Brief Review
We have been discussing the mind, mental activity and the five aggregate factors that make up each moment of our experience. We have covered the basic presentation, but this is a brief review.
Mental Activity in Buddhism
Mental activity occurs on the basis of a physical basis. There are the various cognitive sensors and neural apparatus of the body, the brain, the nervous system and so on. We can describe mental activity from a physical point of view of what’s going on in each moment in terms of the firing of neurons and neural transmitters and all of the brain activity. However, we can also equally describe it from the point of view of individual subjective experiencing of something. This is what we mean by mind in Buddhism. It refers to the individual subjective experiencing of something.
Clarity and Awareness
That mental activity is defined in terms of two aspects or points of view. We can speak of it as clarity and awareness. That’s the general way of defining it. Clarity is the arising of a mental hologram. In other words, it’s the transformation of data into information. This appearance-making, another way of saying “giving rise to a mental hologram,” and the appearances is one side, or one way of looking at it. That’s referred to as the conventional truth of mental activity. The other side is awareness, a cognitive engagement. For example, we have the transformation of visual information and that is in fact what seeing is.
There is no dualism between clarity and awareness. On the awareness side, there are many different ways of being aware of something. This is occurring while being devoid of a solid “me,” being devoid of existing separate from the hologram that is given rise to. When we speak of the inseparability of voidness or emptiness and awareness, that is referring to the deepest nature of mental activity.
These two truths about mental activity, conventional and deepest truths, are themselves inseparable and nondual. Neither side is self-established by itself independently of the other or of all phenomena.
Foundational Pure Awareness
There are two ways of speaking about this mental activity. We can speak about the deep side, what is known as foundational pure awareness, also known as mind itself, or normal mind. There are many different technical terms that are used. This is giving rise to pure appearances, those of various types of mandalas and Buddha figures and these sorts of things, but without an appearance of them existing dualistically or truly established. Even in terms of this deep awareness, ye-shes, it still has the same defining characteristic, that being giving rise to a mental hologram and a cognitive engagement.
Dividing Awareness
However, when we have a flaw or a taint or something like that of grasping for truly established dual existence, and we don’t know that this is incorrect, then we have that foundational pure awareness working as a foundational dividing awareness. We can conceive of that as being nondual; but we can also conceive of it as the foundational deep awareness being the support and the dividing awareness is what is supported on it. That’s another way of referring to the relation between the two. We can also see that as the deep awareness underlying the dividing awareness.
Next, this foundational dividing awareness gives rise to appearances of our ordinary objects from our regular sensory data. It is giving rise to conceptually synthesized whole objects. These appear because of the habits of grasping for true dualistic existence. Because of this they appear in this dualistic way in which the awareness side appears to be the self and the object is somehow truly separate as an object out there. That is just the appearance from the dividing consciousness.
If we leave it as that, these two aspects are waves of dharmakaya. They are both just mental activity, one giving rise to pure appearances, and one giving rise to dualistic appearances. That’s why it’s called dividing consciousness. That’s okay, but in the next moment of conceptual cognition there’s the grasping for true existence. In addition, we don’t know that this dualistic appearance doesn’t correspond to reality and we take it to correspond to reality. We don’t know that it’s incorrect; we discriminate it incorrectly as being true. Based on that belief in the dualistic appearance, as if there’s a solid “me” over here and objects over there, we activate disturbing emotions and compulsive behavior. This brings about suffering.
Seventh Consciousness
Whether we speak of foundational deep awareness or foundational dividing awareness, there is the seventh consciousness affecting it in the sense that it affects it to give rise to mental activity in each moment. It does that on both levels in terms of affecting foundational deep awareness and foundational dividing awareness.
When we get rid of grasping for true existence, from a Karma Kagyu point of view, one attains liberation on the seventh bhumi and then enlightenment. It’s the same in the Gelug system. When we get rid of ignorance and grasping for true existence and believing in this, this is liberation; but still, there’s the arising of the deceptive appearance. We have to get rid of the habits of grasping for true existence and then we attain enlightenment.
