Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 109-minute course opener, Ven Jampa Ignyen frames eight weeks around one central question: What is the mind? He argues understanding the mind matters more than acquiring wealth, because our welfare depends on grasping how feelings arise and how mental states shape our circumstances. Contrasting the introspective Buddhist approach with Western psychology’s external focus, he covers saṃsāra rooted in karma and three mental afflictions (attachment, anger, ignorance); the structure of the person; the distinction between consciousness and the mental factors (feeling, discrimination, intention) that create experience; and the law of cause and effect applied internally—virtue produces happiness, non-virtue suffering. The classical Tibetan Buddhist text Minds and Mental Factors by Yongzin Yeshe Gyaltsen serves as the course guide.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2012 10 16 01 – Jampa Ignyen 20121016 Mind & Cognition161012.mp3
UUID: 5046695c-be7d-46cf-920f-b9baf827d38a
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Mind & Cognition (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2012-10-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 109.5 minutes
Words: ~11,284
Refuge in bodhicitta prayer. About halfway down page number four. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the supreme assembly.
By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. Right. So that’s just a brief prayer at the beginning just to set our motivation.
Setting our motivation just to make our mind a little bit more virtuous or in fact to examine the mind and see where it is and if possible the mind is non virtuous to bring it to a neutral state and then from a neutral state to bring it to a positive state is very important. The state of our mind is extremely important and this is the topic of this particular course which is called mind and cognition. And in fact it deals with the essential issue of the individual, of the person and in fact the Buddha himself taught primarily about the mind itself. And most of his teachings are to do with just how we develop an understanding of the mind. What the mind is.
Posing the question what is the mind? What is our experience? What is the individual? What are the key elements of the individual? Who are we as individuals?
Just how important is our experience to us? Where does our experience come from? In other words, where do our feelings come from? What is wisdom? What’s love?
What is compassion? What are the reasons for generating these? Is there something called enlightenment? If it if it does exist, what is it? Where did we come from prior to this life?
And what are the possibilities in the future for us? So all of these questions really relate to the mind itself. And so this topic on mind and cognition is really relevant, really important and it’s something that you know we’re always coming back to. These are issues that we’re always running into bumping our nose up against and so forth. So bottom lying is that we need to come to an understanding of what the mind is.
Now of course we have Western psychology which is wonderful and there’s so many advances, so many developments that are going on in Western psychology and it’s very important and useful for us to be aware of these because they also bring light onto this inner state of the mind that we have. Now in a way supplementing this is the Buddhist view of the mind. The Buddhist view of the mind has arisen really through a process of internal introspection on what the nature of the mind is. Modern psychology at present is more looking at what the function of the brain and so forth behavior externally examined and so forth. These two different ways of looking at the mind can come together and to give us a very useful working understanding of the mind.
So why do we need to understand the mind? This we have to really examine all the time. Why do we need to understand what the mind is? Really, one of the reasons one of the central reasons is the feelings. And the feelings are part of the mind, aren’t they?
Feelings are the very experience of the mind itself. Feelings are the way that we engage objects, the the way we taste objects, the way we experience the world around us. So just how feelings arise, what are the causes and conditions giving rise to them, is extremely important. And that’s one one area within Buddhism that is extremely difficult to understand. It’s not something that we will come to an easy instant knowledge of.
But gradually it’s possible to understand our feelings understand where they’re coming from, how they’re generated. And in understanding this we in a sense we gain more control over our lives and our situation and we’re not buffeted, we’re not we gain more independence. We gain control over our feelings. If we could put it that way. Right!
Now I just want to say at the beginning of the course that really please feel free to bring up any issues that come up and go through anything that you want to speak about at any time. I’m more used to this sort of approach because for instance I studied at Sera Monastery for many years and the main way of study was through debate and dialectic. And this is a wonderful method of study because we can raise our doubts at any time or challenge what’s being said. This is important because each of us has our own particular ways of looking at things, own particular doubts, our own particular insights as well. And it’s always useful to combine together the insights of a group so that in fact everyone is benefited.
So I welcome anyone to bring up any issues that come along as they come up. Also we’ll have room for discussion at the end of the sessions. So we’re going to have eight sessions over four weeks dealing with the topic of the nature of the mind minds and mental factors and this also forms part of the what’s called the BSP that is offered in FBMT centers. So for that reason there’s also going to be tests given on the subject matter as we go through it And everyone is free either to take the test if they so feel or not to if they so feel. So this is up to each individual to do that.
There’s no no absolute no coercion here. You don’t have to sit the test if you you don’t want to. The benefit of doing the test is that it helps us to revise the material. And doing tests it’s very good because it brings to mind these issues and makes them think makes ourselves think critically about them. And thinking critically about them is the way that we develop insight and understanding about these issues.
Because in the end, we need to understand what our mind is. Everything hinges on our mind. If in fact the mind only lasts for this one life, then we don’t have to worry too much about the future. If the mind doesn’t end at the end of this life, then we have to think about what is this mind that continues? How do we how do we make it as good as we can?
How do we benefit ourselves through understanding what the mind is? Yeah. Four. Yep. Feeling discrimination, formation, consciousness.
Yep. So the five aggregates which were just brought up, they’re the mind body continuum that each of us possesses. Each of us has a mind body continuum. Body is clear enough. But supported by the body, as if the body were a container, we have the mind and mental factors, like feeling, discrimination, intention, consciousness and so on.
So these are very important topics because these are what we think of as the I. We think of the body as I, the feelings as I, and so on. So we’re gonna look at these topics in a little bit of depth. We’re not gonna get that far into So don’t worry, we’re just going to brush over some of these issues. Now everyone has a copy of the text.
Did everyone get a copy? Now we had a choice of two different texts that we could use. So we’re using one with less debate in it. And this text is called Minds and Mental Factors or Minds and Mental States. Now I left off the title page just we’re going straight into the meat of the text And it has less debate which is good for us.
We don’t want too much debate. Now it’s a quite a traditional Tibetan text. It’s composed by Yongzin Yeshe Gyaltsen. Yongzin means tutor. He was a tutor to one of the Dalai Lama’s.
