Sorry, last week's class did not get taped. I had a dog named Lara. I named her after Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago. So... we've been talking about different ways of knowing and here which has these across the top these seven types of knowing and then also vertically there are several different types of knowing and so this is an epistemological presentation on the nature of mind.

[01:05]

And I mentioned, I think, last week that another approach to the nature of mind is to study mind not so much in terms of what style of knowing is there, but what kind of thinking is going on. So one is more philosophical, epistemological, and the other is psychological. and has to do with thinking. And thinking is the definition of... So psychological approach has to do with looking at, not so much looking at the ways of knowing, but the type of the landscape of the cognition landscape of the cognition as it reveals particular directions. That's the thinking that's going on in the cognition.

[02:09]

And the thinking is a definition of action. So the psychological has to do with thinking and acting. And the other is ways of knowing. Working with the type of thinking you're doing, which means working with your karma, has the potential for developing more and more skillful types of thinking. And as the thinking evolves positively, knowing evolves. And as the style of knowing evolves up to the type of knowing where you know with a valid, direct perception of certain truths, then of all kinds of wrong ways of knowing. And with that reputation, then the deepest levels of tendencies towards unskillful activity are also uprooted.

[03:12]

So developing more and more skillful ways of thinking and acting causes an epistemological evolution. And with the conclusion of the epistemological evolution, with the most accurate and powerful ways of knowing, uproots any remaining deep tendencies towards unskillfulness in the behavior. Psychological and epistemological are both part of the program of evolution. In order to move to the psychological, we can't spend too much more on the epistemological. Maybe a little bit more. If you look at this chart again. Do you have a chart, George? It's in your car?

[04:17]

Can everybody see a chart? So the major transition is from particularly wrong cognition on the right side of the chart, and as I said before, mistaken cognition in the form of mistaken perception, generally speaking, Although at the moment it happened, it's troublesome. Like if you sometimes troublesome, like if you see, um, you know, like when you're on a train and, uh, the train starts moving, you think people on the platform are moving, which, and they're not, you're moving.

[05:27]

or the train on the next row starts moving and you think your train's moving, but that's less likely because you might feel something if your train was moving. But you still might make that mistake. These kinds of are not the source of deep suffering. The source of deep suffering are the right-hand column, second from the top. That's the source. That's the reason why we have to practice, is the conceptual wrong cognitions. Where we imagine something, our mind gives rise to an image of something that doesn't exist, like a permanent thing or an independent thing. Believing in having these cognitions, these conceptual cognitions, and believing them, creates his ignorance and creates suffering.

[06:32]

However, now that we're mentioning karma, karma comes to fruition as having these perceptions, these ignorant conceptions, these conceptions which ignore reality. So the evolution here that's possible is to move from, through education, to move from mistaken cognition, doubting your mistaken cognitions, to be kind of indecisive about your mistaken cognitions, to not believe them so much, and then to move again across the second horizontal line to correct belief, to not any longer believe your misconceptions. And then to evolve further through developing skillful states of mind to actually have a valid cognition based on thorough investigation of the matter so that you actually have this fresh, incontrovertible certainty

[07:56]

about the falseness of the original false conception. You don't exactly have to have a true conception at this point. It's not really a true conception. It's an accurate understanding of the falseness of wrong conceptions, and then you're released in that way. However, this is not the whole story. If you look at the first line, Not only can you have mistaken, can you have a state of knowing which is mistaken and is a perception. Perceptions can be wrong. And the ones in the right top corner, those are the wrong perceptions. And there are wrong perceptions. As I say, they're not such a problem. Then you move horizontally and you come to inattentive perceptions. Inattentive perceptions are occurring gazillions of times a minute to us. unless we are in a state of great yogic development.

[08:59]

We are actually having fresh, inattentive sensory perceptions and mental perceptions very, very often in a short period of time throughout our life. But it is possible through meditation to down the line, skipping over the subsequent to a state of valid perception. Now, a good case, well, first of all, I'll give you a case of seeing blue or seeing green or hearing a sound or whatever. Throughout the day, these kinds of things are happening, but they're not ascertained. They're fresh, but they're not ascertained. So the three main attributes of a valid cognition is freshness, incontrovertibility or infallibility, or clear comprehension of what's there, and then the third characteristic is cognition, but all the things in the chart are cognitions.

