By Venerable Anuradhapura Ariyajeewa Thero - Chife Incumbent Gold Coast Buddhist Centre
In a much broader sense, cognitive processes can be described as everything created and conceived in mind, thoughts, feeling, emotions, judgements, and sensations. Buddhism explains the mind, consciousness and thought processes in depth. However, for this research, the writer takes a simpler and broader sense of the cognitive processes.
The Buddha once explained to a clansman named Pukkhusati how the idea of a “person” could be broken down into its finer properties:
“A person has six properties. Thus, it was said. In reference to what was it said? These are the six properties: the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, the wind property, the space property, the consciousness property. A person has six properties.”
The four properties described in the above script -earth, liquid, fire, and wind are referred to the four great elements that were closely analyzed in chapter 3. Those four elements, along with two additional properties -consciousness and space, makes the spaciotemporal living being.
The following script in the Dātu-vibhanga sutta explains this noumenon of conscious being further:
“This person has six fields of contact.’ That’s what I said, but why did I say it? The fields of contact of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. ‘This person has six fields of contact.’ That’s what I said, and this is why I said it.
This person has eighteen mental preoccupations.’ That’s what I said, but why did I say it? Seeing a sight with the eye, one is preoccupied with a sight that’s a basis for happiness or sadness or neutrality. Hearing a sound with the ear … Smelling an odor with the nose … Tasting a flavour with the tongue …Feeling a touch with the body … Becoming conscious of a thought with the mind, one is preoccupied with a thought that’s a basis for happiness or sadness or neutrality. So, there are six preoccupations with happiness, six preoccupations with sadness, and six preoccupations with neutrality. ‘This person has eighteen mental preoccupations.’ That’s what I said, and this is why I said it.”
A human being from his birth to death occupies himself in thought. This can be a feeling, a judgment, a memory, or one from the five senses: touch, vision, sound, taste or smell. The life, therefore, can be viewed as a stream of thoughts. The variety of thoughts is uncountable. Buddha grouped all thoughts into three categories on their nature; thoughts that result in joy (happy thoughts) thought that result in pain or sadness (unhappy thoughts), and thoughts that do not result in happiness or sadness (neutral thoughts). Living is nothing but the shuffling of thoughts amongst the three categories described above.
Dhammapadaya elaborates two qualities of the cognitive processes that help better understanding:
“Durangamam ekacaram, asariram guhasayam
ye cittam samyamissanti, mokkhanti marabandhana.” – Dhammapadaya
The word “Durangaman” refers to the infinite speed of the stream of thoughts. The speed is immeasurable; it defines that billions of thoughts arisen and vanished in a quick flash of lightning. This phenomenon is also known as the “Kshanika-marana” or the unceasing deaths in Buddhist scripts.
The term “ekacharam”, denotes the quantised property of the thoughts. In other words, the thought should not be misunderstood as an analogue, continuous function. Instead, it as a quantum function – the conscious arises with one and only one thought at a time. It dies or vanishes with the same thought. The consciousness that follows the previous one has a different thought and only arise once the preceding thought completely vanishes. The crux of comprehending “Anicca” lies in understanding this quantum nature of the thought process.
The term “asariram guhasayam” means the thoughts do not belong to the physical body but are originated and processed based on six sensors: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. In other words, neither single thought nor does the whole thought process denotes a permanent self or soul that one can rely on or take control of as he pleases.
The analysis of cognitive processes reveals that life is a stream of thoughts, that thoughts are arisen and demised one at a time at an infinite speed. Thoughts can be based on any of the six sensors: vision, sound, touch, taste, odor or a memory. A practitioner who performs such an analysis perceives the reality of the cognitive processes- a wisdom that is impossible to arrive through logic.