Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa Namo tassa bhagavato arahato 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

[02:17]

Which operates in the eleven planes of existence Four non-progressive planes of existence 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 a way they are bound with the sense experience in order to gain satisfaction or gratification

[03:25]

And desire is the main cause of seeking for a new sensation through the senses That is why it is called karmavacara 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, consciousness

[04:30]

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 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 is 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

[05:46]

20 years, 30 years, 40 years, depending on when we come or return to this meditative way of life So that the ordinary consciousness is very powerful That is 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

[06:51]

Which is called transcendental or supramundane consciousness Which we will deal with tomorrow So these two classes of higher consciousness Are sometimes also called mahakata citta Consciousness which has gone to its greatness Mahakata means the greatness, the highness of itself As I mentioned in my first lecture here

[07:52]

That in Buddhism, particularly in Theravada tradition There are two forms of meditation First is called samatha, calm or tranquility meditation 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 that I am going to explain this way of meditation In order to see how we come to this form of consciousness

[08:57]

So that the system of calm meditation is widely practiced And there are many objects or subjects of meditation to meditate on Or perhaps another way we can say that there are many techniques Concerning this calm or tranquility meditation And it is said in the scriptures there are 40 subjects of this meditation Or 40 techniques But it is not necessary that we have to practice all the 40 We may choose one of them or practice one or two of them But they have many techniques or many subjects

[10:04]

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 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

[11:15]

In Buddhism, in all schools of Buddhism And the second one which is quite popular too And that is visualization Visualization technique can produce very strong power, high energy But I am not going to talk about the breathing practice Because we know and we have practiced it or have been practicing it But maybe I will talk about this visualization, visualization technique

[12:16]

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 Or The object for, there must be, we 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 we, when you are given an object to meditate on The object may be 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

[14:24]

Or golden light Sometimes you can take the light inside of your forehead Try to imagine light It's called aloka Meditate on light Then surely that the mind feels calm very easily We are fascinated with colors And this meditation will really stimulate emotion Which is the form of religious feeling So the preparation is

[15:28]

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 Keep the mind alert 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

[16:33]

And the degrees of colors To remember the whole thing To tell yourself to remember everything clearly And this stage is called preparation And then you can concentrate And look at the object Until you can see it Remember it very clearly Whether you open your eyes or you close your eyes 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

[17:36]

It means the object is acquired It becomes the Ukkahanimitta So then you have to go to the next step That is to 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 You can make it in different forms By conceptualizing Imagining So it is concerned with Some form of imagination and assumption

[18:41]

Together with conceptualization So at this stage if you succeed It will be called a conceptualized object Now your mind becomes very concentrated Coming to this point The mind is Is close, is very near Access to The firmness The one pointedness The awareness And then we still At this stage of meditation Your Your consciousness begins to change

[19:48]

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 Very firm And surely that the mind becomes completely still Clear and firm with the object Now it is called appana The firmness Of the mind And the Steadiness of the object So the object and the mind becomes one completely

[20:51]

With solidarity and Firmness Then coming to this The new consciousness, the high 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 on this In this way According to this system I did this visualization

[21:55]

When I was about 13 When I was 17 I did it alone by reading a book I found a book in My abbot's 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 For preparation

[22:56]

Look at the Buddha in order to In particular to see the 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 head So we have to remember And see all that The dots Clearly Together with the one on the top The sharp one And the ears The character of the ears The The nose The eyes And the mouth So remember all these very clearly

[23:56]

And then start to concentrate On the whole upper part Until you get the first stage That is the acquired object 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 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

[25:00]

Standing on your head It means the second stage Of meditation is achieved Conceptualized object Patipakanivitta Then this has to do more With this stage After that you invite him To come down And stand in your throat Inside your neck Let him sit there So it takes time too for this stage And then Invite him to come down To sit in the stomach That's the last stage So when you come to this stage The upanasamadhi The firm Firm concentration is achieved

[26:09]

When jhana Jhana, jhanic state of meditation arises Arises I myself did that for about two weeks Roughly about an hour a day And I did succeed in In doing that And then stopped Because I didn't have any more information There is 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

[27:09]

