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The Selfless Mind
This careful analysis of early Buddhist thought opens out a perspective in which no permanent Self is accepted, but a rich analysis of changing and potent mental processes is developed. It explores issues relating to the not-Self self-development, moral responsibility, the between-lives period, and the 'undetermined questions' on the world, on the 'life principle' and on the liberated one after death. It examines the 'person' as a flowing continuity centred on consciousness or discernment (vinnana) configured in changing minds-sets (cittas). The resting state of this is seen as 'brightly shining' - like the 'Buddha nature' of Mahayana thought - so as to represent the potential for Nirvana. Nirvana is then shown to be a state in which consciousness transcends all objects, and thus participates in a timeless, unconditioned realm.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Peter Harvey
10 books21 followersPeter Harvey is Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland. He is author of An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvāna in Early Buddhism (1995). He is editor of the Buddhist Studies Review.
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October 10, 2013
There are 2 parts to this book, which is a revised version of the author's Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Lancaster in 1981. Part I deals with the question of Self and Not-Self in early Buddhism. Part II deals with viññāṇa (usually translated as consciousness but which Harvey defines as discernment), nāma-rūpa (name-and-form, sentient body), paṭicca-samuppāda (conditioned arising), saññā (perception), bhavaṅga, nibbāna and the nature of the Tathāgata, and how they related in the soteriological system of early Buddhism. The separation of this thesis into 2 distinct parts is quite telling. To this reader, it reflects the different strands of intellectual enquiry - some acknowledged and some not acknowledged - with which the author was engaging.
In Part I, Harvey was engaging with the work of Steven Collins, the author of "Selfless Persons", as well as many other writers including I.B. Horner, Edward Conze, George Grimm and K. Bhattacharya, all of whom had published on the problem of self and not-self in early Buddhism. He handled this difficult topic, with its veritable maze of prior argumentation, with a rare clarity of analysis and eloquence backed by impeccable logic and solid research into the Pali Sutta piṭaka. Despite having to engage with the writings of many others before him, not once did his argument fall prey to logical or verbal confusion. In fact he went further than most authors on the subject, even considering the question of the between-lives-state. I give this first part of his book 5-stars.
Whereas the intellectual context or impetus for Harvey's enquiry in Part I is clearly acknowledged, the same cannot be said for Part II. To this reader, it was quite apparent that Harvey's range of enquiry in Part II bore a striking similarity to that of another writer who had previously published on much the same themes. I refer here to Bhikkhu K. Ñāṇananda, whose book "The Magic of the Mind" was published by the Buddhist Publication Society in 1974, one year after Harvey started work on his Ph.D. "The Magic of the Mind" is only 96 pages long, but in it Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda gave a remarkable exposition of Buddhist doctrine that drew together scattered Suttas and teachings on consciousness, perception, dependent arising, name-and-form, self, nibbāna and the nature of the Tathāgata to show their vital inter-relation in early Buddhist soteriology. Unlike other writers, Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda did not confine his discussion to one or other portion of the Buddha-dhamma, taken in isolation from the others. His approach showed how the various complex parts of the Buddha-dhamma coherently come together to illuminate the nature of that highest soteriological goal nibbāna, as well as the mind of He who, having first attained nibbāna, became the Tathāgata. In the process, Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda went against orthodox Theravadin understandings of nibbāna to draw attention to key passages in the Sutta piṭaka where nibbāna is revealed as "non-manifestative" viññāṇa or consciousness, an approach to nibbāna which he had first outlined in an earlier 1971 publication "Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought". These contributions of Ñāṇananda are seminal. Harvey makes some of the same associations as Ñāṇananda did, and the depiction of Nibbāna as "non-manifestive" viññāṇa is central to his argument in Part II of "The Selfless Mind", yet he utterly neglected to cite this much earlier work even once.
