Can the mind only hold a single object at a time?

[heart]

Are you saying that the understanding of mind degenerate the higher the level of practice is?

/magnus

What does your Dzogchen master say about this?

The higher the teaching the better the understanding of the mind should be, at least in theory.

/magnus

[fckw]

I think that’s actually really good advise.

[haha]

Generally, manasikara holds the object and consciousness is characterized by act of knowing. What will happen if one breaks the habit of manasikara? Sometimes one may have heard the analogy of a house with five windows and a monkey. However, there is different level of understanding of the consciousness in Mahayana. You probably know that even the speech of Tathagata has capacity to see, and so on.

Here is a reference (i.e. from Yogacara related sutra):

If there arises one eye consciousness, there arises together with it only one mental consciousness, which has the same object of activity as the eye consciousness. Likewise, if two, three, four, or five consciousnesses arise together, then there still arises, together with them, only one conceptual mental consciousness, which has the same object of activity as the fivefold collection of consciousness.

Viśālamati, for example, if the causal conditions for the arising of one wave in a great flowing river are present, then just one wave will arise. If the causal conditions for two waves or many waves are present, then multiple waves will arise. But the river's own continuity will not be broken; it will never be entirely stopped.

If the causal conditions for the arising of a single image in a perfectly clear round mirror are present, then just one image will arise. If the causal conditions for the arising of two images or of many images are present, then multiple images will arise. However, that round mirror will not be transformed into the nature of the image; they will never be fully linked.

Viśālamati, just as it is with the water and the mirror, if, depending upon and abiding in the appropriating conscious-ness, the causal conditions for the simultaneous arising of one eye consciousness are present, then just one eye consciousness will arise one time. If the causal conditions for the single arising of up to the fivefold assemblage of consciousness are present, then up to that fivefold assemblage of consciousness will also arise one time.

Powers, John (1995), Wisdom of Buddha : The Samdhinirmochana Sutra

[Hazel]

Fun fact. Sometimes in electronics the brightness or dimmness of an LED is controlled by changing how fast you're pulsing between on and off.

[Opl]

Thank you very much for all your replies! I have not responded before now, since I didn't get notified that there were comments. Now I have found out how to change some configurations so that I should get notifications in the future.

I was a bit surprised that later traditions hold the same viewpoint about being aware about more than one thing at a time. I like the analogue to a computer than seems to process many things at once, but that is just how it seems. And I know that when I touch something and see my hand touching it, that the brain do not receive these inputs at the same time. Some sense impressions takes longer to compute, but they seem to be experienced at the same time. For most neurologists this would be a final argument but I am not still convinced since I cannot be sure that consciousness is an activity in the brain. And even if it is some kind of epiphenomenon, consciousness/awareness could still be a process that captured all impressions at once - which IS how we seem to experience it (except if going very deep into vipassana, but that might be like a computer programmer can dig deep into and beyond the operating system and see how each little thing happens one after the other. But here the programmer would be analogue to consciousness and he can choose to things both ways, simultaneous arising or one at a time.

In my experience impressions cluster together just like someone mentioned being taught in yogachara, with the metaphor of a drum being beaten by many stones at the same time. Some things it is very hard not to experience as one, fx if I play a chord on a piano it is not heard as 5 separate notes but as *one* chord. The expression on a face is *one* impression, not raised eyebrows + eyelids tense + muscles around the mouth are flattened. At the brain level it might be.

In a guided meditation based on vayarana teaching the words were: 'Let all this resolve into a single sphere of experience" after attention had been directed towards sounds near and far, sense impressions, visual impression, feelings, thoughts. The idea being that every wave of the ocean is the ocean and all there is to experience is a manifestation of consciousness and is consciousness itself. How can the mind realise this if it is only able to experience one object at a time? I only know very little about the philosophy behind dzogchen and mahamudra, but I had assumed that it differed from theravada on this point.