He’s quite a learned monk. And he composed this text as like a primer for understanding the mind itself from the point of view of Tibetan Buddhism. Right. So we might just start with this text right at the beginning and just now it’s traditional text, so at the beginning there’s a bit of a praise. Now the reason why the praise is there is to generate a virtuous state of mind.
Now if we don’t know what’s being praised here, then it’s hard for us to generate a virtuous state of mind in dependence upon these words. But what the praise is about is the virtuous mind, praising those that have a mind of virtue. Because in the end the mind of virtue is our refuge. And so by whatever means we can to generate a positive mind then we should take it. We should grasp it, hang on to it and pursue just those methods.
Why is the virtuous mind, the positive mind our refuge? Because it protects us. How does it protect us? It protects us from generating non-virtuous minds because non virtuous minds are not in our interest. They can in brief, non virtuous minds can harm us.
Anger, hatred, resentment, spite, jealousy, envy and so on. All of these minds tend to harm us, make us unhappy. Harm us in what way? They make us unhappy. When we’re jealous we’re not happy.
When we’re proud we have pride we’re not happy. When we resent unhappy. When we hate not happy. When we’re angry we’re not happy. So all these types of mind they disturb the mind itself and rob us of our happiness.
They’re like thieves that destroy our happiness. So we should protect ourselves from them as strongly as we can. But in this as well what we’re doing is we’re we want to examine everything that’s set out in this text to make sure that it accords with our own experience. If something accords with our experience of the world, if it makes sense, if it doesn’t contradict common sense, then we should look at it seriously. Otherwise we don’t have to accept.
Something that we accept on the basis of reasoning and logic and so forth is something that will tend to remain with us. If we just accept something on hearsay it doesn’t generally remain that long but something we understand we see the reason for it and the logic behind it the necessity and so forth, then those things tend to remain with us. So those things are of more benefit. Right, so I’ll just start with the text on page number six. At all times I pay homage and take refuge at the feet of the reverend holy Lama who is inseparable from the guru, from the protector Manjughosa.
I pray that he may look after me at all times with great compassion. Manjughosa is the bodhisattva of wisdom. So here it’s a praise of someone who has praise of wisdom really. So it’s through the compassion of the bodhisattva. Does everyone understand bodhisattva?
Okay. Bodhisattva just means a being who aspires to attain enlightenment in order to enlighten every other being. And the foremost practitioner of wisdom amongst all bodhisattvas is called Manjughosa. So through his compassion, he has completed the two accumulations. Two accumulations here, the accumulations necessary to become enlightened.
Through his great love, he has cleared away the darkness that obscures and knows all dharmas or all phenomena. Whatever he has he has clearly seen, he makes clear to other beings. To that unexcelled refuge, the lord of sages, bow. Since he bestows only love on all beings to all beings, in all three times, was always renowned as Maitreyanatha. To him, the conquerors regent, Ajitanatha, make obeisance with deeply respectful mind.
Now this is a very traditional introduction and if you’re not used to it it looks a bit odd. It looks a bit what could this be about? Really here the author is praising these great beings who aspire to enlightenment. First the first one is Manjunatha, the bodhisattva of wisdom. The third one, Maitreyanatha, is the bodhisattva who embodies love, a being who embodies the attitude of love itself.
And his name is Maitreyanatha. Maitreya means loving kindness or just love itself and Ajitanatha means the protector who is undefeated. So that also refers to love. Love itself is never defeated, never defeated by hatred and so forth. So those who having been predicted by the Sugata, the Sugata is the Buddha.
These beings up their enlightenment was predicted by the Sugata himself, clarified the excellent systems of extensive deeds and profound view are renowned as great charioteers. You’re not going to be examined on this opening bit here. This is quite has a lot of obscure passages perhaps. Great charioteers refers to those great scholars in India after the Buddha who set out clearly what the Buddha was talking about. The great charioteers meaning the path breakers or pioneers or those that came after the Buddha who clarified the two great systems that the Buddha was talking about.
That is the system of method how we practice and the system on wisdom. So how to practice say love and compassion how to practice wisdom. So these two great systems were championed by really two great scholars later in India. One was Nāgārjuna and the other was Asaṇga. Anyway, we don’t need to go into detail in this.
So then those who have been predicted by the Sugata himself clarified the excellent systems of extensive deeds and profound view are renowned as great charioteers. To those six ornaments and two supreme ones of Jambudvipa, I pay homage. The six ornaments are great scholar scholars that again Nāgārjuna, Asaṇga, Vasubandhu, Āryadeva. I’m just gonna list these names. Āryadeva.
And then we have Dharmakīrti and Dignāgā who taught on logic. And then the two great what? Profound what are they called here? The supreme ones, the Chögyal are the two that taught ethics in great detail. So I I pay homage to those.
In this country surrounded by snow capped mountains, now the author is talking about Tibet because he grew up in a in Tibet in a place called Tashi Chokhor Ling, the land of the supreme peak. In this country surrounded by snow capped mountains, he made the thousand petaled lotus forest of sutras, mantras and commentaries bloom anew. He is as worthy of praise as the sun that is the conqueror. To him, Lama Manjughosa, I bow. So that is a praise to Tsongkhapa.
Tsongkhapa meaning the man from the onion country who was a great scholar and clarified many issues in Tibet. So he’s praising Tsongkhapa with that line there. By merely seeing the light rays of his activities, the mind’s eye for seeing the excellent truth is brightened. May the light that is the reverent teacher shining like the sun always dwell on the lotus and anthers of my heart. As it is said in Abhidharma, when the sun of wisdom shines, the flowers bloom, the rocks don’t.
So what this means is that When we have the opportunity we need to study these topics and develop awareness. Our awareness should blossom like an opening flower. The fact that our mind can open to these topics is a sign of virtue, that we have some virtuous imprints. If we don’t have them, it’s hard for our mind to open and take interest in these issues. Although others may not benefit from a discourse by such one such as me, I am briefly writing in accordance with the Abhidharmakośa texts on mind and mental states in order to increase the familiarity of my own mind with a lucid exposition because I have been urged to do so by others.
So because others have requested him, he’s written this text. And he’s been quite humble about it but he was a great scholar. Right. So now he begins to talk about the reason for writing this text. How are we doing so far?