Part II of Harvey's thesis is concerned with much the same topics and associations found in "The Magic of the Mind", with the SOLE exception of the bhavaṅga which Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda did not deal with. Despite the fact that "The Magic of the Mind" touched on the exact same themes as his thesis, Harvey made NO mention of this book in his published work. Did Harvey know of this book? Undoubtedly. I can infer that he knew of this work because he cited Ñāṇananda once in a cursory footnote on page 198 in chapter 12, but only in reference to his earlier 1971 publication "Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought", and without any indication that this particular book was the source for the characterization of nibbāna as "non-manifestative/manifestive consciousness". If Harvey was aware of could cite "Concept and Reality", whose main subject was actually perception and conceptual proliferation, WHY did he NOT refer to "Magic of the Mind" whose subject is the relation between consciousness, perception, name-and-form, dependent origination, self, nibbāna, and the Tathāgata, ie. the very subjects that occupied the 2nd part of Harvey's own treatise?
Harvey's use of certain key phrases and ideas that were first introduced in Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda's publications suggested strongly to me that he knew of and drew from Ñāṇananda, but without a corresponding care to proper citation that should be expected in an academic work. The characterization of nibbāna as "non-manifestive consciousness", and the conceptualization of the relation between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa as a "vortical interplay" were dead giveaways. For example, chapter V in Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda's "Magic of the Mind" bears the title "The Vortical Interplay - Consciousness versus Name-and-form". In Chapter 7 of Harvey's book, there is a sub-chapter which bears the title "The Vortical Interplay of Discernment and the Sentient Body (pg. 119)". Note that Harvey used "discernment" instead of "consciousness" to translate the Pali term "viññāṇa", and he translated "nāma-rūpa" as "sentient body" instead of the literal "name-and-form". Other than using some other English words however, the central idea of the relation between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa as a VORTICAL INTERPLAY seems to have been lifted straight out of "The Magic of the Mind." As for nibbāna, it was Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda who, basing his argument on a passage in the Kevaḍḍha Sutta (D I 223), first drew attention to the depiction of nibbāna as a kind of viññāṇa or consciousness which is "anidassanaṃ", a term he translated as "non-manifestative". As previously mentioned, Ñāṇananda first introduced the idea of nibbāna as 'non-manifestative consciousness" in his 1971 publication "Concept and Reality in early Buddhist Thought", and later expanded upon it in greater detail in "The Magic of the Mind". Harvey, quoting the same Sutta passages (see page 199) wrote about Nibbāna as a "non-manifestive" state of viññāṇa without the slightest acknowledgement that his translation of "anidassana" as "non-manifestive" came from Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda. How could a careful reader familiar with both works avoid the suspicion that Harvey utilized key ideas and phrases from Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda without due acknowledgement?
I wrote to Harvey asking for clarification, and in his email reply Harvey confirmed that he had read "The Magic of the Mind" and had even "listed" it in his Ph.D. biliography, yet could give me no coherent account of why he did not include it in his published work. Harvey wrote in his email that "I cannot remember the exact date when I got this book, but it was at some time before submitting the PhD...On checking, "The Magic of the Mind" is in the bibliography of the PhD, but from a quick check through the notes, I cannot find any reference to it in them. This may be why it is not included in the book's bibliography. My general memory of the book was that it had some interesting ideas, but that it was not strongly argued. I think I may have got 'non-manifestive' as a translation for anidassana at D I 223 from Nanananda's Concept and Reality (though in him it is actually 'non-manifestative'). In the PhD, I used the term 'interplay' for the relation of viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa, though not 'vortical interplay'. Perhaps I later chose this phrase for part of a section-title in the book as it lurked there from when I had come across it in The Magic of the Mind."
