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Does the mind age?
Bunks
Australia Veteran
I have been contemplating this question for a little while now.
My wife's Gran (who sadly passed last year at the ripe old age of 96) used to say when she was about 90-ish, "I still feel like I did when I was 20!"
That got me thinking: All material phenomena arise (or are born), age (quickly or slowly) then die. But does the mind? Is this some kind of proof that the mind carries on after death?
Would be interested to hear the perspective of others.
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The brain ages, the mind changes.
Since the mind isn't a "thing" so much as a description of events, feelings and sensations and thoughts and memories that "happen", age doesn't apply. Really on closer examination the brain and everything else is also process, but you know what I mean.
The buddha nature is timeless because it is always there if the conditions for a sentient being are there. Because there is no time there can be no change. But the characteristics appearing in the world are a 'magic illusion' and they are changing.
A yogis song:
What was the question?
@Jeffrey - what do you mean by "there is no time"? I understand that it is just a concept but I still don't understand that statement.
I wondered about this, too. My grandma is 88, and while yes there have been changes, she is still pretty much the same person as she was 30 years ago, and according to my dad, 50 years ago as well. But I think for her, she largely still lives as if she is 65 rather than 20 years older than that, and it causes some problems. I saw the same thing with her mother, my great grandmother, who died at 98. She was always the same person to me, and to others (for the most part) but she at some point kind of got stuck at some point of her life and refused to acknowledge that she had gotten much older past that point.
It brings to mind an interesting conversation I had with a friend whose mom died of Alzheimers. She talked about how hard it was for her to see her mom forget her and the life they'd shared. But her mom, she thought she had won a huge lottery. Every day, was a new adventure for her. She thought she was on a fabulous vacation, was in a brand new house, and so on. Very hard for her loved ones. But not hard for her (per my friend's observation), she didn't know she had lost something, and to her, her life was amazing. It makes me wonder what happens to those deeper recesses of mind when dementia related diseases strike.
I mean if the mind is timeless then a discussion of age doesn't apply. One can see this in meditation by looking for time in thoughts. Where do thoughts come and go? They must go somewhere because they are not always here. What are they when they are here? Why does a particular thought come up here and now? How do I distinguish between thoughts in my meditation (could be awareness of the breath here and now) or thoughts that I lose myself in during a thought world? Where does the thought world come from. By what faculty do I come back to the breath?
Another line of thinking is nagarjunas analysis of time as a construct that fits in with a constructed self. We can't escape karma if we are a self subject to birth and death. If time were real we couldn't escape birth and death. Birth and death are the same thing as suffering.
@karasti - I guess that is just a deterioration or change in a certain part of the brain. If you come to the (logical) conclusion that the mind arises from the brain then a change in the brain will affect the mind.
A Tibetan monk told me once that the mind is somewhere in the chest and if you concentrate hard at the time of falling asleep you'll feel it go back down into that part of the body. I must confess I haven't tested this but one can't help but be dubious.
Maybe this guy has it right?
Knowing doesn't age but all the rest are just unreliable.
The mind ages, but the practice of mindfulness apparently helps to give a constant polish to our neuronal pathways. We never finish learning, and with enough practice we can get to change the routinary grooves in our brain to hardwire ourselves for whatever changes we want to see happening in our lives.
I saw a documentary on BBC4 about a lady who was 104 years old. She had an enviable memory. Scientists concluded that her yoga-of-sorts routine helped supply her brain with enough oxygen to keep her brain supple, which is an ability which usually gets lost with age. She also memorised poems and did mathematical exercises every day.
Some Spiritual Entropy to chew upon!
Do you see anything else that doesn't change or age? Why would you think that the mind is the universe's possible exception to this rule?
While we might cleave to ego's hope that something continues beyond death's door and some practitioners do have experiences of past lives, there is little evidence that what continues after death could be called a cohesive"mind" any more than we would call what preceded our birth to be that same mind.
Life is just the temporary collection of many different karmic propensities.
Death is simply what we call the dispersal of whatever part of that collection that found no find resolution in this life plus whatever new karmic inertia was added to it..
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Basically, there are two types of mind in existence. The first type is conscious mind and the second type is subtle conscious mind. The conscious mind is linked directly with our physical body or specifically, our brain. Therefore, it would age alongside with the physical body. In other words, without a physical body, there is no chance for the conscious mind to arise.
On the other hand, the subtle conscious mind is somehow independent from the physical body and can exist beyond the demise of the physical body. Just like energy, it can't be created nor be destroyed but would carry on to transform at all times into different forms based on the influencing conditions. Therefore, the subtle conscious mind would remain not as a scale unit but would diffuse into other new forms or conditions based on the principle of kamma-vipaka.
The mind is constantly changing. I think the sense of continuity derives largely from memory.
Basically, there are two types of mind in existence. The first type is conscious mind and the second type is subtle conscious mind. The conscious mind is linked directly with our physical body or specifically, our brain. Therefore, it would age alongside with the physical body. In other words, without a physical body, there is no chance for the conscious mind to arise.
On the other hand, the subtle conscious mind is somehow independent from the physical body and can exist beyond the demise of the physical body. Just like energy, it can't be created nor be destroyed but would carry on to transform at all times into different forms based on the influencing conditions. Therefore, the subtle conscious mind would remain not as a scale unit but would diffuse into other new forms or conditions based on the principle of kamma-vipaka.
Basically, there are two types of mind in existence. The first type is conscious mind and the second type is subtle conscious mind. The conscious mind is linked directly with our physical body or specifically, our brain. Therefore, it would age alongside with the physical body. In other words, without a physical body, there is no chance for the conscious mind to arise.
On the other hand, the subtle conscious mind is somehow independent from the physical body and can exist beyond the demise of the physical body. Just like energy, it can't be created nor be destroyed but would carry on to transform at all times into different forms based on the influencing conditions. Therefore, the subtle conscious mind would remain not as a scale unit but would diffuse into other new forms or conditions based on the principle of kamma-vipaka.
As there is no time the mind does not age, the capacity for remembering changes, but the mind in the now does not. I experienced this recently interacting with a seriously demented Alzheimers relative. Conversation happened and was functional in the momentary interaction, but questions relating to memory, were disregarded or completely ignored, sometimes with emotional attachment.
The question of whether there is time or not is something that should be experienced in a meditative state, free of attachment to objects that dictate that there is a past or future - it's harder to do this than say it btw.
No one can tell you there is no such thing as time, although in my opinion, that is a correct assertion (yes time may be measured as repetitive beats, but from the experiential perspective of now, the beats are just a pattern of beats. You have to experience the 'nowness' that is the present moment to 'know' or if you are ardently certain 'deny' that there is no time other than what is now, and now and now and...
What is the past, really, and what is the future? Both are conditioned and dependent on what is experienced now, and that that is experiencing it all, is dependent on everything else.
@buddhitakso I believe you are confusing the subtle body as commonly understood in buddhist philosophy (and as you describe as the subtle conscious mind) with the physical or material body which is the projection of ourself that appears to everyone else who interacts with it.
My view is that they are actually interdependent, which I know contradicts your statement. Sorry.
The reason for me stating my view is that by you stating 'the subtle conscious mind' is independent of the physical body is raising the spectre that there is a 'soul' or 'something esoterically spiritual' that goes beyond the human incarnation. This is not IMHO a buddhist perspective. Happy to be corrected
What's the difference between mind and witnessing the flow of mind's phenomena?
I can't tell if 'mind' is something that belongs to this me/this human life or is a river that just runs through human lives.
The self that witnesses the phenomena of mind is just a convenience, so it makes sense that it does not 'age' (as Karasti's g'ma says).
Unless ageing is equivalent to growing in wisdom, what in the world is ageing anyway?
Yes I believe the mind ages with the brain that generates it. There is no proof the mind carries on after death of course there is no proof it doesn't either. That said I doubt it does. I believe it ceases with the brain. Bob
I actually don't think the mind ages. I don't think something immaterial can age.
It is obviously affected by the brain but that is different to ageing.
This is why I think the mental continuum is possible from one sentient being to the next.
Thanks for all your feedback!
