Lam-rim 78: Not Caring How Our Actions Reflect on Others & Foggy-Mindedness

Initial Scope

We have dealt with the initial scope of motivation, which we started by recognizing the precious human rebirth that we have now and seeing how rare such a rebirth is. We are temporarily free of all the worst obstacles that would prevent us from developing at all, let alone spiritually. We have so many opportunities. So, it is very important to use them and to make the best use of the precious lives that we have. We saw how rare the precious human rebirth is by looking at its causes, and then we thought about how it is not going to last forever. Of course, we are all going to die, and death can come at any time. Time is short, so we need to use it in a meaningful way. 

We saw that at that time of death, what is going to be of help in terms of future lives is not the material things we have collected, the loved ones that we have had, the fame that we have acquired or anything like that. The only things that will be of help are the positive habits and instincts that we have built up. These will shape our future lives. Therefore, it is very important to have taken the preventive measures – which is what the Dharma means – to avoid worse rebirths. 

We thought about the three worst types of rebirth states that are possible if we have built up all sorts of negative habits or re-enforced the negative ones that we already had. We could be reborn as a trapped being in a hell realm. We could be reborn as clutching ghost, wandering around, not being able to get any sort of sustenance, and just living in paranoia. Or we could be reborn as some sort of lowly animal, an insect or whatever. We develop a healthy sense of fear of that; we really don’t want that to happen. But it’s not a paralyzing type of fear. It’s a type of fear that I would describe as healthy. We don’t feel helpless and hopeless. We are not paralyzed because we see that there is a way to avoid this. 

The way to avoid it is to go in the safe and positive direction of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, the so-called Three Jewels of Refuge. To do that, we can, of course, look at them on an external level – so, looking at the previous Buddhas, their teachings, and the spiritual community. They certainly give us the teachings and provide us with support. But we can also look on a deeper level, at the deepest meaning of these Three Jewels. That refers to what can be attained, which is a true stopping of all our suffering and its causes and the true pathways of mind, the understandings or realizations and so on, that bring this stopping about and that result from it. These true stoppings and true pathways of mind exist in full on the mental continuums of Buddhas, and they exist in part on the mental continuums of the Arya Sangha. This is the direction that we want to go in to get rid of all our problems and to realize all our potentials. This is what we want to do in order to make our lives meaningful.  

The way to go in that direction to start with is to avoid destructive behavior. Destructive behavior is the cause of worse rebirths. That led us to the whole discussion of karma, which we went into in quite a lot of details. That completed the initial scope.

Intermediate Scope

On the intermediate scope, we look at the sufferings that we would have even in the better rebirth states. We looked at the specific sufferings of humans, of the gods, and of the anti-gods, the demi-gods, or whatever you call them – the asuras – who are jealous of the gods and are always fighting with them. We saw that these situations are no fun either. We also looked at the general sufferings of samsara. 

We saw that, of course, unhappiness and pain is terrible suffering, but even the ordinary happiness that we experience is problematic. It doesn’t last, never satisfies, and if we have too much of it, it quickly turns to pain and discomfort, like eating too much of what we like. We also look here at the third type of suffering, so not just the suffering of suffering and that of our ordinary happiness, which is the suffering of change. This third type is the all-pervasive suffering – continuing rebirth with the type of body and mind that is the basis for experiencing this happiness and unhappiness, which we experience as the ripening of karma. 

In order to see what drives our samsaric rebirths, we look at karma, which we’ve already done. Now we are looking at the disturbing emotions. These are the deeper causes, the true causes, of suffering. 

