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Consciousness in the Heart Sutra

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:07 pm
by norman
The knowing of an Appearance as an object is constituted by its sensorial awareness of that very appearance. So that the knowledge of the cognized Appearance or Form appears as the being-conscious of that Appearance or Form, its apperception. Form therefore is composed of its sensorial awareness, or qualities, as Appearance, when it is cognized as Vijnana, its Consciousness, the apperceiving act. Therefore Vijnana is not conceivable as such, itself the rendering of Appearances as actual and realizable.

Neither of the skandhas ”do” anything, they are basically interpretations of noumenality. Form-Consciousness are not objects in themselves, they are functional appearances, the very appearances (form, feeling, perception, etc) being the functioning that they are. As objects they are conceptual.

Therefore:

"Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness".

The only experience we can have of Salt is its Saltiness. So that Saltiness is the experience of the concept we have chosen to call Salt. But Salt (experienced via the skandhas) cannot be separated from the sensorial expression of it, i.e., Saltiness, because without its "Saltiness", we wouldn't call it Salt in the first place.

”Saltiness” here, suggests all the sensorial qualities we ascribe to it, i.e., ”the six consciousnesses”, via the skandha-mechanism, so that the resulting ”form” is what we call Salt.

Re: Consciousness in the Heart Sutra

Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:13 am
by krodha
What makes you posit that the skandhas are interpretations of noumenality? It seems like you're holding an assumption that sensory perception is a translation of something beyond the senses.

Re: Consciousness in the Heart Sutra

Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:55 pm
by norman
The skandhas are interpretations of what, to us, appears as "void" or "empty". But emptiness are no thing but the skandhas as functional appearances, so that what Appears is a concept in mind, i.e., form, sensation, perception, and so on.

All sensorial phenomena (dharmas) are NOT, as such.
They "represent the creation of space, the conjuring of division into our awareness [sensorial]." Red Pine, Heart Sutra, pg 98.
He also calls "the existence of anything in our material or mental world (...) their very thingness [a] convenient label for our ignorance of their true nature, which is emptiness" (pg 92), and the skandhas "a category of analysis" (pg 83). And finally "dharmas are defined by emptiness alone" (pg 98).

There's nothing beyond the senses, rather the senses (phenomenal) are not what we 'think' they are. Their "thingness" is a "convenient label for our ignorance". Via the skandha-mechanism we apprehend the senses, their "thingness", as conceptual appearances (the six consciousnesses). These in turn arise concurrently with their sensorial objects, so that "the world", that which is sensorially apparent, is a manifestation of what itself is a "conjuring of division into our [sensorial] awareness".

But nothing is happening. The skandhas doesn't "do" anything. It's a "representation" of a division. In short it's a conceptual interpretation.

Chih-shen (pg 81):
"Inside emptiness there is no form. Outside form there is no emptiness."

Re: Consciousness in the Heart Sutra

Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:03 pm
by krodha
:smile:

Re: Consciousness in the Heart Sutra

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 4:07 am
by Wesley1982
I read this and seemed to understand it. (It sounds like spiritual metaphysics)