Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 102-minute teaching on mind and mental factors, Ven Thubten Dondrub introduces the foundational framework of fifty-one mental factors—essential tools for understanding how the mind works and how to cultivate virtue on the path to liberation. He begins with the six primary consciousnesses (eye, ear, nose, taste, touch, and mental), explaining how they differ in what they directly perceive: the eye sees only shapes and colors, the ear hears sounds, and the mental consciousness uniquely conceives complete objects and can know other minds. Dondrub then walks through two crucial sets of mental factors. The five object-ascertaining factors—aspiration, conviction, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom—are virtuous qualities essential for Dharma practice. He illustrates how aspiration and faith work together to maintain interest in teachings; how conviction prevents the mind from wandering to other systems; how mindfulness holds meaningful objects in awareness and guards against distraction in daily life as much as in meditation; how concentration single-pointedly stabilizes the mind on a virtuous object; and how wisdom-intelligence distinguishes what leads to happiness from what leads to suffering. Throughout, Dondrub stresses that these are not abstract concepts but practical means to reshape how the mind habitually works moment by moment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 M F L 2004 11 15.mp3
UUID: f715df02-b9b0-4481-88eb-c15fb9a92b19
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind and Mental Factors (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2004-11-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 102.4 minutes
Words: ~12,382
Good evening. So welcome everyone to this second of six is it six? Six talks on mind and mental factors of the mind. And so to make this practice of listening an actual Dharma practice that is a remedy to our disturbing thoughts that can therefore pacify our disturbing thoughts and enable us to generate more happiness in our mental continuum, then we need the right motivation. And not only is it good to have the right motivation, it’s good to have the best motivation possible. And the best motivation that we can possibly cultivate for listening to the Buddhist teachings is wishing to understand them in order to practice them so that that practice will lead not only to less suffering and more happiness in this life, more than that wanting to practice so that not only will we have better rebirths, more than that, not only so we can escape or become completely liberated from the causes of all suffering, but ultimately wishing to achieve the state of complete enlightenment, developing the full potential of our mind so that not only do we experience the pure lasting happiness that we’re always seeking, but so that we have the qualities, these enlightened qualities that enable us to help every sentient being move away from creating more suffering and guiding them to the path that leads to their complete liberation and full enlightenment.
And in so doing, we repay the kindness that we’ve experienced life after life from all the suffering mother sentient beings. So as much as possible, however you understand that, try and generate this bodhicitta motivation seeking enlightenment for the benefit of others. And we try and base that motivation on a strong refuge in the Buddhas, the teachings of the Buddhas, and the great accomplished practitioners of the Buddhas’ teachings. So these three things are called the triple gem of the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, To help us generate that refuge in the triple gem, it’s helpful to visualize Śākyamūni Buddha, the historical Buddha Śākyamūni appearing directly in front of us to inspire us, appearing with a body of golden transparent radiating light seated on a very beautiful lion throne, lotus sun and moon. And to help us cultivate the thought of bodhicitta, We think of ourselves surrounded by all the kind sentient beings starting with our mother of of this life on our left, our father on our right, the rest of our family and friends behind, antagonists in front so that we try to overcome our negative thoughts to such people and replace it with a sense of compassion, concern, kindness, affection and so on.
And then around that central group, as much as possible, to think of all the other kinds of sentient beings and the different sufferings they’re experiencing, wishing to be of lasting benefit to all of these beings, certainly not wanting to cause them any more suffering directly or indirectly. So as we generate these thoughts and try to do these visualizations, then we also if you’d like to join in, say the prayer of refuge in bodhicitta, which is on page fifteen. Tibetan is on page fifteen of the prayer book, and which we say twice, and then the English, which we say one time is on page fourteen. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits that I create by listening to the Dharma, may I attain the state of Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings.
We can think that the Buddha is very pleased with our intentions, and because of that, now comes to the crown of our head, turns facing the same direction as ourself, dissolves into light, that very blissful light comes down through the crown of our head filling our whole body and pervading our mind. So we imagine that in an instant our body becomes very light and supple, free of all pain, pervaded by a sense of bliss in every atom of our being. And our mind at the same time becomes very calm, very clear, very light. A sense of the mind no longer just confined to this body, but without any limits or boundaries, all encompassing vast space, pervaded by the blessings of the Buddha’s inconceivable wisdom and compassion that resonate with our own potential for these amazing qualities. For short time, please do if you know how to do the nine round breathing exercise.
Otherwise, just focusing on the breath for a short time, trying to keep your mind just resting on the breath. Whatever the mind wanders to that is not the breath, try to be aware of that very quickly. Gently let go of it and immediately allow your mind to go back to the breath. Just keep doing that again and again. Okay.
Thank you very much. So does everyone have a copy of the of the fifty-one mental factors handout that was given out last week? Didn’t so firstly, we’ll do that. How many people need a copy? I think it’s about four or five people.
If you could put your hands up, please. So just very, very briefly to recap what I was saying last week. This topic of which is called that is called in Tibetan Lorig, and mental factors, Lorig talks about fifty-one mental factors that as a dharma practitioner, someone wanting to really understand their mind and work with their mind in a skillful way need to know these factors because these are the essential ones that we need to work with to follow the path not only to liberation but to enlightenment. Especially it’s incredibly important to be able to know the to be able to recognize the virtuous mental factors and the negative ones. But also there are the other mental factors that we considered.
So these are also important to know. So last week we were talking about there are the six primary minds or primary consciousnesses associated with and there’s the primary eye consciousness that knows shape and color, knows or experiences. There is the primary ear consciousness that knows sounds, experiences, knows sounds. There’s the primary nose consciousness that knows and experiences smells. There is the primary taste consciousness that experiences taste, of course.
Bitter there are what how many tastes? There’s salty Bitter, salty? Is it salty? Sweet, bitter, sour, and there’s one other which I can never astringent. That’s it.
Yes. Tastes. You cannot taste an apple. You can only taste one of those five things. You cannot see, as I’ve pointed out many times before, you know, you can’t see a pair of glasses.
We all think we can see a pair of glasses. Right? There they are. I can see them, but you can’t. You can’t see a pair of glasses.
All you can see are shapes and colors. There. And that’s all the eye consciousness can do. All the ear consciousness can do is hear sounds. And the nose can only smell, taste, smell, smell, smell, taste can only experience those five things.
And then there’s the tactile consciousness that can experience tactile sensations such as smooth and rough, hot and cold. And I think there’s a couple of others. I wish I should know these things. If I was a Geshe, he could rattle all these things off back to front. And then the most important conscious primary consciousness is the mental consciousness that is able to put all that information together and create the appearance of this world.
