by Chen Yu-Hsi, Professor Emeritus
In his book Mindfulness: The Direct Path to Enlightenment, the German scholar-monk Bikkhu Analayo quotes from the original Buddhist scriptures and says: “Seeing through the characteristics of ‘perception’ ( sanna in Pali language, cognition) is one of the key causes of enlightenment.” (Chinese translation by Wen Zongkun et al., page 272). This sentence has profound implications in Buddhist psychology and deserves in-depth discussion.
The Buddha uses the “five aggregates” to represent the structures and functions of our body and mind. His purpose was not to teach physiological principles, but to teach that this living body is not the substantial “I” (ego-self) that people cling to, but just like all things, it is formed by the combination of causes and conditions, that is, composed of five piles of elements, which the world calls “person” or “I”. By calling it “person” or “I”, we are liable to fall into the attachment of name and form (that is, what is later called “perception as person”(人相) and “perception as ego-self” (我相) in the Diamond Sutra), thus giving rise to all kinds of wrong views and mental troubles. The original Buddhist teachings, from the perspective of practice, contemplate on the human body as “five aggregates”, five piles of natural phenomena, transcending the conceptual discrimination of “ego-self”, “ person”, “man and woman,” etc. as well as dualistic value judgment associated with these language concepts, such as good vs. bad, beautiful vs. ugly, noble vs., lowly, etc. In so doing, we can truly observe the reality of all dharmas as they are and intuitively realize that everything in body and mind is no-self (no substantial, independent entity) and impermanent (changing instantly), thereby letting go of the attachment to the body and ego-self. Only by letting go of self-attachment can we move towards the road to awakening and liberation.
Among the five aggregates, the “perception” aggregate (sanna in Pali, samjnain Sanskrit and “thinking” in Chinese,想蘊) is the key to Buddhist practice, because all attachments, including the attachment to conceptual discriminations such as good vs. bad, beautiful vs. ugly, as well as the attachment to destructive emotions such as greed, anger and hatred, are all rooted in “perception.”
What does “perception” (sanna /samjna) mean in original Buddhism? In Chinese Buddhism, it is generally interpreted as thinking, imagination and grasping an image. Although these interpretations cannot be said to be wrong, they do not touch the core meaning of perception; nor do they offer a clear explanation. The Sanskrit word for “perception ” is samjna ( sanna in Pali). What is its meaning? From original Buddhism to Mahayana Buddhism, there are different opinions. The English translation is “perception.” From the modern English point of view, perception means seeing, hearing and awareness, that is, we with the sixth senses recognize the forms of objects, sounds, smells, etc., understand their meanings and also give value judgments such as good vs. bad, beautiful vs. ugly. This is a more comprehensive and clearer explanation than “thinking”(想) in Chinese Buddhism. However, according to the Abhidhamma Pitaka (an in-depth analysis of the Buddha’s teachings based on psychological principles) developed by the ancient Indian Buddhist sages, samjna (sanna) has a deeper meaning than perception, similar to apperception. The Japanese academic circles translated this English word of “apperception” as “ tokaku” (統覺) more than one hundred years ago — a kanji translation which was also accepted by the Chinese academic community. If we want to understand the true meaning of “perception” in Buddhism, we must first understand the psychological meaning of “apperception.”
The explanations of “apperception” in Western philosophy are divided, but in psychology there is a clear consensus. When the senses are stimulated by external light waves, vibration waves, etc. and objects and sounds appear, a human instantly becomes aware of their meanings and make value judgments accordingly (i.e., the function of perception). How is this possible? It is because the subconscious mind has already stored the memories and information of past experiences (called “seeds of language”(名言種子) in the consciousness-only doctrine, the Buddhist studies of consciousness psychology). The brain interprets new sensory experiences and assigns meanings and values based on these old memories and information, without which the cognitive and evaluating processes would be impossible. This psychological function is called “apperception.”
An example often cited in Western psychology is that a rich man and a poor man saw a coin on the road. The rich man felt that it had no value and did not even want to pick it up, but the poor man felt that the coin was very valuable and picked it up as if it was something precious.
Consciousness psychology must ask: Why does the same thing produce completely different meanings and values? The answer is: the brain recognizes and evaluates new experiences based on the information and memories left by past experiences, and integrates them into the subconscious information database. New and old information (and memories) is integrated together, as suggested by the Japanese term “tokaku” (統覺, apperception).