I will just point out the obvious: if an author used ANY part of someone else's published work, then it behooves that author to cite the source carefully, closely, explicitly and without fail. Harvey has himself admitted that he used two key phrases or ideas that can be attributed to Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda, namely nibbāna as "non-manisfestive consciousness" and the relation between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa as a "vortical interplay". These two ideas occupied center-stage in Part II of Harvey's own thesis. Yet he failed to cite the sources from which they came. I think, for one, that since Harvey has definitely confirmed in his emails that he took the term non-manifestive consciousness from "Concept and Reality", that he really needed to make that connection clear through more explicit references. His one cursory footnote mentioning "Concept and Reality" did not even specify this book as the source for the term "non-manifestive consciousness". Therefore, this lone citation cannot in any way be construed as an adequate reference to the source of what is a fundamental and key idea in his treatise. There are few original ideas in the universe of thought, and those who build on the seminal insights of others without due acknowledgement open themselves to accusations of plagiarism, accusations that can undermine any contribution they make. Harvey DOES make many important contributions in this book, but he cannot claim to be the first to have made the associations he did or to have attempted such an exposition on the Buddha-dhamma, or to have derived all his insights based solely on his own pondering and research alone.
Why is the failure to acknowledge intellectual debts - especially the debt owed to a member of the Sangha - so important to me in this case? It is important because we are dealing with a subject no less lofty than Nibbāna, the Unconditioned Truth and Highest Goal of Buddhism. The Buddha-dhamma is not a dry intellectual subject, it is not a field for gaining academic credits or for building a worldly career. It is a path of liberation, a NOBLE path of liberation. Those who deem to teach or lead others on this path must be of exemplary character and faultless in conduct, endowed not only with knowledge acquired from study of the scriptures but with the wisdom that comes as the fruit of practice. Furthermore, he who dares to speak on Nibbāna - the Highest Goal of the Noble Path - should speak from the authority of gnosis backed up by scholarship. For without the direct insight conferred by gnosis, how can one be certain that one's interpretation is right, and furthermore how can one speak with confidence? If a person, pure in conduct and endowed with realizations gained through practice and study, speaks of Nibbāna as non-manifestative consciousness, pointing to the Suttas for authority, what he says has the ring of truth, the stamp of original insight, and has the power to illuminate and to inspire. Otherwise, however good the Sutta references, however brilliant the scholarly exposition, one's pronouncements on the Truth will always be subject to doubt and to dismissal. Ultimately, what marks a contribution on the dhamma as truly original is nothing but this direct gnosis, this experiential insight, into the timeless truth, based on which one dares to speak with authority on the Truth. For me, it is this vital element of gnosis that makes the difference between true wisdom and book knowledge, makes the difference between he whose word has the power to inspire and to liberate, and he whose word remains buried, mired in worldly controversy and bondage.
In Part I, Harvey was engaging with the work of Steven Collins, the author of "Selfless Persons", as well as many other writers including I.B. Horner, Edward Conze, George Grimm and K. Bhattacharya, all of whom had published on the problem of self and not-self in early Buddhism. He handled this difficult topic, with its veritable maze of prior argumentation, with a rare clarity of analysis and eloquence backed by impeccable logic and solid research into the Pali Sutta piṭaka. Despite having to engage with the writings of many others before him, not once did his argument fall prey to logical or verbal confusion. In fact he went further than most authors on the subject, even considering the question of the between-lives-state. I give this first part of his book 5-stars.
Whereas the intellectual context or impetus for Harvey's enquiry in Part I is clearly acknowledged, the same cannot be said for Part II. To this reader, it was quite apparent that Harvey's range of enquiry in Part II bore a striking similarity to that of another writer who had previously published on much the same themes. I refer here to Bhikkhu K. Ñāṇananda, whose book "The Magic of the Mind" was published by the Buddhist Publication Society in 1974, one year after Harvey started work on his Ph.D. "The Magic of the Mind" is only 96 pages long, but in it Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda gave a remarkable exposition of Buddhist doctrine that drew together scattered Suttas and teachings on consciousness, perception, dependent arising, name-and-form, self, nibbāna and the nature of the Tathāgata to show their vital inter-relation in early Buddhist soteriology. Unlike other writers, Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda did not confine his discussion to one or other portion of the Buddha-dhamma, taken in isolation from the others. His approach showed how the various complex parts of the Buddha-dhamma coherently come together to illuminate the nature of that highest soteriological goal nibbāna, as well as the mind of He who, having first attained nibbāna, became the Tathāgata. In the process, Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda went against orthodox Theravadin understandings of nibbāna to draw attention to key passages in the Sutta piṭaka where nibbāna is revealed as "non-manifestative" viññāṇa or consciousness, an approach to nibbāna which he had first outlined in an earlier 1971 publication "Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought". These contributions of Ñāṇananda are seminal. Harvey makes some of the same associations as Ñāṇananda did, and the depiction of Nibbāna as "non-manifestive" viññāṇa is central to his argument in Part II of "The Selfless Mind", yet he utterly neglected to cite this much earlier work even once.
