is due to the complex function of mind in sense-perception and higher ideation; cf. Oldenberg VWW., pp. 69 ff. In SN. v. 315 resistance-perception is asserted of internal and external things (*dhammas*).

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Fourth in the complex is the aggregate of dispositions (*saṃkhāra*), a term which is explained as denoting that which compounds what is composed, whether matter or psychic, a definition peculiarly without value. The vagueness of the term is illustrated in the Abhidhamma,² where some fifty mental constituents are subsumed under it, and generally any other causally induced incorporeal phenomena exclusive of the other three psychic aggregates. The root conception is doubtless the impressions resulting in dispositions,³ predispositions or latent tendencies, which will bear fruition in action in due course, but in the Abhidhamma at any rate it covers will, attention, application, concentration, zest, faith, energy, mindfulness, insight, rectitude, modesty, discretion, disinterestedness, no covetousness, no malice, grasp and balance and various other groups. The explanation is simple enough; the category, having a vague sense, served effectively to cover all those mental activities for which the division had no obvious and convenient place; but it hardly needs remark that such a procedure is at once proof of the paralysing effect of tradition, and proof of lack of psychological interest. Dispositions, however, it must be remembered may be physical as well as mental, and the term Saṃkhāra in the sense of product of disposition is used, like Dhamma, to apply to the empirical world as consisting of compounded things. In psychic application the term aggregate is obviously wholly appropriate.

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² Below, ch. x. § 4.

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³ The denial of this in *Kindred Sayings*, i. 158, n. 4 is clearly invalid, Cf. Aung, *Compendium*, pp. 273 ff. where they are treated as concomitants performing their respective functions in combination. When applied to matter (*rūpa*) physical causes are, of course, meant: the interpolation of ‘mental’ in the trans. of the comm. in *Buddh. Psych.*, p. 51 makes nonsense of the comment, and is wholly illegitimate, agreeing as it does with Franke’s (DN., pp. 307 ff.) view of Saṃkhāras as ideas only.

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The last aggregate is Viññāṇa, and, as it is credited with appreciation of feeling as well as perceptive power, it is clear that, even in this collection of terms, it is practically is wide enough to include both perception and feeling. This is admitted in a dialogue in the Majjhima,¹ and no defence of the failure to revise the fivefold division seems possible, unless we accept the hint of Buddhaghosa which suggests that the breaking of intellect into four aggregates was intended to emphasize the doctrine of non-ego. But in their account of Viññāṇa the early teachers do develop a more elaborate psychology of perception than is found in the Upaniṣads, which were concentrated on fundamental philosophical issues and not on empirical psychology. But we must not exaggerate their defects as compared with the Canon.² The senses had already been distinguished and enumerated as five, although those of smell, taste, and touch are subordinated in consequence to that of sight, and touch in particular is not accorded its due importance. But the idea of a central unity, with its abode in the heart, by which sense-impressions are co-ordinated and comprehended, is enunciated, and it is possible that the question of the comparative activity of sense or sense-object had raised interest. In Buddhism, if we find more interest in the object than in the subject, the value of psychological investigation was marred by the love of symmetry which involves the determination to fit each sense into the same mould, in place of allowing each its appropriate distinctions.

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¹ i. 292 f.

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² Mrs. Rhys Davids, Buddh. Psych., pp. 57 ff.; Oldenberg, VWW., pp. 69 ff., 83 f.

