The study of the mind in Eastern philosophy has parallels to the Western study of the Philosophy of mind as a branch of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

that studies the nature of the

mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

Dualism Dualism most commonly refers to: * Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another ** ...

and monism are the two central schools of thought on the mind–body problem in the Western tradition, although nuanced views have arisen that do not fit one or the other category neatly. Dualism is found in both Eastern and Western traditions (in the Sankhya and Yoga schools of

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

philosophy as well as Plato) but its entry into Western philosophy was thanks to René Descartes in the 17th century. This article on mind in eastern philosophy deals with this subject from the standpoint of eastern philosophy which is historically strongly separated from the Western tradition and its approach to the Western philosophy of mind.

Mind in Eastern philosophy

Mind in Hindu philosophy

Dualism

Substance Dualism Substance may refer to: * Matter, anything that has mass and takes up space Chemistry * Chemical substance, a material with a definite chemical composition * Drug substance ** Substance abuse, drug-related healthcare and social policy diagnosis o ...

is a common feature of several orthodox Hindu schools including the

Sāṅkhya ''Samkhya'' or ''Sankya'' (; Sanskrit सांख्य), IAST: ') is a dualistic school of Indian philosophy. It views reality as composed of two independent principles, ''puruṣa'' ('consciousness' or spirit); and ''prakṛti'', (nature ...

Nyāya (Sanskrit: न्याय, ''nyā-yá''), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment",Yoga and Dvaita Vedanta. In these schools a clear difference is drawn between matter and a non-material soul, which is eternal and undergoes samsara, a cycle of death and rebirth. The

Nyāya (Sanskrit: न्याय, ''nyā-yá''), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment",atman Atman or Ātman may refer to: Film * ''Ātman'' (1975 film), a Japanese experimental short film directed by Toshio Matsumoto * ''Atman'' (1997 film), a documentary film directed by Pirjo Honkasalo People * Pavel Atman (born 1987), Russian hand ...

. Many of these schools see their spiritual goal as moksha, liberation from the cycle of reincarnation.

Vedanta monistic idealism

In the Advaita Vedanta of the 8th century Indian philosopher

Śaṅkara Adi Shankara ("first Shankara," to distinguish him from other Shankaras)(8th cent. CE), also called Adi Shankaracharya ( sa, आदि शङ्कर, आदि शङ्कराचार्य, Ādi Śaṅkarācāryaḥ, lit=First Shanka ...

, the mind, body and world are all held to be appearances of the same unchanging eternal conscious entity called Brahman. Advaita, which means non-dualism, holds the view that all that exists is pure absolute consciousness. The fact that the world seems to be made up of changing entities is an illusion, or Maya. The only thing that exists is Brahman, which is described as Satchitananda (Being, consciousness and bliss). Advaita Vedanta is best described by a verse which states "Brahman is alone True, and this world of plurality is an error; the individual self is not different from Brahman." Another form of monistic Vedanta is Vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism) as posited by the eleventh century philosopher Ramanuja. Ramanuja criticized Advaita Vedanta by arguing that consciousness is always intentional and that it is also always a property of something. Ramanuja's Brahman is defined by a multiplicity of qualities and properties in a single monistic entity. This doctrine is called " samanadhikaranya" (several things in a common substrate).

Materialism

Arguably the first exposition of

empirical Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...

materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...

in the history of philosophy is in the

Cārvāka Charvaka ( sa, चार्वाक; IAST: ''Cārvāka''), also known as ''Lokāyata'', is an ancient school of Indian materialism. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, and conditional inference as proper sources of knowledge, embrace ...

school (also called Lokāyata). The Cārvāka school rejected the existence of anything but matter (which they defined as being made up of the four elements), including God and the soul. Therefore, they held that even consciousness was nothing but a construct made up of atoms. A section of the Cārvāka school believed in a material soul made up of air or breath, but since this also was a form of matter, it was not said to survive death.

Buddhist philosophy of mind

Buddhist teachings describe that the mind manifests moment-to-moment as sense impressions and mental phenomena that are continuously changing. The moment-by-moment manifestation of the mind-stream has been described as happening in every person all the time, even in a scientist who analyses various phenomena in the world, or analyses the material body including the organ brain. The manifestation of the mind-stream is also described as being influenced by physical laws, biological laws, psychological laws, volitional laws, and universal laws. A salient feature of Buddhist philosophy which sets it apart from Indian orthodoxy is the centrality of the doctrine of not-self ( Pāli. anatta, Skt. anātman). The Buddha's not-self doctrine sees humans as an impermanent composite of five psychological and physical aspects instead of a single fixed self. In this sense, what is called ego or the self is merely a convenient fiction, an illusion that does not apply to anything real but to an erroneous way of looking at the ever-changing stream of five interconnected aggregate factors., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) The relationship between these aggregates is said to be one of dependent-arising (

pratītyasamutpāda ''Pratītyasamutpāda'' (Sanskrit: प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद, Pāli: ''paṭiccasamuppāda''), commonly translated as dependent origination, or dependent arising, is a key doctrine in Buddhism shared by all schools of ...

