Namo Tassa Bhagavato Rahato Samma Sambuddhassa, Namo Tassa Bhagavato Rahato Samma Sambuddhassa, Namo Tassa Bhagavato Rahato Samma Sambuddhassa, Today we continue with the consciousness we talked about on Sunday night.

[01:13]

Generally speaking, we have two levels of consciousness. The conscious level, which is the operation of consciousness through the senses, five physical senses, and six with the mental sense, that is thinking, remembering, reasoning, which is the function of consciousness, and it is regarded as a sense faculty. So in this way we can see that Buddhism regards the mind as one of the senses.

[02:31]

When the physical senses can be developed, so the mind can also be developed. The development of mind is as essential as the development of physical senses. So that we can understand the mental exercises for cleansing off the impurities and intrusive defilements. This is essential for purification of mind and for helping the mind to return to its own nature, which is luminous, intrinsically pure.

[03:46]

As the Buddha said, the mind is intrinsically pure or luminous. It becomes defiled because of sense impressions intruding upon it. But it can be cleansed off by the process of meditating, or pavana in the Pali term. Pavana is to cultivate, to develop, to bring the mind to the nature of purity and illuminating nature. The second level of the mind is what we call in Pali, pavanga, the life continuum consciousness, which is unconscious to us.

[05:13]

It is the stream of existing and becoming, continuing. So that stream of unconscious consciousness is like the stream of running water. When the water runs on calmly, unhindered by any obstacles, unruffled by any wind, and unrippled by any wave, such running or flowing on of the water is compared to this life continuum consciousness, which is the factor of life, the force of life.

[06:21]

We are not conscious of it most of the time because we are occupied by the conscious mind, the conscious level of consciousness. So if we can shut out all the conscious mind, surely we can come into contact with the unconscious, the hidden. So all the contents of the hidden consciousness can be seen, so we know what is contained in our consciousness. And also that we can see some symptoms of the contents of the unconscious which may manifest themselves through the door of the mind, the mental door, the mind door.

[07:38]

So then talking about doors, we have six doors because of six senses, the eye door, the ear door, the nose door, the tongue door, bodily touch door, and the mind door. Then it's in a way that consciousness can travel through the six doors. But if we understand the process of cognition or the process of arising of consciousness, we will be able to get deeper and deeper into ourselves. I think I will explain this process of cognizing, or process of consciousness.

[08:51]

It is quite amazing that the Buddha has a very deep analysis of consciousness, which could never be found in any psychology books. He analyzed consciousness according to the moments of arising, and he has got 17 moments for one consciousness. So one consciousness has 17 moments of arising, or shall we say one process of cognition is composed of 17 stages of cognizing.

[10:05]

First of all, we are in the state of being, existing with the life moment, which is merely our own karma, the past karmic force. To make it simple, we say that is the life moment. We live with the life moment in the unconscious sphere of existence, which is flowing. And then after that, if there is anything coming, like the thought, or any object coming into contact with any senses,

[11:25]

then it will make this flow of consciousness awake, in a way. Or at least, the process with the flow of consciousness, the flow of unconsciousness, will vibrate slightly, first of all slightly. And after that, that vibration of the flow will be cut off by the thought process, by the object entering any one of the senses. And then there is a turning, turning to the door of the mind, in order to see what has happened, after being cut off.

[12:39]

And then there is a seeing, if the object comes to the eyes, there is eye consciousness, eye consciousness arises. Or if the object comes to the ear, then there is ear consciousness. So if any object comes into contact with any of the six senses, such consciousness arises. And after that, there is a process of receiving, receiving what has entered the sense. And after receiving the object, there is the act of investigating, whether the object is good or bad, in our common language, the act of examining.

[13:55]

And then there is the act of deciding. After investigating, examining it, there is the act of deciding. And after deciding, then there is operative action, operative process. And that operative process will go on for seven moments, not just one moment, it goes continuously for seven moments. And after that, there is an act of registering, and then go back to the unconscious again. And then the consciousness drops, returns to its own place, that is the stream of life continuum consciousness.

[14:57]

And this one consciousness arises. To illustrate the process, perhaps we can talk about a story of a mango tree. A story of a mango tree. A man lost in the deepest sleep is lying under the mango tree. And then there was the wind. The wind was striking the branches of the mango tree. And he was in consequence, he is in consequence, aroused in his dreamless slumber.

[16:12]

And then a mango fruit falls down, and the man wakes up. After waking up, he was looking in order to see what has happened, or what has awakened him. So after looking around, he saw, he sees a mango fruit, just nearly fallen. And then he picks up the mango fruit, investigates it, examines it, and then he sees that this mango fruit is dry enough for eating.

