Its essence is that our psyche can only be described in terms of the external world or another consciousness, to which it is by no means identical. An adequate language for describing mental processes remains, strictly speaking, unknown; in fact, the appearance of objectivity is only being created. As a result of such an allegedly objective description of mental processes, a person has the illusion that his consciousness reflects the outside world and that the objects of this world give rise to emotional responses.

But is this really the case? Are we talking about these people, and not about their images that exist in our minds or in other person's mind? Then why is the same person in the eyes of one - loved, and in the eyes of another - hated? Moreover, the same person can be loved and beautiful for us at one time, and hated and disgusting at another. And is the rope, which we may take for a snake, or the shell, which may seem to us a piece of silver, to blame for not seeing them as they really are? Buddhists compared such distorted perception to an eye disease that causes a person to see things that do not exist or are distorted, or to fantastic visions of a sleeping person who only thinks that the objects of his dream are real.

Consequently, we have no reason to deny that the content of our consciousness is not the objects of the external world in themselves, but their images that arise in our consciousness. That is why a person in Buddhism cannot be recognized as the measure of all things, but rather, comparable to a mirror that reflects all things: a clean mirror will reflect them as they really are, and a dirty one will inevitably distort them. Hence, the interest of Buddhist theoreticians in particular to consciousness, the psyche, becomes understandable. The reasons for the development of psychology in ancient India as a theoretical awareness of a person's thinking and behavior are also becoming clear. In this country, not just the psyche as such, but its relationship with the world was described and studied for a long time: the sages were interested not in a person and the sun, but in a person looking at the sun. And all this was done, we emphasize once again, not out of idle curiosity or abstract cognitive interest, but out of the desire to rebuild the psyche into a “mode of liberation” from its painful samsaric fetters.

And one more important note: the psyche was considered inseparable from both the physiological and mental aspects of a person, that is, a person was considered as a single psycho-physiological integrity, and not static, but dynamic, like a flow-sanatapa of elementary states-dharmas unfolding in time : they were associated with small periods of time called ksana, "moment". In brief moments, these states remain something united due to some inner force, prapti. It keeps in balance both physical characteristics and mental properties, i.e. consciousness, psyche and emotions, and external objects and phenomena, i.e. impressions, memories, imagination, etc. But if the body changes relatively slowly, then mind is changing all the time.

Thus, the unit of description of the individual flow of mental life was dharma; it was also an elementary psychophysical state with an existential status. This ambiguous term, which has become the central concept of the Buddhist religion, psychology and philosophy, goes back to the root dhar-, one of the meanings of which is "hold"; each dharma, as it were, holds or bears its own characteristic, and "all dharmas are impersonal, impermanent and bear duhkha", as they say in the canonical Buddhist texts. The difference between dharma as a teaching of the Buddha and dharma as an element is either expressed grammatically in the texts or is easily reconstructed from the context.

Following the conclusions of the scientists of the St. Petersburg school F. I. Shcherbatsky and O. O. Rozenberg, we can say that dharma in Buddhism is understood as the elements of any existence. A Buddhist perceives both the surrounding world and himself in it as a continuous series of dharmas, in which everything exists for only one moment. And being itself is also nothing but momentary change. F. I. Shcherbatskoy likened it to a cinematic picture, and even more than that, to a picture flow, since there are no pictures themselves either. But one can perceive the world in this way only with a consciousness cleared of flare, which is free from false stereotypes of perception and thinking. That is why Buddhism offers not only an ideal program of actions and behavior leading to nirvana, but also teaches knowledge about the psyche clouded by flares: you need to know both what we must change in ourselves and why we need to change it. Both tasks are best solved with the help of dharmas.

Dharmas in Buddhist psychological and philosophical writings have been classified in detail on various grounds. All of them were divided into causal and non-causal. Dharmas of the first type were characterized as impermanent, dependent, born and arising, and therefore associated with suffering and with the law of dependent origination - that chain of causality discussed above, which causes suffering and events leading to the cycle of birth and death. The continuous flow of precisely these dharmas constituted the mental life of a person immersed in worldly existence.

The dharmas of the second type belonged to the state of nirvana, and therefore were causally unconditioned, karmically independent and in no way connected with the law of pratityasamutpada. Nirvana, “highest”, “unborn”, “uncreated”, “bringing bliss”, etc., is described in different ways in early Buddhist writings, which is explained by the direction of the sermon to a specific addressee, but in all cases its main characteristic is the absence of fundamental properties samsaric existence and, above all, suffering-duhkha and variability.

The different systems of classification of dharmas developed in Buddhism overlap and, together, exhaust all areas of human experience. All dharmas are divided into five categories and give a total of one hundred different varieties. All of them are part of a conscious living being. There are their most detailed numbered lists, so that the psyche, described as a set of living processes proceeding according to its own laws, is analyzed in Buddhism from the point of view of the analysis and form of these laws, and at the same time a detailed inventory of them is given. But, speaking in modern terms, there is no subject of these processes. These considerations make it clear why a person in Buddhism could not in any way be considered as a pronounced and unique individuality - a representation that we used to consider the only possible and correct one and which allows us to be proud of our unique and priceless "I".

Buddhism and psychology

I want to talk a little about the mixing of Buddhism and psychology, and also a little about the psychology of practitioners in our Community. Many people, when they hear me talk about this subject, immediately think: “Oh, I know who he is really talking to! He is talking about that woman or that man...” Thus, they generally avoid taking my words with their hearts. Ninety-nine percent of the time you think I'm talking about someone else, I'm actually talking about you. This is the protection of your ego, always avoiding the truth about yourself, so that the ego is never damaged. I have seen many practitioners who have spent years in the Community successfully avoiding looking at themselves. And I'm sure even as I write these words, many of you have already read them and said to yourself, "Oh, this is not about me, this is Rimpoche talking about him." A good awareness practice that people should do is that as soon as the mind jumps to some criticism of another person, one should immediately turn around and take this judgment to oneself. Instead of continuing your negative evaluations, you could actually develop some awareness. This is one of the meanings of using the mirror symbol.

There is a tendency in our community to form relationships only with the master. They strive to be around me, but they continue to show a kind of suspicion towards other practitioners, seeing them as a bit like "enemies". Many of you may think that you are not, and for example, your mind may be making a list of all the friends in the community. I would like you to take the time to take a long, hard look at yourself. This attitude is a very subtle thing that hides in a small corner of your existence. This means that when a lama leaves, it is very difficult for people to really work together without conflict, because in fact they secretly distrust other practitioners. It was always there, but they didn't realize it. These deep hidden feelings form envy and anger. If people were really present in the state of the mirror, they would notice this in themselves and recognize it as an obstacle to their personal development and to the development of the community.

There is a belief that I recently heard that I found very interesting. It goes like this: “You teach others best what you yourself need to learn the most.” The best way to really learn something is to teach someone else. And very often what you are going to teach or talk about is the thing that you yourself need to learn. Unfortunately, most teachers, as well as most people, use this opportunity to be a teacher in order to separate themselves from others and put on a mask of knowledge, and then they can no longer learn anything from this situation, but can only feel superior. But if you are aware, you can use the opportunity to teach differently to see what you need to develop and to do so. I remember when I first started teaching Dzogchen, how surprised I was when I found that the teaching helped to forcefully remind me to integrate my practice into my daily life. This is another example of looking in the mirror. It sometimes happens in the community that the longer people study Dzogchen, the more they feel the ability to evaluate others. In fact, it may be that the first year, or the first two years, they feel a little awakened by the teaching and perhaps there is a slight change in them. But immediately after that, they accept Dzogchen as a new armor, harden and continue to criticize, condemn or teach others how to live. Then, in fact, they remain unaffected by the teaching, and their life is as useless as if they had never met the dharma. Of course there is nothing wrong with criticism as long as it is truly positive and helpful. But sometimes, when members of the community get together, they look like a bunch of wayward old men and women complaining about life and each other. And these are people on their way to realization!

I have often seen so many practitioners who viciously criticize others, often not even present. The practitioner should try to be aware of his actions all the time, only in this way everything can be used for his development. He must be aware of the real content of his cruel criticism of others or his sarcasm or his own anger, for if he wants to develop his anger he can develop his support for criticism and sarcasm. However, if he wants to reduce his anger, he must use his desire to criticize as an opportunity to look at himself in the mirror and recognize how his anger works. At this point, he should feel the anger as his own and relax into that feeling, not get caught up in it and reject it, and not run away from the anger by projecting it onto another person. This is one of the ways in which one has to continuously work with oneself in Dzogchen. Without this constant reflection it is almost impossible to reduce the causes of karma.

