Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute class, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a lively Socratic exchange — does your toe hurt, or do you hurt? — to draw students toward the technical question of personal identity. Working through the Collected Topics taxonomy, he completes the division of existents into form, consciousness, and non-associated compositional factors, distinguishing mind (which grasps only the rough entity) from mental factors (which supply detail), then addresses the puzzle of ignorance as a form of mistaken knowing. He surveys how three Buddhist schools — Sūtra, Mind Only, and Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka — each account for what takes rebirth: the mental consciousness, the storehouse consciousness, or the merely imputed I. The session closes with examples of non-personal compositional factors such as birth, impermanence, time, and number as designated states.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 21 CT 1988 05 03.mp3
UUID: eb0aca14-350e-48c3-bcd6-360bbafd9557
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Collected Topics (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-05-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~4,652
Where did we stop last time? Do you remember? Anybody? We talk about interest in this and explicit. Interest in this.
Where does this start? Yeah, so we completed consciousness. Yeah, did we? Has how many divisions? Existent
Clear. And what are they? Permanent phenomena and? Thing. Thing.
And thing has how many divisions? Three. And what are they? Non associated compositional factors. Form has how many divisions?
Eleven. Eleven. What are they? What are the eleven divisions that form? Five sense objects, that’s five.
Sound. Okay. The objects of the senses. The objects of the five That’s ten. And one for the mental consciousness.
That’s eleven. So That’s a pretty easy way to remember. Then there’s consciousness. How many divisions is consciousness there? That’s one.
We could divide it up that way. There’s no standard division of consciousness. We can divide it up into conceptual and non conceptual minds and mental factors mistaken, non mistaken. So there’s many different pairs, eliminative engagers, complete engagers. So in this chart they just happen to divide it up by way of mind and mental factors.
The next division is non associated compositional factors. Mind and mental factors, yes. Does anybody remember what the meaning of mind and mental factors are? Yeah, the divisions. The divisions?
Normally when you get to awareness and knowing, after you complete collected topics, then you go on to study awareness and knowing, where you would actually go into the study of mind. Collected topics is not going into, But like on the back, does it have? On the back? No, it’s not on the back. It’s on both sides.
I should have another one here. Yeah, here, okay. So the minds, we said there were six primary consciousnesses, but he calls them six consciousnesses. As I said, I don’t think that’s an accurate way to describe them. That term, he’s using ‘six consciousnesses’.
You could say visual primary consciousness, eye primary consciousness. You have to specify that these aren’t just eye consciousness in general but primary or main eye consciousness not eye consciousness in general. Eye consciousness in general could take in both the primary eye consciousness and all the secondary mental factors which are associated with That grouped together would be called an eye consciousness. Or it could be just simply when we talk about eye consciousness in general, the eye consciousness which perceives a pot. That’s not necessarily a main mind.
That’s not necessarily a mind. It is a consciousness. But it’s not a mind. It’s specifically talking about that part of knowing which takes in the entity, simply the entity, in a rough way. It doesn’t take in any details.
The mental factor is taking the details. So it’s just the mind which knows the table and then various mental factors associated with that main mind would know its color, its texture, and it would determine the various details that we know. But the mind in itself only knows the entity, the rough aspect of the object. You’re making a statement between mind and consciousness. Yeah, yeah.
Consciousness means clear knowing. Mind is specifically a type of consciousness which really takes the entity and knows it roughly. Like that just knows the table. It doesn’t know anything about the table. That’s the mind.
That’s the mind. I gave you a fairly rough definition of that. It has a finer definition but it’s not necessary to go into it at this time. But it’s just that aspect of consciousness which takes the entity and roughly knows it, not its details. And then it’s like the sun revolving around it.
Associated with it are mental factors Like which determine which object the mind goes to, which determine what aspects, what details the mind is going to engage in, what details it actually knows, which ones it doesn’t know. So it has this main mind which knows the rough object like the table and these associative mental factors which know that the table is brown, that the table is long, that it’s hard, all the details of the table. So just this rough aspect, this rough knower is what we mean when we say mind. So mind and consciousness are not synonyms. Mind is a division of consciousness, just as is done here.
Consciousness is divided into two, mind and mental factors. They’re not equal. They’re not synonyms, technically speaking. When we debate or read about it, if the book is being exact, they should never they talk about mind, talking about something more technical than they are just in general consciousness. Consciousness, a mental factor is a consciousness.