And so as I said last week, primary conscious sense consciousnesses have the ability they directly know their object. Our mental consciousness has the potential to do that. But now our ordinary mental for us as ordinary beings, our mental consciousness mainly knows and experiences things indirectly via concepts conceptually, but we can perceive directly things. And of course, this is this is what a Buddha does. And when one does perceive things directly, then there is unmistaken cognition because we our mind is not perceiving mentally.
Our mental consciousness is not directly perceiving those things. And that’s why we make so many mistakes and suffer. So when we say we see a pair of glasses, it is actually our mental consciousness that is conceiving on the basis of seeing some shapes and colors here. Our mental consciousness then conceives this as a pair of glasses. Right.
Because a dog doesn’t see a pair of glasses. Right. A dog I mean, it sees this object, but it doesn’t see a pair of glasses. Only a human being can do that because even someone, like from Africa six hundred years ago well, not even a Westerner but what’s an well, what? I don’t know.
Well, an Aboriginal two hundred years ago, if they saw that in Australia, you know, of the first settlers probably had the pair of glasses, and an Aboriginal person seeing them would see the glass you know, see this thing, but they wouldn’t see a pair of glasses Because a pair of glasses is something that depends on a label, a concept. Yeah. You can’t you know, without the concept of glasses and what they do, you can’t see them. You can’t know them. You can’t experience them.
So very roughly, conventionally, we say we see a pair of glasses, but we don’t see them. We just see shapes and colors. And through all sorts of experience, our mental consciousness says this this collection of shapes and colors is a pair of glasses. Right. So So these are the six primary consciousnesses, the mental consciousness being the most important one.
And then always associated with these primary consciousnesses, which generally experience their particular object in a general way, then what always goes with those primary consciousnesses are these mental factors. They can be positive, negative, neutral and so on. And these fill in all the infinite details of the general nature of that phenomena, give all the much more information so we can know that phenomena, experience it in a much more complete and total way. Just going back a bit as I always do, move forward a bit and go back. One of the unique objects fields of knowing of the mental consciousness is mind itself.
The eye the other mental sorry. The other sense consciousnesses cannot know the mind itself, whereas the mental consciousness is able, for example, to know other minds. When one’s mental consciousness is purified and concentrated, it is possible, for example, to develop what is what is called clairvoyance and being able to read other people’s minds. This is not just some kind of new age fantasy or something made up. This is definitely something that the mental consciousness can do when it’s trained.
Definitely, it can do. Some people have this in a in a some kind of uncontrolled way that occasionally they can know something about another person’s mind. Right? But this is usually, it’s not something controlled. It happens.
Actually, I don’t understand exactly why it happens, but it does happen. Some people have that ability. I can use it on and off throughout their lives. Some people just may experience at one time, but it’s not coming from real training in this life. So it’s not very trustworthy.
But when one is actually cultivating the mind properly, then a point is achieved where you can develop with real control and understanding and awareness the ability to read other people’s minds. And then as you train your mind, you can you can not only know their present thoughts, you can you can know what they were thinking, you know, and saying ten years ago or something or previous lifetime. Of course, you can do that with your own mind. You have the ability to recall. Right now, our memory is know, even our memory of yesterday, do you remember very clearly what you did yesterday or even this morning?
And and we think when we met we remember thing I’m getting off the topic, of course, but what the heck? You know, we think when we’re remembering something that it’s accurate, but actually when you check your memories with other people, one can discover that it’s it’s probably it’s not not what we actually experienced at all. There’s something there of of the truth that, you know, our memories can be very deceptive. Whereas when one purifies and trains the mind properly, one can have a a a an accurate recall of everything that one has ever experienced. And you can also know that with other people.
I know an American nun and there’s also other ways you can develop this. I don’t know if you believe these things or not. But in the Tibetan tradition, there’s a system where you can do a certain practice and because there are all sorts of gods and deities out there and spirits and you can make contact with these beings. And through their help, you can, do all sorts of kind of miraculous things. So I know this American nun.
She’s quite a very special person. So there’s this practice called the mirror where through a certain deity, a deva, you kind of propitiate this deity, and then you can see things in this mirror. In fact, you don’t even need the mirror after a while. This this woman, this nun doesn’t. She can she can actually see things in your body.
She can hear your grandmother talking to you twenty years ago if she wants to. I I you know, it’s true. I’m not lying. She can do this. But that’s with the help of some being out there.
But also the mind can do it. This is going on. Forget this is going on the web. This is very scary. Yeah.
But the mind can also when it’s purified and trained, it can do these things directly by itself. But it’s really amazing what the mind can do, really. Yeah. So anyway, back to the So the primary consciousness is know things generally, and then the mental factors fill in all these details. So we were so there are always some mental factors present.
And especially we looked at last week, the five, what are called the first group of mental factors on your sheet, which are called the five ever present, omnipresent mental factors. So these always exist with every primary consciousness. They have to be there. They’re always there. These factors of intention which that moves the mind to the object, contact, the coming together of the consciousness, the sense base and the object, the attention, the discrimination or recognition and the feeling.
So this is an as I said last week, this is an interesting point that in every moment of consciousness, there’s always feeling there. There’s either this pleasant feeling, an unpleasant feeling or a neutral feeling, which is not a non feeling. It is actually a feeling, this very subtle thing, a neutral feeling. Anyway, think I don’t want to review that anymore because I’ll never get anywhere, but just to remind you of those things. So then the next set of mental sorry, the mental factors that can occur with the primary consciousnesses are the what are called the five object determining or five object ascertaining mental factors.
So these, as I said at the beginning of the talk, these mental factors, this presentation of mental factors is presented by the great Indian masters from the point of view of what we need to know to really cultivate the dharma. The dharma of working with our subduing our negative minds and especially cultivating virtuous thoughts and awareness and so on. So these five object determining factors are actually positive mental factors. The next group of mental factors are called the eleven virtuous mental factors. But these five object determining mental factors are also virtuous minds.
They’re all minds that are used in terms of cultivating religious, you know, here in the context, the Buddhadharma. We need these qualities. And the more we cultivate them, the more we will be able to develop our Dharma understanding, our Dharma practice, realization of the teachings. Maybe just one thing I again, I’ll just go back back to. If you remember last week, I was saying that one of the omnipresent mental factors, which is in called in in Tibetan, it’s called sems pa, which or this can be translated as intention.
Actually, what this is also referring to, it’s really synonymous with the Sanskrit word karma, meaning activity, referring to the activity of the mind. So I I just like to read this. Maybe this, might help. So intention is a mental action and is karma not only from the point of view of cause, but also from the point of view of of effect. So it’s this this mental factor of his intention is karma from the point of view of cause because it moves them by moving the mind to a particular object, good or bad, and combined with a particular positive or negative, other positive or negative mental factors.
