Construction of Mind (चित्त): Lankavatara Sutra

Original Text is in SanskritSanskrit It is the oldest living language and civilizational mark. The language of Rig Veda or Atharva Veda (10000 years old) is a pre-Sanskrit Vedic language. It has its own Pratisakhya (Grammar) and Nirukta (Vocabulary).  40% of Tamil is Sanskrit. Before the written form, it was in the form of oral tradition. Such is the case of  Six Kanda Ramayana. Before Valmiki, it was in Oral form. Sanskrit has been the language of  Jambudvipa. The mother tongue of Sunok, Vasistha, Viswamitra or grandparents of  Zarathustra (Resource person of Abrahamic Religions) was the language of Rig Veda. The legend goes that the origin of Sanskrit is the sky, therefore, it is called Deva Bhasa.

Mahayan Theory

Then Mahamati asked to the Blessed One:  Tell us, Blessed One, what is meant by the mindMind We know nothing about its origin, growth, or demise. Where it lives, can it live without a brain? Possibly, the mind is the soul and spirit. See Consciousness (Citta-चित्त)?

From-Lankavatara Sutra

The Blessed One replied: All things of this worldWorld Κόσμος , be they seemingly good or bad, faulty or faultless, effect-producing or not effect-producing, receptive or non-receptive, may be divided into two classes: evil out-flowings and the non out-flowing good. The five grasping elements that make up the aggregates of personality, namely, form, sensation, perception, discrimination, and consciousnessConsciousness The mind’s (Mind) function that receives, processes, and evaluates information through the five senses, imagination, emotion, reason, and memory. The senses gather data, imagination and emotion interpret it, reason judges its value, and memory stores or discards it. In neurophysiology, consciousness is often defined as “subjective awareness” — the state of being aware of oneself and one’s surroundings., and that are imagined to be good and bad, have their rise in the habit-energy of the mind-system,–they are the evil out-flowings of life. The spiritualSpiritual Inspirational or inspired, energetic, motivated. It is all about earthly potency. It can not be translated as Adhatmya in Sanskrit. 'Christian Spirituality' means being motivated by Christian ideas. An airy or thin, like invisible earthly matter, is also called Spiritual. "Take and receive my spirit" means take courage from me, or just blowing wind from one's mouth. attainments and the joys of the Samadhis(समाधि) and the fruitage of the Samapattis that come to the wise through their self-realisation of Noble Wisdom and that culminate in their return and participation in the relations of the triple world are called the non out-flowing good.

The mind-system which is the source of the evil out-flowings consists of the five sense-organs and their accompanying sense-minds (vijnanas) all of which are unified in the discriminating-mind (manovijnana-मनोविज्ञान). There is an unending succession of sense-concepts flowing into this discriminating or thinkingThinking Human beings began conscious thought as far back as sixty million years ago. By around three hundred thousand years ago, humans inhabiting the Indian subcontinent had developed forms of cognition comparable to those of the modern age, including awareness of competition, defense, and collective security. These early communities were capable of abstract observation, such as counting stars in the night sky, and engaged in reflective discussion about everyday experiences, including the flavors and qualities of food, indicating a sophisticated mental and social life.-mind which combines them and discriminates them and passes judgement upon them as to their goodness or badness. Then follows aversion to or desire for them and attachment and deed; thus the entire system moves on continuously and closely bound together. But it fails to see and understand that what it sees and discriminates and grasps is only a manifestation of its own activity and has no other basis, and so the mind goes on erroneously perceiving and discriminating differences of forms and qualities, not remaining still even for a minute.

