Conceptual Cognition, Foundation Awareness & Two Truths: Karma Kagyu

Thank you for a very good lecture and examples, especially with computers and zeros and ones. I was wondering, it is difficult, when it comes to conceptions, I can understand that as soon as I get a concept of a flower there, when I say flower, then it’s already something solid. Can there be grasping without conceptions? I think about small children and animals. I’m around horses a lot, and they know what they want and what they don’t want, but I guess they don’t have concepts. Can you explain this? 

Animals have concepts for sure, but they don’t have words associated with the concepts. We need to be a little bit more precise when we speak of concepts because that is really a Western word. What this is referring to is mental activity with categories. There are two types of categories, and they are very essential for the operation of our mental faculties and to be able to understand things. One type has to do with objects and the other basically with sounds.

With objects, the category is, for example, “apple.” When we go into the grocery store, there are all these different items. Unless we have a category “apple,” we don’t know that all of these items fit into the category of apple and that the oranges don’t fit into that category. Categories are how we are able to make sense of what we experience; otherwise, there are all these creatures in front of me right now. Without the category of human being, how do I know that they are human beings? We can’t make any sense out of the information unless it is put into categories. 

The problem with categories is that they give the impression that they are like boxes and that things exist in boxes. The categories have definitions, but those definitions are basically made up by convention. So are the boxes or categories, for that matter, especially if we think of emotions. Take the category of love. We all feel love, but how do we know they are the same emotion? For instance, what we feel for our parents, a girlfriend or boyfriend, for our dog, for the city that we live in. We call all of that love, but what you or I experience is quite different as well. 

The example I often use is the categories of loving or liking somebody. How do we know if it has gone over the border to fit into the other category? In a relationship, both people are going to have very different boundaries of this category and of how we define it. Still, we use these categories in order to make sense of what we experience.

The other type of category is audio categories, without which language and communication wouldn’t be possible. When two different people make a sound, how do we know that they are saying the same word, and we associate it with a meaning. For example, if we say the word “refrigerator” – I like food, so I often use food examples – how do we know, when each person says that in a different voice, different volume, different pronunciation, that it’s still the same word? It’s because there is an audio category. Conceptually, with that mental hologram of the sound that is attached to it, we fit it into this category, so that we understand that it’s a word and by convention it has a meaning. Otherwise, it’s just a sound like what we might hear a whale or a horse making. Maybe the other horses or whales understand the sound, but we don’t understand it. 

Categories are very important. When we think of concept in English, then we are discussing much more than just a category. Then we’re speaking about what we would call judgmental qualities along with it. The category of horses would include that they are beautiful and intelligent and intuitive and so on. But someone else can attach to it that they are afraid of horses and a horse will bite me or whatever. 

When we think of concepts in the West, we are thinking in terms of what is added onto the categories and that is optional really. The qualities, especially judgmental ones, are relative. Large, small, beautiful, ugly – these are relative to any person’s own sense of what is beautiful and what is ugly.

We shouldn’t think that conceptual cognition is something that by itself is no good. The trouble-making aspect of it is to think that things actually concretely exist in these boxes. For instance, “love” or “liking” having to be one solid fixed thing existing in a box.  

You were asking about animals, they definitely have a concept of “my barn,” “my stall, where I live,” “my master,” “my friend,” or “my child,” if they have a foal. They certainly have these categories; but whether or not there’s a word associated with it is something else. But there is a significance associated with it, as in “my stall where I sleep,” or “my master who feeds me.” There is a significance there and, from the Buddhist point of view, we find that in all life forms that have a mind. We aren’t speaking of biological life like plants and the fungus in between toes, although biologically that’s alive. When people bring up the question of whether plants have minds, then we have to bring up this fungus as well.

About consciousness, as mentioned this morning, each consciousness is a primary consciousness. That implies that there is a secondary consciousness; could you speak more about what is primary and what is secondary. Is it a storehouse for karma?

You are correct, if we say primary, then there are secondary ones, although the term most commonly used for the others is mental factors, or subsidiary awarenesses. This is what is found in the next three aggregates and what we’ll cover in the upcoming lectures. They qualify or assist the primary consciousness. A long explanation will come. Briefly, the primary is like if there is a chandelier with a big light in the middle and a lot of little lights around it, the primary is the big light, and the other little lights are like the mental factors around it that help it. Examples are concentration, interest, various emotions and so on. Primary is just the main one that is aware of the most basic essential nature of what one is cognizing, such as a sight, a sound, a smell, a taste, a physical sensation or mental phenomenon; that’s all.

