Buddhist view of the conscience?

Having a filter is valuable....something to strain out all the extraneous that does not take you on the path you wish to be.

A filter which all your words, thoughts, actions go through, and what gets caught does not come out....only the words, thoughts and actions that meet the criteria of your path, make it to the ethers, to others ears, and to manifestation....

That filter would be your conscience would it not?

Or is your conscience that which is negatively affected by having no filter?
 
Perhaps I made the mistake of not asking which Buddhist...:eek:

or checking what sg thought :rolleyes:

I consider the conscience to be an internal monitor of morality. Rather like the soul, I do not know where this abiding entity supposedly resides. I have yet to come across it but that may be my limited exposure primarily within zen.

s.
 
Snoopy said:
Perhaps I made the mistake of not asking which Buddhist...:eek:

or checking what sg thought :rolleyes:

I consider the conscience to be an internal monitor of morality. Rather like the soul, I do not know where this abiding entity supposedly resides. I have yet to come across it but that may be my limited exposure primarily within zen.

s.
Click to expand...

Atta-rakkhita Sutta: Self-protected
 
I refer to the tradition of the elders but it is not my primary source sg, as you may know. Hence my books have nothing in their indexes pertaining to conscience. You've gone and made me look on the net too:

from the Mercea Eliade Encyclopedia of Religion -

...the notion of conscience as internal organ is not found outside of Christianity.

s.
 
seattlegal said:
Internal organ? Of the mind, perhaps. (If you can call it an "organ")

From Merriam-Webster:
c : the part of the superego in psychoanalysis that transmits commands and admonitions to the ego
​
Wiki: Id, ego and super-ego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...


Yes there's various approaches, such as the Freudian and the Piagetian, as well as the religious. There's definitely great differences on many topics between the Buddhist schools. I would describe the Theravadan as being more psychotherapeutic so translations into English using the word conscience are not so surprising I suppose. Despite all these suttas you quote I'm still not convinced the Buddha was speaking of the conscience that Western Christians allude to. IMO.

s.
 
I don't see conscience as an organ, part of consciousness maybe?

It is a thought, maybe a series of thoughts flitting around the neuro net...

The soul however, completely different entity in my mind. Soul direct conscience? or consciousness? or super conscious....

Our organs operate unconsciously....

We make decisions that we think about consciously...

Our knee jerk reactions are dictated by our subconscious....are they avoiding the conscience?

Or if we work consciously to allow our conscience to rule, can our knee jerk reactions be directed by our conscience?

Depends where you are in the paradigm?

unconsciously incompetent (everything is a knee jerk reaction based on current ego need)

Consciously incompetent (first level of awareness, knowing you have a choice and choosing not the best for all concerned)

Consciously Competent (personal conscience and morality dictate your behaviour (good or bad))

Unconsciously Competent (conscience is defined and in control of your knee jerk reactions....being loving, or evil is now ingrained as a choice)
 
Snoopy said:
Yes there's various approaches, such as the Freudian and the Piagetian, as well as the religious. There's definitely great differences on many topics between the Buddhist schools. I would describe the Theravadan as being more psychotherapeutic so translations into English using the word conscience are not so surprising I suppose. Despite all these suttas you quote I'm still not convinced the Buddha was speaking of the conscience that Western Christians allude to. IMO.

s.
Click to expand...
Yes, from comparing different translations, I was thinking more like a "sense of shame or restraint." But then the Atta-rakkhita Sutta: Self-protected sutta surprised me when I came acrossed it in my browsing of the suttas. I'm currently investigating a yogacara description of this function:

7/ DHARMAS
"Dharmas are the ultimate factors that support 'existence'...." They are basic interdependent patterns within the overall nature of reality. Each dharma is a mental-construct with a specific process that consists of a stream of momentary events. Dharmas are attachments to an illusory reality. In terms of process and events dharmas interact with all eight consciousnesses.
Yogacara posits one hundred dharmas, which can be categorized according to the three natures [14], since dharmas lack any real self-existence. There are five categories of dharmas (in descending order): First; the eight mind dharmas are supreme and manifest as the eight consciousnesses. Second; the fifty-one dharmas interactive with the mind supplement the mind dharmas and are subdivided into six categories: 1) five universally interactive (attention, conceptualization, etc.), 2) five particular states (desire, concentration, etc.), 3) eleven wholesome (faith, shame, renunciation, etc.), 4) six fundamental afflictions (greed, anger, etc.), 5) twenty derivative afflictions (deceit, jealousy, torpor, lack of shame, etc.), and 6) four unfixed (sleep, regret, etc.). The afflictions and wholesome dharmas represent further categorizations of distinctions in the sixth consciousness. Third; the eleven form dharmas (sounds, flavors, objects of touch, etc.) are shadows of the first and second categories. Fourth; the twenty-four dharmas not interactive with the mind (time, birth, distinction, etc.) are positions not found in the first, second, or third categories. Fifth; the six unconditioned dharmas (empty space, extinction of feeling, thinking, etc.) are dharmas revealed by the first four categories.
The realization that all dharmas are nothing but mental-constructs is an essential step on the path to enlightenment. In that final state the wisdom of Wonderful Contemplation "understands without distortion the individual and universal dharmas...."