In the mind-system there are three modes of activity distinguishable: the sense-minds functioning while remaining in their original nature, the sense-minds as producing effects, and the sense-minds as evolving. By normal functioning the sense-minds grasp appropriate elements of their external world, by which sensation and perception arise at once and by degrees in every sense-organ and every sense-mind, in the pores of the skin, and even in the atoms that make up the body, by which the whole field is apprehended like a mirror reflecting objects, and not realising that the external world itself is only a manifestation of mind. The second mode of activity produces effects by which these sensations react on the discriminating mind to produce perceptions, attractions, aversions, grasping, deed and habit. The third mode of activity has to do with the growth, developmentDevelopment ανάπτυξη and passing of the mind-system, that is, the mind-system is in subjection to its own habit-energy accumulated from beginningless timeTime χρόνος. Judicial: Where any expression of it occurs in any Rules, or any judgment, order or direction, and whenever the doing or not doing of anything at a certain time of the day or night or during a certain part of the day or night has an effect in law, that time is, unless it is otherwise specifically stated, held to be standard time as used in a particular country or state. (In Physics, time and Space never exist actually-“quantum entanglement”) यमः , पुं, (यमयति नियमयति जीवानां फलाफलमिति । यम् + अच् । विश्वे च कलयत्येव यः सर्व्वायुश्च सन्ततम् । अतीव दुर्निवार्य्यञ्च तं कालं प्रणमाम्यहम् ॥यमैश्च नियमैश्चैव यः करोत्यात्मसंयमम् । स चादृष्ट्वा तु मां याति परं ब्रह्म सनातनम् ॥, as for instance: the “eyeness” in the eye that predisposes it to grasp and become attached to multiple forms and appearances. In this way the activities of the evolving mind-system by reason of its habit-energy stirs up waves of objectivity on the face of Universal [paragraph continues] Mind which in turn conditions the activities and evolvement of the mind-system. Appearances, perception, attraction, grasping, deed, habit, reaction, condition one another incessantly, and the functioning sense-minds, the discriminating-mind and Universal Mind are thus bound up together. Thus, by reason of discrimination of that which by nature is maya-like and unreal false-imagination and erroneous reasoning takes place, action follows and its habit-energy accumulates thereby defiling the pure face of Universal Mind, and as a result the mind-system comes into functioning and the physical body has its genesis. But the discriminating-mind has no thoughtThinking Human beings began conscious thought as far back as sixty million years ago. By around three hundred thousand years ago, humans inhabiting the Indian subcontinent had developed forms of cognition comparable to those of the modern age, including awareness of competition, defense, and collective security. These early communities were capable of abstract observation, such as counting stars in the night sky, and engaged in reflective discussion about everyday experiences, including the flavors and qualities of food, indicating a sophisticated mental and social life. that by its discriminations and attachments it is conditioning the whole body and so the sense-minds and the discriminating-mind go on mutually related and mutually conditioned in a most intimate manner and building up a world of representations out of the activities of its own imagination. As a mirror reflects forms, the perceiving senses perceive appearances which the discriminating-mind gathers together and proceeds to discriminate, to name and become attached to. Between these two functions there is no gap, nevertheless, they are mutually conditioning. The perceiving senses grasp that for which they have an affinity, and there is a transformation takes place in their structure by reason of which the mind proceeds to combine, discriminate, apprise, and act; then follows habit-energy and the establishing of the mind and its continuance.

The discriminating-mind because of its capacity to discriminate, judge, select and reason about, is also called the thinking, or intellectual-mind. There are three divisions of its mental activity: mentation which functions in connection with attachment to objects and ideas, mentation that functions in connection with general ideas, and mentation that examines into the validity of these general ideas. The mentation which functions in connection with attachment to objects and ideas derived from discrimination, discriminates the mind from its mental processes and accepts the ideas from it as being real and becomes attached to them. A variety of false judgements are thus arrived at as to being, multiplicity, individuality, value, etc., a strong grasping takes place which is perpetuated by habit-energy and thus discrimination goes on asserting itself.

These mental processes give rise to general conceptions of warmth, fluidity, motility, and solidity, as characterising the objects of discrimination, while the tenacious holding to these general ideas gives rise to proposition, reason, definition, and illustration, all of which lead to the assertions of relative knowledgeKnowledge Knowledge is derived from the process of an informed person integrating data from sense organs or intuition into their psyche. This concept is explored in the Vedic Nasadiya Sukta, which questions the possibility of ultimate truth or knowledge. In different languages, such as Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Chinese, knowledge is expressed as "η γνώση," "Scientia," "ज्ञानम्‌ ," and "知识 Zhīshì," respectively. and the establishment of confidence in birth, self-nature, and an ego-soulSoul Abraham, having wept a short time over his wife’s body, soon rose up from the corpse; thinking, as it should seem, that to mourn any longer would be inconsistent with that wisdom by which he had been taught that he was not to look upon death as the extinction of the soul, but rather as a separation and disjunction of it from the body, returning back to the region from whence it came; and it came, from God. (Philo) न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्-नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः-अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोयं पुराणो-न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे (Gita 2.20 ).

By mentation as an examining function is meant the intellectual act of examining into these general conclusions as to their validity, significance, and truthfulness. This is the faculty that leads to understanding, right-knowledge and points the way to self-realisation.

THEN MAHAMATI SAID to the Blessed One: Tell us, Blessed One, what relation ego-personality bears to the mind-system?