This is how we create these karmic seeds in our mind, good or bad, that ripen as suffering. So whatever our mind moves to, that some karma is being created. If our mind is constantly moving towards virtuous objects with a virtuous motivation, then we’re creating positive karma in the sense of creating positive positive mental imprints, positive potentials in our mind that can only ripen as happiness. If our mind is many times, moment by moment in a day, moving towards contaminated negative objects with you know, with a kind of non virtuous motivation, then we’re generating these harmful negative potentials in our mind that can only ripen as suffering. So from the point of view of cause, this mental fact of intention is karma.
But also interestingly, it is also karma from the point of view of effect in that. So how do these you we have positive and negative karmic propensities or potentials or seeds in our mind. How do they produce their effect of happiness and suffering? The way they do it is they they do so by ripening ripening as this mental factor of intention, which then moves the mind to a particular object. So if we’ve got some negative karma, we’ve created some negative karma and that is about to ripen, that will ripen as this mental factor of intention.
So if it’s negative karma, it will ripen as this mental factor of intention that has the intention to move to an object that will cause us suffering. Whereas if there is some positive imprint in our mind that starts ripening, that ripens again as this mental factor of intention that directs our mind to an object, a situation that is conducive to happiness. That’s kind of interesting. And it’s we can always see this in other people more than ourselves, how sometimes you you you kind of wonder why is that why is this very intelligent person always caught up in these negative situations that they they find themselves, they’re drawn to them? Right?
But it’s our karma that is pushing us there. So maybe I was a bit uncool to say, not politically correct, but just from a Buddhist understanding, many other people would say, Oh, God drew me to this. No. This is God. Or from a New Age point of view, you know, they have this idea of a similar idea that somehow what is it?
What is it? I don’t know. That you are somehow directed by these forces to this and that. But this from a Buddhist point of view is is not the case. What brings us to situations good and bad is the ripening of our our karmic imprints that we have generated, our mind has created.
Yeah. Why do you keep coming to this place? You have some intention to do so. Sometimes you don’t have much intention, so you don’t come. Sometimes you have a lot of intention to come, so you do.
That’s karma. Some people have absolutely no intention of ever coming here. There’s no karma to come. And when people come, you meet the object and it generates happiness in the mind. Even hearing about suffering.
I want yeah. Even hearing suffering can produce a certain kind of understanding it can produce a kind of liberated state of mind, a happy not happy. What? A clear state of mind. That’s that’s a good expression in Buddhism.
A clear state of mind, a free state of mind. Whereas other people, when they hear that, it makes them miserable. Yeah. That’s karma. You meet the object, and your karma experiences it in a particular way uncontrollably at the moment.
That’s very interesting, I find. Yeah. K. Enough of that. We’ll never finish.
So now we’re on going back. No. Up forward. Sorry. I’ll go forward to the five object ascertaining mental factors.
So these object ascertaining, they’re called that because each of these mental factors becomes very certain with respect to its object. And in this case, the objects are related to the Dharma. So we need in order to practice the Dharma or any spiritual path, but here, particularly, we’re considering the Buddhist path to really engage with it strongly and effectively so we get the very best result. Our mind really needs to be certain about it, really certain of every aspect. And the more certain we are, the more we will, you know, wholeheartedly embrace that.
Right? If one has lots of doubts, then, you know, one won’t have the same energy to put in it. Right? If you have no doubt that the mind exists the way the Buddha taught that it’s beginningless and endless, then then you then this gives you a lot of energy to work for future lives. There’s no question about it.
But if you have lots of doubt there are so many people who call themselves Buddhist, which is fine, but they have a lot of doubt that there there is future lives or past lives. So that doubt weakens the mind that wants to practice. Right? Practice really intensively. But if one really knows that there are past lives and and if you have no you’re certain that what the you have some certainty that that that what the Buddha taught that there are all sorts of kinds of different lives that one could have, not just human lives, but animal lives and lives as ghosts and horrendous suffering beings, then if you have some certainty that that’s true, that, you know, really gives a lot of energy to practice.
Yeah. If you have no certainty about it, it’s it’s you know, it doesn’t push us. Right. And if one has no certainty about the law of cause and effect, well, you think, oh, maybe negative actions produce suffering, maybe positive actions produce happiness, but I’m not really sure. And maybe it doesn’t work all the time.
And maybe it’s not as, you know, as as as so powerful as as the Buddhist, you know, the Buddhism says that one little, you know, little little, you know, moment of negativity can produce huge suffering, and a little moment of happiness will produce of good good action will produce huge happiness in the future. Maybe. I’m not I’m not really certain that’s true. But if you are if you are, then that is an incredibly powerful motivating factor. If you meet Tibetan lamas and the Geshis and the Lamas and the Tulkus or or even your average Tibetan Buddhist.
These people have no doubt about this. They have such incredible faith in in in the in the teachings, but especially, you know, the lamas and the Geshe. And their faith is not some kind of blind faith. It’s these people have incredible logical understanding of these things. And so they have incredible motivation to practice, incredible energy to practice because they’re a hundred hundred percent convinced of every bit of what the Buddha taught.
Yeah. So these five object ascertaining mental factors are very important to develop certainty. Right? To develop certainty. So these mental factors are aspiration, which I think in Tibetan is called Dunpa, and it could be translated as interest.
I don’t know if it’s more accurate, but for me that makes more clear what this this mental factor is. Then there’s belief or conviction, which is Möpa, then Trenpa, which is mindfulness, which is one of the most incredibly important mental factors that we can possibly cultivate that we need, which is concentration, and then Sherab, which is wisdom or intelligence. So just a little bit about these. So the first one is is aspiration or or interest. So this is a virtuous wish or desire wanting to experience a particular object of meditation such as an image of the Buddha.
It has two aspects of seeking something, you know, being drawn, seeking something and faith, which we’ll talk about later. That’s one of the virtuous mental factors. It says aspiration or interest arises and is followed by seeing the advantages of the object of contemplation. And so the the more the mind sees the advantages of something, then then, you know, one generates effort or energy to attain that object without caring about the physical hardship involved. For example, the aspiration to gain knowledge is based on faith, and this gives the energy to overcome difficulties, and this leads to the next step of effort, which in turn leads to all other results.
If we put effort in something, the more effort eventually we will get the result we want. So for example, all of us at some point develop some interest in the Buddhadharma. Right? Right. And then if we maintain that interest, we can start to see that there are some advantages to being engaging in this practice.
There are some advantages. And at first, you know, if we start out, in my case, I was only thinking about the advantages of this in this life for me. You know, I wasn’t, in fact, I I I didn’t actively seek out Buddhism. As I’ve explained before, I just kind of fell into it by accident. But then I, you know, I took some interest in it.
First, took an you know, I my interest was was an aversion, a a non interest. Then I developed then I sort of came in contact with it again and took some interest in it. Yeah. And then I started to see you know, looking back and trying to explain this point, I didn’t didn’t think about it consciously this way. But by coming in contact with it, and taking some interest, I started to see that there were some advantages.
