In this third lecture on the Vedama, we are going to discuss the classes of consciousness. We talked about forms of consciousness, and then we come to the four classes of consciousness. But tonight we are going to deal with only one class, and in the next lecture we deal with two classes which are similar, and in the last lecture we will be on the fourth class of consciousness, the highest form, or highest class.

[01:03]

We understand the process of consciousness, or the process of cognition. In Buddhism, or the Buddha analyzed consciousness into four classes. The first is called the consciousness experienced in the world of desires, kama-vajra consciousness, consciousness roaming about in the world of desires, kama-desire. And the second is the consciousness as experienced in the world of form, and that is in the state of meditative absorption, is meditative consciousness.

[02:14]

And the third class is that of consciousness as experienced in the formless world, which is the higher state of jhana, meditative absorption. And then the last class is the class of transcendental or supramundane consciousness, which belongs to enlightened ones. In fact, the Buddha talked about consciousness according to the levels of experience. We can say consciousness is one, but because of the levels and the states of consciousness

[03:23]

which we experience in our life, in different situations, or at different levels of existence, so we have so many classes of consciousness. We are aware that there are 89, 89, what should be the word? 89 consciousnesses, to use plural for consciousness. In the ordinary analysis, but in the deeper analysis, we have 121, 120, 120, 120 consciousnesses. But we do not bother about the numbers. We try to understand what it means.

[04:26]

So today I feel we will consider the consciousness as experienced in the world of desires. Talking about the world, we have three worlds. The world of desires, which may be lower world, and the world of form, the formless world. So this is classified according to the levels of consciousness. Now in the world of desires, we can find different levels of existence.

[05:34]

Perhaps we talk about this a little bit. The world of non-progressive existence, which is the lowest. There are four categories of beings living in such world. The first is the beings experiencing suffering, living in hell, in the richest term. So that is one of the levels of the lowest form of consciousness. But we also can see that form of existence in us when we experience pain, suffering, agony, misery, sorrow.

[06:45]

So it means we are in hell, in the richest term. As Buddha said, hell or heaven are experienced in the senses. So negative experience is living in hell. The positive experience through the senses is living in heaven. Then the next category of that world is the world of animals. So animals are living in this lower world and in the karma vajra consciousness. Consciousness roaming about in the world of desires. Living according to instincts. You can see the animals have instinct of preserving their lives, instinct of eating, escaping from dangers.

[07:51]

So there is a self-preservation in the animal kingdom. Then the next category is the realm of hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts, that kind of level of consciousness is always hungry, thirsty. Wanting to eat too much. The hungry ghost in this is described as a being with a very big body, as big as a mountain. But has a very small mouth, as small as the hole of a needle.

[08:56]

That is the hungry ghost. It means that the mouth is too small, but the desire, the greed is so big, like a mountain. And then another category of that world is the world of demons. The animals or the beings which are full of fear. And, yes, full of fear. That such beings do not confront anything, but just try to bite in the back, to bite the back, to deceive. That they don't come out in the front.

[10:01]

So we can see too, this is some kind of instinctive consciousness in man. But in mythology we talk about the world, the categories of beings, in order to make it simpler and figurative for easier understanding. But if we look into ourselves, we can see all these levels of consciousness in the lower world. And surely we have to go through our instinctive consciousness. We have instinct for self-preservation. We have social instinct, living in community, in family, in society, in nation, or in the world.

[11:05]

And we have sexual instinct also for keeping species, human species perhaps. So all these instincts are included in instinctive consciousness. And because sometimes there is no understanding, we can fall into the category of greed, or the category of fear. And we don't want to confront things, we have to escape, or we have to postpone, we have to suppress. So we have to look into ourselves, because the study of Vidamma is the study of ourselves, each one of us. And then higher than that is the world of human beings.

[12:15]

Human beings are in the middle between the lower and the higher. The lower is called the non-progressive world. And human being is the world of balance, the world of balance between the witches and virtuous circles. And then the higher world than human being is the world of devas, the deities, shining beings. Literally, deva means shining being. But we can be both. Human being may fall down to lower world if they don't understand, or they can go up to the higher world.

[13:19]

It's nearly up and down, up and down in the way of living. That's why the scriptures talk about heaven and hell, you know, heaven and hell. In order to show the possibilities of human beings to go up and to come down. Because of the senses. We are fully equipped with the senses so that we can communicate with the world very widely and vastly. Then the world of devas is also divided into different classes. There are six classes. Perhaps you can remember, first is the classes of the guardians of the directions.