The Blessed One replied: To explain it, it is first necessary to speak of the self-nature of the five grasping aggregates that make up personality, although as I have already shown they are empty, un-born, and without self-nature. These five grasping aggregates are: form, sensation, perception, discrimination, consciousness. Of these, form belongs to what is made of the so-called primary elements, whatever they may be. The four remaining aggregates are without form and ought not to be reckoned as four, because they merge imperceptibly into one another. They are like space which cannot be numbered; it is only due to imagination that they are discriminated and likened to space. Because things are endowed with appearances of being, characteristic-marks, perceivableness, abode, work, one can say that they are born of effect-producing causes, but this can not be said of these four intangible aggregates for they are without form and marks. These four mental aggregates that make up personality are beyond calculability, they are beyond the four propositions, they are not to be predicated as existing nor as not existing, but together they constitute what is known as mortal-mind. They are even more maya-like and dream-like than are things, nevertheless, as discriminating mortal-mind they obstruct the self-realisation of Noble Wisdom. But it is only by the ignorant that they are enumerated and thought of as an ego-personality; the wise do not do so. This discrimination of the five aggregates that make up personality and that serve as a basis for an ego-soul and ground for its desires and self-interests must be given up, and in its place the truthTruth Mathematical 'truth' may not be agreeable with the philosophical 'truth.' A question may be asked on propositional 'truth' on the grounds of physics, that space and time actually don't exist. Vedic injunction Satyam Param Dhimahi, technically Satya is none other than Brahman. For Madhymic Buddhists there is nothing as such to be called 'truth', as all the corresponding facts are only mental projections. Apart from Bio-neuroelectricity nothing exists for Biological Cognition. So-called religious truths are nothing more than a marketing strategy. of imagelessness and solitude should be established.

THEN SAID MAHAMATI to the Blessed One: Tell us, Blessed One, about Universal Mind and its relation to the lower mind-system?

The Blessed One replied: The sense-minds and their centralised discriminating-mind are related to the external world which is a manifestation of itself and is given over to perceiving, discriminating, and grasping its maya-like appearances. Universal Mind (Alaya-vijnana) transcends all individuation and limits. Universal Mind is thoroughly pure in its essential nature, subsisting unchanged and free from faults of impermanence, undisturbed by egoism, unruffled by distinctions, desires and aversions. Universal Mind is like a great ocean, its surface ruffled by waves and surges but its depths remaining forever unmoved. In itself it is devoid of personality and all that belongs to it, but by reason of the defilement upon its face it is like an actor and plays a variety of parts, among which a mutual functioning takes place and the mind-system arises. The principle of intellection becomes divided and mind, the functions of mind, the evil out-flowings of mind, take on individuation. The sevenfold gradation of mind appears: namely, intuitive self-realisation, thinking-desiring-discriminating, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and all their interactions and reactions take their rise.

The discriminating-mind is the cause of the sense-minds and is their support and with them is kept functioning as it describes and becomes attached to a world of objects, and then, by means of its habit-energy, it defiles the face of Universal Mind. Thus Universal Mind becomes the storage and clearing house of all the accumulated products of mentation and action since beginningless time.

Between Universal Mind and the individual discriminating-mind is the intuitive-mind (manas-मनः) which is dependent upon Universal Mind for its cause and support and enters into relations with both. It partakes of the universality of Universal Mind, shares its purity, and like it, is above form and momentariness. It is through the intuitive-mind that the good non out-flowings emerge, are manifested and are realised. Fortunate it is that intuition is not momentary for if the enlightenment which comes by intuition were momentary the wise would lose their “wiseness” which they do not. But the intuitive-mind enters into relations with the lower mind-system, shares its experiences and reflects upon its activities.

Intuitive-mind is one with Universal Mind by reason of its participation in Transcendental Intelligence (AryaArya Ἀριάνης (OInd. āˊrya-, Ir. *arya, in Old Pers. ariya-, Avesta. airiia-, etc.) >The word is used 32 times in Rigveda. It means A learned person, an intelligent person, or any high ranking person in society. Before the 1850s (Arthur de Gobineau) the term was never used to denote any race. Mleccha is one who was not able to speak the Vedic language (5000 BCE). आर्यावर्त (Identified in Manu Samhita). Ērān (Iran) and Ireland derived from Sanskrit आर्य (ऋ+यत्). अर्य (ऊरव्या ऊरुजा अर्या वैश्या भूमिस्पृशो विशः । आजीवो जीविका वार्ता वृत्तिर्वर्तनजीवने ॥ (Amar Kosa-२.९.१ ). अर्य (पर्जन्यौ रसदब्देन्द्रौ स्यादर्यः स्वामिवैश्ययोः । तिष्यः पुष्ये कलियुगे पर्यायोऽवसरे क्रमे ॥ (Amar Kosa--३.३.१५५ ). Ref: Saraswati.-jnana), and is one with the mind-system by its comprehension of differentiated knowledge (vijnana). Intuitive-mind has no body of its own nor any marks by which it can be differentiated. Universal Mind is its cause and support but it is evolved along with the notion of an ego and what belongs to it, to which it clings and upon which it reflects. Through intuitive-mind, by the faculty of intuition which is a mingling of both identity and perceiving, the inconceivable wisdom of Universal Mind is revealed and made realisable. Like Universal Mind it can not be the source of error.

