Consciousness Defined as the Interaction Between Matter and Mind
Marx, Buddha and The German Ideology
By Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD
'And finally, the division of labour offers us the first example of the fact that, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the division of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; whereas in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.'
Karl Marx - The German Ideology, Prometheus, (1998), Page 52
Karl Marx - The German Ideology, Prometheus, (1998), Page 52
From the start the Judeo-Christian interpretation of a permanent ‘spiritual’ substratum must be abandoned as being incorrect and a fallacy of interpretation of being – an incorrect interpretation of conscious being that has even seeped into ancient and classical Greek thought! As the mind mediates human attention between the physical brain and the material environment, the falsehood began that this filter was everywhere, at all times and the precursor of physical existence. In other words, this is the ‘inverted’ interpretation of reality that Marx associated with the Bourgeoisie – but which obviously predated this usage. The message here - for controlling society is - ‘why change a winning formula’? If a general population is obsessed with inward imaginations and all kinds of back-to-front illogicality, then it will be too busy with its own naval-gazing (and pointless internecine conflicts), to unite around any effective Socialist Movement that could generate the strength to challenge the political power-base of the Bourgeoisie – and seize hold of the means of production through concerted Revolutionary action!
Religion is important for the maintenance of political power for the Bourgeoisie and this is why its presence must be maintained throughout the entirety of society. The public sphere must be saturated with all kinds of ‘inverted’ religious thinking to prevent any development of a genuine, working-class (system-wide) Revolutionary consciousness. As theistic (Abrahamic) religious thinking is ‘unscientific’ – (as is all primitive belief systems of any origin) – its practice is relegated to the private sphere in a Socialist society. This prevents any (inverted) mass opposition to the dominance of science within society and the development of a society directed by logic and reason. Despite this repositioning of religion, the right to hold (or not hold) religious views is guaranteed in any (Marxist-Leninist) Constitution and it becomes illegal to discriminate against anyone who ‘holds’ (or does ‘not’ hold) religious views.
Of course, the monoliths of industry that control the mainstream Christian churches of the world do not like this ‘repositioning’ of religion in a Socialist society, because such a change removes all automatic rights to private property, land-ownership and access to the elitist political power structures that power Bourgeois society! This restructuring ensures that religious teachings are reduced to their original (and intended) usage – namely ‘freeing’ the individual from whatever ailment, malady or malign presence the religion is designed to blame the agency of social injustice upon. In the meantime, in the real world of material processes, each and every religionist will psychologically and physically benefit from the redistribution of wealth and resources throughout Socialist society – without having to acknowledge the relevancy or benefit of this change! All the Bourgeoisie can do in opposition to this radical change is aggressively (and falsely) accuse Socialist societies of ‘oppressing’ or ‘persecuting’ the religious groups that can no longer serve as meek initiators of political power-grabbing for the Bourgeoisie! In the USSR the Russian Orthodox Church was stripped of copious amounts of land it owned, the serfs and slaves maintained upon that land, and the political posts linked to that land ownership! In other words, Lenin ensured that the ROC actually practiced the Christian message it often claimed to be doing – whilst in reality it was simply amassing copious amounts of property, wealth and rank!
Today, the Western Bourgeoisie aim its fire at China and North Korea – two countries that contain adherents of Confucius, Buddhism and Daoism as well as numerous folk religions and various ethnic cults of different structures and functionalities. Whilst the West generates an avid anti-Muslim racism throughout its education system, entertainment system and media – the same Bourgeoisie probably thinks it is funny to accuse China (and the DPRK) of religious persecution in general, (whilst religious communities have never experienced such safe and good times in these countries – as every objective study shows), whilst China is continuously accused of an oppressive policy in the rapidly developing Xinjiang area, people in-part by the ‘Uyghur’ (Muslims of Turkish descent). In its general ignorance the West usually (conveniently) forgets that China possesses another indigenous Islamic population – namely that of the ‘Hui’ – who are the descendants of Arabian merchants! Although Confucianism permeates everywhere in China (including the Communist Party) the manner in which it ensures ‘respect for authority’ has changed since 1949 – with ‘education’ being its primary objective (as this overlaps precisely with the Socialist message). As with Daoism and Buddhism – Confucianism and Islam are required to ‘support’ the national government in its drive toward developing a better society premised upon Socialist ideology. To achieve this, the philosophy, ideology and theology associated with these systems has had to undergo a reorientation no different to what has been seen hundreds of times throughout history. It is an ‘inverted’ Bourgeoisie myth that religions have exist ‘unchanged’ throughout hundreds or thousands of years!
Religion has only been the thorny issue it developed into during the 20th century due entirely to how the Bourgeoisie chose to deploy its forces in the face of Socialist opposition. The preferred religious structure for the modern Bourgeoisie is that all religious organisations should be controlled by (White) Europeans, be politically right-wing and maintain a preference for US-style free market economics (or ‘predatory capitalism’). Any form of opposition to this fascist message is automatically interpreted as ‘persecution’. Of course, none of these concerns existed in the 19th century – the time period which has been an inspiration for this entire essay – and which has been inspired by a footnote (designated as ‘**’) attributed to Karl Marx, written in his 1845 book entitled ‘The German Ideology’ (co-written with Friedrich Engels). The Editor introduces this comment with - ‘The following words are crossed out in the manuscript:’
‘My relationship to my surroundings is my consciousness.’
