Namo tassa bhagavato rahato samma-sambuddhassa Namo tassa bhagavato rahato samma-sambuddhassa Namo tassa bhagavato rahato samma-sambuddhassa We continue our lecture on the Buddhist psychology.

[01:08]

And today we are going to talk about the two higher classes of consciousness as experienced in meditation. The first class is called Consciousness as Experienced in the World of Form. And the second class is Consciousness as Experienced in the Formless World. We have studied the consciousness as experienced in the world of sense desires, which operates in the eleven planes of existence.

[02:29]

four non-progressive planes of existence and one human plane and six planes of devas or shining beings. All these beings still look for the sense gratification or a new sensation from the senses in the way they are bound with the sense experience in order to gain satisfaction or gratification And desire is the main cause of seeking for new sensation through the senses.

[03:37]

That is why it's called karma, karma-vajra, consciousness. Consciousness roaming about in the world of sense desires. And we can see this if The mind or consciousness is wandering about in the world of sense desires. It is difficult to keep the mind on any particular object when we meditate because it tries to run off. And this is because desire is driving it. driving the mind to consciousness. It cannot stay with anything for long. And then we say that to meditate with this level of consciousness is difficult so that it has to be transcended.

[04:50]

This level of consciousness must be put aside and then develop the other level or other class of consciousness so that we can meditate easily. It's like being reborn to the new life. to the new consciousness. But perhaps it may be difficult too because we have been living with the ordinary consciousness for many years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, depending on when we come or return to this meditative way of life.

[05:58]

So that the ordinary consciousness is very powerful. That's why the training, intensive training is essential. in order to transcend our normal consciousness. And the consciousness experienced in meditation is also called supernormal. Supernormal. And then when we go deeper, or higher, we can come to the highest form of consciousness, which is called transcendental or supramundane consciousness, which we will deal with tomorrow.

[07:06]

So this These two classes of higher consciousness are sometimes also called mahākāta citta, consciousness which has gone to its greatness. Mahākāta means the greatness, the highness, of itself. As I mentioned in my first lecture here, that in Buddhism, particularly in Theravada tradition, there are two forms of meditation. First is called Samatha. or calm or tranquility meditation.

[08:14]

And the second is called vipassana or insight meditation. Now the two classes of higher consciousness we are talking about are produced or experienced by the calm, tranquility meditation. So I'm going to explain this way of meditation in order to see how we come to this form of consciousness. So the system of calm meditation is widely practiced And there are many objects or subjects of meditation to meditate on.

[09:21]

Or perhaps another way we can say that there are many techniques concerning this calm or tranquility meditation. As it is said in the scriptures, there are 40 subjects of this meditation. or forty techniques. But it is not necessary that we have to practice all the forty. We may choose one of them or practice one or two of them. But they have many techniques or many subjects. because of the different character types of personality of individuals so that the teacher will consider the subject of meditation to be given to a person who has a certain character type which is suitable for that subject or that technique.

[10:40]

But one of the techniques which is universal or common to all character types is the breathing object or breathing exercise. So we can also see that breathing exercise is well known and popularly practiced in Buddhism, in all schools of Buddhism. And the second one which is quite a popular tool, and that is visualization. Visualization technique can produce very strong power, high energy.

[11:47]

But I'm not going to talk about breathing practice because we know and we have practiced it or have been practicing it. But maybe I will talk about this visualization technique, which is popular. Not only in Buddhism now, but in other religions, other faiths too. Particularly Indian forms of meditation are concerned with visualization. So I think we should know about it. The object for this, there must be, we'll talk about three levels or three stages of visualization or visualization meditation plus preparation.