The karmic tendencies are giving rise to the various ways, as we stated, of levels of happiness and unhappiness in which we experience the ripening of karmic aftermath. These include the mental holograms of what we encounter, the urges to various things towards this and all of that being experienced with happiness and unhappiness.
Transformation with Liberation and Enlightenment
Then, when we no longer have the arising of these dualistic appearances, when we’ve gotten rid of the habits of grasping for true existence with enlightenment, then we no longer have this foundational dividing awareness because there’s nothing there. We’ve gotten rid of all these karmic tendencies and so on that were there. There’s nothing there to reactivate it. Then, as a Buddha, there is basically just this foundational deep awareness. At this point, what is said, is that the mind that is this foundational deep awareness functions as the Dharmakaya. The seventh consciousness that is affecting it becomes Samboghakaya, and that dividing awareness now becomes Nirmanakaya.
This trio is called the deep awareness, the word “mind,” which is referring to the seventh consciousness, and the dividing consciousness, which is also the word for consciousness; these three are what become the three kayas, three bodies. Before that, they are Buddha-nature factors which will transform into the Buddha Bodies. This whole system fits in very nicely with the whole discussion of Buddha-nature, the Dharmakaya and the abiding Buddha-nature factors, and all the aspects of the dividing awareness are the evolving Buddha-nature factors. We work with these in order to attain enlightenment.
Practical Applications of the System of the Five Aggregates
This whole system of the five aggregates fits in with the presentation of mahamudra, the presentation in kun-shes rnam-shes, that of deep awareness and dividing awareness, the whole discussion of Buddha-nature and so on. The level we’ve been discussing, the basic sutra level, is the foundation for being able to understand, make sense of and fit together all these other more sophisticated presentations.
On a practical level, in each moment we can deconstruct what is going on in our mental activity into the five aggregates. Then we will be able to actually work on ourselves to strengthen those factors that are weak, to diminish and work to eliminate those factors which are troublemakers, especially when they are very strong, and to be able to understand our minds and what’s going on.
In each moment we have some item from the aggregate of forms of physical phenomenon. There is sensory cognition, and some arising of sensory data coming from its own source will arise as a mental hologram or sensory information whether colored shapes or actual sounds and so on. In mental cognition, it would arise as a voice in our head – some representation of a form of physical phenomenon – or some mental picture or something like that. There is also the cognitive sensor involved if it’s sensory cognition. This includes the photosensitive cells of the eyes and so on. There’s always something from the form aggregate.
There is also a primary consciousness, one of the sensory consciousnesses. Even if there is a moment of sensory consciousness, which is non-conceptual, meaning without any categories being involved, then it’s followed by a moment of bare non-conceptual cognition. That bare non-conceptual cognition doesn’t occur very often; we get it in things like extrasensory perception, like reading somebody’s mind, or one moment in a dream before it turns conceptual. We have primary consciousness in either sense consciousness or mental consciousness that takes the essential nature of what the information is, meaning is it a sight, a sound, a taste, smell, physical sensation or some mental object. Also, underneath all of this is the foundational dividing awareness with the seventh awareness affecting it to give rise to each moment of mental activity.
Conceptual Cognition and Distinguishing
There is also distinguishing in terms of just this information that’s arising. It isn’t manifest because the way that it’s explained in Karma Kagyu is that it’s only operating or manifest with conceptual cognition when we have a mentally synthesized whole object that extends over all of the sensory information of a physical or non-physical object, and endures over time, although, in fact, what is happening is only one moment at a time. The previous moment is no longer happening and the next moment is not yet happening. Distinguishing includes distinguishing this whole commonsense object from the background and anything else that’s not it. We distinguish this item that we see, for example, from the object next to it and anything else that’s not that object or perhaps not even present in our cognitive field.
In that conceptual cognition, in that first moment, we also have a category. It’s some kind of thing; with words, it’s some kind of word with meaning. Then we can associate an actual word or name with these categories and through the categories, with the actual item that is appearing.
We have distinguishing something from something else, as its own aggregate. There is also feeling, a level of happiness or unhappiness, how we experience the thing we distinguish. This is arising due to the ripening of karma. On one hand, it arises from karmic potential, which has to do with how we are experiencing it.