The Root Disturbing Emotions

We’ve been through the six root disturbing emotions. Five of them are without any sort of outlook, and the sixth, which has five subdivisions, is with an outlook. We went through (1) longing desire, attachment, and greed, which are variants of the same thing of exaggerating the positive qualities of the something. If we don’t have it, we want to get it; if we have it, we don’t want to let go; and even if we have some, we want more and more. Then there is (2) anger, repulsion or hostility, which are based on exaggerating the negative qualities of something and then wanting to get rid of it. There is (3) pride, or arrogance – feeling puffed up and making a big deal out of some aspect of ourselves or our possessions. There is (4) unawareness, which, according to Asanga and Vasubandhu, is a closed-minded state of not knowing. We are unaware both of cause and effect and of reality, of how we and everything exists. Because we don’t know what the effect of our behavior will be, we act destructively. If we knew, we wouldn’t act destructively. Dharmakirti defines unawareness as misknowing. Misknowing how we and everything exists underly both destructive and constructive behavior. The fifth one is (5) indecisive wavering about something that is true or is a fact. When we are indecisive about what is true, then, of course, we can’t decide what to do and, so, don’t act. That causes blocks and obstacles and so on. 

Then there are the five that are associated with an outlook. The main one, we saw, is the deluded outlook towards a transitory network. The transitory network refers to our aggregates – body, mind, emotions, feelings, and these sorts of things. What this outlook does is to seek and latch onto some component of the aggregates on which the interpolation “me” or “mine” is being conceptually imputed. So, it regards the body, for example, as “me” – “I am my body” – or “mine,” in which case, “me” is the possessor, controller or inhabitant of these things. This deluded outlook is a big troublemaker. It’s predominant in all our activities.

The Auxiliary Disturbing Emotions

Then we started the auxiliary, or secondary, disturbing emotions. There are 20, and we have gone through 11 of them. In our last session, we discussed no moral self-dignity. This and the one that we’ll start with today, not caring how our actions reflect on others, always accompany destructive states of mind. 

We saw that no moral self-dignity means not having a sense of self-worth or self-esteem. Having no sense of values is another way of describing this disturbing emotion. It means that we don’t have any respect for positive qualities or persons who have positive qualities. We also don’t have any respect for ourselves; we don’t care how our actions reflect on us. We looked at this in quite a lot of depth. We saw that not having a sense of self-worth, not caring about ourselves or having a sense of honor or anything like that, basically comes from not recognizing our Buddha-nature qualities and the fact that we can do much better. We have all the working materials within us: a body, the ability to communicate, a mind, the ability to understand. We have feelings, emotions, the ability to feel warmth towards others, to take care of others and so on. Realizing that we have all these working materials, we can develop a sense of values and self-esteem and overcome this disturbing emotion of no moral self-dignity. 

We’ll start our discussion today with no care for how our actions reflect on others. Many years ago, I thought this was talking about being inconsiderate – being inconsiderate of how our actions affect others. This is a very important aspect in the Western discussion of ethics – not wanting to do something that will hurt somebody else. We want to be considerate of our neighbors. We don’t play really loud music late at night, or we don’t throw garbage out the window because we are considerate of others. And although Buddhism certainly would not deny that this is an important value, one that we definitely have to take into account, it’s not listed here. In fact, I can’t immediately think of a Tibetan word that would really cover it. The reason for that is that, although we could guess what the effect of our behavior on others might be and are therefore careful not to cause discomfort or harm, we can never tell how others will respond or react. So, that becomes a difficult criterion. Nevertheless, it’s one we should use.

Ways in which Our Actions Reflect Badly on People We Respect

If we look at the commentaries, we can see that what this is talking about is how our actions reflect on those for whom we have respect. Remember, the first one, lacking moral self-dignity, is about lacking respect for ourselves. Here, we lack respect for others. Respecting others doesn’t have to do with not wanting to harm them but, instead, with not wanting what we do to reflect badly on our teacher, for example. If we behave badly, people would say, “Look at the disciple of this teacher. Look how he or she acts!” This reflects badly on the teacher, or on the family, which is a very, very important thing in Asian society, though maybe not as important now for those living in Western societies. 