Western modern psychology began to study consciousness issues, including apperception, in the 19th century. I wonder if it was influenced by the consciousness-only theory of Indian Mahayana Buddhism (and the earlier Abhidhamma Pitaka)? We have no evidence to judge, but in any case, apperception studied in the West has something in common with samjna (perception) of early Buddhism as well as the principles of “seeds” being accumulated in the unconscious and manifesting as a primal contributing factor of all phenomena, as expounded by the consciousness-only theory. The common point is to project information and memories of past experiences onto current things as the basis for cognition and value judgment.
Why then doesn’t Western Buddhism translate samjna as apperception but as perception? Regarding this question, I would like to provide the following two thoughts: First, I once consulted an American literary scholar, who explained that in ancient English, “apperception” shared meaning with “perception.” In checking Webster’s New World Dictionary, there is indeed such an annotation. Second, a number of Buddhist scholars in the West, including Luis Gomez (1943-2017), a well-known American scholar at the University of Michigan proficient in Sanskrit and psychology, translated samjna as apperception, rather than perception. It turns out that “perception” referring to the aggregate of samjna in Buddhism is not just what we understand as seeing, hearing and awareness (along with value judgment), but also refers to the integrating process behind seeing, hearing and awareness, that is, apperception. In other words, samjna (sanna) in early Buddhism already has the embryonic thought of later consciousness-only studies with regard to “seeds” being accumulated and manifesting, as well as the meaning of “apperception” revealed by modern Western consciousness psychology.
For example, Buddhagosa, the famous Abhidharma commentator in India in the fifth century AD, has the following discourse in his book Atthasalini : “Perception (English translation of samjna/sanna) has the characteristic of noting and the function of recognizing what has been previously noted. There is no such thing as perception in the four planes of existence without the characteristic of noting. All perceptions have the characteristic of noting. Of them, that perceiving which knows by specialized knowledge has the function of recognizing what has been noted previously. We may see this procedure when the carpenter recognizes a piece of wood which he has marked by specialized knowledge…”
This interpretation of “perception” has also been adopted by modern Western scholars who study primitive Buddhism. Furthermore, Buddhagosa also mentioned that another characteristic of perception is the “general inclusion” in the process of seeing, hearing and awareness, which means that all the information and memories of seeing, hearing and awareness are absorbed into the subconscious information database, serving as a basis for future seeing, hearing and awareness. In short, we rely on the informational “energy” (seeds) left in the subconscious mind by past experiences (called “seeds of language” in consciousness-only theory) to understand and judge new things, and in the moment of understanding and judgment, new “energy”(seeds ) is left behind. The seeds (that is, “noting” as Buddhagosa called it) make the content of the information database more and more abundant. The reason why humans have conscious psychological functions such as cognition, discrimination, judgment, reasoning, imagination, and fantasy (including sexual fantasies that lead to lust) that animals do not have is because humans can use complex linguistic concepts to form an increasingly large and rich subconscious information database through the integrating process of perception/ apperception.
Understanding these characteristics of “perception”, it becomes clear that the “I” that ordinary people are attached to as a substantial entity, all things represented by linguistic labels, and value judgment such as good vs. bad, beautiful vs. ugly, pure vs. defiled, noble vs. lowly, wise vs. foolish, etc., all result from the subconscious old information projecting onto current experience. Although this is convenient for humans to understand the world, this way of understanding conceals the reality of things because people mistakenly identify language labels with the things they represent, not knowing that the reality of things is beyond the verbal names and forms, thereby leading to all kinds of confusion and delusion, as well as destructive emotions and ignorant habitual patterns such as greed, hatred, craving and aversion, which Buddhism regards as the root of sins and sufferings. In modern society, sins and sufferings include psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety, and homicides, drug addiction, alcoholism and human tragedies that occur every day. All of these are rooted in “perception.” It may be noted that animals in general do not have “perception”, or their function of ” perception ” is underdeveloped, so they do not have (or rarely have) sins and sufferings as humans do.
If we can gain insight into our own mental states and reflect on our conceptual attachments based on the above-mentioned psychological principles of consciousness of the “perception” aggregate, we can take the first step towards awakening and liberation. Here I would like to share a childhood story.
