What are Awareness, Consciousness and Mind?

Buddhitakso

Awareness is a ground condition that ‘supports’ consciousness.  The nature of awareness is effulgence and it is in a not-knowing state before the appearance of object.  Consciousness, on the other hand, is appearance of objects in the mind.  When awareness touches on objects, consciousness would arise simultaneously.  Consciousness is naturally looking outward to objects and it is flitting all the time.  In addition, consciousness is synergy i.e. energy that expands through cooperation.  Synergy is a key to the geometric expansion of consciousness and thus the arising of its two terms i.e. prevailing consciousness and subtle consciousness.  On the contrary, mind is a pattern of consciousness which is born from awareness.  In fact, mind is known as consciousness in individuality.  Therefore, the origin of individuality is the same as the origin of the mind.  Mind is something more objective and involves clear discrimination – differentiates and understands the characteristics of objects.  One utilises mind to understand things because mind understands the manipulation of consciousness.

Category of Consciousness

In Buddhism, the mind-stream is referring to the stream of consciousness.  So to understand our minds, we need to understand our consciousness. Basically, there are two terms of the mind i.e. prevailing conscious and subtle conscious.  In turn, consciousness can be categorised into four layers i.e. mind consciousness, sense consciousness, store consciousness and manas consciousness.

Mind Consciousness

It is regarded as the ‘working’ consciousness or the mind-in-command i.e. the mind that can lead, take charge, concentrate, make decision and convey action.  In other words, it is a prevailing conscious mind that makes judgments and plans.  Basically, prevailing conscious mind is closely related to the physical body or more specifically, the brain.  This means there would be a biological clock being attached within it i.e. there would be duration for staying awake and for resting.  Without the brain, there would be no prevailing conscious mind in existence.   Therefore, brain is a necessary pre-requisite for any mind consciousness to exist; without it, the mind consciousness would be impossible.  

Sense Consciousness

It is a subtle consciousness that is derived from our five senses i.e. sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.  Sense consciousness is sometimes called the ‘gate’, and always engages with three elements – the sense organ, the sense object and the experience of what we are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or touching.  In other words, physical body is a necessary pre-requisite for any sense consciousness to exist; without it, the sense consciousness would be impossible.  

Store Consciousness

It is also known as subtle conscious mind that is somehow independent from the physical body.  Store consciousness would act like a museum whereby one could discern with the memory and the information aggregates.  This is because within the subtle conscious aggregates, one would discover the subtle memory aggregates.  Within the subtle memory aggregates, one would discover the subtle information aggregates.  In other words, it is a place whereby one could see through the ‘seed treasures’ of kamma accumulated from the retained subtle information throughout the series of one’s past lives.

Store consciousness is responsible for the birth and rebirth conditions of individuals.  When a person is lying dead, all the aggregates of consciousness would leave the body.  However, only the store consciousness would sustain in liberated conditions out of the physical body but not the mind consciousness and the sense consciousness.  The switch of the mind consciousness and the sense consciousness would be turned off and it would not carry on beyond the grave because these two types of consciousness are dependent on the physical body for arising – just like shadow follows the body.

In other words, store consciousness (where all kinds of seeds and information are kept) would stay behind in a condition known as the stream of consciousness (always flowing, always present, never interrupted) and the basic cause for the persistent re-arising of personality is the abiding of store consciousness in ignorance; when ignorance is uprooted, rebirth ceases.  Ignorance and memory aggregates are closely inter-dependent of each other.  The memory aggregate has two main functions i.e. deposits and withdrawals of information – the act of retaining and recalling facts.  The rise of ignorance has to depend on the withdrawal of deposited information from the previous events and the deposited information can only be redeemed from the memory aggregate.  

Therefore, it is not correct to mention that a newborn being has no memory of a previous life.  Every single newborn being would surely bear with the seeds of kamma deriving from the previous lives.  The seeds of kamma are comparable to deposits of information and the fruits of kamma are comparable to withdrawals of the deposited information upon maturity.  In other words, it is not that the newborn being has no memory of a previous life but rather the fruits of kamma have not ripened yet.  Only upon maturity could the newborn being start to recall events related to his or her previous lives.  As a conclusion, without store consciousness, the Law of Karma would be impossible in the realms of existence.

Manas Consciousness

It is also known as the cogitating consciousness that is always embracing and attaching to store consciousness.  Manas arises from store consciousness and embraces store consciousness as its object.  The function of manas is to appropriate store consciousness as its own.