The Five Skandhas: The five aggregates of all physical and mental elements in the phenomenal world: form (matter), feeling, perception, impulses or volition, consciousness. (Tanahashi, 285)Sokushi rishi: being one with this, while being free from this. (Ibid., 262)
"Binding the self with no rope:" although there is in reality nothing to bind the mind with, a person is bound up with his or her own delusions (loc. cit.).
Buddha body: the three bodies of one buddha — indescribable body, or absolute aspect of truth; enjoyment, bliss body, or purified body, associated with the fruit of practice; and manifestation body that appears in the world and acts for the benefit of beings. The buddha body that has these three aspects is also known as the true human body. (Ibid., 266)
Dharma: l) ultimate law, reality, or truth; 2) teaching of truth, one of the three treasures; 3) a thing, all things, or phenomena. (Ibid., 275)
"Dropping away:" perfect freedom beyond allusion and enlightenment. Practice of nonattachment to body, mind, practice or enlightenment. (Ibid., 277)
| 3.0000 | Relation between Mind and Consciousness |
|---|---|
| 3.0010 | By relation we mean "an aspect or quality (as resemblance) that connects two or more things or parts as being or belonging or working together as being of the same kind; specif.: a property (as expressed by is equal to, is less than, or is the brother of) that holds between an ordered pair of objects." (Woolf) |
| 3.0012 | By mind we mean the organizational principle of the brain (cf. 0.1230). |
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| 3.1000 | Consciousness |
| 3.1001 | By consciousness we mean the organizational principle of the mind. (Ouspensky) This organizational principle we generally label awareness. Woolf, Hilgard) |
| 3.1100 | The nature of consciousness is analogous to light. The analogy between consciousness and light lacks one-to-one correlation at the point of finitude/infinitude. Light by current definition is finite in reference to its speed. Yet, contemporary science is understanding that this definition of light in terms of speed does not actually define light. Other evidence of light data suggests that light, as a wave or particle, comprises everything. |
| 3.1110 | We know that consciousness permeates all that is. By extension, it permeates all that is-not as well. Consciousness, then, is the enlightening principle of existing/non-existing reality in the same way as energy is the enlightening principle of matter and sense data is the contential principle of mind. |
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| 3.1200 | Light appears in various hues when we see it through a prism. Just as we have given labels to various hues, so too is the case with consciousness. |
| 3.1210 | Listed here are the approximate wave lengths of light given in nanometers (one billionth of a meter) set in the color spectrum. We understand that these quantative figures are absolute as other figures are in the designation of the freezing/boiling points of water.We see as well the color-label and, by analogy, the corresponding consciousness-label. |
| 3.1211 | 400- | Ultra-violet | Ultra-consciousness | |
| 3.1212 | 415 | Violet | ||
| 3.1213 | 480 | Blue | Transcendental Consciousness | |
| 3.1214 | 490 | Blue-Green | ||
| 3.1215 | 521 | Green | Super-normal Consciousness | |
| 3.1216 | 560 | Yellow-Green | ||
| 3.1217 | 573 | Yellow | Consciousness | |
| 3.1218 | 590 | Orange-Yellow | ||
| 3.1218 | 607 | Orange | Sub-consciousness | |
| 3.1219 | 650 | Red | ||
| 3.1220 | 700+ | Infra-red | Infra-consciousness | |
| Return to Index |
| 3.1300 | Ultra-violet light we know exists, but it is beyond our visual perceptive abilities. Ultra-consciousness is the same. We know it exists, but it is beyond our perceptual ability to have knowledge of its existence. Our ability to have knowledge is a property of other states of consciousness (See 3.1600). |
| 3.1301 | It is known by many labels, such as mystical knowing, poetic rapture, cosmic understanding. Some of us experience ultra-consciousness more often than others. Some of us confuse this consciousness band with other states of awareness. See 3.1602 for further discussion. |
| 3.1302 | Let us say that in the ultra-conscious state, we know our absolute oneness and unity within/out all that is and is not. In one word, we know. |
| 3.1303 | This band is the realm of investigation for metapersonal psychology. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.1400 | Blue light is visible to our senses. Transcendental Consciousness is equally experiential. Some of us may be familiar with a school in Literature represented by the "Transcendalists," poets such as Thoreau. |
| 3.1401 | This band of consciousness involves Intuition, the immediate apprehension of another or the environment. One of its functions is intuitive understanding or empathic understanding. |
| 3.1402 | This is the band of investigation for Transpersonal Psychology. |
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| 3.1500 | Just as we can perceive the color green, so too can we perceive Super-normal Consciousness. |
| 3.1501 | This band of consciousness we use for reasoning or intellectual functioning that we "put on a back burner to simmer or cook until we need the product." We each have had the experience of allowing ourself to think through a problem out of the realm of what we normally call conscious awareness. |
| 3.1502 | Super-normal Consciousness is also the realm of what we call conscience, the "little voice" that says yea or nea to what we are doing within the context of "good and bad." |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.1600 | Yellow light equates with that we normally know as consciousness or awareness. Most of us are in this band more than some others on the planet. Most of us confuse this band of consciousness with the totality of consciousness. Just as mind can be taken to mean one human's mind or the generic mind of, let's say, the Human Mind or the Cosmic Mind, so too with consciousness. |
| 3.1601 | This is the band for conscious reasoning and the function of the Intellect. We limit our thinking processes and intellectual functions to this band and the Super-normal Conscious band. We use this band to gain knowledge and to process information of the external world as we live in this phenomenal realm of being. |
| 3.1602 | Thought and intellect are our means for surviving in and later living in this phenomenal realm. Yet, they are not our only means as we know some of us can be highly intuitive and be highly successful (a la 1986 U.S.A.), and yet have very little formal education or even measurable "high" intellectual scores. How many financial successes has the American economy allowed who have had less than an eighth grade education? |
| 3.1603 | We each have had the experience of trying to think of an answer consciously or to make a design plan — both of which end in frustration as they can (and some say often do) run counter to the natural intuitive flow of things. |
| 3.1634 | This band, the Super-normal and the Sub-conscious are the bands of investigation for the Humanistic-Existential Psychologies. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.1700 | Red is analogous to the Sub-conscious band of consciousness. As with the Super-normal Conscious band, we do experience its effect. |
| 3.1710 | There are two designated bands of Sub-consciousness. |
| 3.1711 | The band of Habit is the band wherein we store all those actions (physical or mental — thoughts and thought patterns) we do without conscious intervention. Examples we find in tying a shoe lace, walking, thinking good thoughts, various skills we have or compulsions we some times fight against or to get rid of, as we might fight to get rid of fighting itself. |
| 3.1712 | The band of Instinct is the band of emotion, wants, and desires. Here we find aggression, competition, love, anger, happiness, and so forth. By emotion we refer to any physiological stirring toward or away from some mental or physical phenomena. An example is the stirrings in our lower belly area when we see someone we experience an attraction to or repulsion from. Our biological cravings for food, drink, and sex also we find here. |
| 3.1713 | This band is the band of investigation for the Psychoanalytic school. It would seem that its designation of a Super-Ego would equate with the Super-normal Conscious band, but the Psycho-analytic school does not admit to a classification of consciousness as we present here. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.1800 | Infra-consciousness, just as Infra-red, is outside the realm of our perception. |
| 3.1801 | This is the realm of our primordial consciousness found expressed in our cellular and molecular functioning. |
| 3.1802 | In this realm of elemental Laws of Attraction and Stimulus/Response do Behavioristic schools find their analog. |
| 3.1803 | Within this realm of consciousness the Ultra-conscious joins the Infra-conscious. Here Life makes itself known as it turns itself from the organic into the inorganic, imaging the curvature, non-linear aspect of space. This is the realm of particle physics, of hydrons and quarks — where non-being becomes being as the edge of space becomes non-space, and given space, where matter "pops" into being from non-being, where energy transformation is the norm. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.1900 | A schema of what we have seen we now draw: |
| 3.1910 | Please let us realize that this schema is only a schema. It does not picture consciousness nor the mind as it is. Mind and consciousness, just as the universe, have we humans mapped time and time again. These maps are not necessarily absolute. |
| 3.1911 | This schema, as all other schemata and theoretical constructs depicting reality exist only in the reasoning/ thinking and intellectual domains of what we perceive and label as our phenomenal reality. |