[PadmaVonSamba]

I think this has gotten way too complicated.
Obviously, if you look at plaid fabric design, you see plaid.
If you look at the night sky, you see a million stars.
A flock of birds, a symphony orchestra, whatever.
But what is happening is that your mind is taking a snapshot of the whole. And what you are “seeing” is that snapshot of everything at once. In a sense, you are looking at one single snapshot.

But if you try to “look” at everything at once, you cannot.
You can see that an orange is both round and orange color.
But you cannot look at the shape and the color simultaneously.

[fckw]

In a guided meditation based on vayarana teaching the words were: 'Let all this resolve into a single sphere of experience" after attention had been directed towards sounds near and far, sense impressions, visual impression, feelings, thoughts. The idea being that every wave of the ocean is the ocean and all there is to experience is a manifestation of consciousness and is consciousness itself. How can the mind realise this if it is only able to experience one object at a time? I only know very little about the philosophy behind dzogchen and mahamudra, but I had assumed that it differed from theravada on this point.

You are comparing apples and oranges. Do not apply the Therevada teachings and experience to your Dzogchen or Mahamudra teachings and experience, or vice versa! If you do that, you will get confused. You have to understand that these systems share a common depth structure of how meditation unfolds along the path, but the content of experience along the path will be very, very different. This is in fact so hard to grasp for most people that it's better to simply say that the two systems work so differently from each other that it's simply not worth comparing them any further.

[jet.urgyen]

I posted this question some years ago at a theravada forum, and the response was that the mentioned (theravada) teacher was right.
In Dzogchen/Vayrayana that I later have become acquainted there seem to be a very different opinion, and since this question is still a question that often pops up in my meditations, I would like to ask the same question here. Both personal opinions and references to scriptures are very welcome

I once was at a (theravada) mini-retreat where the teacher insisted that if one really watched carefully, one would recognize that it is not possible for the mind to pay attention to more than one thing at a time. I commented that in my experience it is possible to experience a lot of stimuli simultaneously. to see "whole picture" in one glimpse, just like listening to many instruments at the same time, but he kept insisting that this was due to the fact that attention shifted at a very fast pace between objects. And that if I kept practicing I would realize this. Is what he said in accordance with buddhist teaching? I have never heard it mentioned from any teacher other than him (but I remember it from some old perception psychology which I don't know if is out dated), and it really interferes with my mindfulness when I come to think of what he said.

nonsenses.i know people can perceive multiple objects at the time.

for an scriptural reference, in his namthar, there is the account of togden urgyen tendzin experienced this, and had to obscure his capacity because was overwhelmed.

[PadmaVonSamba]

I asked a friend who is a professor and researcher specializing in the eye-brain connection, as to whether there is any physiological evidence regarding whether we see multiples or singularities, for example, seeing that a grapefruit is round, and simultaneously seeing that it is yellow, which are two different brain functions. He said this is still widely debated, and his opinion is that they are perceived simultaneously, but consciously only available separately.

I think it’s probably like, for example, looking at a house on a farm. Depending on where your point of attention is, you might see and entire scene of a house in the middle of a cornfield, or you might only see the house, or you might only see the door of the house, or you might only see the window on the door, or you might only see the a crack in the glass of the window in the door.

In other words, even if you only see one thing, and going back to the example of the grapefruit, if the mind, for whatever brief moment, only sees the color and not the shape, that color itself is not uniform. An artist painting an image of that grapefruit will also see different shades of yellow, more light on one side and more shadow on the other, and variations of yellow color. It’s like a digital camera that captures the whole image of the grapefruit, but close up, there are hundreds of slightly different yellow pixels.