). This means that all things, including mental events, arise co-dependently from a plurality of other causes and conditions. This seems to reject both causal determinist and

epiphenomenalist Epiphenomenalism is a position on the mind–body problem which holds that physical and Biochemistry, biochemical events within the human body (Sensory nervous system, sense organs, Neurotransmission, neural impulses, and muscle contractions, for e ...

conceptions of mind.

Abhidharma theories of mind

Three centuries after the death of the Buddha (c. 150 BCE) saw the growth of a large body of literature called the Abhidharma in several contending Buddhist schools. In the Abhidharmic analysis of mind, the ordinary thought is defined as

prapañca In Buddhism, conceptual proliferation (Pali language, Pāli: ; Sanskrit: ; zh, s=戏论, t=戲論, p=xìlùn; ja, 戯論) or, alternatively, mental proliferation or conceptual elaboration, refers to conceptualization of the world through language ...

('conceptual proliferation'). According to this theory, perceptual experience is bound up in multiple conceptualizations (expectations, judgments and desires). This proliferation of conceptualizations form our illusory superimposition of concepts like self and other upon an ever-changing stream of aggregate phenomena. In this conception of mind no strict distinction is made between the conscious faculty and the actual sense perception of various phenomena. Consciousness is instead said to be divided into six sense modalities, five for the

five senses A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system rec ...

and sixth for perception of mental phenomena. The arising of cognitive awareness is said to depend on sense perception, awareness of the mental faculty itself which is termed mental or 'introspective awareness' (''manovijñāna'') and attention (''āvartana''), the picking out of objects out of the constantly changing stream of sensory impressions. Rejection of a permanent agent eventually led to the philosophical problems of the seeming continuity of mind and also of explaining how rebirth and karma continue to be relevant doctrines without an eternal mind. This challenge was met by the Theravāda school by introducing the concept of mind as a factor of existence. This "life-stream" (

Bhavanga Bhavaṅga (Pali, "ground of becoming", "condition for existence"), also bhavanga-sota and bhavanga-citta is a passive mode of intentional consciousness (''citta'') described in the Abhidhamma of Theravada Buddhism. It is also a mental process wh ...

-sota) is an undercurrent forming the condition of being. The continuity of a karmic "person" is therefore assured in the form of a mindstream (citta-santana), a series of flowing mental moments arising from the subliminal life-continuum mind (

-citta), mental content, and attention.

Indian Mahayana

The Sautrāntika school held a form of

phenomenalism In metaphysics, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist in themselves, but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in sp ...

that saw the world as imperceptible. It held that external objects exist only as a support for cognition, which can only apprehend mental representations. This influenced the later Yogācāra school of

Mahayana Buddhism ''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing bra ...

. The Yogācāra school is often called the mind-only school because of its

internalist Internalism and externalism are two opposite ways of integration of explaining various subjects in several areas of philosophy. These include human motivation, knowledge, justification, meaning, and truth. The distinction arises in many areas of de ...

stance that consciousness is the ultimate existing reality. The works of Vasubandhu have often been interpreted as arguing for some form of Idealism. Vasubandhu uses the dream argument and a mereological refutation of atomism to attack the reality of external objects as anything other than mental entities., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Scholarly interpretations of Vasubandhu's philosophy vary widely, and include phenomenalism, neutral monism and

realist phenomenology Munich phenomenology (also Munich phenomenological school) is the philosophical orientation of a group of philosophers and psychologists that studied and worked in Munich at the turn of the twentieth century. Their views are grouped under the names ...

. The Indian Mahayana schools were divided on the issue of the possibility of reflexive awareness (''

svasaṃvedana In Buddhist philosophy, Svasaṃvedana (also ''Svasaṃvitti'') is a term which refers to the self-reflexive nature of consciousness. It was initially a theory of cognition held by the Mahasamghika and Sautrantika schools while the Sarvastivada- ...

''). Dharmakīrti accepted the idea of reflexive awareness as expounded by the Yogācāra school, comparing it to a lamp that illuminates itself while also illuminating other objects. This was strictly rejected by

Mādhyamika Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhis ...

scholars like Candrakīrti. Since in the philosophy of the Mādhyamika all things and mental events are characterized by emptiness, they argued that consciousness could not be an inherently reflexive ultimate reality since that would mean it was self-validating and therefore not characterized by emptiness. These views were ultimately reconciled by the 8th century thinker Śāntarakṣita. In Śāntarakṣita's synthesis he adopts the idealist Yogācāra views of reflexive awareness as a conventional truth into the structure of the two truths doctrine. Thus he states: "By relying on the Mind-Only system, know that external entities do not exist. And by relying on this Middle Way system, know that no self exists at all, even in that

ind Ind or IND may refer to: General * Independent (politician), a politician not affiliated to any political party * Independent station, used within television program listings and the television industry for a station that is not affiliated with ...

", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) The Yogācāra school also developed the theory of the repository consciousness (''ālayavijñāna'') to explain continuity of mind in rebirth and accumulation of karma. This repository consciousness acts as a storehouse for karmic seeds ( bija) when all other senses are absent during the process of death and rebirth as well as being the causal potentiality of dharmic phenomena. Thus according to

B. Alan Wallace Bruce Alan Wallace (born 1950) is an American author and expert on Tibetan Buddhism. His books discuss Eastern and Western scientific, philosophical, and contemplative modes of inquiry, often focusing on the relationships between science and Buddh ...

No constituents of the body—in the brain or elsewhere—transform into mental states and processes. Such subjective experiences do not emerge from the body, but neither do they emerge from nothing. Rather, all objective mental appearances arise from the substrate, and all subjective mental states and processes arise from the substrate consciousness.B. Alan Wallace
Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity
p. 95–96

Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan Buddhist theories of mind evolved directly from the Indian Mahayana views. Thus the founder of the Gelug school,

Je Tsongkhapa Tsongkhapa ('','' meaning: "the man from Tsongkha" or "the Man from Onion Valley", c. 1357–1419) was an influential Tibetan Buddhist monk, philosopher and tantric yogi, whose activities led to the formation of the Gelug school of Tibetan Budd ...

discusses the Yogācāra system of the

Eight Consciousnesses The Eight Consciousnesses (Skt. ''aṣṭa vijñānakāyāḥ'') is a classification developed in the tradition of the Yogācāra school of Mahayana Buddhism. They enumerate the five sense consciousnesses, supplemented by the mental consciousne ...

in his ''Explanation of the Difficult Points''., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) He would later come to repudiate Śāntarakṣita's pragmatic idealism. According to the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

the mind can be defined "as an entity that has the nature of mere experience, that is, 'clarity and knowing'. It is the knowing nature, or agency, that is called mind, and this is non-material.", From MindScience, edited by Daniel Goleman and Robert F. Thurman, first in 1991 by Wisdom Publications, Boston, USA. The simultaneously dual nature of mind is as follows: :: 1. Clarity (''gsal'') – The mental activity which produces cognitive phenomena (''snang-ba''). :: 2. Knowing (''rig'') – The mental activity of perceiving cognitive phenomena. The 14th Dalai Lama has also explicitly laid out his theory of mind as experiential dualism which is described above under the different types of dualism. Because Tibetan philosophy of mind is ultimately soteriological, it focuses on meditative practices such as

Dzogchen Dzogchen (, "Great Perfection" or "Great Completion"), also known as ''atiyoga'' ( utmost yoga), is a tradition of teachings in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Yungdrung Bon aimed at discovering and continuing in the ultimate ground of existence. ...

and Mahamudra that allow a practitioner to experience the true reflexive nature of their mind directly. This unobstructed knowledge of one's primordial, empty and non-dual Buddha nature is called

rigpa In Dzogchen, ''rigpa'' (; Skt. vidyā; "knowledge") is knowledge of the ground. The opposite of ''rigpa'' is ''ma rigpa'' ('' avidyā'', ignorance). A practitioner who has attained the state of ''rigpa'' and is able to rest there continuously ...

. The mind's innermost nature is described among various schools as pure luminosity or "clear light" ( 'od gsal) and is often compared to a crystal ball or a mirror.

Sogyal Rinpoche Sogyal Rinpoche (; 1947 – 28 August 2019) was a Tibetan Dzogchen lama. He was recognized as the incarnation of a Tibetan master and visionary saint of the 19th century, Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa. Sogyal Rinpoche was the founder and forme ...

speaks of mind thus: "Imagine a sky, empty, spacious, and pure from the beginning; its essence is like this. Imagine a sun, luminous, clear, unobstructed, and spontaneously present; its nature is like this."

Zen Buddhism

The central issue in Chinese Zen philosophy of mind is in the difference between the pure and awakened mind and the defiled mind. Chinese Chan master Huangpo described the mind as without beginning and without form or limit while the defiled mind was that which was obscured by attachment to form and concepts., Philosophy East and West, V. 28, No. 1 (January 1978), pp. 69–79, University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii, USA. The pure Buddha-mind is thus able to see things "as they truly are", as absolute and non-dual "thusness" ( Tathatā). This non-conceptual seeing also includes the paradoxical fact that there is no difference between a defiled and a pure mind, as well as no difference between samsara and nirvana. In the Shobogenzo, the Japanese philosopher Dogen argued that body and mind are neither ontologically nor phenomenologically distinct but are characterized by a oneness called ''shin jin'' (bodymind). According to Dogen, "casting off body and mind" (''Shinjin datsuraku'') in zazen will allow one to experience things-as-they-are (''genjokoan'') which is the nature of original enlightenment ('' hongaku'')., Philosophy East and West 35, no. 1 (January 1985), University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii, USA.

References

External links

* * *

compiled by David Chalmers.
MindPapers: A Bibliography of the Philosophy of Mind and the Science of Consciousness
compiled by David Chalmers (Editor) & David Bourget (Assistant Editor).
Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind
edited by Chris Eliasmith.
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind
by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.

compiled by David Chalmers
Field guide to the Philosophy of Mind
from the Indian Psychology series by Swami Veda Bharati. {{Authority control Philosophy of mind Eastern philosophy