[10:14]

So it's really these two that we're looking at. Inattentive direct perception is immediate, it is fresh, but it is not incontrovertible. You're not sure what it was, actually. You know it, but not incontrovertibly. Therefore, it's not a valid perception. When you have a valid perception, like the blue, you actually know you saw that color. Which is, you know, if you think about it, it's just really amazing that you could have basically a nanosecond experience of a color, and you would know for sure you saw it. So you'd have to be in a very high state of concentration to have that. So that's the evolution on the horizontal, that's the evolution of the perception.

[11:20]

So back to the conceptual level, if you have a direct, not a direct, if you have a conceptual cognition which is sufficient to refute and overthrow your belief in permanence and separate self, to refute your belief that you're separate from other beings, that you're actually completely convinced, not at all believing anymore you're separate from other beings. And the first time you have that experience, that's the valid inference, and you get there through thinking that's why you have to develop skills and thinking to have this kind of cognition this cognition is not thinking it is a way of knowing but that way of knowing depends on skillful ways of thinking and behaving which however this correct conceptual cognition

[12:29]

of the way the objects you're experiencing are, the way a color is, the way a person is, the way a feeling is, is correct. Incontrovertible knowledge of it, which refutes wrong knowledges of it, still has got a problem. It's still basically a mistaken cognition because all conceptual cognitions are mistaken. And how are they mistaken? The image is mixed. The image is mixed with the image. So you have a correct image of impermanence, but the image of impermanence is mixed with the actual impermanence of the object, which you understand. So it's confused to some extent.

[13:33]

That's why there's this other parallel development of developing direct sensory perception, or direct mental perception, so that once you understand it, you can have a direct mental perception of this understanding without mixing it with the image. And so that would be the place where you'd have the final and deepest understanding of It's in the upper left-hand corner. And that would follow from the other. And in both cases, once you have a... If you could have a direct perception of a color, and the first moment of that, a direct perception of a color... Because again, you could have a direct perception of a color which is true... but controvertible because it's inattentively correctly perceived.

[14:38]

Does that make sense? Having a direct perception of a color, but you're inattentive, so it's not incontrovertible. You can also have a direct perception of color, and also, in the case where it's inattentive, it's fresh. Perceptions are always fresh. Perceptions can't be fresh because they always deal with the impermanent objects. Perceptions have impermanent objects, so they're always fresh. But they're mostly inattentive for most people. When you have a direct perception and it's not inattentive to it, you do ascertain it. then it is incontrovertible. You actually see the color in the extreme freshness of a tiny, tiny moment relative to like, for example, a minute. So that's both fresh and incontrovertible.

[15:45]

And then there can be subsequent, once you have this incontrovertible experience of a color, or of the impermanence of any color or anything, once you actually see the impermanence, there can be subsequent cognitions, but those subsequent cognitions, which are still incontrovertible, infallible, and overcome misconceptions too, they're not fresh, so they're not valid. It's hard for us to actually find impermanence, however, in direct perception until we have cognized it conceptually. And it's hard for us to find the selflessness of things and non-separation until we've cognized it through conception. So we need to use our imagination to become free of our imagination.

[16:48]

We have a mind which has a capacity called imagination or conception, a mind which can create, can construct things out of mid-air, so to speak. And some of the things we construct do not exist. So when our mind constructs something that doesn't exist, we have a cognition which is false. unless we sign and do not take it as real. Now, taking it as real would be to be a subsequent or a valid conceptual cognition of knowing that that wasn't real. There's a thread there that I just lost, but And so we use our imagination to overcome wrong imagination, to overcome doubting imagination, to overcome correctly assuming or correctly believing imagination.

[18:05]

And when we overcome correctly believing imagination and come to certain imagination or certain conceptual cognition, refuting all incorrect conceptions, even that conception has to be overcome. And that conception is overcome partly by conception. And then finally, by overcoming all conceptions, we have refuted all conceptions. We even overcome all conception itself and enter into direct perception of correcting all of our, of using imagination to overcome all imaginations. And finally, that final imagination is also dropped. So that's the evolution of cognition, evolution of the ways of knowing, in these two ways of knowing, okay?

