We are going through these graded stages of the path, and we have seen that it’s talking about the different levels of motivation that we develop as we progress on the path.
Review
Initial Scope
Aiming to Improve Future Lives and to Avoid Worse Rebirths
We have covered the initial level motivation already, which is working to improve our future lives, to avoid worse rebirths. We started with the precious human rebirth, appreciating what we have, what the causes are, how rare it is to find, and then how easily it will be lost with death. We looked at how death will come for sure, that there’s no certainty about when, and that nothing will be of help except the Dharma – in other words, the preventive measures we’ve taken to avoid a downfall in our future lives.
Then we looked at what could follow if we haven’t taken some preventive measures of building up positive habits, and that would be one of the worst rebirth states as a creature in one of the hells, these joyless realms, or as a clutching ghost, or as an animal, a creeping creature. We developed a strong wish not to have that and to have a fear of that – but not a helpless and hopeless, paralyzing fear. Instead, it’s a healthy state of fear because we see that there is a way out.
The way to avoid this is to go in the safe direction of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. We have confidence that they can help us to avoid such types of rebirths. We see that, actually, what this is talking about is (1) a true stopping of the causes for suffering on the mental continuum of someone, a highly realized being, and (2) the understandings or true pathways of mind (or true paths) that bring that stopping about and that result from that understanding. This exists in full on the mental continuums of the Buddhas and in part on the mental continuums of the Arya Sangha.
In order to avoid worse rebirths, the first thing that we need to do, the main thing to start with, is to avoid destructive behavior. That brought us to the whole discussion of karma.
Intermediate Scope
Aiming to Be Liberated from All Samsaric Rebirths
Then, we went onto the intermediate level. If we’re going in this safe direction, we want not just to avoid lower rebirths, to protect ourselves from that. We also want to protect ourselves from any type of rebirth, “uncontrollably recurring rebirth,” it’s called (samsara).
We looked at the causes for uncontrollably recurring rebirth, including rebirth in the higher realms. We also looked at the sufferings of these higher realms – the suffering of the god realms, the demigods, and the humans – as well as the sufferings of samsara in general.
The Causes of Suffering – The Disturbing Emotions and Attitudes
Then, looking specifically at the causes of suffering, we started looking at the disturbing emotions. We’ve already dealt with longing desire or attachment or greed (all of those fit in one category), and anger or hostility (another category), and then arrogance or pride (that’s another category). Last time, we spoke about unawareness, the fourth one.
Unawareness
We saw that unawareness, or ignorance (ma-rig-pa, Skt. avidyā), according to Vasubandhu and Asanga, is a state of not knowing (anti-knowing). It is equivalent to naivety or closed-mindedness (gti-mug; Skt. moha). According to Dharmakirti, it is misknowing, knowing things in an incorrect and inverted way. We saw that what unawareness either does not know or mis-knows can be both behavioral cause and effect and the true nature of reality, which, depending on the tenet system, can include not only the way in which we exist but also the way in which everything exists.
We saw that, according to Vasubandhu, not knowing cause and effect opens us up to a distorted certainty – for example, being certain of a wrong way in which cause and effect works or being certain of a wrong way in which we or all things exist. It can also open us up to indecisive wavering. Because we don’t know, we’re not sure. We don’t know, “Is it like this? Or is it like that?” It also opens us up to complete befuddlement, which we saw is a very, very confused state of mind. Also, with this distorted certainty, we can get stubborn, holding onto our incorrect view very strongly, being very closed-minded about it. On the other hand, if we are indecisive, wavering back and forth, we are very uncertain about what is true, what actually is the case. That makes us very insecure. And if we are confused about everything because we don’t understand – that also makes us very stressed. So, we can see that this is a very disturbing state of mind.
Those were the main points about unawareness. But also, we made the point that the unawareness of behavioral cause and effect only accompanies destructive states of mind and destructive behavior – that because we’re naive and closed-minded when it comes to cause and effect, we act in destructive ways.
OK? Anything else? Is it clear? Any questions?
Alright. So, unawareness is the basis for all the disturbing emotions, particularly the unawareness of reality – how we exist and, in general, how everything exists. It underlies all moments of our experience. So, whether we are in a destructive state of mind, a constructive one, or a neutral, unspecified one, whether we’re awake or asleep, we don’t know what’s going on. It is a pervasive type of state of mind. That is the basis, then, for all the other disturbing emotions and things to arise.
Participant: Then you call it naivety or closed-mindedness when it is together with other disturbing…
Dr. Berzin: Closed-mindedness unawareness of behavioral cause and effect only accompanies destructive states of mind and behavior; it doesn’t accompany constructive ones. We’ve discussed what is destructive. Destructive states of mind are always accompanied by no sense of values, no self-respect, no consideration for others and so on. OK? Alright.
Indecisive Wavering – Being of Two Minds about What Is True
OK. Then the next disturbing attitude, or state of mind, is indecisive wavering (we can’t really call that a disturbing emotion). Indecisive wavering is entertaining two minds about what is true. In other words, it’s wavering between accepting or rejecting what is true. So, we’re not talking here about indecisiveness concerning what we should wear today, or what we should eat for dinner, what we should choose on the menu. Although, if we look at those states of mind, they are quite disturbing because we don’t know what to do; so, we’re confused. And it can paralyze us very much, especially if we go to buy something and we can’t choose what to buy. Then we’re stuck. And we all know what that’s like. That is indecisiveness.
Here, the disturbing emotion is defined more specifically as being of “two minds”: “Should I reject or accept what is true?” And what is true refers to such facts as the four noble truths, behavioral cause and effect, how things exist and this sort of thing.
That indecisive wavering has three types. It can either tend:
- More to the side of what is true
- More to the side of what is false
- Or be evenly divided between the two
Its functions as a basis for not engaging in what is constructive.
So, let’s think about that. And try to think specifically in terms of something that is true – for instance, acting destructively produces suffering, or that acting on longing desire, or even just thinking with that (or with anger and so on), produces suffering – and being unsure that it’s true. And because we’re unsure, we don’t do what is constructive.
[meditation]
Notice that not knowing what’s correct underlies it. So, because you don’t know, you’re uncertain. Even if you have read and know the correct answer, you’re not certain that it’s true. And we may simply not know or even consider whether it is true or not true.
What Does It Mean to Be Convinced of the Truth Something on an Intellectual Level but Not on a “Gut Level”?
Participant: I’m not sure I can connect these two things – that on the one side there’s this indecisive wavering about normal things, like what to eat, where to live or whatever, and this indecisive wavering about longing desire being destructive. I mean, I may know it from the Buddhist teachings and may understand it at several levels, but I still don’t implement it because of addiction, for example, or because I think that it provides temporary relief (which it might). So, it’s not so much that I am indecisive about whether this is true or not. It’s just that I’m not integrating it at a gut level, as we say sometimes. So, I cannot connect these two. It does not feel like indecisive wavering.
Dr. Berzin: Well, indecisive wavering, as it says in the definition, is having two minds about something. Is it correct; is it incorrect? Am I going to accept it, or am I going to reject it? So, obviously, there are levels of accepting something. We can accept it intellectually, as we would say in the West, but we don’t accept it to the extent that we then modify our behavior.
Now, why don’t we accept it as part of our behavior? We can say it’s because of habits and so on. Or it gives temporary relief, you said, to act out your desire to eat some chocolate or whatever it might be. But why are we under the control of habits? It’s because we’re not completely convinced of the truth of something.
Participant: So, what does it mean to…
Dr. Berzin: It is a very difficult thing to know what it means to be really convinced of something.
Participant: And does that take away the wind of karma? I don’t know.
Dr. Berzin: What do you mean by taking away the wind of karma – that I’m convinced that this is bad for me, but I do it anyway?
Participant: That’s indecisive wavering?
Dr. Berzin: Well, I think it would affect the strength of the ripening of the karma, for sure.
Participant: But would it eliminate that karma?
Dr. Berzin: No.
Participant: [Inaudible]
Dr. Berzin: No. You still don’t stop; you still don’t refrain from acting under the disturbing emotion and so on.