[Karl Marx with Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, Includes These on Feuerbach and the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, Prometheus Books, (1998), Page 49]
The published paragraph which precedes this omitted comment in ‘The German Ideology’ is as follows:
‘Only now, after having considered four moments, four aspects of primary historical relations, do we find that man also possesses “consciousness”.* But even from the outset this is not “pure” consciousness. The “mind” is from the outset afflicted with [14] the curse of being “burdened” with matter, which here makes its appearance in the form of agitated layers of air, sounds, in short, of language. Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical, real consciousness that exists for other men as well, and only therefore does it also exist for me; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity of intercourse with other men.**’
The footnote associated with ‘*’ is described by the Editor as being a ‘Marginal note by Marx’ and reads as follows:
‘Men have history because they must produce their life, and because they must produce it moreover in a certain way: this is determined by their physical organisation; their consciousness is determined in just the same way.’ (ibid)
Quite often, in the editing process, Marx and Engels moved extracts about and so altered their final positioning within the book, thought better of some descriptions, and rewrote others for a better clarity. I never see a ‘change’ or ‘dismissal’ of trend of thought – as everything written is on target, carefully thought-out before-hand, and is exact in its meaning. Sentences taken out two or three pages back suddenly reappear in a much better context further on in the finished (or ‘clean’) copy of the book. The Early Buddhist teachings are believed to amount to around five thousand texts – all attributed to the historical Buddha. The Later Buddhist teachings - although enthused by the theological religiosity of Brahmanism – still retain this earlier (non-religious) foundation. The Buddha firmly rejected the religiosity of Brahmanism and advocated a logical and materialist interpretation of reality. A question I have been investigating for over twenty years is whether Karl Marx was influenced by Buddhist philosophy – a subject he definitely had learned about during his university days – and which he certainly learned about in-depth from his close friend (and ‘expert’ in Buddhist studies) – Karl Koppen. In his personal correspondence Karl Marx expressed a positive (if ‘flippant’) attitude toward Buddhist meditation, whilst Engels continues this apparent dalliance with Buddhist ideology in his (1883) book entitled ‘Dialectics of Nature’, etc, all important elements I have written about exclusively for the BMA (UK).
There were two contradictory elements to my research that needed reconciling. The first was the apparent antagonism toward all forms of religiosity displayed by the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary ideology (even in the 1928 Soviet film ‘October’ – there is a scene featuring a Buddhist temple in Russia when criticising the poison of ‘religion’) and second was the obvious parallel (and similarity) between Classical Marxist ideology and Early Buddhist philosophy (also acknowledged by British academic ‘Trevor Ling’ in his work – which I only encountered in recent years). I was informed by all Marxist-Leninists (and most mainstream academics) that there was NO connection whatsoever between Marx and Buddhism – and that it would have been very unlikely that he would have encountered Buddhist philosophy during the 19th century, living as he did within Western Europe. I had to juxtapose this attitude of rejection with what a) I personally knew as someone brought-up within the Buddhist tradition, and b) all the Revolutionary movements throughout Asia (particularly in China, Korea, Laos and Vietnam, etc) that had adopted the ideology of Marxist-Leninism (Maoism) and experienced no contradiction between it and the ancient Buddhism found practiced throughout these societies! This compatibility even exists in non-Marxist countries such as Sri Lanka and Thailand – where many of the Ordained Sangha (Buddhist monastics) advocate a Socialist Revolution as a means of redistributing wealth and solving much of the poverty and injustices which exists! Of course, as a Marxist-Leninist (Maoist) – I habitually REJECTED all forms of capitalist and fascistic ‘Trotskyism’ and its use of ‘entryism’ – where like Hitler these people will say and do anything to curry favour with the workers and thereby attempt to gain influence over the working-class movement – betraying it to capitalism at every step. Like the US academic Howard Zinn, such hostile forces toward the workers would say anything to secure popularity whilst fundamentally supporting the anti-Socialist policies of the Bourgeois United States! This type of research is null and void.
Starting from scratch, I slowly but surely started to build evidence that Marx (and Engels) knew very well about Buddhism (through their general educational backgrounds and their friendship with Karl Koppen), and that both possessed a high opinion of Buddhist dialectics as expressed in the Early Buddhist Suttas. This is an attitude that appears to have continued within Soviet academia (see the work of FI Stcherbatsky for example) – with at least three Soviet Republics in the East of the country being described as ‘Buddhist’. Much of this positive approach to Buddhism in the USSR is lost in Bourgeois Anti-Soviet propaganda and the Soviet requirement for State-building – a very different task than simply theorising. This reality has led me to speculate whether Marx was influenced by the Buddhist dialectics he thought highly of, and whether there was a Buddhist input into the formulation of his theory. This is not to say that the theory of Marx is in any way ‘Buddhist’ – but simply a recognition that there is an overlap with the manner in which both men arrange their thoughts and organise their thinking – as if working in two different historical epochs to express a very similar realisation. This understanding explains why the two men had to express their similar comprehensions in two distinctive ways as ancient India was a very different place to an industrialised 19th century (Western) Europe! Neither should this insight be an invitation to the Bourgeois world of fake academics to make allegations that Marxism is just another form of Buddhism – which it obviously is not.
