Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using The Matrix as an unexpected teaching tool, Geshe Pema Tsering explains how mind and mental factors relate in this 30-minute session. He starts with a honey-and-sweetness analogy — honey is the mind, its sweetness a mental factor — then introduces the principle that mind and mental factor always observe the same object and share the same moral quality: a virtuous main mind cannot accompany a non-virtuous mental factor, just as attachment or anger colours both simultaneously. He maps this onto a movie-screen image: consciousness is the white screen, the main mind a specific film, and mental factors every scene and character within it. The session closes with the striking claim that sixty-five mental moments arise in a single finger snap, illustrated by a bullet perforating a thousand sheets of paper in one brief sound.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 2007 09 06 M and MF (2).mp3
UUID: 9d4d8531-e712-48bc-9795-b42c32a8e05f
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Mind & Mental Factors (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2007-09-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 29.6 minutes
Words: ~1,497
So then the meaning of that particular phenomenon will be its entity or its nature. So then the entity or the nature or the essence of of a human, Geshe-la was then saying, then this that which then articulates, speak, and then which understands meanings. And then we cannot do not posit the five aggregates to be the human. You posit then with that, which then. So then that which enunciates, speaks, and then understands the meaning.
Being aware. And that’s that’s the essence. That’s the entity of human. So then again, another illustration that you have is, for example, honey and the sweetness of the honey. So you have the honey as a whole entity, one entity, which is then apprehended by the mind, and the sweetness of the honey, which is then apprehended by the by the mental factor of the mind.
And then the honey itself as a whole will be the entity, and then the the sweetness will be a particularity of it. The mind will be the honey, and the mental factor will be the sweetness. So Geshe-la is giving the final characteristics of different phenomena. So then, for example, that which performs a function then is the essence of a functioning thing. And then and then again, that which is momentary, then again, is is is the is the essence or the nature of impermanent phenomena and so forth.
So then then, again, the the essence, the nature, or the entity of impermanence is given as momentary, that which is momentary. So there’s one word, can be translated. It’s usually translated in many different ways. It could be entity, nature, essence. So then and when when one says when one talks about same entity, and one also is also talking about same substance.
And then again, when we’re talking about clear and knowing, that which is clear knowing, when we’re talking about consciousness, then we can only posit then as an entity or as a substance, then again, that which is clear and knowing, consciousness, that which knows. Yeah. Yeah. Now you understand? So then, again, the mind and mental factor, when they are said to be the same entity, again, because they are both that which is clear and knowing, they are both consciousness.
And then And then again, following on on the text, when the when the when the in the Compendium of Knowledge then we have concomitant observed object and concomitant entity. And the meaning of those then is given that firstly that because the object of observation is the object which is observed is one, then both the mind and mental factor have a concomitant object of observation. And then the basis of observing that same object, by means of its aspects, so then again Geshe-la stopped there and was then saying that on the basis of of observing the same object, then the mind of the mental factor will assume the same aspect that the mind, the main mind has has assumed in relation to that object. And then on that basis, then the mind will become afflicted or not, it will be an afflicted mind or not in relation to that object being observed in these aspects. And then Geshe-la says, then if one has attachment to that object, whole, both the mind and mental factor will be afflicted with attachment.
And then again, Geshe-la also says, if there is anger, then again, both the mind mental factor will will be if the main mind is affected by anger, then mental factor also accompanied by it will be affected by anger. There is nothing like, as I was just saying, a virtuous main mind and which has a non virtuous mental factor. So then if it’s a main mind is virtuous, the mental factor will be virtuous. And then it’s a main main mind is non virtuous. Mental factor is non virtuous.
So I want to stop here today. Yeah. So if, for example, you have the the screen where the movie is projected. So then and in the movie, have, for example, one one picture in the movie which has different colors. Okay?
And then if you have a red color or the the the color, and then you cannot say that the white color is in a different screen than the red color. They are in the same screen, and that is the mind. And the distinctive colors will be the mental factors, but they are all the same one thing. So then in that movie screen of the movie theater, then there are many things projected on it, and many things appear on it. And you cannot say that each of the different things that appear on it are appearing on a different screen.
They are appearing in one screen. And then again so then, just like the movie screen, you have the mind, consciousness. In that consciousness, then it’s projected everything, mind’s mental factors and everything is there. The screen. Yeah.
I don’t think you need it’s just making it more complex than you need to. You’re making it more complex. So then have the again, have the Geshe-la is giving the example of the movie theater. You have the screen, the white screen. So then the white screen is consciousness in general, which is clear and knowing.
And then on that consciousness, the movie, the one particular movie which is projected on it, say Matrix, you have Matrix. Matrix is then the mind, the main mind, and then the whole of of the tribulations that Neo goes through in the movie, those are mental factors. All the kung fu and the jujitsu and everything. Those are all mental factors. The money, everything, Morpheus, the pill.
You you know? You saw the movie? There you go. How many times did you see it? Not enough.
Not enough. Not enough. Okay. Yeah. Georgie, you want to ask a question?
Yeah. Not at the same time. So then it’s like this. Not at the same moment. It can it can occur it can occur that you have you look at John Howard and and you like him, and in the next moment, you dislike him and but not one mind one main mind the same moment liking and disliking him.
Like in the mirror. Like in the movie, actually. You know? In the movie, everything goes so fast, especially in the matrix. You want to try something?
Yeah. How how many how many mental moments or main minds in, you know, like, finger snap? Mhmm. How much a finger snap? Sixty five.
Is each each of those main minds within that finger No. Six sorry. I ask sorry, I ask how many moments there are in the finger snap. There are sixty five moments in the finger snap. So then, first of all, we can do two things that are I’m I’m confused.
So the first is how many moments there are in one finger snap? In in the scriptures, Geshe-la said, in some scriptures, Geshe there are sixty five. But in reality, Geshe-la says there are many, many, many more than that. Okay? And then and then I ask, so how many main minds occur in within one finger’s snap?
And he says, don’t know. Cannot know. And it is so same. Water. So then giving you another analogy of of in respect to moments.
So then, for example, Geshe-la So Geshe-la is giving you another another illustration. For example, if you take one thousand pieces of paper, and then you with a gun, you you shoot you shoot them. So then and the bullets the bullet will will go through this one thousand pieces of paper. Okay? But so then you have one one one one one sound that’s emitted by the bullet.
And so even though it’s one short little sound, that bullet did not cross or perforated each piece of paper at the same time. It perforated at different moments. And it was just one. So then there’s a lot of things that consciousness, primary minds, consciousness in general is is just like this. Because also Geshe-la is saying because consciousness is unobstructed.
And then again, saying he thinks he thinks that in the same way, you will have so many consciousnesses when you when you shoot those one thousand pieces of paper. And then when you you pick up one, it’s one consciousness, pick up one, and and they go just as fast. So then, yeah, Geshe-la said that many many how do you say? Very much like this. So then one thousand or sixty five parts of a finger snap.
What what date is today? Fourteen. So then so then that consciousness that then, how to say, knows the date of fourteenth today, and it’s only it’s only one. I just don’t think I can I can keep I can keep going? Yeah, wants to stop.