Part II of Harvey's thesis is concerned with much the same topics and associations found in "The Magic of the Mind", with the SOLE exception of the bhavaṅga which Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda did not deal with. Despite the fact that "The Magic of the Mind" touched on the exact same themes as his thesis, Harvey made NO mention of this book in his published work. Did Harvey know of this book? Undoubtedly. I can infer that he knew of this work because he cited Ñāṇananda once in a cursory footnote on page 198 in chapter 12, but only in reference to his earlier 1971 publication "Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought", and without any indication that this particular book was the source for the characterization of nibbāna as "non-manifestative/manifestive consciousness". If Harvey was aware of could cite "Concept and Reality", whose main subject was actually perception and conceptual proliferation, WHY did he NOT refer to "Magic of the Mind" whose subject is the relation between consciousness, perception, name-and-form, dependent origination, self, nibbāna, and the Tathāgata, ie. the very subjects that occupied the 2nd part of Harvey's own treatise?
Harvey's use of certain key phrases and ideas that were first introduced in Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda's publications suggested strongly to me that he knew of and drew from Ñāṇananda, but without a corresponding care to proper citation that should be expected in an academic work. The characterization of nibbāna as "non-manifestive consciousness", and the conceptualization of the relation between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa as a "vortical interplay" were dead giveaways. For example, chapter V in Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda's "Magic of the Mind" bears the title "The Vortical Interplay - Consciousness versus Name-and-form". In Chapter 7 of Harvey's book, there is a sub-chapter which bears the title "The Vortical Interplay of Discernment and the Sentient Body (pg. 119)". Note that Harvey used "discernment" instead of "consciousness" to translate the Pali term "viññāṇa", and he translated "nāma-rūpa" as "sentient body" instead of the literal "name-and-form". Other than using some other English words however, the central idea of the relation between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa as a VORTICAL INTERPLAY seems to have been lifted straight out of "The Magic of the Mind." As for nibbāna, it was Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda who, basing his argument on a passage in the Kevaḍḍha Sutta (D I 223), first drew attention to the depiction of nibbāna as a kind of viññāṇa or consciousness which is "anidassanaṃ", a term he translated as "non-manifestative". As previously mentioned, Ñāṇananda first introduced the idea of nibbāna as 'non-manifestative consciousness" in his 1971 publication "Concept and Reality in early Buddhist Thought", and later expanded upon it in greater detail in "The Magic of the Mind". Harvey, quoting the same Sutta passages (see page 199) wrote about Nibbāna as a "non-manifestive" state of viññāṇa without the slightest acknowledgement that his translation of "anidassana" as "non-manifestive" came from Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda. How could a careful reader familiar with both works avoid the suspicion that Harvey utilized key ideas and phrases from Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda without due acknowledgement?
I wrote to Harvey asking for clarification, and in his email reply Harvey confirmed that he had read "The Magic of the Mind" and had even "listed" it in his Ph.D. biliography, yet could give me no coherent account of why he did not include it in his published work. Harvey wrote in his email that "I cannot remember the exact date when I got this book, but it was at some time before submitting the PhD...On checking, "The Magic of the Mind" is in the bibliography of the PhD, but from a quick check through the notes, I cannot find any reference to it in them. This may be why it is not included in the book's bibliography. My general memory of the book was that it had some interesting ideas, but that it was not strongly argued. I think I may have got 'non-manifestive' as a translation for anidassana at D I 223 from Nanananda's Concept and Reality (though in him it is actually 'non-manifestative'). In the PhD, I used the term 'interplay' for the relation of viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa, though not 'vortical interplay'. Perhaps I later chose this phrase for part of a section-title in the book as it lurked there from when I had come across it in The Magic of the Mind."
