The paper, titled Structure of Unconscious in Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, discusses the interpretation of the unconscious in psychoanalysis and the Buddhist philosophical school Yogācāra as well as demonstrates the comparison of how the unconscious is perceived in both lines of thought. Firstly, the concept of the unconscious according to Sigmund Freud is presented, along with the relation between the unconscious-the conscious-the preconscious or id-ego-supergo. Secondly, the origins of the doctrine of the unconscious in the early Buddhist philosophical line of thought are presented, which are based on the idea about the latent karmic potentiality as a basis for the dispositions, creating the current mental structure of an individual. Furthermore, the paper also focuses on the new Buddhist conception of the mind – which is based on the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious processes in the human's psyche – in the Buddhist philosophical school of Yogācāra, whose main doctrine is ālaya-vijñāna, the subliminal basis of the consciousness. Containing both the consciousness and the unconscious, ālaya-vijñāna encompasses diverse impressions (sa䡃skāra), experience from past lives (vāsanā) along with karmic potentials or seeds (bīja), forming a simultaneous causality of the karmic process, and the latent elements, shaping the experience of the (illusory) ego and at the same time creating a mechanism that enables the continuity of sa䡃sāra. This is followed by a presentation of the conscious and unconscious manifestations as a basis for the individualisation and empirical existence. Moreover, an analysis of the relation between said manifestations and the relation between the role of the unconscious, comprised of vāsanas and sa䡃skāras, and the liberation process is provided. In the end, the concepts in both systems are compared, based on the previous analyses of the unconscious.
|