The Unconscious in Buddha Dharma

            As we in the West are discovering the teachings of Buddha Dharma about mind and consciousness, we are confronted with the necessity of rediscovering our own repressed traditions of the study of the psyche, consciousness, and the unconscious.

Western explorers of the psyche discovered the unconscious in the 19^th century.  The Buddhist explorers of mind, through their deep meditation, discovered the unconscious over two thousand years ago.  Since then, the Buddhist admonition to “turn the light around and shine it on yourselves,” as stated by Linji in the 9^th century (or “take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward on your self,” as Dogen restated it in the 12th century, or “to personally turn around to face inward” as Hakuin restated it in the 18^th century) is the direction to study the unconscious by introspection.  In Buddhism, the unconscious is called the storehouse- or treasury-consciousness (Skt. alayavijnana) and the fruit of this introspective study was the Mahayana Sutras.    

In the 20^th century Carl G. Jung explored the unconscious more than any other psychologist. He identified two layers or poles of the unconscious, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious (the later he also called the impersonal, transpersonal, or universal features of the unconscious). [CW 7, §§ 102, 103, 445, & 452. See note.]  The first layer consists of those elements, features, or aspects of the unconscious that are acquired during one’s own lifetime and experience.  Jung emphasized that the deeper layer of the collective psyche is inherited, and he called this the region of the archetypal contents where these “primordial images are the most ancient and the most universal ‘thought-forms’ of humanity.” [CW 7, §§ 104.]  In Buddhist terminology (using agricultural metaphors of the time, as we would use computer metaphors for the mind today), the personal features are those seeds (Skt. bija) of the storehouse consciousness that are “planted” (continuing the cultivation metaphor) during one’s lifetime, and the impersonal features in the storehouse are the seeds placed there “from past lives” as immeasurable in number as the grains of sands of the Ganges river.   

Jung found that the personal unconscious contains all the material that was once conscious, e.g., memories, repressed material, subliminal sense perceptions, etc., while the collective unconscious contains “all the material which has not yet reached the threshold of consciousness.”  [CW 7, §§204 & 441.]  These structural elements of the deepest unconscious are the archetypes. They are psychic structures that are just as inherited, as impersonal, and as collective as the physical structures of our bodies, e.g., our bilateral symmetry,  our circulatory, skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems, etc..  As our individual bodies are unique expressions of these universal forms, so to are our individual consciousnesses unique expressions of the universal forms of mind.

In the Five Skandhas, one of the Buddhist’s schematic representations of mind, the structures of the unconscious are called the first four skandhas with consciousness designated the Fifth Skandha.  Early Buddhism through such schematics of mind as the Five Skandhas and the Eighteen Dhatus tacitly recognized that there is an unconscious dimension to mind, but it was the later Ekayana/Mahayana development of the schematic representation of the Eight Consciousnesses that made the unconscious explicit in Buddhism with the eighth storehouse consciousness as the storehouse of all the seeds that are present in mind either as submerged or as not yet conscious. Jung’s reference to inherited primordial “universal thought-forms” corresponds directly with samskara, the Fourth Skandha, which is often translated as “mental formations.”

A primary problem we have to face directly in Western culture, as we meet, accommodate, appropriate, and acculturate the Buddha Dharma, is this question of the unconscious, because in Western culture, as it is dominated by the scientism dogma stating that only the physical exists, the mind does not exist, and “the psychic” has had its relation to mind stripped away and is considered as nothing more than superstitious supernaturalism or hallucinatory imagination.  

The fact is that the study of the psyche is the study of mind “from the inside” while the study of neurophysiology is the study of mind “from the outside” as a brain.   The West is deeply confused about this distinction.  The two approaches to mind are not the same, and while there is value in correlating the discoveries made from each perspective in this field of study, the study from the outside can never and will never replace the need or importance of the study from the inside.  This study “from the inside” is exactly what Buddhism calls “turning the light around and shining it inward on ourselves” and points directly to the appeal that Buddhism has in the West for those who long to escape the domination of the field of the study of mind by the physicalist dogmas of physicists and other practitioners of the physical sciences.  

[Note: Jung quotes from The Collected Works of Carl G. Jung, Vol. 7. Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. ]

[Edited 3/11/17]

Connected blogs:
Zen is the Art of Imagination

The Emptiness at the Heart of the Heart Sutra

Here's something inspired by James Ford's recent Facebook reference to his earlier blog post "How to Live Forever: a Meditation on the Heart Sutra" from December 4, 2014.