[Norwegian]

I posted this question some years ago at a theravada forum, and the response was that the mentioned (theravada) teacher was right.
In Dzogchen/Vayrayana that I later have become acquainted there seem to be a very different opinion, and since this question is still a question that often pops up in my meditations, I would like to ask the same question here. Both personal opinions and references to scriptures are very welcome

I once was at a (theravada) mini-retreat where the teacher insisted that if one really watched carefully, one would recognize that it is not possible for the mind to pay attention to more than one thing at a time. I commented that in my experience it is possible to experience a lot of stimuli simultaneously. to see "whole picture" in one glimpse, just like listening to many instruments at the same time, but he kept insisting that this was due to the fact that attention shifted at a very fast pace between objects. And that if I kept practicing I would realize this. Is what he said in accordance with buddhist teaching? I have never heard it mentioned from any teacher other than him (but I remember it from some old perception psychology which I don't know if is out dated), and it really interferes with my mindfulness when I come to think of what he said.

nonsenses.i know people can perceive multiple objects at the time.

for an scriptural reference, in his namthar, there is the account of togden urgyen tendzin experienced this, and had to obscure his capacity because was overwhelmed.

This isn't a scriptural reference. This is just a comment by you. A scriptural reference is an actual quote from a text, or a scripture.

[jet.urgyen]

I posted this question some years ago at a theravada forum, and the response was that the mentioned (theravada) teacher was right.
In Dzogchen/Vayrayana that I later have become acquainted there seem to be a very different opinion, and since this question is still a question that often pops up in my meditations, I would like to ask the same question here. Both personal opinions and references to scriptures are very welcome

I once was at a (theravada) mini-retreat where the teacher insisted that if one really watched carefully, one would recognize that it is not possible for the mind to pay attention to more than one thing at a time. I commented that in my experience it is possible to experience a lot of stimuli simultaneously. to see "whole picture" in one glimpse, just like listening to many instruments at the same time, but he kept insisting that this was due to the fact that attention shifted at a very fast pace between objects. And that if I kept practicing I would realize this. Is what he said in accordance with buddhist teaching? I have never heard it mentioned from any teacher other than him (but I remember it from some old perception psychology which I don't know if is out dated), and it really interferes with my mindfulness when I come to think of what he said.

nonsenses.i know people can perceive multiple objects at the time.

for an scriptural reference, in his namthar, there is the account of togden urgyen tendzin experienced this, and had to obscure his capacity because was overwhelmed.

This isn't a scriptural reference. This is just a comment by you. A scriptural reference is an actual quote from a text, or a scripture.

Since he had unobstructed clairvoyance, he was aware of all the evil thoughts people were having. Disturbed by them, he drank the urine of a widow on purpose and lost this clarity.

[jet.urgyen]

the above is from "Rainbow Body: The Life and Realization of a Tibetan Yogin, Togden UgyenTendzin"

[Gyurme Kundrol]

The thing is even awareness of mulitple "objects" is actually just one object. Why? Because all objects arise within the same sphere of the mind, and they are all part of a single mental energy. You cannot divide your mind into two, its always one, and in the same way whatever thought you are having is always one, even if that singular thought contains multiple objects.

To put this in another way, there is no real separation between two mountain peaks and the valley below. Its all "one ground" and is all "one object". It appears as though there is two peaks rising out of the valley, but in reality its all connected.

To frame it in a Dzogchen context, all images and experiences we perceive arise as a single display in the mirror like nature of mind. There is no division and no multiplicity there. Its one image with one nature. If we focus on an image and conceptualize it, thats just bringing a mountain up out of the valley of appearances. If we relax and let our clinging to appearances go, everything subsides into this single image and nature and we begin to experience the one-taste of appearances.

[fckw]

Since he had unobstructed clairvoyance, he was aware of all the evil thoughts people were having. Disturbed by them, he drank the urine of a widow on purpose and lost this clarity.

The quote does not clarify whether he was aware of all evil thoughts at the same time or in sequence, which is the actual question of the thread. Described differently, the quote neither specifies whether we are talking about the most atomic mind moments or about an entire stream of mind moments.

