Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen frames this 46-minute talk with a fundamental problem: delusions control our minds, driving us through saṃsāra, while Buddha escaped by training his mind and developing bodhicitta—genuine intention to achieve enlightenment for all beings. The bulk of the teaching is doctrinal, moving into technical analysis of consciousness itself. He defines mind as that which apprehends the entity of objects, distinguishes it from mental factors—which apprehend specific qualities—and then systematically breaks down the five omnipresent mental factors: feeling, recognition, intention, attention, and contact. Each accompanies every moment of awareness and serves an essential function. A rigorous, philosophical exposition suited to serious practitioners studying the detailed architecture of how consciousness actually works.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 Lo Rig.mp3
UUID: a0784be3-c435-4a69-b418-f3af3d7fa759
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Nature of the Mind (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1995 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.2 minutes
Words: ~2,020
So quoting from the line of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra — the text, yeah, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra. We’re like quoting like four lines from there, saying that what it says is that our body is most of the time controlled by our mind, and our mind most of the time is controlled by delusions, and because of that, because of delusions we create many different actions — we create many different karmas. And out of those karmas, we take birth in saṃsāra where we circle in saṃsāra and experience many different sufferings. So this is what we have been doing from our beginning up until now. And even if we keep on doing the same thing — using our body, speech, and mind, making our body, speech, and mind do the same thing — then it will bring the same result as what we have had up to now.
So what one needs is to change that. Once one has controlled the mind, like once one is controlling the mind and then changing one’s way of thinking — and how, in the same manner that Buddha Śākyamūni had changed himself, had controlled his mind. And then through the practice, how he achieved or how he perfected the two bodies or the two kayas. Oh, yeah. So Buddha trained his mind for countless great eons. And then he found the practice of bodhicitta as the most beneficial thing for sentient beings.
So how he found the practice of bodhicitta to be the most beneficial thing for sentient beings is that through this practice of bodhicitta, those infinite sentient beings can achieve the highest state, the unsurpassable state, which is that of Buddhahood. So in the very beginning, Buddha also was like us — ordinary — and through his practice, like giving up working for self and practising the practice of bodhisattvas, which is working for the benefit of others, through this practice he completed the collection of two merits and achieved the four kayas, the four bodies of the Buddhas. So what so then that altruistic mind or the bodhicitta is that wish or desire to achieve the fully enlightened state — enlightenment — for the benefit of other sentient beings.
So in order to generate this thought or have this wish or desire within oneself, one needs the special insight. So to have this special insight or this special thought, to generate that, one needs the practice of compassion, which is the wish to free all sentient beings from the state of suffering. So for that, again, for the generation of compassion, one needs the practice of love. That is the wish — wishing happiness, or wishing happiness for all sentient beings. So before the practice of love, you need to remember, to repay the kindness of other sentient beings.
To do that you have to remember the kindness of those sentient beings — also to remember the kindness in different ways — like recognizing all sentient beings as your mother. And then before that, as the base, you need to equalize your thought towards all of the sentient beings. So in order to equalize one’s thought, how does one do this? One needs — prior to that — to practise the practice of medium scope or the practice which is done by beings of medium capacity.
And then to do that, before, one needs again to do the practice of small scope, and within the small scope, like the practice of impermanence and the contemplations, or the practice of precious human rebirth. So if one does all these practices, then one can achieve the state — the same state that Buddha has achieved. So we do a short version of all these stages of meditations and try to generate bodhicitta within oneself and do a short meditation. So when we talk about awareness or the mind, we talk about mind and mental factors. So as a meaning or the definition of mind: it is a knower which apprehends the entity of its object.
So as an example, taking the example of form as an object, and just apprehending just the entity of the form — that is what is known as the mind. Not the particular attributes — the particular attributes or the qualities of the object — but just the entity of the object. So the mind, the main mind, and the consciousness, and yi — which is translated as mentality — these are known as synonyms. Oh.
Mind. Main mind, consciousness, and mentality. So then the mind is, as we talked in the past, divided into six. That is the eye consciousness through to the mental consciousness.
So these six, if we summarize, it is the sense consciousnesses and the mental consciousness — we can bring it into two. So with the mental factors: as we said with the mind — the mind is that which apprehends the entity of the object — now with the mental factors, as a meaning or definition: it is a knower which apprehends the particularities or the specific qualities of the object. So as a definition of the mental factors: that is a knower which apprehends the specific qualities of the object and which accompanies the main mind, which goes with the main mind. So the entity of the object and the specific qualities of the object — these two differ. With the vase as example: a vase is like — how it appears — round belly and flat base. That is the entity of the vase. Specific qualities: the vase being a product, and it being impermanent, and it disintegrating — these are specific qualities. This one?