[13:18]

So it makes four. The preparation is quite simple. When you are given an object to meditate on, the object may be the the circle or the earth casino which is made of the dawn colored clay the clay of the dawn color or you can choose white light red color blue color or golden light sometimes you can take the light in the side of your forest it's kind of imagine imagine life called aloka

[14:47]

meditate on life, then surely that the mind feels calm very easily. We are fascinated with colors. And this meditation will really stimulate emotion. It is the form of religious feeling. So the preparation is to look at the object, to prepare the mind, to concentrate on it, or to fix the mind on the object. Then there is preparation in regard to the sitting too, that the posture of sitting is the same, that sitting keeping the body erect, and the mind alert.

[16:05]

So sit as still and as motionless as possible. And then one looks at the object with the eyes open. in order to remember the details of the object. With the colors, you have to remember the shape and the degrees of color to remember the whole thing. you know, to tell yourself to remember everything clearly. And this stage is called preparation or parikamma. And then you can concentrate and look, look at the object until you can see it, remember it very clearly, whether you open your eyes or you close your eyes.

[17:12]

You close your eyes too, and then you still remember the object clearly. You see the object with the eyes open and with the eyes closed. So coming to this stage, it means you have acquired the object. It means the object is acquired. It becomes the ukkaha-nimitta. So then you have to go to the next step. That is to be able to expand or to make the object expand or contract. The object could be expansive and it could be contracted according to your will.

[18:22]

You can make it in different forms by conceptualizing, imagining. It is concerned with some form of imagination and assumption together with conceptualization. So at this stage, if you succeed, we will call the conceptualized object. Now your mind becomes very concentrated coming to this point. The mind is very near access to the firmness, the one-pointedness.

[19:24]

And then we still. At this stage of meditation, your consciousness begins to change. The ordinarily normal consciousness begins to die away, and the new consciousness begins to arise. And then you do more concentration on that object until you can make the object become very still and very firm. And surely that the mind becomes completely still, clear, and firm with the object.

[20:32]

Now it's called apana, the firmness of the mind and the steadiness of the object. So the object and the mind become one completely with solidarity and firmness. then coming to this, the new consciousness, the higher consciousness arises completely. Before talking about details of this consciousness, perhaps I can give you some kind of illustration in regard to my own experience of meditation in this way, according to this system.

[21:48]

I did this visualization when I was about thirteen, about seventeen. I did it alone by reading a book. I found a book in my adverse room when I was cleaning his room one morning. And that book was explaining about the techniques of calm meditation, emphasizing this visualization by taking the Buddha image as the object. So I just picked it up and did it myself. The technique is, in a way, simple. First of all, we look at the Buddha in preparation.

[22:56]

look at the Buddha in order in particular to see the head up to the neck on this part. But the lower part, we don't need to remember the details. But the upper part is essential so that we remember his head and you can see the Buddha has something going up like a hat. So we have to remember and see all that dots clearly together with the one on the top, the sharp one. And the ears, the character of the ear, the nose, the eyes, and the mouth. So remember all this very clearly and then start to concentrate on the whole upper part until you get the first stage that is the acquired object.

[24:14]

And then the second step The second step, which is what we call conceptualized object, is to invite the Buddha, Buddha image, to come and stand on your head, in the middle of your head. Alright, you have to really make effort to concentrate very hard in order to invite the Buddha image to come. So you can see that this is very imagination too. So when you succeed by having the Buddha standing on your head, it means the second stage of meditation is achieved. Conceptualized object, patipa karmimitta. Then this had to do more with this stage.

[25:22]

After that you invite him to come down and stand in your throat, inside your neck. Let him sit there. It takes time too for this stage. And then Invite him to calm down, to sit in the stomach. That's the last stage. So when you come to this stage, the apana samadhi, a firm, firm concentration is the citta. And jhana, jhana, jhana state of meditation arises. And I said I did that for about two weeks, probably about an hour a day.

[26:26]

And I did succeed in doing that. And then stopped because I didn't have any more information. There's no more... And nobody was interested in doing meditation in that monastery in that time. so that you can see how the feeling will be that you have the Buddha coming. The very exciting moment is really the first step. After the second step, after succeeding of inviting Buddha to sit on your head, the feeling and consciousness really change.

