Vinnana

Meaning

The fifth of the five aggregates and the third link of the standard twelvefold formula of dependent origination. Also a regular candidate for the title of “soul” - so much so that the Yogacara school devised the notion of a “store consciousness” (ālayavijñāna) in an attempt to explain what exactly is reborn, and how.

Cognising

Rendering the term as “consciousness” is not ideal: it automatically drags in the contexts of Western psychology with its broad definitions. In the Buddhist context viññāṇa is narrower. What is meant is the act of cognising an object: the visible is seen, sound is heard, a thought is cognised.

It is important not to confuse this function with re-cognition, the assigning of names to experience such as “red,” “square,” “person” - that is the work of another aggregate, saññā.

The canon distinguishes six classes of viññāṇa, by the number of sense doors: eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue-, body- and mind-consciousness. And none of them exists permanently. Each arises in dependence on the corresponding faculty and object: eye plus form gives rise to eye-consciousness, ear plus sound to ear-consciousness.

MN 38 compares the process to fire: a fire burning on logs is called a log fire, on grass a grass fire. Consciousness likewise is defined by the condition in dependence on which it arises.

Viññāṇa is treated separately from the other mental processes only for convenience: feeling tone (vedanā), perception (saññā) and consciousness arise so closely together in living experience that MN 43 states outright that they cannot be separated and shown apart.

Scattered and stuck

According to MN 138, consciousness can be scattered externally or, conversely, gathered and stuck internally:

• having seen a form, heard a sound or cognised a thought, consciousness may start to flow after the attractiveness of the object, become tied to it and fettered by it - this is external scattering
• conversely, in states of deep concentration consciousness is gathered, but it can become attached to rapture, pleasure, equanimity or other subtle experiences of concentration

The problem is neither the appearance of the object nor the fact that consciousness cognises it. The problem is clinging to the attractiveness of the experience.

In practice

It helps to remind oneself not “I am aware of a thought” but “consciousness of a thought has arisen.” Grammatically awkward, but this change of inner framing keeps awareness from being experienced as the act of a little observer inside the head. Consciousness is not switched on by anyone; it arises dependently: a sound - and the knowing of sound is already here.