Simple Buddhism by C. Alexander Simpkins & Annellen Simpkins

Simple Buddhism by C. Alexander Simpkins & Annellen Simpkins

Author:C. Alexander Simpkins & Annellen Simpkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0-8048-3176-9
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing


CHAPTER 7

Buddhist Psychology: Awakening from the Dream

What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and exhale.

—Shunryu Suzuki, Soto Zen master

Like modern-day psychologists, Buddha developed a sophisticated view of consciousness that included perception, emotions, and motivation—typical topics of study in psychology today. The mind not only holds answers to existential questions about ourselves and our world, but it is also the key to overcoming the everyday problems of living.

SENSE PERCEPTION

Buddha distinguished six senses: the traditional five—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch—plus the mind, a sixth sense. Each sense has its own awareness. As Buddha explained:

The element of eye, of visible object, of eye awareness;

The element of ear, of sound, of ear awareness;

The element of nose, of odor, of nose awareness;

The element of tongue, of taste, of tongue awareness;

The element of body, of tangibles, of body awareness;

The element of mind, of ideas, of mind awareness. (de Silva 1979, 23)

We experience the world through our sensory awareness. All the data we receive from our senses bring about a response in our consciousness. Modern psychology describes the connection between consciousness and the senses as a close interaction, with the stimulus (S), taken in by the senses, followed by the response (R), which is processed by the consciousness and referred to as the organism (0). Sensory stimuli and the related response is affected by consciousness in an S-0-R relationship. Buddha believed that the S-0-R interaction is so intimately interconnected that without sensory stimuli to be aware of there is no consciousness or response. Consciousness is always consciousness of something.

Buddha extended this even further when he said that consciousness is actually caused by stimuli. Without any stimuli, consciousness ceases to be. Consciousness and the sensory world need each other to exist. A sensory deprivation tank can demonstrate that we need varied experiences. After a number of hours with only minimal stimulation, subjects lose touch with everyday reality, hallucinate, and slip into an altered state. Our experience of reality is partly a function of our senses and perceptual processes. Without a world to experience, there is no consciousness.

THE CHAIN OF BECOMING

Early Buddhism proposed a theory of motivation that helped to explain how people become unhappy in their lives. As Gordon Allport, a famous psychologist, once said, “Motivation is the ‘go’ of personality.” In a sense, Buddha would have agreed.

Perception is an active process, involving both objective and subjective experience. The sensations we have from contact with the world lead to a desire to fill our wants. We desire pleasant sensations to continue and unpleasant ones to stop. These desires bring about a desiring state of mind, which leads to grasping after things to satisfy the desire, creating a grasping state of mind. Such thoughts can lead us into difficulty. False beliefs and assumptions create states of mind that bias and limit our perception. Buddha expressed this idea:

What one feels one perceives; what one perceives one reasons about; what one reasons about obsesses one; what obsesses one is the origin of a number of concepts and obsessions which assail a man.



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