All of these are concerned, obviously, with not losing face, losing face ourselves or our family losing face. The honor of the family is very important. The honor of the clan is very important, as well as the honor of our city, the honor of our country. Let’s say I am German, and I go to the beach, and I am really loud, drinking a lot of beer and trashing the furniture in the hotel and so on. That would give Germans a bad reputation. So, we don’t want to do that. We don’t want to give the impression of the “Ugly American,” to use this famous metaphor, because we have respect for how our behavior reflects on others. We respect the community that we belong to. This can also be in terms of our religion. It can be in terms of our gender as well. For a woman, it would be not wanting to act in a way that would make people think poorly of women. So, it’s talking about a group that we belong to. 

Now, I suppose the question that comes up for analysis is, is this of value? Is what’s discussed in Buddhism purely an Asian value, or is it something that’s relevant to Westerners as well? More specifically, is it relevant to us? Do we care what people would think of our family if, for example, we got arrested, acted in some terrible way, or became a drug addict? Do we care how it would reflect on our parents in terms of their friends and so on? Would we care how it would reflect on Buddhism if our associates and friends, who knew that we’re practicing Buddhism, saw that we snort cocaine at parties? Are these types of things relevant to us? Think about that. 

[meditation]

I think this is extremely relevant, though I am no expert in this area, in terms of feminism – women wanting to show that they can do everything because they don’t want people to think badly or less of women. I think this is exactly the type of thing that this is talking about. 

[meditation]

I think it also brings in the issue of loyalty to a group – our regiment in the army, for example. We do not want our actions to reflect badly on it. 

Participant: This sounds great in Shambhala, where the society is enlightened, but I am not sure that it is so useful otherwise.

Dr. Berzin: Not everybody is enlightened in Shambhala. But then the objection is, what if a value in our society is that everybody has to get married and have children and we want to become a Buddhist monk or nun? Does that reflect badly on our family? Well, reflect badly on whom? To our parents’ friends? Certainly. What if we are gay and don’t get married, and the parents are constantly being asked by their friends and relatives, “When is your son or daughter getting married?” 

Participant: Emotionally, you know that having children is wrong for you, but you are forced to have them.

Dr. Berzin: Again, because of the society’s values, it could reflect badly if we don’t have children. There are many examples of that.

Participant: We think about whether or not it hurts the other person.

Dr. Berzin: Well, yes, that takes into account this aspect of consideration – that if it reflects badly on them, it will hurt them; they’ll lose faith. There are a lot of people who translate this as lack of consideration, but as I said, I don’t think that that is what this term is about.

[Participant comment]

Dr. Berzin: I think that’s something else. But again, what are the values of the society? Or are we just using our Buddhist values? 

[Participant comment]

Dr. Berzin: It doesn’t say that the others that our actions reflect on should be Buddhists. But it does assume that there is a certain type of destructive behavior, as defined by Buddhism, that brings about suffering. 

[Participant comment]

Dr. Berzin: It doesn’t mean that the society we live in could evaluate this correctly or would even acknowledge it. It’s quite specific within the Buddhist context. 

Also, according to Vasubandhu – sometimes Asanga and Vasubandhu define these terms differently – the definition of this term means having no scruples. So, that’s the way that I was translating it. It means a lack of restraint from being brazenly negative, which means not having a sense of shame. In other words, we don’t exercise any self-control; we don’t restrain ourselves from acting in outrageously negative ways. 

Participant: What’s the difference from the first one? 

Dr. Berzin: The first one, according to Vasubandhu, is not having respect for positive qualities and the people who have them. According to Asanga, it has to do with self-dignity, self-esteem.

Participant: The other definitions are not mentioned…

Dr. Berzin: My basic approach here is to look at all the definitions. If we have one set of definitions of these two factors from Asanga and another set of definitions from Vasubandhu (and I am sure Theravada has yet other definitions of these), we should, I think, consider all of them. I see absolutely no need to say that this one is correct and the other is incorrect. They each give us great insight into the way our emotions work, what the disturbing ones are and what would we want to look for in ourselves and try to overcome because we recognize that it is a cause of suffering. We are talking about the causes of suffering. 

