Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 26-minute session, Ven Jampa Ignyen teaches the Buddhist psychology of mind and mental factors—how consciousness shapes our experience based on which mental factors arise alongside it. He begins with a core principle: the mind itself is neutral, but becomes positive or negative depending on the mental factors present. He then explains the five aspects of concordance that link the main mind with its accompanying mental factors—they share support, focus, aspect, duration, and substance. The teaching focuses on five omnipresent factors (feeling, discrimination, intention, attention, contact) that must be present for any awareness to engage an object. Through concrete examples, he shows what happens if any one is missing: without feeling, no experience of pleasure or pain; without discrimination, no recognition of identity; without intention, no engagement with the object. He situates this within the Abhidharma framework of 51 mental factors.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 M and C 2001 09 11.mp3
UUID: 6d13d5ff-ce15-44bd-b052-0829434128e6
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 07-09 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-09-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 26.3 minutes
Words: ~2,435
So it all depends on the minister. Contrary to popular opinion. But the mind is all important because our experience does depend on our mind, isn’t it? Our mind is central to it. Our mind is this awareness that we have at present.
And basically it’s neutral, but it depends on the mental factors, whether it becomes positive or negative. It gets pushed around. If the negative mental factors arrive, then the mind becomes negative. Positive mental factors arise and influence the mind, the mind becomes positive. The mind otherwise remains neutral.
The mental factors are all important. Now, the mental factors arise as a retinue of the main mind and they possess five elements, five aspects of concordance with the main mind. And these five aspects are: are concordant in support, focus, aspect, duration or time and substance. So the mental factors are concordant in support. That is because whatever supporting sense power supports the main mind, it also supports the mental factors concordant with it.
So whatever supports the main mind, then that will support the retinue mental factor that arises with the main mind. So if it’s eye awareness, then what’s supporting the eye consciousness, which is the main mind, is the eye itself, the eye sense power. So that eye sense power also supports all the mental factors concordant with the eye consciousness. It’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? Well, it is and it isn’t actually.
It’s not easy for us to determine these things. That’s right. You wouldn’t have any you don’t have any eye consciousness, so therefore you can’t have any feeling in relation to eye consciousness. Okay, more difficult here is the eye for mental awareness. What’s the supporting sense power of mental awareness?
It’s easy enough for the sense powers, for the sense consciousnesses. Now we’re about halfway down to page thirty six, we’ve got a list of five, and then we’re doing the first of those five underneath us. Right. But for mental awareness, what is this sense power supporting mental awareness? Mental consciousness.
Now it doesn’t have to be conception, but the brain. No, that’s not the sense power. Yes, it’s a particular type of mind. No, it can be thought, but it doesn’t have to be conceptual. Here we’re looking at the mental sense power, aren’t we?
We’re the eye sense power, ear, nose, tongue, body, and then the power supporting all mental consciousness is the mental sense power. Okay? All that is, is the awareness of the previous moment. So this moment’s mental awareness is supported by the mental sense power, which is the awareness of the previous moment, whether it’s conceptual, perceptual. Right.
So if that mental sense power is supporting the main mind, it also supports the feeling or other mental factors that also arise. Okay. So then number two, in dependence on whatever focal object the main mind is generated, its mental factors are also generated. So this is the second one, focus, the focal object. So independence, whatever focal object the main mind is generated, then the mental factor is also generated in relation to that focal object.
That’s okay, isn’t it? And then in terms of aspect, the third one, in whatever aspect of the object appears to the main mind, that aspect also appears to its mental factors. Yeah. That’s generally it’s like an attribute of the object itself. It’s a the mind may focus on a particular object, but within that field, it tends to focus.
It tends to hold something. So that is an aspect. Sorry? Yeah, if you took the table and then you held the color of the table, the color would be the aspect. The red would be the aspect.
The focal object would be the table. So then four, whenever the main mind is generated, its mental factors are co generated. So they share the same duration or the same time. And the fifth one, the main mind and retinue mental factors are generated as the same substantial type, and not as distinct substantial types. So, although they’re not of the same substance, their substance is very similar.