Thanks James. Good words.  Loving the Heart Sutra is inconceivably deep.

The word “skandha” is often translated as aggregate or heap, but I think the more accurate translation is “shoulder,” where the arm branches off, or “crotch,” as in the crotch of the tree where branches part.  The skandha is that part of the stem or trunk where the branches begin, or a large branch or bough that stems therefrom.  The five skandhas are the five shoulders or crotches of the five main branches of the tree of a person. The terms heaps or aggregates creates the image of separate entities piled into heaps, as if counting all the pieces and bits that make up a person and putting them down into one of the five categories.  However, this image is too artificial and contrived for the organic interconnectedness of what the  psychological paradigm of the skandas is pointing toward, which is the holistic living limbs of the psyche of the person. The five are not heaps of bits, they are the five living branches of the tree of life. The appearance of many bits and pieces are actually the living manifold twigs and leaves on these five branches, not disconnected items piled up like lifeless gravel.

I’m confused about what is meant by “The traditional list is form or matter, sensations or feeling, mental formations or impulses, and consciousness, discernment.”  Is that four or five?  It looks like four to me:  (1) form or matter [1^st rupa], (2) sensations or feeling [2^nd vedana], (3) mental formations or impulses [4^th samskara], and (4) consciousness, discernment [5^th vijnana]. It seems the 3rd skandha of perception or samjna is missing from the list.

By using the common Latin root "capere"--to seize, take, grasp, lay hold of, etc.-- in its combining forms such as -cipere and -cep, to show their mutual interrelationships, I like to list the five skandhas as (1) inception/to incept, (2) reception/to receive, (3) perception/to perceive, (4) conception/to conceive, and (5) deception/to decieve.  This formulation of the five skandhas as the five forms of "ception" and pointing out that consciousness is inherently deceptive is worth an essay in itself.  Suffice to say, the "vi" in "vijnana" refers to the division, bifurcation, or polarizing of knowing, "jnana." It is this inherent split that is both the benefit and the bane of consciousness.  This split or division of our knowing makes self-consciousness possible, but it is also the basis for all the false dualities and oppositions arising out of the conceived  "self" that are the root of our suffering and vexations.  This "vi," or duality within the 5th skanda's consciousness "vijnana," is the deception at the heart of the myth of eating form the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. This is why self-consciousness is inherently deceptive and why we feel banished from the primordial Garden upon eating from the tree of knowledge.  Until we encounter the flaming sword that "cuts us into one" held by the Bodhisattva Manjusri, i.e., the Archangel Michael standing at the Gates of Eden in the Christian context, we can not reenter the Garden.     

"Manjusri's most dynamic attribute is his sword, the vajra sword of discriminating wisdom or insight. The sword cuts through ignorance and the entanglements of conceptual views. It cuts away ego and self-created obstacles. Sometimes the sword is in flames, which can represent light or transformation. It can cut things in two, but it can also cut into one, by cutting the self-other dichotomy. It is said the sword can both give and take life."

I mostly like Red Pine's translation, but I feel compelled to pick two nits. First, the use of the word "memory" for the 4th skandha is very problematic, not so much because of the technical application of the terminology, if the word memory is used in its widest possible connotation, but because of the common usage of the English word memory, which is very much more limited and narrow than the 4th skandha's "samskara," which literally means “putting together,” “making complete,” “correctly together” etc.  Memory is commonly conceived of as information that is encoded, stored, and retrieved, thus nominalizing it as data rather than seeing it as the active living function of mind’s organic patterning in fields that make self-consciousness possible.  Memory is commonly used with the file cabinet or computer analogy of encoding, storage, and retrieval, and to the extent this limited view is what the word is conjuring up, then it is wrong to use “memory” for samskara.   

The 4th skandha is the most psychologically challenging of the 5 skandhas to understand. Carl Jung coined the term “complex” in his attempt to describe this very function of the psyche, while in other contexts he simply called it the function of "thinking."  In the context of Jungian archetypal psychology, the 4th skandha includes all the complex mental formations that at one end of the spectrum are the individual complexes upon which we base our idea of impulses and our self-image of personal volition, and at the other end are all the mental formations we call the archetypes of the collective unconscious that act upon us a the deepest levels and upon which our worldviews are established.  If we remember (pun intended) that “memory” is the mental activity and function, not just the data, that includes entirely all the mental formations and complexes, both individual and collective, that make up our self-identity and worldview then the word memory is not an invalid translation.