Let’s think about the causes of suffering. It’s obvious that if we have no self-respect, we will act in ways that will cause suffering for ourselves. Will we also cause suffering for ourselves if we don’t care how our actions reflect on Buddhism, our teacher or our family? How would that cause suffering for us? It will cause us obviously to have no self-control in terms of how we act.

Participant: Are these main restraints?

Dr. Berzin: We are not talking about main ones. We have this list of 20, and none of them is main. However, what they say is that no self-dignity and not caring about how our actions reflect on others are present in every destructive state of mind. If we’re acting destructively, that implies that we have no sense of self-dignity and that we don’t give a damn about how our actions reflect on anybody else. We don’t really value positive things, and we don’t exercise self-control, which I think is true. Certainly, we just don’t care. 

Do We Consider How Our Actions Reflect on a Group That We Belong To?

In Theravada, there is a longer list of destructive states of mind that are always present. So, do we take into consideration how our behavior reflects on the larger group that we’re identified with? As I said, I think the most common example for that in our Western thinking is feminism. Or am I wrong? There are many women here in the room. What do you think?

Participant: For me, it’s not like this. I don’t feel identified with feminism.

Dr. Berzin: Are any of you into feminism?

[Participant comment in German]

Dr. Berzin: You’re talking about tax returns, for those who don’t know German. In America, there is Tax Day, when everybody has to pay their tax. This is an interesting thing. Not paying or trying to get away from paying our taxes or paying less tax than we should – is this disturbing emotion relevant for that? We have no sense of self-dignity, perhaps. We don’t care how it reflects on others. No, I think it’s more that we don’t care how it will affect governmental services. So, it’s a lack of consideration. If the government doesn’t have enough money to pay for services, then society suffers.

Participant: Are all of these supposed to be present?

Dr. Berzin: As I said, they don’t list things that we would call being inconsiderate. But I think from our point of view, we would add that. 

Participant: For me, it’s a very difficult thing to identify with my town, with the German community that I am living in. But yes, I am part of it. In other countries, people say, “Yes, yes, it’s my town,” and they are much more identified with their country. Maybe I should pay more attention to this.

Dr. Berzin: She is bringing up issues that are very important. What we need to do is analyze whether these disturbing emotions are connected with that or whether there are other ones, other disturbing emotions. What she is bringing up is whether or not there is a value to identifying with our community. She said she does not particularly feel a great allegiance or identification with her community, city or country, but many other people do.

But I think what you are getting at is this whole matter of taking responsibility, which is part of compassion. “I am part of a larger group; therefore, I take responsibility. I pay my taxes because it will benefit everybody in the group in terms of paying for the roads, the schools, the fire department, and other things that we all need.” I think it has to do with responsibility, and that, basically, is coming from compassion. We would like everybody to be free of suffering, and because we’re part of this group, we need to contribute.

Also, feeling part of a group, of a larger unit, is behind this one. For instance, what would people think of Germans or Americans if they never paid their taxes or caused all sorts of wars? This may be something else. There is this thing of being ashamed of being American, ashamed of being German or ashamed of being this or that because of the country’s history. We then don’t want to make things worse by how we behave now. So, that ties in. If we are ashamed of something that happened in our history, which, for many people here in Germany, is quite the case, we want to make up for it; we don’t want to continue giving a bad reputation to our country. I think that’s really some of the psychology behind the success of the green movement, the peace movement and things like that here in Germany. 

Participant: That’s a good example. I couldn’t think of anything before that fit into this category, this mental factor. So, it’s a good one.

Dr. Berzin: So, that’s relevant here in Germany. I am sure that in each country there are examples like that. But to go back to our difficult example, would it reflect badly on our parents if we didn’t get married and had children and if we wanted to become a Buddhist monk or nun instead? In Tibetan society, it would reflect very wonderfully on our parents if we became a Buddhist monk or nun. So, which values do we hold as important? 