Wasn’t just something completely weird and unconnected to my life. I could see that it was connected to my life and that if I did some of these things, there would be some benefit. And then with time, I started to see that this benefit would be more than this life. It would go far beyond that. And and also it would be very beneficial to other people, which was very appealing.
Yeah. So if we maintain this interest and we follow it, then then we develop the energy to practice more and more. So this is, I think, for someone following the spiritual path, this mental factor is very important, especially when it’s combined with this other virtuous mental factor of faith, which we’ll talk about later on. But maybe briefly, I’ll say what faith is now. The meaning of faith is is a mental factor that develops through knowing the qualities of something.
At first, we have this aspiration, this mental factor of aspiration that takes some interest, but we may not know much about what we’re interested in. But then faith arises by knowing the qualities, and faith arises and develops by knowing the qualities of something. The more we know about the qualities of something, the more faith we will have. So, yeah, so this is an incredibly important mental factor, faith. So combined with aspiration, this becomes something very essential and very powerful in our spiritual life.
Of course, one can see that I get very confused with lots of paper. Of course, you can see that one can also have similar mental factors about anything. You know, one can take an interest in having a Maserati. Right? One can aspire to own a Maserati or a Mercedes Benz or a what is that song called?
Oh, yes. That’s right. Oh, Lord, won’t you buy Mercedes Benz? Yes. Right.
Yes. My friends all have Porsches. I must make amends. Yes. It’s a great, dumb song, man.
So, Janice Joplin, if you don’t know. It’s a white generation. Yeah. So one can take an interest in some very worldly thing, and also one can develop faith, a kind of faith in a very worldly thing by knowing its qualities. You know, Maserati, I think if you check out, has many qualities.
Much better than like Aston Martins or something. But yeah. So and and so you develop great great faith in that in that by by knowing the qualities of that object. But that kind of interest and that faith doesn’t lead us anywhere really. It’s not really very helpful in our life.
So we’re not talking about that. This kind of faith and aspiration are completely different mental factors. Right? Something quite different in a sense, looking similar, but actually quite different. So this is the trouble with our language in Tibetan language and like in the Chinese language, which is also influenced by the dharma.
There are very specific words for talking about interest and faith that refer to meaningful spiritual objects and just ordinary words for these things. Yeah. But we don’t have that in our language, unfortunately. You know, we say I have a lot of faith in George Bush or mister Howard or something else. Or I I have a lot of faith in Asperos or, you know, Panadol.
But that’s not misfaith. So the second of these object men object ascertaining mental factors is called conviction. So this is a mental factor that firmly holds onto the object found by aspiration. We have this mind of mental factor of aspirational interest that is interested in a virtuous object and and begins to know it and so on and become involved in it. And conviction is this mental factor that that it stays on that object because one one feels, you know, confident about that that object.
The mind with conviction, when the mental factor of conviction is operating, the mind does not change and go off seeking some other object. For example, if one has developed some conviction in the Buddha’s teachings, if there’s that mental factor operating when we when we listen to the Buddha’s teachings or read them, study them, if there’s that mental factor, then our mind won’t go off thinking that something else is better or more interesting. Right. So the more conviction we have, the more our mind will stay with the Buddhadharma. Right?
So one can see that this is an important mental factor to have. Or with with any spiritual tradition you’re trying to follow, you need to have conviction within that system. Right? And then your mind will stay in that system because it feels comfortable there. It’s ascertained its object, right, correctly.
It feels this is correct, and the mind stays there. And if the mind stays there, then the longer it stays within that, then the more benefit. But if our mind is jumping all over the place, then then it’s it’s very difficult. It’s it’s in following the Buddhadharma, it’s so important in to try to maintain some consistency. Right?
Once one has developed some interest and conviction, it’s important to just keep going, you know, to stay there, not, as it says here, you know, wander you know, moving away from that, take a look you know, taking interest in this, taking interest in that, or losing interest in what has already been established. Because if we keep doing that, we’re never gonna get anywhere. Yeah. Really nowhere. It’s so important just to try to, you know, even a little bit, the lamas say, if, you know, even if you put a, you know, a little bit of effort, just maintain that day after day.
Yeah. And sorry, this sounds like some self promotion, but I think it’s incredibly helpful in the situation that we’re in as Dharma practitioners where most of us live quite isolated from other, you know, in our practice. There’s not, you know, we’re not surrounded by family and friends who have the same beliefs and interests and so on as ourselves. So it’s so important to keep that contact with the Dharma by, for example, coming to a center like this. If this is the only center you know, and, you know, this is such a wonderful place anyway, fantastic teacher and everything.
So it’s really good to maintain that connection and keep coming. I know I really do know to some extent that how difficult it is for people to keep coming because there’s so many things in life, family commitments and things coming up. But if you have if you try to maintain in your mind that interest, that aspiration, yeah, and that contact that this is so important to maintain, to keep my mind connected in contact with the dharma all the time, then coming here should be a priority, I think. Sorry. Maybe I’m out of lying saying that.
But, anyway, I’ve said it. So I have to stick to it now. Because it’s so beneficial. Because once one breaks that contact, that continuity, it’s so easy for the mind to drift away more and more. And you think, oh, I can do it by myself.
And you think you’re doing it by yourself, but actually it’s very, very difficult unless we have very we’re very special people. And I’m not trying to put anyone down or but it is difficult because there’s so many other factors out there. And it’s so necessary, I think, to maintain this connection if you feel it’s a good connection. Right? If you don’t think it’s particularly beneficial, then that’s different.
But if you recognize that there there is some real benefit in in in in coming to a Dharma center and hearing the teachings, it’s really important to make that decision to to try and do it no matter what. This is very important for my life. Right? It’s vital. It’s vital.
Yeah. And it’s very rare. It’s a very rare thing. Some people say, well, I’m so glad it’s rare because it’s so weird and creepy. But if you appreciated that it’s something very special, you know, it’s rare.
It’s it’s very precious like like a diamond. We have found a diamond in the mud. Amazing. The most amazing many faceted enormous diamond that keeps growing with many, many colors and and facets all the time. It’s really important to to to maintain that interest and and conviction in that.
Yeah. Keep that going because it can be eaten away so easily. So the next of the object ascertaining mental factors is mindfulness, which in Tibetan is Trenpa, I think. Right? Trempa?
Yes. Trempa. So So this is a mental factor that holds our mind on an object by being well acquainted with it, not forgetting it, and remaining undistracted from it. So it’s a it’s a mental factor that clearly and without distraction holds the memory of a previously familiarized object. Okay.
So mindfulness has three factors. It’s three features. One is that you’re you’re already familiar, acquainted with the object. So it’s involving some kind of recall or memory. It has that aspect of recall bringing to mind, recalling, remembering some something that you’re previously familiar with, have some familiarity with.
The second aspect of mindfulness is that having recalled that thing, that object, you don’t forget it. You you’ve maintained it. You don’t forget. You forget it. And the third factor is that your mind stays without distraction on that object.
So for true mindfulness to exist, all of those three features have to be present. Right? If one of them is missing, then it’s not true mindfulness. So the real the real skill in developing mindfulness is again maintaining this continuity of the mind, the continuous mind that is able to hold awareness of something meaningful without distraction, without losing it. Because as soon as we lose it, there’s no and we forget it and then we bring it back again.
And then we lose it and then bring it back again. That is not real mindfulness. That’s just some kind of plastic version. Actual mindfulness is this ability to continuously recall something that we want to recall, to to stay with it and be undistracted, you know, to hold it and not be distracted from it. So this mental factor is incredibly so, you know, this mental factor again, this mindfulness is a mental factor concerned with virtuous things.
Right? It’s not just being mindful of anything. It’s generally to put it in a very general way. It’s being mindful of anything connected with our Dharma practice, with our Dharma life. Right.
So this mental factor is incredibly important in practicing meditation itself. To be able to meditate properly, one has to have this mental factor because I’ll just make this point first and go back. And it’s also mindfulness is equally important in our daily life because especially at our level of practicing the Dharma let’s let’s go back a bit. The ultimate aim of of meditation in the Buddhist system is one meditates on a particular subject or object in order to gain a realization of that meaning a stable, clear experience knowing of that meaningful thing that doesn’t leave your mind that completely transforms and pervades your mind in an incredibly beneficial way. That’s the ultimate purpose of meditating is not to relax, to regain your health or anything like that, which are terrific byproducts that can happen from meditating.
But from a Buddhist perspective, the real purpose is not that or it’s not to make you happy, temporarily happy or anything like that. All these things can happen. The real ultimate purpose of meditation is to bring about these realizations in the mind, these positive, stable, transformative experiences that putting putting all these realizations together will bring about our liberation and enlightenment. But in the meantime, back at the ranch at our level, until we get these realizations, what our our meditation is about, and it’s it’s connected, of course, it’s a similar thing, but not quite the same, is that we are contemplating various things, virtuous, meaningful things. And in order so we’re sitting down formally to to meditate on particular things.
And in order to to apply those things in our daily life, right, to use these things, all of this Dharma wisdom and understanding in our daily life. It’s not just to have some experience, you know, as we’re sitting. So many people have this strange idea that meditation is about having you know, you sit there and you get some amazing experience on your seat, which some people do. I’ve never had one yet, actually, because I’m although I sit on this glorious throne, I I’m and I’m a monk and everything. I’m a lousy meditator, but some some of you I’m sure most of you can meditate far, far better than me.
I haven’t had any experience of the Dharma yet. I can talk about it or pretend to talk about it. Some people sit and and can get all these realizations instantly. But so, of course, I’m just being, you know, exaggerating. Of course, you can get experiences, but the aim is not to have some kind of bliss or some kind of mystical experience.
The the whole purpose of meditation is to gain understanding, real insight. Yeah. Because this is what is going to benefit us. Just having some bubble of bliss doesn’t mean anything. You know, if you want a bubble of bliss, you can choose up.
Right? Sorry. I’m not encouraging that at all. But that’s a bubble of bliss, you know, and it doesn’t help, you know. Just just the, you know, pleasant experiences don’t change our life.
You know? They they don’t do anything about the cause of our suffering. Right? Whereas real meditation is all of it is meaningful meditation is meant directly or indirectly to lead to real liberative insight that is gonna free us from suffering and therefore bring about real happiness, real contentment, peace, real satisfaction in our mind, lasting stable peace and contentment in our mind. Right?
That doesn’t come as a result of sort of blindly ignoring the existence of others and the suffering of the world and so on. So so before we get these, you know, amaze you know? So what we’re trying to gain is a little bit of insight into ourselves, into our delusions, into the meaning of the Dharma itself. And then as we formally meditate and and why what what do we what is the purpose of all of this? The purpose is to use it in our daily life because I don’t know about you, but I cannot sit on a cushion twenty four hours a day.
Right? Most people are doing other things. Some people have this strange idea that monks and nuns, you know, sitting and meditating all the time. I get telephone calls. Oh, I’m sorry.
I hope I haven’t interrupted your meditation. I wish they were, but, you know, it’s it’s like implying that I I I’m, you know, at home, I just meditate or that I suppose I should be. I I never thought of that. Oh, drat. That’s what it’s about.
I knew. Now I got the point. No. But I know even good monks and nuns and whatever, you didn’t spend all your day. You can’t.
It’s very until if one’s very, very highly realized or something. So, you know, most of the time we’re doing other things which can be meaningful, but especially someone following a lay life, there’s so many things one is doing. And the purpose of practicing, of meditating is to apply what even the tiniest inside understanding awareness that one has, one has to put that into into one’s life all the time as much as one can because that’s what it’s all about. Yeah. Because it also at one point in one’s life, one’s life is gonna be the experience of dying.
And then we really that part of our life is incredibly crucial where we really need to apply all of these insights. My point is here is the point, that in order to apply all these insights and understandings about death and and suffering and compassion and kindness and generosity and all of the dependent arising and all these things, how it really becomes really strongly part of our life is through mindfulness. You know, holding it in our mind, remembering and recalling all these meaningful things that we meditated on, but also we studied and heard and read about that, you know, our mindset, yes, this is true. This is beneficial. Right?
So that we have to recall. We have to continuously bring it to the to the forefront of our consciousness, hold it there, and don’t be distracted from it. That’s what mindfulness is, and that’s what we need to do in our daily life. That as soon as we get up from the cushion and same with the teachings, that what is the purpose of hearing? What is the purpose of coming here and listening to what is being said?
It is to be mindful of it. At least what you believe, what you’ve heard, you think, oh, this is true. This is beneficial. This is meaningful for myself and others. Then the purpose, the point is to remember it.
The the purpose is not to forget it. The purpose is to keep remembering it in order to why? Why should you remember it? To act on it. Why?
Because one’s already decided this is incredibly good. This is incredibly beneficial. This is the best thing of all. Right? So we have to, you know, do that.
Right? Because, you know, it’s the best stuff. So we have to remember that because the amazing thing it is incredibly easy to forget what is the most meaningful precious things of all to do. Right? It’s so easy.
Because we unfortunately, if we’re really honest, we we don’t have the habit. We don’t have the habit of this. I mean, we do fortunately have imprints of the dharma in our mind. That’s why we’ve taken an interest in it in this life. Our intention has because of our karma, our intention has drawn us to our interest has drawn us to the Dharma.
Right? And we’ve decided, hopefully, many people here that it is incredibly important. Right? I’m sorry. It is.
It is. I’m a Buddhist monk. I believe it’s the most important thing in life. The what what the Buddha Dharma teaches, there’s nothing better. It’s the most if if if we could all try to do what the Buddha said, it would be utterly amazing.