Now, again, there’s a difference here. You can’t eliminate your greed, longing desire or anger just by using self-control. What you could control are your actions – whether or not to physically or verbally act on those disturbing emotions. That you could control. Thinking about it? I don’t know. You could control your thinking, in a sense, if you had complete shamatha, a completely stilled and settled state of mind with perfect concentration. Then you could quiet the mind temporarily, though you wouldn’t get rid of the disturbing emotion. So, if you were really convinced of the destructiveness of something, you would at least try to refrain from it.
Participant: In the Shantideva way of remaining like a block of wood?
Dr. Berzin: Remaining like a block of wood? But… well, at that level… But as I say, it’s difficult to change anger unless you really are quite advanced. If you’re quite advanced, then you just, in a sense, reboot your state of mind. You understand that this is ridiculous, and with the snap of your finger, you reboot. You just instantly quiet your mind and get into a neutral state of mind and then generate something more positive. That’s very, very advanced. But that’s eventually what one is aiming for: to be able to reboot at anytime, like you would reboot the computer if the computer were not behaving properly. So, that’s based on conviction.
It’s interesting. What does it mean to be, as we say in the West, intellectually convinced of something but not convinced on a gut level? I wonder. That’s a difficult thing to really translate into Buddhist terms. How would you translate that into Tibetan? That’s a real challenge.
Participant: But it happens also the other way around, no? But it still describes a human experience.
Dr. Berzin: It describes human experience. But it could be described in a different way. That’s what I’m saying: how would we describe it in a Buddhist way?
Participant: Convinced in words.
Dr. Berzin: Convinced in words. Well, there is… Oh, this is very good.
Three Levels of Discriminating Awareness; Three Levels of Certainty
There are three kinds of discriminating awareness:
- Discriminating awareness based on hearing – so, you are confident that these are the actual teachings. I’ve heard it, and I’m confident these are the words.
- There is the discriminating awareness that comes from thinking – so, you think about it, consider it, and you become convinced that it’s true. That would be, probably, what we would call intellectual understanding.
- Then there is the discriminating awareness based on meditating, which means to make the understanding a habit so that becomes fully integrated. And that discriminating awareness would probably be considered a gut level understanding.
So, we can describe it in Buddhist terminology, in a Buddhist conceptual framework. And when we describe it in that framework, it gives quite a different perspective because we see what the different levels are based on: (1) I know what the teachings are; (2) I not only intellectually understand them, but I believe they’re true; (3) I’ve digested them fully, so I can actually implement them. Each of those is a type of discriminating awareness.
Discriminating awareness, you recall, adds certainty to distinguishing. Distinguishing, which is often translated as “recognition,” is just to distinguish that something is this and not that. And discriminating awareness adds certainty to it: definitely, it is this and not that. Discriminating awareness, when it’s translated (as it usually is) as “wisdom” – that doesn’t really convey the meaning very well.
Three Levels of Indecisive Wavering
OK? So, we could have indecisive wavering on, again, these three levels – indecisive about what the teachings actually were: “Did they say this, or did they say that?” We could tend more toward what’s correct or what’s incorrect. We could have indecisive wavering, thinking, “Did I understand them correctly or not correctly?” I mean, there are two levels: “I understand them this way, which is correct; or I understand them that way, which is incorrect.” Then there’s also the evaluation part: “Were they correct, or were they not correct?” That affects the certainty as well. Plus, there’s whether they are true or not true. So, there are all these different types of indecision, indecisiveness. Then there’s the indecisiveness that’s involved in actually implementing the teachings if we’re not already certain of them on a gut level.
So, we go through all these things, not only the teachings on behavioral cause and effect and on the four noble truths (what’s suffering, what are the causes of suffering, and so on) but, also, in terms of on rebirth. That’s a very difficult one – to get that gut level discriminating awareness and certainty based on really integrating those teachings. Very difficult.
