Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of the mind as crystal-clear water — poisoned by afflictive emotions, enriched to sweetness by positive ones — gives this 50-minute commentary by Khensur Rinpoche its distinctive shape. The session completes his survey of the twenty secondary negative mental factors, walking through lethargy, excitement, non-faith, laziness, non-conscientiousness, forgetfulness, non-introspection, and distraction, explaining each as the direct opposite of a positive quality covered earlier in the series. Rinpoche then draws on the water image to argue for a practical, examination-based approach: recognising negative states as they arise, applying antidotes, and — invoking Geshe Ben Kungken’s method of counting positive and negative mental moments in meditation — gradually shifting the balance toward positive states.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 36 AK 1989-03-16.mp3
UUID: c5bd97a6-d97f-43f8-a556-9424117a0d2a
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Awareness and Knowledge 1988-1989 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1989-03-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.9 minutes
Words: ~2,251
So the the next negative, secondary mental factor is lethargy lethargy. When we were discussing in the other class the means of developing calm abiding, Samādhi, the quality of lethargy was discussed. This is a dullness of the mind such that the object of observation is unclear and there is a heaviness of the body. This is similar to the onset of sleep. Eventually, this will degenerate into sleep itself.
So there is an unserviceability of the mind and body, a heaviness, and a darkness. This is the secondary mental factor of lethargy. So this factor of lethargy causes the mind to become unclear and the body to become heavy. And finally it degenerates into full sleep. Actually falls asleep.
And the next negative mental factor, secondary mental factor is excitement. And this is the the scattering of the mind outside to objects of desire due to attachment. That the mind is unable to abide, remain on its object of observation, but is scattered outside to a desirable object due to attachment. So, by way of example, that, you know, we go downtown. We see all the beautiful things in the window.
But we don’t have any money so we end up we can’t buy anything. And we come back to our room. Then we go to try to meditate. But due to attachment toward all those desirable objects that we saw previously that our mind is continually scattered to those objects that desire outside and we continually losing the object of our meditation. So the next negative, second to afflictive mental factor is non faith.
And previously in discussing positive mental factors, discussed the opposite of that which is faith. And this faith is a clarity of mind with respect to a positive object which has conviction as to the positive quality of that object. Clarity in the sense of there’s a absence of afflictive emotions that is a confusion within the mind. There is a clarity with respect to the mind, with respect to the object. In the case of the opposite of that non faith, there is an unclarity with respect to positive objects and there is a lack of conviction or belief with respect to that object such as Buddha, Dharma and the Sangha the Three Jewels that the operation of the law of cause and effect that from negative actions arises suffering and from positive actions arises happiness.
That there’s a unclarity with respect to those objects and a lack of conviction with respect to those objects. So previously when we discussed the eleven positive mental factors, the opposite of those, the reverse of those, are afflictive emotions. So the what is it? The sixteenth negative mental factor is laziness. Previously, we discussed the positive mental factor of effort.
Laziness is the opposite of effort. And effort was the taking pleasure in positive activities. It’s the enthusiasm or taking pleasure in virtue or positive activities. So this is the opposite of that. A lack of enthusiasm toward making effort.
We can lack of enthusiasm in pursuing positive activities. So the mental factor of laziness is produced from, rises in dependence upon, ignorance. And, it is a, as was said, it’s a lack of enthusiasm for engaging in positive activities. One actually withdraws from positive activities and becomes, don’t know. Spaced out.
Either either what would you say? When you don’t want to do it, you just kind of sit. Passive. Yeah, maybe that’s great. Apathetic.
Apathetic and or just something goes to sleep when it comes to pursuing any type of positive activities. On the other hand, has willingly engaged, enthusiastically engaged in negative types of activities. So the seventeenth mental negative mental factor is non conscientiousness. And this was the opposite of the positive mental factor of conscientiousness. So when we talked about conscientiousness, this was the mental factor which disallows us, which does not allow us to engage in contaminated actions, but on the contrary, pursues positive types of actions and to increase productive states of mind.
What was meant by consciousness. Now the opposite of that, non-conscientiousness, would be the mental factor which seeks to engage in contaminated actions and in general promoting afflicted states of mind. And an unwillingness to engage in positive activities or produce or seeking to promote positive states of mind. Eighteenth negative afflictive emotion, afflicted state, manifested, is forgetfulness. Previously, we discussed the positive mental factor of mindfulness.
And this was the mental factor which was able to hold the object in such a way to not allow forgetfulness, of the object. You know, for example, if we were to meditate on emptiness, then upon meditating on emptiness, we would be mindfulness would hold the object emptiness and would not allow it to be forgotten. That would not allow it to become unclear and to be lost. Whereas forgetfulness is the exact opposite of mindfulness. It arises together with an afflictive emotion and causes the unclarity of the object such that the mind no longer holds, is no longer able to hold the object, and the object is forgotten.
So are these difficult? Only two more to go. So the nineteenth is non introspection. Another translation is non awareness. So we also discussed the opposite of that.
Positive mental factor of awareness or introspection. This was the factor which examines our body, speech and mind. When we discussed it in terms of calm abiding, it was that which investigated the quality of the mind, the way the mind was operating and holding its object. So it has the introspection, has the quality of examining. So we were discussing the factor of introspection in In the discussion of calm abiding, when we brought up the, talked about the factor of introspection.
