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The Self-Awareness of the Mind: Phenomenal World and the Mind Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Ja-Kyoung Han*
Affiliation:
Ewha Womans University, South Korea
*
Ja-Kyoung Han, Department of Philosophy, Ewha Womans University, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemoon-goo, Seoul 120-750, South Korea. Email: jkhan@ewha.ac.kr

Abstract

What we regard as real are the objects of the phenomenal world which we perceive. We regard those that we see objectively, as in the third person perspective, as real. What then is the mind that perceives the world? Is it possible for us to realize the very mind that perceives the world?

This article discusses the existence of the world perceived by the mind in order to deal with the existence of the mind which perceives the world and the knowability of the mind. Phenomenal world is a perceptual world which is a fictitious world constructed by our conceptual language system. And the base of the fictitious phenomenal world, the object itself, is emptiness. The emptiness is the emptiness of the mind that perceives and constructs the world. Thus, the awareness of the emptiness of the world is the self-awareness of the mind.

Since the emptiness of my mind is the same emptiness of all other beings, the mind is the capacity to sympathize with the whole world, the universal mind, One-mind. Every man is aware of oneself as One-mind. “Gong-juk-young-ji” or the “original enlightenment” of Buddhism is the self-awareness of the mind as emptiness.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2017

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