Sometimes it seems that the members of the community are like a group of children crawling around trying to be first. Repeating that they think what I think, they want some kind of reward from me for being good kids. If this is the case, then no one in our community will ever be able to develop the individual courage needed to become a real practitioner. Ultimately, on the path to realization, you must be alone with yourself. I often think of a story about a flock of geese flying south. The lead goose noticed a group of hunters far ahead and quietly said to the goose on the left: "Shhh! ... Keep quiet and pass on." Instead of quietly conveying this phrase to the next one, the goose began to shout: “Keep quiet and pass it on!” And the next goose did the same, and the next, and the next, until all the geese began to shout at the top of their lungs: “Keep quiet!” And of course, the hunters saw them and shot them all. There is a teacher-student relationship where the teacher must sometimes criticize the student in order to help him learn. If this were not the case, then there would be no need to have a teacher, and we would be able to realize ourselves without any help. I recently had an experience with several people in various places in the Community where I criticized a student a little and the student came back to me and said, "I looked in the mirror, but my face is clear." It was a little sad for me because the egos of such people have become so strong that they will never let the words of the person they consider their master see through. If you really want to develop on this path, you must strive to find the slightest truth in what the master has said and then work with that truth in order to reduce the power of the ego. If I tell someone they're doing something wrong it means a lot of things, but it's certainly not an opportunity for people to jump in and immediately start imitating me like a robot and at the same time label this person I was talking about as bad. As I said, practitioners must be bold and also creative. The robot never does anything wrong, and therefore it never runs the risk of being angered by the teacher. However, it can never become realized. If I am correcting someone in the Community, that is my function as a master. Judgments such as whether this person is good or bad are not implied here.

If you want to teach or transmit Dzogchen, you must respect its nature, rules, methods and point of view. All this has a basis in history and tradition. If you want to teach and practice psychotherapy, you must, to the best of your ability, learn the deepest and most valid methods available to impart and help people. Or, of course, you could create your own system. However, the roots of therapy and teaching are quite different. They both have functions, but the functions are not the same. Therefore, they cannot be interchanged in the same way that when cooking food, everything is randomly thrown into one pot: a little therapy, a little teaching, put on fire, mix and feed it to people as if it were one dish. Along the way, they will both lose their nutritional properties, and of course all the invited guests will have an upset stomach. Why? Because you did not respect the basic properties of the ingredients used. If you want to derive real value from a teaching, you must accept it in its entirety. And it seems to me that if you want to derive real value from psychotherapy, you must enter into some real process in the depths of your heart that leads to its goals.

I am not against psychotherapy at all. It can be of real benefit. However, it is similar to modern medicine (I am not against medicine at all, as you all know, and I think that we should use everything that is available in the modern world, but see it for what it is). Psychotherapy is like a pill or medicine for a specific disease, but like medicine it cannot heal the soul. It can only treat local diseases. People should turn to her when they need it and if they really need it. To me, the idea that is common in the West that psychotherapy is for everyone is wrong. It's like giving everyone chemotherapy, whether they have cancer or not. And if you have cancer, you should try to find a really qualified doctor. The same applies to therapy.

I don't agree with the idea, which is so common, that anyone can become a therapist. I feel that even in psychotherapy, you have to be highly educated and try to work on some really sound grounds. Otherwise, you will do more harm than good to the person and create a lot of confusion in his mind. This does not mean that only the most traditional schools are necessarily correct and useful. Some very unconventional approaches may also be good. However, it seems impossible that one person could study the human psyche for one or two years, or even four years, as often happens in the West, and then open a store to help people, taking a little from one school, a little from another. Psychotherapists must be very serious about their work as they deal with the depths of another person's being.

But psychotherapy and dharma do not have the same goal and different path. Doing one thing can help another, just as anything positive you do will generally enhance other facets of your life. The goal of psychotherapy is mainly to improve the ability of a person to function on earth as such and throughout his life: to help a person in his work, in relations with his children, in other relationships, and in general to cleanse the relationship of a person with his family, mother and father. The Dharma is for your ultimate realization, forever, for all your lives. It concerns the purification of all your spiritual karma, not only throughout this life and not only in connection with the initial psychological situation of the relationship with mother and father. It is a practice that goes beyond psychology. What is beyond psychology? state of contemplation. Entering contemplation, we enter the universal reality beyond samsara. In this state, the cycle of hopes and fears of human life becomes unimportant compared to the bliss and timeless expanse of reality. So dharma is meant to help the individual to transcend samsara. Whereas therapy is to help a person function better in samsara. And to confuse these two principles implies that the dharma lacks methods to really help a person. It's as if you could say that the dharma needs some improvement, so if I add a little psychotherapy to it, it really becomes something powerful. However, dharma is a holistic path.

The teachings have been going on for a thousand years and have been transmitted in a precise manner that has never changed. When there was no psychotherapy, for example, the teachings still helped people achieve enlightenment and realize the rainbow body. Psychotherapy is a relatively new invention for humanity. There are now hundreds of different therapies and new shoots are sprouting every day. It seems to me that several types of therapy also die every day. If we allowed the teaching to go on like this, mixing and changing every day, for a hundred years the teaching would be completely diluted, and now people would not be able to find the real essence of dharma. Then the dharma would also be gone. I have said many times that the teaching must be practiced in a precise manner. This does not mean that because Westerners are more familiar with psychotherapy, they should study the dharma more psychologically or mixed with psychotherapy in some way. It's like saying to a person who wants to learn how to fly, “Oh, you know how to walk. So if I show you a few more examples of walking, then you can figure out how to fly.” It's obviously absurd, and thus never get off the ground.

Today, many people in psychology are starting to say that the five buddha families are associated with blocking the five negative emotions. Hence, they feel that they can somehow use psychology to work with the forms of the deities. First of all, it is quite clear that the term "emotional block" does not exist in Buddhism. This is a term invented in psychology. Secondly, as we know, there are no such things as spirits or deities in psychology (in fact, I believe that many non-Buddhist psychologists would be very upset at the idea of ​​linking the two, since they see psychology as a science and Buddhism as a religion). ). The various tantras give precise ways of dealing with the five families with precise methods and descriptions. These things are not something that can be invented or changed at any moment like creating a new hybrid of psychology and Buddhism.

People should always remember that there is a difference in the point of view of Dzogchen and therapy. The focus of Dzogchen is on the essential enlightened nature of man, which is somehow obscured from himself and which he must rediscover. In the enlightened state, the state of contemplation that we are trying to remember and stay in, there is no difference between good and evil, pain or pleasure. All things are simply forms of existence, an example of our essential ability to manifest. Like a mirror whose nature is to reflect everything without judgment, the differences in form are exactly the same. This is not a fantasy or an idyllic world, but the actual nature of reality. If a person has some experience of the state of contemplation, he will quickly understand what I am saying for himself. Therefore, it is not just a turn of phrase to say that we are all buddhas, enlightened beings. We are like that, we just lost our presence in this knowledge.

Although very difficult to generalize, it seems very different from a psychology point of view. The main emphasis in psychological work is on the illness of the patient and on human social illnesses in general. This is of course necessary for the time being. If a person is sick and the doctor is going to help cure the disease, he should focus on the pain. But sometimes, as I have observed, this leads people to develop their ability to evaluate others and themselves in a negative way. There may be a tendency to look at differences between people as diseases. Instead of allowing human life to have many different manifestations and forms, psychotherapy has a tendency to regard one type as healthy and the rest as unhealthy. If a person gets stuck in psychotherapy, the whole world can become a scene of neurosis for him, and each person will be perceived as sick in one way or another.

Even if this were true, it is not yet time to put an end to it. Neuroses and illnesses are only a small part of the potential manifestations of human existence. In each of us there is and always will be disease and suffering, yet at the same time there is a state of enlightenment. Moreover, without the perspective of the teachings that have shown that everything is an illusion, people often believe that their perception of their own and others' illnesses is real and concrete. Sometimes people can become very attached to their pain or become masters at blaming, knowing better and better who is causing that suffering. Thus demonstrating little real change in their actions. One of the dangers of psychotherapy is that it can develop the human capacity to separate themselves and see things dualistically: subject-object, good-bad, right-wrong. However, I do not blame psychotherapy in general, since human nature in general has these tendencies, and many practitioners continue to manifest these things without the help of any psychotherapy.