An ‘influence’ is not the same as a ‘mimicry’ or a ‘copying’, etc, and the theory of Marx (and Engels) is a unique contribution to human understanding much maligned by the Bourgeoisie, and which has no direct ideological association with Buddhism. This being the case, it is a curious observation that a sentence written by Marx here and there appears almost identical to something the Buddha might have said. I have speculated elsewhere on this site where I think the epicentre of this ‘coincidence’ might well reside, but it is interesting to observe that like Marx – the Buddha stated time and time again that ‘consciousness’ (the ‘mind’) only exists as long as a living sense organ is in contact with a material sense-object. Bear in-mind that the Buddha is explaining the existence of an entire human-being possessing six sense organs – the mind senses ‘thought’, the eye senses ‘sight’, the ear senses ‘sound’, the nose senses ‘smell’, the tongue senses ‘taste’ and the body feels ‘sensation’, etc. When one, or a number of all of these sense organs are in contact with their corresponding sense-objects – there is the immediate generation of ‘sensation’, ‘perception’, ‘conception’ (thought forms) and ‘consciousness’. This is a specialised language which all Buddhists study to one extent or another and requires clarification, but before we do this, let us be reminded of exactly what Marx said (quoted above):
‘My relationship to my surroundings is my consciousness.’
The Buddhist teachings upon the Five Aggregates can be found within the Four Noble Truths (namely the ‘First’ Noble Truth) amongst other places (see also the ‘Khandha Sutta’, etc). The Buddha states that a human-being is comprised of matter, sensation, perception, conception and consciousness. The aggregate of ‘matter’ comprises a living human body existing within a physical (material) environment from which it has evolved (see the ‘Agganna Sutta’ for the Buddha’s theory of evolution expressed over two to three-thousand years before Darwin). For the Buddha, as for Marx, a living-being occupies a physical body which has evolved from (and remains intimately a part of) the material environment. A living person in both schemes of interpretation seems to occupy an ‘inner’ (personal) body that exists within an ‘outer’ (impersonal) material body. A ‘personal’ human body, unlike a plant, possesses the ability to move around ‘unanchored’ within the material world which it inhabits, whilst remaining entirely ‘dependent’ upon the same material environment for its ‘existence’ secured through ‘sensation’. For the Buddha, human existence is a moment by moment (see the ‘Abhidhamma’ texts) cascade of physical-conscious awareness. The physical body being in continuous contact with the material environment immediately manifests a ‘conscious’ awareness which comprises ‘sensation’, ‘perception’ and ‘thought formation’. To quote Marx again:
‘My relationship to my surroundings is my consciousness.’
As there is no evidence that the historical Buddha could read or write, it was the tradition that all his original teachings were learned through ‘memory’ and passed on as descriptive and explanatory ‘lists’. Only much later were these teachings converted into written form – whilst retaining all the memory-enhancing ‘lists’ – lists that require the deciphering of qualified Buddhist teachers. The order of elements in these lists are often only placed where they are as an aid to the remembering process – and not necessarily as an expression of logic or reason. On the other hand, with fundamental elements (such as ‘matter’) the key principles are placed first with following attributes ‘reversed’ as a recalling device. All this seems highly convoluted today with reading and writing being nearly universal – but thousands of years ago, techniques such as these were vital for preserving and passing on spiritual and philosophical teachings. Within Early Buddhism the material world is preeminent – with ‘consciousness’ being a product of the interaction of the human-body and the environment (and comprised of ‘matter’, ‘sensation’, ‘perception’ and ‘conception’). The Buddha could not place ‘consciousness’ first in the list of the Five Aggregates as this would have ‘inverted’ his philosophical interpretation and led to the error that somehow ‘perception’ (or the ‘mind’) creates the object it ‘perceives’ – through the act of ‘perceiving’ it! In other words, this inversion would have confirmed the very Brahmanical theology the Buddha was rejecting (with ‘mind’ correlating to ‘God’, etc). As the ‘mind’ is ‘impermanent’ according to the Buddha, it is unable to generate anything outside of the brain from which it emerges - and as such it certainly does not pre-exist the birth (or post-exist the death) of the individual person (a point even recognised by the founders of the ‘Yogacara’ School).
Since I started placing my original research online there has been a plethora of plagiarising attempts at replicating its findings – with the authors involved unable to penetrate the surface structure of the subject. This is because such attempts are merely ‘copycats’ and lack any genuine understanding of the topic at hand. Whereas it has become a ‘trend’ to state the words ‘Buddha’ and ‘Socialism’ in the same sentence – no one who does this can quite tell you ‘why?’ they think this might be the case. In other words, such authors lack the depth of knowledge of the subject at hand to formulate a logical and rational explanation. Like a religionist obsessed with ‘faith’ – if they believe it to be true – then to them it must be true. Ethnic Buddhists living in Asia, or Asian communities outside of Asia will see straight through this exercise of deception. The same is true for any right-minded Westerner who sees through the profit-driven machinations of Bourgeois-controlled Buddhism! What genuine Buddhist meditation achieves is the re-ordering of the inner world of an individual so that they may marshal all the capacity of the intellectual mind and understand fully what the Buddha (and Marx) were talking about with regard to the (outer) material world! For the Buddhist, by clearing-out greed, hatred and delusion, the average person can strengthen their mind by removing inner confusion - and this allows them to understand why it is that the outer world should also be radically transformed with a Revolution just as fundamentally ground-breaking in its implications!
