Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 51-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche opens with the image of mind as water — neutral until sweetened or poisoned by whatever it associates with — to explain why studying awareness and knowledge is central to Dharma practice. He then draws on Maitreya’s Sublime Continuum to distinguish mind from mental factors: mind knows the rough entity of an object (the bare flower), while mental factors apprehend its particular qualities. Introducing the six main perceivers, he uses an office analogy — each perceiver as department head accompanied by five omnipresent mental factors — and walks through the five similarities linking a perceiver to its attendants: shared object, aspect, time, basis, and substantial entity. He closes by defining feeling, the first omnipresent factor, as the experiencer of karmic results — the pleasure, displeasure, or indifference present in every moment of perception.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 AK 1988-11-24.mp3
UUID: 69eb4b7f-1237-405d-9ea5-30440ef5ed60
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Awareness and Knowledge 1988-1989 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1988-11-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 51.2 minutes
Words: ~2,503
So we should it’s necessary that we adjust our motivation developing the kind heart, which seeks to attain complete, perfect, pure enlightenment in order to establish all sentient beings in peace and happiness. So the various divisions of awareness and knowledge into division of seven and three and into two. Now we’re going through the way of dividing by way of two. So all the various awarenesses, knowers that we’ve discussed up to this point, all the seven, threes, and division by way of two, are all included in this division where we’re dividing into minds and mental factors. There is nothing that when we talk about these minds and mental factors, there’s no types of minds and awarenesses, knowers, which lie outside of this division of minds and mental factors.
So, you know, we’re just picking roughly, that is to say, when we talk about mind, we’re talking about those objects which possess a life force. You know, for example, people and sentient beings. Things like, rocks and trees, these do not possess life force, therefore they do not possess mind. So, you know, there are some outsiders, that is to say non-Buddhist schools which which posit that certain types of trees, for example, have a life force, therefore they have mind. They give the reason that when there are some trees when the sun rises, leaves open up.
And then as the sun goes down, at night the leaves close-up. And likewise, lotuses, in the morning when the sun rises, the petals unfold. And and then in the evening they close back up, and and they say this is a sign that that that this these have life force. So just in general, we can we talk about the fact of the mind and body. The the mind and body are different.
They’re individual. For example, the body does not have the capacity to carry on thinking process. You know, whether it’s the arm or the legs, they do not have that capacity. They’re unable to perform that function. They exist in relationship to one another, but they’re distinct entities.
And therefore, at the time of death, when the body deteriorates and dies, it does not necessarily follow that the mind also deteriorates and dies, that in fact, the mind continues on. The binding force which holds the body and mind together is karmic force, is our karmic relationship between the mind and body. When this karmic relationship is exhausted, there is no longer the capacity to maintain this relationship of mind and body. The body deteriorates and dies, but the mind continues on. So the mind the mind is a a very strange phenomena.
In there, sometimes it is expansive as space. Other times it can be concentrated down to a very small confine. We can’t we’re not able to grab hold of it. We’re not able we’re not able to see it. And mind has a dynamic quality.
You know, the it can be just like steering a car. You can steer the car to the left or the right. Likewise, by training well, through a positive thought process, we can develop a mind which is a very positive states of mind, extremely positive. On the other hand, through negative types of training, it can go down and become an extremely negative type of mind. So the mind can be steered in any direction.
It can be led in various directions. Yes. And so the there are the various teachings of the Buddha in which it’s said that they’re set forth in a hundred volumes. And then the commentaries which were written about these discourses by the various, highly realized beings of India. And they’re said to be between two hundred to three hundred volumes, making up the commentaries.
These are all, all these texts, all these volumes of teachings are simply to help us develop our mind, to train our mind. They’re simply methods and means by which to realize the potential of the mind. This is what we mean by in realizing the potential of the mind, we’re talking about the practice of Dharma. If we don’t make use of these, if our mind isn’t developing, isn’t growing in its potential, then we aren’t practicing the Dharma. So the, you know, our mind is something like water.