Bit hard going that first few verses. Oh, a couple two hundred years ago maybe? I’m just roughly. In this regard, intelligent individuals are not satisfied by merely acquiring food and clothing until they have died in this world. They reflect upon the meaning of future lives thinking how will it be in the next world?
These intelligent ones should consider beings cycle helplessly through the three realms of saṃsāra since beginningless time and continuously experience suffering. What is the root of this? So immediately, it’s going to the root of the issue for us, for all of all means. When considering the situation in this way, it is necessary necessary to understand that these sufferings of Samsāra do not occur without a cause or from a cause that is not concordant with them. Rather, these sufferings arise from their own causes, karma and affliction.
So this question is extremely important. Where does this dissatisfaction come from? Where do negative feelings come from? In other words, where do problems come from? We shouldn’t be satisfied with just making enough money for us to eat and drink and have a house and a car and all of these things.
That’s okay, but we shouldn’t be satisfied with just that. We also have one more thing to do and that’s develop understanding of this question. Because our welfare resides. Our long term welfare resides there. The welfare beyond this life.
And if we don’t take it into account now, our next life will be here before we know it. And we may not have time at that stage to do much. So we need to contemplate these issues now. Samsāra. What is Samsāra?
It’s a term we hear Samsāra. It’s the name of a perfume not so long ago. Was a perfume came out. But what is saṃsāra? We hear about it.
It’s an Indian it’s a Sanskrit term saṃsāra. In Tibetan it’s korwa to cycle to go round. What it means is entering the cycle of rebirths. So this is an issue that we don’t necessarily have much insight into at present is very difficult to understand Samsāra. Samsāra in fact is our mind body of the present.
Our current mind body who we impute as I, this really is saṃsāra. On this basis, we experience all this ocean of negative feelings of problematic existence and so on. So this is saṃsāra. We’re very familiar with saṃsāra. Samsāra is just the dissatisfaction we experience on this current on the basis of this current body.
Three realms. Yep. Three realms is talking about the form realm, the formless, and the desire realm. Okay. So from a Buddhist point of view where there are three different levels of existence, we’re not aware of the upper two realms because one needs Samādhi.
One needs to develop meditative attainment to even become aware of them. But we’re aware of the desire realm. The desire realm is where we live, the way we live most of the time. And in the desire realm there are humans and animals and gods, desire realm gods, ghosts and hell beings. Six types of being can exist in the desire realm.
Okay. I mentioned those six actually. Hell beings, ghosts and so forth. We may not accept the existence of those beings. Doesn’t matter.
That’s not not of central importance. So three realms the author mentions here, and that’s what he means. Desire realm, form, and the formless realm. Form realm is a a realm of divine beings, gods, who live don’t even hear the word suffering, dissatisfaction. They live in blissful circumstance.
Blissful circumstances all the time. At worst, they can have a neutral feeling. On a bad day, they have a neutral feeling. On a good day, it’s bliss. And one is born there through virtue, through immense accumulation of virtue and training the mind, purifying the mind.
If we’re able to purify the mind sufficiently, we’ll be reborn there. And we may live for eons in blissful states in the form realm. But still, it’s in saṃsāra. One has to die from there and again take rebirth elsewhere in lower lower rebirths. Oh, well, the insight into what liberation is, what enlightenment is, is extremely rare.
It’s the most difficult thing really to understand what enlightenment is. And if we were to see have a glimpse of say a realm, a heaven within the form realm, we would think it was liberation. That sort of existence was liberation because the conditions there are so far superior to an earthly existence. And that’s also we would mistake it to be liberation because we haven’t really understood the problem of this the bottom line the problem that we experience at present. Through our attachment we’re caught up with trying to arrange our external existence you know as a type of, you know, pleasant environment.
It was almost like an external heaven. That’s really through our attachment to external objects we’re caught up in this process of trying to create an external environment which in this way mimics liberation. But it can we can never create an external situation like that. Enlightenment is an internal it’s an internal state not dependent on what’s external. So even yeah the form realm is not it’s regarded as saṃsāra.
It’s not. Yeah. We should be, but there’s not much danger that we’re going to develop such a high level of meditation. Actually to develop that level requires many years of intense practice in meditation. It’s possible to develop but we’re in not much danger of developing it in this life.
And even those that devote you know going to a ten year retreat for instance to develop meditation like that may not develop it. It’s extremely difficult to do that. The bottom lying is that we need the actual resolution to our situation and in order to get that we have to understand the problem to begin with. We have to understand where what creates situation as it is at present. Where has that come from?
Is there a is there a problem with it? We still haven’t quite understood what the problem is. That’s why it’s so hard to generate renunciation or detachment. We’re so attached to everything that even when the idea of liberation or enlightenment comes up we sort of oh yeah that sounds interesting but we’re just attached to everything anyway and we don’t really put much effort into enlightenment. And the reason we don’t put much effort in is our We are completely in a way absorbed and overwhelmed by attachment and it’s very difficult for us to see the fault in the objects around us that we are attached to.
We can’t see the fault. Right, so here the author is talking about and what is saṃsāra? It’s just the the potential to generate negative feeling. That we possess. To become dissatisfied, to become upset, to have negative physical feeling, negative mental feeling and we don’t understand where it’s coming from.
So this is what he’s talking about in with Samsāra here. There are places but they also correspond to levels of the mind itself. Well, you can like the form realm is actually another place. A more refined material abode than where we live at present in the desire. So they are they exist and they’re not the same as say the earth which is part of the desire realm.
The heavens of the seventeen levels of the form realm are elsewhere in the universe. But for the most part the universe that we see is composed entirely of the desire realm. Planets like this planet, Earth, and so on. Well, you probably wouldn’t want to come back to Earth. Oh you would recognize it as, you know, like a much finer existence.
I mean it’s just a it’s you know, as in Christian theology heaven, you know, and what heaven represents, it’s similar. It’s not or in Hinduism. So Oh if one hasn’t strongly developed compassion it’s if it’s not, you know, manifest and perfected, then it’s very easy to be overcome with feelings of bliss and forget other things like other beings. There’s a story of the Buddha that he had a physician that he would go to, and he used to have an abode near Rajgir in India. And he died before the Buddha had passed away.
