Over many years I have had the chance to engage in dialogues with scientists on a range of topics, such as cosmology, neurobiology, evolution, and physics, especially subatomic- particle physics. is latter discipline of particle physics shares methods strikingly similar to those found in Buddhism, such as the Mind Only school’s critique of the external material world that reveals that nothing can be found when matter is deconstructed into its constitutive elements, and similarly the statements found in the Middle Way school treatises that nothing can be found when one searches for the real referents behind our concepts and their associated terms.
In general the mind is the main factor involved in accomplishing the explicitly desired goals of living beings. The mind, unlike physical things, is difficult to identify. Yet if we train our mind, in reliance on mindfulness, introspection, heedfulness, and so on, we will attain both temporary and final happiness. Therefore, in the Buddhist tradition, the tradition of analyzing the topic of “mind” in great detail flourished from the earliest times. This is also the main reason why there exist in the Buddhist texts extensive explanations about psychology.
Both the happiness and suffering that arise in relation to beings’ desired goals finally depend on the functioning of the mind—it is owing to the force of having one’s mind tamed or not tamed that temporary or lasting happiness and suffering arise. The essence of the Buddha’s teaching is said to be the thorough taming of the mind.
The mind, the subjective, is perfectly clear because it is by nature itself illuminating, and because other objects, such as forms and so on, by means of something like the transference of their aspects—the nature of forms and so on—onto a clear consciousness, become the appearing objects of such a consciousness. Therefore it is taught that forms and so on clearly appear to that consciousness. In that case, consciousness has both the quality of illuminating, in the sense of being illuminating itself, and the quality of illuminating its object, in the sense that the aspect of the object appears. According to certain early Buddhist texts, both “clear” and “cognizing” may additionally mean “empty” in the sense of being naturally empty of obstructivity, for those texts present ways of identifying the nature of consciousness as that which has the three qualities—empty, clear, and cognizing.
To understand the presentation of mind, early Buddhist texts offer many different ways of categorizing the mind. These are included within the sevenfold typology of mind, the threefold division of mind, and the twofold divisions of mind. First, the sevenfold typology of mind consists of: (1) direct perception, (2) inference, (3) subsequent cognition, (4) correct assumption, (5) inattentive perception, (6) doubt, (7) distorted cognition.
From the introduction of H.H. the Dalai Lama to the first volume of “Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics”