Buddhists Vision of the World of Existence and Beyond

“Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction!”

~ The Butterfly Dream of Zhuangzi (Translation by Burton Watson taken from Wikipedia)

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts...”

 ~ William Shakespeare

Is our life as we are experiencing it real? Or is it just a dream? Are we all, as Shakespeare put it, actors and actresses playing different roles in a stage performance called life? Are our dreams a real world to which we return to once the show is over? Is life an illusion we must eventually wake up from?

Such questions concerning the nature of our existence have occupied the thoughts of man through the ages. They have both intrigued and confounded him at the same time. Mystics, meditators, philosophers, thinkers, even scientists, in their quest to make sense of the world, have attempted various answers. And we have all been fascinated or turned off by their answers.

The Buddha's teaching is one among many teachings in the world that have arisen out of a need to address man's problem of existential suffering. But to solve this problem necessitate first of all an understanding of the nature of our existence. Therefore, since the Buddha did claim to have found a solution to this problem, we would expect that the Buddha's teaching also provides some answers to these questions about the nature of our existence. But what are it's answers if any? What do the Buddha and his enlightened disciples see when they look at this world of our existence and how do they describe it?

Mindfulness, Clarity, Perception, and Memory

Among the twenty five sobhaṇa-cetasikas or beautiful-mental-factors listed in Abhidhamma, sati or mindfulness is probably the one most often mentioned and highlighted by Buddhists. This is because of the central role that mindfulness plays in Buddhists' practices.

“But mindfulness, bhikkhus, is needed at all times.”

~ Saṃyutta-Nikāya, Bojjhaṅgasaṃyutta, Sutta 53

In many suttas one who has mindfulness is described thus:

“...a bhikkhu is mindful, one who possess the highest mindfulness and discrimination, who remembers and recalls what was done and said long ago.”

~ e.g. Dīgha-Nikāya, Saṅgīti Sutta

This description of mindfulness in the Suttas brings out its aspect of memory. In the commentary also mindfulness is explained in relation to memory:

“It is mindfulness (sati) because by means of it they remember (saranti); or it itself remembers; or it is just mere-remembering.”

~ Dhammasaṅgaṇi-Aṭṭhakathā

However, mindfulness is categorized in Abhidhamma as a beautiful-mental-factor, which means that while it is always found associated with wholesome consciousness (kusala-citta), it can never be found in association with unwholesome consciousness (akusala-citta). This means that mindfulness is absent when a person performs an unwholesome action like killing, stealing, etc.

But if mindfulness is related to memory how could it be absent when a person performs an unwholesome action? Does this mean that a person who is killing or stealing has no recollection of things he had said or done? This would be absurd since memory is such a fundamental function of our mind that it should be common to all kinds of consciousness regardless of whether they are wholesome or unwholesome. A mental factor (cetasika) that is to perform the function of memory should by right fall into the category of those that are common to all consciousness, i.e. the universals (sabbacittasādhāraṇa). Assuming that the Suttas is correct then either mindfulness had been wrongly classified in the Abhidhamma, or there is something more to memory than just mindfulness.