| 3.1912 | In the same instance, let us keep in mind the absolute integrity of all that is and is not. All is one. Consciousness is one as is mind and both are manifestations of one reality, as each of us is in our individuality and humanity. |
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| 3.2000 | Act of Consciousness |
| 3.2010 | Act implies actor. There is an actor who performs consciousness. The actor is in a dilemma situation with consciousness. |
| 3.2011 | The human actor is conscious of his or her action, whether the action is conscious or not conscious. We are aware of what we are doing whether we are aware of our awareness or not. Consciousness, by its very nature, is a meta-function and a function. |
| 3.2012 | Being human is being conscious — on all levels simultaneously. We grow in our consciousness of our own consciousness. Eventually, we know ourself to be conscious even when we act, as we would say, unconsciously. |
| 3.2013 | Said in another way, we know what we are doing even if we might not have knowledge of what we are doing. This idea includes even the effects of our actions, conscious or not. |
| 3.2014 | In our growing into being consciously conscious of our consciousness, we must see through the illusionary effect of what we saw above (3.1904) as the Conscious band of Consciousness. When we awaken our intellectual functions, we naturally tend to make Reason or Intellect our MIND and pay homage to our thought, concepts, ideas. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.2100 | The act of consciousness is life itself making itself manifest in however and whatever form it is so doing now. |
| 3.2101 | This act could be a star becoming a super nova or an itch on an arm, a seed germinating or a human sitting quietly looking at the myriad of life-forms in a tide pool. |
| 3.2102 | The act of consciousness, then, is not so much a what, but more so the doing of the what. In so far as we can say that we were not aware, by default are we attesting our unconditional awareness. |
| 3.2103 | At this moment we can be aware that we are reading these words and we can be aware now of our awareness of reading. In this same moment, we can be aware through our consciousness on any one, all, or a combination of "levels" of consciousness. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.3000 | The Content of Consciousness |
| 3.3001 | When referring to content, we imply that it is somehow inside the container. The contained and the container. |
| 3.3002 | In reality, we make use of the expression "content of consciousness" more to assuage our intellectual/thinking modes of consciousness rather than to explicate the exact nature of consciousness. |
| 3.3003 | We saw above 3.1900) the various modes of consciousness. We have also discussed the absolute, intrinsic integrity of consciousness (3.1912). In this regard, we know that there is no actual "inside" that can hold a content. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.3100 | When we discussed sense data "in" the brain/mind (2.3147), we saw how energy/mass ratio is in direct proportion to sense data/sense impulse. As energy and mass are the two sides of one coin, so too is the "content" of consciousness the other side of the act of consciousness. |
| 3.3110 | A picture of what we are saying takes this form:
|
| Energy | = | Act of Consciousness |
| Mass | = | Content of Consciousness |
| 3.3111 | Everything that is and is not is "held in awareness" whether we are intellectually/consciously aware of this being the case or not. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.3200 | A picture that a bit more depicts the actuality is:
|
| Energy | = | Sense Data/Mind | = | Consciousness/Act |
| Mass | = | Sense Impulse/Brain | = | Consciousness/Content
|
| 3.3201 | Energy and Mass are one in the same. Mind and Brain with attending Sense Data and Impulse are one in the same. Consciousness in Act and in Content are one in the same. |
| 3.3202 | As energy and mass transform, so too does all other apparent facets of what we intellectually label "reality." |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4000 | The Functions of Consciousness |
| 3.4001 | We discussed the meaning of function in 2.2011. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4100 | Cognition |
| 3.4101 | By cognition we mean "the act or process of knowing including both awareness and judgment." |
| 3.4110 | The Two-fold Modality of Cognition |
| 3.4111 | The act or process of cognition is generally held to be two-fold. "These two ways (modes) of thinking, the way of time and history and the way of eternity and timelessness, are both part of man's efforts to comprehend the world in which he lives. Neither is comprehended in the other not reducible to it. ... each supplementing the other — neither telling the whole story." (Oppenheimer, 69) |
