The Principles of Hypnosis (I)

Now let us talk about the principles of hypnosis, using the three hypnosis cases from yesterday. In the first case, as soon as the master hypnotist gave the command to sleep, those hypnotized subjects immediately fell asleep leaning against one another. Afterwards, the master gave the command to wake up, and so those people all woke up from deep sleep. After waking up, they had no awareness of having leaned against one another while in the sleep state.

Why does such a situation occur? When we are normally awake, the mind consciousness and the manas are able to mutually trust, mutually rely upon, and mutually guide each other. Normally, the manas follows the guidance or control of the mind consciousness, obeys the mind consciousness's commands, and is influenced by the mind consciousness. Now the manas is no longer influenced by one's own mind consciousness—by whom is it influenced? By the master hypnotist. The role of the master hypnotist is equivalent to the role of the hypnotized subject's mind consciousness, and the manas completely obeys and completely believes all of the master hypnotist's commands—believing whatever is said, with one hundred percent obedience, exceeding its trust in its own mind consciousness; the hypnotist's commands override the commands of one's own mind consciousness.

Therefore, whatever the master hypnotist says, the hypnotized subject's manas believes, and as soon as it believes, it can immediately accomplish it. Why can it be accomplished as soon as it is believed? Because the manas is the consciousness that makes decisions and has power; whatever it wants to do, as long as there are no factors interfering with it, it can do. When the master hypnotist tells him to sleep, because there is no mind consciousness to control and guide the manas, the manas obeys, immediately decides to sleep, and so lets go of all conditions; with no mind consciousness participating, it falls asleep instantly. And in the sleep state there are neither the five sense consciousnesses nor the mind consciousness, so when these people leaned against one another during sleep, their own mind consciousnesses did not know it, and of course even after the mind consciousness woke up, it still did not know. During sleep, the mind consciousness ceases, so it does not know what its own state of sleep was like during sleep.

Why can one fall asleep so quickly under hypnosis, while normally falling asleep is not so fast? Because when normally preparing to sleep, one must first extinguish the discernment of the five sense consciousnesses, and then extinguish the discernment and mental activity of the mind consciousness; extinguishing the mind consciousness is somewhat more difficult. Under hypnosis, however, the mind consciousness simply ceases to function, and therefore one falls asleep as soon as sleep is commanded.

From this principle it can be seen that as long as the manas believes something—and this belief is not ordinary belief, but an extremely, extremely deep belief, believing without doubt, taking whatever is said as what it is, without any deliberation (manasikāra) in one's own mind, without considering right or wrong, with no mind consciousness to control it—the manas's own ability to discern the six sense objects is rather weak, so it does not discern. As long as it believes the hypnotist, whatever the hypnotist says is what it is, and whatever he tells it to do it does. This is where the manas's wisdom being inferior lies. If there is a mind consciousness, the mind consciousness can think, can distinguish right from wrong, can take certain measures, and can control the manas. Now the manas has no six consciousnesses as helpers, no mind consciousness as helper, and does not itself have such strong discerning ability; when the hypnotist tells it to sleep, the manas does not need to deliberate at all and can fall asleep immediately.

If each of us, in our practice of seated meditation, enters deep meditative concentration (samādhi), the manas will discover the realms of the six sense objects, discover its own physical body, and discover that all realms feel different from before. Because in deep dhyāna, the manas's mind is concentrated and wisdom is developed; it then knows that the physical body can be controlled by itself, and knows that realms are illusory and not so real, or it does not take the realms seriously, because in deep dhyāna there is no control by the mind consciousness; whatever the manas wants to do, it can accomplish, and if it wants to manifest supernatural powers, it can bring forth the wondrous functions of supernatural powers.

For example, in the fourth dhyāna, if the manas thinks: "I want to fly into the sky," at this time there is no interference from the six consciousnesses, the mind consciousness does not interfere with it, it has no concept of the sky, and no obstruction from the physical body, and it can immediately fly into the sky, passing through mountains and over ridges. If the manas thinks: "I want to hear sounds from far away, or sounds from the heavens," because there is no mind consciousness interfering, as soon as it thinks of it, it can hear sounds from extremely far away. How does the mind consciousness interfere? The mind consciousness keeps telling it that this is impossible and that is impossible; once it says it is impossible, the manas feels it is truly impossible, and the thing cannot be accomplished.

Without the mind consciousness's interference, when the manas says "I want to do such-and-such," it immediately goes and does it, and when it does so, the boss behind it helps it accomplish it—thus the limitless supernatural powers are developed in this way. When there is the mind consciousness's interference, the mind consciousness influences it by relying on its own life experience and real-life habitual tendencies, saying this cannot be done and that cannot be done; because the mind consciousness has never seen true reality, all of its ideas and thinking are incorrect, and its interference with the manas is extremely great. In the absence of the mind consciousness's interference, everyone's potential for supernatural powers can be developed.

Now the role of the hypnotist replaces the role of the mind consciousness; whatever the hypnotist says, the manas believes, and whatever it believes, it can accomplish. Supernatural powers arise in this way, and the principle of hypnosis is also like this.