[17:33]

And then he eats it. After eating the mango fruit, he returns to his sleep again. So that man is one consciousness. Now you can see the symbol that the dreamless deepest sleep of the man is compared to pavanka, the unconscious consciousness, or the life continuum consciousness. And the striking of the wind against the tree is the past life moment,

[18:37]

which is slightly perturbed by something entering the senses. And then the swaying of the branches is compared to the vibrating of this life continuum consciousness after being perturbed, slightly perturbed. And then the falling of the fruit, the falling of the fruit from the tree is compared to the arrest, arresting of the object, by which the stream, the flow of life continuum consciousness, it is cut off.

[19:51]

And then the waking up of the man is compared to looking around, to turning, to turning to the mind door. The mind door is the nearest, is nearest to the life continuum consciousness. And really the mind door is the dividing line between the unconscious and unconscious levels of mind. And then the man removes the head covering. The removal of the head covering is looking, opening the sense, the other senses to look and see the object. So suppose in this case a mango is object of the eye, so the eye consciousness arises.

[21:02]

The picking up of the fruit is the act of receiving the object. And the inspection, the examination of the fruit is the investigating act of consciousness. And then the understanding of the fruit as something good for eating. That is the, we call, sometimes we call the full cognition, or sometimes we use the term operative consciousness. In Pali it's called javana. It runs quickly, very fast, for seven moments, in order to make things stronger. So that we human beings can commit, can do the good thing or bad thing when we are alive at this stage of consciousness, the javana stage.

[22:19]

Before that the consciousness is too feeble so that good or bad action cannot be performed. But after performing the action, after eating the fruit, there's kind of swallowing of the last more cells that are left in the mouth. And this is compared to registering. So after doing some action, whether good or bad, then the action performed is kept in the unconscious. So any action we do is kept, is registered in our unconscious level of mind,

[23:30]

which is our pavanka, the factor of existing and continuing of life. So that it is very essential for us to look into this matter. Because very often we are not aware of what we do. And then, according to Abhidhamma, anything we do is registered. So if we do something which we are not fully aware of, it will be contained in this unconscious mind. Then it becomes the psychic disturbance.

[24:36]

So if we want to keep our consciousness pure in its own form, in its own nature, we have to take care of the actions. Actions performed through the senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and thinking. So if we take care of the actions, or we take responsibility of all the actions performed through the senses, then our consciousness can remain pure and luminous. There is no disturbing factor. But as we are born into life, and we didn't know this before,

[25:53]

so we did accumulate something and register it in our consciousness, in life. So there is the need for us to go into it, and to bring out the unhealthy, disturbing influences in the unconscious, or to bring these things to the conscious level by meditation, by the cultivation of mindfulness, awareness, attention, concentration. And then this consciousness will be purified. And then we have the work to do all the time,

[26:57]

that is to be very aware of the process of cognizing, the process of being conscious of things. That's why awareness is really essential in order to keep consciousness pure. And we have to do it all the time, not just only during the satsang sitting, but with anything we perceive through any senses. And then in a way that satsang is practiced all the time, 24 hours. We may say that there is formal satsang and informal satsang, formal meditation and informal meditation. But that is not too burdensome, because it's just the work.

[28:02]

And awareness does not bring about any burden. If we can look and observe things carefully. So this is the process of consciousness. And after understanding this nature of pravangka consciousness, I like to use the word pravangka really. The translation is not very good. When we say life continuum consciousness, or we say the stream of existing, becoming and continuing, it's not quite clear as the word pravangka. Only when we achieve full enlightenment,

[29:14]

in the Buddhist term, in the Theravada context, when we become an Arahant, the fully enlightened person, then the pravangka will be completely purified. We can say there is no pravangka for the fully enlightened person. Nothing is left as the contents. It means a person comes to complete emptiness. There is only luminous consciousness, which does not contain anything, whether good or bad. Good and bad things are contained in the ordinary consciousness. And when a person becomes fully enlightened,

[30:18]

he transcends all good and bad things, so that consciousness is completely empty of the contents. That's why those people do not live according to the good and bad concepts, but according to reality. We may say that reality means the road, the path, the way, through which consciousness can travel. So every consciousness has seven mental properties, or seven mental states arising with it. Now we have to look more, more carefully.

[31:20]

Anytime we are conscious of something, we try to see whether there are seven factors present in each consciousness, whether it is good consciousness or bad consciousness. All these seven mental factors are present. The first thing is contact or impact. The second is feeling. The third is perception. The fourth is will. And the fifth is oneness of object. The sixth is psychic life. And the seventh is attention.

