Vijñāna

Vijnana (Sanskrit, Pali: viññāna ) is a term of the buddhist philosophy. The concept of vijnanas in their interaction describes abhidharma a Buddhist model of mind.

The concept of vijnanas

In general, says Vijnana the relative, related to the world of knowledge that arises from the mental activity of consciousness. Vi means separate what is intended to express that Vijnana is a separate from the enlightened perspective consciousness. Vijnana but is also used synonymously to Citta ( mind or consciousness).

When speaking of vijnanas is sometimes five, sometimes six, seven or eight vijnanas the speech. That depends on whether Klistavijnana, Alayavijnana and Manovijnana and Chaittadharmas, so the "mental mind" are included in the list.

Five or six vijnanas

The basic five vijnanas stand for the five streams of the sense organs ( perceptions ), that is caused by the sensory currents perceptions. As a sixth power the mind awareness is counted in the Abhidharma, which contains the Chaittadharmas. These include for example thought patterns, memories, interpretations, ideas, concepts and emotions. That would be six vijnanas.

Vijnana is only the consciousness of the unenlightened people, so it is a dualistic, broken consciousness. On one hand, it is not absolutely clear consciousness, on the other hand also not an absolute Un - awareness, rather a vague awareness. It does not recognize certain things and thus has a limited view.

Other must- Vijnana not be construed as an organ or location in mind, but must be understood as mental activity. It describes the nature and extent of our becoming aware of the phenomena as they manifest themselves in the six streams experience.

Klistavijnana

The Klista or Kleshavijnana ( " poisoned consciousness" ) is also seen as the seventh Vijnana. In this awareness activity, the mental phenomena unconsciously merge with the perceptions of the five senses. The end result is a common consciousness, the usual mental activity. This is almost constantly marked by delusions. Since the Klistavijnana can not distinguish between mental phenomena and perceptions it has no Prajna. It does not recognize and can not distinguish the extent to which our consciousness content is the product of our imagination and takes it therefore as a reality. The Klistavijnana is aware but not awake and focused on the cloud formations of the dualistic thoughts, images and the phenomena of mental origin. This leaves the world of experience of the senses in the mental fog ( " cloudy mind" ), so veiled.

Another aspect of the Klistavijnana is that it is experienced as an entity, which is called the ego experiences and named. It turns towards external objects, which forms it out of the mind-stream. There is a "me here " and formed and compared with each other, and both are viewed as reality, although both only has an imaginary existence that exists only within our mind stream " where the ".

Alayavijnana

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

Here are two ways to give: When new experiences, the material will bond with the stored memories and reaction patterns as building blocks of Klistavijnana for his construction of reality anchored deeper in Alayavijnana, it creates samsara.

However, if seen as the activated pattern, what they are, a creation of the "spirit " or the mental processes without reality value, they lose their power. There is no longer binding to these patterns so that they can not anchor again in Alayavijnana. This leads to Manovijnana.

Manovijnana

The Manovijnana is awareness (better awareness ) for manifesting the spirit current phenomena. In other words, it also fulfills the function to recognize the phenomena of the mind stream in context. If it is not glorified by unconscious influences from spiritual sources, it can also perform the function of mindfulness. The activated samples are then seen for what they are, a creation of the mind or of mental processes without actually value. In this case they lose their effect. Man is no longer bound to it and there is no re- anchoring in the Spirit instead. In its essence, the Manovijnana is indeed clear, but nevertheless remains dualistic.

Manovijnana and Klistavijnana are two modes of consciousness - being. They are compared with the image of a mirror. The Manovijnana sees the mist, which the Klistavijnana lays over our field of experience. Here, the mirror is clear and undisguised. The Klistavijnana contrast, sows confusion and lets the people wandering around in the fog, the mirror in this comparison would be contaminated.

The training of the mind, which leads to the awakened mind, puts the practitioner in a position to see clearly the reality, resulting in a 180 - degree turn of his worldview.

Swell

  • Han de Wit: Buddhist and Western spirit. Via Nova 2001. ISBN 3-928632-83-3
  • Rita Langer: Consciousness as a carrier of life: some less noticed aspects of viññāna in the Pali Canon. Working Group for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Univ. Vienna, Vienna 2001.
  • Anagarika Govinda: The dynamics of mind: the psychological attitude of early Buddhist philosophy and its systematic representation according to the tradition of the Abhidhamma. Bern, Munich, Vienna; Barth -Verlag in 1992. ISBN 3-502-61234- X
Concept (disambiguation) Wisdom in Buddhism Saṃsāra Mindfulness (psychology)
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