Karma
But there are other laws or fields that we touched on briefly as explained in the Theravada system. In terms of the material field, if we throw a ball, it comes back down. That doesn’t come from our karma. We can experience seeing this with happiness, but that’s the experiential side of it. Things happen according to these other types of spheres or laws. There’s also the sphere in terms of the activity of the senses. There is the mind as giving rise to the mental activity and holograms and so on. That isn’t due to karma, that’s just how it works. Also, there is a seed that gives rise to a sprout. It’s not the karma of the seed; it’s just part of the laws of nature as it were. Karma, on the other hand, is talking about how we experience encountering these things.
There are these five spheres that are going on and it shouldn’t be taken literally that everything that is happening is according to karma. Everything that we experience is happening according to karma. That is the point.
Other Affecting Variables
We saw that the aggregate of other affecting variables is a very large grouping of all the other mental factors as well as the noncongruent affecting variables. Besides feeling and distinguishing, there are these mechanical mental factors. Some function all the time and some are also helping us to gain certainty and stability on an object. Without listing them all, we had urge as the most significant one.
We were talking about the dividing consciousness, and then there is a karmic urge. This is a compelling and compulsive mental factor that draws the primary consciousness and all the other mental factors with it to an object. It isn’t like a horse leading, but they all are drawn together. With that, then attention goes to a specific object. There is intention, the wish to obtain or not obtain it, or do something with it. There is contacting awareness that finds it pleasant or unpleasant on the basis of that. There’s feeling happiness or unhappiness about something that keeps us remaining focused on the object or moving away. There’s concentration, meaning holding onto it, and mindfulness that is the glue to prevent us from letting go of that object. There are many other mental factors; discriminating awareness adds certainty about what it is, especially in distinguishing, if it’s correct or incorrect, constructive or destructive. These are the main things that it’s involved with.
We have these mechanical factors that are there all the time. There is nothing wrong with them; Buddha has them as well. They can appear as various deities but basically, we can’t say that a Buddha doesn’t have concentration. That doesn’t make any sense.
Constructive and Destructive Mental Factors
There are the constructive mental factors that accompany us in our ordinary lives, but a Buddha has them as well. A Buddha still has compassion, love, bodhichitta, and so on. For us, bodhichitta has two factors: to aim at enlightenment with the goal to achieve it and benefit all beings. A Buddha doesn’t have to achieve it, but certainly continues with the full intention to benefit all beings. There is the pure bodhichitta that a Buddha has.
Mental activity can also have one of the root disturbing emotions, such as longing desire, anger or ignorance, this not knowing. There can be indecisive wavering about what is correct or incorrect, arrogance with a puffed up “me, me.” There is also this group of deluded outlooks. The one that is most troublesome is the deluded outlook toward a transitory network, meaning the aggregates. It’s throwing out the net of “me and mine,” as if a there is a truly established “me and mine.” There is the dualistic fabrication from the habits of grasping for a truly established existence.
That grasping and that habit is what interpolates, or in other words what makes up something and projects it. The mental factors themselves don’t do that, neither does the primary consciousness. The grasping for true existence is there in our mental activity but isn’t included in the five aggregates, in that classification scheme.
Subsidiary Disturbing Emotions
In addition, there are subsidiary, or secondary, or derivative disturbing emotions that are derived from the three so-called poisonous or toxic disturbing emotions. These are subcategories of some of the root disturbing emotions because they are aimed specifically at persons. Again, there is longing desire from attachment, but not really a subcategory. There is hostility, a subcategory of anger, and naivety, with its subcategory anti-knowing, ignorance. A subcategory of anger would be hatred and wanting to get revenge, holding a grudge, and this type of derivative.
Changeable Factors
These changeable factors depend on what they accompany, like regretting doing something destructive is quite different than regretting doing something constructive.
Noncongruent Affecting Variables
In addition to all these mental factors, we also have these noncongruent affecting variables. These aren’t like mentally synthesized whole objects, not like categories or anything like that. They are actual facts about each moment of mental activity. In one philosophical school, they stated that these are objective facts. That can be a bit problematic, but in a general way for understanding it, we can say that they are objective facts, if we use the Sautrantika terminology. Some examples are impermanence, change, aging, motion, these sorts of things. Persons are included in that.