It can be compared to water. If we add a little bit of sugar to the water, the water becomes sweet. And from this we can get pleasure. If we like sugar water, sweet water, we can enjoy the sweet water. Likewise, if we put poison in it, then the water becomes a poisonous water, and it has the quality of being able to bring sickness, suffering, and perhaps death.
So the mind has this quality of whatever is associated with, it is led in that direction. It’s associated with positive factors, the mind becomes positive and brings happiness. If it’s associated with negative factors, then it becomes negative and it brings us suffering. So the purpose of practicing studying the Dharma is to develop our mind. And therefore, it’s imperative that we understand our mind.
And therefore, in coming to an understanding of the mind, we are studying awareness and knowledge, understanding all the various characteristics of mind. So, in a text by Maitreya, they’re called the Sublime Continuum. He sets forth the rough meaning of the difference between what we call mind and what we are calling mental factors. If we take a flower as the basis of illustration, when we just simply see the entity of the flower, we see it roughly. We just know the entity of flower.
That which knows the rough entity of flower. That is the mind. That’s the function of mind. That which is able to know the particular qualities of that entity, such as, you know, the various petals, the color of the petals, its arrangement of the petals, then this is what we mean by a mental factor. Knowing the particular qualities of the object, whereas that’s a mental factor.
Mind knows only the rough entity of its object. So we can say that in understanding an object, minds understand the rough entity of the object, and mental factors understand the particular qualities of that entity. So the definition, what we gave is just a rough meaning of mind and mental factor. The actual definition of mind is that which has similarity with the mental factors that arise as its accompaniers. That which has similarity with the mental factors that arise as its accompaniers.
So there’s, in the discussion here, there are three terms which are used synonymously. And those three terms are mind, sentience, and perceiver. Mind, sentience, and perceiver are synonymous. You know, just as if, you know, we use the word flower, and in Tibetan they say for the same thing. So and flower are synonymous.
They mean the same thing. So these, all three of these mean the same thing. And then the definition of mental factor is that which has similarity with the mind, that has it as an accompanier. That which has similarity with the mind that has it as an accompanier is the definition of mental factor. So, there were three synonymous terms: mind, sentience, and perceiver.
And when we just talk about perceivers, sometimes this is simply translated as main mind. There are six. Six main minds, six perceivers. Six minds. Main mind and mind, same thing.
So there are six principle perceivers. There’s the eye perceiver, nose perceiver, I’ll give it, eye perceiver, ear perceiver, nose perceiver, tongue perceiver, body perceiver, mental perceiver. Six perceivers. So if we think of the, we take as an example the eye, and in this sense the eye is like an office, And the head of this office is the eye perceiver. And the eye perceiver has, five assistants to help carry out its function.
And each of these offices also, whether it’s the ear office or nose office, they each have the head person in the office, the ear chief, and his five, her or her five assistants. But the highest office, the main office is the mental perceiver the mental office. So if we take Within a particular office, there’s the chief of the office, which is the perceiver. Then around this in this office there are five assistants. So in the case of the eye office, there’s the eye perceiver.
And there is the five assistants, that is the five omnipresent factors. The five omnipresent factors. And these five omnipresent factors are, feeling, discrimination, intention, mental engagement, and contact. Feeling, discrimination, intention, mental engagement, and contact. These are the five assistants to the eye perceiver.
So we have the head of the office the five assistants. In the case of the eye, the eye perceiver. Now the eye perceiver and the accompanying five mental factors have five similarities, five similarities. The eye perceiver and the five accompanying mental factors and all the mental factors, the eye perceiver and the various mental factors. The accompanying mental factors have a similarity in five ways or five similarities.
The first one is similarity in object, similarity as to object. That is to say, if the eye perceiver is observing a flower, then all the accompanying mental factors are observing that same object, a flower. So it is similar by way of object. That’s the first similarity. Nice.
So then so this first, is the similarity of object is as if we were all watching a movie. And if one person is watching that movie and everyone is watching that same movie, they all have the same object of engagement. They all have the same object of observation. They all have the same object. They’re all similar with respect to their object.