[14:27]

Four guardians of directions, east, north, west, south. So all these guardians are protecting directions. And that is the first class. And coming to the second class, which is higher, is the heaven of Indra with 33 devas as members or the board of directors of that heaven. So Indra has 33 people working with him. And called Tavatinsa, Tavatinsa heaven. The story of that is, when Indra was born as human being, he was named Makavana.

[15:30]

And he did the meritorious work by building the roads and the halls for people to stay when they travel along the road because it is too hot in India. And also he digs the wells and provides the gardens. In fact, Makavana has four wives and three of them help him with doing these things. But the fourth one didn't do anything because she thought she was a favorite of his. So she thought whatever he did would be the result for her. But in actual fact, it is not because everyone has to do it for oneself.

[16:37]

So it is said that after Makavana died, he had 33 friends doing the work with him. So all of them were born in the heaven of Tavatinsa. Tavatinsa means 33. Makavana now became the Indra who has the power, the head of the devas. He saw all his three wives with him, but the fourth one was missing. And now you see, with his power of clairvoyance, he perceives or he sees his fourth wife being born as a bird, a white bird, like a seagull, not really white, but some kind of bird which is white.

[17:47]

She looked living on the beach, so he would like to help her to come and stay in heaven. So he came to her and let her know that he was her former husband. She then recognized him and he asked her to observe five precepts. You know, a bird also can observe five precepts. And then she would be born in heaven with him. So she did. She observed him. One day he would like to test whether she is very strict with her precepts. And then he came, he became a fish coming to the beach. And she looked at the fish, she was a bit greedy first that she came to the fish.

[18:51]

And then she became aware of her observing precepts, so she stepped back. And he was trying that for some time until he was sure that she was very strict with her precepts. Then he said that it was okay now, she could come. So he brought her to the heaven and let her stay at the beautiful gardens with the swimming pools in the Tao Te Ching heaven. And then she was looked down upon by the three wives. Saying that, you see, now you didn't do anything when you were a human being. So this is your destination, being born as a bird. So she was quite ashamed of herself. But in the end, after she died from being a bird, then she was born as his wife.

[19:59]

This is Tao Te Ching. And then the third class is Tushita, Yama. Not like Yama, not like the guardian of the hell. Yama is the world of kind of twin, twin world. The duality of good and bad is still in that heaven. But there is complete balance so that people can experience joy and happiness.

[21:08]

But without being overwhelmed by it. Kind of the world of balance between good and bad, happiness and unhappiness. And the next one is the heaven of Tushita. And that heaven is for all the Bodhisattvas. The people of great merit and wisdom to be born. Buddha was born in that heaven before he came to be born as Gotama, Sitchartha. And then the next one is the heaven of the kings. The kings, those who can have everything without doing anything. Everything is provided, so that is called the heaven of the kings.

[22:10]

And then the last one is, the highest one in the heaven is called the heaven of the kings of the kings. Or the fathers of the kings, better. The fathers of the kings. Those people have more luxurious things. And this also is in fact the classification of happiness. Happiness has different levels. Even it is happiness. So these are still concerned with karma, with desire. Another way that all the human beings or animals and the devas are still concerned with sex. They still have sex, they still produce beings.

[23:17]

That is why it is called the karmaloka, the world of desire. And the consciousness in this world is classified as the karma consciousness. And now we will see the categories of karma consciousness. The first is immoral consciousness. So immoral consciousness is rooted in greed, hate and delusion. So there are three forms of this immoral consciousness according to the root of it. Like lopa or greed.

[24:19]

Greedy consciousness has the subclasses, eight subclasses. But we won't go into the details of the number. We will talk about the things which are connected with this type of consciousness. There are three things which are connected with this type of consciousness. The first thing is feeling. The second is connection. And the third is the way of acting. So the feeling could be pleasurable or neutral.

[25:25]

The feeling, only two types of feeling. Pleasurable or indifferent or neutral. But this type of consciousness may be connected with wrong opinions, wrong views, wrong understanding. Or it may be disconnected from wrong views, wrong opinions. But we can think of this form of consciousness when we become greedy. About things. We may become greedy about things because we intend to do it. Or because it is automatic process. So that is the way of acting. It could be automatic or it could be volitional, intentional. Or it could be prompted or unprompted by environment or by the other people.

