Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 31-minute talk, Ven Jampa Ignyen explores a misconception that shapes our entire practice: we believe our happiness comes from external objects, when it actually arises from our own past virtue—a delusion that traps us in cycles of attachment and hatred. Using the classical Abhidharma Samuccaya, he systematically presents the eleven virtuous mental factors, including non-attachment, non-hatred, non-delusion, effort, pliancy, diligence, equanimity and compassion, which directly counteract this ignorance. The discussion then turns to an extended examination of anger—what defines it (a mind that fails to pacify), how it differs from compassionate wrathful action, and why recognizing these mental states as they arise in our own continuum is essential to practice. For practitioners familiar with Buddhist psychology.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 M and C 2001 09 04.mp3
UUID: ffa10c02-0bee-49bd-98c2-9064b6092422
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 07-09 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-09-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 31.2 minutes
Words: ~2,975
No. It appears to us that our happiness is coming from external objects. That that we we develop positive pleasant feelings in relation to other objects. And we it appears as if the positive feelings are coming from the object, whatever the object is. Then we become attached to the object because we want to perpetuate the feeling.
But then we notice also that in relation to that object, the negative feelings can arise. So so then we tend to go from attachment attachment to hatred of the object, and so on. This occurs all the time. Initially, we’re mistaken as to the source of the positive feeling. The positive feeling is not coming from that object.
It appears to us to be coming from the object. But the positive feeling is coming from that past virtue. It’s an internal cause that it’s coming from, not an external cause. But, of course, it appears a hundred and twenty percent to us that it’s our positive feelings are coming from outside. And to those external objects that we think our positive feelings are being initiated by, we become attached quite naturally with that.
We don’t need to think about it. We’re almost automatically attached to them. And on the other hand, to those objects that we think our negative feelings are coming from, begin to hate. And then we spend much of our time manipulating these objects, trying to be, you know, possess the ones that from which we think positive feelings are coming and subdue the rest, keep them at a distance. But that’s how it appears.
It appears so convincingly to us that and even when intellectually we think, oh, that’s probably how it is. In the next minute, in the next instant. Oh, yeah, I really dislike that person or I’ve got to have one of those or and so on. So we need a lot of patience with ourselves in that regard. And a degree of faith.
Lucid faith maybe. So non hatred then, the next one. Abhidharma Samuccaya states, what is non hatred? It is that free of the intention to ever inflict pain on sentient beings. Suffering and dharmas, which are abodes of suffering, etcetera, on others.
It functions to support not engaging in faulty behavior. So non hatred there also is similar to the previous. It’s simply not generating hatred towards others, other beings, states of suffering that we experience, and so on. Not hating our own situation, for instance, which which is often difficult to do. We even hate our own situation from time to time.
We want it to be better. We want ourselves to be better or whatever. So that type of attitude is a negative attitude. So here we need to develop non hatred because it’s a virtue. And it is cognition free of the intention to ever inflict pain.
Non delusion. So Abhidharma Samuccaya states, what is non delusion? It is awareness and analysis from maturation, scripture, contemplation, or comprehension. It functions to support not engaging in faulty behavior. So as the author then states, it is analytical wisdom with the potency to act as the antidote of delusion derived from the cause of either wisdom obtained from birth or wisdom obtained from preparation.
So this is somewhat, non delusion here. It’s interesting. It’s not exactly the same as the wisdom that occurred at the end of the five, object determining mental factors. In a way, it’s it’s derived from that previous type of wisdom. Derived from effort in developing wisdom.
The effort or any preparation. Like for instance, studying scripture or practicing ethics and so on. Then the next one is effort. What is effort? It is that actually delighting the mind, which is in itself armor preparation, not formulating, not stopping, and not holding to contentment.
It functions to thoroughly complete and establish the state of virtue. So then again there are five listed in a root text: the effort of armor, the effort of preparation, and the effort of not formulating, effort of not stopping, the effort of not holding to contentment. So these are types of effort that give one energy to practice virtue. It is. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Here effort is delighting in virtue, liking virtue. Is a particular type of effort. Unfortunately here, it doesn’t go into any further explanation.
I’m not sure. Then we have another one, pliancy. Now the eighth virtue of pliancy is defined as the flexibility of body and mind, it severs the continuum of physical and mental decline. It functions to eliminate all obscuration. So also we need pliancy.
And then right at the bottom, it gives the definition. It is cognition placing the mind in a state of being able to use the mind in accordance with one’s desire or one’s wishes when focusing on virtue, which severs the continuum of the decline of body and mind. So pliancy is similar to the pliancy that one generates through developing concentration, where one has this flexibility or pliability of the body and the mind, which enables one to engage in great effort and so on. Then diligence on page thirteen. What is diligence?