Bourgeois Buddhism – that is Asian Buddhism usurped and colonised by the Western middle-classes – simply projects the Judeo-Christian view of existence upon the interpretation of Buddhist philosophy. In this purely ‘racist’ type of Buddhism (which is peddled throughout the capitalist system) White people perpetuate the myth of consciousness appearing as a ‘spirit’ which permanently exists just behind (or below) the world of material reality – and which can be ‘accessed’ if only the practice of Buddhist meditation (which serves as a ‘doorway’) be properly ‘entered’ and ‘passed through’ to the other side! In this regard, this type of popular Buddhism (which fills the bookshops with inanely ‘grinning’ Buddhist monks) has not progressed much past the bizarre chatterings of ‘Theosophy’ that invented it. This Eurocentric ‘re-imagining’ of Asian Buddhism would have been as alien to Marx – as the Marxian view of reality would have been to the fraudster – Madam Blavatsky! It is because of this racist misrepresentation of Asian Buddhism in the West today that very few are aware of the similarity that exists between the philosophy of Early Buddhism and the ideology associated with Classical Marxism.
It is a similar error of interpretation made by the Bourgeoisie when its representatives state that Marx had very little to say about ‘religion’ – when his entire work is shot-through with its criticism and deconstruction! (This reality also irks the average ‘Trotskyite’ who is always attempting to pass themselves off as a true ‘follower of Marx’ – whilst under their raincoat they are ‘naked’ – just like any other pervert). Marx and Engels make a point at attacking the ‘inverted’ mind-set of conventional religion – which for them involved the Judeo-Christian tradition in its many variants. This is logical because these two religions – ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’ – dominated the societies of Europe and America, the two places where industrialisation had developed to the greatest extent and a Socialist Revolution was more likely to happen (emerging out of the contradictory forces contained within predatory capitalism). Like Buddhism and Hinduism – Islam is only mentioned in passing – and only then often only in newspaper articles penned by Marx. Marx and Engels targeted modern, contemporary religion active in the West at the time of their writing – as it was this form of existential religion that had aligned itself fully with the Bourgeois State and its ideology of predatory capitalism. Prior to this, the same religious institutions had aligned themselves with the Aristocracy and the change of allegiance (following the various Bourgeois Revolutions) did not seem to bother the ecclesiastical powers that be to any great extent. The priests of these religious institutions continued to keep the workers physically and psychologically enslaved by threatening them with eternal damnation if they dared to take any action to improve their working conditions. Not only this, but this punishment would continue for eternity whilst an entity termed ‘God’ used heat and fire in a place called ‘hell’ to inflict pain on a hidden entity referred to as a ‘soul’. Of course, the ‘Jews’ (which Marx criticised separately in a specific work) possessed their own ‘different’ but ‘similar’ version of this tale.
I have always argued that as Buddhism is not a religion (despite some traditions being corrupted by religiosity), but a philosophy premised upon a soft-materialist path of self-development, it should not be included as being part of the established religious community targeted by Marx and Engels. Considering the startling similarities between the two schools of thought, and given that there must be allowed the possibility that Marx was at least rhetorically influenced by the logical dialectics of Early Buddhism, Buddhism should be treated as a special case. Indeed, Early Buddhist philosophy appears startingly ‘modern’ and even stands-up well to contemporary scientific understanding. If Marx was not influenced what he might have read or heard about the Buddhist teachings, then it is a remarkable and astonishing coincidence that two men (one Indian and the other German) separated by two to three-thousand years - would both experience reality in a similar manner – and express that experience in almost identical words! This is true even when taking into account that the Buddha was thinking in ‘Magadhi’ and Marx in ‘German’ – whilst we are reading both in English translations! Of course, the mind emerges from the brain with consciousness being a special arrangement (and functioning) of the material constituency that comprises the physical structure of the brain. Conscious awareness, therefore, is a frequency of material existence, albeit subtle and ethereal (as it is still not yet fully understood). This is where religion attempts to hijack existence – and where Marx (and Buddha for that matter) rejects this detour as being illogical and contrary to known facts and logical thought. When ‘consciousness’ senses the material world – be it the realm of ideas (which is an internal ‘reflection’ of the outer world) – or external stimuli experienced through the bodily senses - this is nothing more than one frequency of the material world (the machinations of the brain) ‘sensing’ another frequency of the material world (be it the physical body experienced as ‘object’ and/or external objects perceived through the bodily senses). In other words, ‘matter’ is sensing ‘matter’, with the diversifying effect of evolutionary forces making all the difference!
The similarities between the teachings of Marx and Buddha lie in the fact that both men are stating a) ‘matter is sensing matter’ - when human-beings interact with their environment (and look within or without), and b) explaining ‘why’ this observation is true. It is important to acknowledge that the human brain (through the capacity of ‘mind’) has developed the ability to experience the body it inhabits ‘objectively’ – as if it were the external environment – with the caveat that it is part of this body and is still intimately linked to it in a way that is not true of the objects inhabiting the external world. The awareness of the mind emerges from the brain and can spread throughout the entire body and interacts with the external world through the bodily senses. The outside of the body serves as the barrier between the physical body the brain (and mind) inhabit and the external world of myriad objects. How the mind understands the external would, and how it directs bodily behaviour, defines the effect that mind has on the material world – whilst the state and functionality of the physical environment is absorbed into the mind and body (through the senses) and conditions the internal functionality of the individual concerned. Both Marx and Buddha agree that progressive education and positive psychological and physical experiences develop the individual and benefit society. As for authentic Buddhist practice (not polluted by its Bourgeois variant), an individual which has correctly practiced meditation, stilled the mind, uprooted greed, hatred and delusion and experienced an expansion of awareness, then the inner mind and body has been suitably prepared for the teachings of Marx and Engels to be fully understood, and for the physical body to participate in truly progressive, Revolutionary activity and all types of behaviour that benefits humanity and develops a just and Socialist society!