Substance of awareness, yeah. So here awareness, because it’s impermanent, is regarded as substance or a type of energy. And Abhidharmakośa states: One object, mind and mental factor concordant also in five aspects. So this is a source for that particular for asserting that there are five types of concordance between minds and mental factors. Okay.
So then if classified there are fifty one mental factors, there are the five omnipresent, the five object determining, eleven virtuous, six root afflictive, twenty proximate afflictive and four variable. So there are five omnipresent mental factors, and the first of these is feeling. Second is discrimination, then intention, attention and contact. Omnipresent just means all the time. They’re explained to be omnipresent by being present for all minds, because if any of the five are not complete, utilization of the object is partial.
So omnipresent, Küntro, the Tibetan term is Küntro. Küntro means all, tro means to function. So they’re always functioning. They’re ever present. And although they may not be manifest at all times, they always exist.
They always do exist. And if one or more of those does not exist, then it’s not possible to utilize object. It’s not possible for awareness as we have it present to engage its object. At present our awareness does engage objects, doesn’t it? We think about about things, we observe things with our senses, and our awareness is always engaging objects, whatever objects that the mind rests upon.
This process is determined by the mental factors. So as Purbu Chok says here, now first, now the utilization of the object would be partial because if there is no feeling, the experience of ease or bliss or suffering does not occur. So if there’s no feeling, then we don’t experience the object. There’d be no feeling arise in relation to an object that we’re viewing or we’re holding. Yep.
Neutral feeling. Neutral is feeling. Absolutely. It didn’t include neutral there, but it’s implied. Neutral feeling is generally called, say equanimity.
The feeling of equanimity as distinct from immeasurable equanimity or composite equanimity and so on. And number two, if there is no discrimination, there is no imputation of convention. In other words, really, there’s no marking unique sign of an object, which is the function of discrimination. Discrimination actually allows us to hold the unique identity of a particular object. If there is no intention, there is no engagement of the object.
If there is no attention, the mind is not directed to its focus. Attention is actually directing the mind to the focal object. And if there is no contact, there is no generation of the feeling of ease or suffering, etcetera. Contact is what enables us to, what enables feeling to arise. Feeling only arises when there is contact.
The mental factor of contact is present. Here contact is another type of awareness that directs the mind to the object, and in a sense contacts the object. They’re similar. Dissimilar to contact.
That’s more like, say, developing an understanding when comprehension occurs. But here, for every awareness, there is contact. Every awareness there, when awareness is, when feeling arises in relation to an object, it’s a sign that contact is present. Otherwise, the feeling won’t arise in relation to that object. Contact here doesn’t mean comprehend.
It’s the, in a sense, it’s the necessary condition for the arising of feeling. All of these occur simultaneously, these five omnipresent. So when really like in the first moment there is contact, intention, attention, discrimination and feeling all existing. But those five are five separate mental factors, types of awareness, that influence the mind. These five are always occurring and they’re always directing the mind to objects.
In general, intention is what directs the mind to a particular object. Attention is really holding that to us like a more specific sort of aspect or attribute there within the general focal object. Right. No. Under, fourth aggregate.
Yep. That one, composition. Yep. But feeling is the second aggregate, discrimination is the third aggregate. Intention really is the fourth aggregate.
Attention and contact also included under the fourth aggregate, as with all the other mental factors. In this, this is a nice presentation in that way, because feeling is the second aggregate, discrimination is the third, intention is the main mental factor of the fourth aggregate, etc. All the remaining mental factors that occur are also included in the fourth aggregate. The central one of which is intention. Right.
So we five, and they’re always with us. They’re like our ever present friends that are helping us to pushing the mind around to this object or that object. Without them, the mind will not be activated, or the mind will not locate an object. Yep. Serially.
Yeah. They’re in a causal sequence. Yes. They are. But they don’t necessarily occur serially.
Oh, they do. Omnipresent here means that they do arise. Omnipresent here means that they occur for all minds and they’re always present. But you can, like, they can if they occur simultaneously, they’re not causally related to each other. But those that occur, you know, from one moment to another can be in a causal relationship.
