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