And out of respect for that for his doctor, he he was the doctor was born in a desire god realm. And the Buddha went there. And the doctor was there reclining with these heavenly nymphs. And the Buddha appeared in front of him, and all he could do was raise his hand, like, in greeting. But he was in such a blissful state state that he really didn’t bother even to get up and sort of offer the Buddha a seat and so forth.
So the Buddha then returned to the earth. So this one of the problems with being reborn in such a god realm is that one is blissed out and one can’t engage in the work to attain enlightenment. No virtue. If you were acted in that way, there wouldn’t be much virtue in that. Living on past virtue.
Exactly. They are, but because their intention is not very strong one way or the other. They’re more experiencing the bliss. And there’s a tendency just to become absorbed in that bliss. And in the wonderful, you know, like a realm itself, everything is incredibly beautiful, musical.
I mean, you know, like jewels and palaces and beings are radiant. Their bodies are radiant and so forth. No. They’re not really generating. They don’t hear the word suffering.
Everyone is blissful. I mean, it’s the sort of place we wanna be. Everyone’s blissful. You don’t hear a harsh word. Everyone’s blissful.
You don’t hear a harsh word. But they’re living off their savings. It’s like they got superannuation. It’s like they got a huge superannuation boost. At some point they created such intense virtue that they have this vast store of virtue that allows them to be reborn in a in a god realm.
Don’t have to be a bodhisattva. You just need merit. Or they can. Bodhisattvas can be born in the god realms. True.
It depends on what level of bodhisattva it is as well. Bodhisattvas have emanations of themselves. They can remain in the, say, in the form realm, divine realm, and have emanations working on the earth. It’s Anyway, that’s another issue. That that’s another issue here.
This anyway, what we’re talking about is Samsāra here, and we’re just on the first page, so we’ll we’ll won’t carry too long here. We’ll move ahead. As long as now, right at the last line here, as long as one grasps onto the aggregates now the aggregates are the mind body continuum, the basis of our existence at present. Long as we grasp onto these aggregates, for that long one will grasp upon a an eye with regard to them. If one clings to an eye, karma will occur.
One will generate karma in dependence on thinking I and due to that karma one will again be reborn. Now that sums it up: Because we grasp onto the mind and the body we develop a sense of I in relation to the mind and body. With that sense of I that we have we engage in actions justified by the I. So that’s karma. That’s how karmic seeds.
So virtuous actions engaged in by the I generates merit. Negative actions engaged in by that I accumulates demeritorious or the opposite. Due to that karma one takes rebirth and one takes rebirth according to the most dominant collection. And again he says, again, the author is going on, the root of saṃsāra is mental conditioning or mental function or the way the mind acts. Therefore the wise do not create conditioning or the wise do not create this process, this conditioned process by which the I engages in actions that will produce rebirth.
In this way the unwise are agents. The unwise are agents meaning those that haven’t understood how the I accumulates karma tend to reinforce the I, engage the I, accept the I as it appears to be and enter actions motivated by the eye whether positive or negative and therefore they accumulate continued rebirth. So the unwise are agents but the wise are not agents because they see the reality of the I. Now actually the author here is bringing up some quite profound points that isn’t he’s not done. Actually in each of these statements we could go into it some length to test them.
Actually we need to have got a lot of length because these issues are very subtle. Okay moving in, moving on. And Acharya Āryadeva now this is the few lines down from the top the awareness that is the seed of existence has objects as its sphere of activity. So awareness that is the seed of activity or seed of existence the awareness that is the seed of existence you’re really talking about intention there the intention to act. That intention which is a state of mind lays down seeds within the mind that produce rebirth produces future feeling has objects as its sphere of activity.
So it takes external objects as its field of activity. Okay the language here is a little bit what can one say? Maybe misleading. What it means is: because we have a sense of I we engage in action and that action takes into account objects external objects. Now that process is potent.
It’s not a neutral process. If the mind is non virtuous when we’re engaging in action we will suffer from that. If the mind is virtuous when we’re engaging objects we will benefit from that. Acharya Candrakīrti. So Acharya he means like someone a learned being really.
Candrakīrti, another great scholar he says: Mind itself establishes the manifold worlds of beings and world of inanimate things. It is said that all beings are born from karma. Now the author is throwing in all these quotations here but the meaning is very important. The mind itself establishes the worlds and the beings who inhabit the worlds. The mind creates everything.
In other words, the mind creates the external universe the planets, the stars, the galaxies. The mind also creates the beings who inhabit those worlds. When we say the mind here, mean collectively the minds of beings. Okay. No one’s complaining about that statement.
That’s a good sign. Now Acharya Vasubandhu also said the same thing: The variegated world is produced from karma. Or another way we could in Tibetan the term is Jigten nele le ke The various world systems arise from karma. So the universe with all its worlds, with all its planets, with all the suns, the stars, the galaxies, all of this comes about through the intention of beings collectively and individually. Okay, so now this is a huge proposition.
It’s a huge idea that the entire universe also is arising from the minds of beings like us. We contribute to universe. The universe is not solely due to us but our mind contributes to the way the universe is externally. No, it’s more like the physical universe takes its form influenced by the minds of beings including ourselves. Because the intention is what?
The intention the intention of beings that possess free will has the ability to influence the external universe. Know that on a on a coarser level but on a subtler level the intentions, the actions of beings molds the universe, influences the universe, creates the universe, creates the universe not in the sense that the mind is creating matter but the mind influences how matter develops, how matter arises. It’s like the divine realms. For instance on this planet Sorry? Yeah.
A pleasant environment on this planet arises due to the positive actions of beings in the past. So for instance if there’s a garden there’s not a place that’s pleasant. You know there’s flowers, there’s fruit trees, there’s nice places to sit down and so on. That environment, external environment, is a product of the positive intentions of beings in the past. True.
True. It might. Well, relative. There’s a degree of relativity in that. But still, what is pleasant?
Right? The experience of something as pleasant arises from virtue. Right? That’s all that’s being spoken of, not the particular taste of what is pleasant. Yep.