[32:23]

So consciousness is alive, a living thing, because there is psychic life as one of the factors. Now you can see, first of all, there is contact or impact. The contact between the external object corresponding to internal object, or internal sense organs, like the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body touch, and mind, are the internal sense organs. They have the sensitivity or the basis for receiving and perceiving.

[33:33]

And then the external sense objects refer to light or color or sight as for the eyes, sound for the ears, and smell for the nose, and taste for the tongue. Then the qualities of object like hardness, extension, heat or temperature, and pressure become the object for touch, bodily touch. And then all the ideas and thoughts become the objects for the mind.

[34:39]

But they are external, they come from outside. So when there is contact between external and internal sense organs and sense objects, immediately there is feeling. Or we put it another way, that first of all, when the subject is in contact with something, then the subject will be affected by such contact. So this subjective affection refers to the feeling. The subject will have the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness or neutrality, indifference.

[35:44]

So feeling can be agreeable or disagreeable or neither. So after the feeling, there is perception. So perception is used in the sense of recognizing, recognizing the object. The act of consciousness in the first place is just to be aware of the presence of the object. Awareness of the presence of an object is the function of consciousness. But the function of perception is to recognize the object as something. Like recognizing that this is the building, that is the stream.

[36:54]

So recognition of things is the function of perception. And then there is the will, the will to act. The will refers to an act of determining. In this feeble form of cetana or will, volition, it means that this factor, mental factor, determines the other mental properties to act with it. It's like a leader trying to see which would be good to work with. And also cetana can be developed into action when it becomes very strong.

[38:01]

That is why the Buddha said that what he called karma is cetana, the will. First of all, the will as action or karma comes to the mind's door. It becomes the mental action. The thought is mental action. Or any activities of mind is the mental action, mental karma. And then it can manifest in words, which become the speech, verbal action. And it comes to the physical action, so that we can perform actions or karma through the physical act, through the verbal act, and through the mind act.

[39:03]

So we accumulate karma through one of these three doors. And then cetana can function in this sphere of karma only, coming to the higher level of consciousness, like coming to the transcendental consciousness. Cetana does not play an active part because in one of the eight factors of the path we have sammasanghapha, the right intention, which is the awareness of the aim.

[40:05]

So we have that, so then this cetana does not appear. And then there is the oneness of the object. Only one object can be the object for one consciousness at a time. And the attention is making up the mind, making in mind. So it becomes stronger when we make in mind to perceive the object. And the psychic life is present in that consciousness. And one act of consciousness is composed of these seven mental factors. Now you see that this analysis is very deep. And really in order to strengthen our mindfulness

[41:12]

and to bring attention to completion or to make it complete, it is very essential to look into these factors arising with any consciousness. At the moment we become conscious of things. Perhaps we may not be able to do it all the time, but if you can do it once and see it clearly, then it becomes a natural process. It becomes easier. Perhaps now we say, when does dream arise or occur? Because it seems that we human beings must have dreams

[42:13]

except the fully enlightened ones like Arahant. They don't have dreams because they don't have pavanga. For people in general, if you don't have dreams, you are unusual. There is something wrong with you. You have dreams but you don't remember them. So Buddhism talks about dreams which occur in the transitional stage. So something between the conscious and unconscious levels of mind. It's not in the deep sleep. In deep sleep there is no dream. There is no dream. Maybe it is compared to the sleep of a monkey.

[43:19]

The sleep of a monkey is very quick and not very deep. So at that stage of transition, or transitional stage of consciousness, dream occurs. And then Buddhism talks about the conditions giving rise to dreams. There are four. Four reasons. The first reason is concerned with organic and muscular disturbances because of taking the wrong food or because of taking something wrong into the body. It affects the organism and the muscles.

[44:23]

So when these things are disturbed, it can give you the dreams, even the nightmare. Nightmare comes to be because of the organic and muscular disturbances. And the second reason is because of the recurrence of the previous impressions. Or putting it in a simpler way, we say just because of our anxiety, our anxiety, our worry, thinking about things, about one thing, again and again,

[45:28]

the mind is obsessed by some kind of thought, some kind of event. So if you think about something again and again, then you have the dream about it. The anxiety state can become the cause of dreams. And the third reason is because of the influence of spirit or spiritualistic influence. The influence comes from spiritual beings. In Buddhist terms, it refers to deities, different kinds of gods. Sometimes they may give you some

[46:36]

some indication or they may try to contact with you by giving you some symbols so that it comes out in dreams. And the last reason is because of foregoing, foregoing dharma or action, which is the prophetic dream. The Paritta is called Bhupanamita. The foregoing impression and action which is contained in our unconscious consciousness,

[47:38]

pavankacitta. So this kind of dream can predict what is going to happen to you. It gives you the symbols so that you have to understand your symbols in order to see the meaning of the dreams. Something like the dream of seeing the sun, the bright sun could imply that you may have a new discovery in your life. The sun, the bright sun, signifies seeing something, discovering something new. Or it can mean a kind of glory and prosperity of what you are doing, the work you do. The Buddha's mother,

[48:47]

when she, before she had conception, she had a dream of seeing a white elephant entering her stomach. And it was a wonderful experience by having an elephant entering the stomach. So she woke up and the expert, specialist in dreams told her that she would have a child who would have great power, the man of great wisdom and great merit. So soon afterwards she became pregnant. And then the Buddha just entered the womb.