Nearly to The first step No, after the second step After succeeding of inviting Buddha to sit on your head The feeling and consciousness Nearly Change That you feel Like your body is Is Your body has light Flowing from From the high From the upper Flowing through your body And that you feel completely calm Peaceful And The last step

[28:12]

Was not so excited but was a very Special, special feeling That is The feeling of Being Being whole Being Perfect And being with the Buddha in a way That the light Seemed to radiate from the Buddha And you feel your whole body now is Full of light both inside and outside So that is a kind of experience So now in this Consciousness

[29:15]

When we come to the Stage of conceptualized object The process of consciousness We talk about first Consciousness is in this State of pravamka The stream of becoming Existing Coming to this state The pravamka begins to vibrate And then it come up to the Dividing line That is The Turning towards the mind door After that It come to The stage of Representative cognition It goes very quick

[30:19]

And after that stage It will come to The state of adaptation Adapting itself To the new Experience To the new consciousness Because it is called the chanic Meditative consciousness And after Adaptation It come to Adoption Accepting the object completely And then It means now the Chanic consciousness The higher consciousness Arises and then pravamka Goes back to its stream And then the Chanic consciousness will continue And because of

[31:25]

The vibration of The pravamka So that After that moment The normal ordinary consciousness Begins to die away Because it has to give way To the new consciousness It is quite interesting to see How they are operating And then When you have This chanic The feeling of joy Which is deeper Than rapture And then The last factor is Called ekakata One-pointedness One-pointedness These five factors Determine this Form of consciousness And five Really Working together Very closely

[32:25]

And the five Also Eliminate The five hindrances If If our consciousness Is not free Or detached At least From the five hindrances 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 The five hindrances Refer to Sensual desire Ill will

[33:28]

Or hatred Resentment Sloth and torpor Restlessness And worry And Doubt or indecision Indecisiveness So these Are called the hindrances Because they They occupy The mind They do not allow the mind To Become Peaceful or calm Or Experience the higher Higher state If these five hindrances Are not Suppressed

[34:28]

They are suppressed They are not completely Eliminated They are suppressed So that You can feel A calmness Coming Peace comes And This is the first Meditative 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 second Step of High consciousness The Applied thought Is eliminated Only

[35:32]

There is only Sustained thought And the other four There are four factors left And the concentration Becomes very strong Because of 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 The third step Now There is no

[36:36]

Sustained thought There is only rapture Joy And one quietness Quietness The third The third jhana The third jhanic consciousness Has a Much deeper joy Than the other two This joy is The Feeling which is very balanced And a person A meditator becomes Even-minded And mindful Mindfulness Arises automatically Coming to this stage of Consciousness But it is weak

[37:38]

Weak mindfulness But a person Becomes even-minded Equanimous So you can see 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-pointed And overcome Pain and pleasure It seems now The body Is going to disappear The body begins to disappear So that you You don't care For pain or pleasure In the Three stages of jhana Consciousness You still have You still have the body You still feel pain But it does not bother you Coming to the fourth stage Pain and pleasure Are transcended Body begins to disappear Come to the fifth Coming to the fifth You Have Only one-pointedness

[39:44]

With equanimity And very strong Mindfulness Mindfulness becomes strong At this stage Of consciousness And the body has been Transcended So one is left With consciousness But according to the sutra There are four Levels Of jhanic consciousness But according to Abhidhamma there are five In fact Abhidhamma would like to Classify The jhanic Consciousness According to the Five factors They make it five Even in sutra they have five factors too But they don't put it Into four

[40:44]

But that is not very important Then now this is called The consciousness experience In the world of four Because the consciousness In this meditative Absorption is Or has formed as the object The object is still there The object acquired From the beginning Is still there Even the body, surely if 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 Of completing the form Consciousness If a person

[41:45]

Would like to Develop supernatural Power It is Possible to do From this stage But I won't go into that It is complicated And Just to say that it is possible To take this Last step Of jhanic Consciousness To develop Supernatural Power And if we Don't go along that line We develop meditation Further And then we will come to The Other level of high consciousness Which is Concerned with The formless world The technique for doing it Is To transform

[42:48]

Or to transcend All perceptions Of the material form We have to Use our energy for Forgetting Transcending all kind of forms And the perceptions of Medifulness The numbers Categories So all this Must be Transcended 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

[43:51]