[27:33]

That you feel like your body is, your body has light flowing from the high, from the upper, flowing through your body. And that is to feel completely calm, peaceful. And the last step was not so excited, but was a very special, special feeling. That is the feeling of being whole, being perfect, and being with the Buddha in a way, that the light seems to radiate from the Buddha and you feel your whole body now is full of light both inside and outside.

[29:02]

That is a kind of experience. So now in this consciousness, when we come to the stage of conceptualized object, The process of consciousness, you talk about first consciousness is in this state of pavamka, the stream of becoming, existing. Coming to this state, the pavamka begins to vibrate. And then it comes up to the dividing line, that is, the turning towards the mind door. After that, it comes to the stage of representative cognition.

[30:14]

It goes very quick. And after that stage, it will come to the state of adaptation, adapting itself to the new experience, to the new consciousness. Because this is called the Chanic Meditative Consciousness. And after adaptation, it comes to adoption. accepting the object completely. And then it means now the jhanic consciousness, the higher consciousness arises, and then pavangka goes back to its stream. And then the jhanic consciousness will continue.

[31:21]

And because of the vibration of the Pabangka, so that after that moment, the normal, ordinary consciousness begins to die away because it has to give way to the new consciousness. It's quite interesting to see how they are operating. And then when we have this Jhanik, the feeling of joy, which is deeper than rapture. And then the last factor is called ekkakatta, one-pointedness. The one-pointedness. Then these five factors determine this form of consciousness. And five really are working together very closely and the five also eliminate the five hindrances if if our consciousness is not free or detached at least from the five hindrances

[32:50]

it is not possible for this meditative consciousness to arise. So that in this, the arising of the higher consciousness also means elimination of the hindrances which are contained in the normal, ordinary consciousness. Now the five hindrances... refer to sensual desire, ill will or hatred, resentment, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt or indecision. indecisiveness. So these are called the hindrances because they occupy the mind.

[34:02]

They do not allow the mind to become peaceful or calm or experience the higher state. So if these five hindrances are not suppressed, they are suppressed, really. They are not completely eliminated. They are suppressed so that you can feel a calmness coming. Peace comes. And this is the first uh meditated consciousness and later on you come to the second step there are five steps of this consciousness which is concerned with form now coming to the the second step of high consciousness

[35:20]

the such applied thought, is eliminated. There is only such faint thought and the other four. There are four factors left. And the concentration becomes very strong because this jhanic consciousness is said to be born of concentration. The first step is said to be born of detachment, meaning detachment from the five hindrances. Because I think coming to this stage, concentration is very strong. very strong, very clear. And the mind is completely fixed without wavering. Then you come to the third level, your sub-step.

[36:28]

Now there is no sustained thought. There is only rapture, joy, and one point in it. The third jhana, the third jhanic consciousness has a much deeper joy than the other two. This joy is is a feeling which is very balanced. And the person, a meditator, becomes even-minded and mindful. He said that mindfulness arises automatically coming to this stage of consciousness.

[37:35]

But it is weak, weak mindfulness. but the person becomes even-minded, equanimous. So you can say that mindfulness and even-mindedness are supporting joy or making joy deep, but the feeling of joy becomes deep because of mindfulness and even-mindedness. Surely there is no distraction. No interruption. Then you come to the fourth stage. You don't have rapture. Rapture is... Rapture and joy are transcended. And then the person feels

[38:40]

just one point and overcome pain and pleasure, it seems now the body is going to disappear. The body begins to disappear so that you don't care for pain or pleasure. In the three stages of jhana, consciousness, you still have the body. You still feel pain. But it does not bother you. But coming to the fourth stage, pain and pressure are transcended. The body begins to disappear. You come to the fifth. You come into the fifth, you... have only one pointiness with equanimity and very strong mindfulness.