I will just point out the obvious: if an author used ANY part of someone else's published work, then it behooves that author to cite the source carefully, closely, explicitly and without fail. Harvey has himself admitted that he used two key phrases or ideas that can be attributed to Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda, namely nibbāna as "non-manisfestive consciousness" and the relation between viññāṇa and nāma-rūpa as a "vortical interplay". These two ideas occupied center-stage in Part II of Harvey's own thesis. Yet he failed to cite the sources from which they came. I think, for one, that since Harvey has definitely confirmed in his emails that he took the term non-manifestive consciousness from "Concept and Reality", that he really needed to make that connection clear through more explicit references. His one cursory footnote mentioning "Concept and Reality" did not even specify this book as the source for the term "non-manifestive consciousness". Therefore, this lone citation cannot in any way be construed as an adequate reference to the source of what is a fundamental and key idea in his treatise. There are few original ideas in the universe of thought, and those who build on the seminal insights of others without due acknowledgement open themselves to accusations of plagiarism, accusations that can undermine any contribution they make. Harvey DOES make many important contributions in this book, but he cannot claim to be the first to have made the associations he did or to have attempted such an exposition on the Buddha-dhamma, or to have derived all his insights based solely on his own pondering and research alone.
Why is the failure to acknowledge intellectual debts - especially the debt owed to a member of the Sangha - so important to me in this case? It is important because we are dealing with a subject no less lofty than Nibbāna, the Unconditioned Truth and Highest Goal of Buddhism. The Buddha-dhamma is not a dry intellectual subject, it is not a field for gaining academic credits or for building a worldly career. It is a path of liberation, a NOBLE path of liberation. Those who deem to teach or lead others on this path must be of exemplary character and faultless in conduct, endowed not only with knowledge acquired from study of the scriptures but with the wisdom that comes as the fruit of practice. Furthermore, he who dares to speak on Nibbāna - the Highest Goal of the Noble Path - should speak from the authority of gnosis backed up by scholarship. For without the direct insight conferred by gnosis, how can one be certain that one's interpretation is right, and furthermore how can one speak with confidence? If a person, pure in conduct and endowed with realizations gained through practice and study, speaks of Nibbāna as non-manifestative consciousness, pointing to the Suttas for authority, what he says has the ring of truth, the stamp of original insight, and has the power to illuminate and to inspire. Otherwise, however good the Sutta references, however brilliant the scholarly exposition, one's pronouncements on the Truth will always be subject to doubt and to dismissal. Ultimately, what marks a contribution on the dhamma as truly original is nothing but this direct gnosis, this experiential insight, into the timeless truth, based on which one dares to speak with authority on the Truth. For me, it is this vital element of gnosis that makes the difference between true wisdom and book knowledge, makes the difference between he whose word has the power to inspire and to liberate, and he whose word remains buried, mired in worldly controversy and bondage.
April 22, 2013
This is a very good book, if you ignore the constant attempt of the author to construe Nibbana as a kind of discernment/consciousness (vijnana), which clearly is not in tune with the early Suttas at all. Saying that Nibbana is an objectless discernment is both non-sensical (since there can be no discernment without an object, according to the Suttas) and imprecise. The author affirms that this objectless discernment is totally different from the normal discernment (as one of the five aggregates). This, then, is taking a precise concept (discernment) and removing it's meaning/content. In the end, you are left with a mere word, which does not actually say anything about what it was meant to describe. Anyway, a good read, which can provide some insight, as long as you are careful to notice the logical fallacies present throughout the book.
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