The Seven Ways of Knowing Correspond to Different Levels of Certainty
So, Asanga pointed out that the main cause of problems here is the disturbing, deluded indecisive wavering, which is a technical term (the-tshoms nyon-mongs-can). It refers to the wavering that tends more toward an incorrect decision about what’s true, which is a troublemaker. But if the wavering tends toward what is correct or is evenly divided, it could lead to engaging in what’s constructive. In the context of the seven ways of knowing, indecisive wavering leads to presumption: you presume that it’s true. You’re not totally convinced or really understand why fully, but you presume that it’s true. On that basis, you could act constructively. Then there would be valid cognition with certainty that it is true. Do you follow?”
Questions
Do We Need to Be Liberated Before We Can Get Rid of Indecisive Wavering?
Participant: I doubt that we can rid ourselves of indecisive wavering about such matters until we are at least liberated because we will never be sure until we are…
Dr. Berzin: Oh, so you’re saying, can we ever be sure about liberation until we are actually liberated? Will we always have indecisive wavering? I don’t know because there are… what are the ways of knowing that have certainty?
I’m sorry, we haven’t really studied together the seven ways of knowing something, but there are two of them that have certainty… well, three, if you take the Sautrantika system. In the Sautrantika system, the third would be bare perception. So, you, in a sense… well, to “experience” it. That’s a difficult word, to “experience” it. Bare perception means seeing it, hearing it, smelling, tasting, feeling it as a physical sensation, or knowing it non-conceptually with the mind. This is the non-Prasangika. Prasangika would say that it can even be conceptual in the mental sense but without the conceptual cognition having to rely directly on a line of reasoning. And that can be certain. Then there’s inferential understanding, which does rely on a line of reasoning. That’s always conceptual.
So, let’s use the Prasangika sense. How are you certain of something? You could be certain of something based on a line of reasoning and come to a logical conclusion… which is difficult in the case of karma. So, then you’d have to use the criterion “Is the Buddha a valid source of information” in order to come to a logical conclusion. Then there are four ways of thinking about things to gain conviction: does it explain what I’ve experienced; is it logical; does it produce its stated result; and is it the nature of things.
But then, you could have certainty even if you don’t rely on a line of reasoning, and it could still be conceptual. So, you don’t have to actually… Now, then you say, “Well, to experience liberation… you have to experience it in order to be convinced that it actually exists.” “Experience” is a difficult word because you can experience all states of mind, including doubt. So, then I think what you’re referring to is that you would have to attain liberation in order to be convinced that there is liberation. And I don’t think that that is necessarily the case.
Participant: I didn’t really mean it like that. I meant, rather, that you would always have indecisive wavering about longing desire being destructive and so on, and you would have indecisive wavering until you achieved liberation.
Dr. Berzin: Well, I don’t know. That’s a logical statement that you just made. You said that we wouldn’t be convinced that longing desire leads to suffering until we gained liberation from it. When you gain liberation from it, you don’t have suffering.
Participant: And you have certainty, also.
Dr. Berzin: And you have certainty that with the absence of longing desire, you don’t have suffering. That’s what you have certainty about. Then you infer that when you had it, you had suffering.
So, I don’t know because I could say that while I’m asleep, I don’t suffer from it.
Participant: But you suffer from other things, which…
Dr. Berzin: Well, yeah. The point is that you don’t understand necessarily the causal connection. In order to gain liberation from it, you have to understand the causal connection. I suppose. I don’t know. Could you just follow the practices without being convinced that they’re true and actually attain anything?
Participant: Hardly. You would not have the energy to do all the work.
Dr. Berzin: I could do physical exercise without being convinced that it’s beneficial, and it would strengthen my body. I could take medicine without being convinced that it’ll work, and it works nevertheless. So, is this different?
Participant: This is different because it requires working with your mind. It’s like learning something: you cannot learn something unless you understand the material, for example.
Dr. Berzin: You can memorize something without understanding it.
Participant: But you cannot use it.
Dr. Berzin: And you could also learn an incorrect view without believing that it’s true. That’s just the discriminating awareness that comes from hearing: “I’m convinced that these are the words, that this is what it says.” So, what that’s dealing with is, “Is it correct that these are the words, that this is what it says?” I don’t know. This is the whole issue of whether inference is a valid way of knowing something and whether it can give you sufficient certainty.