Of course, both patients and practitioners are equally capable of being conditioned by their past karma. I can give a small example which is actually very common. I had a student who followed the teachings for many years and was a very diligent practitioner. In the early period of her life, her father died and left her in the arms of a working mother. As an adult, she had many relationships, and because she was attractive, men were easily attracted to her. Many years have passed, and now she is forty. She has told me many times over the years that her heart desires a long-term love relationship and possibly children. However, she also told me quite clearly that after her father died when she was little, she was never capable of it, as she could not really trust men. This is what she told me herself. She had never been in therapy and in fact was completely against the idea. Now that she is older, she has definitely decided that all her relationships will end badly, and that it is best to remain single for the rest of her life. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being alone if that is your real desire, but here we are talking about a person who is completely conditioned by her past and is aware that she is conditioned, and in the end chose to accept her conditioning as real and inevitable. . No matter how difficult it is, the practitioner should always try to discover the absolute unreality of all things: thoughts, feelings, past events. And in this way you learn to free yourself from illusions, from reality and the rigidity of the mind, which are always an obstacle to development on the path.

But in Dzogchen you try to look in the mirror again, see your abilities and weaknesses, and strive to free yourself in whatever way is appropriate for your particular conditions. These may be dharma or non-dharma methods, but it must always be remembered that the method is secondary to the goal of entering into and remaining in a state of contemplation.

This brings me to mention one of the greatest differences between the viewpoints of traditional therapy and Buddhism in general. In psychotherapy, the ego is seen as having a function and, when it functions in a healthy way, is essential to the prosperity and life of human beings. All practices and philosophy in dharma are aimed at dissolving the ego. Ego is the main obstacle to the state of contemplation and enlightenment. This is a force that creates the illusion of separateness of subject and object and hides the real unity of all nature. (Some Buddhist psychotherapists might say that in order to give up the ego, one must first work to strengthen and create a healthy ego. One must have something solid and clearly defined before one can accept its rejection. That is entirely fair.)

However, I do not really intend to make a comparison between psychology and Buddhism. This would require endless discussions and is indeed a different and difficult topic. I just want to point out very few things that help people understand and reflect on the uniqueness of these two forms. From what I know, psychology and psychotherapy can of course be very helpful depending on the circumstances. It is possible that for people with difficult emotional problems, therapy is necessary or helpful before they can even have the presence to begin meditation or even to continue meditation. Perhaps also psychotherapy is needed to dissolve energetic imbalances that are associated with deep and difficult emotional problems. Therefore, for many people, therapy can be something like preliminary purification practices for entering the path of dharma. This I can only guess from what people have told me about their personal experiences. It's hard for me to judge accurately as I haven't had direct experience with any type of therapy and very likely won't.

I have often heard the question raised: “Aren't people different in today's world? Maybe they need psychology, while the Tibetans, who are a simpler people, do not need it?” I think volumes could be written on this topic. For the time being I would just mention a few things. I feel that human beings everywhere are indeed fundamentally the same profoundly. But of course, they are due to different things. Tibetans who have grown up in the West will act and think like Westerners, and the reverse is also true. In ancient Tibet, most people were poor and illiterate, and very few people were educated and knowledgeable. They lived in a non-technological world, and outside of it they developed a religion whose task was to lead the individual out of the endless cycle of pain and suffering that they believed life was. Unlike the Judeo-Christian tradition, this religion was not based on belief in God, but on belief in the divine potential of every human being. Next to this was the belief in various protectors and spirits associated with the natural elements and the earth. This religion can be very simply divided into two categories. The first aspect of religion is based on faith, devotion and simple prayers for uneducated people. The second part of this religion contains a more complex philosophy and a series of methods and paths that require greater development of the mental faculties. This is for the few individuals who have developed their mind sufficiently to be able to work directly with the mind. Perhaps precisely because the Tibetans did not develop along a technological path, they never had the illusion that man could dominate the elements or the cosmos. All spirituality, for educated or uneducated people, was aimed at a new unity of the individual with the cosmos and work with these forces. Recently in history, the Western world began to develop along the scientific technological path, and from here came the belief in the primacy of cause and effect in this new complex modern world. For people like us who live in the modern world, it is possible to use psychology and sociology to help our overall understanding of ourselves and our environment, without confusing or confusing it with the teachings.

There is a clear big difference between Westerners and people who live and grow up in less educated countries like Tibet. The first thing I noticed was that Westerners, thrown into the high-speed world of multiplying gratification, seem to have very short attention spans. They seem to generally aim for some amazing result immediately, and if they don't get it, they quickly get offended or switch to other things. Often they want the result to come from outside. They want the master to help, show them, heal them and, in essence, make them enlightened with the snap of their fingers. So I think it's much easier for people to accept many of today's therapists because the conditions allow them to be much more passive when the doctor devotes regular hours to them for their benefit. (There are also other types of rapid emotional release therapies that can to satisfy the longing for movement and change, whether it can be endured or not). This is completely different from the Dzogchen path, where the whole realization is based on the practice that you do alone in your daily life or in retreat. Moreover, although it is quite clear to me that a person can become realized at any moment if he can simply awaken to his own essential enlightened nature, this usually does not happen. People have to dedicate years and years, slowly peeling off layers of obscurations and negative karma. As I have said many times, most of the people who have attained realization in Tibet have spent their lives dedicated to practice and meditation, often retreating to caves. Although in Dzogchen you should not spend your life in retreat, you should still dedicate your life to practice for the sake of results.

After all, it is very difficult to actually change human beings by any method, and the nature of karma is a bit like glue. Its purpose is to remain adherent to human skin. Sometimes I wonder if Westerners have the maturity and perseverance to follow the path long and hard enough to achieve profound results. What can happen to a person if he mixes teaching with psychotherapy and then teaches this to other people. What problems will this person have with the dharmapalas? It's hard to judge this for sure, but it's best to judge it in terms of what will happen when he teaches something that is wrong and it spreads to other people and may even remain for other generations. This means that it can cause many people to misunderstand, possibly for a long time. He can cause others to continue to suffer. This is hard karma. Again, I repeat that this does not mean that you cannot use psychotherapy in your daily life. You can use it, but you also need to know the essential difference between the two. On the path of Dzogchen you should use everything to help your personal realization, but don't be confused, this does not mean that Dzogchen needs psychotherapy to be complete. On the contrary, Dzogchen does not reject or accept anything in life, but does everything through contemplation.

Now, it seems to me, despite everything that I have already said, there will be some people who will read this article and happily think: “Ah, look, despite the fact that he did not say it directly, Norbu Rimpoche is actually against psychotherapy. . I have always disliked psychotherapy and now I have an excuse. All the other people in the community who are doing psychotherapy will now really understand this.” Of course, I did not say this, and also people who are against psychotherapy should be aware of why they are against it. There is no pros and cons in Dzogchen. And if you find yourself rejecting something, you need to be aware that this is also a form of anger, and that anger is rooted in attachment. People in the community who have decided that they do not like psychotherapy should ask themselves what they are attached to, what they are afraid of losing. These are probably the very people who would benefit the most from psychotherapy.

This would be a way of working on oneself on the path of Dzogchen. This requires great self-responsibility and awareness, because Dzogchen is the path of liberation. However, freedom does not mean a license, like a license to destroy something. There is also order in freedom. When a person is really developed, a deep freedom is within him, then he automatically respects the integrity of other things. Dzogchen is considered the highest teaching precisely because it offers all the deepest techniques of realization quite openly. However, a diamond placed on the hand of a blind or stupid person has no value. Dzogchen requires that a person, in gaining this vast knowledge, be at a high enough level to know the value of what is offered to him and to cope with the real freedom that this implies. This freedom implies that you have the power to do whatever it takes to free yourself and help others do the same, or to destroy yourself, your teacher, and the teachings themselves.

Using everything to develop our awareness and reduce the obstacles of negative karma, we must always maintain the unique unity of the jewel that is the teaching. If we do not defend the doctrine as a whole, then what can we offer children and their children? What a vast opportunity for realization will disappear from the earth.

(Reprinted from: Buddhism and Psychology
by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Shang Shung Edizioni)
Translation: Yuri Nevzgoda

With all the integrity and persuasiveness of the teachings of the Buddha from the Shakya clan, he did not escape the fate that haunts all universal models of the world and moral systems: reassessment, revision, rethinking, destructive criticism, intellectual fantasizing and interpretation up to the loss of essence.