[19:07]

And there's a lot more we could study in terms of getting the details about the valid or the ideal cognitions, both conceptual and perceptual. But I think I'd like now to turn to the psychological way of contemplating mind. charts of what are called elements of existence or dharmas. Oh, we're passing these out.

[20:17]

You want to hear a story about my grandson? It's a fresh one from this morning. I take it from this morning or yesterday morning. On the way to school, one of the advantages of commuting is he talked to his mother in the car about various things. So he asked her this morning or yesterday morning, can we fire George Bush? And she said, well, it's hard to fire a president. And then she gave him a short talk on U.S. history and the current events and the, what do you call it, the religious and fundamentalism and people who think that people who have other religions must be wrong and that they really, they should switch. And after listening to that, he said, we might not like their religion.

[21:23]

That might not be good for us. And then he said to her, what are we? What religion are we? And she said, I don't know. And after a little while, he said, I think I'm a Buddhist. I meditate and I sit in the lotus. He does sit, he has a very nice bull lotus, which he shows me now and then just to give me a kick. And then a little while later he said, do Buddhists believe in spirit? And his mother said, I don't know, you have to ask granddaddy. And then a little while later he says, I think I'm a Buddhist who believes in spirit. That's the story. Now you've got your charts. The first category there are forms.

[22:25]

And so these are things we've been talking about in terms of these are things which you can know, some of those forms. Which of the forms can you know? Go ahead, you can say it, Bernard. I ear, nose, tongue, body. How nice of you that's wrong. And there's one more gap. You'll probably get the next time you get it. I don't understand the question. We see the forms there? Yeah. Which ones can you know? Which ones can you know? And not only which ones can you know, but which type of knowing would know them? My heart. Well, first of all, what are the objects? What are the objects? Well, I just answered the question.

[23:30]

The objects, the sense objects you know, right? You can know the sense objects. And how can you know the sense objects? By what? Cognition. What kind of perceptual cognition? Hmm? What? Sense perception, yeah. Sense perception, you'd know them. And what other kind of perception would you know them? Mental perception would know them, too. So sense perception knows these objects, but sense perception does not know the organs. It doesn't know the eye, the ear, the nose. Sense perception does not know the eye organ. However, its dominant condition is... I mean, consciousness or the perception, the high consciousness which knows colors, its dominant condition is the sense organ. Mind organ, I mean, mind, direct mind perception also can know colors.

[24:34]

But it knows colors, its dominant condition is... Yeah, its dominant condition is the mental organ, which is... Yeah. So a mental consciousness can know a color because its dominant condition is the previous moment of consciousness and it's also its dominant condition is the previous moment too, but its dominant condition is that sense consciousness which knew the color. And then what else can know these objects? Actually, that's it. Excuse me. And one other kind of perception can know these objects. Yogic direct awareness could know them too. And it doesn't depend on the sense organs to know these either. So anyway, the perceptions now, can conception know these sense objects?

[25:42]

Can conceptual consciousness know them? Linda says yes. That's right. Conceptual consciousness, conceptual cognitions can know colors. And they, huh? They give them a name or a concept. They know them through the media of an image. But they do know them. But they don't know them directly. And they need that mental consciousness They don't use the sense consciousnesses. They use the mental consciousness, which knows the color. They use that as their antecedent condition. And then they come up with an image, depending on the predispositions of the moment. They come up with an image, which they mix with the sense state. And through the media, through the medium of the image, they are able to grasp the color.

[26:48]

However, they do not grasp the media. And the conceptual consciousness not grasping the media, which is the image, they do not grasp the image. They do not . They see through the image. That's the same as the sense organs, the sense consciousnesses, which do not see the sense organ. They see through the sense organ. The sense organ is physical, but they see through it. So in the media of the sense organ, they apprehend the sense object. It's like that too. And mind consciousness, mental perception is like that too. Mental perception sees the color through the media of what? Long. Through the media of what? Did I say conceptual cognition? Mental perception. Mental perception sees a color and through what? Does it see the color? Pre-dispositional. What? Pre-dispositional.

