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What does Buddhism make of the subconcious?
Dandelion
London Veteran
And what happens to a Buddhists subconcious (if anything) when they have become enlightened? All thoughts and opinions welcome!
Dandelion
Dandelion
0
This discussion has been closed.
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you circular logic has already given it all away!!
I meant below this meditating yellow ball with a face ॐ :om:
you probably need to define what you mean by the "subconscious"
in Buddhism, the closest notion to the psychological concept of the "subconscious" is the anusaya, which means "underlying tendencies"
the Buddha taught there are seven underlying tendencies, namely, sensual passion, anger, views, uncertainty, conceit, passion for becoming & ignorance
the Buddha said the spiritual life is fulfilled with the abandoning & extinguishing of these seven underlying tendencies
kind regards
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an07/an07.011.than.html
Subconscious is the tie-in, the go-between, of conscious mind and form. If you can come to understand that they are all the same thing seen from different angles...
I've made no bones about being new to Buddhism and as such like a lot of people that are new to anything, I have a lot of questions. Because Buddhism is so new to me, I am yet to put it into a context with so many things. Given that the subconcious plays such a massive role in how human beings act and react, I disagree with you and do not consider it to be time wasting banter and pointless conjecture. If I knew more about Buddhism my opinion might be different, but that's just it, I AM NEW to Buddhism; so I am politely requesting that my thread be moved back over to the Buddhism for Beginners section, but I shall accept fully if you decide not to and there shall be no argument from me.
Non the less, as your opinion is as valid as anyone elses thankyou for taking the time to answer with your opinion.
Dandelion
I mean the part of us that drives us to make decisions, and do things that we are not conciously aware of. Sorry, I should have put that in my opening :rolleyes: !! The subconcious mind stores so much information in our brains, I am also wondering about the subconcious in terms of how past lives (Karma) cause us to behave how we do. The subconcious amongst other things stores memories, and I wonder if this is where our past life memories are stored in the human body., if of course, they are stored at all. This line of thought was prompted by an article I read the other day that said that often when a child is born, and that child is the kind of child that 'just won't settle', and cries and cries, it is because of the trauma of its painful pastlife/pastlives. (Artcle was from Buddhanet)
I shall look up the term 'anusaya' and get a better understanding of that word, and all it entails. (I now have a list of words used in Buddhism to get to grips with.. it seems to be ever expanding...)
So, if the spiritual life is fulfilled with the abandoning and extinguishing of the seven underlying tendencies, and in terms of Buddhist 'spirituality', the subconcious mind is somewhat made healthier? Please correct me if I have misunderstood.
Kind regards to you also,
Dandelion
Thankyou @Cloud
I might hazard a guess that the subconscious, storehouse of memories, including past life memories and karma, could be likened to the "seed consciousness", or the alaya vijnana. (Caution: you have entered the Speculation Zone)
Have you studied/read much on the subject? I only ask because I'm not sure if you have an established understanding of the subconscious that you are trying to adapt to your Buddhist practice.
Here are a couple of links on the subject of the subconscious, I'm not sure if they're consistent with your beliefs, but they offer some basic information.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/health/psychology/31subl.html
http://www.divinecaroline.com/22181/107348-psychology-study-subconscious-mind
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I'm not trying to be confrontational here, but do all Buddhists try to fit every concept they come across into a box limited to only the Buddhist perspective? Is there nothing beyond that? This is the main reason I haven't dedicated myself to a Buddhist practice. I think the Buddha gave us a great gift by opening an important door to greater understanding, but I don't think that it's the only door. It's a much better door than many, but not the only and possibly not the best. Just my two cents.
Some of the topics on the forum are the result of people "thinking out loud", and wondering. Sometimes a mod will come on and say, "this is pure speculation, and therefore pointless". There have also been rare occasions when Asian Buddhists discover the forum, see a question, and nearly die laughing. Some people are just learning about Buddhism, and so are trying to understand how Western concepts fit into Buddhist theory, if they fit in at all. It's an exploration process.
@Dandelion- I sincerely apologize for my thoughtless response to your question. I had a knee-jerk reaction because of a bad past experience with a teacher. That was unfair to you and the other members.
Your question and my reaction to it, tells me that I've not resolved my negative feelings about my experience and will need to be more mindful of it. Thank you for the opportunity to learn this and I again apologize for my rude, unnecessary response.
Apology fully accepted, I actually didn't take it badly though, no harm done what so ever, and your question of putting concepts into a box I found interesting, rather than confrontational, and I suppose if i'm honest I do 'like boxes', in that sense, although my question was posed because I simply do not know what Buddhists make of the subconcious and how it tally's in with being a Buddhist.
What @compassionate_warrior said in their second paragraphs sums up why I was posing the question - my question is part of my exploration process, which was why I requested for this thread to be moved back to the beginners section but I think the lack of response is clearly my answer!
