7. Formations & Consciousness

The royal ministers bring the king a lute and tell him,“Sire, this is that lute, the sound of which was so tantalizing, so lovely, so intoxicating, so entrancing, so enthralling.” The king says:“I’ve had enough with this lute, man. Bring me just that sound.” – Simile of the Lute Sutta

Pemasiri Thera: Thinking, knowing, mind, consciousness, one of the five aggregates the term vinanna is used in numerous and often overlapping ways, making it difficult to quickly grasp its meaning. Where is your vinnana, your consciousness?

David: I think it’s in my brain, but I’ve been told that it’s in my heart.

Consciousness is not in your brain nor is it in your heart. It doesn’t have one fixed location, much in the same way that music doesn’t have one fixed location. In the Lute Sutta, you can read about the king who searched in vain for the location of lute music. Despite ripping a lute to shreds, he failed to find where the music came from. His ministers tried to explain to him that music requires a musician to play the lute. Without a skilled musician, a lute, and then the musician playing the lute, there won’t be any lute music. And it’s the same for the arising of consciousness.

Consciousness only arises when the right conditions come together. And the right conditions? When one of your sense doors experiences its matching sense object, consciousness arises at that sense door. Since you have six sense doors, six types of consciousness arise:

• Eye-consciousness, cakkhu-vinnana
• Ear-consciousness, sota-vinnana
• Nose-consciousness, ghàna-vinnana
• Tongue-consciousness, jivhà-vinnana
• Body-consciousness, kàya-vinnana
• Mind-consciousness, mano-vinnana

Because our eyes and ears experience objects that are both far away as well as nearby, these two sense doors give rise to consciousness more frequently than our noses, tongues, and bodies, which only experience objects that are nearby. And of the eye and ear, the eye is likely to give rise to consciousness more often than the ear. Overall, however, our heart gives rise to consciousness most often, and this is why consciousness is said to be heart based.

I don’t see heart in your list.

The heart is considered by some to be the place where mind-consciousness arises. In the same way the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body are the places where we experience material objects, the heart is considered the place where we experience mental objects. The heart is called hadaya vatthu. It knows the sense objects the sights, sounds, and smells, etc. When one of your sense doors experiences its sense object, consciousness arises at that sense door as well as at the heart, both places. Every time a sensory impression is made upon one of your five material sense doors, an impression is also made upon your heart. When your ear experiences a sound, both an ear-consciousness and a mind-consciousness arise. Venerable Mahà Kaccàna gives us a good explanation of this process in the Honeyball Sutta.

When sense door, sense object, and sense door consciousness come together, there is contact, phassa, in the mind. And, where there is contact, feelings arise. Consciousness is considered to be located in and around the heart because a consciousness arises at your heart whenever a consciousness arises at one of your five material sense doors. Even when your sense doors are not experiencing sense objects, such as when you are asleep or if you happen to be in a coma, a consciousness, the bhavanga, arises at your heart. The material sense doors are the places where there is just the possibility of a vinnana arising, just the possibility for a consciousness arising because consciousness must necessarily be directed towards the object to experience that object. For example, you have fully functioning eyes and you experience visible objects. You see things. However, when you direct your vinnana towards another sense door, maybe towards your ears, nose, or tongue, you aren’t aware of seeing anything.

We can discuss the eyes, ears, nose, and tongue forms of consciousness fairly easily, but if we want to understand mind-vinnana or body-vinnana, we have to study the texts. Mind and body are a challenge to quickly comprehend. The term mano for instance is almost inseparable from the term vinnana. Both are used to mean mind. Yet, in the expression mano-vinnana, where they are being used together; mind is one term and consciousness is another. Mano is being used to mean distinguishing or measuring in the same way the eye is used in eye-consciousness, in cakkhu-vinnana. Mano-vinnana arises because of past rupa, materiality, or because of future plans. In the Maha-Vagga of the Samyutta Nikàya, the Buddha states that citta, mano, and vinnana can even be used as synonyms. It is hard to discern all the slight differences in these terms and I’m not very interested that you do understand these slight differences. It’s more important for your practice that you understand the general concept of causes, supportive conditions, and effects.

I’d just get bogged down and lost in subtle distinctions anyway.

Maybe. Try to keep your mind moving along with what I am saying; try to keep the mind going in the direction that I am leading it. Right?

I do try to pay attention because you seem to find it so important that I understand.

