Vijnana

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Vijñāna ( Sanskrit ; pali : viññāṇa) is a term in Buddhist philosophy . The concept of the Vijnanas in their interaction describes a Buddhist model of the mind in the Abhidharma .

The concept of the Vijnanas

In general, Vijnana means the relative, world-related knowledge that arises through the mental activity of consciousness . Vi- means to separate, which is intended to express that Vijnana is a consciousness separated from the enlightened view. Vijnana is also used synonymously for citta ( mind or consciousness).

When Vijnanas is mentioned, sometimes it is five, sometimes six, seven or eight Vijnanas. That depends on whether Klistavijnana, Alayavijnana and Manovijnana as well as Chaittadharmas, i.e. the "mental sense", are included in the list.

Five or six Vijnanas

The basic five Vijnanas stand for the five currents of the sense organs ( perceptions ), i.e. the perceptions that arise through the sense currents . The sixth stream in the Abhidharma is counted as the mind-consciousness that contains the Chaittadharmas. These include, for example, thought patterns, memories , interpretations , ideas , concepts and emotions . That would be six Vijnanas.

Vijnana is exclusively the consciousness of the unenlightened person, therefore it is a dualistic, broken consciousness. On the one hand it is not an absolutely clear consciousness, on the other hand it is also not an absolute unconsciousness, rather a vague consciousness. It does not recognize certain things and therefore has a limited view.

Furthermore, Vijnana must not be understood as an organ or place in the mind, but must be understood as a mental activity. It denotes the type and extent of our awareness of the phenomena as they manifest themselves in the six streams of experience.

Klistavijnana

The Klista- or Kleshavijnana ("poisoned consciousness") is also seen as the seventh Vijnana. In this conscious activity, the mental phenomena merge unconsciously with the perceptions of the five sense organs. The end result is ordinary consciousness, ordinary mental activity. This is almost always characterized by deceptions . Since the Klistavijnana cannot distinguish between mental phenomena and perceptions, it has no prajna . It does not recognize and cannot distinguish to what extent our content of consciousness is the product of our imagination and therefore takes it as reality. The Klistavijnana is conscious but not awake and focuses on the cloud formations of dualistic thoughts, images and the phenomena of mental origin. As a result, the world of experience of the senses remains in a spiritual fog ("cloudy mind"), that is, covered.

Another aspect of the Klistavijnana is that it experiences itself as an entity that is experienced and named as the I. It faces the external objects that it forms from the mind stream. An "I here" and "that there" are formed and contrasted with one another, and both are viewed as reality , although both have an exclusively imaginary existence that only exists within our mental stream.

Alayavijnana

Alayavijnana ( memory consciousness ), which is also called the eighth Vijnana, is seen as the source of the illusions . It contains all mental reaction and habit patterns that have formed in our world of experience. These are activated by the experience of a certain moment.

There are two ways of doing this: When new experiences combine with the stored memories and reaction patterns as building blocks of the Klistavijnana for its construction of reality, the material is anchored even more deeply in the Alayavijnana, samsara arises .

If, however, the activated patterns are seen for what they are, a creation of the "spirit" or the spiritual processes without any real value, they lose their power. There is no longer any connection to these patterns, so that they cannot anchor themselves again in the Alayavijnana. This leads to the manovijnana.

Manovijnana

The Manovijnana is the consciousness (better becoming conscious) of the phenomena manifesting in the mental flow. In other words, it also fulfills the function of recognizing the phenomena of the mental current in their context. If it is not transfigured by unconscious influences from spiritual sources, it can also fulfill the function of mindfulness . The activated patterns are then seen for what they are, a creation of the spirit or the spiritual processes, without any reality value. In this case they lose their effectiveness. Man is no longer bound to it and there is no renewed anchoring in the spirit. In essence, the Manovijnana is clear, but still remains dualistic.

Manovijnana and Klistavijnana are two modes of operation of consciousness. They are compared to the image of a mirror. The Manovijnana sees the fog that the Klistavijnana places over our field of experience. Here the mirror is clear and uncovered. The Klistavijnana, on the other hand, sows confusion and lets people wander around in the fog, the mirror in this comparison would be contaminated.

The mind training that leads to the awakened mind enables the practitioner to see reality clearly, which leads to a 180-degree change in his worldview.

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  • Han de Wit: Buddhist and Western Spirit . Via Nova 2001. ISBN 3-928632-83-3
  • Rita Langer: Consciousness as the carrier of life: some less considered aspects of viññāṇa in the Palikanon . Working Group for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Univ. Vienna, Vienna 2001.
  • Anagarika Govinda : The dynamics of the mind: the psychological attitude of the early Buddhist philosophy and its systematic representation according to the tradition of Abhidhamma . Bern, Munich, Vienna; Barth-Verlag 1992. ISBN 3-502-61234-X