We call this similarity of object. They are watching the movie. Same movie. Then the second similarity is similarity of aspect. This would be what appears to the perceiver and the accompanying mental factors is the same, has the same appearance.
The eye perceiver perceiving a flower, its accompanying mental factors, there appears to the eye perceiver, a flower, and there also appears to the accompanying mental factors a flower. So the same as to aspect, similarity of aspect. Then there’s the third similarity as to time. And this would be that when the perceiver is produced, its accompanying mental factors are produced simultaneously. When the eye perceiver perceiving the flower is produced, its accompanying mental factors are simultaneously produced.
So when the head of the office arrives at nine o’clock in the morning, everybody else arrives right on time with them. Then the third or the fourth is similarity of basis. Similarity of basis. The basis in the production of a consciousness is the empowering condition. So they have the same empowering condition.
If take the example of the eye perceiver, its empowering condition is the eye sense faculty. The eye sense faculty empowers it. This is its basis for production. Likewise, the accompanying mental factors, the eye perceiver and the mental factors which accompany an eye perceiver have as their basis an eye sense faculty. This is also their empowering condition, so they have this similarity of basis.
Yes. So then the fifth is similarity of substantial entity, similarity of substantial entity. And in an office, not everybody has to know how to be a secretary. One person is the secretary, another each individual has their functions. So with respect to the offices, the eye office, then there’s only one mental factor which has the function of feeling.
The accompanying mental factors, there’s one that has the function of feeling. There’s not two feeling mental factors simultaneously occurring with one accompanying one eye perceiver. There’s only one feeling assistant in his office. There’s only one discrimination. There’s only one contact.
There’s only one intention. So there’s not two. You would not have two feelings occurring simultaneously in one office, in accompanying one perceiver, for example. So this is the similarity by way of substantial entity. So in a small office, they just need one secretary.
So as to the total number of mental factors, there’s different systems. There’s the system of Vasubandhu, in which he lists forty six mental factors. In the system of Asaṇga, he lists fifty one. And so here we’ll be following the system of Asaṇga, where he lists fifty one mental factors. So we’ll begin with the first five, which we’ve already listed.
That was the five omnipresent factors: feeling, discrimination, intention, mental engagement, and contact. So the first mental factor of the five omnipresent factors is the mental factor of feeling. So there’s the feeling, for example, we take the eye perceiver and the accompanying feeling. The eye perceiver and the accompanying feeling. The definition of feeling, the definition of feeling is the knower of the experience, a knower of the experience.
Now what does the feeling actually experience? What does it know? It knows the result of negative and positive and neutral karmas. It experiences the results of negative karmas, which is, that is to say, it experiences displeasure. It experiences the result of positive karmas, that is to say, it experiences pleasure.
And it experiences the result of karmas which are neither positive nor negative, that it experiences a neutral feeling. Therefore, feeling is the experience of the results of karma. It experiences either neutral feelings, pleasurable or unpleasurable. And it’s and this definition is the knower of the experience. So we’re always experiencing directly what we mean by feeling.
If we eat delicious food, we experience pleasure, which is experiencing the pleasure is the feeling mental factor. If we eat if we go out in the sun and get sunburnt, we experience displeasure. If we work very hard, we get tired and we experience displeasure. If we rest after that, then we experience pleasure. The experience here is this feeling.
So within the various experiences within our body and mind, when we have a pleasurable experience, and that’s a pleasurable feeling. It’s a displeasurable experience. It’s a displeasurable feeling. And then when they’re when it’s neither pleasurable or displeasurable, we have a feeling of indifference. So, you know, at the time that we look at a flower, for example, there is the eye consciousness, and within that eye consciousness there is the accompanying mental factor of feeling.
So if we experience, if we think, Wow, that’s a nice flower, that’s a beautiful flower, then the feeling mental factor is experiencing pleasure at that moment. Likewise, when we see an object that we don’t like, there’s the thought to turn away, to not look at that object. And at that moment, there’s the mental factor occurring of displeasure, the feeling of displeasure. So at those times when we’re, you know, just looking around, we observe, neutral objects, neither good nor bad, then we have a feeling we experience a feeling of indifference toward that object.