No, not quite because here when you’re talking about karma you’re talking about the actions of beings, the mental actions of beings in the past giving rise to current environments. So that those actions in the past could be millions billions of years ago. In other words it’s saying that whatever is pleasant in the universe is coming about through virtue. That’s all that it’s saying. And what’s unpleasant in the environment thorns and harsh dry regions that are very difficult to endure they’re coming about through the lack of virtue of beings.
So this occurs, you know, on a vast scale, on smaller scales and so forth. It occurs in cycles as well. So that’s really what is being said. When Vasubandhu makes this remark that the variegated world is he’s saying that the external environment is a product of the past intentions of beings. The mind.
But it’s not that the mind is producing the external world. You can’t can’t generate physical matter from the mind but the mind influences the way matter develops, the way matter evolves, the way it arises. Oh that’s right the external environment and what happens whether there’s wars or know tsunamis earthquakes storms blizzards and so forth all of these are arising from the virtue or the non virtue of beings. That’s all that is being said. Now that’s quite a large claim to make.
Anyway we’re not here to dwell on that one particular issue. But it is it’s important just to raise it. We’ll come back to it. Then also Vasubandhu says: The root of existence is the six latent defilements so that our existence itself, saṃsāra, arises through six prominent mental states such as ignorance and anger attachment especially attachment and so on. Actually when we talk about cosmology we talk about these vast issues that often seem too remote from us to be really concerned about.
The reason that is because we’re so attached to the immediate our immediate situation and how we’re to be gratified in our immediate situation through objects of attachment that it’s hard for us to think really on a larger scale. So for that reason the next thing that the author brings up is okay the root of our current existence is really these attitudes such as attachment. So bringing it back, you know, really into the present. Alright? Moving ahead.
Such many such statements have been made by these and other teachers. Likewise the Bodhicaryāvatāra says the teacher of reality himself has taught in this way all fears and innumerable sufferings arise from the mind. So just to bring it back again, you know, to a simple statement: And those who do not know the secret of the mind, the supreme essential point of the dharma, wander aimlessly in vain, although they wish to attain happiness and destroy suffering. Therefore, I should manage and guard my mind well. In fact, that’s the essential point of this course.
If it could be summed up, it’s just in those words there. And in fact, this course, while we’re talking about these large scale issues, small scale issues, is just to develop some confidence in the mind of virtue. And also it said, from evil actions come suffering, anxiety, various fears, and separation from what one desires. So again, from evil actions, what are evil actions? Often that’s not so clear to us.
And in fact to actually understand what ethics is, what is ethical and what is non ethical, unethical is extremely difficult. And we’re always being confronted by this issue for us is that is it virtuous to do that or not? If I do this, if I retaliate, is it virtuous? If I do this, is it non virtuous? If I don’t yell at my child at this stage, it virtuous or non virtuous?
If I make that cutting remark to my workmate: is it virtuous or non virtuous? And so on. Why do we need to know these things? Precisely for this reason: from evil actions comes suffering. We don’t want to suffer.
And if I go down the route of non virtue, if I retaliate, if I choose an unethical position, I’m gonna suffer. So very important to have clear understanding on this issue. And then by performing delightful virtue, wherever one goes, one will be on it. It’s called delightful virtue because virtue is something that brings joy. And joy has this element of not regretting, of doing things, engaging in an action that just is light rests lightly on the mind.
And that’s what we need. We need the mind to be very light. When the mind is light we can relax a bit. We can breathe a little bit easier. The reason why really we experience the burden of existence is that we experience the burden, the heaviness of our actions, and we can’t forget them.
They’re there. They all pile up and they they they’re they’re very heavy. So what we need is delightful virtue. Wherever one goes, one will be honored due to that merit with a gift of fruit. In other words, by engaging in light positive actions in relation to others and in relation to ourselves it brings many benefits.
Although evildoers may desire happiness the weapons of suffering smite them with whatever they wherever they go due to their evil deeds. Abiding in the hearts of lotuses, expansive sweet smelling and cool with splendor produced by the sustenance of the conqueror’s melodious voice, their beautiful forms emerging from lotuses blossoming at the in the sages rays of light. Before the conqueror, the virtuous become children of the sun of the Sagata due to their virtuous deeds. This actually is a description of the god realms. In the god realms, it said that beings are really virtuous.
For us, we don’t understand what really virtuous is. But for beings who are really virtuous, when they take rebirth they’re born like in divine abodes, in lotuses, you know, and are what? Their birth is heralded as some great event. Why? Because of their actions.
These beings have practiced virtue. Here the conqueror refers to the Buddha. The Buddha is called the conqueror because he conquered non virtue. Buddha doesn’t practice any non virtue. Completely ripped it out from the roots, from all the seeds of imprints of non virgin.
Completely destroyed. So in such a being there is no possibility of unhappiness and so forth. On the other hand, screaming in agony as his or her entire skin is ripped away by Yama’s minions. Yama is the lord of death. His or her body bathed in copper molten by an intensely hot fire, pierced by blazing swords and spears.
Flesh dropping off in a hundred pieces. The evildoer falls to the blazing iron ground in consequence of his many unvirtuous deeds. So this is a description of the hells. Now we may not accept the existence of hells. Doesn’t matter.
These types of experience are experienced on earth. People we meet people that are in, you know, experience agony, great unhappiness, great depression. People commit suicide because of the great mental pain that they’re experiencing utter desperation, hopelessness. This is like hell. As the Dalai Lama said a person that commits suicide is not mistaken as to the nature of saṃsāra.
Samsāra is just that. It’s horrible. Absolutely horrible. Just the means of dealing with saṃsāra is mistaken. Killing ourselves doesn’t get rid of saṃsāra.
But here just talking of negative deeds by engaging in negative deeds we’re susceptible to be experiencing great unhappiness. So the author is talking again about the nature of the mind and how we use or engage our mind. So it has been stated not just once but again and again in the sutras and tantras along with their commentaries that all of saṃsāra, the inanimate world and the animate beings who inhabit it arise by virtue of their own causes that is karma and the afflictions. So just a word karma really refers to intention. Our intention to act.
So positive karma comes from positive intention. Negative karma is negative intention. And the afflictions are what? The afflictions are basically the three root afflictions that is anger, attachment and ignorance. So we put together intention attachment and ignorance and that really produces everything in the universe that we at root we want to avoid.