Vinnana has three qualities:

1. Knowing
2. Birth
3. Death

Consciousness has the quality of vijànàti, which means to know and be aware of. At the moment a formation, a sankhàra, is fully ripe, consciousness knows the formation, gives birth to mentality-materiality, and then consciousness dies. The moment of knowing and birth and death is a moment of consciousness, like a mother who dies just as she gives birth. It is not that she gives birth to a child and later on she again gives birth to another child. No. As the newborn child sees the light of day, at that very moment of the child’s birth, the mother dies, immediately.
Sankhàras do the forming and linking. They form and link our feelings, perceptions, etc., together into one unified object of experience. Once all the various phenomena are linked together, consciousness knows the object, the effect arises, and consciousness dies. Sankhàras are endlessly forming and linking. Forming, forming, and forming. Linking, linking. At the point where the formation peaks, where it is complete, consciousness knows the formation, giving birth to mentality-materiality. This process is awfully complicated. Like a bird’s nest with strands coming and going in every possible direction, dependent upon many causes and conditions, the mentality-materiality of human life comes into being. “Through our craving, conceit, and views,” said the Buddha, “we bring together various causes and conditions and produce mentality-materiality.” Consciousness plays the role of knowing whatever causes and conditions link together. Feelings, perceptions, ignorance, mentality and materiality, countless mental formations many, many different phenomena link together and form a unified object, which is then known by consciousness. Forming and linking and knowing. Whatever links together, consciousness just knows it as an object.

INACTIVE

Consciousness is always tough to talk about because it doesn’t have its own active and inherent characteristics. Even though almost every other teacher says consciousness is very active, consciousness is inactive. It’s passive. I’m probably the only teacher who says consciousness is inactive.

Yes, one teacher told me the mind has two sides to it – one active and one passive. The intellect, he said, is the active side of the mind because intellect works with thoughts, concepts, and words. It knows birth and death. The intuition, on the other hand, is the passive side of the mind because there is only knowledge.

If this teacher goes so far as to say the characteristics of vinnana are somehow fixed, he is equating it to a soul. Consciousness is not active; it doesn’t have fixed characteristics. It is inactive, as it only knows the various things that temporarily come together to form an object. Yesterday, for example, we had a sour tasting curry at lunchtime. Consciousness knew the curry tasted sour, but it was feeling that experienced the curry as quite pleasant and it was perception that perceived it as sour. Our consciousness had nothing to do with the experience of the sour curry. Consciousness just knew our feelings and perceptions of the curry and then consciousness died.

Very helpful example.

Fully dependent upon feelings, perceptions, and mental and material formations that are constantly changing, the characteristics of consciousness are also constantly changing. With the knowing of the object, the new experience arises and consciousness dies simultaneously. New feelings, new perceptions, and new formations subsequently arise, link, and form another object, which is again known by consciousness. With birth of the new experience, consciousness again dies. This process of knowing, birth, and death takes a billionth of a second maybe a trillionth of a second. The process is repeated again, again, and again. It’s endless.

What happens to my feelings and perceptions?

When consciousness knows your feelings and perceptions, it gives birth to a new experience and all your old feelings and old perceptions cease to exist. Once your old feelings and old perceptions die, your old consciousness also dies. You are constantly experiencing new feelings, new perceptions, and new moments of consciousness. Though you feel you’re experiencing the same old consciousness, that it’s continuous and fixed, this is not so. No. Rather, you’re repeatedly experiencing new and different moments of consciousness. Totally new feelings and totally new perceptions are constantly arising; not one of them lasts for even a second. Any man or woman who has wisdom realizes that every moment of their lives, every experience, is totally separate from every other moment and experience in their lives. They see that causes give rise to effects, that experiences arise and then die. Life is seen as a steady stream of moment-to-moment experiences. Whatever beneficial or harmful actions are performed here and now in this life, a wise person knows that the results of those actions are also experienced here and now. He or she knows a living being is just one mind-moment of consciousness, one moment in the stream or bird’s nest of mind-moments. That’s all. One moment. You can refer to the Being Devoured Sutta in the Samyutta Nikàya, and also the Ayoniso-Manasikàra Sutta.

You lay these teachings out fairly clearly, but I’m still not sure why I should persevere and sort this all out.

Since you have a need and a want for these teachings, I’m trying to push you along into understanding.

EXPLOSION

In spite of being inactive, consciousness produces major effects. Nitroglycerine, a fuse, and a spark when dynamite’s key elements come together, there’s an explosion and the buildings in the area are destroyed. After the explosion, nothing remains of the dynamite and nothing remains of the explosion. Nonetheless, the explosion produced far-reaching effects: many buildings were destroyed. Consciousness functions in the same way as an explosion. Feelings, perceptions, and mental formations when these standard three elements come together as an object, as a formation, consciousness knows the formation and mentality-materiality arises. That’s the mentality-materiality. After consciousness knows the formation, nothing remains of our old feelings, old perceptions, and old mental formations. And nothing remains of that individual moment of consciousness. It dies. Though now nothing, that moment of consciousness produced mentality-materiality, fueling samsàra’s cycle.

I didn’t understand until this moment that the importance of understanding all these intricate interconnections is in order to break out of samsàra.

Yes, as I said earlier, penetrating ignorance, avijjà, comes about gradually. We have to cut our way through a prickly thicket, which is difficult and time consuming.