It’s something which is clear and knowing. Ignorance is clear and knowing. It’s a consciousness, yeah. Ignorance. In Tibetan the word for ignorance is literally translated as unknowing, not knowing.
So, Is not knowing knowing? Is not knowing knowing? What do you think? Is ignorance a consciousness? Is it a consciousness?
Is ignorance a consciousness? Then it’s therefore clear and knowing. Yeah? No, it’s not conscious. We’re not talking about whether it’s correct or incorrect, or whether it’s mistaken or not.
Just is it a consciousness? It’s a consciousness. Therefore it’s clear knowing. Is not knowing knowing? So if it’s a consciousness then it must be clear and knowing.
That’s the definition of consciousness. The question. Is ignorance a consciousness? Is ignorance knowing? Ignorance knowing?
Ignorance is not knowing. Yeah, that’s right. And why are they called ignorant? If it knows something, why do they call it ignorant? It’s not knowing, you know, knowledge.
Ignorance is a mental factor which prevents the mind from knowing its object correctly. It obstructs mind, it obstructs, obscures the object as it actually exists. The mind cannot, or the consciousness, cannot understand the object the way it actually is. It obstructs it. And therefore, even though it’s knowing in itself, it obstructs the mind from knowing its object.
So it’s an obstacle to knowing things as they actually are, even though it’s knowing in itself. Consciousness of knowing. Ignorance knows its object, but it obstructs other consciousness from knowing other objects. That is the nature. The definition of consciousness is that which is clear in knowing, that which is knowing.
Consciousness must know something. It only exists in relationship to knowing something. But it knows its object wrongly and also obstructs other consciousness from knowing their objects correctly. So it’s mistaken and obstructive. We can know something wrongly, can’t we?
Incorrectly. That’s the way of knowing. Incorrectly is the way of knowing. So it’s incorrectly knowing, but it’s still knowing. It just knows incorrectly.
It’s not like a stone. It’s not like matter, which doesn’t know at all. It knows, but knows incorrectly. So then the third division of thing is non associated compositional factors. So the definition of a non associated compositional factor is a compositional factor which is not associated.
No, no, I’m joking. Is a composition of factors which are neither form nor Compositional factors which are neither form nor consciousness. So what are compositional factors? These are factors which allow for the aggregation of causes and conditions. Compositional factors are factors which allow for the aggregation of causes and conditions.
They are said to be non associated because they are not conjoined with form or consciousness. They are said to be non associated because they are not associated or conjoined with form or consciousness. Compositional factors are factors that allow for the aggregation, the coming together of causes and conditions. And they’re non associated because they are not conjoined with form or consciousness. Therefore, are called non associated compositional factors.
As this chart says, there are two types. There are non associated compositional factors which are persons and non person compositional factors. What is a person? Anybody give a definition of a person? Being.
Okay, that’s a good thing. Do you understand a person by understanding a human being? Does that help you to understand what a person is? One thing about definitions is a reason or a definition must help you aid you in coming to an understanding of that which you’re trying to prove or the definiendum. That doesn’t help much, does it?
That’s actually not an actual definition. That wouldn’t be helpful, would That doesn’t help you understand what form is. It’s just a bunch of words put together. It hasn’t helped you. At this level, they leave it at that.
Does a human being help you understand what a person is? I think it does, doesn’t it? Yeah, it probably does. So a person is a human What can we point to as a human being? What example?
What can we point to? A mammal? A mammal with two legs. Is that a mammal with two legs? Everybody agree with that?
Kangaroo? Is kangaroos or mammals? Is that a mammal? I think they’re both. I must have peoples in mammal.
Pardon? Like Dale. Dale was a person. Generally, let’s try to work on a definition of person. What would be a definition of person?
Definition of person. Can I give a guess? Composition of consciousness. Pardon? Composition of consciousness.
Composition of consciousness. Is a person a consciousness? No matter what type. Is a person a consciousness? Are you your consciousness?
Or do you have a consciousness? Pardon? So there’s a part of you, there’s a part of Peter which is consciousness, and the other part is what? Which is the physical and which is the material? Peter.
He’s not allowed in consciousness, though. Is he consciousness? I think so. He’s consciousness. So, when he stubs his toe and he says, I’m in pain.
That’s a mistake. He’s not really. Is he not conscious? What, his toe? No, he says, I am in pain.
Is Peter and I the same thing? Is I person Peter? So is his toe consciousness? When he steps his toe, is Peter in pain? Might think that, yeah.
But he’s not? Is he not really in pain because his toe is in pain? Is Peter his toe? No. I think it’s a piece of it.