I am a little miffed by forums, including this one. Some of the responses I see on forums seem just so needlessly unkind. It is much easier to ask questions to someone that one personally knows, and trusts, but life is such that there are times when a forum can only be the way to find answers, as well as books of course. My father in law meditates and has researched Buddhism but he is a very busy man. I was hoping this forum could facilitate a situation where I could freely question things about Buddhism because I wish to learn, but this thread has shown me that I may be incorrect, i'm not sure... I was hoping that my questions would be taken seriously, rather than be told what we're asking is pointless, it is not pointless when a subject is new to a person, and it does not feel like time wasting banter to me. But being on a forum where i'm told my question is such, feels like I AM wasting my time. I suppose i'm supposed to take my 'hurt' to my meditation mat right now! I'm not sure this forum is for me, which isn't to say i'm not grateful for the communication i've had with people on my brief stay here (so far???) but I'm not sure I feel very comfortable being here if it is going to be a battle to even open up and ask questions for fear of them being riduculed in some way, and i'm considering the moderators response with my comment here, just to give clarity to anyone reading this. Maybe the mod was having a bad day, or I have misunderstood. I don't know if that is me being overly sensitive, or the responsibility of others being insensitive, maybe a mixture of the two. It may be best for the time being that I just research the subject of Buddhism privately, but I shall see how I feel on a day to day basis; Thankyou to everyone that has contributed to my threads. I shall continue to read through the forum for a time at least. There is a lot of interesting and informative stuff on here, but i'm not sure I want to contribute further, at least not for a while. I don't need needless rudeness in my life right now, and I say that as a simple fact, nothing more.
Best wishes to all,
Dandelion X
our biology is our instincts. our instincts is the ability to eat food and make energy, the beating of the heart, we breathe in air, we have natural desires like i am hungry, i am thirsty. we also have sexual desires because our biology wants to reproduce.
so we have all this functioning that just occurs because we have a physical body. recently humanity has developed the ability
think symbolically. we developed communication, logic, religion, and science. there is a lot of repression of the unconscious mind with our intellect. usually the repression comes from society and religion. the repression usually has some function that generally is for the betterment of humankind.
okay so i am going to assert this theory. enlightenment is non-symbolic consciousness. meaning it is consciousness that isn't symbolically focused. so we are evolving beyond our instincts and our intellect. that isn't to say that we drop the intellect and instincts. they become tools to the new consciousness rather than being slaves to the base instincts and intellect.
so the goal of spirituality is to transcend instincts by understanding them and not repressing them. when you are hungry, you eat. when you are thirsty, you drink. when you need sex, find a girl friend. in that we accept our biological function and don't repress the natural desires all fall away.
then we move onto the intellect, which we transcend by the non-symbolic consciousness. with seeing clearly we see that our
thinking projects good and evil. dualism is merely a projection coming from our mind. prior to this mind is just seeing. that just seeing is the buddha mind.
so that is basically how the unconscious fits into this whole equation. most people repress and feel that the base instincts are negative or something to get rid of. but that isn't a healthy attitude. neither is totally engaging in them. the buddha spoke of the middle way and one must be honest with themselves to find the middle way. if you are thinking about sex a lot then you probably are repressing yourself, etc. when we aren't secure in the natural instincts then we cannot move forward to higher dimensions of being.
if we are focused on the intellect then we become cold and we lose the ability to feel. the intellect is completely empty meaning it can lead us towards enlightenment and it can lead us away. i think of the intellect as the bridge between instincts and intuition. we practice meditation to see clearly. thoughts arises and fall. what is that which see's these thoughts arises and fall?
so again it's all about balance and being open. seeing what is. and from there we can have a holistic being. when instincts, intellect, and intuition are all aligned and sync we have an enlightened being.
also think of instincts as nature.
anyways sorry about this long and probably confusing post. i'm just writing on the fly.
I'm sorry that you have not had a good experience here, and I hope that I did not cause you to feel this way. I do wish you well in your quest to find higher understanding.
Brightest Blessings
Yes, that is what I meant, the unconcious and thankyou for your answer, it made perfect sense and I have been re reading it to get it rattling round at the forefront of my brain so I understand the Buddhist perspective on the unconcious/subconcious clearer.
Kind regards,
Dandelion
No, you did not cause me to feel like that - there is no problem. I look forward to conversing with you in the future!
Have a lovely weekend,
Dandelion
Best wishes to you also!
The subconscious as the Freudian construct of a vast buried repository of supressed desires that control our conscious mind from behind the curtains doesn't even have a place in modern psychiatry, leave alone Buddhist philosophy of the mind. What we can say is that the subconscious is not a "thing" but a process that is inherently empty.
So what happens to the subconscious processes? The same thing as the conscious. They remain empty, but the awakened person understands the empty nature of the mind.
Thanks for your imput. Looking at the subconcious as being inherintly an inherintly empty process is an interesing perspective....
Lovely way to answer the question, I like this!