The other two are explained in the Mind-Only school. In Mind-Only, foundation consciousness isn’t clear and doesn’t have decisive cognition. It’s underlying and is just the basis on which tendencies and habits are imputed. But perhaps someone else can answer in the Kagyu Madhyamaka system, when this foundation consciousness is used, is it also aware of every object in the cognition and is it clear? 

It’s neutral.

It’s neutral in terms of not being constructive or destructive, meaning that it takes on whatever ethical value the rest of the cognition has. I imagine that it’s still focused on the object, but is it uncertain about the object as in the Mind-Only or Chittamatra school or is it valid? 

This I don’t know. I need to think.

I don’t know either. I tend to think that it is more underlying. When we speak of clear light mind in the Gelugpa system that I’m more familiar with, that it’s underlying each moment of consciousness, but isn’t manifest. It’s there, but not really actively operating. The seventh consciousness is just aimed at the foundation consciousness, so I guess that it’s aimed at its essential nature; but I don’t really know. I imagine that’s what it is, because it affects or stimulates in each moment to give rise to a mental appearance or hologram. 

Those two, but again I’m guessing, should be underlying each moment of cognition, and they are operating, but whether or not they have five congruent factors with the consciousness, that I don’t know. Are they also giving rise to the hologram? Do they also focus on the same object; I don’t think so. But these are very interesting but technical details. I’m sorry, I don’t have that knowledge and I haven’t seen it explained in any of the Tibetan texts that I’ve read or received teaching on.

Could you please just name these five aggregates, please?

The five aggregates are:

• Consciousness, which we can say is primary consciousness
• Forms of physical phenomena
• Distinguishing, sometimes called recognition
• Feeling, referring to feeling a level of happiness or unhappiness or neutral 
• Other affecting variables, other things that are changing and that can affect. 

Sometimes this fifth aggregate is called volition and that’s because using that word to translate what I call an urge. Volition in English is not the same as urge and doesn’t fit the definition of that mental factor. Urge is the main thing that moves the whole cluster of the consciousness and the other mental factors to a specific object. When it’s under the influence of ignorance, it’s under the influence of karma and thereby becomes compulsive. The seventh consciousness just stimulates something to arise, and this compelling urge draws the whole cluster to a specific object. Volition implies will and other aspects not included here. This is considered the main factor in the aggregate of other affecting variables. Therefore, when we hear it called the volition, it’s naming the whole cluster after what is the main item in it. It’s not a very accurate translation.

I know of other translations and I’m not sure how they fit. There’s one that lists forms, feelings perceptions, formations and consciousness. Another includes samskara. 

Samskara is a Sanskrit word that I am translating as an affecting variable. This is something that affects things. When we hear the aggregate of perception as opposed to an aggregate of consciousness, that’s probably what I’m calling distinguishing. Unless one knows the definition of the aggregate, what is the item that’s there, then going by the English words or the Norwegian translations of them and then the meanings of them in differing languages is extremely misleading. Formations, if that is being used as opposed to samskaras, should be forms I suppose; otherwise, if it is called “karmic formations” it would be volition. This is an urge and an urge, when under the influence of ignorance, is karma. Then they call it karmic formations.

The form, feelings, perception, formation, and consciousness, those categories I’m pretty sure come from Chogyam Trungpa, one of the first books published by him.

In that translation set, formations would be these other affecting variables and would be in terms of thinking of karmic formations. Again, others translate that as “volition,” and I translate as “urge.” It is described as the main mental factor because it draws all the rest with it to the object. That’s how the names come about; names are very difficult because everybody translates things differently. That’s why we always have to go to the definitions. Without knowing the definition, we don’t know what is being talked about. Then, we have to find something in our languages that actually means what the definition is.

I found that explanation, when I read long time ago, very confusing and very hard to understand. I’m starting to understand, but that was my first introduction to the skandhas.

We will discuss in detail the other aggregates and then you will understand why I translate it as distinguishing. 