 

Second of less concern, but still concerning, is Red Pine’s use of the designation “mantra of great magic,” also because the term magic conjures up the paranormal or illusory.  As Ford suggests when he points out the problems with seeing a mantra as a tool of magical efficacy, most people will read “magic” and hear “mantra of great illusion” or “mantra of great superstition” or ‘manta of great hocus-pocus.”  This reading is funny but does a disservice to the Heart Sutra.  If seen as the “great magic” that is a child’s smile, or at the sea shore with the waves revealing marvelous shells, or the supernatural magic of drawing water and carrying firewood, then no harm , no foul.

 

I greatly appreciate Ford's discussion of emptiness and the warning against being too reductive.  Becoming worm food is most definitely not what emptiness is about, and he has hit the bull’s eye with the phrase “a vastly more wonderful truth.”  

 

I lament that there has been so much focus on the first example of “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” while the other four skandas are overlooked and neglected.  Yes, there are four more parts of that formula that are rarely examined and only contained in the phrase “also like this” or “the same holds for…”  To be whole, and to avoid one-sidedness, we should always include in the discussion of emptiness in relation to the Heart Sutra the remaining four variables in the formula: “sensation is emptiness, emptiness is sensation; perception is emptiness, emptiness is perception; “complex-formation is emptiness, emptiness is complex-formation; and consciousness is emptiness, emptiness is consciousness.”  For more on this, see my blog on the Heart Sutra without the shortcuts.

While the statement, “there is no part of us that is outside the phenomenal world,” is not incorrect, it is problematic as it may be easily misunderstood.   The problem, as I see it, is that most people begin from the stand point that there is a “phenomenal world” that is outside us, and conceive of the “inside of us” as outside the outside of us.  So to point out that there is no “part” of us that is separate from the phenomenal world is correct if we mean that everything that is identifiable as a “part” of anything is exactly a thing of the phenomenal world, even all the parts that we think of as "inside us."  But this does not address the deception of a "phenomenal world," as it is the emptiness of those parts themselves that is the second fold of the two-fold emptiness of self (atman) and things (dharmas), and I fear that, while many people will acknowledge that the “parts” of us are not outside the phenomenal world, they will still conceive of those parts as existing inside a “phenomenal world,” rather than becoming free of the whole conceptual apparatus of “outside and inside” and of “phenomenal world.” 

The "phenomenal world" is not outside or separate from mind.  The phenomenal world is mind. Mind is the phenomenal world.  That is, while "it" is not a “part" and "it" is not "outside,” there is "that one who is shining brilliantly," who is neither outside nor inside the phenomenal world, and who is listening right now to the Heart Sutra.  That one is the emptiness of the Heart Sutra.  

Archetypal Buddhism

Comment: I really found it interesting that after Buddha's awkening he didn't have that desire to save all beings. He had to be persueded by some diety to teach.

This is a great episode in the Buddha story. As I remember the story, it is not that "he didn't have that desire to save all beings," but that he had the desire yet didn't see how he could effectively communicate what he had experienced to anyone. He was at a standstill point of tension between the idealistic desire to save and the practical realities of how to proceed seeming insurmountable. Who of us does not experience this? His dilemma was that he directly perceived the timeless and wordless profound wisdom (prajna) and inherent intelligence (jnana), yet he felt that on the one hand he was incapable of putting them into words that could be understood by the people of his time, and on the other hand there would be no people who would be able to benefit from the words that he could formulate as opposed to just being made more confused by them.

The appearance of Indra, the "supreme diety" of this dimension, is the recognition of the archetypal truth that our motivation occurs only when an archetypal figure is constellated within mind. Without some kind of constellation (discrimination, differentiation) of an archetypal figure (i.e., a primary configuration of 4th shandha) there is no motivation for us to act. It is just as true to say that every one of our acts has as its motivating mental configuration one or another primary archetypal figure as its constellation or context. Without the primary archetypal figures of the 4th skandha there would be no fruition of consciousness as 5th skandha. The archetypal figures are the constellations in the firmament of our own mind which is the One Mind of No Mind.