So it’s not consciousness? Peter is not consciousness because a toe is not a piece of consciousness? Or is it? Maybe Peter isn’t consciousness, but I don’t think he’s other than consciousness art. So you have if something is not consciousness Something has to be either consciousness or not consciousness.
But if he wasn’t consciousness, would he be paying it? Would what? I don’t think he’d be painless. If he wasn’t conscious? When he stubs his toe and he says, I’m hurt.
I’m in pain. If he’s consciously Is his toe in pain? Does his toe hurt or is he just killing himself? Is he making a mistake? I think it’s to do with knowers or something.
I don’t really know. But his toe doesn’t hurt? I think his nervous system, which is a consciousness, isn’t it? His nervous system consciousness? I think maybe he’s a little bit.
How about his toe? About his toe? Does his toe doesn’t really hurt? He’s making some kind of mistake when he says Well, toe doesn’t think that it hurts. No.
We’re not saying who’s deciding what hurt. We’re just saying the toe doesn’t hurt. That point is sad, too, maybe. How about when you say you’re sitting on that cushion? Are you sitting on that cushion?
Is your consciousness sitting on that cushion or is your body sitting on that cushion? I think my body is sitting on this cushion. So, but you’re not, because you’re not your body. I didn’t say that. Are you your consciousness or your body?
Said sitting on this cushion. And then you said your body because your body is negative? Yeah. Okay, so you’re your body? Sort of.
Are you your conscious Well, mean, don’t think my consciousness can sit anywhere. Okay. So you so Yeah? I think that my consciousness is always associated with my form, which is my body, and that’s why I kind of say I’m sitting on this cushion. But you’re not you kind of say that, but you really aren’t sitting.
Am. Why? Because you’re sitting. Because your body is sitting. Because my body is sitting.
Okay, so then itis reasonable to say Iim sitting on cushion. So is your body odd? The person, Dale? I think sometimes, maybe I think it is. And then other times, you know, sometimes I feel that it is.
And then other times I think it’s not. How about other I’m really quite confused about that concept. It’s difficult. Sometimes I feel that this body is moving. No, we’re not talking about how you feel.
What What is the actual case? You know, our feelings and the actual situation might be different. Well, don’t have the kind of insight I think that it takes to really know what is I mean, okay. They all can be either the body or the mind, or both the body and the mind, or one of the two, or neither. It’s part it.
Dale is the body and mind. Right? When you say both together, So when you say, My toe is hurt. Aren’t you talking about the body only? You’re not talking about the mind?
Because they coexist together, and I don’t think I can be separate. Then what do you mean when you say, My toe hurts. My toe. There’s an owner to that toe. We’re not talking about Who’s the my?
Who’s the owner of that toe? Does the body own the toe? The consciousness owns the body. The consciousness is the my, is the I who owns the body. Yeah?
So the body is not the I because it’s owned by the I. It’s controlled by the consciousness, controlled by the I. So the consciousness is the I. Why do you say, I’m hurt, when you stub your toe? Why do you say you’re sitting on the cushion?
Your consciousness Peter is consciousness. Can’t I see Peter? Have you ever seen Peter? If Peter is conscious, how could you see him? Can you see consciousness?
Can’t you see Peter? You can’t see him because he’s conscious. So it’s not just conscious. What else? Okay.
So we can talk about within the Sūtra School two types of I, not just one. We can talk about a substantially existing I and an imputedly existing I. Substantially existing I and an imputedly existing I. Generally when we talk person, I, self, they all mean the same thing. I, person, self.
They all mean the same thing. This imputedly existent I is, for example, a person which is designated in dependence upon the collection of the body and consciousness, upon form and consciousness. The person which is designated and dependent upon the collection of form and consciousness. Another way of saying the same thing. The being designated to either of the five aggregates.
In this sense, this I would say, imputedly existent person, not substantially existent, imputedly, it’s merely designated to this mind and body. I designate jampa, monk, I, self, speaker. This is merely being designated, imputed, labeled onto mind and body, a specific mind and body. So whatever happens to this mind and body, because it’s the basis of designation, the basis of imputation, we can say that is happening to that which is being designated or the label, that which is being labeled. So, anything that happens to my mind or to my body, can say is happening to Jampa.
