Psychology and cognition in Buddhism

Hemi Sync; Buddho (buddho.nl/en) edited by Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

 

The cognitive process according to the Abhidharma 

Words like citta (moment of consciousness) and cetasika (attendant mental factor) can sound quite abstract. (See Ultimate Reality and Ethical Quality in the Abhidhamma). Our own experience is, it is supposed, not a bunch of independent cittas but a dynamic process.

 

Citta and cetasika come to life when we look at the cognitive process that takes place in our daily lives. Maybe we already think we know enough about the functioning of our consciousness. After all, we experience it from the inside on a daily basis.

 

But it's good to examine the following explanation carefully and to think about it from time to time during the day. Right-view (samma-ditthi) is not always easy to intuit.

 

This is because our views are conditioned by an enormous number of akusala (unwholesome) cittas. Most of us will probably not experience kusala (wholesome) cittas more than a fraction of the time. Therefore, basing our views on the remaining 99.9% of akusala cittas, we see where we end up. 

 

The Abhidharma can help form cracks in our habitual and hardened wrong views so that they can be replaced in the future with liberating right views.

 

Before explaining the cognitive process, it's useful to clarify one point -- the usefulness of studying the Abhidhamma or "Higher Doctrine, the Dharma in Ultimate Terms. Three steps can be undertaken to correct one pernicious wrong view, namely, the wrong view that there is an "I" or "self."

 

Almost everyone holds this wrong view, many quite tenaciously. It is technically called "conceit" (mana). How could it be that there is no I, self, or mine? This wrong view is deeply rooted. And three gradations of it can be distinguished before a correct view is arrived at and established.

 

Self: The wrong view “This is me” 

Everybody thinks about the "why" question of life and, by extension, about "who" or "what" we really are. Not everyone continues  with this until a precisely defined understanding emerges, but we will have formed an idea about it.

 

This idea is the philosophical framework on which we base the concept of "I." We might think, for example, that we are nothing more than matter. After all, we are composed of countless bits (cells) that die at some point. We might think that after death there is nothing more and that even before we were born there was nothing.

 

With this view, opinion, outlook we have already devised a whole system to which we link a "self," a point of view, a frame of reference, a clinging to wrong view.

 

Some theorists, philosophers, and theologians will refer to this. Others will say, “That’s just the way it is” and be done with it.

 

The intensity doesn’t make much difference to my story. What is more important is that this idea, this framework, is a point of view, a viewpoint that we’ve created/devised ourselves, emphasis on "devised." We've fabricated it.

 

It is nothing more than a construct, a concept, a theory, an idea, a view; it has nothing to do with reality. After all, we don’t know for sure. If we experience reality from our own experience, we would know for sure.

 

Now, based on this made-up framework, we become convinced that there is an "I." Of course, it's the experiencer, the recipient of the results of karma, the watcher, the feeler, the thing that goes out of existence at death and enters existence at rebirth.

 

This deeply rooted and misconceived belief is the first and worst gradation of the mistaken view that there is an "I." We could call it the "this is me" view, because we have an idea of what we are.

 

The wrong view “I am” 

If we start engaging with Buddhism, we soon notice that "non-self" is often talked about.

 

It is also often said that our own perception is very subjective and that we have to be careful not to draw conclusions based on subjective experience prematurely.

 

Even drawing conclusions based on deep meditative experience must be cautioned against, and those experiences must be taken with a grain of salt. We can step into the trap of thinking we have already acquired complete wisdom while taking only a small step.

 

That's why a teacher is important. Without a teacher who has achieved the necessary direct experience, we can easily get sidetracked or stuck somewhere because it is nice to stay without yet having reached the goal of complete liberation.

 

What is possible, however, is that sufficient experience in meditation, for example the repetition of the word buddho, provides confidence. Trust in the Dharma, the way of practice taught by the Buddha.

 

We notice that meditation helps us in daily life. Step by step we notice that things we have read in Buddhist books apply to us.

 

This can help us stop generating theories about "self." It's not that we immediately see that everything is impersonal -- nothing more than conditioned (dependently arisen) moments that are transient and unsatisfactory -- but we accept on the basis of personal meditation experience that our perception and our idea of an "I" might be wrong.

 

If we stop making and adhering to a theories and philosophies of "I," we have left the worst form of mistaken perception of a self behind us. We’ve taken a step toward right view, but we haven’t experienced non-self yet.

 

This is the second degree of misconception that an "I" exists. We could call it the "I am" view, because we only accept that we are.

 

The wrong view “I” 

By continuing to work with the insight meditation system (vipassana) with energetic perseverance, there will automatically come a moment when we get a first experience of non-self.

 

We see for a few moments that we are a collection of loose mental elements (cittas and cetasikas) and matter (rūpa, fundamental qualities of materiality, constituent elements) that appear only to serve a function and perish based on supporting conditions. In other words, we see the rise and fall of mental processes and matter or nāma-rūpa. 