These are too subtle to be able to actually cognize with certainty in each moment although they are appearing. In one moment of an object being in one place, although it’s in motion, to be able to detect motion, we have to examine more than one moment. It becomes a construct into a whole object that endures over time in order to be able to focus with certainty and distinguish the motion.
It’s the same thing with the self. In each moment of mental activity, it’s the individual subjective experiencing of something. Therefore, there’s a person because it has to be experienced by somebody. But that somebody isn’t separate from it or identical with what is being experienced. However, in order to cognize a person and know it with certainty, then it only comes with a sequence of moments of cognition.
For example, by looking over here by sensory cognition, there are colored shapes, then it switches channels to the mental channel and there is a mental non-conceptual cognition of still colored shapes. Then, there is a moment of conceptual cognition that is synthesizing those colored shapes into the colored shapes of a body. There’s a whole body, enduring over time, knowable by all the different senses and not just visual. It appears to be a separate thing over there, and my awareness is over here, “me” looking at the body. Even then, it’s too subtle, although it’s still a person. In the next moment what is arising is the hologram of both the body and a person. That’s a person and maybe we know the name or not; it doesn’t matter. It fits into the category, so then there’s a category. First there’s the category of a body; it’s not a table. We’re able to distinguish it from the table.
Then there’s a way of knowing, which is that if we are really far away, to know that we have to take a closer look to really be sure of what something is. This is a very useful way of knowing, to be able to acknowledge that. If we don’t hear something, we have to ask again, “What did you say?” It is to know that we aren’t certain about what is said or what we’re seeing.
There is a category and a body. We don’t necessarily attach the word “body” to it, but we know it. Then, when we see the body and the person, that’s a fact about the body. It’s not a scarecrow or something like that. Then, there’s the category of the person and it’s not just any person in just one moment. It’s the category of the person that extends over time so that every time that we see that same person or think about that person, it fits into that category. We think we are seeing the same person; obviously, it’s the continuum of the same person.
We have these categories; that’s how the mind works. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to make sense of anything in terms of continuity. We have language, otherwise we can’t communicate. Buddha uses language, so there’s nothing wrong with language unless we take how things appear, as things in boxes as these words as defined in the dictionary, to be how they exist. It’s not so rigid; but it is a device to communicate.
This is just how we see that it is one person and not somebody else. We have to distinguish a person from the table in front of her and also from other people. Distinguishing doesn’t necessarily recognize, but it makes that distinction. Recognition implies recognizing something from the past and comparing it to it. That’s a complicated process. It’s re-cognizing, cognizing again.
Then, there’s the grasping for the truly established existence, dualistic existence. It’s as if a person has this entity that has come into this body and activates it and then will fly off and go off into another body. That’s a fantasy. Also, on a more subtle level, we think that we can know this person just by themselves without a basis for imputation. We can’t just see a person without a body, and on the basis of the body, it’s a person.
If we think about it, when we’re speaking with somebody on the phone, it automatically arises to us that we’re speaking to a specific person. No, we’re speaking to an electronic simulation of the sound of a voice, and on that basis, we distinguish that it’s the sound of a voice of that person and it’s her or him. We just say that we’re speaking to that person, don’t we? A dog has that as well. It’s automatically arising.
Even deeper, there’s the dualistic appearance that the mind aware of someone as “me” over here, and the other person is over there as an object. In that cognition, they are arising dualistically.
Persons
That is the basic presentation of the mind and the five aggregates. The person is a noncongruent affecting variable, meaning that it doesn’t share five things in common with the primary consciousness and the other mental factors, but is there, present, happening as part of the aggregate of other affecting variables. It’s not something external to it, as if the five aggregates are over here and the person is over there. It’s not that the person is one of the aggregates such as awareness or consciousness. It’s not that either.