We often hear about the two truths in Buddhism, relative and absolute. I was wondering if you could say something about your teachings. It seems to me that they are squarely on the relative level, or would you disagree? 

No, I’m speaking on the conventional level. I’m not speaking on the deepest level. How do we understand the two truths in terms of what I’m speaking about? Without going into a big lecture and applying a little bit of self-control, the two truths are defined many different ways in each of the different Indian tenet systems and the different interpretations of each of the Indian tenet systems by different Indian and Tibetan authors and Tibetan schools. Even within one school, like Karma Kagyu, the two truths can be defined in one way on sutra level and in another way on tantra level, defined in another in Mahamudra and so on. 

In terms of what we’re discussing here, usually the differentiation is made in terms of mental activity. On the one side – although we shouldn’t say “side” because they are inseparable and non-dual – we have the pair, if we want to use this word, and one aspect is giving rise to a mental hologram. That is a conventional truth about mental activity, that there is what is called “clarity and appearance.” Clarity is the giving rise to a mental hologram, and appearance is the mental hologram, or what appears. These two are obviously non-dual. We can’t have one without the other. With giving rise to an appearance, there has to be an appearance obviously. 

That is what is known in this system as conventional truth. 

Deepest Truth

The deepest truth is the awareness side, and this is again an inseparable pair of voidness and awareness. We speak about voidness or emptiness, and I prefer the term “voidness.” Emptiness implies that there is a container as in the example “the glass is empty.” It’s not quite like that; there’s not some solid container somewhere and something is missing inside of it. With voidness, “there is no such thing.” 

When we speak about voidness here, we’re speaking of voidness beyond words, beyond concepts. This is another way of referring to non-conceptual. There is a voidness, the absence of some impossible way of existing which would be in some category or box with a word attached to it. That would be a category and voidness expressed in words or expressed in categories.

If we want to describe voidness which is understood non-conceptually, we would have to say that it’s beyond words and beyond concepts. When we read about it, we have to understand that we’re not describing some transcendental thing up in the sky. It’s not something like that. It’s just another way of saying “non-conceptual,” “voidness understood non-conceptually.” 

That emptiness doesn’t just exist on its own; but there’s the awareness aspect of it. That’s the deepest truth about what’s going on. It’s that there’s an awareness that by its nature isn’t projecting dualistic appearances and impossible ways of existing. It itself also doesn’t exist as some sort of thing in a box. That’s the deepest truth of the mental activity. The mental activity is cognitive engagement, the awareness aspect, and that awareness aspect doesn’t have grasping for true existence as an innate or intrinsic feature of it. Remember, that is giving rise to an appearance of true existence and believing it, taking it to correspond to reality. 

That’s the deepest truth of what’s going on. We have the arising of appearance and the appearance on the conventional side of what’s going on. Conventional is also translated in many different ways. It’s “surface,” something that hides something underneath and so on. That can be either pure or impure. When it’s impure, it not only looks like our ordinary objects and things, but it appears to be truly existent. When it’s pure, it doesn’t appear to be truly existent and it’s usually in the form of mandalas and deities and these sorts of things. Withing conventional truth there is pure and impure.

What we have in this system is foundational deep awareness and foundational dividing awareness, namshe-yeshe. They are mixed together like milk and water and are very difficult to separate for us ordinary beings. The analogy used is like testing gold. If gold is pure, it won’t tarnish. It is always advised to test the teachings like we test gold. Scratch it to see about its surface and burn it to see its quality. When we scratch it, we discover if it’s an alloy, a mixture of gold with some other metal. Then there will be a black line. That black line isn’t coming from outside and it isn’t really the gold itself because the gold is pure. It’s an indication of the alloy, of the other substances mixed with it; but with that alloy, one can’t really separate the gold from the other metals mixed with it, like one can’t separate milk and water.

When we have our ordinary mental activity, underlying this is the dividing consciousness. The dividing consciousness comes up after we have that moment of non-conceptual sensory cognition, the next moment of non-conceptual mental cognition, and then the first moment of conceptual cognition when we get an appearance of a conventional whole object. Then, it’s also giving rise to an appearance of dualistic existence. The grasping for this comes next. That’s the tarnish on the gold. Basically, it’s an indication that there’s ignorance mixed with the mental activity.