 

This further destroys the idea of an “I,” but we are not there yet.

 

When we rise from meditation and look into the world around us, we see with our own eyes, smell with our own nose, taste with our own tongue. We know with certainty that, based on our own direct experience, there is no "I," even though in daily life it feels as if it is an "I" that perceives things.

This is the third and most subtle form of misunderstanding. We could call it the "I" view -- a pernicious wrong view -- because in the most subtle ways we still think in terms of a "self," but no more than that. 

The final step
Luckily we have a teacher in the Buddha who points out that even the feeling of perception by a "self" is an illusion.

And by striving further, there comes a moment when even this subtle form of ego-thinking is destroyed and every form of longing and attachment to a self is abandoned as a painful illusion.

That is the moment right-view of non-self is achieved. This is part of the enlightenment process, the goal of the Buddhist eightfold path. 

Background information for the cognitive process
If reading up to here, it might be possible to imagine how stubborn the notion of an actually existing "I" is.

When the essence, the deep meaning of the Abhidharma, begins to penetrate, the first hairline crack in the "self" illusion or conceit can appear. The Abhidharma teaches that all things are composed conditioned transient moments. That is to say, there is actually no "me," no "self," no "mine."

It is a beautiful addition and deepening of one’s meditative experience to realize it and be free of the oppression of personalizing everything.

Let's look at the cognitive process. Since the cognitive process consists of a sequence of cittas, it is useful to repeat what we have learned about cittas so far:

1. A citta (consciousness moment) is an ultimate reality (paramattha-dhamma).
2. A citta is one of the four categories into which the Abhidharma divides ultimate reality, the other three being cetasikas (mental factors), rūpa (matter), and nirvana.
3. A citta is:
   1. mental
   2. conditioned
   3. impermanent
   4. impersonal (selfless)
4. Cittas and cetasikas:
   1. co-rise together (appear simultaneously)
   2. fall away together (disappear at the same time)
   3. have the same object
   4. have the same base
5. A citta knows the object, perceives the object. Cetasikas perform functions in the observation process. Citta is like a ruler, cetasikas an accompanying entourage.
6. Cittas exist in three ethical varieties:
   1. wholesome
   2. unwholesome
   3. indefinite
7. Cittas can be mundane or supramundane.
8. Cittas appear and disappear with incredible speed; billions of cittas pass in the blink of an eye.

The term citta being defined, let's start looking at the cognitive process. But first a comment and clarification of expectations.

Ahba has sometimes indicated that one should not concern oneself too much with individual cittas. He indicates that otherwise it remains too abstract. Perhaps it is better not to be too busy with things that are very far from the world of experience while there is still so much to learn about things we experience.

Exactly how many steps the mental process has and which citta performs which function and how they relate to each other is of secondary importance.

The essence or conclusion to be drawn from explanations in the Abhidharma about consciousness is more important. For details, refer to Bhikkhu Bodhi’s A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Ven. Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga, or to the Dutch Abhidhamma page.

There are a few principles that are useful as background information. One cognitive process consists, according to the commentaries, of 17 cittas. Which 17 and what function they fulfill in the process is, as already stated, not that important right now. What is important is that these 17 rise and fall one after the other. The first citta rises and falls, then the second, then the third, and so on.

So a cognitive process consists of all separate moments of consciousness that follow each other in rapid succession.

It is also useful to know that Buddhism always speaks of six senses. In addition to the usual five (eye, ear, nose, tongue, touch) known in the West, and "consciousness" also finds a place here. (Mental) consciousness as a sense base perceives mental objects, just as eyes perceive visible things and ears perceive sounds as their objects.

The cognitive process
There are, roughly speaking, two types of processes. The first is sensory. One of the five bodily senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or touch) is brought into contact with its corresponding sense object and, if all conditions are met, a sensory-cognitive process based on that sense is automatically created.

Take eye consciousness as an example. If there is a working eye (i.e., eye-sensitivity), a visible object, light, and attention then all conditions are present for an eye cognitive process. At that moment this process takes place anyway, completely automatically, purely on the basis of conditions without an "I" being involved.

Every sense has its own process in this way. We know that cittas always rise and fall one after the other, it follows that only one kind of cognitive process can take place at a time.

This is the first essence of the consciousness process. Although we think we see, hear, smell, taste and feel at the same time, this is not so! It happens in rapid succession.

It's the same whether we see, whether we hear, whether we smell, whether we taste or feel or cognize.

Just as a movie actually consists of all separate still images played at least 24 frames per second to give the illusion of unbroken/flowing movement, cittas, and by extension cognitive processes, present themselves as a continuous flow.

Only through very high concentration can this process be analyzed down to the smallest parts via personal experience. This was a brief description of the first kind of process, the sensory cognitive process.