Like feeling in the first moment can be a condition for the arising of discrimination in the second moment. In the twelve links we have what? Contact and feeling. Right? So contact and feeling, what’s that, the sixth and seventh, is it?
Contact and feeling generally as mental factors arise at the same time. But there, that’s giving contact which arises before feeling. That’s all. But for us, we would probably have to say that, for instance, when we have a first moment’s awareness of something, we have contact and feeling arising simultaneously. So those two are not causally related.
But contact and then the second moment of feeling and so forth, they are causally related. So that can be interpreted for the twelve links. Is that okay? Not at all. Mean, this we need to investigate.
And part of the class really is to investigate some of these issues. It’s not easy to come to a resolution of them because they’re often They require some contemplation. But it’s good if we can gain some understanding at least of the context of these issues, because gradually we need to develop an understanding. Specifically here the fifty one mental factors and the six main minds. And those fifty one mental factors plus the six main minds, they define the full extent of every possible awareness that we can have.
A Buddha has just six main minds, and also a Buddha has the five omnipresent, has the five object determining, none of the root afflictive or the proximate afflictive, but all the virtuous mental factors, all the virtuous states, and so on. In a sense, our process, what we’re seeking to do is to limit or to eliminate certain mental factors. We can’t. They’re not physical in that way. No.
They’re not. No. They’re objects of abandonment, but they’re only abandoned through applying the correct antidote to them. They can’t be squashed. Six main minds, yes.
That’s on page thirty six. Yep, near the very top, if classified by nature, are six or two. That’s six main minds there. Eye consciousness, ear consciousness and so on. Yep.
That’s all we have, the six main minds plus the fifty one mental factors. Now this system is the system according to Asaṇga. The Theravāda asserts fifty two mental factors. Vasubandhu asserted forty six in the Abhidharmakośa. So we’ve chosen the middle path here.
We’ve gone fifty one. So this is the Asaṇga’s Abhidharmasamuccaya, fifty one were asserted. This is Abhidharmasamuccaya is a Mind Only presentation, But here it’s adapted to the Sūtra School’s presentation. Presentation is somewhat different. Yeah.
Yeah. But very interesting. In fact, that also should be included. The Theravāda presentation presentation of minds and mental factors, because they get very much into the seventeen moments of awareness. And what states of awareness occur in this seventeen moment cycle.
And so it’s very, very interesting, but we don’t it goes a little bit beyond the scope of the present text. Vasubandhu’s system of forty six mental factors is very similar to this. And in fact, it’s almost a Sangha has put together what Vasubandhu has talked about and modified it and enlarged it. They were, yes. Vasubandhu was Asaṇga’s younger brother.
Yeah, twelve years. When he got out from the cave, his younger brother, Vasubandhu, complained that here you are, you went into retreat for twelve years to meditate, and what do you do? You come out with five texts. You come out with all these texts, which were the five texts of Maitreya. And so he criticized him quite strongly.
And later on, decided he would send down a student of Asaṇga’s to recite to Vasubandhu was a Hinayanist. And so he sent down this one monk to recite the Sūtra on the Ten Grounds near the cave of Vasubandhu. And Vasubandhu was a great scholar, of course, and he would often recite texts that he’d composed or sutras that he’d memorized. And so this monk would be sitting, would be standing not far away from the entrance to the cave and be reciting Sūtra on the ten grounds, the ten grounds, the bodhisattvas’ grounds. And Vasubandhu, being a great scholar, couldn’t help but listen, you know, check the composition and the meter and the subject matter and whether it had the five aspects of a treatise and so forth.
And he’d get drawn into the meaning of the sūtra, this great vehicle sūtra. And eventually he came to understand the excellence of the great vehicle. He came to understand the excellence of the great vehicle. And then he remembered that he had said so many bad things about the Mahāyāna and all these other great vehicle teachers. And he was about to cut his tongue off because of what he had said.
And his brother, his elder brother says, no, don’t do that. Now you have to make up by composing treatises, commentaries to the great vehicle and teaching. So then he commenced to teach And to a very great extent, he became a follower of the Mind Only school. Anyway, we should stop there and have a have a a little break. Anyway, it’s good that we’ve started on the minds and mental factors.