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The canonical¹ doctrine of perception runs: ‘Depending on eye, in consequence of visible matter (*rūpa*) arises eye-consciousness; the concourse of the three is contact; on account of contact arises feeling’, and then the remaining psychical aggregates are enumerated or some equivalent of mental development, as for instance in the *Milindapañha* the series after contact is given as feeling, perception or idea, thought or will (*cetanā*), abstraction or concentration (*ekaggatā*), sense of vitality (*jīvitindriya*) and attention (*manasikāra*).² Occasionally the matter is simplified by making the contact of two factors only, the eye and visible matter in the case of sight.³ The third factor involved is clearly, as later discussion suggests, the consciousness, which is always an essential part of the individual, in the form of attention directed towards the eye,⁴ and, when this aspect is omitted, we may assume that it is done merely for the sake of simplicity, not as deliberate modification of the theory, or that it was believed that the physical contact of matter could create intelligence. The theory is plainly one of naïve realism; two physical contacts presided over by consciousness operating in the appropriate sphere produce the mental results of feeling; perception; disposition, in the shape doubtless, if we may supplement the texts, of an impression of the precept, its feeling aspect and volitional reaction; and consciousness. In the process of consciousness falls the essential aspect of the work of mind; the five senses, of which in the Canon sight and hearing preserve their old pre-eminence, touch being still ignored as of primary value, have separate spheres and do not interfere one with another; mind, however, is its resort and shapes their field and range;¹ in more modern terminology it succeeds immediately to simple visual cognition and produces an apparent unity and simultaneity in the perceptions which we have. Mind also is the active element in the perception or comprehension of ideas as opposed to sense-precepts. But, though central and special in function, it often ranks simply as if it were a sixth sense, and it has a physical basis, undefined in the Canon, just like a sense.

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¹ SN. ii. 72; iv. 68, 86; MN. iii. 281 ff.; Sumaṅ. i. 183. Later analysis adds light and space (*Caḷistamba* in MKV., p. 567) or (KV. i. 6. 23 f.) light (cf. NP., p. 80). Cf. SDS., p. 16; Poussin TDC., pp. 20 f.; Oldenberg, *Buddha*[^5], p. 271; MV. i. 21; AK. iii. 2. In the case of mental perception, mind serves as sense and act of attention.

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² Mil., p. 56; at p. 60 the series after *cetanā* has initial and applied attention (*vitakka*, *vicāra*) to which p. 63 adds consciousness (*viññāṇa*). See also DS. 62 (i-vi); ch. x. § 4; SN. ii. 244 f.; iii. 225 ff. has desire; DN. ii. 308 ff. also both forms of attention.

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³ MN. i. 111 f.; 256 f. (ch. iv. § 1); SN. ii. 97; that this is not seriously meant is shown in SN. iv. 67, for at 68 the three appear, and Mil., p. 60 has two, but p. 56 the three. Curiously enough the point is ignored in *Buddh. Psych.*, pp. 63 f.; *Psych. Ethics*, p. 5, n. 2. The estimate of the value of Buddhist psychology in *Buddh. Psych.*, p. 61 is not to be taken seriously.

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⁴ MN. i. 190 has *samanvāhāra*, act of attention; so MK. xxvi. 4, 5; KV. i. 6. 23 f. has attention and a physical medium, e.g. light; in the case of mind it is *vatthu* which Geiger (PD., p. 81) would render ‘matter’ in general.

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¹ MN. i. 295; SN. v. 218; cf. MKV., p. 33; VM. in Warren, p. 297; Asl., p. 400; KV. xviii. 9; Wassilieff, Bouddhisme, p. 280. See also Therag. 804 ff.; DN. ii. 338; MN. iii. 300; SN. v. 74; AN. v. 30; Mil., pp. 54, 86; KV. ii. 7. 5; PD., p. 81.

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Detailed effective analysis of the sense apparatus is lacking; the idea of doors of sense appears only metaphorically, and is suggested by the ‘openings (suṣayaḥ)’ of the Upaniṣads, and the question of the knowledge of like by like is not touched upon expressly until Buddhaghosa, and does not appear to be known to the early schools. The lack of curiosity is explained effectively by their pre-occupation with ethical considerations, and secondarily by the lack of positive science in the contemporary intellectual sphere. Amid the many allusions to human activities in the Canon we hear of practically nothing scientific, save the pseudo-science of astrology and the practical art of medicine, which unquestionably deeply coloured the outlook and method of the Buddha as the great healer of human evils. It is this preoccupation with ethical needs which explains the psychological laxity which uses the term Dukkha to denote psychological feeling as painful, and the misery of the world which is implicit in pleasure, if that is the pleasure of the senses leading on to rebirth. But importance certainly attaches to the recognition of the fact that feeling is inseparably bound up with perception.