We could also speak of conventional truth in terms of what’s appearing from the dividing foundational consciousness and deepest truth is what can appear from foundational deep awareness. It can also be divided this way. When we speak about the two truths, we can speak on the level of the operation of foundational dividing awareness. In this case, the seventh awareness is causing that to give rise through a series of moments to a dualistic appearance, the tarnish. The mental hologram that arises and the arising of it, that’s the conventional truth side – just actual awareness aspect by its essential nature. And it’s void of existing in some impossible way; understood non-conceptually, it has the deepest nature as well within the sphere of dividing consciousness. In that way we have the two truths inseparable there. 

But also, if we look at the pure side from foundational deep awareness, that also has the two truths inseparably. There is also the arising of the pure hologram, and the pure hologram is the conventional side, and there is the awareness/voidness side as well. On each of those sides, the foundational deep awareness and the foundational dividing awareness there are the two truths and the two together constitute two truths. This is the system, and this is why I didn’t want to bring in the Mahamudra and the namshe-yeshe explanations as well, but here it is. This is brought into the discussion as well.

It fits together. The sutra presentation of “just clarity and awareness” is the basis for all of this. Without understanding that, we can’t really jump immediately into this mahamudra and namshe-yeshe explanation. However, as far as I have been taught, that’s what it seems to be. It makes sense. Although what’s coming from Dharmakaya are these appearances. These are the waves on the ocean, with Dharmakaya being like the ocean. Whether it’s a wave, a mental hologram of either just data or a mentally synthesized object, it’s still just mental hologram, it’s mind and subtlest energy. That could bring us into another whole analysis of what these holograms are made of. But usually after the analysis, we conclude that it’s made out of this subtlest or subtle energy or something like that. 

The data like colored shapes and sounds moment to moment, and then the synthesized whole object that endures over time and also has other sensory information about it, both of these are waves of Dharmakaya. That’s not a problem. A Buddha, to interact with others, obviously would need to know conventional objects; thereby the two truths. But for the Buddha, there is only foundational deep awareness, pure side. Therefore, there is this distinction between what is for one’s own purpose and what is for the purpose of others. For the purpose of others, a Buddha can appear in various forms. A Buddha doesn’t have to, but to fulfill the purposes of others a Buddha appears in various forms. 

Obviously to be able to communicate, we need language. This becomes very interesting; pardon me for going on and on, but there doesn’t seem to be many more questions. Do you ever wonder what language the Buddha is speaking in? Everybody can understand Buddha’s words in their own language. If that’s the case, what language is the Buddha speaking? 

We could say the ancient Indian languages of the historical Buddha; but if we think in terms of this Mahayana presentation, we would have to say that is indicating the distinction between the deep awareness side and the dividing consciousness side. From the Buddha’s side, we can’t say that the Buddha is speaking in any language. Language, after all, is conceptually synthesized; but each person will deflate what they hear into their own language. This relates to quantum physics; but it’s not that one person deflates it and now it’s solid. Each person deflates it into their own language, and they understand. 

Then the whole thing makes sense. Otherwise, it’s a mystery and Buddhism shouldn’t be a mystery where we just accept omniscient mind. Mental activity is capable of understanding anything. This is all not so easy but perhaps this is all a bit of a hint as to how to deal with all of this material. It all fits together.

I have a confusion about what I thought was said about compassion. I thought it was that it is a static quality, always there but it always changes.

Something that is always there but changes isn’t static. If it changes, that means that it’s not static. Static means that it doesn’t change. This is a very important point. There are two variables that are mixed together in one word. They are there whether something lasts forever, eternal or is temporary. The other variable is whether it changes or doesn’t change. Our words “permanent” and “impermanent” have both meanings. That is a source of great confusion. In one context, these words are used to speak about eternal versus temporary, and in another context, they are talking about static versus changing. If we apply the wrong meaning to an inappropriate context, we can get very confused. 

Mental activity, an individual stream of mental activity is eternal, and all the basics of the five aggregates have no beginning. They all have no beginning whether we are talking about the constructive or positive ones like compassion or destructive ones like ignorance or anger. This applies to the mechanical ones as well like concentration and attention. They have no beginning. The mechanical ones also have no end; Buddhas have them as well. How they have them etc. gets complicated, but we can’t say that a Buddha doesn’t have concentration. This is the same with the positive ones like compassion; we can’t say that a Buddha doesn’t have compassion. Therefore, those things have no end. 

