Skandhas, Sense-Fields and Elements

Three classifications of dharmas are common to all Buddhist schools, i.e. the five skandhas, the twelve sense-fields, and the eighteen elements.

The skandhas (‘heaps’ or ‘groups’) are the five constituents of the personality as it appears. On analysis, all the facts of experience, of ourselves and of objects in relation to us, can be stated in terms of the skandhas. The purpose of the analysis is to do away with the nebulous word ‘I’. The skandhas ‘define the limits of the basis of grasping after a self, and what belongs to a self’. ²⁷⁸ They include anything and everything we might grasp at, or seize, as our self, as belonging to it, as concerning it. They are taught to save, by an appeal to reason, those who have fallen into a state in which they grasp after a ‘self’.

What appears to our untrained vision and ignorant conception as a seemingly unified being or thing, as one apparently solid lump (ghana), is broken up into five heaps (rāśi), ²⁷⁹ or clusters, a mere conglomeration of pieces plus a label, a mass made up of five diverse constituents. As the stars in a constellation do not really belong together, but it is we who have arranged them into an arbitrary unit, so also our ‘personality’ is a mere conventional grouping of disparate elements, all of which belong to one of the five groups, known as the skandhas.

The first four skandhas present no difficulties, and there is no doubt on what is intended, (1) Form, rūpa, is the material or physical side of things; it is that which remains of persons and things after the subtraction of their moral and mental qualities. (2) Feelings, ²⁸⁰ vedanā, are pleasant (= what one wants to continue), unpleasant (= what one wants to cease) and neutral. ²⁸¹ (3) Perceptions, saṃjñā, are six, corresponding to the six sense-organs. (4) Impulses, saṃskārā (or ‘coefficients’), are all active dispositions, tendencies, impulses, volitions, strivings, emotions, etc., whether ‘conscious’ or repressed, though always linked with consciousness in the Buddhist sense. ⁸⁷ (5) Consciousness (vijñāna) is the most important and elusive of the skandhas. It is the most important because the other four are said to ‘depend on’ it. In the formula of conditioned co-production, consciousness precedes and conditions ‘name and form’, which is an archaic term for the psycho-physical organism, and in the Abhidharma analysis the other three mental skandhas are held to be determined by consciousness. ⁸⁸

The twelve sense-fields (āyatana) are (1) eye, (2) sight-objects; (3) ear, (4) sounds; (5) nose, (6) smells; (7) tongue, (8) tastes; (9) body, (10) touchables; ⁸⁹ (11) mind and (12) mind-objects. The etymology of the word āyatana seems to be extremely doubtful, ²⁸² but its Buddhist usage is made quite clear by its being explained as āyadvāra, ²⁸³ literally ‘the door of coming into existence’, ‘the door of arrival’, āya being the ‘rise’ which precedes vyaya, the ‘fall’. Perhaps ‘source’ would be a tolerable equivalent, since ‘door’ has the meaning of ‘cause’ or ‘means’.

As the meditation on the skandhas sets out to demolish the belief in a ‘self’, so meditation on the sense-fields is concerned with the origin of mental dharmas, of ‘thought and its concomitants’, ²⁸⁴ and views them as happening because of the collocation or conjunction of sense-organs and sense-objects. The sense-fields are the reason (kāraṇa) why mental events originate or take place, and are their ‘birthplace, as the Deccan is the locality where cattle are born’. ²⁸⁵ It is wrong for me to regard ‘my’ thoughts as free creations of ‘my’ self, or ‘consciousness’. Manifestly they are in the bondage of organ and object, which must be in contact for any act of consciousness to arise, and both of which are alien to me, for I cannot claim to have made either my biological constitution, or the objects of my thought. Both are given and imposed upon me.