The mind can hold multiple objects over a span of time in succession, but it can only hold a single object at any given atomic mind moment. If mind would be able to hold multiple objects in a given atomic mind moment then the skandha model could not properly be applied anymore, as, for example, a single mind moment would require multiple feeling-tones, multiple sense perceptions, multiple consciousnesses etc. to accommodate for multiple objects held in the same mind moment.

[jet.urgyen]

The thing is even awareness of mulitple "objects" is actually just one object.

this is narrow minded, too comfortable in logic and referential points. if one keep believing like that one will never go beyhond mind -limitations-.

[fckw]

The thing is even awareness of mulitple "objects" is actually just one object. Why? Because all objects arise within the same sphere of the mind, and they are all part of a single mental energy. You cannot divide your mind into two, its always one, and in the same way whatever thought you are having is always one, even if that singular thought contains multiple objects.

To put this in another way, there is no real separation between two mountain peaks and the valley below. Its all "one ground" and is all "one object". It appears as though there is two peaks rising out of the valley, but in reality its all connected.

To frame it in a Dzogchen context, all images and experiences we perceive arise as a single display in the mirror like nature of mind. There is no division and no multiplicity there. Its one image with one nature. If we focus on an image and conceptualize it, thats just bringing a mountain up out of the valley of appearances. If we relax and let our clinging to appearances go, everything subsides into this single image and nature and we begin to experience the one-taste of appearances.

While this explanation might (or might not) apply for Dzogchen, it clearly does not apply for Therevada Buddhism. I think this is worth pointing out: In Therevada Buddhist thinking there is simply no such thing as "awareness". Hence, explaining that objects arise from anything like a "sphere of mind" makes just no sense in Therevada Buddhism.

As I said above already: The meditative experience along the path is actually very different between those traditions. (And most people who have not practiced both systems systematically up to the higher levels simply are not familiar with this experientally and therefore don't know about it.)

[jet.urgyen]

Since he had unobstructed clairvoyance, he was aware of all the evil thoughts people were having. Disturbed by them, he drank the urine of a widow on purpose and lost this clarity.

The quote does not clarify whether he was aware of all evil thoughts at the same time or in sequence, which is the actual question of the thread.

if you know what clarity is, you also know that when you put attention onto something you don't ignore the rest of things. one can't control that at will, it's just clarity. if the togden had that manifestation, it was simultaneous.

as i wrote, in the narrowmimded way, where one is trapped by logic, one have a narrow vision.

i insist in this bcause this is the atiyoga sub-forum. one must put into context what ones teacher say to us. a shrvaka preceptor might have had the shrvaka context...

ok, i think i'm done in this thread.

[fckw]

Since he had unobstructed clairvoyance, he was aware of all the evil thoughts people were having. Disturbed by them, he drank the urine of a widow on purpose and lost this clarity.

The quote does not clarify whether he was aware of all evil thoughts at the same time or in sequence, which is the actual question of the thread.

if you know what clarity is, you also know that when you put attention onto something you don't ignore the rest of things. one can't control that at will, it's just clarity. if the togden had that manifestation, it was simultaneous.

as i wrote, in the narrowmimded way, where one is trapped by logic, one have a narrow vision.

Now, at close examination this is not really an argument, is it?

i insist in this bcause this is the atiyoga sub-forum. one must put into context what ones teacher say to us. a shrvaka preceptor might have had the shrvaka context...

Well, it's great that you insist on this being the ati-yoga forum, but the OP was this:

I posted this question some years ago at a theravada forum, and the response was that the mentioned (theravada) teacher was right.
In Dzogchen/Vayrayana that I later have become acquainted there seem to be a very different opinion, and since this question is still a question that often pops up in my meditations, I would like to ask the same question here. Both personal opinions and references to scriptures are very welcome.

So, there is an explicit reference to the therevada view of things and contrasting it with the mahamudra and dzogchen view. You have only provided one half of what was asked for - the ati-yoga view on things.

