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Mind and the senses
Tiddlywinds
UK Veteran
Does anyone know what this experience refers to in Buddhism?
I was listening to Ringu Tulku Rinpoche and for no reason I came to understand that the mind is fully connected to the senses. We think that the senses are separate from the mind, but it's the same consciousness.
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Dependent origination.
phew, for a minute there I thought I was mad!
In the suttas consciousness is six-fold, one for each sense base - the mind is also considered as a sense base.
So there is eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, through to mind-consciousness.
Conscious arises in dependence on sense-base and sense-object, eg eye-consciousness arises in dependence on the eye and visible form.
If you observe your experience closely you will begin to see how this works.
(Only for 'a minute'...? Luxury! @lobster and I are also fellow Brits, and totally certain we passed the bend ages ago.....!
Maybe it's a Geographical trait!)
"We" have long thought that the mind was separate from the senses, even in medicine. It is a relatively recent concept in Western medicine that Mind affects body, body affects mind, and that the two, if joined, can accelerate healing, but if the two are at odds, or if the mind is in disarray, it can hinder progress...
Slightly different to what you are referring, but I'm merely illustrating that our mistake in separating factors, is something that was long ago accepted in Oriental and Far Eastern cultures....
Slightly off topic but related to @federica's post, I suffer from pseudo parkinsons and tardive dyskenesia (involuntary movements in my right hand) from the schizophrenia meds. The pseudo parkinsons is controlled (not completely by a drug called procyclidene). One thing I've noticed is that is that both side effects cease when I enter a deeper meditative state, mind over body in action.
I went to a talk recently and apparently in the caves in Tibet where people follow the earliest forms of Buddhism, they arrive at the point where there is no mind and they knew exactly where the point of the brain enabled this function. The lecturer enquired with a neuroscientist to ask if a person were to 'turn off' the mind where it would be, and the neuroscientist said it was exactly where the cave meditators said it was.
The lecturer thought this was interesting in light of the 'mindfulness' movement.
@Lonely_Traveller
Thanks for sharing that
very interesting. I will take up the important theme of 'deeper meditative state' in a new thread.
In the process of perception there is dhamma (the object of awareness) and mano (the mind).
Becoming aware of an external object, its recognition, and the subsequent feeling it triggers, is at the same time a physical and a mental process.
It is the eye-consciousness that perceives forms by means of the physical eye.
The eye itself is a simple means of seeing.
The same holds true for the other senses.
So what does mental consciousness arise in dependence on? The notes I have from studying this state "phenomenon" but what exactly does that mean?
We think that the "mind" experiences sights, sounds, tastes, smells, sensations, emotions, thoughts etc.
The "experiencer/mind" is not separate from the experience. Without the experience, there cannot be the experiencer/mind. So long as there is experience, the "experiencer/mind" is felt to be there. When the arising and passing of experience is clearly seen, the experiencer is also seen to be impermanent and not self.
What happens is the "experiencer/mind/consciousness" arising with the experience ie. dependent co-arising. The mind doesn't exist on its own.
At Savatthi. "Monks, eye-consciousness is inconstant, changeable, alterable. Ear-consciousness... Nose-consciousness... Tongue-consciousness... Body-consciousness... Intellect-consciousness is inconstant, changeable, alterable.
"One who has conviction & belief that these phenomena are this way is called a faith-follower: one who has entered the orderliness of rightness, entered the plane of people of integrity, transcended the plane of the run-of-the-mill. He is incapable of doing any deed by which he might be reborn in hell, in the animal womb, or in the realm of hungry shades. He is incapable of passing away until he has realized the fruit of stream-entry.
"One who, after pondering with a modicum of discernment, has accepted that these phenomena are this way is called a Dhamma-follower: one who has entered the orderliness of rightness, entered the plane of people of integrity, transcended the plane of the run-of-the-mill. He is incapable of doing any deed by which he might be reborn in hell, in the animal womb, or in the realm of hungry shades. He is incapable of passing away until he has realized the fruit of stream-entry.
"One who knows and sees that these phenomena are this way is called a stream-enterer, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe, headed for self-awakening."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn25/sn25.003.than.html
It works the same as the other sense-bases. So mind-consciousness arises in dependence on mind-base and mind-objects. Mind-base is a working mind ( luxury! ), and mind-objects are phenomena like thoughts and emotions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayatana
We tend to think that things happen "out there" and the mind processes it through the senses, but actually everything happens in the mind. Where you want to be in your practice is before mind, before YOUR mind.
I wouldn't worry too much about what is written down here and there. As Shunryu Susuki says, the true teaching is not that which is written down. That doesn't mean what is written down is true or not true, it means that it is simply someone else's experience. Me telling you what an apple tastes like is of no benefit to you, but when you bite into an apple you are able to understand what it tastes like.
When we begin to wake up through intent, and through meditation and mindfulness, then we achieve true original wisdom, which is pretty much exactly as it is written about, but reading of it is no help at all because that original wisdom comes before thinking. We must experience it to understand it.
Or, as pegembara pointed out, if someone is experiencing something, then that is not really experiencing reality. We, the ego, has to be gone from the equation in order to understand the experience, to be the experience, as there is actually no separation from it and us. There IS no us at that point.
This stuff is pretty much impossible to talk about, and we are talking about absolute reality anyway, not relative reality. For most practical purposes, relative reality works well in a relative world, but when you need absolute reality and you only understand relative reality, good luck!
This understanding can not be stressed enough. The mind is the result of the body and the experience of the body is conditioned by the mind. Somewhere there is a cushion between the two ... that would be us ...
... who said 'just sit'?
@Tiddlywinds
Who is it that sees through the eyes positioned in your head?
And who is it that reads the words that have just been read?
Who is it that smells the sweet scent lingering in the nose ?
Who is it that enjoys the taste of the food the farmer grows?
Who is it that feels the cold on a bleak dark winter’s night?
And who nearly jumps out of their skin when they get a fright ?
What is thinking at this moment-processing sight and sound ?
Whoever it is that does all this, is nowhere to be found.
The eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body, are just bundles of vibrating matter.
And ones consciousness [sometimes called the mind], is often full of mental chatter.
You may feel that someone lives inside, but can’t figure out just who-
It’s enough to do ones brain in, if one chooses to pursue.
The "Gateless Gate" is an interesting theme to explore...
Thanks. This is something along the lines. I'll reflect on it.