To recount, so far we've considered that samskara, or mental models, are sets of assumptions based on our prior experiences, as well as our prejudices and opinions, that help us understand the world. We use it to make our communication more efficient - no point in explaining what we believe is tacitly understood - and we subconsciously use it to make decisions about the world around us. It's also likely the origin of ego-consciousness - the Self exists because we constructed a mental model of a self separate from the rest of the world.
And then I read a random book I came across - Erich Fromm's The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. I bought it in Portland, Oregon at Powell's Bookstore because I thought the title sounded cool and it looked like an intellectually challenging read (it was). In fact, couldn't even understand or follow large portions of it, but I came across a passage in Chapter 10 (Malignant Aggression: Premises) under the subtitle The Existential Needs of Man and the Various Character-Rooted Passions, and further sub-subtitled A Frame of Orientation and Devotion, that impressed upon me how deep samskara actually runs.
"Man's capacity for self-awareness, reason, and imagination - new qualities that go beyond the capacity for instrumental thinking of even the cleverest animals - requires a picture of the world and of his place in it that is structured and has inner cohesion," Fromm writes. "Man needs a map of his natural and social world, without which he would be confused and unable to act purposefully and consistently. He would have no way of orienting himself and of finding for himself a fixed point that permits him to organize all the impressions that impinge upon him."
That phrase, "all the impressions that impinge upon him," calls to mind the Buddha's description of the senses, which includes thought (the brain is a sense organ that perceives thoughts). In this passage, we already have three of the Five Aggregates that make up the Self - Form (Man), Feeling ("all the impressions that impinge upon him"), and samskara, a mental map of the world and one's place in it.
"Whether he believed in sorcery and magic as final explanations of all events," Fromm continues, "or in the spirit of his ancestors as guiding his life and fate, or in an omnipotent god who will reward or punish him, or in the power of science to give answers to all human problems - from the standpoint of his need for a frame of orientation, it does not make any difference."
"His world makes sense to him, and he feels certain about his ideas through the consensus with those around him. Even if the map is wrong, it fulfills its psychological function. But the map was never entirely wrong - nor has it ever been entirely right, either. It has always been enough of an approximation to the explanation of phenomena to serve the purpose of living."
Fromm found it impressive that he could find no culture in which there did not exist such a frame of orientation. Or any individual, either. "Often an individual may disclaim having any such overall picture and believe that he responds to the various phenomena and incidents of life from case to case, as his judgment guides him. But it can be easily demonstrated that he takes his own philosophy for granted, because to him it is only common sense, and he is unaware that all his concepts rest upon a commonly accepted frame of reference."
This was my basic point of disagreement with Stoic philosophers such as Epictetus, who maintained that we can control the passions of our emotions by simply observing the world and applying our faculty of logic. But as we shall see, the way that we use our logic is already preconditioned by our frame of orientation, our mental maps of the world, our samskara. We use our logic more to justify the decisions we've already made subconsciously based on our frame of orientation, than to reach a truly non-partisan, logical conclusion.
When a person who claims not to have such an overriding frame of reference is confronted with a fundamentally different total view of life, he judges it as "crazy" or "irrational" or "childish," even while he considers himself as being only logical.
"The intensity of the need for a frame of orientation explains a fact that has puzzled many students of man, namely the ease with which people fall under the spell of irrational doctrines, either political or religious or of any other nature, when to the one who is not under their influence it seems obvious that they are worthless constructs. Part of the answer lies in the suggestive influence of leaders and in the suggestibility of man. But this does not seem to be the whole story. Man would probably not be so suggestive were it not that his need for a cohesive frame of orientation is so vital . The more an ideology pretends to give answers to all questions, the more attractive it is; here may lie the reason why irrational or even plainly insane thought systems can so easily attract the minds of men."
Fromm's "frame of reference" or "mental maps" are obviously the same as "mental models" or samskara. But in this one passage, Fromm shows how deeply rooted and fundamental they are to the human psyche. It also suggests an answer to the question I've asked myself so many times: how can otherwise intelligent people believe such seemingly foolish things?
I know well educated scientists and engineers how have fallen for the Trumpian brand of conservative politics, and I've marveled that they can't see what appears to me to be the shallowness and cynicism of those politics. And how do you explain people's acceptance of the QAnon conspiracy theories, other than dismissing them as "crazy" or "irrational" or "childish?" Or for that matter, how can an erudite and successful attorney believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, including Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark? And yet there are those who do.
Fromm suggests that looking from the perspective of an absolute right and an absolute wrong is a flawed approach. It's merely that I have a different frame of reference than my colleagues. From my perspective, the world makes sense to me and I feel certain about my ideas through the consensus of those around me. But the same is also true for my colleagues.
Samskara, then, is much more than a fancy theory on the evolution of consciousness, or a semantic/linguistic technique for efficient communication, although it does include all those things and more. It is the context within which we perceive and understand the world; it is the very fabric of our psyche.
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