What Consciousness Really Is

The western concept of concsioucness largely propogated by Freud and the concept of consciousness from the easter wisdom traditions are not the same. Khentrul Rinpoche explains very simply and quickly what consciousness is from a Buddhist perspective. It's important to understand this.

Transcript

For everybody,

It is extremely important to understand what consciousness really is.

Even if you do not really understand,

But it is so important,

Even if you believe there is a consciousness,

There is no physical consciousness that really created our lives and this world,

The whole universe.

This is extremely important and this is very,

Very profound.

Why you can analyze this way?

For instance,

The scientists work so hard and dedicate their lives for the discoveries and centuries.

Their discovery in the physical world is incredible,

Unbelievable.

You cannot imagine many centuries,

You cannot imagine things today,

Our lives,

And we work and we use every day these discoveries.

It is incredible.

But this whole discovery is about matter,

Not the mind,

Not the consciousness.

Not the consciousness,

It is only in the physical matter.

So why?

Physical matter,

That is incredible,

That is actually incredible discoveries.

And then the consciousness mind,

They know,

They don't have discoveries.

So why?

Because the methods and their focus is on physical discovery.

Or using all the equipment,

Everything,

All the methods,

All the strategies,

Is focusing on discovering the matter,

The physical world.

So that is why they have this incredible discovery.

But only today,

Very intelligent,

Some scientists have a starting point,

They have a good doubt what is their claim in the past.

You know,

The mind and consciousness is only a function of the brain.

But who has no brain,

There is no mind.

This claim is now very hard to hold this position.

Because there is so many evidences to the mind and the consciousness,

It is not just the brain or the brain's function.

It is a completely separate entity.

So this is what Buddha told a few thousand years ago very clearly.

But in the 21st century,

We still have ignorance about this.

This is kind of embarrassing.

Why?

Because of our methods and we didn't focus this way.

So to discover our own mind,

We have to use our mind.

And so if we just focus on the physical methods,

It still maybe takes a few hundred years to even have or even realize that the mind is not just a function of the brain.

There is something much bigger than this.

It takes this long.

So what we have to understand is the mind is not one entity.

It is so many entities.

We have to understand this.

It is not physical,

Completely non-physical.

We have to understand this.

But to understand this,

We have to understand that the layers of mind are so obvious that we use them every day.

We try to understand this very carefully.

And then after that,

We can understand it slowly.

For example,

We have six senses or consciousnesses we know already.

We already use them every day.

But these six senses,

They are able to see,

Able to hear,

Able to smell,

Able to taste,

Able to feel and touch.

But the memory is not on this physical sense.

The memory holds somebody else.

So this is what we call mind consciousness.

So mind consciousness means not depending on physical senses.

So this is mind consciousness.

The physical senses have no need for this mind consciousness.

Having said that,

We could agree that maybe the most of the gross levels of the mind consciousness maybe need a physical entity like the brain.

So for this reason,

The scientists know which part of the brain is associated with memory.

And they know all the five senses,

Which part of the brain is associated with them.

They know all of them.

But beyond that,

It is very difficult.

So now only recently,

The very great scientists,

A few,

They research,

They only know,

Oh,

This mind makes brain make different.

So that means it's not brain's function of the mind.

Instead,

Mind makes brain grow differently and have different reactions and everything.

So that means the indication of a little bit of understanding of the mind consciousness is not a physical entity.

So this can be slowly understood.

So we have to understand this better way.

For instance,

Let's say even the physical world in Buddhism is saying mind projection.

Mind projection only.

There is no such thing as independent physical world.

It's only mind projection.

So this is confirmed today in many ways in the scientific discovery.

Not all the way scientists reached yet,

But it is did because they know different eyes have different ability to see things.

And compare each of them comparatively is illusion.

They are seeing color and shape or is not real.

And the scientists understand that absolutely understood.

So that is we can understand as indication of the mind projection,

The color and the shape and everything is mind projection.

So that means the mind is really created in many levels.

So for instance,

Let's say,

Easy way like ice,

Where ice comes from is only from water.

Where water comes from is cloud.

And then the cloud,

Where they come from is the gas.

And then where does the gas come from?

So everything at different stages have different manifestations.

So similar way we have to understand these physical and non-physical also have a relationship.

So that's why it is not everything as physical.

So therefore,

You using a physical equipment,

You cannot discover the non-physical mind.

So that's why it is a scientific,

Normal scientific way of work.

No possible you discover the deeper level of mind consciousness.

But we can understand logically because under this mind consciousness,

We call it mind consciousness or we can conception of this mind consciousness.

We can use many things logically and everything.

And this one may have some relationship with the brain.

But if you go beyond that,

Then everybody have,

Every sentient being have this natural defensiveness.

Like the natural defensiveness,

We even say muscle memory or everything,

All sentient beings,

No matter small or big,

Everybody know how to react without thinking very fast.

So these things we call afflictive mind consciousness,

Which means you don't see the whole universe connected and related to each other.

So therefore,

You have me and others and something you attract and something you have aversion.

That kind of natural instance,

So this natural instance comes from that.

So this natural instance is more subtle level of the consciousness.

So this consciousness,

If you go further,

Then we call alaya.

So alaya means all the propensities of this,

Everything the propensities.

So this is the whole and there usually we call karma.

So this karma is there because therefore we can many things possible.

So this one you could say the quantum physics level,

They can start understanding a little bit because they're saying the most recent discovery,

The most subtle level,

There is something unpredictable,

Which means is a potential can be anything.

So if we understand this,

Then we understand all this theory logically,

We can understand and then we can have a strong belief system.

So then we can,

Based on that belief,

We can train our mind so our happiness and suffering not too much dependent on external conditions.

Instead,

We can control our happiness and satisfaction and everything,

Appreciation and everything we can control rather than we waiting for unfortunate circumstances or we hoping is a prayer to fortunate spaces.

We can make ourselves.

So that means that means is real freedom is not the,

You know,

Like force freedoms we creating and we chasing them.

And we are very stressed about that.

It's not about that.

It's real freedom is we have choices.

We can make choices.

We can make in our mind because everybody has mental consciousness.

So you can work on that.

So that's why extremely important.

So,

And then also we can understand what is karma really is.

So we don't have to rely on the creator,

God,

Or,

Or we don't have to leave ignorance.

For future,

Everything is unpredictable.

We don't have to live on that.

So we can understand we ourself is a creator.

Our mind is the creator of the universe.

So if we can understand this,

This is the really the most important.

Reviews

Great talk. I have just started to grasp the idea of mind as a projection.

Namaste

Thank you!

Thank you for sharing this explanation!