The discriminating-mind is a dancer and a magician with the objective world as his stage. Intuitive-mind is the wise jester who travels with the magician and reflects upon his emptiness and transiency. Universal Mind keeps the record and knows what must be and what may be. It is because of the activities of the discriminating-mind that error rises and an objective world evolves and the notion of an ego-soul becomes established. If and when the discriminating-mind can be gotten rid of, the whole mind-system will cease to function and Universal Mind will alone remain. Getting rid of the discriminating-mind removes the cause of all error.

THEN SAID MAHAMATI to the Blessed One: Tell us, Blessed One, what is meant by the cessation of the mind-system?

The Blessed One replied: The five sense-functions and their discriminating and thinking function have their risings and complete endings from moment to moment. They are born with discrimination as cause, with form and appearance and objectivity closely linked together as condition. The will-to-live is the mother, ignorance is the father. By setting up names and forms greed is multiplied and thus the mind goes mutually conditioning and being conditioned. By becoming attached to names and forms, not realising that they have no more basis than the activities of the mind itself, error rises, false-imagination as-to pleasure and pain rises, and the way to emancipation is blocked. The lower system of sense-minds and the discriminating-mind do not really suffer pleasure and pain-they only imagine they do. Pleasure and pain are the deceptive reactions of mortal-mind as it grasps an imaginary objective world.

There are two ways in which the ceasing of the mind-system may take place: as regards form, and as regards continuation. The sense-organs function as regards form by the interaction of form, contact and grasping; and they cease to function when this contact is broken. As regards continuation,–when these interactions of form, contact and grasping cease, there is no more continuation of the seeing, hearing and other sense functions; with the ceasing of these sense functions, the discriminations, graspings and attachments of the discriminating-mind cease; and with their ceasing act and deed and their habit-energy cease, and there is no more accumulation of karmaKarma A technical term to define every human action done voluntarily. Lawful Karma (Dharma) leads to the path of enlightenment.-defilement on the face of Universal Mind.

If the evolving mortal-mind were of the same nature as Universal Mind the cessation of the lower mind-system would mean the cessation of Universal Mind, but they are different for Universal Mind is not the cause of mortal-mind. There is no cessation of Universal Mind in its pure and essence-nature. What ceases to function is not Universal Mind in its essence-nature, but is the cessation of the effect-producing defilements upon its face that have been caused by the accumulation of the habit-energy of the activities of the discriminating and thinking mortal-mind. There is no cessation of Divine Mind which, in itself, is the abode of Reality and the Womb of Truth.

By the cessation of the sense-minds is meant, not the cessation of their perceiving functions, but the cessation of their discriminating and naming activities which are centralised in the discriminating mortal-mind. By the cessation of the mind-system as a whole is meant, the cessation of discrimination, the clearing away of the various attachments, and, therefore, the clearing away of the defilements of habit-energy on the face of Universal Mind which have been accumulating since beginningless time by reason of these discriminations, attachments, erroneous reasonings, and following acts. The cessation of the continuation aspect of the mind-system as a whole, takes place when there is the cessation of that which supports the mind-system, namely, the discriminating mortal-mind. With the cessation of mortal-mind the entire world of maya and desire disappears. Getting rid of the discriminating mortal-mind is Nirvana (निर्वाण).

But the cessation of the discriminating-mind can not take place until there has been a “turning-about” in the deepest seat of consciousness. The mental habit of looking outward by the discriminating-mind upon an external objective world must be given up, and a new habit if realising Truth within the intuitive-mind by becoming one with Truth itself must be established. Until this intuitive self-realisation of Noble Wisdom is attained, the evolving mind-system will go on. But when an insight into the five Dharmas, the three self-natures, and the twofold egolessness is attained, then the way will be opened for this “turning-about” to take place. With the ending of pleasure and pain, of conflicting ideas, of the disturbing interests of egoism, a state of tranquillisation will be attained in which the truths of emancipation will be fully understood and there will be no further evil outflowings of the mind-system to interfere with the perfect self-realisation of Noble Wisdom.

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