It meditates on virtuous dharmas through abiding with effort on non attachment, non hatred, non delusion, and protects from contaminated dharmas. It functions to thoroughly complete and establish all excellent, mundane and transcendent qualities. It is discernment which establishes virtue through abiding in effort free from the influence of the afflictions and protects the mind from contaminated dharmas. So abiding them with effort, then this diligence really holds strongly to virtuous dharmas. So that also we need.
We need effort that likes of virtue and then diligence that’s going to hang on to the virtuous dharmas. Then we have equanimity. And Abhidharma Samuccaya states what is equanimity? It is that equalizing the mind, existing as the natural state of the mind, causing the spontaneous abidance of the mind, which is incompatible with afflictive states, through abiding in non attachment, non hatred and non delusion. It functions to not grant an opportunity for affliction.
So this is then explained as: in dependence on the means of single pointedly placing the mind initially on its focus, the nine mental placements are serially established because when the ninth mental placement is obtained, one obtains spontaneous abidance of the mind which does not require exertion, reliant on the antidotes to sinking and excitement or sinking and agitation. So here, equanimity, the mental factor of equanimity is composite equanimity. And it’s this the mind, this equal state, even state of the mind that is a natural state of the mind which spontaneously abides evenly in relation to others. And from the other Lorig text it also states that there are three types of equanimity. There’s the feeling which is equanimity.
There’s immeasurable equanimity that comes up in the beginning of the six causes and one result instruction and the four immeasurables. And then there’s composite equanimity. Composite equanimity is this one here. This mental factor. Then we have non cruelty.
What is non cruelty? It is the mind of compassion pertaining to non hatred. It functions to stop contempt for others. So here non cruelty is the pure thought focusing on suffering sentient beings, thinking may they be separated from that suffering, which is free of the intention to ever inflict pain on others. So that’s non cruelty here means compassion.
So these are the eleven virtuous states. Right. So what we’re doing here is we’re just giving a brief description of these mental factors. Is this of benefit? If in fact we can develop an understanding of these, then this can be really useful because these states are, well, hopefully the virtuous, these eleven virtuous states are rising quite often.
Like the last one, non cruelty, the thought of compassion towards others, ahimsa. The slogan of Gandhi, ahimsa. Satyagraha and ahimsa were his two slogans. Non cruelty is ahimsa or compassion, really generating compassion to others. So that compassion is by its very nature a positive mental factor, a virtuous mental factor.
And we should, of course, try and recognize it and generate it as often as we can. Any of those eleven, we should generate as often as we can. Ideally, our life should be just this what? The rising of compassion and compassion to love, then patience, then non hatred, and so on. It should be really just this long line of virtuous mental states.
If it’s not like that, then it’s an indication that there’s fault in our mental continuum. And with diligence and effort and so forth, we can begin to overcome these negative mental factors really by applying their direct opponents. Whenever the opponents of any of these eleven mental factors, positive mental factors arise, then we should apply the antidotes as quickly as we can for our own benefit. Otherwise we’re really indulging in, in a sense in negative thoughts and so on. So here we should employ these eleven positive mental factors at all times.
Then after that, we have the six root afflictions. So the six root afflictive states are attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, afflictive doubt and afflictive view. It’s very good to contemplate these because many things arise. Here, we have anger here separated as a, what? It’s a root afflictive state.
One thing we notice is that, non hatred is regarded as one of the virtuous states. Not that it’s non anger. Yeah. These are just I’m just thinking this myself. But also this other point, here we have wisdom in one and non delusion in the other.
They’re almost exactly the same, but they’re not. Wisdom here is regarded as one of the five object determining mental factors. But then in the eleven virtuous, we also have non delusion. Is a little bit like confusion or ignorance. So non ignorance, non delusion.
They’re both mental factors. They’re not main minds. They’re very similar. But one’s neutral and one’s positive. Why is that?
Ah, there’s many more. In fact, it’d be very, very useful to debate these out. And one of the purposes of debating all these out is that we gain a clearer understanding of these mental states. Because at present, we don’t have much of an idea of what they are. They arise, hatred, anger, delusion.
They arise all the time. We don’t necessarily recognize them for what they are. But we should. We’re responsible for what manifests in our own mental continuum. And if we manifest them, if we generate them, we’re responsible for their consequences and no one else.
Although we do tend to blame others for what happens internally to us. It appears as if what’s occurring internally is coming from outside, but actually it’s all coming from inside. Yep. Yeah, that’s right. Right.
Yep, they’re mental factors. Yep, they’re the Right. No. They’re not the same, but eventually, the effort, concentration and wisdom that exists in our continuum, we’re striving to make them the perfection of effort, perfection of concentration, the perfection of wisdom. When we become ārya beings, then they become perfection.
But perfection’s in name. When we become Buddhas, they become the actual perfections. Perfection by perfection. We’re perfecting, yeah. Yes.
