Consciousness: According to Buddha’s teachings.

By Victor M Fontane

The dialogue between contemporary cognitive science and Buddhist teachings centers on themes of consciousness, karma, and enlightenment, constructing a profound landscape that integrates neuroscience and Eastern wisdom. Neuroscientific research indicates that human consciousness possesses a temporal lag: the brain requires approximately 80 milliseconds to integrate sensory input to generate the experience of "the present moment." Furthermore, Libet's experiments further demonstrate that behavioral decisions are pre-activated by the subconscious 0.35 seconds before conscious awareness. This phenomenon corroborates the Buddha's assertion of "the unattainability of the three minds": the past exists as a loop of memories, the future as a projection of desires, while the "present" is merely a product of neural delay in integration. Consequently, human perception of reality inevitably lags behind physical truth, making the so-called "now" merely an illusion forged by the brain's reconstruction. Our grasp of reality always sits within the gaps between consciousness and truth, which serves as a fertile ground for the emergence of the three poisons: greed, aversion, and ignorance.

Greed arises from the neural reward system's pursuit of pleasure, aversion comes from the amygdala's immediate defense against painful experiences, and ignorance manifests as a solidification of fluid experiences into a sense of "self" and "permanence" during cognitive and predictive processes. The activation of these three poisons does not require conscious engagement; fundamentally, they are products of neural automatism, as Buddhist teachings suggest: "moment-to-moment no connection." Previous thoughts dissolve and subsequent ones arise, with nothing substantial in between, yet habitual tendencies weave them into a continuous illusion of self, perpetuating the closed-loop of karma. The Buddhist teachings on karma, represented through the concepts of "seeds, present actions, and results," align closely with the plasticity and predictive capabilities of neuroscience: past experiences reside within neural circuits (seeds), present circumstances elicit automated responses (present actions), which in turn reinforce behavioral patterns (results). This creates a cross-temporal cycle of "affliction – karma – suffering," explaining why humans repeatedly make errors even after cognitive missteps. The temporal lag in consciousness often roots actions in subconscious desires and fears, with karma functioning automatically like habituated neural memory. Even when intellect recognizes a mistake, unchanged neural patterns make detachment difficult.

The essence of awakening lies not in resisting this closed loop, but in perceiving its illusory nature: mindfulness practice and the contemplation of emptiness represent the convergence of neuroscience and Buddhist thought. Practicing mindfulness, such as focusing on the breath or sensory peripheral awareness, activates the prefrontal cortex, effectively suppressing the excessive activity of the amygdala and basal ganglia, achieving internal neural system coordination and balance. This demonstrates that habits of awareness can indeed be reinforced through neural plasticity, forming new "neural seeds of awareness." However, "borrowing external conditions," such as breath awareness, serves merely as a starting point in practice. Ultimately, one must transcend attachment to external conditions to attain a state of "unconditioned awareness." Beginners rely on external conditions as the starting point for awareness, intermediate practitioners blend external conditions with awareness, while advanced practitioners recognize all experiences as mirrors of mindfulness, exhibiting no distinction. Regardless of pleasure or pain, stillness or turbulence, one can remain aware in the present moment without being entangled. Awareness resembles the surface of water, while external conditions are akin to ripples; the two are inherently inseparable, and only through profound awareness can one penetrate the illusions of neural theater. Awakening does not occur within the gaps of neural delay nor at the endpoints of automated responses but resides in the recognition of each moment as distinct from illusion, akin to mani pearls revealing myriad phenomena yet retaining no entities to grasp. In this realm, "affliction is enlightenment," and the illusory is true; recognizing illusion enables liberation from it.

Regarding determinism, whether an individual succumbs to fate primarily depends on their understanding of the closed loop of karma: if one passively accepts automatic responses, one resembles a predetermined path; conversely, if one actively stabilizes awareness through mindfulness and practices the transformation of neural seeds, the framework of "fate" is dismantled, and destiny becomes a dynamic choice in the present. The plasticity of the brain aligns with the non-self aspect of dependent origination, illustrating that "karma" is not a fixed entity; while habitual tendencies may exhibit inertia, they can be reshaped through conscious actions. Mindfulness practice can enhance new connections via Hebbian principles; karma and fate may be reshaped, and genuine freedom arises from "awareness and transformation." If modern individuals can disrupt the psychological structures of intervention and possession through mindful awareness, and relinquish the attachment to domination and possession in times of crisis, it leads to positive creation. Otherwise, when intervention and possession reach their extremes, society inevitably faces depletion of shared resources and will risk self-destruction. The essence of world-termination is not natural disasters but rather the extreme inflation of human desires for intervention and possession, depleting shared resources and creating imbalance internally and externally. If humanity reaches the pinnacle of intervention and possession yet remains unawakened, civilization and spirit will decay simultaneously.

However, if a few beings, amidst chaos, turn inward to recognize their nature and penetrate the essence of emptiness, then the end of the world becomes a rebirth, and destruction turns to purification. Buddhist scriptures state: "This exists, therefore that exists; this arises, so that arises; this ceases, therefore that ceases." The nature of karma is dependent origination, not fate. Ultimately, both science and Buddhism point toward the capacity to "illuminately penetrate illusion within illusion," which constitutes true awakening—it possesses no substance and cannot be grasped, yet is fully present in every moment.

As the era enters a state of crisis and transformation, those who can perceive intervention and possession as a shared illusion hold the potential to attain genuine freedom and awakening at the culmination of shared karma and the dissolution of myriad phenomena.