As the story tells, no sooner had Buddha closed his eyes during the transition to paranirvana and made a long exhalation of farewell to life on earth, as a split had already arisen among his followers. The brahmin philosopher Subgadra openly rejoiced that at last the man who constantly said: "Don't do this, don't do that" is gone.

The closest disciples and associates of the Buddha Kasyapa (Mahakashyapa, Kasyapa) and Ananda decided to convene a council to eliminate the disagreements that had arisen. The first council met under the chairmanship of Mahakashyapa. According to legend, it was attended by five hundred monks, and it lasted seven months.
The second council was assembled a hundred years later.

The third council took place 250 years before our era, under King Asoka (Ashok), who first recognized Buddhism as the state ideology of India.

There is reason to believe that the Buddhist canon Tripitaka, preserved to this day in Ceylon, coincides in all essentials with the main provisions of the theory and practice of Buddhism, which were adopted at the third council.

Buddhists believe that the teaching established at the first council is completely identical with the teaching adopted at the third council.

At the same time, it is difficult to believe that the Buddhist canons could have been written immediately after the death of the Buddha, and the oral tradition rarely has the accuracy of transmitting knowledge and experience. Considering that the Pali canon includes about 8 thousand stories, legends, sermons, teachings, aphorisms, and taking into account the comments on each text, more than 15 thousand narrations in prose and verse. All this huge amount of information was transmitted orally for 500 years, or 20-30 generations, since it takes from 20 to 25 years for outstanding monks to memorize all the texts.

Although, in fairness, it should be noted that in Buddhism, unlike many other traditions, there were special, and, in my opinion, extremely effective methods for accurately reproducing knowledge.

From the oral methods, we can recall the sangiti (joint monotonous chanting). Buddhist monks organized special meetings at which canonical texts were restored and corrected from memory.

Sangiti is attended by the most knowledgeable and authoritative members of many Buddhist communities. There was a whole system of cross-checking the accuracy of the preservation of each word of the teaching. At the councils held in the 1st century BC. e. and 5th century A.D. e., monks of 6 categories took part in checking the texts: those who knew ancient texts - Poranathers; those who know one of the sections of the Tipitaka - bhanakathera; those who memorize the comments of their teachers are pabbacharyathers; connoisseurs of comments on canonical texts - atthakathachariyathera; connoisseurs of comments on non-canonical texts - acariyavadathera; those who know signalic commentaries are parasamuddavasithers.

The Mahayana tradition recognizes four sangiti on which the canons were established:

1. In Rajagriha, under the leadership of Mahakashyapa and Ananda (three months after the death of the awakened one), at which the Vinaya Pitaka, Sutra Pitaka and Abhidharma Pitaka were canonized;
2. In Vaishali (after 100 years), where the sangha split;
3. In Pataliputra (after 200 years), which was attended by 18 early schools of Buddhism and where King Ashoka recognized the teachings of Theravadins as true;
4. in Kashmir (1-2 centuries AD), where the Sanskrit edition of the three baskets of teaching - the Tripitaka of the Sarvastivadin school - was canonized.

Theravada tradition recognizes six sangitas.
The texts adopted by the first three Sangits mentioned above are accepted as canonical.
The fourth sangiti, according to Theravada, took place in 29 BC. e. V. Anuradhapura and Aluvihara near Matale (in present-day Sri Lanka), where the Tipitaka in Pali and commentary in Sinhalese were written on palm leaves.
The fifth sangiti took place in 1871 at Mandalay, where the monks inscribed the Tipitaka on 729 stone slabs and built a pagoda over each slab.
The sixth sangiti was dedicated to the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha's parinirvana and took place in several cities in Burma (1954-1956). On this sangiti, all 54 books of the Pali Tipitaka were checked and edited (each book contains 400-500 printed pages), as well as abridged texts of translations of the Tipitaka into Burmese, Hindi, and English were canonized.

three baskets

Tripitaka (tipitaka) (literally - "three baskets"), is the main primary source and complete set of sacred texts of Buddhism in Pali.

The Sanskrit version of the Tipitaka has survived in a much less complete form and is known mainly in translations into Chinese and Tibetan.

The Buddha's teachings were transmitted in Prakrit, the local dialects of simplified Sanskrit, which includes the Pali language.

For five centuries, the Buddha's teaching existed, as we have already indicated above, in the oral tradition.
The Tipitaka consists of 3 parts: Vinaya Pitaka, Sutta Pitaka, Abhidhamma Pitaka.

First basket. vinaya pitaka

Vinaya Pitaka (disciplinary rules for monks) includes 3 sections: Suttavibhanga, Khandhaka, Parivara.

Suttavibhanga contains 227 rules of conduct for monks (Patimokkha) and over 300 for nuns.
The Khandhaka section consists of two sub-sections - Mahavagga and Chullavagga.

The Mahavagga lists the rules for entering the Buddhist community, the sequence of the uposatha (confession) ritual and the reading of Patimokkha, the rules of monastic life during the rainy season, the distribution of clothes among the monks at the kathina ceremony, methods of punishment, including for heresy.

Chullavagga contains a list of offenses against the sangha leading to exclusion from it, as well as the conditions for restoration in the status of a monk: the rules for bathing, dressing, using household items; types of heresies, degrees of scholarship are listed. The history of the 1st council in Rajagriha and the 2nd in Vaishali is also described here.

The parivara section is a catechism for monks, it classifies disciplinary rules.

Second basket. Sutta Pitaka

Sutta Pitaka- Sayings and sermons of the Buddha as presented by his beloved disciple Ananda. Therefore, any sutta begins with the words: “So I heard, once ...”, then the place where the sutta was pronounced is named, and those present (arhats, kings, Gods, etc.) are often listed.

The Sutta Pitaka has five sections (Nikaya) - Digha (collection of lengthy teachings), Majdhima (collection of medium teachings), Samyutta (collection of related teachings), Anguttara (collection of teachings, more than one member). Khuddaka (collection of small works).

The Digha Nikaya consists of 34 suttas divided into three sections (vagga): Silakkhandha, Maha, Patika. The Silakkhandha section tells how false arguments about the nature of being and selfhood are brought to light; about the true paths to enlightenment; about the futility of knowledge of the Vedas and Brahmanical methods of salvation; about the dangers of demonstrating supernatural abilities; about the essence of morality, samadhi, wisdom.

Mach's section is devoted mainly to meditation as a way of knowing; it also contains the famous Mahaparinibbana Sutra, which tells about the death of the Buddha and his transition to the state of nirvana.

The Patika section condemns asceticism; the history of the chakravartin (world ruler) is outlined; the question of the origin of faith is discussed; a classification of types of people and norms of behavior for a layman are given; expounds the teachings of the Buddha as understood by his disciple Sariputta.

The Majdhima Nikaya consists of 152 suttas divided into 15 vaggas. In them, the Buddha teaches his disciples, monks, laymen, noble and ignoble, earthly and heavenly beings, how to distinguish good deeds from unworthy ones, how to control their thoughts, words and deeds; what leads to anger and hatred; what is dharma, ignorant and enlightened consciousness; explains the essence of the 5 skandhas, dukkha, tathagata, bodhisattva, nirvana. Several suttas are devoted to the disputes between the Buddha and the Jains, the exposition of the Buddha's teachings as interpreted by Shariputra, Punna, Moggallana and his other disciples.

Samyutta Nikaya consists of 2889 sutras, united in 56 groups (samyutta), which are divided into 5 vaggas: Sagatha, Nidana, Khandha, Salayatana, Maha.

The Sagatha section talks about the difficulties that have to be overcome by those who embark on the eightfold path.

The Nidana section explains the essence of the law of dependent origination.

The Khandha section is devoted to the presentation of the essence of the skandhas that make up the self of a person and the ways of liberation from these skandhas that bind the person to the "wheel of life".

The Salayatana section explains the nature of the functioning of the six organs (eyes, ears, tongue, nose, body, thought) that generate desires, and how to overcome such desires that cause dissatisfaction and suffering.

The Mach section describes the last steps on the eightfold path leading to liberation, enlightenment, nirvana.

The Anguttara Nikaya includes 2308 suttas, divided into 11 groups (nipata), each nipata is divided into vaggas containing 10 or more suttas.

The first group is a description of individual phenomena: thought, love, goodness, Buddha, Sariputra, Mahakassapa, etc.

The second group contains arguments about paired phenomena: two types of karma, trained - untrained, correct - false.

The third is about the triple characteristics, etc. etc.

The 11th group outlines 11 types of happiness, paths leading to nirvana and goodness; 11 negative characteristics of a shepherd and a monk.

Khuddaka Nikaya consists of more than 2200 stories, teachings, aphorisms, divided into 15 collections.

The first collection - Khuddaka-patha ("Collection of brief statements") includes the formula repeated three times "I seek refuge in the Buddha, I seek refuge in the dharma, I seek refuge in the Sangha"; the five everyday Buddhist commandments: "do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, do not commit adultery, do not drink alcohol"; 10 questions to the novice; famous sutta - blessing (mangala); a poem about three jewels - Buddha, dharma, sangha; formulas for the transfer of religious merit (punya) to the spirits of deceased relatives; a poem about true friendship, etc.

The next work is the Dhammapada, which collects 423 of the most important sayings from various texts of the Pali canon. According to tradition, the Dhammapada contains all the teachings and is understood primarily by the heart and not by the mind. Dhammapada is a Buddhist handbook.

Udana contains 80 important sayings of the Buddha in both verse and prose.

Iti-vuttaka includes 112 suttas devoted to explaining the essence of anger, passion, pride, lust and other negative states, which are opposed to friendliness, mercy, modesty, justice, etc. d.

Sutta-Nipata, containing 71 teachings, describes the episodes of the life of the Buddha, his sermons on overcoming egocentrism, greed, hatred, delusions, leading to the creation of unfavorable karma. The teachings are addressed to monks, laity, kings, deities. These suttas reflect the social and religious life of ancient India, disputes on moral issues between representatives of various religious teachings. There is information about the birth of Prince Gautama, about his departure from worldly life, about the king of Magadha, Bimbisar, who converted to Buddhism, etc.

Vimana-vatthu and Peta-vatthu are devoted to describing the 11 levels of existence of Kamaloka.
Vimana-vatthu, containing 85 poems, tells how the accumulation of religious merit, which improves karma, leads to rebirth in the upper heavenly levels. Then life on the heavenly levels of existence is described.

Peta-vatthu, which includes 51 poems, tells about life at the lower levels, where beings are devoid of intelligence and suffer until the negative effect of karma is exhausted.

This is followed by two collections of suttas: Thera-gatha and Theri-gatha, glorifying the feat of monks and nuns who abandoned worldly fuss in order to achieve enlightenment.

Thera-gatha contains 264 poems, Theri-gatha - 73 poems. The purpose of these poems is to inspire the laity to religious deeds.

"Jataka" - stories about 550 lives of Prince Gautama, preceding his last birth on earth. In essence, this is a collection of fairy tales and legends of various peoples of Asia, the positive hero of which is identified with the bodhisattva, that is, the Buddha in past incarnations.
Niddesa is a collection of commentaries on some sections of the Sutta Nipata attributed to the Buddha's disciple Sariputta.

The Patisambhidamagga Suttas analyze various concepts regarding knowledge, morality, meditation, etc.

Apadana - verse stories about the various rebirths of famous monks and nuns.
Buddhavansa is a poetic account of the lives of the 24 buddhas who preceded Shakyamuni Buddha. Tradition attributes them to the Buddha himself. They are connected by the common plot of the life of the Buddha: from his previous life under the Buddha Dipankara, life in the sky extinguishes to enlightenment under the bodhi tree.

The Chariya Pitaka (the last collection of the Khuddaka Nikaya) contains 35 stories from the Jataka. These stories in verse illustrate 7 of the 10 perfections of the Buddha.

Third basket. Abhidhamma Pitaka

Abhidhamma Pitaka(lit. "a basket containing Buddhist doctrine") consists of 7 treatises, which systematize all the provisions of the teachings set forth in the Sutta Pitaka.

The first Dhammasangani treatise contains a classification of the elements of being (dhammas), defined as ethical factors inherent in the physical body, psychological and mental state, which manifest themselves in the process of meditation.

Vibhanga - an explanation of the nature of khandhas and ways to overcome them.
Kathavattu is a polemical treatise containing criticism of 18 early schools of Buddhism and defending the Theravada point of view.

Puggala-pannyatti - analysis of personalities subject to lust, hatred and delusion, and their classification.

Dhatukatha explains the arrangement of dharmas dependent on the skandhas and the 6 senses (ayatana).
Yamaka establishes binary groups and analyzes the corresponding dhammas from the point of view of the possibility or impossibility of attributing one or another property to them.

Patthana contains a discussion of the law of dependent origination.

Thus, we have extremely concisely, without delving into the content, described that canon of Buddhism, which is not only a tablet of the law and morality of this undoubtedly great teaching, but also, at the same time, cosmology, philosophy and psychology.

Without a doubt, we can interpret any element of Buddhism in modern psychological language, analyzing the cultural and personal context of phenomena, ranging from the skandhas to the universal Buddha Mahavairochana.

But this logic would lead us, on the one hand, to the evil infinity of word-creation regarding Buddhist themes, on the other hand, to the reproduction of those semantic spaces that did not exist in Buddhism, and which do not concern Buddhism in any way, but rather the way we think, objectifying various aspects of the Buddhist canon.

On the third hand, basically the Tripitaka canon is a collection of texts about what the disciples thought about the sermons of the Buddha or how they represented the personality of the Buddha. Often - as a string of monks represented texts that expressed the understanding of many outstanding students of the teachings of the Buddha of different generations.

That is, we will be faced with texts that are the product of many reflections, understandings of understanding Buddhist teachings.

For this reason, we are obliged to narrow the subject of our reasoning as far as possible to direct sermons, which traditionally belong to the Buddha. Moreover, it is to him that true Buddhism belongs. At the same time, we will consider from the Buddhist teachings only those categories that directly relate to the subject of psychology, if not as a science, then as a way of theoretical and practical thinking.

In terms of content, we are closest to the "simple" Theravada Buddhism. The name itself is translated from Pali as "preaching from the words of the elders." If we translate this phrase into a similar one in the Christian tradition, then it will be "preaching from the words of the apostles." Recall that only they were credited with the knowledge of Buddhism by the awakened Buddha himself. Before his death, he delegated the direct transmission of the teaching to the 12 elders, the apostles of the new teaching.

This is the oldest of the 18 schools, preserving in its tradition the elements of the Buddha's teaching closest to the original source.

We are reasonably well aware that according to the Pali canon, Theravada emerged from the great schism of the sangha around 350 B.C.E. e. But in our opinion, Theravada originated during the lifetime of the Buddha. She accompanied him in comprehension of those sermons that the Buddha read to his

closest students. In a sense, Theravada is the first level and the first response of the understanding of Buddhism in the immediate social environment.

That is why in this tradition the Buddha is presented as a real person, endowed with both weak and strong, and at some point even superhuman qualities.

The Buddha called for refraining from all kinds of evil, accumulating only goodness in oneself and purifying one's thoughts from harmful desires. In Theravada, there is an understanding of the 4 Noble Truths proclaimed by the Buddha, the Eightfold Noble Path, and the Law of Dependent Origination.

All life phenomena in Theravada are explained indirectly, through the relationship of past and future actions, karma and vipaka, and worldly phenomena are understood as subjects of three categories: anitya, dukkha and anatman (Trilakshana).

In classical Theravada Buddhism, vipaka sadhana is the opportunity to become a Buddha in this birth in this body. The possibility of a person achieving Buddhahood in this life was substantiated by the example of the tathagata himself and the position that in every being there is the “nature” of a Buddha.

In this case, it seems, why study the psychology of Buddhism, if it is much more effective to simply join the sanghya (Sanskrit - "society"), the Buddhist community.

Becoming a monk (bikkhu, bhikshu) or a nun (bikkhuni, bhigshuni), each of my readers can manifest their "Buddhism" without any psychology, simply by living according to the uniform rules of the Vinaya Pitaka.

But here several problems arise at once.

First, the Buddhist monastic path for women is either impossible or difficult. There are very few female Buddhist communities. Even in Sri Lanka, where there are about 7,000 monasteries, there are only 20 women's monasteries. And to be completely honest, in three weeks of living in Sri Lanka, the author of this book has not met a single Buddhist nun.