| 3.4112 | We cannot present a binary classification of action or process. At best, all we can do is present tendencies and specializations. Ornstein, 67) The following list, giving the name of the originator and the tendency/specialization spectrum, we suggest enter your cognitive system via your Intuitive mode of consciousness. |
| 3.4113 | Schema of Cognitive Processing:
|
| Assagioli: | Intellect | Intuition |
| Bacon: | Argument | Experience |
| Bateson: | Digital | Analogic |
| Blackburn: | Intellectual | Sensuous |
| Boyer: | Propositional | Appositional |
| Bruner: | Rational | Metamorphic |
| Deikman: | Active | Receptive |
| Demhoff: | Right (Brain) | Left (Brain) |
| Freud: | Secondary Process | Primary Process |
| Goldstein: | Abstract | Concrete |
| Guilford: | Convergent | Divergent |
| Humphrey: | Propositional | Imaginative |
| I Ching: | The Creative | The Receptive |
| I Ching: | Masculine (Yang) | Feminine (Yin) |
| I Ching: | Light | Dark |
| I Ching: | Time | Space |
| Lee: | Linear | Nonlinear |
| Levy: | Analytic | Gestalt |
| Luria: | Sequential | Simultaneous |
| Many Sources: | Day | Night |
| Many Sources: | Intellectual | Intuitive |
| Many Sources: | Verbal | Spacial |
| Maslow: | Rational | Intuitive |
| Neisen: | Sequential | Parallel |
| Oppenheimer: | Time | Eternity |
| Oppenheimer: | History | Timelessness |
| Polanyi: | Explicit | Tacit |
| Sechnon: | Successive | Simultaneous |
| Semmes: | Focal | Diffuse |
| Vedanta: | Buddi | Manas |
| 3.4114 | In 3.1210 we discussed Modes of Consciousness in terms of nanometers designating the wave lengths of light. In the schema that follows, we expand our conceptualization of consciousness, here, in terms of cognitive functioning: |
| 3.4115 | Schema of Waves Sensating a Human Organism: |
| 10-18.0 to 10-16.0 | Cosmic Rays |
| 10-14.0 to 10-10.0 | Gamma Rays |
| 10-12.0 to 10-08.0 | X Rays |
| 10-08.0 to 10-04.0 | Light |
| 10-08.0 to 10-06.5 | Ultra Violet |
| 10-06.5 to 10-05.5 | Visible Light* |
| 10-05.5 to 10-04.0 | Infra Red |
| 10-04.0 to 10+06.0 | Radio Waves |
| 00 to 03 | FM |
| 03 to 10+01.0 | TV |
| 10+02.5 to 10+03.5 | AM |
| 3.4116 | There are many waves that hit the eye, but, by design of our eyes coordinated with our brain, we see only a very limited (*) band. So is it true with our cognitive ability."The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds." (Laing) |
| 3.4117 | What we have been implying and now state explicitly is that what we have knowledge of cognitively is very limited. Yet, our knowing knows no limit. As we shall see in a moment, the phenomenal realm in which we are now inhabiting limits our cognitive processing of information. Our cognitive processing is but one of our basic tools of our consciousness that we can, but do not necessarily have to, employ to live and survive in this, our experienced phenomenal realm of being. |
| 3.4118 | As we saw with consciousness in general that we are conscious even if we are not aware that we are conscious, so too with our cognitive functioning of consciousness. The ground of our being-in-the-world is that we know basically that we do not know too much, if anything. It is in our knowing that we do not know that we find our ability to make judgements and acquire information (i.e., knowledge) in a way consonant with the reality of our present being-in-the-world. |
| 3.4119 | The cognitive functioning of consciousness, then, we can say is pretty much the realm of what we have labeled the Super-normal, Conscious, and Sub-conscious modes of Consciousness (3.1903ff). |
| 3.4110 | When we read from the Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra (1.6421) we encountered "There in emptiness, no form, ... No cognition..." When discussing what we labeled as Ultra-consciousness (3.1300), we encountered the realm of knowing without necessitating gaining or having knowledge. In what some would call a word game, and in a sense it is, we can describe our situation in the phenomenal realm as: once we have lost all our knowledge, we know and once we know nothing, emptiness, we have knowledge of all. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4120 | Cognitive Competence |
| 3.4121 | Another name for cognitive competence is intelligence. Intelligence we traditionally define "operationally as the ability to answer items on tests of intelligence." (Waters) We tend to get caught in our definitions — a tautology given our general perception of intelligence. |
| 3.4122 | A paradigm is "the shared conceptions of what is possible, the boundaries of acceptable inquiry, the limiting cases." Ornstein) There has been a paradigm shift toward another understanding of intelligence. "Cognitive competence is better described in terms of a set of abilities, talents,or mental skills ..." We each have every skill, "individuals differ in degree of skill and in the nature of their combination." Waters) |