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Of the process of ideation the Canon has nothing systematic to tell. Initial consideration (vitakka) is distinguished from further reflective investigation (vicāra); attention (manasikāra) and reflection are insisted upon, while ethical considerations emphasize the importance of mindfulness (sati) which is also associated with memory as the condition of it, but there is no attempt to explain memory. Self awareness, deliberate intellectual activity leading to self possession (sampajañña) is also important in an ethical aspect, while in other terms regarding investigation stress rests on the element of volitional effort in inquiry (vicaya, vīmaṃsā, cintā). Ethical again is the motive which discourages such deliberate speculation (cintā) on the range of Buddhaship, the intuitive powers of one sunk in meditative ecstacy, the working of the act, and the nature of the world.¹ For higher intellectual activity we find the terms gnosis (jñāna) and insight (paññā), the latter fated to be deified in the later conception, but either term may be used of inferior knowledge. In Jhāna and Samādhi we have forms of that deep concentration in meditation which are essential elements in the latter stages of the path of salvation. Their importance is great, and like the other terms for the higher knowledge they indicate the essential nature of such knowledge, an intuition of the whole quite distinct from a discursive process of reasoning.

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¹ Buddh. Psych., pp. 92 f.; AN. iv. no. 77.

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The view of intuition as the source of true knowledge, and at the same time a decisive cause of emancipation from rebirth is characteristic of Buddhism as of the Upaniṣads, and explains why in neither do we find any serious contribution to epistemology. The Buddha, like the sage of the Upaniṣad, sees things as they truly are (yathābhūtaṃ) by a mystic potency, which is quite other than reasoning of the discursive type. The truth of his insight is assured by it alone, for it is obviously incapable of verification in any empirical manner. But the Canon does not treat intuition (paññā) as being wholly distinct from, and unconnected with, discursive knowledge; not only does the term continue to be used for the lower forms of knowledge, but stress² is laid on the fact that intuition is intimately connected with intelligence (viññāṇa), perception (saññā), and feeling, or, as it is elsewhere put, it is allied to deliberate and searching mental appreciation (yoniso manasikāra). But from intelligence intuition differs by reason that the former is to be understood, the latter to be cultivated and developed; in other words, by means of exercises of concentration, which form an essential part of the way of salvation, a high degree of intuitive power is to be attained, surpassing any mere understanding, a condition styled also complete knowledge (pariññā) and elimination (pahāna), the latter characteristic emphasizing the elimination of empirical factors of any kind. It may then be regarded as ‘that effort of intellectual sympathy by which the mind can place itself within the mobile reality of things’ in Bergsonian phraseology.

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² MN. i. 292 ff.; Buddh. Psych., p. 133.

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Of the psychology of will and the emotions the Canon has almost nothing systematic. The dependence of volition on desire and of desire on feeling is elaborated in the chain of causation but without psychological insight or purpose. The connexion of thought and action is close (cetanā, saṃcetanā); thinking, one acts by deed, word, or thought,¹ a distinction of modes emphasizing the element of purpose as essential to characterize the moral quality of action. The planning out of a course of action or deliberate resolve is denoted by Saṃkappa, a fashioning or moulding. The union of intellectual activity with attention and pleasure, the product seems to be denoted by the term Piti, for which zest is perhaps the best rendering available.

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¹ AN. iii. 415.

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Of emotions we have merely popular classifications especially the threefold divisions into appetite (lobha), with its congeners, greed, lust, passion, &c.; aversion (dosa) with its congeners, anger, hate, malevolence, &c.; and delusion (moha), which is regarded as ignorance or confused consciousness. In the usual schematic fashion there are opposed to these disinterestedness (alobha), amity (adosa), and intelligence (amoha),² the last being sometimes treated as equivalent to intuition (paññā). But more importance attaches as part of the exercises of the path of salvation to the generation of feelings of friendship or love (mettā), of sympathy with suffering (karuṇā), and of sympathy with happiness (muditā).³ But these again are treated as ethical elements, not psychologically.

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² AN. i. 134 f.

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³ AN. i. 183.

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