Enlightenment is characterized by an immutable transcendence of mundane consciousness. Once its truth is seen, it can never be unseen.
This article unravels a great misunderstanding of consciousness in Buddhism.
The consciousness that is dependent on causes and conditions, or the aggregates, is the unenlightened consciousness. It is the mind that is lost in the world as Self. This was expounded by the Buddha in the Sutta on Dependent Origination (paṭiccasamuppāda):
from name-and-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form. From name-and-form as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging. From clinging as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair come into play. (DN 15)
But something is revealed with the Enlightenment of consciousness, which profoundly impressed the ancients. This is the Unconditioned Consciousness. It is also called the Empty Mind or Original Mind. It is the sudden awareness of Awareness.
This sudden awareness of being Aware is conveyed in the mystical proclamations of the Buddha:
Consciousness without feature, without end, luminous all around, does not partake of the solidity of earth, the liquidity of water, the radiance of fire, the windiness of wind…nor of the Allness of the All.”
~ M 49.25
To the modern mind, being conscious, or self-consciousness is not impressive. This is because the idea of consciousness has become commonplace. Modern consciousness has lost its mystery.
Consciousness in Buddhism is the English translation for a combination of Pali terms Viññāna, Citta, and Manas. Where Viññāṇa corresponds to knowing, Citta to volition, and Manas to thinking.
The term consciousness came into the English language around the 1600’s. It is derived from the Latin term conscientia meaning “knowing with.”
But what consciousness is, despite hundreds of years of philosophical and scientific pondering, remains largely a mystery. Most definitions are unpleasantly circular and mostly about how the mind works, not what it is:
Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it has evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it. (Macmillan Dictionary of Psychology (1989 edition), Stuart Sutherland)
Despite the enigmatic nature, the term has become commonplace in modern history. Everyone appears to understand it, but no one can explain it. Science has tried to find it with no success. It seems to be everywhere in the brain and nowhere at once. Robots and computers can mimic it, just like a CD can sound like a real singer. Consciousness has a quality that is difficult to conceive as arising from unconscious stuff.
The philosopher Jean Paul Sartre also could not explain what human consciousness is, but he was very clear about what it is not:
Consciousness is a being for whom in its being there is consciousness of the nothingness of its being. (Being and Nothingness, pg. 87)
The Nothingness of its being is what impressed the enlightened ancients. This the Buddha expressed in his paradoxical Not-self Doctrine:
It is the Unformed, the Unconditioned, the End,
the Truth, the Other Shore, the Subtle,
the Everlasting, the Invisible, the Undiversified,
Peace, the Deathless, the Blest, Safety,
the Wonderful, the Marvelous,
Nibbāna, Purity, Freedom,
the Island, the Refuge, the Beyond.
~ S 43.1-44
We arrive at existence and develop as individuals by becoming the world. This is because consciousness is a Nothingness and comes to self-realization through existence in time:
This elusive body is precisely the necessity of there being a choice, i.e., the necessity of my not being everything all at once. (Being and Nothingness, pg. 440)
We are born fastened to the physical world. We become individuals fully believing we are the world. Our family, culture, career, interests, habits, likes and dislikes, come to define who we are. But this being the world eventually becomes a burden, a suffering, because ultimately, we are not the physical world. It is in fact suffering that in turn propels us to realize the true essence of our being:
This world is anguished, afflicted by sense-contact,
even what it calls the ‘self’ is in fact unsatisfactory;
for no matter what it conceives,
the fact is ever other than that.
Always becoming something other, the world
is held by being, afflicted by being and yet delights in being,
yet what it relishes brings fear, and what it fears is pain.
Now this holy life is lived to abandon suffering.”
~ Ud 3.10
Enlightenment is described as an awakening. This is because what most people call reality is like a dream, a fantasy, a creation of the ignorant mind. It is what Sartre calls Bad Faith:
One puts oneself into bad faith…and being in bad faith is like dreaming. Once this mode of being is actualized, it is as difficult to leave it as to wake up: the fact is that bad faith—like being awake or dreaming—is a type of being in the world that tends to perpetuate itself of its own accord. (Being and Nothingness, pg.116)
With Enlightenment you discern that everything is not as it appears, although nothing changed. Suddenly, you profoundly apprehend the unfathomable mystery of existing. You realize the awareness of Awareness.
The nature of our human consciousness will always be a mystery. We can only know the objects of consciousness. We cannot know consciousness as an object of consciousness. In the same manner that an eye cannot see itself.
We can only know the negation, the Nothingness, our ineffable nature. We are not anything that we can be conscious of, that we can know to exist.
The Buddha discovered that this primordial Awareness is our haven from suffering the world. This is what the practice of Buddhism, and Enlightenment, is all about. It is about the realization of the true nature of our existence.
Human consciousness is an awareness with unconditioned will power. Consciousness is not anything, and yet it is the source of everything that exists:
The truth is the reality of mind which is formless and pervades the ten directions. It is being used presently right before your eyes, yet people do not trust it sufficiently, so they accept terms and expressions, seeking to assess Buddhism conceptually in the written word. (Dogen Zenji)
Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness; That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. all dharmas are marked with emptiness; They do not appear or disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase or decrease. Therefore in emptiness, no form, No feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness; No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; No color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; No realm of eyes until no realm of mind-consciousness; No ignorance and also no extinction of it until no old-age-and-death And also no extinction of it; No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path; No cognition, also no attainment. With nothing to attain… (Heart Sutra, Version from Roshi Philip Whalen)
With the Enlightenment of consciousness, you realize a true and lasting peace of mind. You abide in the Awareness of your unfathomable consciousness.