[26:37]

So that when we are greedy in a way that we may feel pleasurable about what we are going to do. Because greed emphasizes the importance of the object. It's different from attachment. Attachment is concern with having it, possessing it. But the greed will point to the object. The object. I must get it. The object must be here, must be here. So that there is a pleasurable or feeling of pleasure. Or if that feeling does not arise, it could be the feeling of indifference. I feel greedy but I don't really enjoy being greedy. I feel a bit indifferent but I like to do it. I don't have really pressure in doing it.

[27:42]

But sometimes I don't know, I just do it. Just become greedy. And sometimes you can understand that this greedy consciousness is connected with some opinions you have. The opinions coming with greedy consciousness is considered wrong. Any kind of opinion. It means a kind of wrong idea, wrong information. But sometimes it does not connect with any idea. So if we look at this, we can understand the greedy consciousness better. Another type is consciousness rooted in hate, aversion.

[28:46]

And this type has two forms only. The feeling for this hateful consciousness is grief. Grief, feeling bad, negative. And it is connected with hate. But sometimes also the consciousness rooted in hate or aversion is accompanied by neutral feeling. So not necessarily that you must have grief all the time. Indifferent feelings seem to be present with all forms of consciousness.

[29:51]

Sometimes we become hateful, become aggressive because of the grief, the unhappiness within us, sorrow. Or sometimes we feel just neutral but the things are not clear. And then this hateful consciousness can arise. And the third one is consciousness rooted in delusion. So delusion is connected with perplexity and restlessness, confusion. So if this form of consciousness arises, we feel confused, we feel perplexed.

[31:02]

And we become restless inwardly. There is no happiness when restlessness arises. There is no peace, there is no tranquility. The feeling would be indifferent feeling. What is standing in the way. But by using this inquiring technique, one just puts a very precise question and then forget all about the question, not to look for the answer. Then let the question works itself, works out by itself. Then this consciousness will change to have the clear consciousness and confusion goes.

[32:08]

But in fact sometimes it is present. And that's why we need inquiring, inquiring technique to be practiced whenever this consciousness is present. And for the dosa or the consciousness rooted in hate, we have to develop more compassion and love. Because hate also means resentment. Resentment, anger, hate, aversion are included in this form of consciousness. So the positive side for this is compassion and love. Or kindness, friendliness. So when if you feel aggressive about yourself, you have aversion for yourself. You have to be kind to yourself.

[33:13]

You have to be more compassionate to yourself. And then the compassion and love is growing in consciousness. Resentment and anger and hatred will go. Apart from that we can do this practice of love by sending out all loving thoughts to all beings including the people whom we don't like or the people we consider as enemies. So give them loving thoughts, radiate loving thoughts. And then you clear up your mind. The mind becomes freer and clearer.

[34:15]

So it will not grasp aversion or hatred or resentment. And for lopa, greed, we can develop generosity, charity. Being generous by rendering services, helping the people, giving what you can. Giving not only material things, giving your energy, giving your interest, sharing with people what you have. Giving advice is included in generosity or dana. In Buddhism we talk of dana in three ways. Giving material things is one of them. And giving instructions, advice is like giving dhamma. Giving lectures is one of the danas.

[35:16]

And then another form of dana is forgiveness, apaya dana. Forgiveness, forgiving the people for any mistakes or any wrong things, unpleasant things they have done to you. So it clears up your mind, the mind becomes free from the unhealthy states and it becomes more and more healthy. That is the practical side of it. Then we come to consciousness without root causes. So root causes of actions are six in number.

[36:21]

Three for the bad actions, for the negative, destructive actions, including thoughts and verbal expressions. They are greed, hate and delusion, as we talked about. And the other three root causes are for good actions. For constructive actions. They are the absence of greed, the absence of hate, the absence of delusion. So that if consciousness, normally consciousness has a root cause, it must be rooted in one of the six. But now this form of consciousness is a hetuka, without causes, without roots.

[37:26]

It's rather the results of the things we have done in our past lives. We will talk about past lives a bit. For example, this is concerned with seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and some other forms. So mostly it's concerned with the senses, five senses. So suppose you go in a car, you travel by a car. And if you happen to sit on the place where it is not very pleasant, it means that this is a form of result of your evil actions done in the past. It gives you the consciousness of having unpleasant seat.

[38:33]

Or if you have the pleasant seat, it means it is the good side, the good result, the result of good actions you have done. So sometimes you, you know, it just happens that you have to be somewhere which you have everything convenient. In our way we say, oh, I have good karma. And good karma in that sense means it is the result of the good deeds you have done in your past life. It gives the result without expecting it. It is very immediate. So there is no immediate cause. When we talk about it, there is no immediate root. But it really comes from the past, the long past. So this can be seen. Sometimes we have bad karma.