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2023.
Religion is important for the maintenance of political power for the Bourgeoisie and this is why its presence must be maintained throughout the entirety of society. The public sphere must be saturated with all kinds of ‘inverted’ religious thinking to prevent any development of a genuine, working-class (system-wide) Revolutionary consciousness. As theistic (Abrahamic) religious thinking is ‘unscientific’ – (as is all primitive belief systems of any origin) – its practice is relegated to the private sphere in a Socialist society. This prevents any (inverted) mass opposition to the dominance of science within society and the development of a society directed by logic and reason. Despite this repositioning of religion, the right to hold (or not hold) religious views is guaranteed in any (Marxist-Leninist) Constitution and it becomes illegal to discriminate against anyone who ‘holds’ (or does ‘not’ hold) religious views.
Of course, the monoliths of industry that control the mainstream Christian churches of the world do not like this ‘repositioning’ of religion in a Socialist society, because such a change removes all automatic rights to private property, land-ownership and access to the elitist political power structures that power Bourgeois society! This restructuring ensures that religious teachings are reduced to their original (and intended) usage – namely ‘freeing’ the individual from whatever ailment, malady or malign presence the religion is designed to blame the agency of social injustice upon. In the meantime, in the real world of material processes, each and every religionist will psychologically and physically benefit from the redistribution of wealth and resources throughout Socialist society – without having to acknowledge the relevancy or benefit of this change! All the Bourgeoisie can do in opposition to this radical change is aggressively (and falsely) accuse Socialist societies of ‘oppressing’ or ‘persecuting’ the religious groups that can no longer serve as meek initiators of political power-grabbing for the Bourgeoisie! In the USSR the Russian Orthodox Church was stripped of copious amounts of land it owned, the serfs and slaves maintained upon that land, and the political posts linked to that land ownership! In other words, Lenin ensured that the ROC actually practiced the Christian message it often claimed to be doing – whilst in reality it was simply amassing copious amounts of property, wealth and rank!
Today, the Western Bourgeoisie aim its fire at China and North Korea – two countries that contain adherents of Confucius, Buddhism and Daoism as well as numerous folk religions and various ethnic cults of different structures and functionalities. Whilst the West generates an avid anti-Muslim racism throughout its education system, entertainment system and media – the same Bourgeoisie probably thinks it is funny to accuse China (and the DPRK) of religious persecution in general, (whilst religious communities have never experienced such safe and good times in these countries – as every objective study shows), whilst China is continuously accused of an oppressive policy in the rapidly developing Xinjiang area, people in-part by the ‘Uyghur’ (Muslims of Turkish descent). In its general ignorance the West usually (conveniently) forgets that China possesses another indigenous Islamic population – namely that of the ‘Hui’ – who are the descendants of Arabian merchants! Although Confucianism permeates everywhere in China (including the Communist Party) the manner in which it ensures ‘respect for authority’ has changed since 1949 – with ‘education’ being its primary objective (as this overlaps precisely with the Socialist message). As with Daoism and Buddhism – Confucianism and Islam are required to ‘support’ the national government in its drive toward developing a better society premised upon Socialist ideology. To achieve this, the philosophy, ideology and theology associated with these systems has had to undergo a reorientation no different to what has been seen hundreds of times throughout history. It is an ‘inverted’ Bourgeoisie myth that religions have exist ‘unchanged’ throughout hundreds or thousands of years!
Religion has only been the thorny issue it developed into during the 20th century due entirely to how the Bourgeoisie chose to deploy its forces in the face of Socialist opposition. The preferred religious structure for the modern Bourgeoisie is that all religious organisations should be controlled by (White) Europeans, be politically right-wing and maintain a preference for US-style free market economics (or ‘predatory capitalism’). Any form of opposition to this fascist message is automatically interpreted as ‘persecution’. Of course, none of these concerns existed in the 19th century – the time period which has been an inspiration for this entire essay – and which has been inspired by a footnote (designated as ‘**’) attributed to Karl Marx, written in his 1845 book entitled ‘The German Ideology’ (co-written with Friedrich Engels). The Editor introduces this comment with - ‘The following words are crossed out in the manuscript:’
‘My relationship to my surroundings is my consciousness.’