Nice. Good. So whatever is a mental factor has to be with or accompany the mind. Among the fifty-one mental factors, the first one is feeling. So that feeling has to accompany a main mind. So that feeling or the mental factors has to accompany the main mind. And there are five things in common — five things in common with the mind and the mental factors. Five similarities. So the five are: the first one is basis. And then the second one is same object. And then the third one is same aspect. And then same time is the fourth one. And then the fifth one is same substance. So these five are common — have to be common or similar to the main mind and the mental factors.
So having the same basis is that whatever the main mind is based on, the mental factors also are based on that — have to be based on that. So as an example with the eye consciousness: the eye consciousness depends on the eye organ, and because of that, the feeling that you experience when you have contact with the eye consciousness also depends on the eye organ. So whatever number of mental factors you experience there at that point — they all have to depend on the same basis, that is the eye sense organ. So then the second one, having the same object, is that whatever object the main mind observes or focuses on, the mental factors also have to focus on that same object. Oh, yeah.
So they have the same object. So as the I consciousness, or the visual consciousness, observes shapes or colours — when it does that, the mental factor also has to observe the shape or the colours. So with same aspect, the third one: when the eye consciousness observes a blue object — having a blue aspect — the mental factors also observe that same blue aspect. So then same time here means the mental factors and the main mind come into existence at the same time.
So then the fifth one: they have the same substance, which is like they are produced from one substance. So these two things, mind and mental factor, are produced by one substance, by one substantial cause. So these five are known as the five similarities. So the mental factors — there are fifty-one of them. The fifty-one mental factors are: the five omnipresent mental factors.
And then second, the five object-determining mental factors. Then eleven virtuous ones. And six root delusions. And then twenty secondary afflictions. Yeah.
And then four changeable mental factors. Altogether that comes to fifty-one. So all this will be explained one by one in these few upcoming classes. So the first of the five — the five omnipresent mental factors — the first one is feeling. And the second one is recognition. Then the third one is intention. And then the fourth one is attention. And then the fifth one is contact.
So these are known as the five omnipresent mental factors. They are called omnipresent because they are present with all the main minds. All these five are present with all the main minds. So the main minds that we talk about are the six kinds of main minds, which are the eye consciousness through to the mental. Each main mind has these five mental factors.
So, sorry. If one of these five omnipresent mental factors is not there — if one of them is absent — then the action of whatever the main mind is doing is not completed. So say, if the main mind doesn’t have the first one — feeling — then the main mind won’t experience those different feelings of happiness, pain, pleasure, and neutral. So when feeling arises when mind makes contact with an object — whatever object it can be — when it makes contact, out of that one experiences these different feelings: pain, pleasure, and neutral.
So when these three feelings arise, that is how whatever the main mind is, it also experiences these different feelings. So then the next one is recognition and discrimination. If one doesn’t have that, if this is missing, then one cannot — so you cannot use terms, cannot divide things with each term. So what is meant by recognition is a knower that recognizes — a knower that distinguishes this and that, like whatever object it is. So when as an example, when our eye consciousness sees a person, it perceives colours and shapes, and just right after that one discriminates the person — this is whoever the person is, or Tashi, or whoever. So that is how you get recognition. So then the third one is intention. And if there’s no intention, then there’s no way you direct your mind towards the object. So it is because of the intention that directs the mind to the object and engages with the object.
So then the fourth one is attention. And then if the attention is not there, then you cannot observe the object. So in other words, observing the object and being able to remember it — of that object — is because of the attention towards the object. So another example is the remembering of our past. The remembering of our past is because of attention.
So you first observe the object and then you keep your attention on the object and that’s how you come to remember. And the fifth one is contact. So then if the contact is not there — if that one is not there — then one doesn’t experience these different feelings, the feeling of pain, pleasure, and so on. So contact here doesn’t mean touching like the touch that we do with our hands. So when these three things come together — the object, the organ, and the consciousness — when these three things come together, then that is what contact is.
That’s how one makes contact. So when a main mind manifests — when a main mind is in action — then there are the mental factors, but it doesn’t mean that all have to be manifested. They don’t all have to be very obvious. For example, at the time when one is sleeping, and when one is meditating on emptiness, or at the time of the very subtle death — in these different states, all those five omnipresent mental factors are not so obvious.