Participant: We can only decide on a case-by-case basis.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Let me give an example, though I don’t know if this is an accurate example. There was a young man that we met when I was traveling with the old Serkong Rinpoche in Europe. This young man wanted to become a Buddhist monk. But his parents and grandparents, who all lived together, were really looking to him to support and take care of them as they got older. Rinpoche advised him not to become a monk but to take care of his family instead. They weren’t pleased with his idea of becoming a monk. Rinpoche said, “Take care of your family, and when they no longer need you, when they are no longer alive, then you can become a monk, if you still want to.” I thought that was quite something for a Buddhist high lama to say, “Don’t become a monk.” It’s quite different than what many others would have said. There are some lamas that would encourage becoming a monk, regardless of anything. Here, though, it’s not a consideration of how it would reflect on the family. It’s about repaying the kindness of those who have been the kindest to us, namely, our parents. They raised us and so on, and that, from the Buddhist point of view, always takes precedence.

Participant: Maybe we are having problems because we want to make it work in both directions. If you are having disturbing emotions and acting destructively, you don’t care about how it reflects on others. But just because your action reflects badly on others doesn’t mean that it is a destructive action.

Dr. Berzin: Very, very good. We have Mr. Logic and Debater here. That is excellent. The pervasion doesn’t go both ways. If we are acting destructively, it means we don’t care about how it reflects on us or how it reflects on others. We just don’t care, and we don’t have self-control. We don’t restrain ourselves, and we don’t really value positive things; otherwise, we wouldn’t act like this. However, the pervasion doesn’t work the other way. Not being considerate of how our behavior reflects on others doesn’t necessarily mean that we are acting destructively. 

I think that’s correct, but one would have to debate with a real Tibetan debater to see if this pervasion is correct. It makes sense in the case of, “My sister ran off and had an affair with a married man. To save the honor of the family, I have to kill my sister. It would reflect badly on my family if I didn’t do the honor killing.” So, doing something that reflects well on the family is not necessarily a constructive act. Killing is obviously destructive.

When we use this debate style of giving the logical pervasion, we always have to give an example. So, I think this is a good example. The best examples are usually extreme examples. That is an extreme example. 

Participant: I am just processing.

Dr. Berzin: I think the thing to process – let’s deal with a correct pervasion here – is to see, when we have acted destructively, whether it even enter our minds how this would reflect on us, on Buddhists in general, on our family or teacher, or whomever it is that we value. Did it even enter our minds? We just acted destructively: we lied, cheated, or whatever it was that we did. We always tend to think that we can get away with it, that nobody would know. Isn’t that what we think?

Participant: We do when it’s about paying taxes.

Dr. Berzin: Right. And we think that we’ll get away with it. 

Participant: I think that when we do, it’s sometimes because we are so focused on “me,” on the big “me,” and think that we think we really need this. Sometimes we pity ourselves, so we feel that we really deserve that and that we have to do it. For example, with taxes, “I really need this money.” It’s like we are very concerned, very worried about ourselves, so we don’t really see others at that moment. 

Dr. Berzin: When we are inconsiderate of others and don’t care how our actions reflect on others, we are basically thinking only of ourselves. That’s absolutely true. This is called self-cherishing. They say that the self-cherishing attitude is always behind all destructive behavior. We are thinking of “me” but without thinking of the consequences that the “me” in the future will experience. We are just thinking of immediate gratification. You are giving, of course, the example of taxes. We aren’t thinking that this tax money could be used to help others. But tax money could also be used for financing a war that we don’t think is just. These become very difficult issues – paying taxes and our responsibility to the government and how our not paying them reflects on the government because then we’re not being patriotic. 

That gets into another thing: patriotism, which is a funny emotion. It’s a funny thing because… remember the deluded outlook toward a transitory network? We are identifying “me” with the group that we belong to – “my group,” “my country.” If we are identifying a solid “me” with that, then we can become quite a fanatic. But does that mean that any type of loyalty is deluded, such as being loyal to our family or to our country, which in the strongest sense would be being patriotic? Again, it depends on how it is defined. Being patriotic could be defined as meaning that then we’ll go out and kill. These are tough issues. Again, what we try to do is to think about how this is relevant to us.

