Buddha’s Functional Hypothesis
In order to avoid this difficulty, the Buddha looked at the mind from a functional point of view, which falls in line with Freudian thinking as well as Buddhist thinking. For the Buddha, the mind is not an entity separate from the body. It is simply the subjective experience of the activity of the nervous system and the whole body. Put in modern terminology, mind is the reaction of an organism to environmental stimulation. The Buddha pointed out that there are three phases in this reaction that we refer to as the mind. They are the perceptual activity (viññana), cognitive activity (mano) and the affective activity (citta), which ultimately ends up in the physical behavioural activity (kamma). The first three are observable as subjective mental experiences, and not as objective material entities. Even the fourth is a physical activity, rather than a material entity.
Perceptual Activity
(viññana)
↓
Cognitive Activity
(mano)
↓
Affective Activity
(citta)
↓
Behavioural Activity
↓
(kamma)
If we take as an example a young man meeting a girl: when light falling on the girl is reflected, and falls on the eye of the young man, he begins to see the girl. That is perception (viññana). Having perceived, he begins to interpret what was seen using his cognitive faculty (mano). Let us say, the interpretation was, “I see a sexy girl.” This results in an emotional arousal (citta). A message goes from the brain to the sexual gland, and a sexual hormone is secreted into the blood, and changes take place in the young man’s body. The body gets ready for action. Of course the young man being a civilized person does not decide to rape the girl. He has a conscience that prevents him from doing so. This example explains how the three stages of the reaction works.
The young man, however, has a problem at this point. There is a conflict in his mind, as Freud pointed out. The conscience or superego is in conflict with his id, and the ego has to bring about a settlement. The ego decides to go and speak to the girl in a courteous way and propose a date. This would be a Freudian solution. Yet the young man may be disappointed if the girl rejects him or if he sees her boy friend coming to take her away. This is civilization and its discontentment.
The Buddha goes further in suggesting a different solution. That is to understand that happiness comes from tranquillity of mind and not from gratification of sense desires. Therefore the young man should only take a deep breath and consciously relax the body, and calm the mind, and stop thinking about the girl. This is not easy because the emotional arousal is not a mere thought. The emotion is a change in the blood chemistry, and change in the function of various organs in the body. This means, the emotion is a physical change rather than a mere thought. Yet it is the thought that created the physical change. Just as the manipulation of a switch turned the light on, and no amount of blowing on the light can turn it off; in the same way, no amount of fighting with the emotion can turn the emotion off. The emotion is only a disturbance in the body, and it is created by a thought. It is only by changing the thought, which got the emotion started, that the emotional activity can be stopped. This is a fact recognized even by the cognitive psychologists today.
What this means, in Freudian terminology, is that the id is the result of the activity of the ego. Therefore the ego does not have to repress, suppress or sublimate the id; the ego has only to realize that the trigger that activates the id is in the hands of the ego, and by thinking in a different way, the ego can make the id to stop the annoying behaviour. It is true that the id contains energy, but this energy is aroused by the ego, because the trigger is in the hands of the ego. Just as the dog’s tail is not shaking by itself, it is the dog itself that is shaking it. The dog may be unconscious of it, but by becoming conscious it can be stopped. If the ego changes the interpretation, of the circumstance, the id will stop demanding. The cognitive psychologists have begun to realize this only recently.