@Bunks I'd think "abstract" is a much better word than immaterial when it comes to "mind". It's really a conceptual label. Mind doesn't describe some thing we can't see, it describes activities (thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, desires, awareness etc.). Immaterial makes it sound like some thing that is separate from the body ("mind/body dualism"), which would be like saying a candle flame is separate from the candle! Actually I think that's a good analogy, with the flame and mind both representing "energy" while the candle and body represent "matter" (and remember matter/energy are really the same stuff, the same substance, in different forms... meaning it's not dualistic).
One of the key problems we have to solve as Buddhists is exactly the question "what is the mind?", and Buddhist masters historically pose such questions/imperatives as "where is your mind? show it to me!" to help us realize that it's not some thing at all that we're talking about.
I reflect that when I was younger I noticed the sensations on my feet. My feet were me and the feeling there was me. After Buddhism I seem to have the notion that the feet are not me and that the me is behind my eyes sending it's knowingness to parts of my body. So rather than feeling the ground I am feeling my feet. Hard to explain. Oh and I am not saying which way was better; I was just noticing during my meditation how I am a 'me' behind my eyes whereas when younger my feet were me and I felt the ground with a part of me.
Simply, mind and body arising are analogous to the origination of fire. From an article pulled out from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the origin of fire is described as follows: -
‘Fires start when a flammable and/or a combustible material, in combination with a sufficient quantity of an oxidizer such as oxygen gas or another oxygen-rich compound (though non-oxygen oxidizers exist that can replace oxygen), is exposed to a source of heat or ambient temperature above the flash point for the fuel/oxidizer mix, and is able to sustain a rate of rapid oxidation that produces a chain reaction. This is commonly called the fire tetrahedron. Fire cannot exist without all of these elements in place and in the right proportions. For example, a flammable liquid will start burning only if the fuel and oxygen are in the right proportions. Some fuel-oxygen mixes may require a catalyst, a substance that is not directly involved in any chemical reaction during combustion, but which enables the reactants to combust more readily. Once ignited, a chain reaction must take place whereby fires can sustain their own heat by the further release of heat energy in the process of combustion and may propagate, provided there is a continuous supply of an oxidizer and fuel.’
The mentioned comparison can be depicted as below: -
Combustion => Sparkling process, Fire => Sentient being, Flame => Prevailing mind consciousness, Fuel/combustible material => Sentient body, Oxidiser => Oxygen intake, Heat => Subtle mind consciousness, Chain reaction => Electrochemical impulse/transmission, Catalyst => ‘Free-flow’ subtle mind consciousness
The principle in effect: When the flame is blown off, the chain reaction stops and the fire would be vanished. However, the ambient temperature (heat) remains temporarily but below the flash point for fuel/oxidiser mix and waiting for all the right elements in place and on the right proportions.
Likewise, when a sentient being has passed on, the prevailing mind consciousness dies out and the electrochemical impulse/transmission would lapse. However, the subtle mind consciousness still remains temporarily in liberated forms before subscribing to the next becoming process under a balance phenomenon.
What is mind? And where is mind? Is the mind the same as the brain? Buddhism often articulates about mind and matter or mind and body. This means that the mind and the body (matter) cannot be understood separately from one another. Basically, mind is a pattern of consciousness that is born from awareness. In fact, mind is known as consciousness in individuality and it is more objective and involves clear discrimination – differentiates and understands the characteristics of objects. For general understanding, manas that unfolds against the backdrop of consciousness (preliminary) is an architect that activates mind and body creations. Mind and body are simply two aspects of the same thing.
In the dependent nature, everything that exists would comprise with energy and energy is nothing more than mere vibration. Therefore, manas would vibrate in a certain unique frequency – a wave of collated high and low vibrations. This blueprint of vibrations would subsequently bring forth the conflation of mind and body. The principle in effect: the lower the frequency, the slower the vibration; the higher the frequency, the faster the vibration. Slower vibration would lead to the body and the sense bases formation and faster vibration would lead to the mind formation. Collectively, it brings about a new life existence with a unique individuality that would not allow the disruption by any kind of external interference; thus it maintains a self-identity.
