Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 64-minute teaching, Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen presents a systematic analysis of mind and mental factors, core concepts in Buddhist epistemology. He begins by recapping the definition of main minds and their logical relationship to mental consciousness, walking through four intersecting categories with concrete examples from sense and yogic consciousness. He then shifts to mental factors, defining them as minds that focus on features or details of an object rather than its core nature, and explains the five similarities that bind mental factors to main minds: shared basis, object, aspect, substance, and time. The bulk of the session maps out a 51-fold classification of mental factors, starting with the five omnipresent factors—feeling, discrimination, intention, mental application, and contact—that necessarily accompany every mind. He explores subdivisions of feeling (bodily versus mental, contaminated versus uncontaminated, and happy, suffering, or equanimous), then briefly introduces the five mental factors that ascertain their specific objects: aspiration, belief, memory, concentration, and wisdom. This is an advanced analytical teaching suited to serious practitioners studying Buddhist philosophical psychology.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011-02-10 – MMF – KR.mp3
UUID: 452e666b-e670-4547-9a1e-82e2dc6c95e1
Teacher: Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen
Collection: Awareness and Knowledge
Date: 2011-02-10
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,991
So as usual, we will generate the motivation to listen to these teachings, which is to try to attain a state of full enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. With this as a motivation, we will meditate for one or two minutes. So Geshe-la explained last time the beginnings of main minds and mental factors. Generally speaking, principle minds or main minds, minds, consciousnesses, and awarenesses are synonymous. And as you remember, Geshe-la gave a definition of main minds, and then presented the four modes, the four possibilities, or the type of intersection of the two sets of consciousnesses which are minds and mental factors.
As you remember, in the process of presenting main minds, Geshe-la mentioned that main minds can include the five sense consciousnesses as well as the mental consciousness. Four possibilities between minds and mental consciousnesses. Generally speaking, minds are divided into the five sense consciousnesses and the mental consciousness. Mental consciousnesses on the other hand are exclusively mental, they do not depend on a sense organ. And for this reason, when one studies the possibilities, or the logical possibilities which exist between minds and mental consciousnesses, or how the sets intersect, one finds that there is something which is a mind, but is not a mental consciousness.
And that is an eye consciousness, for instance. Then there is something which is a mental consciousness, but is not a mind. And that is for instance, the sensation of feeling which is associated with a mental consciousness. Then, there is something which is both a mind and a mental consciousness, and that is a sensation of feeling which is associated with an eye consciousness. And finally, is something which is neither a mind nor a mental consciousness.
So, four examples are given for each of the categories. And our text moves onwards. Likewise, mind and sense consciousnesses have four logical possibilities. In other words, there’s something which is the one, which is and not the other. The other and not the one, both and neither.
And also wisdom and mental consciousness have four possibilities. And if one were to try to formulate these four possibilities, Geshe-la says, That which is both a wisdom and a mental consciousness. And first he would like to define what precisely is understood in this context by a wisdom. A wisdom is a consciousness within the continuum of a being which is on the path. It’s a path consciousness.
Something which is both a wisdom and a mental consciousness would be for instance the yogic direct perceiver within the continuum of a bodhisattva. Something which is a wisdom, but which is not a mental consciousness would be the eye sense consciousness of a fully enlightened being, which is a wisdom, because it is a path consciousness, but it’s not a mental consciousness. Something which is a mental consciousness, but is not a wisdom would be for instance, the mental consciousnesses in the continuum of a being which has not entered the path. These are mental consciousnesses, but they are not wisdoms because they are not path consciousnesses. And something which is neither a wisdom nor a mental consciousness would be for instance the eye consciousness within the continuum of the being which has not entered the path.
And at present, we will move onwards to the definition of mental factors. So we have completed the explanation of main minds or minds in general. Now, whereas the object which is apprehended by both mental factors and main minds is the same, there is a difference in their focus. The principal focus of the main mind is the apprehension of the core entity, the nature as a definition of a main mind states, of the object being perceived. Whereas the principle focus of mental factors are features or details of the object being perceived.
For instance, Geshe-la says, when we initially reflect about ourselves, that self which we reflect about is actually perceived by a main mind. And then after this, when we start reflecting about the features of ourselves, the fact that we are composite, that we are impermanent, that we lack our self and so forth, the minds which focus on those features are actually mental factors. So the definition of a mental factor, and we are here on page 39, the middle of your English text, is a cognizer which accompanies any main mind with which it shares similarities, these are the five similarities, and which apprehends features of its object. So here the term features of its object indicates in the definition that the mind does not focus on the core or the nature of the object, but on characteristics. And the five characteristics which this mind shares, which the mental factor shares with the main mind, are the famous five characteristics mental factors share with main minds which are listed in your text on page thirty five and thirty six, mind of Tibetan Buddhism.