| 3.4123 | This understanding generates a definition of what we now label Multiple Intelligences. In this instance "an intelligence entails the ability to solve problems and fashion products that are of consequence in a particular cultural setting." These intelligences are (human) species wide and thus are biologically grounded. By a combining evidence from brain research (especially with the brain damaged), human development studies, evolution and cross-cultural comparisons have we come to identify these intelligences. Waters) |
| 3.4124 | List of Multiple Intelligences (Link): |
| 3.4124a | Musical Intelligence |
| 3.4124b | Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence |
| 3.4124c | Logical-Mathematical Intelligence |
| 3.4124d | Linguistic Intelligence |
| 3.4124e | Spatial Intelligence |
| 3.4124f | Interpersonal Intelligence |
| 3.4124g | Intrapersonal Intelligence |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4130 | Multiple Intelligences |
| 3.4131 | Musical Intelligence is a species-wide phenomenon as we evidence its universal, trans-historical experience in human affairs. We know that the right hemisphere of our brain involves the perception and production of music. In "primitive" tribes today and from evidence we have from the Stone Age Civilizations, birdsong was a primary communication tool with other species. Studies in infant development suggest that we develop a "raw computational" musical ability early on. Our ability to appreciate, understand, and communicate in music shows one way in which we can intelligently manipulate our environment to attain an end. All we need to do is to sit back and listen to Bach, for example, and let him in his music communicate with us. |
| 3.4132 | Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence is our ability to use our body to express an emotion — as we do in dance, to play a particular sport, or to create something new — as in inventing some new product. We control our body movements in the motor cortex of the dominant hemisphere of our brain. The following description of how we hit a tennis ball aptly depicts Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence:
"At the moment the ball leaves the server's racket, the brain calculates approximately where it will land and where the racket will intercept it. This calculation includes the initial velocity of the ball, combined with an input for the progressive decrease in velocity and the effect of wind and after the bounce of the ball. Simultaneously, muscle orders are given: not just once, but constantly with refined and updated information. The muscles must cooperate. A movement of the feet occurs, the racket is taken back, the face of the racket kept at a constant angle. Contact is made at a precise point that depends on whether the order was given to hit down the line or cross-court, an order not given until after a split-second analysis of the movement and balance of the opponent. |
| 3.4133 | Logical-Mathematical Intelligence has been the base for the traditional measurement of intelligence in terms of an I.Q. score. This intelligence involves problem-solving. Problem-solving is a rapid function that involves the sorting of and dealing with many variables at once. This variables-handling process leads to the human's creation of one or more hypothesis that we can evaluate, accept or reject, and act accordingly. We also know of the non-verbal notions of this intelligence. (C.f. 3.1500) |
| 3.4134 | Linguistic Intelligence falls in line with the general stance of traditional psychology. We locate this intelligence in Broca's Area of our brain wherein we produce grammatical sentences. We use the left hemisphere for linguistic processing. |
| 3.4135 | Spatial Intelligence we readily note in those of us who excel at playing chess or in the visual arts, for example. We can also note Spatial Intelligence when we look at one object from several different angles. We find we need to employ our Spatial Intelligence when we read navigational maps and for navigation in general. A blind person uses Spatial Intelligence in use of tactile modality for purposeful movement. We locate this intelligence in the right hemisphere of our brain. |
| 3.4136 | We experience our Interpersonal Intelligence in our core capacity to notice differences in others: contrasts in the moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions of others. We find a classic example of this intelligence in Ann Sullivan's workings with Helen Keller, who could not process language. Ann had to read Helen to turn Helen from a "wild savage" into a "civilized human." In its advanced form, we can read the intentions and desires of another, even in those instances where the other human attempts to hide his or her "true" motivations. This intelligence we locate in the frontal lobe of our brain. |
| 3.4137 | Intrapersonal Intelligence is our knowledge of the internal aspects of our being here and now, where and whenever that may be. Through this intelligence we gain access to our feeling life and our emotional range. It is "our capacity to effect discrimination among these emotions and eventually label them and to draw them as a means of understanding and guiding (our) own behavior." We also locate this intelligence on the frontal lobe of our brain. |