I can say Jampa is sitting on this cushion because the basis of the designation, the body, is sitting on the cushion. I can say Jampa is happy because the basis of designation, the consciousness is happy. Whatever happens to the basis of designation, whatever states might arise, they can be associated with that which is designated to the basis. So the basis of designation is mind and body. Whatever that mind and body undergoes, we can say that which is designated to these bases undergoes the same states.
For example, sitting on the cushion. Because my body is sitting on the cushion, my body is the basis of designation of Jampa. I can say Jampa is sitting on the cushion. I can say Jampa is happy because the basis of designation, the mind or the consciousness is happy. But Jampa is not the mind and body.
He’s only imputed, designated, labeled to the mind and body. So that is the imputedly existent I, self, person. That’s Sūtra School. This is in Sūtra School. Now in Sūtra School they say there is a substantially existent I.
Now if something substantially exists, upon analysis we should be able to find it. In the case of imputed existence, upon analysis we don’t find it. If you look for japa amongst the basis of a designation, what is the basis of the designation? The mind and body or the consciousness and body? If you look, you’re not going to find them.
Anywhere you look in the mind, within the consciousness, you’re not going to find jampa. Anywhere you look within the body, you’re not going to find jampa. You’re not going to find an imputedly existent jampa within its basis of designation, within its basis of imputation. It’s merely being labeled. It does not substantially exist.
It merely imputedly exists. But within the Sūtra School, specifically the Sūtra School, they say there is a substantially existent self, and that is the mental consciousness. It’s the substantially existent self because if you look for it you’re going to find it. You’re going to find a mental consciousness when you look for the substantially existent I or self. So why do they call this an I or a self?
Why do they have to make this distinction? Because this is what is going to go on to take rebirth. If the I so they have to say in all the various schools, they all accept rebirth, that something goes on to a future life. So the I, the self goes on to a future life. Well, they always have to find out, posit something which is going to go on to a future life.
So in the Sūtra School, they say the mental consciousness goes on to a future life. This is what takes rebirth. Therefore, they say this is the I, this is the self. Substantially it’s just the moment that takes rebirth. Yeah, it is the mental consciousness because it is the mental consciousness which they say goes on to take rebirth.
You have to say that I continues after death. A self continues after death. So what is this nature of this I or this self? In the Sūtra School, this I is the mental consciousness. The mental consciousness is the I, the self.
Like in the mind only school, they would say that the mind basis of all mind basis of all, this storehouse where all the various latencies are stored or imprinted. It’s called the mind basis of all, the alaya vijnana, and this is what goes on to future lives. And there’s the mind only school. Everything arises out of this mind basis of all. This is where all the seeds from all our past action are stored and when these seeds are activated then consciousness and object arise both together at the same time.
So everything is in the nature of mind. How does it differ from mental consciousness? In mind only school they posit eight primary consciousnesses. The six that we have here plus what is called afflicted mentality and mind basis of all. So, they posit eight.
Mental consciousness involves thinking, conceptual understanding, acts, it can know objects. Whereas this mind basis of all does not involve any of these processes. From the mind bases of all, it’s like a collection of seeds or latencies. When these are activated, you get two sides of a coin. So consciousness will arise and the form, which is the object of the eye consciousness.
They both come from the same seed. So you get eye consciousness which perceives, say, a table. This table and the eye consciousness, the image, the color, the shape of the table, and the eye consciousness observing the table both arise from the same seat. And the seats are stored in this mind basis of all. So everything is said to be mind only.
There’s nothing external to the mind. You must say the ground of being. Ground of being. Everything that comes out of this is the mind basis of all. It’s the basis of all.
And then in the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school, they say that the mere I is what takes rebirth. The mere I. Mere eye means the eye which is merely imputed to the subtle consciousness. Now, there’s a subtle consciousness that goes on from beginningless time and will continue unendingly. But the subtle consciousness becomes associated.
I think we talked about it one time, it’s always associated with some subtle energy. And the subtle energy becomes associated with a grosser type of energy, which we call body. So you have this continuum of subtle energy which becomes associated with a cat body. And then the cat form abides for a while, disintegrates and the subtle consciousness moves on, becomes associated with a person’s gross energy pattern, abides for a while. The karmic strength in order to maintain that particular pattern weakens, it disintegrates, that subtle consciousness goes on.
So it’s associating over periods of endless time with all these various patterns of energy in their bodies. So the I is being imputed to this combination of these various bodies and this subtle consciousness. This I is constantly being imputed, this mere I. So you have an eye which takes rebirth as a dog, an eye which takes rebirth as a person as a cat. But it’s not the consciousness itself. It is this combination.