And the discriminating awareness that comes from meditation – there are levels of that, of course. There’s a conceptual level, and there’s a non-conceptual level. So, when it’s non-conceptual… Well, with the non-conceptual cognition of voidness, you’re certain of it, and it will eliminate a certain portion of the disturbing emotions (not all of them at once) in 99.9% of the cases. So, would that be the only time when you really had certainty? That would mean that all the other certainties are not really certainties. If you had the other certainties, lower levels of certainty, you could still have indecisive wavering about the higher levels: “I’m certain that these are the words, and I’m certain that I understand them correctly. But I’m not certain that it’s…” well, I don’t know, “I’m not certain that it’s true”?
How Much Certainty Can We Gain with the Discriminating Awareness Based on Thinking versus Meditating?
This is interesting. What is the level of uncertainty when you have the discriminating awareness that comes from thinking? So, I’m 100% convinced that these teachings are correct and that my understanding of them is correct and that these are true based on thinking about them logically, with inference, and the various ways of examining the teachings. But I haven’t implemented them on the deepest level, which comes from the discriminating awareness that comes from meditation. So, how would you describe the indecisiveness that I still have? It’s unconscious, we would probably say. Would we? How would you describe it?
Participant: It’s a lack of familiarity.
Dr. Berzin: Is that all? Is there any indecisiveness there?
Participant: And strength of what this is supposed to counteract.
Dr. Berzin: Well, meditation means to accustom yourself to something. Accustoming yourself is not restricted to just sitting on a cushion and thinking about it. If you’ve really accustomed yourself to something, it should be translated into your behavior.
Participant: Because you have accustomed yourself to the disturbed way before.
Dr. Berzin: Well, we’ve been accustomed to the disturbed way, so it takes time for the conviction to counteract that habit. And the only way that it can counteract it is through familiarity. Repetition, basically.
So, is there any indecisiveness there? That’s the question. Let’s think about it.
[meditation]
What do you think?
Participant: I think it’s basically the same question: Is it indecisive wavering that’s preventing me from practicing the Dharma, even though I’ve intellectually understood?
Dr. Berzin: The way that I was analyzing it was to see if there was a difference in the level of certainty between inferential understanding and what’s called “straightforward cognition,” which is the way that you would translate “bare perception” in the Prasangika system. “Straightforward” means you’re not relying on a line of reasoning. In other words, when I think about a teaching logically, I’m convinced; but if I don’t think about it, I’m not convinced. With straightforward cognition, even if it’s conceptual, you don’t have to rely on a line of reasoning: it’s just there automatically. Or – an earlier stage – you just think of the thing without having to go through a line of reasoning. You just remember voidness, but not the reasons why it’s true.
So, I don’t know if there are different levels of certainty there. But for sure, anybody who’s practiced for a while has experienced that if you go through a line of reasoning and get to the point of “OK, I’m convinced,” afterwards, when you’re not thinking about it, that conviction goes. The conviction weakens.
Now, this is an interesting thing – here’s a parameter. One parameter is certainty – how certain I am of something. And certainty comes through discriminating awareness. So, I could say that my discriminating awareness is very weak when I don’t rely directly on a line of reasoning. But it doesn’t mean that I’m indecisive (indecisive means being of two minds about it); it’s just that my level of certainty is very weak. Therefore, my mindfulness (mindfulness is holding onto the thing) is weak or not even there. I think that would be the analysis. What do you think?”
Participant: I think that oftentimes, when we don’t rely on a line of reasoning or when what we perceive contradicts what we would conclude with a line of reasoning, and something looks different than it actually is, we have doubts about it.
Dr. Berzin: Right, when we don’t rely on a line of reasoning and something looks different from what it is, do we have doubt about it?