The alert reader has probably already noticed that the sixth sense, the (mental) consciousness, has not yet been mentioned. The mental cognitive process is the second kind of cognitive process.

This process can be divided into two parts. First, the pure mental cognitive process, which is used for example during abstract thinking about things.

This process, like the sensory cognitive process, is activated by the presence of conditions. In this case they are the heart-base, the mental object, life continuum, and attention. If these conditions are present then the mental object is known.

Second, mental cognitive processes (plural) also occur after a sensory consciousness process.

After contact takes place between object and sense and all conditions are met, a sensory cognitive process starts. Like the above mentioned eye cognitive process. This is known to the sensory object.

In principle this is a very pure perception of the object to which no concepts have  yet been added. Immediately after this sensory cognitive process some mental cognitive processes take place one after the other to give meaning to what has been observed by the senses.

However, a mental cognitive process does not do this with the real "external" phenomenon as object, but rather with a mental copy!

For example, if an eye cognitive process has taken place because conditions for it have been met, the visible object has been observed. However, a visible object is just color, not form, material, name, and so on.

Why? Take shape for example. We cannot see shape. We can only feel shape. Think of all the visual illusions that can be made with pen and paper. Suddenly a two-dimensional sheet of paper with a drawing on it seems to have depth as we look at it. But that's not true at all. If we feel the sheet of paper, we know that depth is not true. Shape is something we feel.

What we see is color and contrast and, based on previous experience and other things, consciousness links to a certain form. Observing a shape on the basis of seeing with the eyes is a derivative act.

That's why optical illusions go wrong. Mental cognitive processes link something to the contrast and color we see when in reality there is none.

The same goes for a name, of course. We don’t see an orange. What we see is orange. Consciousness tells us it has the shape of a sphere. Further analysis attaches the name "orange." If we’ve never seen an orange before, we can’t label it that name, so the process stops at "an orange sphere."

The bizarre thing about this whole thing is that only the first sensory cognitive process actually perceives the object (e.g., the color orange). Then a mental copy is made of that object which is then used as a mental object for further analysis during the mental cognitive processes.

All (mental) analysis is therefore performed on a concept and not on the actual object.

For example, if we look at a beautiful rose, we do not experience the rose as beautiful. We experience the mental concept of "rose." This is because what we see is only color (such as red). The shape "flower" and the name "rose" are concepts added to the mental copy (and not to the actual external object). So the word "beautiful" is being applied to a concept not to a reality.

Why is this important? It's important because we are totally engrossed in it, because we merrily run along with it, because we delight in it.

Suddenly we have an opinion on everything. We think it’s a nice,  ripe, good looking orange we’d really like to eat. Or we may think it’s a tart, ugly, fused orange that we definitely do not want to eat.

Desire rises. Wanting something is just as much a desire as not wanting something. As soon as desire is involved, problems arise.

If we do not get the nice orange we are sad, if we have to eat the ugly orange we are sad. And the pleasure we experience by satisfying our desires, by eating the orange, is transient, only of short duration, and therefore actually sad.

Immediately after that pleasure of satisfying our desire, there are many other things we may or may not want.

It's just like a child in a toy store. The child wants one toy. That’s why it whines. But when the child gets it, s/he is playing happily for a few days or weeks. But before we know it, the toy is forgotten somewhere in a corner and there is another "one toy" the child wants and whines about.

And this digressing, this absorbing, this desire is all purely based on concepts, mental copies. Not based on reality.

Only if our concentration is very high can we intervene quickly enough to prevent ourselves from being unjustly absorbed in the illusions of consciousness and prevent desire and thus problems from arising.

In this way we penetrate the true nature of things.

"How boring," we might think. But thinking this is nonsense. We will then have no more desire and therefore no more misery -- no misery, but pleasure instead. We can still eat an orange and enjoy it, and if it were different, it wouldn’t matter.

• As Ahba says: “Desire is the problem. Suppose there’s something that you really want, that you really want to get as a present. But you don’t get it. Then you are sad or angry or disappointed. When you have concentration you no longer have desire. Maybe there’s still something you want. When you get it, you’re happy. But if you don’t, you’re happy too! It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not a problem anymore. Everything’s easy then.”

This is the second important essence of the cognitive process. After the pure sensory cognitive process, a mental copy is made that we can get rid of. All we think of things is no more than subjective mental additions. And because of this we desire to have something or not and that because of this we cause all the problems in our lives all by ourselves.

We can read the previous paragraphs and take them for granted, but that would be a pity. The information only makes sense if we think about it from time to time. What are the consequences of it? What does it mean? If I want something or not? If I find something? If I’m happy, angry, or sad? 

Knowledge about the cognitive process can contribute to the insight that everything is conditioned, transient, and impersonal (without self). And in this way we can make room for the previously mentioned fractures in our wrong views, our habitual way of looking at things, allowing room for liberating right view.