But the destructive ones can have an end and that is a big difference. It has no beginning but a possible end. It’s not going to have an end if we don’t do anything about it, but it could have an end if we apply the opposing forces. In other words, they are based on not knowing; ignorance is not knowing or knowing incorrectly. If that is replaced by knowing correctly and that is there all the time, we can’t have knowing and not knowing at the same time. Therefore, we can’t have all the disturbing or negative mental factors such as anger, greed, etc. They can have an end.

However, when we talk about these things having an end, there’s a difference between the body having an end, which means that it is degenerating and falling apart moment to moment until finally, like a bottle of milk, it expires. That’s a very good analogy for the body, that we are like a bottle of milk that has an expiration date, but we don’t know it, although it will expire at some time and is going bad moment to moment. In regard to ignorance or anger, they aren’t going to gradually weaken and fall apart, but they can be stopped. There are tendencies for these things, meaning we don’t have them all the time. These tendencies can be strengthened or weakened by various types of opponents.

There are deepest opponents like the understanding of voidness. There are also temporary opponents, like love to counter anger. They work to a certain extent but won’t get rid of anger completely. If someone is really annoying us, instead of getting angry, love and the wish for them to be happy is an opponent along with realizing that they are an annoyance because they are unhappy. If they are happy, then they will stop bothering us. It’s logical that love counters anger in this way. It’s a helpful point.

Are those part of karma?

That gets complicated. Some of the disturbing emotions are going to activate the karmic tendencies and there are others which will accompany. There are two explanations of karma, but the one that is used in the Karma Kagyu Madhyamaka system, as I know, is the one in which karma is purely a mental urge. Karma is referring to the mental factor; it’s not action. When it’s translated as action, it’s because the Tibetan word for karma is the same colloquial word for an action. 

But action is an imputation on all the different parts that make it up including the basis, what it’s aimed at and the motivation and the implementation of a method to actually do the action that is being planned, and there is the finale, when, for example, the person one plans to kill actually dies. Action is an imputation on top of all of that. There’s a specific target, a person, there’s intention, there’s a motivating emotion, there’s the implementation of a method to kill, for example, and the finale when the person actually dies. All of that is the action. Karma isn’t that.

Karma is the urge that is compulsive. That’s the important point about it. It’s the urge that draws a person into that and sustains it or makes us stop. That’s karma, the compulsiveness that brings us into an action. What will activate that to arise from the karmic seed is basically your experience of happiness or unhappiness.

For example, we are in a situation and feeling unhappy. Someone is yelling at us or doing something that we don’t like. Our experience of it involves another mental factor. We don’t like it because it’s unpleasant and there’s a feeling of unhappiness about being yelled at. Now, we want to get rid of it. That disturbing emotion that we are making that unhappiness into something horrible that we have to get rid of, rather than just having the attitude of “So what? Why should we feel happy all the time?” We don’t like something. So what? 

It’s nothing special. That comes from my teacher Serkong Rinpoche: “Nothing special.” There isn’t anything special about it, but if we make it into something that’s so horrible, then that triggers or activates the karmic tendency, and the urge will come up to perhaps yell back at the person. In addition, this will be accompanied by anger. That’s how it works.

When it’s said that the source of samsara on the deepest level is ignorance or unawareness, but on the next level, it’s karma and delusions. It’s this compulsiveness, going into compulsive behavior under the influence of the disturbing emotions and beneath that, it’s coming from ignorance. It’s about “me, me, me,” that solid “me” and what “I” am experiencing over there, dualistically, and “I” don’t like it. This isn’t pleasant, this isn’t nice and “I’m going to do something about it to get rid of it.” Bam! That triggers karma, the compulsive urge to yell at someone or do something terrible, and it’s accompanied by more anger.

Karma works like that. It’s very profound actually but it has to be understood correctly. Otherwise, if we just think that karma means actions, then we could say that all we have to do is stop doing anything and we’ll be free of karma. That’s absurd; therefore, karma can’t just mean actions. But as mentioned, since it’s the same Tibetan word colloquially for actions, it’s translated like that. If we look it up in the dictionary, that’s what it says. There we have it – confusion. We have to go back to the definition.