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| 3.4200 | Affection |
| 3.4201 | By affection we mean "the feeling aspect (as in pleasure or displeasure) of consciousness." Woolf) |
| 3.4202 | By feeling we mean "lb. generalized bodily consciousness or sensation; c. appreciative or responsive awareness or recognition. 3a. the undifferentiated background of one's awareness considered apart from any identifiable sensation, perception, or thought; b. the overall quality of one's awareness; c. conscious recognition: sense." (Ibid.) |
| 3.4210 | Awareness of how we feel, the experience of our being in this phenomenal realm, we can have in any mode of consciousness. |
| 3.4220 | As we evolve individually and as a species, our experience of our being-in-the-world evolves accordingly. In time we can experience, we can feel, the innate oneness and unity of our being-in-being. |
| 3.4230 | Affection involves scope of attention. The wider our scope, the more pervasive is our affection. |
| 3.4231 | For example, when we become conscious of our responsibility for the human race, we feel not so much "my" humanity, but "our" humanity — the commonality of our experience being human. |
| 3.4240 | If the scope of our attention is more immediate and focused, given the appropriate mode of consciousness, we can be conscious of how another is experiencing/feeling the moment. We label this common experience empathy. |
| 3.4250 | The function of our consciousness in terms of affection we can better grasp if we perceive our body as a nerve. As we in our body move through space/time, we are interacting within the environment in the same way as the environment is interacting with us in our body. What some of us have found interesting about experiencing the world is that we can consciously block the affective mode, just as we can block the cognitive and conative modes (cf. 3.4300). Our human ability to feel is in direct proportion to the amount of the environment we wish either to be cognizant of and/or conative about, given the triaxial nature of the function of consciousness. |
| 3.4251 | The affective domain is but one other way we have to interact with others and the environment. How we interact can be lacking affection. When this is so, then either the cognitive or conative domains become out of balance. We then experience ourself as being either "All Intellectual" or "All Powerful." Others may tend to perceive us as the Egghead or the Tyrant. |
| 3.4252 | On the other hand, if we were to block, let us say, the cognitive domain and activate the affective and conative, others may perceive us as the Spoiled Brat, yelling, screaming, and shouting to get what we want. |
| 3.4253 | Or, if we were to block the conative domain, functioning from the affective and cognitive, we could be well perceived as a Wishy Washy Wimp. |
| 3.4260 | Having taken this particular reflective perspective, we now shift the general direction of our discussion. |
| 3.4261 | Of the three functions of Consciousness, it is this domain that we (Westerners) most abuse, take advantage of, ignore, and deny. A case could well be made that because this is so about us in this culture, have we created the need for healers, shamans, and the like. Our bodies hold in our feeling, our affection. This holding in expresses itself in aches and pains of varying degrees and kinds in direct proportion to the intensity of the unexpressed affective component. |
| 3.4262 | Also, we find ourself in the midst of an addicted society, having lost consciousness of the "simple pleasures of life." Alcohol, caffeine, nicotine are our socially accepted means of escaping the reality of the moment. Heavier drugs like cocaine, heroin, and methadrine are our socially unaccepted means of escaping. |
| 3.4263 | On another level, we find ourselves addicted to the acquisition of money, status, and power to the exclusion of the "human component." |
| 3.4264 | The addictive personality type cannot feel too much, if at all, outside the realm of his or her own reality, which is filled with pain (psychic or physical, in reality, both) blocking full self expression. |
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| 3.4300 | Conation |
| 3.4301 | By conation we mean "an inclination to act purposefully." |
| 3.4302 | By inclination we mean "a particular disposition of mind." |
| 3.4303 | By purposefully we mean "having a purpose or aim." |
| 3.4304 | By purpose we mean "something set up as an object to be attained: Intention." (Woolf) |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4310 | Another name for conation is intentionality. Behind the above definitions is a sense of "giving meaning." Why am I doing this? For what end? And behind that end, why am I doing this? Why are you doing what you are doing? Whatever answer we give, even if it is a non-answer (like "just to do it"), is a statement of our intention. |