[Karl Marx with Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, Includes These on Feuerbach and the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, Prometheus Books, (1998), Page 49]
The published paragraph which precedes this omitted comment in ‘The German Ideology’ is as follows:
‘Only now, after having considered four moments, four aspects of primary historical relations, do we find that man also possesses “consciousness”.* But even from the outset this is not “pure” consciousness. The “mind” is from the outset afflicted with [14] the curse of being “burdened” with matter, which here makes its appearance in the form of agitated layers of air, sounds, in short, of language. Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical, real consciousness that exists for other men as well, and only therefore does it also exist for me; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity of intercourse with other men.**’
The footnote associated with ‘*’ is described by the Editor as being a ‘Marginal note by Marx’ and reads as follows:
‘Men have history because they must produce their life, and because they must produce it moreover in a certain way: this is determined by their physical organisation; their consciousness is determined in just the same way.’ (ibid)
Quite often, in the editing process, Marx and Engels moved extracts about and so altered their final positioning within the book, thought better of some descriptions, and rewrote others for a better clarity. I never see a ‘change’ or ‘dismissal’ of trend of thought – as everything written is on target, carefully thought-out before-hand, and is exact in its meaning. Sentences taken out two or three pages back suddenly reappear in a much better context further on in the finished (or ‘clean’) copy of the book. The Early Buddhist teachings are believed to amount to around five thousand texts – all attributed to the historical Buddha. The Later Buddhist teachings - although enthused by the theological religiosity of Brahmanism – still retain this earlier (non-religious) foundation. The Buddha firmly rejected the religiosity of Brahmanism and advocated a logical and materialist interpretation of reality. A question I have been investigating for over twenty years is whether Karl Marx was influenced by Buddhist philosophy – a subject he definitely had learned about during his university days – and which he certainly learned about in-depth from his close friend (and ‘expert’ in Buddhist studies) – Karl Koppen. In his personal correspondence Karl Marx expressed a positive (if ‘flippant’) attitude toward Buddhist meditation, whilst Engels continues this apparent dalliance with Buddhist ideology in his (1883) book entitled ‘Dialectics of Nature’, etc, all important elements I have written about exclusively for the BMA (UK).
There were two contradictory elements to my research that needed reconciling. The first was the apparent antagonism toward all forms of religiosity displayed by the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary ideology (even in the 1928 Soviet film ‘October’ – there is a scene featuring a Buddhist temple in Russia when criticising the poison of ‘religion’) and second was the obvious parallel (and similarity) between Classical Marxist ideology and Early Buddhist philosophy (also acknowledged by British academic ‘Trevor Ling’ in his work – which I only encountered in recent years). I was informed by all Marxist-Leninists (and most mainstream academics) that there was NO connection whatsoever between Marx and Buddhism – and that it would have been very unlikely that he would have encountered Buddhist philosophy during the 19th century, living as he did within Western Europe. I had to juxtapose this attitude of rejection with what a) I personally knew as someone brought-up within the Buddhist tradition, and b) all the Revolutionary movements throughout Asia (particularly in China, Korea, Laos and Vietnam, etc) that had adopted the ideology of Marxist-Leninism (Maoism) and experienced no contradiction between it and the ancient Buddhism found practiced throughout these societies! This compatibility even exists in non-Marxist countries such as Sri Lanka and Thailand – where many of the Ordained Sangha (Buddhist monastics) advocate a Socialist Revolution as a means of redistributing wealth and solving much of the poverty and injustices which exists! Of course, as a Marxist-Leninist (Maoist) – I habitually REJECTED all forms of capitalist and fascistic ‘Trotskyism’ and its use of ‘entryism’ – where like Hitler these people will say and do anything to curry favour with the workers and thereby attempt to gain influence over the working-class movement – betraying it to capitalism at every step. Like the US academic Howard Zinn, such hostile forces toward the workers would say anything to secure popularity whilst fundamentally supporting the anti-Socialist policies of the Bourgeois United States! This type of research is null and void.
Starting from scratch, I slowly but surely started to build evidence that Marx (and Engels) knew very well about Buddhism (through their general educational backgrounds and their friendship with Karl Koppen), and that both possessed a high opinion of Buddhist dialectics as expressed in the Early Buddhist Suttas. This is an attitude that appears to have continued within Soviet academia (see the work of FI Stcherbatsky for example) – with at least three Soviet Republics in the East of the country being described as ‘Buddhist’. Much of this positive approach to Buddhism in the USSR is lost in Bourgeois Anti-Soviet propaganda and the Soviet requirement for State-building – a very different task than simply theorising. This reality has led me to speculate whether Marx was influenced by the Buddhist dialectics he thought highly of, and whether there was a Buddhist input into the formulation of his theory. This is not to say that the theory of Marx is in any way ‘Buddhist’ – but simply a recognition that there is an overlap with the manner in which both men arrange their thoughts and organise their thinking – as if working in two different historical epochs to express a very similar realisation. This understanding explains why the two men had to express their similar comprehensions in two distinctive ways as ancient India was a very different place to an industrialised 19th century (Western) Europe! Neither should this insight be an invitation to the Bourgeois world of fake academics to make allegations that Marxism is just another form of Buddhism – which it obviously is not.
An ‘influence’ is not the same as a ‘mimicry’ or a ‘copying’, etc, and the theory of Marx (and Engels) is a unique contribution to human understanding much maligned by the Bourgeoisie, and which has no direct ideological association with Buddhism. This being the case, it is a curious observation that a sentence written by Marx here and there appears almost identical to something the Buddha might have said. I have speculated elsewhere on this site where I think the epicentre of this ‘coincidence’ might well reside, but it is interesting to observe that like Marx – the Buddha stated time and time again that ‘consciousness’ (the ‘mind’) only exists as long as a living sense organ is in contact with a material sense-object. Bear in-mind that the Buddha is explaining the existence of an entire human-being possessing six sense organs – the mind senses ‘thought’, the eye senses ‘sight’, the ear senses ‘sound’, the nose senses ‘smell’, the tongue senses ‘taste’ and the body feels ‘sensation’, etc. When one, or a number of all of these sense organs are in contact with their corresponding sense-objects – there is the immediate generation of ‘sensation’, ‘perception’, ‘conception’ (thought forms) and ‘consciousness’. This is a specialised language which all Buddhists study to one extent or another and requires clarification, but before we do this, let us be reminded of exactly what Marx said (quoted above):
‘My relationship to my surroundings is my consciousness.’