Let’s not use the example of voidness. Let’s use another example: compassion. Do you have to rely on a line of reasoning (“everybody’s been my mother,” blah, blah, blah) in order to develop compassion? Well, compassion could arise – what’s called “emotional compassion” rather than rational compassion – and you just automatically feel, “Oh, poor baby” type of thing. But that’s usually mixed with some sort of confusion or disturbing emotion. It could be attachment to the person… Well, I don’t know. You see a puppy or a baby that’s crying. Some people obviously will get annoyed – “Shut the baby up” type of thing. But a lot of people would automatically feel some compassion. Is there indecisiveness? Is there certainty? There could be indecisiveness about whether we should get involved and do something about it, like go over and offer our help.
But compassion is the wish for the other to be free from suffering. We could feel fairly certain of it, even without having gone through a line of reasoning, without having trained ourselves. But it might not be universal. It probably isn’t universal. It’s probably only special cases that we identify with. I don’t know. This topic of indecisive wavering is interesting because it’s true that everybody’s been my mother, and it’s true that everybody’s equal – that everybody wants to be happy, and nobody wants to be unhappy. Are we indecisive about that? How much do we implement it?
“It Just Feels Right” – How Much Certainty Is There?
Participant: I think that when we try to apply this awareness, then we have a feeling, and we have a memory of this feeling.
Dr. Berzin: You’re talking about compassion?
Participant: Compassion or avoidance. When we practice it.
Dr. Berzin: When we practice it and apply it, it’s based on some feeling, some experience.
Participant: No, then we have a feeling.
Dr. Berzin: What do you mean by “feeling”?
Participant: We have this…
Dr. Berzin: Certainty? Conviction?
Participant: Conviction, certainty, and no doubts. You know it. You know this is constructive. You feel it. You know that it is constructive.
Dr. Berzin: OK. You feel that it is right. This is a very interesting point. I don’t know how you would describe that in Buddhist terms, but I know what you’re talking about.
Participant: And I think we have a memory from this.
Dr. Berzin: It produces something that you will remember.
Participant: Yeah. And we sometimes are able to reach this memory.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, you can invoke this memory.
Participant: Yeah. And then we are able to know what’s constructive.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Well, that’s interesting. “I do this because I’m convinced that it’s right. It’s the right thing to do – to help somebody. I don’t know why.” I’m just giving an example. It’s not really based on “Everybody’s equal: everybody wants to be happy. Everybody’s been my mother” and so on. It just feels right. What’s that? And is that a stable state of conviction?”
Participant: That’s familiarity with virtue from a past life.
Dr. Berzin: Probably. Or it could be doctrinally based. You went to Catholic school or religious school, and it was drummed into you that “This is right. This is the right thing to do.” So, you’ve just built up that habit.
Participant: I think this could be like the first motivations or the first step – to feel that it’s right.
Dr. Berzin: To do it because you feel it’s right – that level of conviction.
Participant: And then you get this feeling that we’re talking about that brings you the awareness that you are doing something constructive. And it’s something that is good because there is no doubt…
Dr. Berzin: Right. You’re not only convinced that it’s right, but when you do it, you feel good. And that reinforces the feeling, the conviction, that this is the right thing to do.
Participant: I think this is a stronger basis.
Dr. Berzin: Right. This is a stronger basis than being convinced intellectually, logically. But is it stable? What His Holiness the Dalai Lama always says is that if it’s based on reason, it’s more stable. That doesn’t mean that it has to be only one and not the other. But based on reason, then even if you are in a bad mood, the conviction still can override the bad mood. If it’s just based on “It feels right, and it makes me feel good, so I’m convinced that it’s OK” – that might not be strong enough to get you out of a bad mood, being lazy or whatever else might block you from actually implementing the compassion, the voidness, or whatever.
Differentiating Lack of Certainty from Indecisive Wavering
So, it is a very interesting topic, actually, how you become convinced of something and what it means to be convinced, what the levels of conviction are and what the levels of indecisiveness are. So, we need to differentiate here, lack of certainty or weakness of certainty from indecisive wavering. Indecisive wavering, remember – two minds or two opinions about something: is it right, or is it wrong; is it true or false?