The whole distinction between Therevada view and Mahayana (here implicitly in the context of Mahamudra) view is quite clearly explained in the book "Pointing out the great way" by Daniel Brown (p. 357):

Rather than a temporal succession of discrete mind-moments [as experienced by the Therevada practitioner], the [Mahayana] practitioner experiences the entire causeless, groundless interconnectedness of everything. [...]
Thought comparable in profundity to the Therevada dissolution experience, the Mahayana experience of nondissolution or unelaboration is very different, both experientially and philosophically [...].

So, you see: The experience of Mahayana practitioners is indeed different from the experience of Therevada practitioners on this point. The reason being that typically Mahamudra/Dzogchen (maybe also other Mahayana schools, I don't know personally) contain certain meditation instructions that the Therevada schools do not have. Furthermore, to accommodate for those differences they developed a different language. This is why above I have already made the point that comparing the two systems is like comparing apples and oranges.

What I'd be really interested in though would be to know how Mahamudra/Dzogchen apply the skandha model (which you decided to simply to dismiss as an argument referring to it as "trapped by logic" and "narrow vision", as if miraculously the skandha model would not really apply anymore to ati-yoga). If anyone knows of any scriptures, here would be a good opportunity to share.

[fckw]

I just found this quite interesting article. It seems there are some therevada traditions in Thailand that actually do know something sort of comparable to awareness. According to their way of putting things:

[...] here is an awareness of Nibbana, an awareness of the cessation of all conditioned phenomena. Bhikkhu Nanananda writes: “Here, then, is a consciousness of the very cessation of consciousness…. …Instead of a consciousness of objects, here we have a consciousness without an object or support. Whereas, under normal circumstances, consciousness ‘minors’ or manifests something, in this concentration it is ‘nonmanifestative,' [...]
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, a contemporary American Theravada monk, scholar, and meditation teacher, writes, “A few texts discuss a separate type of consciousness that does not partake of any of the six senses or their objects. This type of consciousness is said to lie beyond the range of describable experience and so is not included under the five aggregates. In fact, it is equivalent to the Unfabricared [Nibbana] and forms the goal at the end of the path.” And in the Long Discourses of the Buddha is found:

Consciousness without feature, without end, luminous all around: here water, earth, fire and wind have no footing. Here long and short, coarse and fine, fair and foul, name and form are, without remnant, brought to an end. From the cessation of [the activity of] consciousness, each is here brought to an end. (Translator’s brackets.)

Yet, the article also states that consciousness is not usually stated in this way, hence such descriptions seem to be rather the exception than the norm.

According to this way of seeing things this would equate to a skandha devoid of an object, feeling tone etc. - only consciousness without further content. That's an interesting way of putting it. Still a long way to go to the Mahayana view of things, but nevertheless.

Same article further down also talks about the dzogchen view of things:

In this fourth representation of the liberated mind, there is a shift from seeing Nirvana as being separate from the aggregates of experience to seeing it as one with them, with the explicit understanding that this union of emptiness and awareness is endowed with the heart of compassion: intrinsically empty, naturally radiant, ceaselessly responsive.

Still, this does not settle the question completely whether the mind can hold one or multiple objects at the same time, but it explains the very important difference of understanding of Nirvana that occurred going from the older schools of Buddhism to dzogchen: Nirvana (in the sense of highest realization) as either separate from the aggregates of experience versus seeing it as one with them.

[PadmaVonSamba]

someone in a boat asks, “how do I reach the shore?” and is correctly instructed to head westward.
Someone else is on the road and asks, “his do I reach the shore?” And is correctly instructed to head eastward.
Since East and west are completely opposite directions,
How can both instructions be correct?
That’s the essence of the argument between the Theravadin method of understanding sunyata by means of reduction, and the Mahayana method of understanding sunyata by means of non-differentiation.
Sunyata is true on both accounts.