In other words, mind and body are present in every created thing as one integrated whole. Even an atom has a kind of mind that is unique or individualised. The nucleus of the atom, around which electrons vibrate in standing waves, constitutes the atom’s individuality. As a result, one atom distinguishes from another atom – just as one person is different from another person or as one thing is different from another thing. Therefore, the origin of individuality is the same as the origin of the mind. Nevertheless, the mind is comprised with two terms i.e. prevailing consciousness and subtle consciousness. Both the prevailing and subtle mind consciousnesses would arise in the sentient beings but for other things, merely subtle mind consciousness would arise. In addition, it is the mind, the consciousness of individuality, which holds together the atoms and molecules as one integrated body in a lifetime. Scientifically, the atoms are held together by covalent chemical bonds but the synergies of it would give rise to the mind, the consciousness of individuality.
For general understanding, consciousness is synergy. Synergy is generally defined as the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements, contributions, etc. In other words, synergy is energy that expands through cooperation and it is a key to the geometric expansion of consciousness. When the nervous system in a new body is formed, sense consciousness would arise simultaneously. Sense consciousness is a subtle synergy resulted from the interaction of subtle mind consciousness in the new body i.e. the electrochemical transmission along the neurons throughout the nervous system. Moreover, the central nervous system especially the brain would comprise with the highest density of neurons in the entire nervous system of the new body and this circumstance would give rise to another type of synergy identified as prevailing mind consciousness – a prevalent synergy.
The prevailing mind consciousness is regarded as the ‘working’ consciousness or the mind-in-command i.e. the mind that can lead, take charge, concentrate, make decision and convey action. Basically, prevailing conscious mind is closely related to the physical body or more specifically, the brain. This means there would be a biological clock being attached within it i.e. there would be duration for staying awake and for resting. Without the brain, there would be no prevailing mind consciousness in existence. In other words, mind consciousness and brain are symbiotic; one never exists without the other. The brain is actually a coagulated form of the conflated prevailing and subtle mind consciousnesses itself - just as water looks like ice, the mind looks like the brain, and the body. With high density of neurons, the brain could perform a variety of complex functions beside transmitting signals and sending messages to each other parts of the body. Among the complex functions are controlling, regulating, analysing, organising, wishing, interpreting, memorising, etc. – for these complex functions are basically, the roles of prevailing and subtle mind consciousnesses.
On the other hand, subtle mind consciousness is somehow independent from the physical body. For general understanding, subtle mind consciousness does not consume as much energy as prevailing mind consciousness. Subtle mind consciousness can process and store information without a lot of work or the intervention of prevailing mind consciousness. In other words, subtle mind consciousness could operate in the absence of prevailing mind consciousness with the least of energy consumption on 24 hours/day and 365 days/year - this would mean a plenty of energy reserves for prolonging the lifespan of a body in a lifetime. In fact, for over 90% of the time in a lifespan, the body is administered by subtle mind consciousness and it simply operates like a radar detector – sensing all spectrums of vibrational frequencies from the surroundings and across the time stream (past, present and future).
When one has reached the maturity of a lifespan, the mind and body would go through a dying process, inevitably. And the first type of consciousness to depart the body would be the prevailing mind consciousness. In the sentient beings, the prevailing mind consciousness that bonds strongly the atoms and the molecules together would die out and evolve into other energies concurrently. This incidence would lead to an impulse occurrence with a demonstration of a final burst of energy nearing the moments of death. Subsequently, the segregating process would conquest with most of the subtle mind consciousness departing the death body. The fragmented subtle mind consciousness with some retained subtle information within the elements of subtle memory would sustain freedom of sorts and waiting for the next aligning process and the new balance phenomena to arise, thus depicting the continuous flow or repeating cycle of birth, life, death and re-birth - known as samsāra.
Experienced meditators claim that they have witnessed the mind apart from its arisings and that some subtle aspect remains. This is an observation that has been made many, many times over the centuries not simply a dogma handed down and parroted back.
For me that is enough to pass my smell test to at least tentatively, in a world without a definitive scientific answer either way, adopt the view that mind has some existence beyond brain.
Strewth @buddhitakso! I think I need an aspirin and a lie down.
Remember that I am an Australian male. We are simple creatures.
In all seriousness though, thank you for your in depth reply. I'll read it on the train tonight and try and get my head around it. I think I'll need the dictionary close by!
@person I'm not following you. If someone is having an experience at all, even a subtle awareness without anything else, it's still a living breathing person having that experience. It's not happening to someone else, or somewhere else. The subjective experience may be one of consciousness alone ("by itself"), but objectively it's not "alone" at all, it's causally tied to the functioning of the body and brain. Consciousness doesn't arise apart from its conditions; the candle flame doesn't arise or exist apart from the candle (or another source of fuel).