The eighteen elements (dhātu) are the six sense-organs, the six sense-objects, and the corresponding six sense-consciousnesses. The word dhātu, from dhā, ‘to place’, is capable of many meanings. ⁹⁰ The most important are ‘element’ or ‘cause’ (hetu), and ‘sphere’ or ‘plane’. In this context it seems to mean ‘constituent’ or ‘factor’. Meditation on the eighteen elements has the purpose of ‘bringing home’ by a simple and easy method the truth of what in Europe is known as ‘phenomenalism’, at the same time using this philosophical theorem as the starting-point for a characteristically Buddhistic conclusion.

Suppose you see an orange in front of you. In terms of the ‘elements’ this experience presupposes at least three factors—a sight-object, the sensitivity of a sight-organ, and an act of sight-consciousness. The ‘orange’ as a datum of experience, as the sight-object which is seen, should not be mistaken for the objective fact ‘orange’, as it is ‘out there’, for the simple reason that the objective fact, when presented to the mind, is modified by two additional factors, having undergone the effect of the organ and the act of consciousness. ⁹¹ No one can possibly know what really goes on if the contribution of the other two elements is subtracted. No one can get at the object as it is by itself, but only at the ‘orange’ as modified and falsified by subjective processes. To those whose minds are intent on reality itself, this discovery cannot easily be neglected.

So far the consideration of the elements has done no more than confirm the ‘phenomenalism’ which also played a decisive part in European philosophy, from the days of Protagoras onward. The Buddhists, however, do not stop at this point, but further ask themselves: Why, if the total datum consists of three equally essential factors, do we almost invariably turn to the first, i.e. to the object, to such an extent that the awareness of the other two factors is almost completely obliterated? The answer is that the average worldling has got into the habit of thinking that his happiness depends on manipulating objects. Buddhism believes him to be wrong, and expects better results from focusing attention on the subjective factors which are usually ignored. On analysis, the subjective components have an overwhelming influence in shaping the appearance of an object, which, as a ‘thing in itself’, is quite inaccessible. Likewise the regulation of these subjective factors promises greater rewards than the manipulation of objects. We are constantly reminded that it does not matter what the world does to us and that everything depends on how we react to its challenge. To reform the outside world is regarded as a waste of time. Once we have reformed our own minds, nothing can harm us any longer.

Man’s inwardness is denoted by the terms ‘consciousness’ (the fifth skandha), ‘mind’ (the eleventh sense-field and twelfth element), and ‘mind-consciousness’ (the eighteenth element). Limitations of both space and knowledge prevent me from doing full justice to this side of Buddhist thinking, and I will say no more than is absolutely necessary for the understanding of the later developments described in parts II and III of this book. First we must understand how ‘consciousness’, taken as a ‘dharma’, is related to the ‘self’, secondly define the three basic meanings of the word ‘consciousness’, and thirdly survey the vital role which consciousness plays in the process of liberation from the world.

‘Consciousness’, as we saw (p. 105), is held to account for one of the functions often ascribed to a ‘self’. There are, we are told, no ‘subjects’, but there are acts of objectifying, of awareness, of knowing. In using the word ‘consciousness’, Buddhists try to speak in an impersonal manner of the fact that all my mental experiences happen to ‘me’, are known to ‘me’, are discerned by ‘me’. In all references to ‘consciousness’ the ‘I’ is all the time in the background, though it must never be mentioned. ‘Consciousness’ is the ‘soul’ or the ‘self’, ²⁸⁶ since it is the skandhic component which, more than any other, suggests the appearance of individuality. Great care is taken to desubstantialize it: (a) It is not a thing, but a successive series of acts; ‘mind, by day and night, is ever arising as one thing, ceasing as another’; ²⁸⁷ (b) it is not a personal possession or possessor, but the result of a lawfully conditioned course of impersonal events.

In different contexts the word ‘consciousness’ may mean (1) pure awareness, (2) a thought, (3) mind.