Everything unpleasant in the universe is coming from karma and affliction coming from intention motivated by ignorance attachment and anger. Right. So the author here is now the author is giving us the causes for saṃsāra. The causes for unpleasant experience. That’s just those.
What the author also is doing is he’s saying: Don’t just accept this because otherwise you know it doesn’t help. What helps though is to investigate whether this is the correct prescription of our situation, the correct description of our current situation. Is our mind like that? Is those actions that are motivated by ignorance, attachment and anger are they producing negative results for us? This is a hard question.
Ignorance is here. Ignorance is the most subtle and we’re even ignorant of the fact that we’re ignorant. We think we know a lot but ignorance is very subtle it just sits there and it’s just the fact of unknowing not knowing. It doesn’t do anything it just is the absence of knowing. So we have a lot of ignorance.
We are ignorant of most things in the universe. We have a little bit bit of understanding of our own environment but most of the things in our environment we don’t understand. Why did that happen? Where did that come from? Why did they say that to me?
Why did that occur? Often we ponder these things for years. Why? Why did this happen? What was the meaning of that experience?
I don’t really know. But often we don’t get to the point of saying we don’t really know. Really know. We tend to think: Oh they hate me so that’s why they said that or that’s why that happened and so on. We allow anger and hatred to We latch onto those as the reason for why things happened.
And then we get angry and hate. We become attached to others in ignorance of the real causes of where of what our experience is. Well, in a sense, from a Buddhist point of view, that’s the proof of rebirth. But a child well well, right. If one accept yeah.
You look at causation, and fundamentally, that’s what we’re looking at, that there has to be a cause for the result. For any result that we experience, there must be a cause for that, and a cause that corresponds to the result. There is in the universe, there’s a general what? A general laws that apply, that like cause gives rise to like result. And that always is the case.
That cause and effect is non deceptive, incontrovertible. From the emotional point of view, absolutely the case. Our emotions are just like the external physical universe. They follow similar laws. The feelings that come about, feelings are one of the prime results of karma.
One proves it by looking at the law of cause and effect itself. Right. It’s a bit like like the law of causation as we apply it to the physical universe. We accept the pervasion, don’t we, of the law of cause and effect. And the fact that we can have, you know, like, particles today that were produced fourteen billion years ago in the Big Bang.
And we accept that. Right? There are many things in it. Sorry. Okay.
Well, just using that as an example. Every result requires cause. The cause must be capable of producing that result. And within that, there are different types of causes, but the law of cause and effect effect remains viable, incontrovertible, and nondeceptive. In the physical universe, if it didn’t occur this way, then probably the physical universe would not appear as it does.
What one is doing there is looking at the law of causation externally, in the external universe, and then applying it to the internal, to the feelings. What is the unique experience of every individual? In a sense, we’ve got two levels there. We’ve got the external and we’ve got the internal. What if feelings didn’t exist yet?
But, of course, feelings do exist. And, you know, human beings, sentient beings, do experience the results of previous causes. Because I think, you know, we acknowledge that, you know, that things do exist according to laws, according to, you know, a particular way that things unfold. If we didn’t think that, then we wouldn’t try and I mean, it’s like putting our hand in fire. You know, once we realize that we get burnt, it’s gonna cause pain.
We don’t do it because it’s never the case that at some point, we’re gonna put our hand in fire and it’s not gonna be hot. Right? The fact that we experience the pain from burning also doesn’t change. That continues. It’s not it’s not as if on Tuesdays, you know, one experiences pain from burning and on Wednesdays one experiences pleasure from burning, one’s being different.
Right? In other words, we can see a uniformity in the law of causation that exists not only in external world, but also exists in the realm of feelings. Pain arises due to certain causes, and it’s not that those causes give rise to pleasure some days and pain on other days. We probably come up with some seeming exceptions to that. But that’s a very good question.
A child experiences pain like when they’re born, a child often cries because of the contact with the air, the skin the first time. It’s very painful. Child experiences pain. Where does that pain come from? Really, the pain of the pain of existing comes from the causes of existence that that child has brought into play.
Anyway, it’s a pity we don’t have a lot longer, a lot more time, because this whole issue of karma is extremely important. Eventually, we do have to come to an understanding of where the pain of the child is coming from, where our pain is coming from. If we can deal with all of these issues with just taking a pill or with school remedy, then that would be one. Anyway, moving ahead. Therefore, the root of the whole of Samsāra and Nibbana is established by the mind itself.
Hence, since it is crucial to understand the manner of the mind and mental states or mental factors, here I have written a brief presentation of mind and mental states in two parts: the individual natures of the classifications of mind and mental states, and a summary of the important points and their application to practice. So we’ll just begin with the first one here. The individual nature of mind and mental states. So the mind. Right.
So first we’re dealing with mind. Now the thing is that when when we classify our internal experience, there are two major divisions. Minds and mental states or mental factors. There are only two types. Now firstly, deal with the mind itself.
Now concerning the distinction between minds and mental states or mental factors, in a particular text called the Abhidharmasamuccaya states. That which sees an object is consciousness. That which sees the distinctive qualities or the attributes of that object is a mental state or a mental factor. The The Abhidharma accordingly also says: Consciousness is a distinct informing awareness. Right.
So just we’ll just do a little bit on that. It will come again later, but we’ll just do a little bit of a summary here on minds and mental factors. There are six types of mind and there are fifty one types of mental factor. That includes every possible state of mind that can exist from a Buddhist perspective. Now it’s hard to look into the mind, look internally, and be able to differentiate, oh, what is a feeling?
What is a thought? What is discrimination, what is wisdom, what is virtue, what is non virtue. All of these things are very difficult for us to clearly discern. There was an instance there’s an in one particular text called the Questions of King Milinda. There’s a time when this particular king, he he went to this monk called Nagasena, and he asked the Nagasena, is there something in particular of particular difficulty that the Buddha has done?
And and the Nagasena said to the king, king Milinda, yes, there is something extremely difficult that the Buddha has done. Milinda said, well, what what is that? Tell me what that is. The monk, Nagasena said, and they lived in this region of Gandhara. Now Gandhara is where Pakistan is these days, pretty much.