[39:49]

Mindfulness becomes strong at this stage of consciousness. And the body has been transcended. So one is left with consciousness. But according to the sutta, there are four levels of jhanic consciousness. But according to Vidhamak, there are five. In fact, Vidhamak would like to classify the jhanic consciousness according to the five factors. They make it five. Even in sutta, they have five factors too. But they don't put it into four. But that is not very important. And then now, this is called the consciousness experience in the world of four.

[40:55]

Because the consciousness in this meditative absorption has form as the object. The object is still there. The object acquired from the beginning is still there. Even the body, surely we don't concentrate on the body, the body can disappear. But the object is still there. And the mind, consciousness becomes one with the object completely. And then when we practice further, Or perhaps coming to this stage, completing the form consciousness. If a person would like to develop supernatural power, it is possible to do from this stage. But I won't go into that.

[42:00]

It is complicated. And just to say that it is possible to take this last step of jhanic consciousness to develop a supranational power. And if we don't go along that line, we develop meditation further, and then we will come to the as a level of high consciousness which is concerned with the formless world. The technique for doing it is to transform or to transcend all perceptions of the material form. We have to use our energy for forgetting, transcending all kind of forms.

[43:06]

And the perceptions of manifoldness, the numbers, categories. So all this must be transcendent. And then take the object. The object for the first step of formless consciousness is infinity, infinity of space. So that we have to conceptualize a kind of space and meditate on it by having the word stay in space, infinite space, ananto akaso entirely. So that is object for meditation.

[44:11]

When one is doing that, then surely that when you come to the fifth level of jhanic consciousness, your body disappear. And then you have to relinquish the object from this point, the object held by consciousness. So that is the form. That form must be relinquished. And then the infinity of faith will become clearer and clearer and clearer. So consciousness is going to the infinity of consciousness, of space. And when you succeed in doing that, you take another object in order to come to the next step of the formless consciousness.

[45:13]

Now consciousness takes the same object that is infinity of space, but feeling that there is only consciousness. Only consciousness exists. In a way that consciousness becomes the object of consciousness too. But there is pulling on of infinity of space. Space has no form. It's only an impression, notion, concept. So the holding on to that concept is to maintain one-pointedness and complete stability. So now when we come to this point, we'll say that consciousness is infinite, endless, boundless.

[46:25]

A meditator may say occasionally that anantam vijnanam, that consciousness is infinite. And then come to the next step of the formless consciousness. One cannot really take a consciousness as object, but one has to build up another object that is nothingness. So objects for consciousness at this time is nothing whatever. Nothing kinti. Nothing whatever. The prior is also concerned with conceptualization. Not to say that. Conceptualization is always going on. And when you succeed in coming to this, you come to the next step by taking the same object.

[47:39]

Nothing whatever. And then now your perception becomes very subtle. You cannot recognize. And conceptualization seems to be very weak because you cannot recognize the object. The object is nothing, whatever. And you even cannot recognize perception itself. That's called the stage of neither perception nor non-perception. A very subtle cognition. In that way we say that there is only oneness of being at the moment. Cannot say any more than that. The oneness of being, being which has no form. Material form, I mean.

[48:41]

So these four stages of formless consciousness are called the arupajjana, the meditative absorption experience in the formless world, formless sphere of existence. Coming to all these things, you don't care for joy or for happiness or for any kind of feeling. But it does not mean that you don't have feeling. You have feeling too. But we don't call it a feeling of joy as we... if we have in the ordinary consciousness.

[49:48]

But it is joyful. It is joyful. And because the emphasis is on consciousness itself, or on the experience of consciousness, so the feeling is not very important. But the feeling is following, because whenever we have experience, we have feeling. But in that case, the feeling will be two, a joyful feeling or the feeling of equanimity, equanimous feeling. Equanimous feeling gives us steadiness because we are not swayed by any side, whether it is the negative or positive side of the experience.