[39:35]

We go somewhere and everything becomes difficult. And that is the bad karma, the result of this consciousness. You can see that Buddhism can explain many things. We can, we seem to explain all the things. That happen to human beings. But in regard to touching sensations, if we have unpleasant, come across unpleasant things through bodily touch, and that is pain or discomfort, which is the result of evil deeds we have done, that is why this consciousness arises.

[40:39]

And then if we have done the good thing, we will have pleasure for this bodily touch, the touching sensation of consciousness. Have pleasure or joy. And also there are special categories of this consciousness without root causes. The consciousness turning towards the door of the senses, as we understand the process of cognizing. So when this consciousness of turning towards the door of the senses, in order to see what happens. At this stage, there is no cause. Just only the vibration and the movement of the stream of life continuum consciousness operating.

[41:48]

We will say that there is no cause because the cause is so feeble. Another explanation. The cause, maybe something happens outside, but it is very feeble. Like you are in deep sleep, something very happens, but that is not really the real cause, it is so feeble to the consciousness. And the consciousness turning towards the mind door. And the consciousness of the genesis of laughter, particularly laughter of the Buddha, which creates joy, but there is no cause, no immediate cause. But for our laughter, human beings' laughter, there is cause.

[42:52]

And this particularly refers to the consciousness of the Buddha. When the Buddha has a smile, or laughter we call, he has just the expression in his face, without moving even his lips, but in a way that we talk about quiet smile, quiet smile. And that is the citta, cittupada, the arising of laughter for the Buddha. That form of consciousness which has joy, a deep joy, but he does not express himself like human beings in general, that we may laugh with the movements of our body, the movement of our lips, the movement of our shoulders. Sometimes we move the whole body, then we laugh so loudly,

[43:56]

and we can see there is a difference. And then this moral consciousness, now we talk, comes to the moral type of consciousness, in the kamaloka. This moral consciousness is concerned with the good root causes, absence of greed, absence of hate, and absence of delusion, which we perform in life. It's a healthy consciousness. And also there is resultant good consciousness,

[45:03]

the consciousness as the result of the past. And there is inoperative consciousness, which is good, and this inoperative consciousness is consciousness of enlightened people, when they work in the world, they live in the world, they use ordinarily normal consciousness, but their consciousness, even there are some good root causes present, but it does not produce the result, it does not produce the new karma. As human beings, we have good consciousness, we have the good causes of doing things, and then we seem to accumulate, we accumulate the good things,

[46:05]

so that the accumulation produces the karmic force, then life will flow in the circle of good and bad. So for the enlightened people, they do good, they have some good causes, but because the consciousness is only functioning, it does not accumulate, and they understand, they have constant awareness all the time. So when there is no tendency to accumulate, to produce the new karma, then karma comes to an end. Karma cannot be reproduced, and the karma in the pavanga, life continuum consciousness, has been cleared up.

[47:08]

So these people do not have the new karma, as we talk about that in Buddhism, we talk about different categories of karma, the karma with the good result, which is the good karma, and the karma with the bad result, which is the bad karma. And karma sometimes is neutral, neither good nor bad. And there is another form of karma, which is the karma which is the action or the karma leading to the end of the karma itself. For example, meditating, meditation, is this fourth category of karma,

[48:15]

because when we meditate, we do not accumulate the good or the bad things, but we go through, we go through good and bad experiences, we have accumulated in our life, we are clearing up, we take journey through life, but there is no accumulation. That's why meditation is the way of ending any form of karma. But in this way of ending the karma, we very often have to relieve our karma. When we come, go deeper into ourselves, if we have any negative, destructive things accumulated, accumulated in this life or the life beyond, we have to repay our debt,

[49:19]

we have to relieve all these things again. And when we have the good things, we also relieve our good things. When we have more joy, we have more positive feeling about what we are doing, about our meditation. So now you can see that the Buddha emphasizes this form of karma. And it is quite similar to Karma Yoga, doing action, performing actions without expecting the result. Surely that in Buddhism, the way of meditation, or the meditative way of doing things, is that we do anything without expecting the result.

[50:22]

We just do it for the purpose of doing. And then we take full responsibility for the actions. We don't aim for the result. By this way, the mind will be free from expectation. And surely one will not be disappointed if there is no expectation. And energy will not be dissipated when one just performs the work without hoping for the result. In fact, the result will come when the action is done. Because the law of action and reaction, when you perform the action, the result must come. That the result does not come because you expect it, but because the action is done.

