Mental Factors

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. And with the preparatory practices, we saw that this...

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...

 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...

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.

The lam-rim, or graded stages of the Buddhist path, take us from an ordinary limited being to a fully enlightened Buddha.

If we are aware of the ten mental factors that are involved with every single moment of our experience, we can mold situations in such a way that they optimize the experience.

Mental activity is made up of six types of consciousness that are aware of an object as being a sight, a sound, and so on, and 51 types of mental factors that qualify or help with the cognition of that object.

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

Our minds give rise to many different kinds of appearances. To avoid confusion, we need to recognize and discriminate among the various different ways in which our minds make things appear to us.