It's completely true that "the mind" is not the same thing as "the brain", but it's not a separate "thing" either; it's a description of, well, subjectivity itself. The awareness and activities of the brain-body! The whole Mind/Body Dualism thing has tripped us up for centuries.
The Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta (MN 38) has a lot to say on the subject of dependently co-arisen consciousness.
What do you think, Vaccha: If a fire were burning in front of you, would you know that, 'This fire is burning in front of me'?"
"...yes..."
"And suppose someone were to ask you, Vaccha, 'This fire burning in front of you, dependent on what is it burning?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"
"...I would reply, 'This fire burning in front of me is burning dependent on grass & timber as its sustenance.'"
"If the fire burning in front of you were to go out, would you know that, 'This fire burning in front of me has gone out'?"
"...yes..."
"And suppose someone were to ask you, 'This fire that has gone out in front of you, in which direction from here has it gone? East? West? North? Or south?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"
"That doesn't apply, Master Gotama. Any fire burning dependent on a sustenance of grass and timber, being unnourished — from having consumed that sustenance and not being offered any other — is classified simply as 'out' (unbound)."
"Even so, Vaccha, any physical form by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. Freed from the classification of form, Vaccha, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. 'Reappears' doesn't apply. 'Does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Both does & does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Neither reappears nor does not reappear' doesn't apply.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.072.than.html
“Delighting in existence O monks, are gods and men;
they are attached to existence. they revel in existence.
When the Dhamma for the cessation of existence is
being preached to them, their minds do not leap
towards it, do not get pleased with it, do not get settled
in it, do not find confidence in it. That is how, monks,
some lag behind … .”
-Iti.
@pegembara Yeppers. Craving for continued existence, mixed with delusion and shaken (not stirred).
My belief is based on evidence. So far the evidence seems to point to the fact that the "mind" is generated by the brain. Consciousness ,generated by the brain. As it ages ,then ,so to must it be affected. Nothing mystical or magical. Of course thats just my belief. Bob
From my understanding certain tantras, particularly the Guyasamaja tantra, say the mind has three levels of subtlety, gross, subtle and very subtle.
I take this teaching and what David Chalmers calls the hard problem of consciousness and say that the experience of subjectivity, or qualia, has not been explained by neuroscience. I'm not really even aware of any meaningful hypothesis on what causes the arising of qualia, it just seems to be an assumption from correlation to causation.
My view of mind and brain giving rise to conscious experience is akin to a movie projector. You've got the fundamental, clear light of mind also known as rigpa, which I liken to the light bulb and you've got the brain and all its activity, which I liken to the film. When these two arise together you've got conscious experience or the movie on the screen.
Maybe there is still some form of dualism there but its not classical Descarte that says our mind has nothing to do with the body.
Mind and body interbe. That doesn't mean that there is no rebirth upon death. Just as the ocean and waves interbe, but the wave falling does not end the oceans nature to have more waves upon it.
Seems about right to me.
The real mind, the true self, the Buddha Nature, the fana-il-fana, the emptiness of being does not age. Does not come into being or leave being. You know that or have read that. Experiencing a 'connection' to such a non arising is what being awake is all about.
. . . and now back to the streaming . . .
:wave:
The mind will have to decide.
Or is the brain generated by the mind?
No. Brain exists as an anatomical object. :rolleyes: Let's not get too 'smartass' here....
Do you think something immaterial can change?
Don't like "immaterial. " Going for "intangible" myself....
If it is energy( electrical ) it is tangible and will change. Bob
If "mind" includes thoughts, feelings, perceptions and even dispositions/habits, and we know those can (and do) change, then by definition "mind" changes. I love to keep things simple, it helps avoid confusion.
What @how said
If we could ever locate a thought we would have to say the mind changes.
But we don't know where thoughts go when they are gone. We don't know where they came from when they arise. When they are here then immediately they are gone. So we could not say that they were really here. The essence of dependent origination is mind/bodhicitta. Nothing is ever here and nothing is ever gone.
From shambhala with Pema Chodron http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/shtk.php