Clarifying the Buddhist Notion of Consciousness

A Buddhist friend recently shared the following statement in a Facebook group:

“Let’s keep it simple! Indeed, there is consciousness, and all it knows and experiences are its own subjective thought-constructs. No thought construct has any effect upon the consciousness in which it appears.”

While this statement appears to draw on some ideas from Yogacara Buddhist thought, it suffers from conceptual imprecision and certain misunderstandings. Here is my critique:

“Indeed there is consciousness, and all it knows and experiences are its own subjective thought-constructs.”

This claim reflects a common misunderstanding of the Buddhist view of consciousness. Let’s break it down:

1. No Monolithic “Consciousness”

In Buddhist philosophy, particularly early Buddhism, consciousness is not a single, unified entity. Instead, it is part of the Five Aggregates (skandhas) model, which describes a human being in terms of five interdependent components: (1) Form (rupa), (2) Feelings (vedana), (3) Perception (sanna), (4) Mental Formations (samskara), and (5) Consciousness (vijnana). In this framework, consciousness (vijnana) is not an overarching, detached entity…