[50:55]

The mind is not swayed by that. so that the equanimous feeling is very helpful, particularly in the experience of higher consciousness. Then we say that the consciousness in both forms of jhana is moral, healthy, And as we know, we also classify this consciousness into moral consciousness and resultant consciousness and the functional consciousness, according to the persons who experience consciousness. The ordinary person, the unenlightened persons,

[52:01]

who come to experience of this consciousness through meditation, his consciousness will be moral and resultant. Resultant consciousness just vipākā. Because he has experience of it, then in his normal life he feel it. So that his consciousness in normal life is called resultant consciousness. But for the enlightened people who come to experience jhana, meditative consciousness, their consciousness is called functional consciousness, kriyacitta, because it does not produce any result. But the consciousness of unenlightened people can produce good karma.

[53:04]

So karma is still operating in the shanic state of consciousness. It is high consciousness. So then we can see that the way to get into a higher consciousness or to produce jhana is according to the system of calm meditation by meditating on breathing or on visualization or recollections of the virtues of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, or on light, meditation on peace, meditation on luck, meditation on death, etc.

[54:13]

So all these techniques can help us to get into the jhanic state of consciousness. And surely that one has to do it with the teacher because the technique is complicated. When we start to do it, we may have some problem and then a teacher has to clarify and point out and help the meditator to proceed. Sometimes people can use a kind of guide. We call it guided meditation. It can lead to a very brief moment of jhanic state of consciousness too. But it depends again.

[55:15]

The person depends on the teacher or the spiritual guide. Otherwise, he or she cannot get into it. But if we learn to do it according to the technique, when we succeed in obtaining the jhanic state of consciousness, then we can do it by ourselves anytime. So when we do other forms of meditation, maybe that the experience would be different. But one thing which is common in any forms of meditation is the change of consciousness from one level to the other.

[56:19]

If we notice, then consciousness must be changed. So when we change consciousness, and we also change our personality, the personality will be different from when we had just ordinary confused consciousness. So we can say that meditation is a technique for changing consciousness and personality. So man can grow spiritually. Or man can grow wholly in order to become perfectly man. So the matter of growth and maturity lies in the meditation practice

[57:22]

Surely without meditation it is not possible to change oneself. One can change ideas or opinions, but still consciousness is roaming about in the lower world. So when there is no experience of the higher world, the higher level of existence, then we will say that the crow gets stuck or the crow stops. And then people can become very dangerous to society and to themselves. But you will say that some people may claim those who take psychedelic drugs might claim that they can also experience the higher consciousness.

[58:36]

That is true. But the way of getting into experience has no beginning. When there is no beginning and when there is no training, a person becomes psychologically dependent on the chemical thing so that the human energy or the human ability is not brought out, is not used. It can become the problem later on when the chemical things cannot be obtained. Or sometimes it creates strong desires and builds up some kind of mental tension, psychological tension because of not knowing how you get there but you are there

[59:51]

So that it's not really the change of consciousness or personality because of the lack of training. And then those people will fall down to the normal ordinary consciousness easily and then have conflict because of inability to get into it. And the best way, you say the best way is meditation. So there's no shortcut. Shortcut may give some experience, but it does not mean experience determines our success. Experience is the by-product, the by-product of life.

[60:56]

But the ability to have experience by using our own ability and energy is really the real thing. So as I said in the beginning of the lecture on Abhidhamma, we said that consciousness are classified in different categories. It's because of different states of the consciousness. The Buddha said that consciousness arises with conditions.

[62:05]

So it is named according to conditions giving rise to it. Like the fire will be called in different names. If the fire is burned by wood, you will call the wood fire. If fire is in the lamp, you will call the lamp fire. If fire is burned by anything, it will be given the name according to the condition, the thing that gives rise to it. So that, in fact, consciousness is just consciousness. We cannot say one or two. It is. It can be one, it can be the many. Because it is. the analysis in Nibbidhamma says that there are 121 forms of consciousness.

[63:23]

So this, according to different states, analyzed in different categories so that we have different forms of consciousness. But the essential thing is that consciousness must return to its own nature, the nature of illuminating and being luminous.

[63:55]

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