Participant: And how it reflects on people that we appreciate, that we have respect for.

Dr. Berzin: Right. What if we have respect for murderers? 

Participant: That’s a difficult one.

Participant 2: I am thinking of the example of Germany not wanting to take part in the Libyan war. 

Dr. Berzin: If we want to call NATO’s effort in Libya a war. And how is this part of it? 

Participant 2: There was pressure to take part in it, but it’s very complex.

Dr. Berzin: Well, Germany takes part in Afghanistan, and a lot of people are very opposed to that.

Participant 2: But the point is responsibility and compassion, I think.

Dr. Berzin: Are people worried about how it reflects on Germany if Germany goes to war again? 

These are, I keep on saying, complex issues. But is it relevant to us? This is the question. What do we feel loyal to? Some people feel very loyal to their tradition of Buddhism, very loyal to a particular teacher. If we’re known as a follower, a disciple of this or that teacher, and then we take drugs and get arrested for drugs, we would feel horrible, first, in terms of our teacher knowing and, secondly, how it would reflect terribly on him or her. The point is that when we have the urge to act destructively, what will help us to not act on that urge is to think about how it would reflect on us, how it would reflect on our teacher and on those we have respect for, and, of course, what the consequences would be in terms of karma.  

Participant: And the consequences for others.

Dr. Berzin: As Buddhism says, we can never tell what the consequences for others will be. But obviously, if we kill somebody… But then we get into terribly complicated things like with euthanasia and so on. What are the consequences for that being if we don’t let them die a natural death? If they have some negative karma left that they will then need to experience in the next lifetime, we will have interfered with the process of it exhausting by ripening completely in this lifetime. This is very, very difficult.

Participant: It makes me think it’s really so difficult to analyze the real impact on others. It depends on the motivation, like we always say.

Dr. Berzin: It depends on motivation, the intention. There is an English saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Participant: Yes, that’s also true. But sometimes you keep trying to think what the consequences would be, and sometimes there is no way of knowing.

Dr. Berzin: This is one of the reasons why we’re driven to become Buddhas. It’s so that we would know what all the consequences would be.

Anyway, we have this auxiliary disturbing emotion, and it could accompany acting destructively under the influence of longing desire, anger or naivety. We just don’t care how our actions reflect on ourselves or on others, we don’t value positive qualities or those who have them, and we don’t exercise any self-control.

Why Should We Care How Our Actions Affect Others?

Should we care? Somebody just came up with this question. Should we care how our actions reflect on our teacher, on Buddhism, on our lineage, or whatever? Should we care? Why would we want to care? 

Participant: It comes naturally from your compassion.

Dr. Berzin: But if we want to analyze rationally, why would we care? Why would we want to care?

Participant: Because you don’t want others to be turned off from following a positive direction.

Dr. Berzin: Right, we don’t want others to be turned off from going in the positive direction that they could go in if they held Buddhism, our teachers, and so on in respect. Others would lose respect for them if they saw how their disciples were acting. 

[Participant comment]

Dr. Berzin: So, then one acts with a pure heart in a straight way. We are not talking about the kind of loyalty that can go in a positive or negative direction – “my group,” “right or wrong,” and this type of thing. That’s certainly not what we are talking about. Or a football team type of thing, like “my team” – we are not talking about that. 

But if we really value the positive things that our group is doing, I think it’s how it reflects on our positive group, perhaps. We really value what they are doing and see that they can benefit others. If we act in a negative way, that’s going to affect the group’s ability to be of help. It will affect people’s opinion of them and, therefore, make them less able to be of help. That’s one of the bodhisattva secondary vows as well – to refrain from any type of activity that would cause others to disrespect Buddhism and the bodhisattva path. But again, people could disrespect us because we don’t get married. It could cause disrespect to the monastic community if we don’t work and beg for food. So, where does this sense of values come from? And how dependent is it on Buddhist teaching to a set of values that we follow? It’s difficult.

Participant: In the West, we tend to emphasize individuality much more. We don’t emphasize group identity, family identity and so on as much. A lot of people have difficult relations with their parents.

Dr. Berzin: Very good point. We started the class with the question of how relevant this is to Western people. Is this really an Asian value? What you just pointed out is very true, although I would say that patriotism is emphasized in quite a few societies – not all but some, particularly if they engage in military operations. 

What we need to do is to consider the role that the emphasis that we place on individuality plays and, also, the resistance that we have to anything that would jeopardize our individual freedoms and to think in terms of family. I think a lot of people in the West do think in terms of family, perhaps not so much in terms of their parents but in terms of their spouses and children. A lot of people in the West have difficult relations with their parents. You are right. These are things that we need to consider. How much of our emphasis on individuality is really ego-oriented, oriented to the big “me”: “I have to have my way.” 

Participant: Especially at the age of 16. I have a 16-year-old daughter, and I lose my temper with her every day 

Dr. Berzin: Right, these issues work in all generations. 

The next one is foggy-mindedness. Foggy-mindedness is a part of naïve close-mindedness. It’s a heavy feeling of body and mind that makes the mind unclear, unserviceable and incapable either of giving rise to a cognitive appearance of its object or of apprehending the object correctly – so, we can’t even think of something, let alone visualize and understand it. When the mind becomes unclear due to foggy-mindedness, it is mental dullness. 

Here, it is talking about the heaviness, the fogginess that makes the mind dull. If it gets to the point of dullness, we can’t think of anything.

Participant: Because of feeling tired?

Dr. Berzin: Tiredness is yet another degree of this.

Participant: Because of drugs or…

Dr. Berzin: It can be from many causes. Certainly, it could be feeling very heavy because of being tired. It could be feeling very heavy because of drugs. It could be feeling very heavy just because of being in a bad mood or going in the direction of being spaced out. This is something that we need to give more time to, but we are nearly at the end of our session. 

This whole phenomenon of being spaced out – where does that fit in here? Certainly, it’s a big obstacle. What is being spaced out? Foggy-mindedness is there, flightiness of mind is there, laziness is there, and mental wandering is there. Mental dullness is a secondary thing; it’s part of foggy-mindedness. The example that I am thinking of is these recitation meditations that many of us do. We are reading a sadhana, a prayer or whatever, but we’re not paying any attention to the words, let alone thinking about the meaning of what we’re saying. We’re not thinking about anything. Our minds just wander about while we’re doing it.

Participant: Lack of awareness.

Dr. Berzin: Well, there are a lot of things that are missing here. We’re not paying attention, or we’re not mindful. We’re not holding onto the meaning. Even deeper, we’re not even trying to understand it. We’re just getting through it because we have a commitment to say this prayer. It could be a Christian thing, a Jewish thing, or whatever. For example, we’re in church, and we’re just not there. 

Participant: Not trying, to me, sounds like agitation.

Dr. Berzin: The thing is that there is always a combination of these mental factors. But here, we are talking about one specific one, foggy-mindedness. That’s where I led us a little bit astray. It’s a heavy feeling. This is the main thing: it’s a feeling of heaviness. As we said, we could be sleepy, or we could be sick.

Participant: Exhausted. 

Dr. Berzin: It’s more relevant in terms of psychology. Let’s not look at physical causes. We could just be in a bad mood or be, what we call in English, feeling blah, feeling nothing.

Participant: Wanting to have nothing to do with anything around us.

Dr. Berzin: Right. We’re just not in the mood to do anything. Have you ever been in that mood? I think we all have. We just don’t feel like doing anything. It’s a heaviness. The description in the text is that it makes the mind unclear, unserviceable, and incapable of either giving rise to a thought – so, no idea comes to our minds – or apprehending the object correctly, so not understanding. We just don’t feel like doing anything. That’s a real obstacle, isn’t it? 

Participant: Put the cranky baby to sleep.