And they’re used to the rivers coming down through Pakistan into the Arabian Gulf. And the monk said to the king, king, if you went down to the ocean to where the Indus enters the Arabian Gulf, and you were to take a handful of water and you tasted that, would you be able to tell, all that this water came from the Indus, or this water came from the Sutlej, or this water came from this other river, or this river. And the king said, no. That’d be that’d be difficult for me just to taste the water and be able to tell you which which was the source of that particular mouth full of water. Extremely difficult.
So too, it is difficult to discern the different states of the mind itself. Difficult to discern. You know, this is feeling. This is discrimination. Hatred.
This is anger. This is attachment and so forth. All of these things extremely difficult, you know, to differentiate. But this is something that the Buddha has done. The Buddha has been able to stand back and delineate the nature of the mind, what exists within the mind.
So anyway, that’s just an example of the difficulty in understanding our own mind. The mind is difficult to understand because it’s a subtle type of energy, a subtle type of substance, not like external physical substance. Our mind is internal. Can’t see it. Can’t smell it, touch it, taste it.
We just it just we experience it. It’s this unique internal experience that we have that’s unending. Even when we’re asleep, we dream. And all sorts of emotions and thoughts and experiences arise and so on. And in our waking state, through the course of a day, so many different types of mind arise.
Thoughts, memories, speculations, just conception, non conceptual awareness arise. It’s hard for us to step back and be able to listen, oh, this is the moment of love just arose or hatred or this or that arose. We tend to be very distracted, and we’re not that careful. We’re not that aware of what the mind is doing moment to moment. Often, we just space out and we think about this, we think about that.
If we stop and ask ask ourselves, is my mind virtuous in the present? We don’t know. Not sure. Very hard for us to discern our mind, discern the nature of the mind. And then the mental factors.
There are six minds types of mind, six fifty one types of mental factor. These also we will go into in more detail. What what are our times at present? Twenty to nine. Up to when?
At nine o’clock, I think. We’ll have we’ll do some more. We’ll continue with the text. How are we doing anyway? How’s everyone?
Are there any really insurmountable issues encountered so far? Please say whatever you like. Yeah. No, that’s true. We should be primarily concerned with our own state of mind.
And one of the ways also of creating virtue is to take into consideration others at the same time. View through compassion is a very good way of generating an internal virtuous state. But your other point about it being relative, you know, what we find beautiful, others won’t, and there’s a subjective element to that, for sure. And that is part of our karma. That our karma coming from the past, our past actions determine our experience of our environment in the present.
So our karma is very important. In fact, you know, like in general, our environment here in the West is pleasant, you know, as a, you know, a modern Western country where conditions are pretty good. There’s no, you know, conflict occurring, say, in this particular continent, and there’s little poverty and people are looked after, it is really quite it’s very pleasant in that regard. But true, even that external environment is pleasant, if the internal state of our mind is not good, then it doesn’t matter what the external environment is like. We’re not going to appreciate it.
Know, we’re preoccupied with other issues. We’re unhappy about this and unhappy about that. And that also is an indication that karma manifests on different levels at the same time. It influences our experience of the world around us and just simply our internal experience itself. So all of these are coming from karma.
Now to prove the causality of that is not easy. In fact, the causality of karma, that a particular action gives rise to a particular feeling or a particular way of looking at the world is the most difficult of all things to understand, to penetrate, because it said that an action committed in the long past can give rise to an action, you know, in a vastly different area of the universe at a much later period, eons and eons afterwards. So to understand that link is extremely difficult. Well, there is a degree of truth to that because from the point of view of karma, like in the present, you know, we, for instance, we get angry at someone, and that anger affects the mind. It lays down imprints in our mental consciousness.
Predispositions are laid down. Not only does being angry, you know, make us unhappy, but it lays down imprints in the future. And those imprints remain within the mind. And they manifest they will reawaken in the future when the conditions assemble again. So in a sense, you know, there’s two there’s two negative things come from acting from one negative act.
You have the present cost of the action, which makes us unhappy, but then we re experience it again later because that that action imprints our mind itself. Now we at present have this vast storehouse of karmic imprints within our mind stream. And the one protection we have for those negative imprints not manifesting is keeping our mind virtuous. When we become unhappy and we get annoyed or we get angry, they that environment of the mind tends to awaken negative karmic imprints. So we get a double, you know, whammy.
It’s like two negative things coming about from one negative action. So, you know, it’s in a way, becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy that if we, you know, if we decide to be unhappy about something, then we will be unhappy and that’s gonna bring more unhappiness. And that’s just through our decision. We actively decide to be unhappy. We actively decide, you know, I’m gonna act negatively now.
I don’t care. But, know, I’m entitled to act that way. I’m gonna get angry. I’m entitled to be unhappy. Unhappy.
I’m justified in getting angry. But it makes us unhappy in the present because we cannot be happy with anger. A feeling or a positive feeling cannot arise with anger. It’s impossible. We cannot have a virtuous or a positive feeling with anger.
When anger is manifest, positive feelings gone. And not only that, those seeds of anger will again produce negative feelings, you know, in the future for us. Now this rests on the incontrovertibility of the law of cause and effect, but a negative cause cannot give rise to a positive result. So I don’t think it is possible that can happen. Nothing.
Good comes from good. If something good appeared to come out of something bad, that something good would actually be coming out of something good. Not coming from the bad. It’s a little bit like thinking that you can become rich through theft. One can never become rich through stealing.
It’s impossible. But it may appear that way. We may someone may rob the bank and go to South America and live there for thirty years on the proceeds of that theft or what appears to be theft. But actually, the fact that anyone has wealth is due to generosity. Right?
Okay. That that’s coming from something positive. Through renunciation, through detachment, there’s no possibility of a negative action producing a positive outcome. Directly or indirectly? Oh, sorry.
No. Not even indirectly. It’s all one can say is even the negative condition, conditioning something positive to occur is very difficult. But if one in reflecting on the course of action and what happened, one then, you know, were to decide, oh, I learned from that. I won’t do it again.
That’s positive. But even that positive is not coming from the negative action. That positive is actually coming from past virtue that one has accumulated. This again, it’s a little bit like wealth coming from non virtue. Wealth is something positive, but it only comes about through generosity.