It is easy to define ‘consciousness’ as ‘pure awareness’, or discrimination (the vi- has the force of dis), but almost impossible to actually experience it in its purity. This is partly due to the extreme difficulty of attending to an act of awareness without at the same time paying some attention also to its object, in other words to our deep-seated unwillingness to withdraw from everything besides the pure act of being aware. In addition, ‘consciousness’ is so elusive because, as the ultimate subject of all mental activities, it cannot be made into an object of investigation without losing its specific character. Once objectified or perceived the subject ceases to be seen as what it is. When conscious of itself, the mind splits into subject and object. The perceived subject is then no longer the perceiving subject, and I can no more hope to get hold of my consciousness by introspection, than I can catch my own shadow.

Consciousness is just mental activity considered more or less abstractly; it is the subject in action, viewed more or less by itself. By contrast the three other mental skandhas are concretely determined by specific activities or objects. ‘Consciousness’ in this sense is identified with ‘thought’ (citta), and the three other mental skandhas are called ‘mentals’ (caitasikā), or mental concomitants, of which it is said that they are consecutive to thought, associated or conjoined with it, and that they have sprung from thought, have come into being together with it. In perception the object dominates, in consciousness the subject; in perception (saṃ-jñā, ‘together-knowing’) one is aware of this or that, consciousness is the awareness itself apart from (vi-jñāna) the adverting to the object; perception gives a detailed awareness of attributes, consciousness a general awareness of there being an object.

In its concrete being, and not in abstraction, an act of consciousness is a thought (citta). Here the term is used not for the thinking alone, but for the thinking as related to an object. ²⁸⁸ A concrete act of awareness has always two immediate antecedents (organ and object) which so greatly determine its character that ‘consciousness’ falls into six kinds, i.e. eye- or sight-consciousness, etc., to mind-consciousness. A thought often has karmic consequences, and invariably contains a number of constituents. According to the Theravādins, in addition to feeling and perception five factors are found in all mental activity, i.e. contacting, will, mental life, concentration and attention. ⁹² Through ‘contact’ an outward process becomes, as it were, a part of the mind, an inward event which sets off mental processes. Unless the six inner sense-fields had created a sphere of inwardness against a region of outwardness, no contact could take place. ‘Will’ means that something is done about this newcomer to the mind. One gets busy about it and purposive action takes place. Through ‘mental life’ one is able to keep on doing something about it, the stream of thought being continually renewed. ‘Concentration’ furnishes the thought with (a) the oneness it requires—singleness of object and unification of mind; (b) exclusiveness, by selective attention with a view to sustained mental effort; (c) corresponding withdrawal from other objects. And finally ‘attention’ responds to variation (in the stimulus) and introduces alteration (into the mental attitude) (cf. p. 188).

Frequently ‘consciousness’ is taken to mean ‘mind’ (manas). In that case we may speak of ‘intellection’, and the ‘dharmas’ which correspond to it may be called ‘objects of ideation’. In intellection, which is the sixth sense-organ, the self-activity of the mind is more pronounced than in the five physical sense-organs. There it gives most of itself (in the way of the construction of data), and takes least from the outside (by way of the reception of data). Four functions have been attributed to ‘mind’. (1) It is a special receptor-organ, sensitive to five classes of mind-objects, i.e. feelings, perceptions and impulses (which it perceives as a kind of ‘inner sense’), mind-given, invisible, subtle form (cf. II 4, 2) and to some extent Nirvana (cf. p. 57). (2) Mind organizes the data of the other senses, unifies them and turns them into perceptions of things and persons, i.e. into what we may call thought-objects. (3) As ‘representative intellection’ it exercises the functions of reasoning, judgment, memory, planning and imagining. (4) It is the mind which distinguishes, with regard to all objects, between what belongs to the self and what belongs outside, and it is therefore mainly responsible for acts of ‘I-making’ (ahamkāra).