The Buddhist teachings upon the Five Aggregates can be found within the Four Noble Truths (namely the ‘First’ Noble Truth) amongst other places (see also the ‘Khandha Sutta’, etc). The Buddha states that a human-being is comprised of matter, sensation, perception, conception and consciousness. The aggregate of ‘matter’ comprises a living human body existing within a physical (material) environment from which it has evolved (see the ‘Agganna Sutta’ for the Buddha’s theory of evolution expressed over two to three-thousand years before Darwin). For the Buddha, as for Marx, a living-being occupies a physical body which has evolved from (and remains intimately a part of) the material environment. A living person in both schemes of interpretation seems to occupy an ‘inner’ (personal) body that exists within an ‘outer’ (impersonal) material body. A ‘personal’ human body, unlike a plant, possesses the ability to move around ‘unanchored’ within the material world which it inhabits, whilst remaining entirely ‘dependent’ upon the same material environment for its ‘existence’ secured through ‘sensation’. For the Buddha, human existence is a moment by moment (see the ‘Abhidhamma’ texts) cascade of physical-conscious awareness. The physical body being in continuous contact with the material environment immediately manifests a ‘conscious’ awareness which comprises ‘sensation’, ‘perception’ and ‘thought formation’. To quote Marx again:
‘My relationship to my surroundings is my consciousness.’
As there is no evidence that the historical Buddha could read or write, it was the tradition that all his original teachings were learned through ‘memory’ and passed on as descriptive and explanatory ‘lists’. Only much later were these teachings converted into written form – whilst retaining all the memory-enhancing ‘lists’ – lists that require the deciphering of qualified Buddhist teachers. The order of elements in these lists are often only placed where they are as an aid to the remembering process – and not necessarily as an expression of logic or reason. On the other hand, with fundamental elements (such as ‘matter’) the key principles are placed first with following attributes ‘reversed’ as a recalling device. All this seems highly convoluted today with reading and writing being nearly universal – but thousands of years ago, techniques such as these were vital for preserving and passing on spiritual and philosophical teachings. Within Early Buddhism the material world is preeminent – with ‘consciousness’ being a product of the interaction of the human-body and the environment (and comprised of ‘matter’, ‘sensation’, ‘perception’ and ‘conception’). The Buddha could not place ‘consciousness’ first in the list of the Five Aggregates as this would have ‘inverted’ his philosophical interpretation and led to the error that somehow ‘perception’ (or the ‘mind’) creates the object it ‘perceives’ – through the act of ‘perceiving’ it! In other words, this inversion would have confirmed the very Brahmanical theology the Buddha was rejecting (with ‘mind’ correlating to ‘God’, etc). As the ‘mind’ is ‘impermanent’ according to the Buddha, it is unable to generate anything outside of the brain from which it emerges - and as such it certainly does not pre-exist the birth (or post-exist the death) of the individual person (a point even recognised by the founders of the ‘Yogacara’ School).
Since I started placing my original research online there has been a plethora of plagiarising attempts at replicating its findings – with the authors involved unable to penetrate the surface structure of the subject. This is because such attempts are merely ‘copycats’ and lack any genuine understanding of the topic at hand. Whereas it has become a ‘trend’ to state the words ‘Buddha’ and ‘Socialism’ in the same sentence – no one who does this can quite tell you ‘why?’ they think this might be the case. In other words, such authors lack the depth of knowledge of the subject at hand to formulate a logical and rational explanation. Like a religionist obsessed with ‘faith’ – if they believe it to be true – then to them it must be true. Ethnic Buddhists living in Asia, or Asian communities outside of Asia will see straight through this exercise of deception. The same is true for any right-minded Westerner who sees through the profit-driven machinations of Bourgeois-controlled Buddhism! What genuine Buddhist meditation achieves is the re-ordering of the inner world of an individual so that they may marshal all the capacity of the intellectual mind and understand fully what the Buddha (and Marx) were talking about with regard to the (outer) material world! For the Buddhist, by clearing-out greed, hatred and delusion, the average person can strengthen their mind by removing inner confusion - and this allows them to understand why it is that the outer world should also be radically transformed with a Revolution just as fundamentally ground-breaking in its implications!
Bourgeois Buddhism – that is Asian Buddhism usurped and colonised by the Western middle-classes – simply projects the Judeo-Christian view of existence upon the interpretation of Buddhist philosophy. In this purely ‘racist’ type of Buddhism (which is peddled throughout the capitalist system) White people perpetuate the myth of consciousness appearing as a ‘spirit’ which permanently exists just behind (or below) the world of material reality – and which can be ‘accessed’ if only the practice of Buddhist meditation (which serves as a ‘doorway’) be properly ‘entered’ and ‘passed through’ to the other side! In this regard, this type of popular Buddhism (which fills the bookshops with inanely ‘grinning’ Buddhist monks) has not progressed much past the bizarre chatterings of ‘Theosophy’ that invented it. This Eurocentric ‘re-imagining’ of Asian Buddhism would have been as alien to Marx – as the Marxian view of reality would have been to the fraudster – Madam Blavatsky! It is because of this racist misrepresentation of Asian Buddhism in the West today that very few are aware of the similarity that exists between the philosophy of Early Buddhism and the ideology associated with Classical Marxism.