Application in Daily Life
When we deal with daily life, it appears to us as if each moment is something quite solid and there is this poor “me” over here experiencing, like “I’m experiencing life. Life doesn’t treat me very well,” or “My life is terrible,” or “My life is wonderful,” as if there is a “me” separate from our lives. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it? We might say, “I wish I could live your life instead of my life.” That really indicates a false way of thinking, doesn’t it? “I wish that I had your body, your youth, or your intelligence. This is faulty thinking as if the self is separate from the aggregates.
When we understand that the self is part of the aggregates, we understand how all of these aggregates are changing, the self is changing moment to moment as well, it gives us the key for being able to apply opponent forces and where to apply them. For instance, if we have a lot of anger, or we aren’t attentive, or our concentration is terrible, or we’re too greedy. Even if we are compassionate and so on, it might be that we’re so emotional about it and cry, and it’s all about “me, me, me.” We feel so much that it incapacitates us and we can’t do anything.
We can see what is causing the problem by being able to deconstruct and see all the different pieces that are involved and then apply various opponents. We do this, but not like some external dentist coming in and drilling on the tooth or working on our minds as it were; but just doing, just doing it. This is how we work with it.
Take a few moments to think about this and then we’ll have our questions.
Questions and Answers
This has been a very analytic cognitive approach how to get rid of karmic tendencies and work on ourselves. I understand why; but very much is a dilemma to use concepts to understand something beyond concepts. Can you say something also about other possible approaches in Vajrayana and tantra, which may not seem very logical but can lead us.
Are there other approaches? First of all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with dealing with conceptual constructs of whole objects, as long as we don’t get fooled by the appearance that things exist in boxes and that these categories are truly established. Without that, it’s very difficult to understand or analyze anything. If we understand what is going on with conceptual thought, then we can use it as a tool.
If we consider Vajrayana, tantra, it can only be practiced successfully on the basis of understanding what we’ve been talking about. Otherwise, if we’re unprepared to practice tantra, it can be very dangerous and just be some sort of weird fantasy trip escape. We were speaking about the appearances that arise from foundational dividing consciousness and foundational deep awareness. We can have pure appearances of mandalas and deities and so on from the deep awareness side, and our ordinary objects, this body and all the things in our ordinary form from the dividing consciousness.
However, what is extremely important to realize is that we’re not just speaking about the appearance of what something looks like, but also about the appearance of how it exists. This could be truly established in some sort of conceptual way, as if it exists the way that it appears; or, in a pure way, not like that, which can only be known beyond words and beyond concepts. That means non-conceptual. There’s nothing transcendental about it; it just means non-conceptual as a way of expressing that.
Without some high level of realization, the appearances of these deities and mandalas are also going to be a dualistic appearance. That’s also going to be garbage. Just because it appears in the form of a deity, there’s nothing special about that. We can also imagine that we arise as Micky Mouse or Donald or Daisy Duck. So what? The important thing is that we understand why these forms, what they represent, and not to grasp at them as truly established over there and we are over here, or now we are inside them and now appear as them or something like that.
Without that understanding, it’s crazy. Also, we have to renounce of our ordinary appearance-making and not just in terms of the form of what it looks like, but of how it appears to exist. Renunciation is mandatory. In addition, we have to have bodhichitta, that this is what we’re aiming to achieve with enlightenment. We are doing this in order to achieve this and whatever positive force comes from it, may it contribute to enlightenment of all. If we don’t have that, then we aren’t dedicating it.
If we haven’t reached some sort of positive motivation, not for fun, or as an escape, or because our teacher told us to do it, or we promised to do it not really knowing what we were getting into, but we’d feel guilty if we don’t do it – which a lot of people experience – then it just contributes to more samsara. It says in the texts, we’ll be born as a ghost in the form of what we imagine we look like. We certainly don’t want that. Without understanding voidness or emptiness, or at least some understanding, then we’re taking it to be truly real. Then we’re like some schizophrenic thinking we’re Cleopatra or Napoleon.
The sutra, or what we’re calling the analytical approach, is the basis for it. We have in Theravada, for example, the practice of the four placements of mindfulness. That’s done in quite a different way than in Mahayana. Don’t think that the way it’s presented in these vipassana courses is the Mahayana way of doing it. We can do the vipassana method with compassion and the wish to benefit all beings, but this is still not the Mahayana way of doing the four close placements of mindfulness.