And meditate On it by having The word saying Space Infinite space So that is the object For Meditation When one is going Is doing that Then surely that when you Come to the fifth level of Jhanic consciousness Your body disappears 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 space Will become clearer and clearer And clearer So consciousness is

[44:53]

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 Now Consciousness takes Past the same object That is infinity of space But feeling that There is only consciousness Only Consciousness Only consciousness exists In a way that Consciousness becomes the object of Consciousness too But that is putting one of Infinity of space Space has no form Only An impression Notion Concept

[45:54]

So the holding on To that concept Is to maintain One pointedness And complete Stability So now One come to this point Will say that only Consciousness is infinite Endless Boundless 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 Consciousness as object But one has to build up

[46:57]

Another object That is nothingness So objects for consciousness At this time is Nothing whatever Nothing whatever Nothing whatever It is also Concerned with conceptualization I have 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 Nothing whatever And then now Your perception becomes very subtle You cannot Recognize And conceptualization Seem to Be very weak Because you cannot

[47:59]

Recognize the object Object is nothing whatever And you even cannot recognize Perception itself That's called The state of Neither perception Nor non-perception Very subtle Cognition In that way we say There is only oneness of being At the moment Cannot say any more than that The oneness of being Which has no form Material form So These four Stages of formless Consciousness Are called The Arupajana The Meditative absorption Experience

[49:00]

In the formless world Formless sphere of existence This 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 ordinary consciousness But it is joyful It is joyful And because the Emphasis is on

[50:02]

Consciousness itself Or on the Experience of consciousness So that 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 Give us Steadiness Because We are not swayed by Any side Whether it is negative or positive Side of experience The mind is not swayed By that So that the equanimous Feeling is

[51:05]

Very helpful In particular in the higher 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 In the unenlightened persons Who come to experience Of this consciousness Through meditation

[52:06]

This consciousness will be moral And resultant Resultant consciousness Just vipaka Because he has experience Experience of it Then in his normal life He feel 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 Kriya citta Because it does not produce Any result But the consciousness of Unenlightened people Can produce Good karma So karma is To operating in the

[53:08]

Jhanic state of consciousness It is high consciousness High consciousness So then we can see That The way to get into 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 Dhammasangha Or on light Meditation on peace Meditation on love Meditation on death

[54:09]

Etc So All these techniques can help us To get into jhana 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 The teacher has to Clarify And point out And help The meditator to Proceed Sometimes people can use A kind of 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 We can When we succeed in 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

[56:18]

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

[57:20]

The meditation practice Surely without meditation It is not possible to Change oneself One can change ideas Or opinions But still consciousness Is roaming about In the low world So when there is no Experience of the higher world The higher Level of existence Then We will say that growth Gets stuck Or growth Stops And then People can become very dangerous To society And to themselves But we will say that

[58:22]

Some people may claim Those who take Psychedelic drugs Might claim that they can Also experience The higher consciousness That is true But the way of Getting into experience Has no beginning When there is no beginning I mean 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 A problem later on When the chemical things

[59:26]

Cannot be obtained Or sometimes It creates The strong Desires And build up some kind of Mental tension Psychological tension Because Of not knowing how How you get there But you are there So that Is not really the change of consciousness Or personality Because of the lack of training And then those people Will fall down To the normal Already consciousness easily And then have conflict Because of inability to get into it And the best way

[60:30]

You say the best way is meditation So there is no shortcut Shortcut may give Some experience But it does not mean experience Determines Our success Experience is the byproduct The byproduct of life But the ability to Have experience By using our own Ability and energy Is really the real thing As I said in the

[61:33]

Beginning of the lecture On Abhidhamma He said Consciousness Are classified in Different categories Is because of different states Different states Of the consciousness The Buddha said that Consciousness arises With conditions 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 It will be called The wood fire If fire is In the lamp, it will be called the lamp fire If fire is Burned by anything It will be given the name

[62:35]

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 is It can be one It can be the many Because it is The analysis In Abhidhamma Says that There are 121 Forms Of consciousness So it is According to different states Analyzed in different Categories So that we have different

[63:36]

Forms of consciousness But the essential thing is that Consciousness must Return To its own nature The nature of Illuminating And being luminous Illuminating

[63:56]

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