Mapping consciousness onto physicality

One of the great difficulties in understanding consciousness is our tendency to assume that it must correspond directly to some kind of physical structure or process. We habitually map our subjective experiences onto the physical body — primarily the brain — in an attempt to find the ‘seat’ or origin of awareness.

This tendency arises from the deep conditioning of materialist thinking, in which every phenomenon is assumed to have a physical basis. The problem is that while brain activity and bodily processes can be correlated with aspects of consciousness, they are not identical to consciousness itself. Correlation is not causation. The appearance of brain activity alongside experience does not explain how experience arises.

In Buddhist models of mind, consciousness is not described as a substance located somewhere but as a stream of dependent phenomena — momentary arisings and cessations conditioned by previous moments, by objects of experience, and by karmic tendencies. Physical form (rūpa) is one component of experience, but it is not the generator of awareness. Rather, form and consciousness arise together, co-dependent, like two sheaves of reeds standing only because they lean against one another.

The search for a physical location of consciousness is thus misguided. Consciousness cannot be isolated to a place because it is not a thing. It is a dynamic, interdependent process, arising wherever the conditions for awareness are present. The nervous system provides necessary conditions for certain forms of human consciousness but does not generate consciousness in any absolute sense.

When we release the assumption that consciousness must be tied to physicality, we open the door to deeper understanding. Rather than asking ‘where is consciousness?’, we begin to inquire into the nature of awareness itself — its characteristics, its dependencies, and its limitations. This shift allows for genuine insight, dissolving the confusion that arises when we attempt to map the ungraspable onto the tangible.

“Consciousness comes into being dependent on name-and-form. Dependent on consciousness, name-and-form comes into being. If one were to ask: ‘Is name-and-form the cause of consciousness, or is consciousness the cause of name-and-form?’, one would fail to understand the arising of the world.”
— Majjhima Nikaya 38