Consciousness is Fungible
Monday 30 Jun 2014
Fungible is a word I heard just recently. It was used by a commentator on the ABC in the context of explaining the perceived trickery that Governments employ when bringing in new taxes. Fungibility essentially means that something is interchangeable. Its value can be swapped without loss or gain.
The commentator was commenting on the way Governments will introduce new taxes by linking them to something the public sees as desirable, say the “Medicare Levy”. He went on to say that the money collected goes into consolidated revenue built up with “fungible” money. The Government does not wear the odium of collecting more taxes and the sleight of hand justifies the extra money collected; but at its core you cannot identify the levy taxed money from the ordinary taxed money because money itself is fungible.
At the time I heard this piece on the radio I was thinking a lot about the difficulty of explaining clearly the Buddhist idea of non-self, (Anatta is the Pali word for this concept). The Buddha held that there is no self at the heart of reality, that what we take to be a self is in fact an illusion. In fact I think this idea is where Buddhism would depart from most other religions, because in the Buddha’s explanation, even the concept of a fixed soul identifying each of us is ruled out. So penetrating into the heart of what the Buddha realised means getting a handle on Anatta.
Happily, I think the Buddha had a somewhat structured mind and was able to explain the various aspects of his teaching with the help of lists. He made lists for all the entry points into the heart of reality that he could see, or was asked about. There are many entry points and most of us can find a pathway that suits our temperament and interest. An important list for me is the Five Aggregates or in Pali, the Five Khanda’s. I will explain this list more fully in a moment but for now you need to know that the 5th Khanda or Aggregate is consciousness and that the refined pure consciousness being pointed to by the Buddha as the fifth Khanda is fungible and further, this knowledge will help you get a handle on Anatta.
Pure consciousness is a phenomenon that is discernable and can be known in the mind. It is a condition of mind that can be experienced. Another important fact about consciousness is that it does not require a body to be experienced. This is why the Buddha identified consciousness as the bedrock or matrix of mind in his list of aggregations. It can be thought of as the sixth sense that all of our other senses (Sight. Hearing, Touch. Smell and Taste) subsume into when our body finishes. These senses all unify into the mind or consciousness, but the mind itself can form conditions without the need for a body. Consciousness is the purest aggregate and will relax and unify into itself when there are no conditions to move the mind. When consciousness moves the Buddha talked about this as the 4th Khanda. The minds movement forms an aggregation that clearly identifies the birth of mentality in the mind. A precursor for thinking! Then as a direction for thought progresses the mind moves to Perception, which is the third definable aggregation or Khanda on his list. Perception gives rise to the 2nd Khanda of Feeling. Feeling can be experienced directly in the mind, but its nature especially in animals and humans, is to find the physical for its location. Physicality is the 1st Khanda, where the Universe aggregates into a conditioned state built initially from pure consciousness that goes on to give us --- all of creation. The Pali word for this aggregation is Rupa, which defines all that physically exists. The way I have expressed this process may, on the face of it, seem like a big claim, but it can be clearly seen inside everyone’s mind if one has a mind to practice and calibrate our knowing towards the Right View that sees Absolute Truth in the way the Buddha taught.
When mindfulness is present and the mind is not moving in any way, pure consciousness reveals itself. Some practitioners come to understand and know this state of mind through a “Meditation Jhana”. This is a practiced state of mind where stillness and energy has refined to allow the body to collapse and unify into the mind stream. The so called Hindrances that cause us to attach to our bodies have all but disappeared; leaving this pure mind State still, with no thought or sense consciousness except for the mind itself. A phase transition! The five senses have effectively disappeared. A Jhana state like this allows knowledge of pure consciousness that is beyond any doubt.
Other practitioners can come to this knowledge more from a wisdom angle, where pure consciousness is approached, or snuck up on. It still needs a practiced still mind, but the still consciousness can gradually start to reveal itself without the suddenness of a phase transition and the sense of unification that comes from a Jhana.
Either way the goal is to calibrate the mind and isolate the pure consciousness. When this is done the pure consciousness can be revisited and worked with until it becomes something well known and in effect becomes continuous. It can then become a very skilful means as a filter for us to look forensically at our lives and the universe. A Universe that we are in relationship with. We can start to view the world through this pure consciousness, which, with practice will start to bypass the ego.
It is here we see the fungible nature of pure consciousness. Its purity allows us to see how it permeates everything. It goes everywhere. We can see how our karma, our conditioning aggregates and then embeds to form a stream of “conditioned consciousness” that we identify with. But most importantly the fungibility of pure consciousness shows it flowing not only through us but the entire Universe. It clearly shows our interconnectedness. As this knowledge gradually starts to be realised, it naturally starts to allow compassion, sympathetic joy, loving kindness and equanimity all to come to the fore.
When pure consciousness is experienced in this way it becomes a very beautiful and compelling thing to be with. Happiness and joy brings up even deeper mindfulness of this present moment and the purity that is there. When this direction and gathering momentum takes us to even deeper contentment, the balance takes us further into peace and we can start to notice times when consciousness itself has finished --- sometimes in short flashes, but longer periods too, provided the momentum built is there. What is left is the Unconditioned. We know a State that is unconditioned.
One knows that there is no consciousness there for conditions to be embedded into. There is no karma being made. If we were to die in this State when consciousness is absent, we know there will be no more rebirth. The mind has unified and will finish if this State is present at our death.
The fungible nature of consciousness and the fact that it too is a condition allows us to see clearly that there is no self. It is a trick of the mind, an illusion, analogous to the tricky story being sold by the politicians to raise more taxes. We are in effect being tricked into hanging on to ourselves, and when we do, we are reborn again and again. The Buddha gave us the tools to practice seeing Truth and to have the ability to WAKE UP to what is going on. He said the “House of Self is on Fire and yet we are addicted to the flames”. He encouraged us to strive, to see past the addiction --- to see and realise the Truth.
