The mind is conditioned by its object. This is one of the fundamental principles of Buddhist psychology. The mind is conditioned in many ways. These ways of conditioning the mind are called pratyaya.
So, there are many pratyayas and one of the most important pratyayas is: “the mind is conditioned by its object”. In simple terms this means that our mental state and our mental process Is a function of, not exclusively but importantly, is a function of what we are paying attention to at the time.
This has a number of implications which are important for our ordinary life, which are important in psychotherapy, for instance, in any kind of human relations work. The mind is conditioned by its object; and we have certain habitual frames of mind which have corresponding objects which support them and keep them in place.
So, an obvious implication of this basic principle “the mind is conditioned by its object” is that, when you have a change of object, you have a change of mind - in other words: of mental process and mental state. If I think about my mother, then I have one mental state and certain mental processes. If I think about my father, I have a different mental state, different processes. If I think about the leader of my country, I have certain mental states and mental processes. If I think about ice-cream, I have some different mental processes and states, and so on.
This is fairly obvious but it’s really important: Change of object changes the mind.
Now, this can also be extended to the fact that there can be a change of mind not by changing the object itself, but by changing the way that the object is construed, the way we see the object, the meaning we give to the object.
So, for instance, if Jack has always been my friend and I have always trusted him and relied on him, and suddenly, from a reliable source I find out that he has betrayed me in some way, I will have a sudden change in the way that I construe Jack. Jack has gone suddenly from being my friend to being my enemy, or my traitor, or a suspicious character. This will change my mental state. It’ll change my mental processes; and this change won’t just relate to Jack. It will generalize to other aspects of my life. I’ll probably be gloomy all day, where previously I might have been so pleased that I was going to see Jack later on.
So, now we have three principles:
- The first primary, fundamental principle: the mind is conditioned by its object.
- Second principle: change the object – you change the mind.
- Third principle: change the way the object is construed, and you also get important changes of mind.
These changes of mind affect our sense of the world and our sense of identity, because:
- Every object implies a world.
The way that we construe an object – what does that mean? The meaning that we give to it? How do we give it a meaning? By putting it in a context. We put it in a context by having an implicit world around it. That’s its context. So, each object is meaningful to us because it implies a world; and
- Each world implies an identity.
Within each of these imaginary worlds that are so important to us, we have a part to play, we have a role, we have an identity.
So, changing the object or changing the way the object is construed, can change one’s identity and change how one is. This is a very important principle in our lives, in therapy, in spiritual guidance, on the path.
Thank you very much
Namo Amida Bu
Dharmavidya
David
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