Mental Factors

Review Yesterday we began our discussion of the types of appearances that the mind gives rise to. We saw that in order to understand this, we need to understand what we mean by “mind.” We saw that what it’s referring to is mental activity, which is the individual, subjective...

Intermittently Manifest Mental Factors Like primary consciousness, the five types of deep awareness and the ten ever-functioning and ascertaining mental factors, the rest of the mental factors also have no beginning. Although they share the same essential nature as the...

Background We are continuing our discussion of how to adjust our mental factors within the context of developing balanced sensitivity. His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaks of the different aspects of Buddhism, and he differentiates Buddhist science from Buddhist religion...

We have been discussing the Fourth Panchen Lama’s text on the Gelug-Kagyu tradition of mahamudra, and we saw that the presentation is divided into the preparation, the actual teachings and the concluding procedures. With the preparatory practices, we saw that this entails...

 Mental Factors There are primary consciousnesses and mental factors. In any cognition there are always these two kinds of conscious phenomena, which share five congruent features (mtshungs-ldan lnga). They share a common (1) object (yul), (2) reliance (rten), (3) mental...

The Components of the Aggregate of Other Affecting Variables The fourth aggregate, the aggregate of other affecting variables, is the largest collection of items. “Variable” means that it changes, and “affecting” means that it affects our experience. This grouping contains all...

Balanced sensitivity requires deconstructing the deceptive, dualistic appearances our mind creates and harnessing our underlying deep awareness and natural talents. We also need to work with other mental factors that structure our mental activity, but do not form part of our...

This eighteenth century text concerns the mind and the ways in which it knows things, and is written from the point of view of the Gelug interpretation of the True Aspectarian branch of the Sautrantika tenet system of Indian Buddhism.

An analysis of the nature and different subtleties of the mind.

A presentation of the Karma Kagyu explanation of how the mind works according to sutra.