When I was a small child, I loved playing cards with my peers . They were crude round cards made of sugar cane stems, with images of the twelve zodiac signs on one side. Due to the hardship of rural life and the lack of material comforts and information at that time, I imagined such crude playing cards to be precious things, and would count them every night. If I won a few cards, I was very happy. If I lost a few, I felt upset. Many years later, I went to middle school in the city. My interest had shifted to scholastic work and I was exposed to more information and knowledge. One day when I returned to the countryside during a holiday, I saw children playing the same cards. I picked them up and looked, and was suddenly shocked to realize how I had regarded something so crude and worthless as a treasure in my childhood.
Later, I learned some Buddhism and often reflected on this past episode: There are some people and things in my life that I like, and even crave and become attached to, while other people and things make me disappointed, annoyed or angry. Are not these emotional reactions similar to my two-pole value judgments of the playing cards, which changed as time and conditions changed ? In other words, the reality of people and things are beyond the dualistic value judgments of good vs. bad, beautiful vs. ugly, noble vs. lowly. It is I who impose these false conceptual judgments on people and things, which result in destructive emotional reactions as well as mental sufferings and afflictions. Those playing cards did not have the beautiful and precious attributes that I imagined in my childhood, nor did they have the ugly and worthless attributes that I later thought. These two mutually opposed attributes were projections of past information stored in my subconscious mind and had nothing to do with the reality of the playing cards when seen as they are.
The way human beings think about binary opposition is that when they deny a certain attribute (beautiful and precious), they cling to the opposite attribute (ugly and worthless). Both of them are biased and are the results of attachments to concepts. It can be deduced then that people’s obsession with fame, wealth, social status, career achievements, personal reputation and dignity, etc., is not different from my obsession with playing cards when I was a child. It comes from the projection of the “seeds of language” in the “perception” aggregate, which people mistakenly regard as reality. The wisdom of Buddhism is that only by seeing clearly the characteristics of the “perception” aggregate and letting go of the two-sided conceptual attachments can we know the truth as it really is. To understand the truth is to realize that everything that appears in our mind is created by causes and conditions ( including the conditions of consciousness and linguistic concepts, without which there would be no beings, or no “dharmas” as Buddhism calls phenomena), so there is no such a thing as substantial entity ( also called self-nature, meaning nature of self-existence without causes and conditions ) to be obtained. This leads to the realization of the ultimate truth of “Emptiness” and “the middle way” — the bright road to awakening and liberation.
The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus has a famous saying: “What troubles us is not what happens, but our reaction to it.” This “reaction” is the above-mentioned conceptual value judgments and the emotional reactions that it triggers ( anger, hatred, grief, etc.). American psychologist Albert Ellis (1913-2007) was inspired by Ellis and posits a psychotherapy theory, tersely referred to as ABC theory. A represents adversity, B represents concept/belief, and C represents consequences ( mental distress, emotional breakdown, etc.). It is generally believed that consequence (C) is caused by adversity (A), but Ellis points out that if it were not for the negative and irrational thinking (B), adversity (A) would not cause serious consequences(C). He took the case of client Mary as an example: Mary’s husband suddenly asked for a divorce, which shocked Mary so much that she fell into an emotional breakdown that required psychotherapeutic treatment. Ellis explained to Mary: Your mental trouble is mainly caused by your way of thinking and belief. You believe that your husband’s request for divorce is unfaithfulness, betrayal and humiliation to you, and as a result, your dignity is seriously damaged. Because of your belief and way of thinking, you are unwilling to accept the adversity as it comes. That is how it results in mental breakdown.
The first step in psychological counseling is to help the client change his/her way of thinking: Although it is a bad thing for my husband to have an affair, divorce is very common now after all; it is not a big deal. My son and I can live a good life without my husband… In short, it helps clients develop positive and rational thinking to replace past negative and irrational thinking, so that healthy EQ can grow.