Dr. Berzin: Put the cranky baby to sleep is when we are in a bad mood. When we don’t feel like doing anything, we somehow have to just get up and do it; we have to force ourselves. We don’t feel like doing the dishes or whatever it might be, but we just do it because it has to be done. 

Participant: It’s difficult because it’s a mental thing, yes? For example, I would like to think about this or that, but then I find myself like a flat line.

Dr. Berzin: The perfect example is in meditation: we sit down to meditate about impermanence or whatever and nothing comes. As you said, it’s flat. It’s a heavy feeling. It’s not the same as being sleepy. Being sleepy or too tired is something else. Here, we just don’t feel like doing anything, and nothing comes. It’s just foggy. The word that’s used is the same word for fog. The mind is sort of in a daze of nothing.

[Participant comment]

Dr. Berzin: If we have some sort of daily routine or something like that, we just do it, whether we feel like doing it or not. Habits help very much with that. I have a very interesting example. I hurt my back last year. The physiotherapist gave me a set of exercises to do every morning. They are beneficial, and it doesn’t take that long to do them, 10 to 15 minutes at the most. I had no desire to do them in the beginning and had to force myself to do them. Now, I have built up such a habit of doing them every morning that if I don’t do them, I feel like I am missing something. It’s just automatic now that this is part of my morning routine. But still, we could do it with our minds totally in a fog – just sort of mechanically. So, I think that’s part of it as well. When we are doing something mechanically, our hearts aren’t in it; our minds aren’t in it.

[Participant comment]

Dr. Berzin: Certainly, with children, we have a responsibility. So, whether we feel like it or not, we have to change the baby’s diaper. We have to get up in the middle of the night to take care of the baby, whether we feel like it or not.

Participant: Do we have a certain responsibility for this type of heavy feeling of not being clear?

Dr. Berzin: Yes, definitely, we have responsibility for that, because if we don’t do anything about it, nothing happens. But is this different from taking a rest when we need to have a rest?

Participant: We can follow another method, which is to recognize when we are in that state and to stay with it. Then we can see that it will naturally change, because moods change. 

Dr. Berzin: That’s another way of dealing with it, but it may be slow. 

Participant: Does just noticing it help us to get out of it, or does something just naturally happen? 

Dr. Berzin: If we can recognize that we are in a foggy state of mind, the sharpness of recognizing it tends to melt it away. 

Isn’t there something slightly judgmental about it – that this is something that we want to get rid of? Let’s say we have a feeling of compassion and love, and then we notice it. Does that also get rid of it? 

I am just wondering. It’s a classic Buddhist method that you were describing. There is nothing wrong with it. I have never personally tried it, though. When I recognize that I am in that state of mind, I just say, “Enough of that,” and do something. Or say, “Put the baby to sleep.” I’ll lie down if I am really tired. 

Participant: Take your coffee.

Dr. Berzin: I do that very often. I am a confessed coffee addict. 

Participant: Isn’t this discussion too general? Isn’t it about the foggy-mindedness that accompanies a root disturbing emotion? 

Dr. Berzin: Yes, this is part of naivety. Naivety, remember, is close-mindedness. It leads to unawareness – we don’t know either cause and effect or how everything exists. It is limited to that. When we do not know something, our minds are unclear. 

Participant: When you get mad at somebody or at something….

Dr. Berzin: When we get mad, we wouldn’t have this.

Participant: No? So, it doesn’t always accompany destructive states of mind.

Dr. Berzin: The only ones that always accompany destructive states of mind are lack of moral self-dignity and not caring how our action reflects on others. The others don’t always come. These are subcategories. So, a subcategory of close-mindedness is our minds being in a fog. 

OK, these were two more of the auxiliary disturbing emotions, and one needs to apply an antidote to them. They say that foggy-mindedness, this feeling of not wanting to do anything, feeling completely blah and heavy, would then lead us to this other mental factor, that of mental dullness. With mental dullness, either we are unclear, or we lose mental hold on the object of focus. So, being foggy-minded is the step before the one of being completely unclear.