Девид Вебстер пишет:
We may do better to see the role of mano in a different light. Rather than treating it as an equal member of the six sense bases, we might view it as having another role. We might view mano in the role of integrating the five senses into a experiential whole. Here mind is what transforms the complex jumble of rapidly arriving sense-data (here Ayer’s notion seems more appropriate) into the experience of the senses that the person is subjected to. While mano also has objects of its own, concepts, memories and the like, we might, if of a Kantian bent, say that mano is what turns the interaction of the world of noumena and our senses into that which we experience as the phenomenal world. Harvey suggests this very role for mano:
Buddhism emphasizes that, whatever the external physical world is like, the ‘world’ of our actual lived experience is one built up from the input of the five senses, interpreted by the mind-organ.40
Here mano has a role quite distinct from that of the other sense bases. It is, then, through the interaction of this complete ‘perceiving system’ that we develop the vedanā that craving is a response to. The MLD translation of the Samma-ditthi sutta – wherein the six sense bases are enumerated – has an interesting explanatory note on the nature and role of mano in this context:
Mind-base (manāyatana) is a collective term for all classes of consciousness. One part of this base – the ‘life continuum’ (bhavanga) or subliminal consciousness – is the ‘door’ for the arising of mind-consciousness.41
Here we get a view which seems, if not at odds with that of Harvey, at least with a different emphasis. But what do they mean here by ‘mind consciousness’?
Mind consciousness (mano-viññāṇa) comprises all consciousness except the five types of sense consciousness just mentioned. It includes consciousness of mental images, abstract ideas, and internal states of mind,42 as well as the consciousness in reflection upon sense objects.43
So, if the ear-base leads to ear-consciousness (as is frequently said in the suttas),44 we might expect the mind-base to lead to this notion of mind-consciousness. There may be problems with this view though. First, and most obviously, viññāṇa precedes the sense bases in the twelve-fold formula of conditioned arising. However, we do not need to see the formula of conditioned arising in severely linear form. While viññāṇa in general may arise at an earlier point in the process, these specific types of viññāṇa do seem dependent on the presence of the sense bases for their arising. Furthermore, this sequence is not followed slavishly in the texts themselves. As Bruce Matthews points out when he is arguing against the view (of E. R. Saratchandra) that viññāṇa’s early place in the sequence implies that it possesses a narrow meaning of just ‘sensation’. Matthews sees the twelve-fold sequence in broader terms:
Saratchandra’s notion that the traditional cause and effect sequence of factors prevents viññāṇa from bearing a developed sense of consciousness seems to reflect an excessively mechanistic view of the sequence.45
Matthews goes on to point to passages such as M.I.293 where viññāṇa appears later in the sequence.46
Second, seeing mano as just another ‘sense-organ’ seems to leave out the notion of mano as an integrating principle of experience. Furthermore, as suggested above, what is it that has47 the experience of manoviññāṇa? If we were to see the five rūpa bases as integrated by the manāyatana, it would follow that the five consciousnesses arising from them might be likewise integrated by manoviññāṇa, but this is not really the issue. The key point here is to avoid a too simplistic view of the nature of mano, as Matthews suggests:
misunderstanding also arises from an inadequate appreciation of the role of mano as a ‘sixth sense’ in Buddhism .... But although mano is one of the senses, it must be emphasized that, in a special way, it is more than this; mano is the ‘integrator’ or matrix of the other senses.48
It is this more holistic49 and integrated approach to the role of mano that seems the most sustainable. Indeed the use of mano in the Pali texts does give it this wider role. At M.I.191 it is attributed a role sitting between the existence of a sense object and the experience of it; that is, mano is what leads from a raw piece of external reality to our conscious experience thereof: when internally the mind is intact and external mind-objects come into its range and there is the corresponding (conscious) engagement, then there is the manifestation of the corresponding section of consciousness.50
However, it is worth noting that the text also gives parallel statements on the five senses as well: about the eye, the ear and the like. However, that does not prevent us from seeing mano as a sensory organiser, as well as a sensory-receptor for mind-objects. What is also revealing of the role of mano is that it is, unlike other sense-organs, in need of special levels of ‘guarding’ or mindfulness. All the sense-doors need ‘guarding’, but mano seems in need of particular attention. We can see this in the Dhammapada:
One should guard against agitation of the mind,
one’s mind should be of good conduct,
giving up bad-conduct of the mind,
one should be of good-conduct of the mind.51
Here the mind is seen as capable of good and bad conduct – much more than a mere organ of the senses.
R. E. A. Johansson offers a detailed analysis of mano wherein he asks a number of questions. In response to asking ‘Is mano consciousness?’ he observes that while it is given as a ‘sense’, passages such as Sn. 834 52 indicate its capability for thought, leading him to the conclusion that ‘Mano is therefore a center for conscious processes.’53
Johansson goes on to offer support for the integrating of sensory experience as a key role for mano, arguing that mano responds in such a way as to be this integrator, or as he puts it:
Mano is, therefore, a coordinating center for the other senses, and perhaps an instrument for recollecting past events (memory).54
This matches with what has been argued above, but this notion of mano as a means of accessing or recalling memories is interesting. One presumes that this is when this integrative instrument is turned at inward data – and makes sense of prior impression – away from its usual role of marshalling its resources to offer an integrated view of new, incoming impressions.
If we see the notion of a ‘mind-door’ process alongside that of the other five sense-door processes, this may give an insight into the nature of mano. While there is not the space here to get drawn into the complex ways in which Abhidhamma understands the perceptual process,55 it may be useful in one respect. In seeking to see how mano sits alongside the other five senses, we might learn more by seeing what the objects that enter consciousness through the mind door are. That is, who comes knocking at the mind-door? At numerous places, we see that it is a mental object, as Lance Cousins reminds us:
But what is the object at the mind door? Traditionally it may be any kind of object – past, present or future, purely conceptual or even transcendent. In the normal case, however, it will be either a memory of the past or some kind of concept.56 This gives us a further sense of the manner in which mano is seen to operate; mano is not only a means to process raw sensory data, but also a means by which mental objects are dealt with.
Mano then has a key and varied role. It is involved in perception, that much is quite obvious, but it also needs focussing on in relation to the notion of ‘heedful attention’. As Johansson suggests, ‘the phrase manasi-karoti is used in many forms to express attention’.57 The Dhammapada passage above also indicates an active role for mano, giving it a sense of thinking, but also an ethical component. This leads us far away from it just being a naive notion of the brain as a sense-organ (although I am not convinced that it rules out this forming part of its broad and inclusive definition), and to concur with Johansson’s view of mano:
Mano is generally conceived as an active agency, not only as a sense, content with passively receiving impressions and passing them on.
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Тема: Перевод "mano" (Прочитано 19858 раз)