This kind of rational thinking therapy has something in common with the above-mentioned Buddhist method of starting from the “perception” aggregate to observe things as they are by letting go of conceptual discriminations and value judgments. As Zen Buddhism teaches, “every day is a good day,” which means to think of bad days as good, beyond the dualistic discrimination of good vs. bad. The Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng also teaches “not to think about good and not to think about evil”, which means to break the attachment to dualistic concepts such as good vs. bad, beautiful vs. ugly, so that one can “see the mind clearly and realize its original authentic nature.” To realize the original nature of mind means to attain a pure state of mind beyond conceptual attachments and mental defilements. That is the supreme state enlightenment and liberation. Although Buddhism does not talk about psychotherapy, as long as one can see the mind clearly and realize its original authentic nature, depression and other mental disorders will no longer be a distressing problem.
In my long lecture entitled “Explore Buddhist Psychology of Consciousness ,”there are a few paragraphs that are related to the theme of this article. Let me quote as follows:
We judge others and ourselves based on ideas and concepts we have learned in the past, resulting in hatred or anger for others, as well as hatred or debasement for ourselves. It is a database of information and memories stored in the subconscious mind that can pull us back to traumatic memory and make us feel mentally painful. It uses past old information to perceive current things. For example, you see something and know that it is called “table”, that it is rectangular, brown, has four legs and a table top, etc. These concepts of names, shapes and appearances are all projection of information from the past. You think you see the “table” and know what it is. In fact, your “knowing” is just a re-confirmation of a bunch of old “seeds of language” stored in the unconscious. You know nothing about the current reality of this object in the present moment, here and now. No wonder you can’t appreciate its freshness, liveliness and true meaning. You just feel that it is ordinary, dull and devoid of anything new. Buddhism (especially Zen Buddhism) teaches people to live in the present, not only to focus attention on the things in front of them, but more importantly, to get rid of the attachment to names and forms and the wrong view of treating “time” as a substantial, self-independent entity. In so doing, the “seeds of language” that represent the past no longer dominate our thinking, and the false consciousness of “I” and other names and concepts from past memories will no longer constrain our hearts and minds. Only then can we fully see the reality of the present moment, that is, truly live in the “Now” that transcends the false consciousness of time. We no longer feel regret, anger or grief about the past, nor anxiety and fear about the future. Everything in the “present moment” is fresh and beautiful, also full of peace, happiness and ease. The secret lies in being aware of the concepts and memories from the past as they really are, and gaining insight into the reality that the mind is not a substantial entity, with its true nature characterized by “Emptiness.” As the Diamond Sutra teaches, “the past mind is unattainable”, and Master Hui Ke, the second Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, said to his master, Bodhidharma from India, “I have searched my mind, and realized it is unattainable.”(Bodhidharma answered then that if so, “I have put your mind at ease.”) These all demonstrate that the perception and emotions (collectively called “mind”) that bring mental sufferings and afflictions have no substantial existence that humans are attached to (called “unattainable”). Time also has no substantial existence as we mistakenly think it has. What you think happened in the “past” actually does not happen in “time” (because the time flow of the past, present, and future is not a substantial entity —not an objective and real existence, but merely a concept and consciousness that human ancestors developed from the solar movement, the continuing changes of day and night, and the use of calendar and clock), but rather happens in the present, here and now, and instantly disappears without “time” involved, leaving behind only memory, which we mistakenly regard as real, thus leading to unnecessary mental suffering and trouble. If you understand this principle of Buddhist consciousness psychology, you will no longer be entangled and troubled by things in the past, and will be able to live in the present Now. A mind of the present Now is a pure and genuine mind beyond the ego-self and all attachments, including attachment to time as a subtantial entity.
Finally, let us ponder what Nagarjuna Bodhisattva says in his Praise to the Dharmadhatu, a paragraph relating to the characteristics of the “perception” aggregate that we have discussed in this article: “All phenomena that appear in the mind have been conceptualized, and have something superimposed (which refers to the projection of value judgments such as good vs. evil, beautiful vs. ugly, noble vs. inferior). When we abandon this kind of mental activity, we can understand that phenomena have no substantial independent reality (i.e., realizing the ultimate reality of Emptiness and the middle way). Now that you have understood this truth, please meditate on the Dharmadhatu (i.e., the ultimate reality of all phenomena in the universe).”
(Author’s note: This English article is translated from the Chinese original entitled “從小我邁向覺醒之路”, also published in this website.)
Buddhist Psychology by Prof. Chen Yu-Hsi 