The Nature of Mind

Does the mind have a form or is it formless? Can it be identified with the chemical mechanism of the brain or is there something more to it than that? What are its causes? Is it hereditary? These are some of the questions that we are going to probe in the course of our investigation here.

In Buddhist writings, the mind is defined as a phenomenon which is formless and possesses the dual nature of clarity and knowing. The first characteristic (clarity) speaks of its quality of being luminous and clear; clear in the sense that its fundamental nature could never be defiled or polluted by negative influence.

Emotions, such as desire, hatred and anger contaminate the mind and hold constant sway over it as our own personal experiences testify; the pollution is, however, only at a superficial level, for they do not penetrate into the core of the mind. In other words, these negative emotions are not part of the intrinsic nature of the mind.

Irrespective of how forceful one's experience of these emotions might be, there are always occasional and hence never inseparable from the mind itself. Even the most ill-tempered person has his own moment of peace, however short lived and fleeting they might be. This demonstrates the fact that no matter how long it has been associated with these and many other negative states, the mind never loses its potential to be freed from these faults.

To draw an analogy: Just as gold mixed with impurities can be refined, irrespective of the length of time it has been intermixed with them. So too the mind may be freed of negative states. To use another analogy: A crystal stone retains its clarity whether it is place on a red or blue cloth. The colouring is obvious though only to a certain limit, but the clarity of the crystal is always there.

On a more subtler level, the clarity of mind implies its clear light nature, non-inherent existence of the mind. This refers to the fact that it lacks an inherent or independent status; its arise is dependent upon other factors such as causes and conditions. This is the meaning of the statement quoted at the beginning of this article. Since the mind lacks such an existence and possesses the characteristics of being dependent upon causal conditions, it is liable to change. Hence, it also has the potential for development and this potentiality of the mind is a very important aspect of Buddhist thought and it calls for a separate treatment.

The second characteristic. the knowing nature, refers to the reflective nature of the mind. Mind is an agent of knowing, the instrument through which we perceive, whether correctly as well as incorrectly. When it focuses on an object; the mind registers its appearance and then give rise to our experience of the object. If the person is alert and aware, that is to say, not distracted or sleepy, his or her perception of the object is conscious.

This subsequently give rise to the recollection of the object and the experience associated with it at a latter time. Conversely, if the person is very attracted to a beautiful form, although he or she might hear sounds, etc, etc at the same time, they would not be registered for the person is not fully aware of that particular experience. This implies that there are many different levels of mind both conscious and subconscious.

Irrespective of whether or not one accepts the existence of such formless entity called consciousness, our own experiences validate the irrefutable presence of some kind of an agent which undergoes pain and pleasure; which evaluates a situation, thinks in logical terms, store experiences in memory and so forth.

What is it that performs these functions? It is just the brain, or is there something more to it? For a Buddhist, the very term "knowing" excludes anything that is a form. Something which perceives a form could never be itself a form.