| 3.4320 | This may seem obvious to us and yet we may experience much confusion because we do not either have or maintain a clear intention about what we are doing—even if it is a non-intention of "just to do." We can find ourself doing things we suddenly wake-up and say, "Why am I doing THIS! I don't want to be doing this at all." |
| 3.4321 | In addition, we may experience confusion because we are kidding ourself about what our intention is. We may think that x is our intention, when in reality it is y, and then again, maybe even z. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4330 | Our giving-meaning, stating our purpose, we can make from any level of consciousness. As with affection, our conation depends upon our scope. Also, giving-meaning is not necessarily a cognitive function alone. Walker) |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4340 | In a sense, our giving-meaning to what we do is our formatting the environment to be what it is in our phenomenal reality. What we do, the world we live in, and the people around us are neutral realities. What meaning our actions have, or the world has, or what other people mean to us is the product of our giving-meaning to each and everyone. |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4350 | When we scan our consciousness, we can often decipher several levels of giving-meaning. Some of these levels we are "proud of" and others we may wish would go away as they are an embarrassment to our self-esteem of who and what we may think we are. |
| 3.4351 | "The act and experience of consciousness itself is a continuous molding and remolding of our world, self-related to objects and objects to self in inseparable ways, self-participating in the world as well as observing it, neither pole of self or world being conceivable without the other." (May, 227) |
| 3.4360 | It is through conation what we make the world, our world and others make us in their world. We heal and are healed, we wound and are wounded. |
| 3.4361 | "The being with a consciousness must have a different role in quantum mechanics....the impression one gains at an interaction modifies the wave function of the system. The modified wave function is, furthermore, in general unpredictable before the impression gained at the interaction has entered our consciousness: it is the entering of an impression into our consciousness which alters the wave function because it modifies our appraisal of the probabilities for different impressions which we expect to receive in the future. (Wigner) |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.4370 | We may ask, "How do we intend, give meaning or purpose?" The faculty by which we do intend is Will (please refer to 2.2500 for a discussion on Willing). |
| Return to Index | |
| 3.5000 | Consciousness-Only School (Chan, 370ff) |
| 3.5001 | We discuss the most philosophical of the Buddhist schools to juxtapose another conception of consciousness with the one just discussed. |
| 3.5100 | The Consciousness-Only School posits eight consciousnesses. Each consciousness is in perpetual change and exerts an interdependent influence upon each other and through their interaction, upon or within this phenomenal realm. |
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| 3.5110 | The Eight Consciousnesses: |
| 3.5111 | The (traditional) Five Sense Consciousnesses. Each sense is a form of consciousness, an awareness of what is going on in the phenomenal realm. |
| 3.5112 | The Sense-Center Consciousness. From this center of consciousness one forms conceptions of any nature and source. |
| 3.5113 | The Thought-Center Consciousness. From this center of consciousness one wills and reasons on a self-centered basis. |
| 3.5114 | The Storehouse Consciousness (cf. 3.5211). This is the basic consciousness, storing and as sourcing the other seven consciousnesses. |
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| 3.5200 | The perpetual change of and within the eight consciousnesses involves a threefold transformational process. |
| 3.5201 | The three-fold transformational process is contemporaneous. |
| 3.5202 | This process is subject to the Law of Cause and Effect, Karma, in its speculative and non-historical, non-scientific sense. |
| 3.5210 | The Storehouse Consciousness Transformation |
| 3.5211 | The Storehouse Consciousness "stores the 'seed'" of the effects of good/bad deeds that have existed since the beginning of time. |
| 3.5212 | The effect of deeds stored in this consciousness is the energy to produce manifestations in this phenomenal realm. |
| 3.5213 | The Storehouse Consciousness is in a constant state of flux due to the constant influence of perceptions and cognitions from this phenomenal realm. |
| 3.5214 | In turn, the Storehouse Consciousness empowers these perceptions and cognitions to produce manifestations. |
| 3.5220 | The Thought-Center Consciousness Transformation |
| 3.5221 | The Thought-Center Consciousness transforms with the Storehouse Consciousness. |