The effects produced by the continual arising of consciousness are like the growth of a Banyan tree. The tree began its life as one extremely small seed planted in the ground; Banyan seeds are so small you can hardly see them. But from one small seed, a huge tree grows, spreading out its branches like tentacles, which again take root. One Banyan tree can cover many acres of land. Looking at a massive Banyan tree, we ask, “Where is the seed?” And clearly the seed is not to be found though new seeds may arise. Similarly, our lives as human beings began when a rebirth consciousness arose along with the mass in our mother’s womb, linking our past kamma to our new kamma. This was the first consciousness of our current birth. The minute entity that was present in our mother’s womb in those first few moments, you can’t call it a baby. But from that microscopic beginning, we grew into what we are today. Consciousness again and again kept knowing the formations that arose, which gave birth to our ever-developing mentality-materiality. Consciousness might continue to give birth to our mentality-materiality for seventy years or more. And now? Where is our first moment of consciousness? That rebirth consciousness? We can’t find it.

Can a computer have consciousness?

It would have to be a walking and talking computer. It can’t be stationary, maybe a robot. Yes, since the arising of consciousness is a process of hetu-phala, of causes and effects, if all the appropriate causes are present, then some type of consciousness will arise. I don’t, however, think that plastic, glass, and electronics are the suitable causes and conditions. Nonetheless, someday, if scientific researchers discover substances that are similar to the rupas where consciousness generally arises, then consciousness may arise in these artificial substances, possibly in the form of a computer. It’s conceivable. It doesn’t conflict with the teachings of the Buddha.

I accept that almost anything, with the exception of consciousness, can be created by science. Vinnana cannot be created. Scientists do not create consciousness. In a controlled environment, often a lab dish, scientists sometimes manage to create the right conditions for the arising of consciousness and then a consciousness happens to arise. This arising of consciousness comes about by chance. Scientists only create the right conditions; they don’t create the consciousness that arises. Recently, scientists cloned a sheep and called it Dolly. Not differentiating between consciousness and materiality, some scientists concluded, “We can now create mammals, similar to humans.” They are assuming they can create consciousness. But they are mistaken. That assumption comes out of ignorance and craving. No conclusions about the nature of consciousness can be made from cloning animals. The scientists only helped to bring about the materiality, the rupa. Nothing more. And Dolly died.

Why does consciousness arise only by chance?

Chance means the being is moisture born as opposed to womb born or spontaneously born. I am not much interested in this discussion. Let this thing that we call a human being function like a machine, maybe your laptop computer. The only difference between you and your laptop is mind, and the beneficial and the harmful. The rest of you is just like your laptop, a machine. We only need to consider the beneficial and the harmful in what is taking place, in what we are thinking and doing. As long as this machine functions without causing harm to other machines, to other living beings, then that’s enough.

The Abhidhamma lists eighty-nine different kinds of consciousness. Should I study the Abhidhamma?

Yes, study. Only, make sure that you study the Abhidhamma and consciousness within the broader context of the Buddha’s teachings on suffering and the end of suffering; don’t study the Abhidhamma just as an isolated academic subject. That’s a waste of time. And when you’re ready to learn, really ready, I will teach you and clarify any of your doubts.

I won’t just get confused? The Abhidhamma seems to be way beyond my powers of thinking.

The Abhidhamma is not beyond your abilities and I’d be surprised if studying it leads to a great deal of confusion. After all, I managed to get through the Abhidhamma! And a little bit of confusion is healthy, a good way to learn, as you’ll need to have discussions with meditators who have a solid understanding of it. Approach the Abhidhamma as a practical teaching.

To whatever extent we talk about consciousness, we can keep on talking about it. We need to shift our attention away from harmful objects and direct it towards beneficial ones.

You assume that I know the difference between harmful and beneficial. Yet, I don’t know and spend much effort attempting to distinguish which is which.

Harmful, akusala in Pali, means that you are acting against your best interests. You are your own worst enemy. Instead of looking out for your welfare, you engage in harmful actions which increase your suffering here and now, and may even result in an unhappy future birth. In contrast, beneficial, kusala, means you are engaging in courses of action that are in your best interests. You reduce your suffering right now and quite possibly take a happy future birth, maybe as a deva or again as a human. Not as an animal. It’s beneficial to be generous, kind, and compassionate. We know this. And it’s harmful to chase after the sensual pleasures that we find in our sense-sphere plane. This shouldn’t be news!

When we shift our attention away from objects of the sense-sphere realm and towards an object of the fine-material realm, our hindrances are suppressed and we enter into the fine-material jhànas. Samàdhi arises. And when we shift our attention away from the object of the fourth fine-material jhàna and direct it towards the sphere of boundless space, the sphere of boundless space arises. Progressing, attention is then shifted away from boundless space towards boundless consciousness, then away from boundless consciousness towards nothingness, and finally away from nothingness towards neither-perception-nor-non-perception. If we do not direct our attention towards the objects of the fine-material and the immaterial realms, the higher mentality of fine-material and the immaterial realms will not arise it cannot be attained. Even the arising of the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception was not satisfactory for the Buddha, as two questions remained unanswered, “What is kusala and what is akusala? What is beneficial and what is harmful?” So, the Buddha left his teacher Alàra Kalama to find a more satisfactory attainment. Did he finally answer his questions? Did he find a more satisfactory attainment? “Yes,” said the Buddha. “It’s the attainment of extinction – nibbàna.”