And what are these five similarities? You can consult your the introduction to mind in Tibetan Buddhism pages thirty five and thirty six. They are similarities of basis of object, of aspect, of substance and of time. The similarity of basis refers to the fact that the basis of the main mind and the basis of the mental factor perceiving a given phenomenon are the same. For instance, in the case of an eye consciousness perceiving blue, the basis of the eye consciousness perceiving blue is the eye organ.
And the basis of all of the mental factors accompanying that eye consciousness, such as for instance the sensation of feeling accompanying that eye consciousness, is also the eye organ. Then the second similarity is a similarity of the object. This simply means that the object of the mental factor is the same as the object of the main mind. So the object of an eye consciousness perceiving blue is the same as the object of the feeling which accompanies an eye consciousness perceiving blue. The third similarity is similarity of aspect.
This means that whatever the aspect in which the object appears dawns to the main mind, it dawns in the same aspect to the mental, it dawns in the same aspect to the mental factor. The fourth similarity, Geshe-la switches the order with your English commentary, is similarity of substance. What this means is that there is only one given mental factor for every main mind and one main mind for every given mental factor. So for instance, if we were to take the eye consciousness perceiving the color blue, which is a main mind, then there would be only one mental factor of feeling associated with it, not several. And there would be only one main mind perceiving blue associated with the mental factor accompanying the main mind associating blue.
Likewise for instance, for the mental factor of concentration, there would be only one such mental factor per main mind. Finally, similarity of time indicates that both mental factor and main mind are concurrent or simultaneous. So we have at present explained the five similarities and we move onwards to the division of mental factors. The division presented here is a 51 fold division of mental factors in keeping most probably with Asaṇga’s Abhidharmasamuccaya, Asaṇga’s great treatise on Abhidharma. And this division is one in terms of the five omnipresent mental factors.
The five mental factors which ascertain their objects. The 11 virtuous minds. The six root afflictions. The 20 branch afflictions and the four mutable mental factors. The first subdivision, the five omnipresent mental factors, Kun ‘gro ba in Tibetan, actually refers to five omnipresent factors which always accompany the main mind they characterize.
For that reason they are called omnipresent. These are feeling, discrimination, intention, mental application and contact. Every single main mind is always accompanied by these five omnipresent mental factors, hence they are called in Tibetan always going with And then these five omnipresent mental factors necessarily qualify every main mind, because if they were absent, the main mind would be unable to engage its object. And Purbu Chok’s Lorig explains this succinctly as follows. If any of the five were to be absent, then for instance, If any of the five were to be absent, the enjoyment or the experience of the object would be incomplete.
For instance, should feeling the first of the five omnipresent mental factors be absent, there would be no experience of happiness or suffering dependent upon the object. Every contact with an object entails an experience of happiness, of suffering or a neutral experience. If the second omnipresent mental factor, the mental factor of discrimination or discernment is absent, then there is no imputation of nominal terminology, no names are imputed to the phenomenon. So for instance, the phenomenon would not be known as a thing, as impermanent or so forth, it would not be recognized. If the third omnipresent mental factor intention is absent, then the main mind does not engage its object in the slightest.
If the fourth mental factor, mental application is absent, then the main mind does not focus upon its object. And if the fifth mental factor which is contact is absent, then there is no ground for the generation of the feelings of happiness and suffering. And Geshe-la says for instance, if we take the case of his finger touching the table, the experience of the softness or the rough roughness of the table is directly contingent on the mental factor of contact within which without which that tactile experience cannot arise. However, there is no certainty that these are explicitly present since they are only implicitly present within the mental continuum of an Ārya being which is engaged in meditative equipoise on cessation or at the time of sleep or for that matter during the subtle mind of the death process. The meaning of this passage Geshe-la says is that if we analyze we can see quite clearly for instance that in deep sleep as opposed to sleep in which dreams occur, there is very very limited mental activity.
Yet one cannot say that the five omnipresent mental factors are absent. One cannot say that they are absent because they arrive spontaneous ly as soon as one leaves a state of deep sleep and manifest in the context for instance of the dream state. So if they can manifest in this way, this means that even though they were not explicitly present, they were nonetheless implicitly present or present in a hidden way. The same is the case for the subtle mind of the death process or for that matter for the meditative equipoise of an Ārya being focused on the truth of cessation. Meditative equipoise is focused on the truth of cessation exist only in the minds of Ārya beings, But nonetheless, during such a state, the five omnipresent mental factors are not explicitly present, but only are implicitly present.
And at present the definitions of the various omnipresent mental factors from within these, the first is the omnipresent mental factor of feeling which is presented in terms of definitions and divisions. Regarding the first, in other words definitions, the definition of feeling or the feeling aggregate which are synonymous is that mind which certainly discriminates on the basis of experience. The mind which certainly discriminates on the basis of experience here is a mind which certainly discriminates on the basis of the experience of happiness, of equanimity or of unhappiness. These are the experiences of the feeling aggregate and of the mental factor of feeling. This is something which is present at all times or be it not necessarily explicitly.