There’s a lot of work to be done here. We have the aim, that’s right, to perfect them. But those that possess the perfection of, say, effort, their effort is just like our effort in the broad description of what effort is. Their mental factors, they have just these characteristics. But there, when a being has established the perfection of effort, then they establish the six perfections in effort.
And also that being, what level of bodhisattva are they? They are fourth ground Bodhisattva. That means they’re an Ārya being on the fourth level. Therefore they have what? Countless emanations for a start.
They are in they can travel to anyway, they have vast capacities. But their effort is just effort, like our effort is. Same characteristics. Right. Now after that we have anger.
Now the definition of anger is stated in Abhidharma Samuccaya. For any dharma that occurs, it occurs with the characteristic of not pacifying. So this is absolutely essential. What is anger? It’s just that thing that’s not pacifying, that’s agitated, that’s disturbance, that’s upset.
But, you know, in a sense, if we look into our mental continuum at the present, whatever is there that’s a bit agitated, oh, that’s the presence of anger. We can almost put it that simply, because anger is that which doesn’t pacify. By occurring, the mental continuum is not pacified and possesses the characteristics of affliction. So it’s any degree of impatience, any degree of agitation at the present. We become so used to it being there, we hardly notice it.
It becomes a No. It would tend to destroy effort and energy in a way that it’s defined in the way effort is defined in the eleven virtues. What does, it disrupts our mental continuum. And here, if it’s giving us energy, especially positive energy to do something, that’s not anger. We have to separate those out.
Yeah. But it doesn’t mean to say that it’s it can be, you know, like, what? Acting as a an sorry? It can. It’s a very agitated type of energy, and it can motivate one to kill, to harm others.
Yeah. That’s right. If it’s anger will motivate one to harm. It won’t motivate motivate one to to help anyone. So it’s not really a positive energy.
Anger is I mean, know from our own experience, when we get angry, we will break something. You know, we probably have enough sense to divert that energy from another person and we break something else instead. It’s a very negative energy, destructive. Anger is never That type of energy can be transformed by very skillful practitioners into something positive. Anger itself is a negative energy.
No, no. I think here it’s the difference between being motivated out of concern to benefit others, but using wrathful means to do it. That can appear as anger, but it’s not anger. It’s a bit like a mother. You know, if a mother No.
Oh, well, if it is, I mean, in a sense, it’s either one or the other. It’s not For instance, an example here is like a mother. If a mother sees a child about to do something and they hit the child to stop it, they’re not motivated to harm the child. So it’s really not coming from anger. It’s coming from concern and the concern is so, what?
Passionate that it’s becoming over the top in a sense. But it’s not within that act, say, of slapping the child. It’s not meant to hurt the child. It’s not motivated with the intention to harm. It’s possible to have anger directed towards the government, but then, you know, compassion directed towards the soldiers or, you know, the people dying.
And so on. It’s can have that. The only thing is you can’t have simultaneously anger and compassion directed towards one object. But you can have anger and compassion together at the same time, but not at the same object. Yeah, that’s right.
I think it’s possible that you can have compassion directed towards one object and an anger towards the other. And those, you know, maybe there’s a mixture of energies there that occur in the continuum. And one’s got to be careful that, one is not, being overwhelmed by anger. But you really can’t have anger and compassion directed at the same object at the same time. I think that’s part of the problem here because we have we can take various objects and we think about them over, you know, during the same period.
And so some of those objects we may have compassion to others we have anger. And it may seem as if even the ones we have compassion or there’s a general anger there that’s beneficial. But really it’s probably the compassion that’s the element that’s beneficial. And the anger may seem to be caught up with that. This we need to actually look at very carefully.
Because if the anger is a benefit, then we should cultivate it. But I think it’s very useful then to examine where the anger is, if there is anger there and what it’s directed at to be very clear on that. And if there is compassion there, where there is compassion. If there is fear there, what’s the fear directed towards? Separate them out.
Yeah. Oh. True. It can. Yeah.
Yeah. Well then that’s really that also needs to be looked into as well because, just an example of a mother with a child and a mother gets very if a mother is getting agitated in relation to the child, then there also there’s an indication that there’s some anger, some compassion. Because here the measure of anger is this agitation, it possesses the characteristics of not pacifying. But it’s not the same as the energy that was mentioned before as a virtuous mental factor, which is this, the effort there is liking virtue, being able to undergo hardship for a positive cause. That’s very positive.
That type of energy is different here than the energy of anger. But again, this area, we really need to examine. Because at present, it’s hard for us even to even the obvious negative things that arise internally are often hard for us to discern as being negative. So these other areas where there’s a bit of a mixture and so on, also we eventually need to come to an understanding of. We will inherit the, the results of these states in the future.
Anyway, we should have a break there.