Dualism of mind and matter in Buddhism

Upvote:-1

The Buddha described all of conditioned reality as nothing but the five skandhas, and subdivided those further (the experience of the body as earth element, fire element, wind.., water..). The khandhas are all of a type and are inconstant (always changing and not lasting forever), impersonal, and having the characteristic of dukkha (will cause suffering if clung to). These are the three marks of conditioned existence.

He also described the unconditioned, the unborn, the unmanifest, which cannot be perceived, conceived, or directly discussed or cognized. He was utterly a dualist. If you doubt this at all check out Buddhist scholar Ken Wheeler: https://youtu.be/FEnb2cFWKBs

That said, I would certainly not classify the dualism as mind/matter; one of the skandhas is consciousness. In my opinion, it is not rigorously, philosophically well defined as that was not his goal.

Upvote:0

Any mind state and / or [metal factor][2] create some sensation or the other. These sensations can have some similarities exhibited by the 4 elements like pain (feels like Earth - gross solidified), vibrations, expansion contraction, etc.

What is experienced or felt is the mind. Hence there are times you feel the mind is turning to matter and matter into mind.

Upvote:4

The Buddha of Pali Canon held an evidently pragmatic position, never explicitly defining his view as idealistic or materialistic. He does speak of "this body" as "composed of the four properties, born of mother & father, fed on rice & porridge, subject to inconstancy". He also speaks of consciousness as "dependent on body" and therefore impermanent, something a non-returner has fully realized. At the same time, for what looks like soteriological purposes, Buddha takes a fully phenomenological stance, speaking about skandhas and dhammas as constituting all of the (phenomenal) world.

After Buddha's death, this phenomenological perspective was a subject of abuse (IMHO) by generations of Abhidharmists indulging their analytical instincts. Their unchecked tendency to reify dharmas (assigning them the status of substantially existing) has led to emergence of Prajna-Paramita movement, the main point of which was assertion of philosophical relativism as fundamental principle underlying cognition. From this perspective, primacy of mind or matter is a matter of choosing a point of reference and has nothing to do with ontological state of affairs, which by its very nature is ineffable and is not subject to assertions.

In general, it looks to me like most Buddhist schools deny substantial dualism and either assert primacy of mind (Yogacara) or philosophical relativism (most of the rest of Mahayana). Theravada is a special case, torn between pragmatism and idealism, because it historically sees itself as results-oriented and not metaphysics-oriented, and at the same time carries on the legacy of Abhidharmic phenomenology. Vajrayana, being ultra-pragmatic liberation methodology, does not concern itself with such mundane affairs as mind/matter interaction, but we can say its position remains an extension of general Mahayana nondualism.

On top of this sedimentary layer of orthodox doctrines, lies a huge ocean of skilfull means, folk beliefs, and anecdotes, most of them implying naive dualism of crude matter and some kind of soul/mind substance, a perspective sharply criticised by many prominent teachers. For one example of the latter, see Dogen's "Soku Shin Ze Butsu" (Mind Here and Now Is Buddha).

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