The world has changed, radically, with regard to consciousness/mind. The materialist version of consciousness, or perhaps better, the clock-work version, is in the morgue. It is dead. This means the general dogma that consciousness is somehow a by-product of the brain has been quietly superseded. The only problem is that there has been no formal and well publicized burial of this antiquated dogma. Pop science still believes—especially in the field of neuroscience—that consciousness is an epiphenomenon. Some scientists have made themselves defenders of the clock-work version of consciousness.
This backwardness is due in large part to a failure to understand the implications of QM (quantum mechanics) and what it has done to the clock-work mentality that still thrives in academia. Over-simplifying the story somewhat, over a hundred years ago physicists, looking for the ultimate physical explanation of reality stumbled, inadvertently, into consciousness (something like William Kingdon Clifford's 'mind-stuff'). This was a shock. In the words of Niels Bohr, "Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real." At this point the implications became huge. Following this discovery two distinct schools of thought faced each other in a huge paradigm war. On one side, there are those defending the clock-work, mechanical version of reality and those on the side of QM who go so far as to say that forms of consciousness is all that science has observed (there is no physical reality), and we are conscious agents (Dr. Donald Hoffman).
Turning to the public, they are hopelessly behind the learning curve. Their minds are disposed to a clock-work, mechanical vision of reality. Moreover, they are the willing stooges of the neuroscientists who are defenders of the old faith who tell us that our consciousness is brain generated — and no! there is no life after death; no Near Death Experiences, and no psychic abilities.
As mentioned earlier, there has yet been no public burial of the materialist version of consciousness. But it seems the time is getting closer. When it happens, we will accept that consciousness survives the death of the psycho-physical body and that we can entangle with higher forms of consciousness and, regrettably, with lower forms (bad karma).
Well, it's good to know that after thousands of years of people studying Buddhism with single minded devotion and diligence toward salvation, we finally have Gui Do to sort it all out for us.
Posted by: n. yeti | December 28, 2014 at 12:13 PM
The Palicanon contradicts the Lankavatara Sutra, too, as well as other sutras from the Mahayana tradition because the Lanka calls for vegetarianism. The contradictions are one main topic I always point at, for those who think there is only one way to understand "Buddhism" or "Buddha".
Of course there are different notions of "mind", but the best we can do with the mind that looks at the mind, the world, the Buddha-teaching, is called "mushin no shin" in Japanese Zen and means to be open to everything and not attach to any thought or concept or feeling. This mind is the prerequisite to understand/experience the void or shunyata. I bet that such a mind will make it impossible to state that there is ongoing consciousness (Buddha as mind) linked to reincarnation (s.th. that has a "re" like a "return" or "again"). That is why - as I just learned from the "Chan Whip" by Broughton - even the famous Zhuhong (1535-1615) who practiced the Nembutsu-chant besides Zen denied rebirth(wangsheng
往生).
The same Jeffrey Broughton translated from early Chan texts in the "Bodhidharma Anthology" that if you understand correctly, the five skandha right here and now are the full and pure Nirvana! Please read that book. Those are the origins of Chan.
Posted by: Gui Do | December 28, 2014 at 11:04 AM
The Buddha is not the author of anything. This ("the Buddha said") is just a figure of speech for me, it means: Someone has said or written s.th. that he believes a/the Buddha Shakyamuni has said (or wants us to believe he said).
The quote from Buddhaghosa is also reflected in Samyutta Nikaya 12,15: "For one who sees the cessation of the world with correct wisdom, there is no idea of existence in regard to the world." Neither existence nor non-existence, or, to use your words, neither reincarnation nor materialism.
Posted by: Gui Do | December 28, 2014 at 02:12 AM
Note, in my comment I meant "Gui Do" contradicts the Lanka, not that the s.n. verse cited contradicts anything. I will stay out of this because the Zennist is demolishing Gui Do ' s discourse, but I did want to make sure it is clear what I meant to state.
Posted by: n. yeti | December 28, 2014 at 12:24 AM
Mind is not a "magic trick" in the Lanka. I think gui do refers to the habits of seeing things in the world as having a separate reality, thus giving rise to the idea that mind arises from atoms or has a creator. The magic trick is that things look real and alive on their own, but are not, in Mahayana, separate from mind. Accordingly, such a position actually contradicts what the Lanka is saying.
It is important to remember vijnana means life force in sanskrt as well as "mind" in the conventional western sense.
Actually "mind" is a problematic concept for the westerner who is unfamiliar with various kinds of mind referred to in Buddha's teachings on the topic (citta, mano, vijnana etc). D. Suzuki commented upon the different terms for "mind" in the Lanka.
From Buddha's discourses on mind in the Lanka:
"What are these erroneous teachings accepted generally by the philosophers? [Their error lies in this] that they do not recognise an objective world to be of Mind itself which is erroneously discriminated; and, not understanding the nature of the Vijnanas which are also no more than manifestations of Mind, like simple-minded ones that they are, they cherish the dualism of being and non-being where there is but
[one] self-nature and [one] first principle."
Posted by: n. yeti | December 28, 2014 at 12:12 AM