In Buddhist terminology, every nirmanakaya Buddha has a samboghakaya Buddha as its intermediate progenitor and the dharmakaya Buddha as ultimate progenitor.

Consciousness depends on our personal complexes which in turn depend on our impersonal or collective archetypes. Self-consciousness is possible because the primary archetype of "god-self" formed in the nascent interaction of discrimination ("the 7th consciousness") where the ocean of concsiouness ("the 8th consciousness") is first stirred can become manifested in the derivitive ego-complex that organizes the reflectivity of consciousness (the 6th consciousness) in relation to the senses (the 1st thru 5th consciousnesses) into the experience of self-conciousness or self-awareness.  This  process develops over years so that sometime around age 6-8 we have a mostly developed self-consciousness based on the establishment of a self-image (ego complex) that is possible because of the "god-self" archetype having been constellated in mind.

The Five Aggregates of Personality

The Five Grasping Aggregates are sometimes called The Five Bundles of Personality.

Buddhism teaches that our personality or selfhood is a psycho-physical phenomenon made of a mosaic of many pieces of awareness. The "pieces" of our personality are cataloged into five broad categories which in Sanskrit (Skt.) are called "skandas" and may be translated as "aggregates," "collections," or "bundles." Like sorting the many tiles of a mosaic of many hues, shades, tints, and patterns into five boxes based on their primary colors, the five aggregates group the many and varied elements of personality into the five basic bundles that result in our consciousness of who we are.

The categories of the five aggregates are (1) Forms (Skt. rupa), (2) Feelings (Skt. vedana), (3) Perceptions (Skt. sanjna), (4) Complexes (Skt. samskara ), and (5) Consciousnesses (Skt. vijnana). These categories are not literally distinct, rather they are intimately connected in the composition of our personality so should be thought of as distinct in the manner that our body's physiological systems (e.g., circulatory, nervous, muscular, skeletal, etc.) are identifiably distinct but interdependently and inextricably connected.

Modern science is mapping the brain's bio-electrical functioning and is confirming this classical Buddhist analysis derived from direct experiential studies in the practice of Buddhist meditation. The language of Buddhist devotion is religious and faith-based, but the language of Buddhist analysis is essentially and primarily psychological or phenomenological. It is an analysis of human experience and awareness itself, not an analysis of the physical world. As such the mapping of the mind by ancient Buddhism is the experiential equivalent of the mapping of the brain by modern neuroscience.

The five aggregates can be studied in sequence as they develop into or result in consciousness, but such a linear developmental sequence should be considered only for conventional purposes in relating to the physicality or physiology of brain functioning. Consciousness is a multidimensional feedback process so in actual functioning one's unconscious awareness (like the firings of the synapses) is moving between all the five aggregates and their specific elements at all levels and in very complex and complicated patterns.

The first aggregate of FORMS refers to the six sense organs or receptors along with the six sense objects or stimuli as well as the four physical elements. These are the five sense organs of the eye, ear, nose, lounge, and body plus the sixth sense organ the mind. The six sense objects are five physical sensations of our mind that are projected into the world and taken as literal objects, i.e., sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touchings, plus the mental sensations of intuitions. These twelve taken together are called the entrances (Skt. ayapana) as they are the entrances to consciousness. In brain physiology Forms relates to the sensory receptors of the nervous system as well as to the sensory areas of the brain such as the visual cortex and the auditory system.

The second aggregate of FEELINGS refers to the feelings that are evoked by the Forms. The feelings are either positive, negative, or neutral. For example, when the form of fire is experienced when it is a certain distance it is neutral, when it provides comforting warmth it is pleasant, but when it comes into contact with the skin and burns it is painful. Feelings are thus attractive, aversive, or indifferent. The complexity of Feelings can exist in degrees such as a simple attraction of curiosity to complex desires such as love. Similarly the negative Feelings can range from simple rejection, to distaste to disgust and hate.