It is a similar error of interpretation made by the Bourgeoisie when its representatives state that Marx had very little to say about ‘religion’ – when his entire work is shot-through with its criticism and deconstruction! (This reality also irks the average ‘Trotskyite’ who is always attempting to pass themselves off as a true ‘follower of Marx’ – whilst under their raincoat they are ‘naked’ – just like any other pervert). Marx and Engels make a point at attacking the ‘inverted’ mind-set of conventional religion – which for them involved the Judeo-Christian tradition in its many variants. This is logical because these two religions – ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’ – dominated the societies of Europe and America, the two places where industrialisation had developed to the greatest extent and a Socialist Revolution was more likely to happen (emerging out of the contradictory forces contained within predatory capitalism). Like Buddhism and Hinduism – Islam is only mentioned in passing – and only then often only in newspaper articles penned by Marx. Marx and Engels targeted modern, contemporary religion active in the West at the time of their writing – as it was this form of existential religion that had aligned itself fully with the Bourgeois State and its ideology of predatory capitalism. Prior to this, the same religious institutions had aligned themselves with the Aristocracy and the change of allegiance (following the various Bourgeois Revolutions) did not seem to bother the ecclesiastical powers that be to any great extent. The priests of these religious institutions continued to keep the workers physically and psychologically enslaved by threatening them with eternal damnation if they dared to take any action to improve their working conditions. Not only this, but this punishment would continue for eternity whilst an entity termed ‘God’ used heat and fire in a place called ‘hell’ to inflict pain on a hidden entity referred to as a ‘soul’. Of course, the ‘Jews’ (which Marx criticised separately in a specific work) possessed their own ‘different’ but ‘similar’ version of this tale.
I have always argued that as Buddhism is not a religion (despite some traditions being corrupted by religiosity), but a philosophy premised upon a soft-materialist path of self-development, it should not be included as being part of the established religious community targeted by Marx and Engels. Considering the startling similarities between the two schools of thought, and given that there must be allowed the possibility that Marx was at least rhetorically influenced by the logical dialectics of Early Buddhism, Buddhism should be treated as a special case. Indeed, Early Buddhist philosophy appears startingly ‘modern’ and even stands-up well to contemporary scientific understanding. If Marx was not influenced what he might have read or heard about the Buddhist teachings, then it is a remarkable and astonishing coincidence that two men (one Indian and the other German) separated by two to three-thousand years - would both experience reality in a similar manner – and express that experience in almost identical words! This is true even when taking into account that the Buddha was thinking in ‘Magadhi’ and Marx in ‘German’ – whilst we are reading both in English translations! Of course, the mind emerges from the brain with consciousness being a special arrangement (and functioning) of the material constituency that comprises the physical structure of the brain. Conscious awareness, therefore, is a frequency of material existence, albeit subtle and ethereal (as it is still not yet fully understood). This is where religion attempts to hijack existence – and where Marx (and Buddha for that matter) rejects this detour as being illogical and contrary to known facts and logical thought. When ‘consciousness’ senses the material world – be it the realm of ideas (which is an internal ‘reflection’ of the outer world) – or external stimuli experienced through the bodily senses - this is nothing more than one frequency of the material world (the machinations of the brain) ‘sensing’ another frequency of the material world (be it the physical body experienced as ‘object’ and/or external objects perceived through the bodily senses). In other words, ‘matter’ is sensing ‘matter’, with the diversifying effect of evolutionary forces making all the difference!
The similarities between the teachings of Marx and Buddha lie in the fact that both men are stating a) ‘matter is sensing matter’ - when human-beings interact with their environment (and look within or without), and b) explaining ‘why’ this observation is true. It is important to acknowledge that the human brain (through the capacity of ‘mind’) has developed the ability to experience the body it inhabits ‘objectively’ – as if it were the external environment – with the caveat that it is part of this body and is still intimately linked to it in a way that is not true of the objects inhabiting the external world. The awareness of the mind emerges from the brain and can spread throughout the entire body and interacts with the external world through the bodily senses. The outside of the body serves as the barrier between the physical body the brain (and mind) inhabit and the external world of myriad objects. How the mind understands the external would, and how it directs bodily behaviour, defines the effect that mind has on the material world – whilst the state and functionality of the physical environment is absorbed into the mind and body (through the senses) and conditions the internal functionality of the individual concerned. Both Marx and Buddha agree that progressive education and positive psychological and physical experiences develop the individual and benefit society. As for authentic Buddhist practice (not polluted by its Bourgeois variant), an individual which has correctly practiced meditation, stilled the mind, uprooted greed, hatred and delusion and experienced an expansion of awareness, then the inner mind and body has been suitably prepared for the teachings of Marx and Engels to be fully understood, and for the physical body to participate in truly progressive, Revolutionary activity and all types of behaviour that benefits humanity and develops a just and Socialist society!
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2023.