Utterly amazing. And he he just said, don’t hurt anyone for any reason, any time, any way. Wow. If we could just do that or even just try to do that, even if we had admiration as his holiness says, the key starting point, I’m raising and off the point, not quite admiration. It’s just admiration for that idea.
If everyone admired that, this world would instantly be at peace. But many people do not admire the idea that you shouldn’t hurt people for other or any sentient being for any reason at any time. They think it’s completely stupid and gutless and all sorts of things. That’s why we have so much suffering because people are constantly trying to we’re constantly trying to justify, you know, our own self-cherishing, which is actually our greatest enemy, but we don’t know it. That is another story.
Right? Where am I? Where am I? Yes. Mindfulness.
Yes. Mindfulness. Right. I was just checking you, you see, were you mindful there? So we have to hold these things in our mind.
We we meditate. We read the Dharma. We think about it in order to try as much as possible to maintain the continuity of our understanding and and conviction in it. It’s so that it will affect our mind in a positive way moment by moment. Right?
And that that is the key to all success is being mindful in daily life. Mindfulness is a has a I said at the beginning, it has it is a virtuous mind. It has this sorry to use this word in some ways. No, I shouldn’t be, but it has this moral quality. Many people talk about mindfulness as just simple awareness of just knowing this is happening, but that just knowing now I am picking this up and now I’m putting this down.
That is not mindfulness. That’s just being aware and awareness has no moral quality as my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, says, you can think now I’m picking up the knife. Now I’m stabbing it in the heart of my enemy. Now I’m grinding it around and now I’m pulling it out. That is not mindfulness.
That is negative awareness. Yeah. Or you need awareness to drive a car. You don’t need mindfulness. You need awareness.
Mindfulness is is is an aware is awareness that is aware of things that are are are, from a spiritual point, meaningful and meaningless. Being able to remember, recall what is meaningful and beneficial remembering what because one has become familiar with what is actually damaging and suffering and meaningless and harmful and not beneficial. Right? These are the things we really have to remember. And when we remember them, when we bring them into our mind, we have to hold them in our mind and not get distracted because as soon as we get distracted from them, then the the all the the negative mental factors kind of swoop in to our mind.
Mindfulness is what sort of guards our mind from being attacked by the barbarian hordes of the the deluding thoughts. That’s pretty poetic, isn’t it? Sorry. Right. So we need it very much in our in our ordinary life.
And in meditation, it is this key factor in developing the ability to concentrate because with meditation, one what there’s one has to have an object. And some people think somehow somehow you just sit there and something happens. And it’s just spontaneously, you know, you sit and, oh, and, you know, this kind of stuff. And then something happens. Some some mystery takes place.
But that’s not meditation. You have to have an object. Right? And you have to know what the object is, and it has to be a virtuous, meaningful object. Right?
You have to be familiar with it. So to meditate properly, you have to have mindfulness. The first part of mindfulness is recalling, bringing back the thing you are familiar with. For example, if you want to become adept in visualizing the Buddha, which is a very beneficial thing to be able to do for many reasons, which I won’t go into now. But in order to be able to visualize the Buddha properly and meditate on the Buddha, you have to know what the Buddha looks like.
You have to have familiarity with that image. And then mindfulness is the mental factor that remembers it, that recalls it and brings it to the forefront of your consciousness. Then the next aspect of mindfulness is holds it there. And the third aspect of mindfulness is doesn’t get distracted from it. Therefore, it’s very obvious if if one doesn’t have mindfulness in meditation, you don’t have meditation.
It’s not meditation. It’s just mental rumbling and wandering. Right? It’s absolutely a key function of meditation. Because what we all experience trying to meditate is the mind moves from the object.
It it gets distracted. The energy or the energy of the mind on the object weakens by becoming dull and sleepy and bored, or it gets very over, you know, over energized and wanders off to something. It gets very excited and goes looking for something else, like the sound of a truck. So fascinating. So much more fascinating than thinking about the dharma.
Someone walking down the street, oh, fascinating. I must listen to that. You know? Or the pain in my toe, fascinating. Much better than than than thinking about the dharma.
Or some thought about lunch, tomorrow’s lunch, fascinating. That’s much more interesting. So there’s no mindfulness. So mindfulness has to recall what is really meaningful and hold it and not lose it. Yeah.
It’s absolutely essential. And in our daily life, you know, we have to be able to, in general, remember the the the dharma in general. Right? But this is what my life is about. Sorry using the dharma because dharma is a foreign word.
It’s a Sanskrit word. It sounds like some kind of amazing thing. But what is the dharma? Dharma is about our mind and what it can the harmful things it can do and the amazingly wonderful things it can do. That’s what I have to remember, not about making money and whether I look good and all these kinds of things.
Oh, we can think about those things a bit, but we don’t need to put half as much energy in those things as remembering that my mind creates hell for me and others. No one else. My mind creates my hell, my suffering. My mind creates my heaven, my happiness, my meaning. Nothing else.
Right? That is what we have to really remember moment by moment. That is taking refuge, having that mindfulness of doing our refuge, recognizing that our mind is the key to everything and that it’s it’s active all the time and it’s generating these karmic imprints, these potencies all the time. This doesn’t mean that one has to kind of heavily think that. It’s it’s the point is that when through studying the teachings, you know, listening to teachings, meditating on them, some of that just it it it it it just goes into us.
You know, it just seeks into our being. It seeps, not seeks, seeps, sinks, sinks into us. Yeah. It becomes part of us. So it it kind of with time, it it it’s sort of spontaneously there to some extent.
I mean, still at our level, we have to put energy into it, but with time and, you know, first, maybe it requires a lot of effort and so on. But with time, because of the power of familiarity, this this stuff stuff. This wonderful awareness and understanding is there. It’s accessible. It’s affected us because there are many levels of realization is the ultimate final realization of a particular thing.
But it’s I think it’s fair enough to say that any ordinary person can give these little realizations that really affect us. They affect who we are. We become, you know, met, I think many people here have met the dharma, decided something really wonderful, and it and it’s changed you. It’s changed me, believe it or not. Well, I’d like to think it changed me at some point.
You know, you become another person. Right? Someone who, yeah, a little bit different, a little bit better, a little bit kinder, more softer, gentler, wiser in some ways. Maybe not as much as we would like and could be, but something. And that and that that that permeates us.
Yeah. Right? But it’s also very important to be mindful of all of all of the things that brought that about and keep it going, Right? Because it can be very quickly lost. We shouldn’t think that whatever good qualities we have, they’re they’re permanent.
They’re gonna stay there. They do require effort. They require mindfulness to maintain them Until, you know, much later down the path, the great realizations come and and and these minds never change. Then it’s something really totally part of our being. So then the next mental factor is is concentration, concentration.
