Human Consciousness in The Ch'an Perspective
(Lecture delivered by Master Sheng-yen at Brooklyn College on November 8, 1990)
We have very little time today, so I will give only a brief summary of the Ch'an view of human consciousness.
Today's talk on human consciousness can be divided into three sections; first, the general Buddhist view; second, the Ch'an perspective; and last, the Ch'an approach to the problems that arise from human consciousness.
The General Perspective of Buddhist Practice
Buddhism generally divides human consciousness into false mind and True Mind. False mind, sometimes called the illusory mind, refers to the mental activity of ordinary sentient beings. This mind is filled with innumerable vexations that arise from a self-centered view of the world. True Mind refers to the mind of wisdom, a mind free of vexation. It is true, however, that Buddhism understands the false mind to include all levels of human consciousness and all activities associated with it.
Then what distinguishes the True Mind? True Mind arises only when mental activity is free from self-centeredness. At this point your mind is no longer subject to ordinary human consciousness. When this happens, consciousness is no longer subjective. Only perfect, completely objective activity remains.
Now let us return to false mind. It is important to know that false mind is really what we call human consciousness. Consciousness has two aspects. The first is known as discriminating consciousness. This is taken to be the activities of cognition, of apprehension, and of discrimination (commonly, what we take to be memory, judgment, and reasoning.)
However, there is still an aspect of consciousness which does not make discriminations. (Note that this "aspect" of consciousness really refers to the seventh and eighth consciousness, as understood by the Yogacara, or Consciousness Only school. For the sake of this talk, we will call this aspect, "fundamental consciousness." See Newsletter No.63 for more information concerning the seventh and eighth consciousness.)
According to the Yogacara school, it is this fundamental consciousness which makes a person what he or she is. It is tempting to say that this fundamental consciousness is the "core," "essence," or "true entity" of someone, but these terms are misleading. They make one think of substance, of something material, and this is not the understanding of Buddhism. These terms are sometimes used to define what it is that moves from life to life when a being is reborn, but this is definitely nothing like what Christianity understands to be the soul.
Now, we talk about consciousness in living beings, but do we recognize such a phenomenon in animals? In the West this question is usually answered by the classification of the animal. Mainstream Western science recognizes the presence of consciousness in what are considered "higher animals," such as elephants, monkeys, or cats, but it does not recognize a consciousness in the lower forms of animals, such as earthworms or insects.
Lower life forms may lack discriminating human consciousness, but they still have fundamental consciousness. This is to say that all living beings have consciousness. Thus, Buddhist compassion is directed to all living beings, not just to human beings. In the Buddhist view, all living beings, human or not, can evolve and attain the highest state, Buddhahood.
It is the goal of Buddhist practice to free all living beings from discriminating consciousness, the source of all vexations. And to truly reach liberation we must also be freed from fundamental consciousness, because it is here that our karma is centered. That is, all the seeds of our previous actions and the forces that they exert upon us are stored here. For the True Mind of wisdom to appear, a human being must be free from discriminating consciousness and the karmic force of fundamental consciousness must be defused. This is the direction of Buddhist practice.
But how can we truly tell when we have overcome vexation and reached wisdom? Vexation and wisdom are both mental activities, but the crucial difference is that the mental activities associated with vexations are centered on the self. It is this centering on the self that causes suffering. Wisdom, however, is unconcerned with the self. With wisdom one can see things as they are, untinted by personal subjectivity.
The Ch'an Point of View
Don't get the idea that Ch'an is something different from Buddhism. It is simply a part of Buddhism and its understanding and perspective fall within Buddhism's basic tenets.
In Ch'an we speak of a Buddha mind, which is the same as the True Mind referred to earlier, that is, the mind of wisdom. We also speak of the mind of sentient beings, which is the same as the false mind of vexation.
One important term used in Ch'an can be translated as "to illuminate the mind and perceive Buddha nature." Why does the mind need illumination? It is because the mind of sentient beings is clouded in darkness, and this darkness must be lifted if you are to see the true nature of reality. Thus the term "to illuminate the mind and perceive Buddha nature" has the same meaning as what we described earlier -leaving the mind of vexation behind in order to attain wisdom. So the goal of Ch'an practice is no different than that of Buddhism.
..to be continued