Any wealth anywhere in the universe is only arising through the act of generosity, through giving. One, you know, like, even though it looks like Wall Street has you know, many in Wall Street have robbed their way or deceived their way into vast wealth. The vast wealth that they generate is coming from their past generosity. That’s the only way wealth can arise. It appears externally as if it’s coming from their deception.
But their deception at present is gonna create great problems for them in future. Well, not only karma, it’s actually the law of cause and effect. What is being said here is that we accept law of cause and effect externally. Right? The law of cause and effect is not just external, it’s internal, and that law of cause and effect is incontrovertible internally as well.
There’s no way you can get around it. You can actually prove it, but what in order to prove it, you have to understand the nature of the mind itself. If you don’t understand the nature of the mind, what mind is, you cannot prove it from a Buddhist perspective. There’s a proof given. This comes from Dharmakīrti.
Take the final moment of a person who’s just about the final moment of the mind of a person who’s just about to die. There is a subsequent moment of mind after that because it is mind. Right? Right. And if you take the final moment of the person about to die, the assertion is that there is a subsequent moment of that mind.
There’s a continuation of that mind after they’ve died. After they’ve died. The reason being because it is mind. The pervasion is that if it’s mind, it has a subsequent moment necessarily. It doesn’t end.
The mind is endless. The and thus the mind is beginningless. Now that proof rests on understanding what the substance of mind is itself. What the mind is. And what’s assertive within Buddhism is that the mind is not physical.
It’s not like a physical object that can come to an end. So anyway, proofs do exist, but what we’re looking at here is the law of causation applied internally. The whole issue of ethics rests on causation. If there wasn’t an inner causation that a particular action is going give rise to a particular result. It could not be ethics.
The whole issue of ethics is when we’re confronted by choice, we say, oh, I’m gonna act in that way because that has less that is less problematic or that is the right thing to do. That is the beneficial thing to do. That is the ethical thing to do because the action does have an outcome. And the outcome follows a particular incontrovertible path. If that didn’t occur, then anything would go.
Doesn’t matter what we do. We might as well go out and be mass murderers because happiness would arise from being a mass murderer. Or, you know, that stealing, we could steal whatever we want, and that would bring us happiness and so on. But we understand that there are incontrovertible laws, ethical laws that do exist on an internal level. Yep.
Yep. Oh, that’s right. Yeah. Well, even if they’ve got it legally, doesn’t really matter. If they stole the money, then they have an added burden.
But even if they get it legally, they’re then also worried about losing it because of their attachment to the wealth, and they don’t really have full control over external their own external situation. They’re in fear of losing through attachment. And they’re locked they’re putting in in this, you know, got some in stocks, some in bonds, they got some in the bank, and checking their balances every we do this ourselves. You know, we check the balances, we check the stock market, we check this, we check that through our attachment because we’re attached to the money and what it can buy. And then we’re in fear of losing that.
The fear of losing it comes about through our attachment. So it makes us unhappy, you know. Even having the wealth makes us unhappy because we feel losing it. And it’s a burden. The wealth becomes a burden.
This is why the Buddha set forth ordination. One of the reasons. So the people could just live on a very minimum of necessities and engage in the whole issue of purifying the mind without the burden of having to, you know, work eight hours a day. And so on because this issue of purifying the mind takes up so much of our time. We need to devote all that time to it.
So they’re not having to worry about you know, a monk or a nun just had three things. They had the the robes, the upper robe, the lower robe, a bowl, and a mat, maybe a mat. And that’s it. Just wander around. That’s all you have to worry about.
And the people are feeding you, and you’re entitled to get, you know, to request food from the population, and they give you food. You eat that one meal, two meals a day, and the rest of the time you spend meditating, purifying the mind, making the mind virtuous by whatever means, through great effort and exertion. Because making the mind pure is the most difficult thing of all to do. Far more difficult than manipulating our external environment. That’s easy.
Becoming wealthy is not difficult. But purifying the mind is extremely difficult. That’s the most you know, it’s a huge important task ahead of us. It takes longer than one lifetime. To attain the level of a Buddha, it takes three countless eons of purifying the mind.
That’s how deep and profound the mind is. And we just work on the very superficial level of the mind a completely immersed in attachment and hatred and anger. That’s where we spend our entire life just on the upper little bit that’s so contaminated by non virtue that we’re unhappy all the time. And we think we’re doing something useful. Actually, we don’t achieve very much.
We’re so distracted by what’s going on around us. Minor issues. Little things about ourselves that so this is why the Buddha suggested or recommended ordination. So at least we could focus more on the purifying the mind because it is such a huge task. Purify the mind, everything else will fall into place.
Wealth, all the other conditions. But if we seek just to take care of ourselves in this life, there’s never an end to it, and we never become very successful at it anyway. Right. Some say the Buddhists are really pessimistic, and it’s true. Buddhists in general are quite pessimistic about gaining happiness through attachment.
But it this we have to examine very, very carefully with a lot of energy because our future our future is unfolding really in our present mind. As they would say, look to your current body to see the state of your past mind. Look to your present mind to see your future rebirth. Because it’s our habits in the present. It’s what we think about that we become.
It’s what we’ve thought about in the past, both individually and as a collective that the universe has become. So the mind is absolutely essential. So this is the the whole thing of this course is just to look a little bit into the minds and mental factors. Factors. Okay.
So just had a very rough introduction to this, and we’ve also looked at six types of mind, fifty one types of mental factor are the complete description from a Buddhist point of view of what awareness is. So okay. Tomorrow, we’ll go into more detail on this. Right. Any further issues?
Yep. It is. They have mind. They have consciousness. Yep.
Good question. That’s right. Mental states, mental factors do all the work. Consciousness, mind, in a way, is just the bare awareness of an object. It doesn’t do anything more than that.
It’s the mental factors like feeling, discrimination, that do all the work that access different attributes of the object. And of perception and conception, it’s our conception that is most important for us. So understanding what conception is extremely important. How we generate conception. Okay.
So we just finished there for today. We’ll just do a quick dedication Right on towards the end of page six, just at the the last verse on page six. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of the Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightenment state. May the supreme jewel, bodhicitta, that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has risen not diminish, but increase more and more.