Of all the sense-organs, ‘mind’ is the one most decisive for our welfare, in that its activities alone can be karmically wholesome and unwholesome. ‘It is due to the thought behind it that a physical or vocal act is wholesome or unwholesome.’ ²⁸⁹ In a verse which was considered sufficiently important to be placed at the beginning of the Dhammapada all dharmas are said to be dominated, governed and created by mind. ²⁹⁰ ‘If a man speaks or acts with a corrupted mind, then suffering follows him, as the wheel of the wagon follows the hoofs of the bullock. But if he speaks and acts with a pure mind, then ease follows him, just as his shadow that is always with him.’ In other words, all that we are, both physically and mentally, has been shaped by what we have thought. The world of ‘hard facts’ has not been brutishly imposed upon us, but everyone has, by what he has thought in the past, chosen his material environment and created his own character, capacities and dispositions. Mind-training alone can therefore improve our circumstances, inward or outward. This doctrine is of the essence of Buddhism, though it must sound strange to modern ears.

It is an axiom of all introspective and mystical philosophy that the Truth dwells in the most inward inwardness of man. ⁹³ Consciousness, or thought, is that part of ourselves where we are most of all ourselves. It is that in man where he can most easily think that he is himself, alone himself by himself. Pure consciousness, when reached not by way of intellectual abstraction, but by realizing the inmost core of one’s self, would therefore be the same as pure and simple ‘spirit’, by itself in permanent peace. There has been some tendency among Buddhists to draw this conclusion, and the isolation of consciousness has been regarded as one method of winning Nirvana. Though paradoxically the pure thought, once it has come to itself, turns out to be essentially no-thought.

All the formless trances are ways of overcoming and discarding the object, the dependence on it, the being supported by it. The second attends exclusively to an attenuated consciousness which has nothing but empty space for its object, and which is very calm and peaceful, almost free from disturbance or the threat of disturbance, almost undefiled and pure. As consciousness, by withdrawal from what is not itself, comes more and more to be by itself, it becomes weaker and weaker. ‘Taking no delight in feelings from within or from without, he courses mindfully, and puts a stop to consciousness.’ ²⁹¹ (cf. p. 66.) In the trance of ‘neither perception nor non-perception’ consciousness approaches its extinction, and there ‘thought is neither thought nor non-thought’. ²⁹²

Beyond that there is the ‘attainment of cessation’ (nirodhasamāpatti), also known as the ‘cessation of perception and feeling’. Buddhaghosa ²⁹³ defines it as ‘the non-proceeding of all dharmas pertaining to thought and its concomitants, owing to their progressive cessation’. It seems desirable to those who are tired of coping continually with conditioned things which soon break up, and who resolve to be at ease in this very life by being without thought (a-cittaka), and reaching temporarily, say for seven days, a cessation which is equivalent to Nirvana. ²⁹⁴ The reason why the Yogin is without thought is that his efforts are directed to cessation, ²⁹⁵ and that fact marks his thoughtlessness off from mundane empty-headedness. On emerging from his trance, he is further confirmed in his inclination towards detachment and permanent Nirvana. ²⁹⁶ And so nearly transcendental is the attainment of cessation that it cannot be called either conditioned or unconditioned, worldly or supramundane, ‘because it has no [definite] being of its own’ (sabhāvato natthitāya). ²⁹⁷ This is the mysterious trance, marked by the absence of perception and thought, which is close to the ultimate goal, although its place on the Path is rather uncertain. ²⁹⁸ It is very similar to Nirvana, and a Buddha obtains it at the moment of winning Buddhahood. ²⁹⁹ ‘On emerging from it, the yogin is as though he had gone to Nirvana and returned from it.’ ³⁰⁰ So Vasubandhu, whose account substantially agrees with that of Buddhaghosa.