In that Theravada system, we are observing the aggregates without a conceptual framework. This is very easy to do in a very dualistic way, as if “I” am over here, observing the breath, the physical sensations, the feelings of happiness or unhappiness, then the mind, the primary consciousness and then dharmas, referring to the mental factors. Okay, we are observing them, but we need to go further to understand their impermanence. We can observe that they are impermanent and changing all the time. Then, the real thing that we need to discover is that there’s no separate “self” observing it. This can be done without having the full conceptual framework for all of it.
That’s another approach. The Buddha taught lots of different approaches to suit different people. With this analytical one, if we understand what we’re doing, it’s a bit easier. There are two ways of going on a journey: one is we study the map first and then we go; and the other is to just go without looking at the map and figure it our along the way. If we study the map first, it’s a bit more secure and stable than trying to figure it out and understand it along the way. But there are many people who like to do it that way. That’s fine if they’re successful. Great.
I probably wasn’t clear. I didn’t really reject using concepts. The question is if the analytical approach can bring you all the way to something which is non-conceptual?
Here’s where there is a difference of opinion. It isn’t based on saying one or the other way is impossible. The question that really divides the approaches of the various Tibetan traditions is how do we get to a non-conceptual cognition. Gelugpa asserts that we can do that through analysis, and the various non-Gelugpa schools say that we have to go beyond analysis. Analysis is conceptual, and we have to go beyond words and concepts. This isn’t really saying anything different because both agree that we have to go beyond words and concepts.
How do we do that? Sitting and praying that it’s going to happen isn’t going to make it happen. The so-called blessings of the guru by itself, it isn’t like that. Enlightenment isn’t like a football that the guru throws to us and we catch it. Now we’ve got it. It’s not like that, this very fantasized idea that we’re going to this transmission, like from a magic wand, from the teacher. It’s not like that.
It’s said that it’s through meditation; trying to meditate in a non-conceptual way. What does that mean? First of all, if we don’t understand what conceptual and non-conceptual mean, the whole discussion is meaningless. If we differentiate it as intellectual and emotional, those are different variables from conceptual and non-conceptual. Conceptual means through categories; by fitting it into a category it is veiled in a sense. It’s not as clear as it could be without a category – if we focus on something not in terms of a category. Category gives the impression that it fits into a box. For instance, now I’m focusing on emptiness again; it fits into the category of all the times we were focusing on emptiness.
Non-conceptual doesn’t just mean no voice going on in our heads. We still have concepts without words going on in our heads. What does it require? If we look at the sutra explanation, it requires the first out of the three countless eons of building up positive force. This is only the first eon; we still have the second to attain liberation and the third to attain enlightenment. This is what I was saying before; we need this positive force. How do we build up this positive force? We do this with the other meditations and actually building up compassion and love; it’s not just sitting there wishing everybody well, but actually going out and doing something.
What is the method to become non-conceptual? First, we need to understand there’s the so-called discriminating awareness of hearing, thinking and meditating. Everybody accepts that no matter what the approach is. We have to hear the teachings and know the correct words, think about them so that we understand them and not just presume that they are true. We need to actually be convinced that they are correct. Thinking results in understanding, conviction and the aspiration that this is something that we want to achieve. This is the result of the thinking process which is, of course, conceptual. Then comes meditation.
Meditating, we can use conceptual lines of reasoning to remind us, bring us to that state. For example, “neither one nor many,” or the self is neither identical to the aggregates nor totally separate from them. We use these lines of reasoning to get to a state of focus. When we are really accustomed to it, we don’t need to go through the line of reasoning. We are just able to go there instantly. However, when we’re focusing on it, on voidness, it can still be through a category. We were doing it before, and now again, trying to improve it. This is in the box or category of voidness meditation. Eventually, if there’s enough of a build-up of positive force, we are able to focus on it without putting it in a box. That’s non-conceptual.
How do we approach that, how do we get there? In some traditions, the big emphasis is going to be on building up positive force. Those traditions put a huge emphasis on ngondro, on preliminary practices. Do a million prostrations; we haven’t done enough. Build a tower, like with Milarepa. Other traditions will debate and build up the understanding. But we need both, we need positive force and understanding.