So then this is referring specifically to this is a mental factor that where all of these five object determining mental factors are only connected with the mental consciousness. These don’t operate in the other sense consciousnesses. So concentration is the mental factor that is able to single pointedly remain on an object, a virtuous object. So this is one of the key mental factors that as a practitioner of the Buddhadharma that we should be aiming to achieve at some point in our life. We all have some ability to hold our mind on a particular object.
You know, we have again here concentration is referring to a specific virtuous mental factor. We have another kind of concentration that is similar, is able to stay on other objects, you know, like when you’re reading the newspaper or a novel or you’re watching the TV, the mind can be single pointedly or it has not single pointedly, but there’s quite a degree of can be quite a degree of concentration on that. Now, in this, I think when you look at the stock exchange and the prices, there’s some kind of special thing going on. Those people are absolutely single pointedly, berserkly concentrated on making money there in that instant. But that’s not this mental factor because that mind is focused on things that are kind of worldly and limited and whatever, sometimes nonvirtuous.
Yeah. Now when we hate someone, we can we can really concentrate on our hatred of that person. If we have a lot of desire for some something, we can concentrate very strongly on our desire for that thing. So that is not this mental factor. This mental factor is the mental factor that is able to very easily, very joyfully and and spontaneously stay on a virtuous object.
So we have the potential for that mental factor. But generally speaking, probably no one in this room has that mental factor fully developed. I shouldn’t say that, but it’s very rare. Not many people have this. It’s quite difficult to develop, but it’s an extremely important mental factor to develop Because one of the key things we have to develop ultimately at some point in this life, probably in a future life, is the wisdom that will destroy ignorance, which is the source of our suffering.
That wisdom is one aspect of that wisdom. Well, that wisdom is a mind that is is is able to understand to see the false appearances of of things that we believe actually are true. Things appear in a particular way right now, which we think are true. The wisdom realizes that although this appears this way, it’s actually false. It’s an illusion.
And this wisdom is the mind that also understands that although things appear this way, the way they actually exist is this way. Does that make sense? So that there’s some kind of understanding of that, but that understanding, no matter how profound it is, doesn’t have the power to destroy our ignorance. What has to be combined with that mental factor of wisdom is the mental factor of concentration, the ability to hold the mind that is thinking along those lines continuously long enough until it it destroys our ignorance. Yeah.
Does that make sense? Yeah. It’s like it’s a little bit like when you when we were kids and we’re being taught some new subject at school that we’re not familiar with. And if we don’t pay attention and we’re not, you know, we don’t take interest in things or even if we do, but it’s complicated first. And so we’re not we don’t take full interest.
We don’t focus properly. So we and our mind wanders. And so we don’t understand it. We don’t realize that, you know, a plus b equals c. It’s it’s just too I can’t get that.
You know? And the mind wanders off. And because the mind is wandering all over the place, you the mind doesn’t hear the full explanation and doesn’t get the point. But if the mind is able to focus on what is being said, what is being taught, what you’re hearing, what you’re reading, if and it stays on it long enough, then you can understand. Then, know, this little light bulb lights up in your mind, and you think, ah, yes.
I got it. Because your mind stayed long enough on the thing to be able to understand, to realize it. So that’s the setting in a way, our the wisdom, the right understanding we have has to stay long enough on the object to completely undermine, to to undercut the wrong view that we’ve always held as being true. And for the mind to stay long enough to see that that although it looks like that, it cannot exist that way. It actually exists this way.
It’s actually empty. It looks to be truly existing, but it’s actually empty. Anyway so we need concentration. We need this mental factor. And the more we have it now, I mean, are many levels of this factor to develop actual there are nine levels of developing final single point of concentration.
When I’ve said this many times before to some of you here, when one fully develops single pointed concentration, which can only be done in very strict retreat, in very special physical environment, it usually takes quite a long time to do it, like years. In the good old days, people could do it in maybe three months, but these days it seems to take and there are not many people who achieve it at any point. But once one has actually achieved it, you can sit in meditation without any pain. The body is pervaded by this incredible bliss, so they say, and you can stay there meditating on that object for days, weeks, months, and years if you want to. Literally, quite literally.
And while you’re doing it, there is no actual ordinary breathing taking place. And it’s like if what what is it? Some kind of rock and roll band. What’s what’s the loudest rock? You know, some heavy metal rock band was playing right next to you, you wouldn’t even hear it because all the sense consciousness is totally shut down, and your mental consciousness is the only consciousness functioning, and it’s one hundred percent totally focused single pointedly on that one object, and it doesn’t move to it, to anything else.
Of any other thing. No. It’s it’s there’s this total awareness of the object that you chose to focus on. So there’s no awareness of anything else whatsoever. Right.
Sorry? Oh, it just happened. Somehow you I I don’t know how that exactly works, but you do get out of it. You don’t get stuck there. You do you are able to come out of it whenever you like just like that.
For example, just going back onto at the first level, there are nine levels of achieving Samādhi. At the first level, the first stage of accomplishment of Samādhi, you are you are then able to focus your mind on an object for about what is it? I can’t remember now. I think it’s the the amount of time it takes to breathe twenty one times, you know, like doing the twenty one breaths, something like that. So the first level of developing samadhi is when you can stay on the object completely, because we think sometimes we’ve got twenty one breaths on, you know, twenty one we’re able to stay twenty one breaths on the breath, twenty one counts on the breath.
But actually underneath, there’s all these little subtle thoughts going on. So that’s not concentration. Right? So the first level of concentration is where your mind can stay clearly on the object for the count of twenty one breaths. Then it progressively gets more and more and more until like I think the second stage is when you can time it is about five minutes.
You can stay five minutes on the object. Things like that. No. No. A mental object.
A mental object. Con oh, this is a good point. Single point of concentration is not developed by, like some people say meditation, you meditate on looking at a candle flame. So this is not meditation from a Buddhist understanding and this is not concentration. I mean, there is an eye consciousness that can concentrate on a candle flame or crystal or a green dolphin or something.
But this mental factor is a factor associated with the mental consciousness, and this is what we need to develop. Yeah. We need to be able to control our mental consciousness because if we control that, all the other mental the other sense consciousnesses we can control, but it’s the mental consciousness where where our disturbing thoughts and our virtuous minds arise from. So this is the one we need to be able to focus on to master. Because the point is if we can concentrate on anything, if we can hold our mind on whatever we want to, that means we have the ability.
Once one has that concentration, we have mastery of our mind. We can subdue, not suppress, but subdue all the disturbing thoughts because that’s what happens in order to be able to hold your mind on a virtuous object. It means one has been able to successively subdue the mind that wanders to negative thoughts, you know, negative experiences. Any questions? Comments?