In addition the Abhidharmakośa makes a special effort to define the ‘no-thought’ which is held to be characteristic of the attainment of cessation. It first discusses whether there is absolutely no thought at all, or whether an extremely subtle subconscious thought still persists. ³⁰¹ Secondly, assuming that ‘no-thought’ means what it says, and that actually there is no thought, no consciousness, no awareness of an object, would it not follow that this trance is a mere state of stupor which is not in contact with anything, least of all with the sublime reality of Nirvana? Nevertheless, even in the absence of all mental activity the physiological processes of the body still go on, and it is said that the Yogin ‘touches Nirvana with his body’. Vasubandhu also tells us that ‘the great primary elements are placed into a state of equality which impedes the production of thought’. ³⁰² This is a special physical condition which also prevents a person in the trance of cessation from being burned by fire, drowned in water, wounded by a sword, or killed by anyone. In fact, he cannot be harmed in any way (cf. p. 66). Thirdly, the term ‘no-thought’ readily lends itself to misunderstandings. An electronic computer, or a piece of rock, is ‘without thought’, but no nearer Nirvana than any of us.

Once the Yogin has advanced beyond a certain point on his road to Nirvana, he walks, as it were, on a razor’s edge, and, what is more perturbing, according to the very presuppositions of Buddhism no immediately convincing reason can be put forward why he should not aim at a much inferior goal. Three examples will make this clear. The pursuit of emptiness is very hard to distinguish from a philosophical nihilism which regards all aims as equally dubious, all truths as equally suspect, all practices as equally fruitless. Secondly, if liberation from ill is the purpose of Buddhism, why should anyone, not content with saving himself, take upon himself the excessive burdens of a Bodhisattva or Buddha (cf. p. 168)? And thirdly, if the sufferings which we dislike and dread so much are bound up with our perceiving and being conscious of something, why do we not try to terminate them by achieving a state of relatively permanent unconsciousness, such as was offered in Buddhist cosmology by the ‘unconscious gods’, ³⁰³ and which could be reproduced by Yogins in the ‘attainment of unconsciousness’ which may follow on the fourth trance? ³⁰⁴ Sleep must seem as attractive as awakening (bodhi), though its direct opposite. And what, in any case, is the practical difference between unconsciousness and the trance of the cessation of perception and feeling?

In trying hard to define this difference the Abhidharmakośa makes it quite clear that Buddhism is not just concerned with shirking unpleasant experiences, but motivated by the vision of a higher level of reality. The attainment of unconsciousness and that of stopping have in common that they both stop thoughts and its concomitants. ³⁰⁵ The force (dharma) which for a long time obstructs the mental processes (dharma) among the unconscious gods acts like a dyke which stops the flow of a river’s water. But the difference lies in that the ‘unconscious beings’ are only a superior kind of ‘gods’ who must die after a time. When consciousness is reawakened in them, they are reborn in the world of sense-desire, and their long sleep thus terminates in a rather sad awakening. Moreover, the unconscious gods are inspired by the hope of ‘escape’ (niḥsaraṇa) from this world, the attainment of cessation by a positive conception of peaceful calm (śānta). ³⁰⁶ ‘Unconsciousness’ does not exclude all further rebirth, and is practised only by ordinary people, whereas the ‘saints’ look upon this attainment ‘as a precipice and calamity’, ³⁰⁷ which only postpones salvation. Ordinary people cannot, on the other hand, produce the attainment of cessation because they are afraid of being annihilated, and also, because, since it presupposes that the Path acts as an effective force, only those who have ‘seen’ Nirvana (cf. p. 58) can resolve upon it.

In the writings of the Theravādins the words a-citta, a-cittaka occur very rarely, ³⁰⁸ and are nearly always used in a derogatory sense, meaning ‘without understanding, senseless, thoughtless and unconscious’. Nevertheless they would not disagree with Nāgārjuna ³⁰⁹ when he says: ‘When the sphere of thought has ceased, the nameable ceases; Dharma-nature is like Nirvana, unarising and unceasing.’ And in Ch‘an Buddhism ‘no-thought’ was praised as the highest achievement. This discrepancy in terminology does not necessarily preclude a fundamental identity of outlook and aspiration.