The third aggregate of PERCEPTIONS are the mental images that arise when the Forms and Feelings become combined in the mind by association. Forms plus Feelings equal Perceptions. Cognition-cognates, identification-identity, conception-concepts, etc. are all within the aggregate of Perceptions. Pattern development and recognition (represented in the temporal lobes) is central to the Perceptions as is spacial representation of the world (represented in the parietal lobes). When we sense the features of a face and experience the feelings associated with the face we can then image or perceive the identity of the face. For example, the features of a certain woman's face (color and shapes of the eyes, mouth, nose, hair, etc.) plus the feelings of dependence, love, gratitude, etc. for her combine and result in our recognition of her as mom. In the brain disorder called the Capgras Delusion certain Forms are physiologically disconnected to their associated Feelings and as a result the person loses the normal Perception function. Instead of recognizing the image of "mother," the person sees mom's features but does not experience the feelings of love associated with those features, and so arrives at the "perception" that the woman looks like mom but is in fact an imposter.

The fourth aggregate is the COMPLEXES and refers to the actions or functionality of the mind. The Sanskrit term samskara can be literally translated as "with-do," "co-act," or "com-motion." This bundle is not easily labeled because it includes a very broad range of mental functioning which are virtually all psychic actions. It is sometimes labeled impulses or reactions but this loses the other sense of functioning which is the will or volition. Also there are the habits or habitual formations and the automatic reflexes. All motivations and emotions which have arisen through combination of the Forms, Feelings, and Perceptions are also part of this aggravate. The psychological complexes are the structural correlates of the this aggregate. The commotions of the mind can be experienced as chaotic insurrections of impulses or as sublime emotions. As reactions to Perceptions enfolding Forms and Feelings, the Complexes can be habitual and fixed in beneficial or detrimental complexes, patterned but flexible, or spontaneous.

The fifth aggregate of CONSCIOUSNESSES is the fruit of awareness in which all the aggregates become knowable. The Consciousnesses are the comprehension and understanding resulting from the interplay and reflection of the aggregates. Discernment and discrimination are hallmarks of the Consciousnesses. The eight Consciousnesses are the five arising from the five senses, the sixth arising from thought, the seventh arising from fundamental discrimination, and the eighth which is the non-arising Consciousness which Western psychology calls the Unconscious.

The five aggregates are also called the five grasping aggregates because with the fifth aggregate of Consciousnesses the grasping of attachment to various elements of all of the aggregates arises and creates a total conglomeration which in Buddhism is called the suffering of selfhood. The five aggregates together create the whole comprehension of oneself including a body image, an identity, hopes, dreams, fears, aspirations, etc.

The phantom limb phenomenon of is an example of how the Forms and Feelings equal a Perception of a limb leading to the Complexes of developed habits, motivations, and emotions associated with the limb and a resulting Consciousness of the limb. When the limb is removed, the Consciousness of the limb is not necessarily removed due to the mental attachments (i.e., synaptic mapping in memory) of the limb which then create Perceptions of physical sensations where none exist. The phantom limb phenomenon is actually only one example of the complete modeling overlay of the aggregates that is going on continuously within our body-mind but "underneath" our conscious awareness because of the physical body acting as the formal screen upon which the modeling is projected.

When Buddhism says there is no objective world, it is saying that there is nothing that is external to this modeling/mapping functionality of consciousness of which we can be aware as data. It is saying that the "objective" world is identical with the "subjective" world and the polarity of the two is actually wholly unified whether we know it or not. When Buddhism says there is no self, it is saying are complete unity whether we know it or not, that there is no inherent individual identity or entity separate from the mapping/modeling functionality of consciousness which attempts to compartmentalize awareness but can't, except in a karmic dream.

But that nothing is not nothing. The non-objective world is also a way of saying that Buddha Essence is universally all living beings and therefore no map is capable of charting the total reality: that complete existence beyond concepts of origination or annihilation of existence which can't be grasped by such concepts as subject, object, self, other, etc. The essence of nothing means the presence of living beings. If living beings had some constant, material, or uniform basis for their being then they could not be. Without nothingness there would only be dead beings playing with maps and getting lost on the dark roads.

Meditation is the way the mind handles and releases its attachments to the aggregates and to the dualities which are the cement binding the aggregated attachments. Mental liberation from suffering, i.e., the freedom from passion (in the sense of the original Latin), is realized by releasing the mind from the attachments related to the five aggregates and living with the aggregates as selfless expressions of impermanence. This release is called the realization of Emptiness or the Void.

As the Heart Sutra says:

"Form is Emptiness; Emptiness is Form.
Form is not different from Emptiness; Emptiness is not different from Form.
Form is identically Emptiness; Emptiness is identically Form.
Feelings, Perceptions, Complexes, and Conscousinesses are also like this."