Secondly, it is difficult for a modern person to become a bikkhu, a mendicant monk in the original understanding of a monk in the Buddhist tradition and live on the alms of the laity. The associations that arise are not the most promising and rosy. Modern man sees and is familiar with beggars, but they belong to the social bottom. And, most importantly, even if a man wears yellow or orange robes, and a woman wears white clothes, the picture does not change its main content, but only becomes more theatrical and sham.

Thirdly, even if you become a bikhu monk in a monastery and do not get involved in alms, when you are ordained a monk, you must follow the 227 rules set forth in the Pratimoksha.

These prescriptions are divided into 7 groups.

1. The first group is the most serious offenses (there are 4 of them), for which the monk should be immediately expelled from the sanghya: any sexual activity, theft, the deliberate murder of a person, the monk's false statement that he is endowed with supernatural powers.
2. The second group is 13 serious offenses for which the offender must repent before the community, including contact with a woman for voluptuous purposes, insulting a woman with obscene words, talking with a woman on sexual topics, pandering.
3. The third group is serious offenses related to property (there are 32 of them).
4. The fourth group - offenses that require atonement (there are 92 of them).
5. The fifth group - offenses that require repentance.
6. The sixth group - misconduct during training, leading to false deeds: (there are 75 of them).
7. The seventh group - offenses associated with lies.

If you follow all 227 rules of Pratimoksha, then for a European person this means not to live, because basically he is only engaged in

that violates these rules, and for many people these violations are either the goal or the meaning of life.
Without a doubt, the genius of the Buddhist monastic path is within reach. Any person on earth can become a Buddhist.

But already becoming a novice presupposes the observance of 10 prohibitions: 1) do not kill, 2) do not steal, 3) do not commit adultery, 4) do not lie, 5) do not drink alcohol, 6) do not eat after noon, 7) do not dance, do not sing, do not go to spectacles, 8) do not wear jewelry, do not use perfumes and cosmetics, 9) do not use high and luxurious seats, 10) do not take gold and silver, study the dharma and Vinaya pitaka and prepare for the highest initiation (upasampada - initiations to monks). As you probably already remember, novitiate for non-Christians by order of the Buddha lasts at least 4 months.

Without a doubt, monastic ordination is very democratic and easy even for the average European.
At the initiation, several well-known formulas should be said three times, such as "I seek refuge in the Buddha, I seek refuge in the dharma, I seek refuge in the Sanghya."

Also, a person who is ordained a monk is always asked if he is sick with leprosy, scabies, has boils, asthma, suffers from epilepsy, is he a man, a man, is he free, has no debts, is he exempt from military service, whether he has the consent of his parents, whether he is 20 years old, whether he has an alms bowl and a set of monastic robes, as his name and, finally, as the name of his mentor.

As can be seen from the procedure, the bulk of Europeans and Russians could well become Buddhist monks.

But monastic life is a special way of life, which is weakly associated with the usual worldly feelings, attitudes, and behavior of a secular person.

The daily routine of the Buddhist community is determined by the rules of the Vinaya Pitaka: getting up at sunrise, going to bed at nightfall. You can take food only in the morning; monks usually eat twice: in the early morning from 11 am to 12 noon.

All their free time, the monks must study, read sacred texts, engage in Buddhist psychotechnics, which differ in different monasteries and schools. In addition, the monks take part in numerous ceremonies, talk with believers, and in some monasteries perform household chores.

I think that many will not like the logic of promotion in the spiritual hierarchy.
The monks study Sanskrit and Pali and memorize sacred texts verbatim. The monk tries to memorize as many texts as possible, since the degree of his knowledge and competence in the teachings of the Buddha is determined by the sum of the memorized texts and commentaries to them.

What is highly criticized in modern pedagogical systems, automatic memorization or "memorization", is a priority in the Buddhist tradition.

A diligent monk, after 10 years of being in the Sangkhya and acquiring a certain amount of knowledge, receives an appropriate degree, which has different names in different countries of the Buddhist world. After another 10 years of study, they are awarded the next degree.

According to tradition, monks do not have the right to participate in the social, economic and political life of society.

This installation has been leading for more than 2500 years. Unlike other religious systems, where power and religion, politicians and clergy are often integrated into a single whole, and sometimes spiritual power is more decisive and powerful (remember the Christian Middle Ages), in Buddhism the main duty of a monk is spiritual life and practice.

And, in my opinion, this is absolutely fair, because. paramita (Skt. "crossing", "means of salvation"), is completely impossible in real social life. Achieving the state of an arhat involves climbing many levels of perfection. These are the 10 elements of perfection: charity (dana), vows (sila), patience (ksanti), diligence (virya), meditation (dhyana), wisdom (prajna), helping others (upaya), a deep desire to give enlightenment to others (pranidhana), perfection of the ten powers (bala), application of transcendental knowledge (jnana).

Thus, the study of Buddhism by traditional methods of immersion in the socio-cultural environment (sanghya) is either impossible due to organizational difficulties (especially for women), or problems with fulfilling monastic prescriptions, including in the way of life. Cognitive and motivational difficulties are especially difficult.

The incomprehensibility of the meaning of studying Pali and Sanskrit, when everything has already been translated into world languages, the incomprehensibility of the goal of memorizing a huge number of texts, when there are many other ways of fixing and transmitting knowledge, make the monastic service largely absurd.

And, the most difficult thing in this sense, is the need to completely lay down the Ego, your unique personality and life with the usual ways of adaptation and self-realization, completely limit your personality to 227 rules, for the sake of a rather ephemeral state of samadhi or nirvana.

This whole situation offers us another choice.

Unfortunately, due to many specific and important circumstances, modern man cannot use the “weak ego” strategy. The strategy of the “weak ego” is to “surrender” to tradition, to delegate one's will, way of thinking, freedom, choice, values, existential meanings to the provision of tradition.

In this strategy, in order to gain understanding, it is necessary to lie in the bosom of tradition and completely doom yourself, surrender to tradition:

• to have meanings introjected from tradition,
• to take advantage of the values ​​and worldview of tradition,
• in order to eventually gain strength through belonging to the community.

If we are not willing to give up our will, awareness and a unique way.

feeling, understanding reality and interacting with the life of Procrustean lodge tradition, then we must accept another choice.

The choice to understand the tradition in one's own way and live in it with one's own understanding, but from one's own strength, from one's decisions and ideas.

In this situation, without wearing white or yellow clothes, we allow ourselves to understand Buddhism, just as Nagarjuna, Ananda, Mahakashyapa, Padmasamphava, Asanga, Bodhidharma or the modern Dalai Lama understood with our minds - from the point of critical and independent reflection:
What was the Buddha thinking when he said...
Thus, we will continue to proceed from the fact that we have been given the freedom to think Buddhism and the text that will be presented below should reveal this thinking based on the current level of development of psychology.

And, in the end, in my opinion, the whole history of Buddhism and all modern Buddhism is an attempt to understand what the Buddha was talking about. And we also want to understand what the Awakened One was silent about. Why was silent.

It is worth recognizing from the outset that there really is no such thing as Buddhist psychology. In the West, we can talk about Buddhist ethics, Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist logic, Buddhist epistemology, and so on, but the teachings of Buddhism as a whole are a completely coherent tradition. It is, so to speak, one and indivisible: take any of its aspects, and automatically all the rest will follow from it. The danger of isolating one area of ​​study or another is that in doing so we tend to miss its connections to other issues, or even to the issue from which it originally arose - and this actually happened at times in the history of what I call Buddhist philosophy.

At the same time, of course, the term cannot be completely dismissed if we simply use it in relation to the teachings of Buddhism about the nature and functioning of the mind, especially as it affects our spiritual life in general and meditation in particular. Buddhist psychology is not just a descriptive science; it has no other purpose than to be used in practice. And its practical use is to enable us to understand what is going on in our own mind, to distinguish between useful and valuable mental events and negative or harmful ones, between true vision and subjective views. It begins with a key thought: we play a role in creating the world in which we find ourselves, and the only effective way to improve our situation is to take responsibility for it, that is, to take responsibility for our own states of mind.

According to Buddhism, our difficulties come from our ignorance. Ignorance (Avidya in Sanskrit) is traditionally likened to drunkenness, while acts of will (samskara) that arise from ignorance are compared to deeds done while intoxicated. Such an understanding of the conditions in which a person lives may seem too gloomy, but this is nothing more than a sound conclusion. Sometimes we don't realize the harm we're doing just because we don't know what we're doing. We start some processes, we say something, we come into contact with people and as a result of this we inevitably create problems. While we sometimes realize that our lives are more or less made up of the problems we create in this way, all too often we don't even see it as a problem - and that's a problem in itself.

