Abstract
The main purposes of this thematic paper were to study the nature of mind in Theravāda Buddhism, to study the human behaviour in daily life, and to analyze the nature of mind that had the effect on the change of human behaviour. This was a qualitative research to collect all data from academic paper, books and related researches.
A result of this study was found that the nature of recognizing the emotions or the nature to do its own duty of seeing, listening, smelling, tasting, feeling about the tangible things through a body, and consciousness. In Buddhism, there was no belief that mind was a real self but it was really apparent because of many factors. Mind existed because of the component factors called ‘Cetasika’ as the element of mind. Cetasika was an element of mind and its characteristics were mentality to make mind know the emotions and feel under the power of that mentality. The relationship between mind and Cetasika had the characteristics that Cetasika dwelled mind, resided mind, arose with mind, came with mind, died with mind, had the same material with mind, and had the same emotion with mind. Although Cetasika existed with mind, each Cetasika did its duty according to its special characteristics in the different way. Cetasika had its important role in a process of mind. Every mind had a number of Cetasika in order to support the mind’s working process.
Behaviour was many types of human action in three doors: a body, speech, and mind. They came from the reaction of various physical systems: brain, a muscle system, and many endocrine systems including mind encouraged by motivation and environment. The origin of behaviour in Theravāda Buddhism came from craving (tanhā) and aspiration (canda). The human behaviour was possibly divided into three aspects: Kayatvara (bodily behavedr), Vacikamma (virbal behaviour), and Manokamma (mental behaviour). The quality of a result of action was possibly divided into four aspects: the mental level, the level of personality, a way of the individual life, and the social level. It was also divided into two aspects according to the levels of quality of personal expression: wholesome action and unwholesome action. Behaviour was divided into three levels of life development: a level of morality, a level of concentration, and a level of wisdom. The elements of human behaviour were recognition, intelligence, thinking, attitude, and emotion. The basic factors to specify the human behaviour were recognition, leaning, intelligence and thinking, belief and value, attitude, emotion, and motivation. The motivation that caused the change of human behaviour in Buddhism was inner motivation and outer motivation.
Mind and Cetasika had the close relation. When they were composed into one, they needed a good help from each other. When Cetasika resided with mind and attached it, it make mind different by means of the power of such Cetasika and its characteristics. For example, when mind was composed with wholesome Cetasika: non-greed, non-anger, and non-delusion, it was good or wholesome. When mind was composed with unwholesome Cetasika, it was bad or unwholesome. The This composed mind was very important because the good or bad mind was a main cause of human expression through a body, speech and mind. Thus, that mind was was possibly good or bad depended upon Cetasika to cause a result of action (vipaka) of good action and bad action.
Behaviour came from a process of mind and Cetasika in a way that mind was aware of emotions. When mind knew the emotions, it sent them to Cetasika in order to make Cetasika acknowledge those emotions. When it acknowledged those emotions, a person represented behaviour, ordered by mind and Cetasika, i.e. the behaviour coming from Cetasika to attach mind and to make a person behave in wholesome or unwholesome ways according to such Cetasika. Such expression through a body, speech and mind in the good or bad ways came from good or bad Cetasika that attached mind. Behaviour expressed through a body and speech that came from the action from the past to the present affected and influenced life in the future. The expression of this behaviour came from craving (tanhā) and aspiration (canda): craving for sensual pleasure (kāma-tanhā), craving for existence (bhava-tanhā) and craving for non-existence (vibhava-tanhā). These types of craving caused human behaviour in the different ways. To develop mind for the change of the behaviour in Buddhism depended upon the nature with good mind, i.e. the concentrated mind to know suffering as it really was. It was a main cause of expressing the wholesome, unwholesome or detached behaviour. To resolve the human problems completely dealt with readiness in three things: morality, concentration and wisdom. Here, the development of the moral quality was to develop behaviour or a person himself by observing the morality and concentration in order to cause wisdom. When the wisdom arose, it caused good behaviour in daily life and societies to bring happiness to a person and societies.
Download |