In analytical meditation, first we see that things are like this and not like that and then we relax. This is in Mahamudra.
There is that type of method; how it’s done in Zen, in Korea, one examines one koan and by doing that we eventually get to stop asking. In Mahamudra, we’re focusing on the conventional and deepest level of mental activity. Either we have read, heard and thought about it so that we can actually identify it in meditation; or good luck. Sit there are try to figure it out ourselves.
In meditation we see how things are.
Right, but we might not recognize it. Because our mind doesn’t make things appear how they are.
Whatever method one follows, it’s going to proceed in levels. The question is how much instruction before meditation is needed?
We get pointing out instructions. They aren’t verbal or conceptual.
Yes, when one gets pointing out instructions, those are instructions. We know what to do and what we’re looking for. We need to understand the instructions; it’s not like throwing a football to us, as mentioned. The pointing out instructions are being communicated in some way. For some super special disciples with a super karmic connection from past lives, with a super special guru, then just being in their presence is going to cause some karmic instinct to ripen and that person gets it. That’s very very very rare. It’s very easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we’ve got that, when in fact it’s not.
It is described though in texts; not that it’s very special. Usually, for sure, we need instruction in words, and having it live from a teacher gives us more inspiration than just reading it, especially just reading it on our phone while listening to music at the same time.
There are different methods. The aim, however, is understanding. Either we try to get the understanding first and then we test it out with experience; or through experience we get understanding. In any case, we need to understand. Understanding means that it’s accurate and decisive; that’s the definition.
I think I understand now much more.
Wonderful. Buddha taught many methods; this is skillful means. Buddha was the master and recognized that different people are going to learn in different ways. That’s fine.
What I get from all this, when I’m moving about in everyday life, I need sort of a suspicion toward my own self. Is that a healthy way of looking at it?
I wouldn’t say suspicion. That sounds more like being paranoid. We don’t want to be paranoid or the policeman with ourselves. In one sense, we do want to be a policeman; ethical self-discipline is defined as restraint from acting destructively. We have to be alert; alertness is a mental factor although not listed in our fifty-one. With alertness, we are aware of what’s going on because we’re interested and we pay attention to it. When there is something going on, with alertness we get the warning signal and bring out attention back. We need to be alert but it’s not a separate “me” being alert.
The thing is in our daily lives, when do we want to apply this? All the time, yes, when we’re pretty highly advanced. But when we would want to apply it is when we are in a disturbed state of mind. Don’t wait too long because when we are really into being angry or upset or whatever, it’s much more difficult to get out of it. If we catch it at the beginning, this is what we are training in through our basic shamatha meditation. We train to notice when we lose our focus and when mindfulness is lost. If the mental glue has loosened, our mind wanders away and we bring it back more and more quickly.
We are developing a skill. It’s not a big deal to focus on the breath. We want to use that in daily life. Therefore, when we start to get upset, start to get greedy, when we start to get angry, we catch it and notice it with alertness. If we are familiar enough with the analytical scheme, we don’t need to go through a whole conceptual framework. We don’t have to recite this aggregate and that aggregate and go through the list. That’s the whole point of familiarizing ourselves over and over again. Then we can see instantly what the problem is. For instance, there’s “me” and it’s self-cherishing. For example, we don’t like something; why should everything be the way we like it? That’s self-centered. We don’t like it – so what? We see there’s a problem and we apply an opponent.
For example, we’re sitting and working at the computer and suddenly we just don’t feel like it; we feel like doing something else. Then we discriminate: Do we really have to do it or could it wait? Can we take a break? We are able to distinguish between being lazy and being tired. If we’re tired, it’s perfectly okay to take a rest. We have to take a rest. Then we decide, what is the motivation. Is it laziness or legitimate tiredness? If it’s laziness, we work on the intention. What are we doing this for? Why? What is the goal? If it’s boring, find something interesting about it. Maybe it’s interesting to see if we can type without making mistakes even if what we’re typing is garbage. Work with these factors.
Dedication
We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for everyone to reach the enlightened state of a Buddha for the benefit of us all.