Participant: Sometimes, I know from myself that when I’m in a bad mood, it feels like indecisive wavering, but when I’m relaxed and in a good mood, I’m very convinced.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, again, she’s saying that sometimes when she’s relaxed, she’s convinced, but when she’s stressed or in a difficult state of mind, the indecision is back again. Again, it’s the strength of the conviction – how strong is it. And of course, you’re not going to overcome indecisive wavering until…
Now, this is the interesting point: when do we overcome indecisive wavering? It’s a disturbing emotion, so we’re not going to be rid of it, the various levels (it’s doctrinally based, I believe, but let me check), until we become aryas. But what level are we talking about? Are we talking about being convinced that these are the words of the text? I don’t think that we have to be aryas to be 100% convinced that we’ve memorized it correctly. So, again, there are many, many different levels.
Now, when we talk about doubt as a way of translating this, we get into a little bit of imprecision here. Doubt is, “I wonder: is it true or not?” Well, we have something in Zen – I forget what it’s called, profound doubt or something like that – in which one is supposed to doubt everything. So, one questions everything, basically, in order to develop, in their style, vipashyana, which is an exceptionally developed state of mind that is always questioning everything – which means investigating why. “What is it?” is, I think, in Korean Zen, the one koan that they do. “What is it?” So, that’s called profound doubt. That’s not indecisive wavering. That’s developing a mind that investigates and that questions everything – basically questioning what is automatically there, which is confusion and not understanding. So, we’re not talking about that. OK?
So, let us contemplate this a little bit more. We started quite late today, so the class won’t be as long as it normally is since we are at the end of our time. But let’s try to digest this so that we are at least certain – without indecisive wavering – about what we have said. Then next week, we get into these deluded outlooks, which are a little bit complicated, so best not to just start it prematurely.
[meditation]
Mental Factors That Can Affect the Strength of Our Conviction
So, what we need to do is to review, to be mindful. When we have the decisiveness, the discriminating awareness based on thinking about some point in the Dharma – so, we’ve gone through it logically and we’re convinced – we then want to implement it. So, what’s preventing us from implementing it? We’re not convinced based on meditation (we don’t have that discriminating awareness). So, what is the problem? Is our certainty not strong enough? Could be. Is it not strong enough so that we don’t have to rely on the line of reasoning? Well, within meditation, there are some meditations that would rely on a line of reasoning and some that wouldn’t. I could be convinced while I’m sitting on the cushion, but not when I’m dealing with my parents or my children. So, circumstances affect when I am mindful of my certainty. Mindfulness is the glue; it brings that certainty up and then holds onto it. So, in difficult circumstances, I might not even remember it. I might not even bring it to mind, let alone hold onto it.
So, there are many mental factors that are involved when I don’t implement what I intellectually understand. Because of laziness… well, the conviction wasn’t strong enough. There wasn’t enough perseverance. That was too weak, although I’m convinced. Is there unconscious indecisiveness? There could be. But there could also not be. “I’m convinced that this is true, but I just don’t feel like implementing it.” What does that mean?
Participant: That you’re not convinced.
Dr. Berzin: Or it could mean that you’re lazy. Well, to say I don’t feel like it is referring to a state of mind. So, the conviction is too weak. Either it’s too weak, or you’re not really convinced. You thought you were convinced, but you’re not really convinced. Well, I don’t know. You could be really convinced but still not feel like it because the force of the disturbing emotion is stronger than the force of the conviction. So, you need more familiarity.
This, I think, is a very, very important thing to work on because those of us who have practiced the Dharma for quite a while might have reached a point where we understand the teachings and are convinced that they’re true, but there’s great difficulty in implementing them. We might be able to bring them up on our meditation cushion, but when we’re really challenged in real life situations, we have difficulty. So, then we have to really understand in order to make any progress. We have to be able to identify what the block is, what is preventing it, because then we know what to attack. And this is exactly what the second of the four noble truths is all about. It’s to find out what the cause is. We all know what the deepest cause is – grasping for true existence, etc. But what is actually causing me not to implement the Dharma at this moment? Is it laziness? Is it that I’m not really convinced? Is it that my conviction is too weak? Is it that my disturbing emotion is too strong? Is it that the influence of other people around me… you know, there’s too much going on and people are acting crazy and so on? What are the causes?