| 3.5222 | The object of the Thought-Center Consciousness is the Storehouse Consciousness. |
| 3.5223 | The specialized function of this consciousness is intellectual deliberation. |
| 3.5224 | It is from this consciousness that we find attitudes and attending behaviors we might label "self-interest." |
| 3.5230 | The Five Sense-Consciousness and Sense-Center Consciousness Transformation |
| 3.5231 | From within this transformational process do we gain experience of the external world in that it involves discrimination and differentiation. |
| 3.5232 | These six consciousness have as their object the external world and, thus, are "crude, superficial, and discontinuous." |
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| 3.5300 | Four Functional Components of Consciousness |
| 3.5301 | The Objective Component or the seen. |
| 3.5302 | The Subjective Component or the seer. |
| 3.5303 | The Self-witnessing Component or the seer being aware of its seeing the seen. |
| 3.5304 | Rewitnessing Component or the seer being aware of its awareness of it seeing the seen. |
| 3.5310 | These four functions allow for individuation in this phenomenal realm as evidenced by three kinds of dharmas or elements of existence. |
| 3.5311 | First we have those "conceived by vast imagination" as we could imagine a dog with a set of antlers. Such products we would hold to be purely illusionary and, therefore, have a false existence. |
| 3.5312 | Next we have those that depend on others for their production. These would be theories (such as these here and others contained herein), procedures (as in medical) that have no nature of their own and thus no true existence. |
| 3.5313 | Lastly, we have those of the "nature of perfect reality." These are the only dharmas that have true existence. The perfect reality is the ultimate reality and the end of experiential enlightenment contained (in seed form) in the Storehouse Consciousness. |
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| 3.6000 | Japanese School of Hara (Breathing from the lower belly) |
| 3.6001 | "The synthesis as the oneness of subject and object does not have to be 'produced,' it is there underlying the reality. And only through this complete knowledge can it be brought to light. This must be a whole, an all-human knowledge which has its place neither in the head nor in the heart but in the center of the whole person. What belongs to the head or the heart alone is peripheral and therefore remote from Being. |
| 3.6002 | "The Primordial although it is in-dwelling in (the human's) deepest being does not in any way belong to him/her for it is universal and only loaned to (the person) by the highest Being. Therefore, our minds and bodies and our very lives, through the primordial Life Force, are dependent on the Absolute. We owe our whole existence never to ourselves but always to the Absolute. We ourselves are nothing; as nothing we belong to the Absolute. |
| 3.6003 | "When the Primal Force, ever working gradually within us, finally reaches the highest peak of its activity then out of the thick heavy fog of ordinary consciousness there bursts forth from the eternal Being the clearest possible state of consciousness — the one we have designated as the absolute and final degree of human experience (italics, ed.) Here no fixed form is perceptible, neither an object nor an I, neither an inner nor an outer, breathing is suspended, the bodily shell completely vanished. Here no body exists, no mind, neither man nor world. The ego is completely only at one with the world. What alone reigns in this experience is Universal. |
| 3.6004 | "The primal Force of Life, exactly like water rushing swiftly through a tube, streams from eternity to eternity whirling around the lower part of one's body. |
| 3.6005 | "The living recognition of our absolute dependence on the highest Being is the perfect phenomenon of ultimate self-awareness. In the beginning (humans) lost ... Paradise through becoming conscious of ... self. (S/he) can regain it only by achieving self-consciousness anew." (Von Durckheim, 207f) |
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| 3.7000 | Concluding Remarks on Consciousness |
| 3.7010 | Let us note that consciousness is a human experience. |
| 3.7011 | Consciousness is not something that happens to us or something that we engage in. We are the act of consciousness itself. |
| 3.7012 | Let us note that our awareness of Absolute Unity, known by us in many names, is a human experience. |
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| 3.7020 | Absolute Unity is not something that exists outside of our own being, nor is it something that exists in us. We are Absolute Unity. |
| 3.7021 | We are one before one and two. |
| 3.7022 | We experience our self-identity as absolute contradiction. |
| 3.7023 | All apparent contradictions resolve within our presence to our realization of who and what we are. |
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White Robed Monks of St. Benedict