[51:25]

So that we see expectation is not necessary at all. It is a waste of energy, a waste of time to expect, because it does not produce anything. It is our mistake, our fault, to expect anything from our actions. So by this way you feel free to do, and you care for your actions, for doing. This is the way of living in the present, living with what we do, without looking forward or looking backward. But looking at what is happening now, with full attention, with full energy, then we just clear up all the dust and dirt within us.

[52:27]

So we become clean and clear. We have more clarity of mind, we have more healthy states of consciousness. And then, in the end, we can also transform or transcend the good and bad concepts. So we live with reality. We may say our consciousness is healthy, but that is only a word and we can understand it. We don't try to explain it in the actual practice of life. So that the understanding of consciousness is essential in the way that we understand the negative side,

[53:30]

the unhealthy side of consciousness, and we understand the positive, healthy side of consciousness. Then the work to do is to be aware of the unhealthy, destructive, negative side of consciousness. And to promote the healthy, constructive side, like love, compassion, generosity, clarity of mind, investigation, inquiring, looking into what is right, what is false. What is right, what is false. And surely the moral consciousness is easily understood. Because we understand the root causes.

[54:31]

When the cause is good, consciousness is good. When the root is bad, then consciousness is bad. Then consciousness arises because of conditions. Without conditions, consciousness cannot arise. Or accept this consciousness without the root causes. But it should be understood that this refers to the immediate root causes. But still there are conditions in the past which are very feeble so that they don't regard this as the root of consciousness. That's why in the Bidhamma they talk about consciousness without root causes. But when we talk about consciousness arising in life,

[55:38]

we always find the conditions, the underlying causes. And as we understand in Buddhism that everything arises from the causes. The Buddha said, ye thamma hetu pavate sang hetum tatha kato. When he, there is another Buddha said, his disciple, Atsashi, when he was wandering, walking along the street in Makara city in the morning, collecting his food. And then there was a young man who had been searching for truth, for the way of awakening for a long time. He couldn't find anybody to point out the way. But when he saw the Atsashi walking peacefully,

[56:44]

all the senses of the monk became very clear, very calm and very peaceful. So he thought this man must have something. So, but he was still collecting his food. Then he thought it's not the right, the proper time to go and ask. So he waited. He just walked behind the monk, Atsashi. So when he finished his begging, he came out of the town, the city. And then this young man had time to ask the question. He asked, what kind of teaching you are practicing? And who is your teacher? The Atsashi, who was enlightened monk, perceived great intelligence in the young man.

[57:49]

So that he was very humble in his answer. He said he was newly ordained. Ordained. He didn't know much. He didn't have much to say. And then he said his teacher was Gautama Buddha. Then the young man insisted that he does not want many words. He just wants the meaning. So just say the meaning. Then Atsashi said this word. Meaning that the Gautama Buddha is the teacher of,

[58:52]

the teaching of his is that everything comes from the causes. And he explains the causes of things and the cessation of things. Then we said it's the law of cause and effect. The arising and the extinction of things come to be. And this is the summary of the teaching. So the young man received the meaning. He was grateful and asked where the Buddha was. Then the monk pointed out that the Buddha was staying in Savatthi. So he came back to his friend because he had obligation. Two of them made agreement that if any one of them would find a good man,

[59:56]

the man who knows, should tell the other. So he came back to his friend and told him that he had found a good man. So we must go. So both of them went together to the Buddha and received ordination. So seven days after ordination, the other young man became enlightened. But the young man who met Atsashi took a fortnight. But he was a man of great wisdom and then he was known as Sariputta, the young man of great wisdom. The chief disciple of the Buddha. And his friend became Moggallana, the left side disciple, the man of psychic power. He has a lot of psychic power.

[60:58]

He can go to heaven, he can go to hell, visiting all beings. So he has a lot of information about the beings in different spheres or planes of existence. But Sariputta was the man of wisdom. So this understanding of the causes, conditions of things is essential. We don't really need to analyze things into the categories. But we need to look. We must find out. When things happen, we say, what is the cause of this? Like when you have negative feeling. Look at negative feeling and see what is operating underneath of this feeling.

[62:06]

Or how this feeling arose, how it came to you. Then you can go into this process of inquiring and looking quietly, silently. And then you will understand. Instead of allowing the negative feeling to dominate, we look at it, attend to it, see condition of it. And then when you have clear understanding of the process, you are free. You understand what to do with it and how to proceed. So understanding is the...

[62:49]

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