It’s quite clear. This is just a quick run through of these mental factors, right, just to give a little taste of what they’re about. And then very briefly, the last of the mental of these object determining mental factors, all associated with the mental consciousness is what is called in Tibetan, which translates in English as intelligence or wisdom. So again, there are many levels of this. And basically, Sherab, or intelligence or wisdom is the mental factor that is virtuous mental factor that is able to distinguish.
It has the ability to distinguish that which is meaningful from that which is meaningless, that which is virtue from that which is non virtue is able to distinguish and hold what what what is conducive to happiness and benefit and so on and and what is actually conducive to suffering and and and is harmful and destructive and so on. So we say, you know, people are intelligent if they, you know, if they can, I don’t know what, understand, you know, Einstein’s theories? That’s intelligence. Well, that’s a bit that’s ordinary intelligence, But this intelligence has this moral quality of really having, you know, because many intelligent people, you know, lead very meaningless lives. They use their intelligence, their ability to discriminate in a way that doesn’t even make them happy, even bring even ordinary happiness.
Many incredibly, you know, I think in our society, in Western culture, especially there’s this idea that geniuses are miserable anyway. They have these tormented souls who are so smart that they suffer. From a Buddhist point of view, this is absolutely ridiculous. You know? But if you’re really intelligent, you’re happy.
That is a sign of real intelligence. Yeah? Which which intelligence would you prefer? The one that understands Einstein’s theories or how to make a million dollars and be miserable or be a very simple person who knows that this actually makes me happy, and and you experience it. And I don’t mean just kind of little tinkle bell happiness.
I mean, kind of the real thing. Some of the great dharma practitioners were incredibly simple people. And actually they say as you get more highly realized and all your concepts drop away, highly realized people start to appear very child childlike because they drop all these complicated concepts that we like to think are so clever and smart and sophisticated. They just have a direct simple experience of life, of reality, and themselves. But that’s what real intelligence is about, just knowing what actually is you know, what is meaningful.
And many people have no idea. Many very smart, smart, very rich, cultivated people have no idea what is really meaningful. If you look at our society, what is admired, what is meaningful, as meaningful, it’s very sad. The people who are famous in our society. People become famous because, you know, we say that this person has a meaningful life.
The things they are doing are meaningful, and I would like to be like them. But you look what who are the famous people in our world and what they’re doing. And you and you look in their lives, into their lives, which you can on the cover of any magazine. You know? The newspapers and magazines are not full of the lives of saints meditating in caves, strangely enough.
Where are we? Concentration. Yes. So this basic intelligence is this ability that is so essential in our life, especially our spiritual life, to be able to really understand, to distinguish that this brings peace and happiness and contentment, and this doesn’t. This is actually conducive to suffering.
Right? EG, anger is intelligence is the ability is the mental factor that is able to understand to distinguish that anger is negative and harmful in every situation. Right? Whereas loving kindness, compassion are always conducive to happiness. Yeah.
That’s intelligence. That’s the mental factor that can distinguish those things. And, you can can distinguish that this way of perceiving the world brings happiness. This way of conceiving the world or conceiving of another person is conducive to suffering. As my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, says, and I will repeat, one way of thinking brings every kind of happiness, and one way of thinking produces every kind of suffering.
And the intelligence is this mental factor that knows how to think in the way that is conducive to happiness. Right? And from that basic intelligence develops the liberating wisdom that is able to perceive that this appearance looked at it looks real, looks true, but it’s not. Because what there’s that discriminating ability to realize that there are these it’s just not like that. It just doesn’t work.
It cannot be like that. But in fact, things are like this. They may not look like they’re like that, but this is how they are. So from this basic ability to distinguish simple truths and and and beneficial things arises, the the the wisdom, the liberating wisdom, which has got nothing to do with knowing lots of clever things. It’s about having a clear mind.
Another way of saying what intelligence is all about is having clarity of mind, a pure clear mind. But because the mind is that which knows, and the mind has the ability to know what is true, to perceive things as they are, not as they are not. Our mind does see see things now. The confused distorted mind can see things the way they are not, but it has the ability that is amazing quality to know things as they are. As I said at the very beginning of the course, you know, if something exists, the mind has the ability to know it.
If it exists in a particular way, the mind can eventually, when it’s purified and allowed to function properly, it can know it. Most of you have heard the example of the analogy of, you know, through various, you know, conditions at nighttime, seeing one can misconceive a rope as a snake, you know, a coiled bit of colored rope. You can easily mistake that as a snake, and there is appearance of a snake in your mind. You know, we’ve probably all had the experience of, you know, seeing someone in the distance who you think is a friend, and when you get up close, it’s not. But when you were back there in the distance, you could you could see your friend.
In the same way, you can misconstrue a snake, a rope as a snake. And in that example, which we’ll talk about in our next Discovering Buddhism in February, the mind has created the appearance of a snake, which we believe is there. It’s not the snake. It’s not there at all. There’s not one fraction, one scale of a snake actually present.
Never has been. But our mind is seeing a snake, and we believe it’s there. What is not there, our mind sees. And the rope which is there, we don’t see. This is really quite amazing, true and amazing.
What is there, we don’t see, and what is not there, we see. And the interesting thing is that the Buddha said this is happening to us right now. What is actually here, we are not seeing at all, and what and what we are seeing is not here. That’s pretty scary. But which doesn’t mean that, you know, I’m seeing a cup that is not here, what is really here is a purple elephant.
There is a cup here, fortunately, but the cup I’m seeing is the cup is not the cup that is really here. Even the person I am that I think I’m experiencing, that person is not here at all. It’s just created by my mind. The person I actually am, I am not experiencing at all. We’re all doing that.
So wisdom, this Sherab, this intelligence is the mind that is able to cut through that that all those illusions and see what is actually there. But to develop that ultimate wisdom, we have to first make these very simple correct choices. But this is actually harmful. This is beneficial. This is true.
This is not true. To be able to perceive the conventional truths before we can see the ultimate truth. We have to be able to see that the spiritual life is meaningful and conducive to happiness, and worldly life is ultimately conducive to suffering. If we don’t, you know, see that, if we don’t make that that intelligent appraisal, we’re gonna suffer. Sorry.
I’ve gone over time in my usual style. I’ve been quite good the past couple of weeks, I think, but I’ve reverted to type. I’m sorry. But the it’s the director’s fault because he never says anything. Okay.
Thank you very much. Please think about anything I said. If you disagree with it, you’re most welcome to. We can argue and debate and fight next week. And in the meantime yes.
Yes. Yes. We can we can dedicate the merits, the positive imprints in our mind that we’ve generated, the positive potentials. We can dedicate that these ripen as the causes and conditions for us to quickly achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. These prayers are on page seventeen.
The first one, and then the English one on page sixteen. May the precious Bodhi mind. The precious Bodhi mind not yet born arise and grow. Made and born have no decline, but increase for So easily undermined so many ways. So then right.
Break. Yes. Twenty minute break. We’ll take a ten twenty minute chai break, tea break. Thanks very much.