Of course, it is not a question of protecting ourselves by postponing any action until we attain Enlightenment: to live we must act, and therefore we will have to make mistakes. But if we understand what we are doing, we can break down the reactive patterns that keep us creating the same problems over and over again. And the way to break down these reactive patterns that bring us so much suffering is to establish other patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.

Seeing his difficulties clearly, knowing where to start, a person can perceive the choice before him, which gives him a certain degree of freedom. It is not absolute freedom - we do not choose the starting point - but we are free to choose what we do with a given situation. Where we are is less important than whether we know it or not. Freedom arises from knowing oneself and knowing the possibilities of going beyond the current situation.

However, this freedom has the opposite effect. The mind is not a thing, it is, as Gunther puts it in his preface to his translation of The Mind in Buddhist Psychology, not "a static whole, a pure state or function of consciousness." It consists solely of its activities. Therefore, it is constantly changing, constantly moving. But he can move either creatively or reactively. Every moment the mind is faced with a choice: whether to repeat the old patterns and go around in circles, or remake the pattern and create more positive conditions for spiritual growth. Every moment there is the possibility of moving forward, as well as the possibility of just going around in circles and therefore not really moving anywhere. We are free to develop our awareness on the spiritual path, seek solutions, and we are also free to fall back into unconsciousness and stop asking questions. Moreover, states of mind cannot be separated from each other. Painful and harmful states of mind cannot be locked up as long as we develop mindfulness, joy, and kindness. Every moment we are either encouraging positive states of mind to develop or strengthening negative ones.

If a person makes efforts to develop in a positive direction, his life takes on a more serious meaning, since the person takes responsibility for it. A person understands the practical necessity of a certain way of life. This is what it means to follow the Buddhist path.

Buddhism is presented as a path or path, but it is only an image. The path is a symbol of the fact that we can change, we can develop. If we know who we are and who we will become, we can begin to take steps towards making this transition. We have the ability, the freedom to perceive our true interests and put them into practice.

According to the Pali expression, we develop the path. He is not something external, something objective. We ourselves are the path. If we think of the path as something external, like a road or a path, we may become attached to the useless idea of ​​what kind of spiritual discipline we need to follow it. We do not follow the Buddhist path in the sense that we are led along it like sheep, and we try to get off the path and chew on a thorn or a flower on the side of the road.

Of course, there is an objective development criterion that should be taken into account and acted upon according to it, but the path itself is not somewhere outside, it is inside. It is not a question of forcing yourself to follow a certain path or go in a certain direction. The path simply represents an individual solution to one's own problems. If you know and understand the real you, this is the starting point for your own development. The path is you in the process of organizing your states of mind in such a way that growth and development occurs in a positive direction.

This recognition and organization of states of mind has been the main concern of many generations of Buddhist scholars. What became known as the Abhidharma absorbed the best efforts of some of the most refined minds in Buddhist history over a period of more than a thousand years. Although in some respects there was a scholastic degeneration in it, the diligence with which these scholars approached their enormous task was largely due to their devotion to the spiritual path. Their desire to understand the mind and states of mind originated in devotion to following the teachings of the Buddha. "doing no evil, achieving good, purifying one's mind" was their starting point.

But what is the mind? How to understand it? That is what they have been trying to figure out for centuries. They didn't just think about what in the West we would call psychological health: they were inspired by the vision of the Buddha - the infinite, transcendent potential of the human mind. Abhidharma can be described as an all-encompassing science of the mind, although in fact it is impossible to speak of the mind as any other subject of study, because in a sense the studying mind cannot be the object of study at the same time. As we study the Abhidharma, we must keep this in mind if we are to derive any practical benefit from it. It is true that Buddhism relies on observation to establish the truth of its vision of the nature of things, but this method of observation is not like a laboratory experiment, it always remains personal. In the case of Buddhist psychology, it consists in introspection, self-observation - seeing how you yourself react to certain things, for example.

Therefore, although in some sense the Abhidharmikas were Buddhist psychologists, when speaking of Buddhist psychology, we must beware of the limitations of our understanding of Buddhism. This danger is real for the simple reason that the English language, which reflects the limitations of Western ideas about the mind as a whole, does not have words to understand or describe higher states of consciousness (in Sanskrit terms, dhyana). The conscious state of the mind, in which there is no perception of external things, no senses acting, no activity of the mind in the ordinary sense, is simply not recognized. Therefore, such states of mind are not included in the definition of the term "psyche" or "mind", which means that if we speak of Buddhism as a method of psychological development, this automatically implies that there is no dhyana in the development of the mind.

Areas of experience that go beyond and transcend the notion that is usually encompassed by the "psychological" may be designated by the term "spiritual." Thus, by "spiritual life" is meant a life aimed at creating skillful states of mind (especially in the sense in which they are represented by dhyanas) in order to gain the basis of the experience of Enlightenment.

We also need to find a way to point out the difference between states of mind that are achieved temporarily and those whose achievement constitutes a permanent change. Spiritual states of mind are not necessarily permanent: it is quite clear that one can feel "spiritual" for a moment, and a moment later - far from spirituality. However, it is possible to achieve lasting positive and refined states of mind. At some point, a person gains such a stable and deep insight into the nature of reality that he is guaranteed continuous progress towards Enlightenment. In Buddhism, this is traditionally known as Stream-Entering, an experience that can be described as transcendental. Therefore, we have three terms - psychological, spiritual and beyond - to describe the various stages of the development of consciousness. Although the word "psychological" refers to the mind or psyche, and although it is the human mind that in some way experiences dhyana and transcendental penetration, it would be a limitation and even a mistake to reduce Buddhism to a method of psychological growth.

In addition to being careful about the use of the term "psychological", we should also be careful about the word "mind", which in the context of the Western theistic and even post-theistic tradition is limited in the sense that there is a distinction between the human mind and the "mind of God". However, according to the teachings of the Buddha, there are no limits to the human mind, and there is nothing - at least potentially - beyond it; it has a deep, literally unimaginable meaning. For a Buddhist, the expression "purely human" is meaningless, as is the notion that one must believe in revelation on the grounds that it comes from a dimension beyond the human mind.

To begin exploring the nature of the mind in Buddhist psychology, we need to remind ourselves that the mind and the events of the mind are concepts, concepts that can become the basis for grasping the reality to which they refer. Essentially, concepts arise in two ways. First, one can assume the existence of the thing that receives the name, on the basis of an idea or theory (this is "a concept by postulation"). This is the starting point for many Western philosophers, although some - for example, Hume - so to speak, come to concepts rather by the second method, which consists in the direct naming of sensory experience ("concept by intuition"). The concept of mind in Buddhist psychology belongs to this second category. It is not deduced by deduction from abstract ideas or general principles, but by induction, from actual experience. Thus, it is not a metaphysical principle (Mind capitalized, as in "Mind over Matter"); it does not replace the individual ego, perceived as something different from the events of the mind, which it "experiences". In Buddhism, "mind" is perceived in the same way as, for example, we perceive a tree. Just as we experience a collection of sensory data—trunk, branches, leaves—and call it a tree, so we also experience various mental events and call them “mind.” And just as there is no meaning to the word "tree" beyond what we can personally experience, so there is no meaning, no nuance to the term "mind" beyond what we can perceive for ourselves.

Because the mind in Buddhism has to do with what is experienced through direct perception, every statement in this book can be tested by personal experience, provided we are willing to honestly examine our experience. The inner peace, clarity, and insight that can be developed through the practice of meditation not only aid in this process of exploration, but are absolutely essential to it. From a Buddhist point of view, trying to philosophize or even think clearly without eliminating negative states of mind is a dubious enterprise. Whatever attempts we make to come to a true understanding of reality, if we have not paid attention to the state of mind in which we approach a question, we will inevitably view things within the framework of our own grasping, hatred, fear and delusion. Therefore, philosophy without meditation is impossible in Buddhism. One has to rise above limited personal or individual understanding, at least to some extent, and be relatively free of negative states of mind in order to see the truth.

This book has two purposes: to present the picture of mind and mental events that has been the focus of Abhidharma scholarship for centuries, and to serve as a practical mind events guide for meditators to show them how to recognize different mental events, which ones need to be eradicated and which ones cultivate in order to gain psychological health, spiritual insights and, ultimately, transcendental knowledge.