This was likened to a spy, which inspected and examined the nature, the quality of the mind to see whether the, it was engaged in, whether the hindrances of laxity or excitement were present. Examining the quality of the mind. So again, the introspection is like investigating whether the mind is in a negative state or a positive state. The quality of the mind. So the opposite of this is the afflicted factor, mental factor of non introspection.
This is the quality of engaging in actions of body, speech, mind in a non-examined engaging of actions of body, speech, mind accompanied with afflicted intelligence or afflicted wisdom. Or another translation for wisdom could, in this case, could be intelligence. So the twentieth negative mental factor is distraction. The opposite of this in positive terms would be meditative stabilization, which is mindedly abiding upon the object of observation. So in this case, when we talk about this, the opposite of meditative stabilization, it would be distraction.
And this is the factor which causes the inability, a secondary mental factor which may be produced by any of the three root afflictions of attachment, hatred, or ignorance, which causes the inability to remain on the object of observation. And causes one to not be able to remain on the object of observation, but in fact to be scattered away, to not remain, but to be scattered. And this is an obstacle to liberation. So this acts as an obstacle to liberation. So this is the opposite of meditative stabilization.
So we’ve, you know, very roughly explained the twenty secondary negative mental factors. So whenever any one of these twenty negative mental factors arises, there is no happiness within the mind. The peace of the mind is disturbed, and it is an mentality, an afflicted mind. So these The mind in its natural state is like clear water. We can imagine to be with the clarity of pure crystal clear drinking water.
And when these afflictive emotions arise, it is as if we put poison in our drinking water and we aren’t able to drink it. The water becomes useless. It’s it’s polluted, and and if we were to drink it, it would make us sick. Then on the other hand, the mind being in a natural state like clear water, if we were to add to that clear water some delicious tasting fruit concentrate such as apple apple juice, orange juice, then it would be very delicious. So I like tea, so I I put tea and milk and sugar in it.
This is the quality of which occurs between the positive and negative states being generated within the mind in this crystal clear water. When it’s a positive state arises, the mind as a whole becomes very useful. It becomes very productive. Whereas on the other hand, when negative state is generated, it becomes as if poison and it it causes this harm. So in the practice of Dharma, the desire work to seek to separate out and not to allow our mind to mix with the negative states.
Just as in the case of taking poison, that immediately if we were not to take any remedial action, we would get sick and it would cause us a great harm. But upon realizing that we have some poison in our system, to take some type of antidote or medicine. Likewise, you know, we shouldn’t be, know, definitely that negative states are going to arise in our mind. There’s nothing very surprising about that. We have been habituated to negative states from the beginning of this time, so they’re naturally going to arise.
But we can, upon the aggregation of various causes and conditions, negative states are going to arise. But we should be able to immediately identify them as negative and apply an appropriate antidote as if we were taking medicine. Australia and America perhaps don’t have as much problem with water pollution as does, say, India, for example. In India, most of the water is quite dirty. But we can take that water, that polluted water, and recycle it.
We can get it through a we can run it through a what do you say? A pollution plant? Pollution plant filter, and we can apply different chemicals and remove the impurities, the pollutants from the water, and then it becomes drinkable water. And this though I’ve never seen this myself, this is what people say that even though the water might be undrinkable, it might be polluted, that we can through chemical means that we can through recycling it, we can remove all the impurities, the pollutants, to the point where it’s drinkable again. And this is what we can do with our mind.
We can remove the various pollutants, whereby the mind will no longer cause us any harm. So we should proceed in our practice in the same manner as proceeded. And that is through examination of the state of our mind beginning in the application of antidotes when we see that it’s negative. You know, for example, when we meditate, it’s you know, some of us have to do various types of recitations each day or that we in our meditations in general, it’s different that the various afflictive emotions are going to arise during our meditation that we sit down to meditate and immediately our mind is distracted due to the force of attachment. And if we are aware, if we practice the examination, always investigating what our mind is involved in, the quality of our mind, whether it’s negative or positive or neutral, we’re probably going to find that we have very few positive thoughts states during our meditation.
They’re mostly either neutral or in fact negative. But if we’re willing to identify them through examination and then to apply antidotes, then we can begin to decrease the power of these the frequency of these negative states. If, for example, we were to count up as Geshe Ben Kungken did in the course of our meditation the number of positive and the number of negative, perhaps we have a hundred moments of afflictive emotions arising and ten positive states arising. So one day that we apply an antidote, and the next day we have ninety nine afflictive emotions and we have eleven positive states. The next day, ninety eight negatives and twelve positives.
And therefore, we can see that eventually through the decrease of negative states and increase of the positive states that our mind can become more and more inclined to the positive qualities, can be involved in positive states more and more until it can be excluded and pacified all negative states. So this is the way we can progress. We can develop our mind. It’s not going to happen all at once. It’s going to be a gradual process.
It would be extremely difficult to think that it’s going to happen all at once. But we can begin by understanding, recognizing afflictive emotions when they are generated, seeking to apply an antidote, trying to eliminate them from our mind. And this is the way that we can progress in our practice. If we if we, on the other hand, we were to simply not make use of this of this practice of examining investigation. And we just forget it.
We don’t make use of it. And we simply allow our mind to continue in the same course that it has proceeded up till now, then of course nothing’s going to change. We’re going to become involved in afflictive emotions, creating, engaging in karma, and in this way perpetuating cyclic existence.