So this mere eye has existed from the beginning of this time and will exist endlessly. But it’s always undergoing transformations. But this mere I is constant, but its basis of designation is constantly changing. Different bodies, different conscious awarenesses. What is being designated to is constantly changing, but there’s this continual stream of mere I from beginningless time which is just being imputed to its changing basis of designation.
So this is the idea in Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school. That the mere I. It’s just eye, yeah. Just eye, mere eye, only There’s not something like this. It’s only that imputation.
That’s all that takes rebirth. This I which is merely imputed is not something other than that. We are just mere I’s. This word mirror, now we can maybe go into that. The word ‘mere’ is used to eliminate inherently existent.
There’s nothing there from its own side inherently, which is the I. It’s merely imputed. It’s merely being designated. It’s merely being labeled that. There’s nothing inherent in an object which makes it an I.
It’s merely being imputed, just only being imputed. That’s used to negate conception. It is the label which is merely being conceived. Conception is something which is of the mind. You aren’t a conception, but my mind, but you are dependent upon my conception.
But what transfers from life to life? Is this merely imputed I. It’s like a concept. They can’t quite say it’s a concept because you are not a concept and you are an I. But if they’re in between bodies, then there is an in between basis of designation.
Since there’s always subtle consciousness and subtle energy, there’s always a basis of designation. Even intermediate state, there’s always a basis of designation. It’s just that it’s not a gross basis of designation. A very subtle one. This serves as the basis of designation, but it’s not the person.
The person is merely labeled to that. This accounts for the continuous existence of an I, which is constantly changing. So I can’t exist apart from the basis of this designation? I cannot. No.
It’s dependent upon bases. If you take away bases, you take away the imputation. You take away the eye. You take away the five aggregates or the mind and body, then you take away the person. So it’s yeah?
If this mere I is designated onto subtle consciousness, then if the mere I is what takes rebirth, then the subtle consciousness must take rebirth as well. You have subtle consciousness within your continuum right now. You have subtle consciousness. You said that they say that only the eye is the thing that takes rebirth. The mere I is that which takes rebirth.
Yeah. But the subtle consciousness must take rebirth too You wouldn’t say that the subtle consciousness takes rebirth. It wouldn’t quite mix. You could say the subtle consciousness becomes gross due to a karmic pattern and then takes on a pigmentality or something like that. The subtle energy becomes gross and takes on a pig body because it’s associated with a pig energy pattern.
But it’s the mere I which is taking on this rebirth. The I which is taking on. The consciousness and the body are not the agents. It’s the mere I. You say mere eye.
Mere eye is always being labeled onto whatever types of body, whatever types of mind are invasive. Sometimes they’re subtle, sometimes they’re gross, sometimes they’re pig bodies, pig mind, sometimes human mind, human bodies. But this mere I is that which is continually being It’s an effect. It’s not mind and body. It’s being labeled to mind and body.
In the same way, I used the example of the pen, you’ve probably seen that before, to show that the pen is merely being labeled. Anyway, so that’s person Truly existent. In Sūtra School things are truly existent; that is, a mark of something which is truly existent is that they’re findable upon analysis. When we analyze, we should be able to find them. So in the Sūtra school, they have to posit two different types of self.
One is imputedly existent and the other is substantially existent. Upon analysis we’re going to find the self that is the mental consciousness. That is the findable self because it substantially exists. That is the person non-associated compositional factor: the person, I, self. The second division is non personal compositional factors.
This is simply a list of twenty three factors. I’m just going to give you a few examples. General, non-person compositional factors are said to be designated states. These are various states to which we designate, which we apply some term that we label onto. For example, now I’m just going give some examples of these twenty three designated states.
Birth, aging, duration, and impermanence. These are designations to states of characteristics of things. The state is the characteristics of things, and these are merely designations. Birth is a designation to a particular characteristic of things: aging, duration, impermanence, are designations to states of characteristics of things. Like the characteristic of this table is impermanent.
Impermanence is a characteristic of this table. So to that state of impermanence, that state of impermanence is a non associated compositional factor. It is designation of a state, impermanence, the momentariness of the table, the momentariness of it. Maybe it will become clearer. A few more examples.
There are groups of words, groups of letters, groups of words, groups of letters. These are designations to various states of verbal conventions. The actual group of words and groups of letters are designation to states of verbal conventions. Then there’s time as a designation to past, present and future. Time is a designation to a state of past, present, and future.
Number is a designation to a condition of measure. Number is a designation to a condition of measure.