Abstract

It is postulated that human mind can be viewed as consisting of several facets or layers. One facet of them would be composed of ideas which constitude fundamental units of mind. Interest of gestalt psychologists and phenomenologists was addressed to percept, phenomenon, or gestalt by analysing the organization process of outer stimuli which, they believed, constitute the basis of idear formation. Those two facets seemed to be the main concerns of Western psychology and philosophy with respect to human mind. In the stream of Oriental thoughts, however, outer influences on mind were neglected. Therefore, Oriental schools attempted to directly grasp the core of the whole human affairs which control human activities. In this connection, a third layer of human mind, which might be called the layer of the self, could be postulated. One common concern of confucianism, Hindu psychology and other Oriental tradition is to realize the self through meditation. On the contrary, Buddhism does not accept the validity of human cognition and the self itself. In Buddhism the only reality of human existance is the subjective behavior, which might be viewed as a fourth layer of mind,