[49:57]

In the dream too she had, first of all she saw a white elephant descending from heaven. So it was true that the Buddha as the Bodhisattva was living in the Sotita, Dusita heaven. So he came down from Dusita heaven to enter the womb of the mother. So this kind of dream is a prediction. Or perhaps sometimes you have a dream of having a ring, somebody put a ring on your finger. So it means that you will have something very satisfactory. Or perhaps if you are single you will get married soon. This depends on the understanding of the symbols.

[51:04]

So this kind of dream is considered the right one in Buddhism. It means that we can rely on this reason for having dreams in order to see what is going to happen to us. Sometimes our intuitive insight cannot tell us directly in the waking life when we are so busy. It can tell us in the dreams giving us some symbols and some signals in a way that we are well taken care of by what we have. Or we can have a very good secretary

[52:08]

receiving or keeping all information for us. The only thing is to be able to communicate with our secretary. And then we can make use of it. So awareness again. We come to the matter of awareness and mindfulness again. Because awareness can flow in and out between the inner and the outer so that the inner and the outer can be integrated. The interflow of awareness, the interflow between the inner and the outer is awareness itself. So when awareness has been fully developed it can bring about

[53:12]

insight, understanding, freedom That's why when the Buddha was asked who is a great man? He said a great man is a man of awareness. So when one is fully aware he can be fully alert and awake in every moment so there is no dullness, there is no conflict there is no contradiction in the aware, awake mind. When the mind is occupied by ideas and concepts it can become dull, it can become confused. But when the mind becomes fully aware and alert

[54:18]

confusion and dullness disappears. So there is clarity and clearness and emptiness. The mind is not run by any content so it comes to its own nature. In that case we will say there is no mind because it is not the same as what we call mind in the ordinary consciousness. That's why sometimes in the same terminology we talk about no mind. No mind is a mind. But it is not the mind as we normally, ordinarily see. It is pure, luminous mind. So now I think today we just deal with two forms of consciousness.

[55:28]

The consciousness arising or operating through the senses and the consciousness as the factor of life continuum. Then we can learn to observe how consciousness arises or how we become conscious of things. Is there any factor, any influence operating, working with any consciousness? By this way we will understand that in order to renew consciousness

[56:39]

we have to die. Dying to the ego, to the self-consciousness or dying to the past, to the past experience. Dying to the thought. By dying to all these things we mean that we do not use the past, the thought and the ego to condition life. So when there is an act of dying, there is an act of renewing. So consciousness can be renewed every moment.

[57:46]

According to Abhidhamma, we say that we cleanse off the impurities and disturbances and at the same time prevent any sense impressions, the unhealthy sense impressions from pouring into consciousness by establishing awareness at the door of the senses. Then we can be well protected, well guarded. Like we say that when the consciousness is renewed, it becomes refreshing, it becomes very fresh, clear and joyful.

[58:55]

So such consciousness is the food of life, is nutrition, nutrition of life. We have four kinds of food normally. The first kind of food is the material food we eat every day. And the second kind of food is contact. So contact between senses and corresponding objects is a food for life. That's why life is always involved with contact, with relationship. And the next category of food is the will of the mind or mental volition. What is mental volition?

[60:01]

Mental volition is the will to act, the will to live. Surely Chopin came very close to Buddhism by talking about the will to live, the will to do. And Buddha regards this as a food, a kind of food for life. So when there is no will, there is no living. That's why we have personal will, personal choice, we use another word. Personal choice is the personal will or is the will, the will to do. The will is one of the factors of consciousness.

[61:10]

So that in Buddhism we don't say the will is given by something, but the will is already there. That's a factor of consciousness. And then the last category of food is consciousness itself. So consciousness becomes the food for life. That's why we have the life continuum consciousness, which is the factor of existence. The ground, yes, the ground of existence, which is flowing all the time. Flowing on and on without stopping. If that stops, it means we die. So it's like the stream running on and on. It never dries up. When it dries up, it means we die. Physical body dies. So we can renew.

[62:17]

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