For instance, if the mental factor of Samādhi were to increase in potency within the mind stream, then it is quite possible for the mental factor of feeling to be greatly reduced. Likewise, if the mental factor of wisdom increases through the power of analysis, then the mental factor of feeling, it will take the second rank. So secondly, with respect to divisions, there is a twofold, threefold and fivefold division. The first twofold division is a division into bodily feeling and mental feeling. Bodily feeling is synonymous with feeling which accompanies sense consciousness and is synonymous as well with external feeling.
Whereas mental feeling is synonymous with feeling which accompanies mental consciousness and is also synonymous with inner or interior feeling. Alternatively, there is another two fold division of feelings into feelings which are accompanied with objects and feelings which are not accompanied with objects. The first is synonymous with contaminated feeling and the second is synonymous with non contaminated feelings. Contaminated and non contaminated feelings here Geshe-la says, refer to the mental factor of feeling which arises in the case of contaminated feelings through the power of karma and afflictions in the mental continuum of ordinary beings. Whereas non contaminated feelings refer to the mental factor of feelings which arises without being controlled by karma and afflictions in the mental continuum of an ārya being such as an ārya bodhisattva or an Arhat.
And the threefold presentation of feelings is a division of feelings into feelings of happiness, feelings of sufferings and feelings of equanimity. Generally speaking within this context, it is important to understand that all feelings of equanimity are feelings and are equanimous. Not all equanimities fall in the category of the mental factors of feelings. Broadly speaking equanimity is divided into three different categories. The first is equanimity which is subsumed within the mental factor of feeling.
The second is equanimity which is subsumed within the 11 virtuous mental factors. And the third is equanimity which is subsumed within the four immeasurables. Of these three subdivisions of equanimity, only the first actually pertains to the mental factor of feeling. The latter two do not pertain to the mental factor of feeling. So equanimity within the 11 virtuous mental factors is not feeling.
It is one of the virtuous mental factors. And equanimity within the four immeasurables is not feeling. It is one of the four immeasurables. There are other instances of equanimity such as for instance that equanimity which is present at the ninth level of training in śamatha, and which starts to arise at the seventh level when there is only residual agitation lethargy. That is a fully qualified equanimity, but it is not included within the feeling of equanimity.
So all feelings fall within the threefold subdivision of feelings into happy, unhappy and equanimous feeling or feelings of happiness, of suffering and of equanimity. There is also a fivefold presentation of feelings into feelings of happiness, mental happiness, suffering, mental unhappiness and feelings of equanimity. The term feeling of happiness here refers to bodily happiness. Mental happiness unsurprisingly is mental happiness. Suffering here refers to bodily suffering.
And mental unhappiness refers to mental unhappiness. So the fivefold subdivision is an expansionary development on the basis of the three fold division of feelings. Where the feelings of happiness within the three fold division are subdivided into bodily and mental, subdivided into bodily and mental happiness, and the feelings of unhappiness are also subdivided into bodily and mental unhappiness. And when we add the feeling of equanimity, we end up with a fivefold subdivision. Moreover, our text continues, whatever is a feeling of mental happiness is not necessarily happiness in as much as it is not necessarily that happiness which is subsumed within the fivefold division of feelings.
And then Geshe will complement the presentation of the five omnipresent mental factors from an additional text regarding the presentation of discrimination, intention, mental application and contact. Discrimination is none other than that mental factor which enables the process of naming. So when Geshe-la looks at you and he imputes or places names on you, this occurs through the presence of the mental factor of discrimination. Intention is that which enables the mind to engage its object, while mental application enables both main mind and mental factors to relate to their object. And contact is metaphorically that which enables the main mind to see its object.
In other words, that which enables the main mind to experience its object. At present, the five omnipresent mental factors have been explained. And at present moving onwards to the five mental factors which ascertain their objects, which are the mental factors of aspiration, belief, memory, concentration and wisdom. These are called succinctly the mental factors which ascertain their object. Actually, Geshe-la feels it is better to give them the longer name which corresponds with them, which is the mental which ascertain their individual or specific object.
Well generally speaking, every consciousness ascertains its object. It can only ascertain its object dependent on the existence of such mental factors. And if we were to take the case of the mind of great compassion, of which Geshe-la spoke yesterday, this mind of great compassion has causes, has a nature, has effect. All of these can only be ascertained dependent on main minds which are accompanied by the five mental factors which ascertain their specific object. Otherwise, would not be possible to ascertain the individual characteristics of a mind such as great compassion.
So the meaning of the five mental factors which ascertain their objects is as follows. These are not definitions, but just meanings. Through aspiration, a wishing for the object and a striving towards the object occurs. Through belief, a rejoicing in the engaging in that object. Through memory, grasping the aspect of the object.
Through concentration, single pointed abiding, and through wisdom, individual analysis. And aspiration, wishing and striving for are synonymous. Therefore, where the aspiration which strives for a phenomenon exists, there exists also the beginning of the enthusiasm for that phenomenon. At present, we have completed the presentation of the five mental factors which ascertain their objects and will broach briefly next time the presentation of the 11 virtuous mental factors.