-source-​
 
wil,

I don't mean organ as in liver I mean as an abiding entity, the seat of moral judgment.

I think I'm all spoked out now except to say:

wil - you sound like mr rumsfeld!!!!

s.
 
seattlegal said:
What is the the Buddhist view of the conscience?
Click to expand...

--As far as I see, it depends what you mean by "conscience". If you mean... feeling "guilt", (dusana) or feeling "fear" (bhaya) or, having "no shame", (mamalinya) it's there -- and all these states are considered "fetters". (bhanda, vivadha).

Jna, (knowledge) is sometimes translated into "conscience", I suppose, which makes sense IF "the feeling that you may be committing/may commit wrong/are asked to re/consider your principles" is dependent on what you "know", but, really, conscience, as a specific "thing", doesn't exist.

In buddhist translations, conscience is sometimes translated as: "Ja(a)na", but... I don't like it. "Ja(a)na means... birth, birthplace, origins", etc. I prefer "antakarana": beyond reason", which, again, is often given in texts in place of "conscience"; that... sense of what is right, and good, etc...

but, to a buddhist, strictly speaking, there is no conscience: there is guilt, and fear, and anxiety, and shame, etc.... but no conscience...

We have caitta, and citta (the non-virtuous and virtuous minds), we have "manas", (opinion, notion, will), but... no conscience...

lol...

That doesn't mean we're unprincipled scumbags... of course! We have the "rules", etc, for how to live, but... conscience?
 
It should be borne in mind that part of the dynamic in the development of the various philosophical schools was not just a search for truth but a political / power struggle. For example the Yogacara was an attempt to reign in this Mahayana tradition so that it more closely resembled the Hinayana. After having delved into this stuff quite a bit I find it somewhat eye-glazing; pedantic intellectual shenanigans that might be interesting but ultimately not much use in daily life.

s.
 
ok, there's this:

Lokapala Sutta: "Guardians of the World"

"Monks, these two bright qualities guard the world. Which two? Conscience & concern.[1] If these two bright qualities did not guard the world, there would be no recognition of 'mother' here, no recognition of 'mother's sister,' 'uncle's wife,' 'teacher's wife,' or 'wife of those who deserve respect.' The world would be immersed in promiscuity, like rams with goats, roosters with pigs, or dogs with jackals. But because these two bright qualities guard the world, there is recognition of 'mother,' 'mother's sister,' 'uncle's wife,' 'teacher's wife,' & 'wife of those who deserve respect.'"
​
This is from commentary on the Anottaapi Sutta : Carelessness
Ottappa is fear of wrongdoing (and its consequences). It is usually coupled with hiri "moral shame," i.e., fear of doing what one would be ashamed of. These two are known as the "guardians of the world" (Loka-paalaa), and together may be regarded as the objective and subjective aspects of what Christians call conscience.​
 
The reason why I'm asking is that I'm one of those people who need to add my own subtitles from the Tao Te Ching in order to get Plato's discussion on the world of forms to "click." :eek: I suppose this all relates to the passage in the Tao Te Ching about "as development takes place, it receives the different names."

Sure, conscience is a mental construct--a result of conditioning. However, it is considered to be one of the wholesome dharmas, and a lack of it is considered to be a fetter. {Practice is also a type of conditioning as well.}

I guess this comes down to unwholesome seeds and unwholesome seeds--which conscience (Ottappa and Hiri) seems to make its business in distinguishing between the two! :eek:
 
This is just a general, rather unhelpful comment. As you will know there are thousands of Buddhist suttas and sutras. I reckon if they were all available in English online, and you searched for 'Boston Red Sox' you'd get at least one hit. I think I stand by my general comment (unattached of course!) and was rather glad to see Sam agree cos I was thinking I'd been a bit too confident! Of course, you might tempt Vaj to share her wisdom...

Now for some coffee!:)

s.
 
seattlegal said:
Sure, conscience is a mental construct--a result of conditioning. However, it is considered to be one of the wholesome dharmas, and a lack of it is considered to be a fetter. {Practice is also a type of conditioning as well.}
Click to expand...

Hmm, after thinking about this for a bit, I'll have to revise it to conscience can be programmed by conditioning. I seems like the interacting processes that lead to conscience are probably present within every being's mind.
 
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