The first part of the book is necessarily purely theoretical, in which we trace the origin of the Abhidharma and introduce the work The Necklace of Clear Understanding, to which the rest of the book is a kind of commentary, and then proceed to consider the understanding of the mind and the events of the mind in the Abhidharma. In the second part, we look at the mental events themselves in great detail and in the process form a picture of the spiritual life we ​​need to ensure the development of positive states of mind.

Günther G. W., Kawamura L. S. (trans.). "The Mind in Buddhist Psychology: A Translation of Yeshe Gyaltsen's Necklace of Clear Understanding", Dharma, Berkeley, 1975, p. xvi. Wherever the name of Günther is mentioned, it should be understood that the translation is the work of both scientists.

The term is maggam bhaveti. See Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary, Society for Buddhist Publications, Candy, 1988, p. 169, "Promotion of the Disciple."

BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY

So, the driving force of actions, or karma, are harmful emotions - kleshas. What are flares? Since actions are mainly due to the mental factor - intention, which is a type of consciousness, and since kleshas are also types of consciousness, it is first necessary to understand Buddhist psychology.

As I already said, answering the question about the definition of consciousness, consciousness is something luminous and cognizing. In order to explain the various ideas about consciousness and the insights associated with it, many classifications have been created that consider this phenomenon from different angles of view. First, the types of consciousness are divided into those that comprehend objects, and those that do not comprehend them. The comprehending types of consciousness, in turn, are divided into those that comprehend the object explicitly, and those that comprehend it implicitly. In the case when consciousness comprehends an object explicitly, the visibility of this object appears to it, while in the case when consciousness comprehends an object implicitly, its visibility is not to consciousness.

There is also a division into conceptual And non-conceptual consciousness. Conceptual consciousness comprehends its objects through mental images, which in Buddhist terminology are called either "verbal community" or "conceptual community." Non-conceptual consciousness comprehends its objects directly.

The following classifications are the division of the types of consciousness into reliable and unreliable, as well as the so-called seven categories of knowledge and awareness: direct perception, inference, subsequent knowledge, correct assumption, consciousness of an obvious but not recognized object, doubt and erroneous consciousness. Let's start with correct guess. For example, if a person, after listening to reliable information about the Four Noble Truths, begins to think about them exactly as he was taught, this consciousness is a correct assumption. Such a consciousness has not yet developed into that certain knowledge which comprehends the incontrovertibility of the Four Noble Truths, and yet it unmistakably or properly accepts them as they are. The correct assumption also has its own classifications, which I will not touch on.

The next of the seven categories of knowledge and awareness is consciousness of an explicit but unrecognized object. For example, if the visual consciousness is absorbed in some visual image, then even if the auditory consciousness hears a sound at that time, it will not be recognized. This consciousness of hearing is, in this case, the consciousness of an explicit but unrecognized object. From the point of view of the Sautrantika and Cittamatra schools, such kinds of consciousness take place in the case of direct sensory perception, direct mental perception and self-cognizing consciousness. Thus, out of the existing four types of direct perception, the consciousness of an explicit but unrecognized object cannot participate in direct yogic perception, so it certainly reveals its objects.

Then comes subsequent knowledge- this is consciousness comprehending an already comprehended object. In the Prasangika school, subsequent consciousness can refer to primary cognition, while in other systems this is impossible, since, for example, in the Cittamatra school, primary cognition is defined as “irrefutably knowing for the first time”, and therefore, in this school, subsequent cognition cannot be primary. However, in the Prasangika school, the term “primary” in relation to primary cognition does not mean “new”, but “basic”, and therefore the followers of this school consider primary cognition to be consciousness, irrefutable with respect to its main object. Why do other schools interpret primary cognition as irrefutably knowing? first? The fact is that these schools recognize the self-existence of phenomena, and therefore, when the object designated as primary cognition must be found analytically, it is necessary to establish its irrefutability with respect to such self-existence. However, the Prasangika school argues that when we search for designated objects analytically, they cannot be found, and therefore the existence of phenomena, including primary cognition, cannot be established by such analysis. Therefore this school uses the term "primary knowledge" in the same sense as it is used throughout the world, for the most common interpretation of this term is irrefutable or certain knowledge, but not new irrefutable knowledge. So, since subsequent knowledge and several of its varieties are irrefutable and certain, in the Prasangika school they are considered primary, or credible, types of knowledge.

Let's move on to the next category - erroneous consciousness comprehension of the object incorrectly. It has two subspecies: conceptual and non-conceptual erroneous consciousness. Further, there is such a category as doubt, which is a mental factor that deviates somewhat from its object both in one direction and in the other.

The last two categories of knowledge and awareness are direct perception And inference. In the Sautrantika school, direct perception is consciousness, object which is the phenomenon with its specific features, and the conclusion is the consciousness that takes as being an object general features of the phenomenon. There are several interpretations of this topic, but there is no need to explain them in the framework of our lecture.

In essence, direct perception - for example, the visual consciousness comprehending a flower - is all the essential features of a flower, but it does not necessarily recognize them, or certify them. The impermanence of the flower, as well as its composite character, its every minute destruction, its dependence on causes and conditions, etc. are present to the visual consciousness, but it does not necessarily notice or certify all these properties of the flower. Thus, direct perception "grabs" the object as a whole. As for the types of conceptual consciousness and concepts, they “grasp” objects only partially. Let's say, when conceptual consciousness cognizes a flower, it focuses on one of its qualities, not paying attention to many others, and thus cognizes the flower in a limited and incomplete way. After the non-conceptual consciousness has transmitted its information about the object, the conceptual consciousness can consider in turn all its qualities and their distinguishing features.

In order to understand how non-conceptual consciousness differs from conceptual consciousness, it is useful to distinguish between the objects of these types of consciousness. Should be distinguished being an object from action object. According to Prasangika, the visual consciousness that perceives the form, this form is simultaneously with the appearance of its own existence. Thus, the visual consciousness that comprehends a form is a valid knowledge when it considers this form itself, as well as visibility it as self-existent, but is not valid knowledge when it considers the very fact of the self-existence of this form, since in fact this form is devoid of self-existence.

From the point of view of the false appearance of the self-existence of the object, this visual consciousness is considered erroneous, but this does not mean that it is erroneous in all respects. When it comes to comprehending or "grasping" the form itself, it is infallible, which means that it can be considered reliable knowledge, certifying the form (its existence). Consequently, as applied to various objects, it is both an erroneous consciousness and a reliable cognition. Concerning one and the same object, consciousness cannot be both erroneous and certain, but with regard to two different objects, the same consciousness can be characterized both as erroneous consciousness and as certain knowledge: it is erroneous in relation to the object that appears to it, but it is certain in relation to what is certified by it. object - that is, the object of the action.

This is the unique view of the Prasangika school, whose followers do not recognize that phenomena, even on a relative level, exist by virtue of their own properties. In another sub-school of the Madhyamika, the Svatantrika school, it is stated that the object to be negated from the point of view of emptiness does not appear to sense consciousnesses, but in the Prasangika school, the object of negation, self-existence, appears even to sense consciousnesses. Therefore, according to this system, even reliable cognition can be mistaken in the case when the object that appears to this consciousness seems to be self-existent. Therefore, all kinds of consciousness, except for wisdom, which directly comprehends emptiness, are erroneous about the objects that are them.

But in this case, it can be objected that an erroneous consciousness cannot verify the existence of such relative phenomena as forms. Indeed, the presence of a truly established form could be verified only by a consciousness that is not deluded about the appearance of the self-existence of this form. However, since truly established forms are not recognized even conditionally, it is argued that the forms are false - they seem to be truly established, but in reality they are not, and therefore an erroneous consciousness would rather certify their falsity. This point is essential for understanding the view of emptiness. It is based on the fact that all kinds of consciousness are deliberately erroneous, with the exception of the direct knowledge of emptiness by an arya who is in meditation.

In addition, consciousness is established by virtue of the appearance of an object to it, regardless of whether this phenomenon is genuine or false. For example, self-existence appears to the consciousness that perceives self-existence, and it is thanks to this appearance that this consciousness certifies self-existence. Since this appearance arises in the consciousness, the given consciousness is reliable with respect to it and is even considered to be direct reliable cognition. Therefore, with regard to the appearance of self-existence, even a false consciousness that perceives self-existence is certain and is considered immediate reliable knowledge - it is certain simply because self-existence appears to it. And yet it is false, because self-existence has never been, is not, and never will be.