[27:50]

The pre-what? Previous consciousness. The previous consciousness is the organ which mental perception can see a color. So mental perception, so in some sense all the cognitions have some kind of an organ through which they apprehend their object. But the conceptual cognition, the organ in a sense, you know, is their image. is the image that they see through. But they don't see the image, just like the sense perceptions don't see the organ. You don't see the eye when you see the... When I see the color of your cheeks, I do not see my eye. When I hear you talk, I do not hear my ear. And so on. When I touch your skin and feel your skin, I do not feel my sense of touch.

[28:55]

I use that that I experienced it, and it's through that that I can feel separate from you. Without that intervening media, everything in the universe and mind would collapse together, and there would be no knowledge. So somehow, in some sense, do it on a causal basis, because to know things in some sense means to create, in some sense, a media through which to know them. However, Sense perception knows things directly, even though it's through the organ, it knows them just as they are, because the organs are clear. Okay, that's the first group there. You can see how you can apply what you've learned about the nature of cognition to the first group. That's what they're there for. Then comes number, the second category called mind, or here it's called citta. Okay, can you see that? It's the twelfth item in the list, and it's the

[29:59]

in the second group. Now, that item there, how does that correspond, do you think, to what we've been talking about the first whatever number of meetings we've had? John's smiling. Mental perception? Great. However, Incomplete. That's a hint. What? Perceptual cognition as well. That's right. And incomplete. It's a hint. And sense. And sense. And sense perception. All of them go in that category. All seven and all eleven. The whole chart goes in that category. right there has the entire chart in it.

[31:05]

All those different ways of knowing belong in that category. See, this arrangement is not emphasizing a detailed unfoldment of the mind, which is the basic knowing. It's not unpacking the mind here. Oops, wrong chart. This number two here is condensed, but the whole chart is in number two. Okay? Now, what this chart's doing is then now we move into the... Okay? Concomitant mental factors. These are mental factors which accompany all those cognitions we've been talking about the whole time. Every one of those cognitions we've talked about. A sense consciousness, all the sense consciousness, which means a sense perception, mental perception, conceptual cognitions, all of them, the wrong ones, the right ones, the inattentive ones, all of them arise with these mental factors.

[32:08]

Okay? But we didn't talk about that. Now we're talking about it. These things accompany or, you know, in the second category, these things, some of these things, not all of them, but different patterns of these things accompany every one of those cognitions we've been talking about. And once again, the particular combination of these elements, which go now from 13 to 72, okay? 13 to 72 makes, is that 59? No, yeah, 59, right? The next 59 items are lies in different combinations with every cognition. And the different patterns of these mental factors create different shapes of these ways of knowing.

[33:16]

Like we have direct sense perception, that's correct. Okay? And it's accompanied by some pattern of these. And the pattern of these is the number 17 on that list. The pattern of these is number 15. Number 15 is a very important mental factor. It's the mental factor that's And some people say that it's not really even a mental factor because it's actually just the shape of all the other mental factors. So you have this moment of cognition, of knowing. And I say all-embracing. I put my arms out nice and wide, and I do that because the two characteristics of cognition are what? Huh?

[34:18]

Now, of all kinds of cognition, the two characteristics of all kinds of cognition are... What? Knowing, yeah, and clarity. I put my arms up big because clarity means there's no limit to it. It's very spacious, and there's no limit to it, no hindrance to it. All cognitions are very spacious, radiant, forms of knowing. All of them are. They can be wrong, but they're still spacious. Then within every one of those, no matter what they were, arose without mental factors. Even seeing a color before, you know, before you name it, there's mental factors. And all those mental factors that are there, they shape that knowing of that color. They shape the knowing or they shape that knowing of that the conceptual knowing of the color of the sound through an image they shape it and the shape of it is number 15 which is called will or volition or intention or motivation

[35:41]

So the shape, where the consciousness seems to be inclining, which way it seems to be going. Is it going in a wholesome direction? Is it a skillful direction? And we can talk about how you can look and see. And that shape of it is the definition of karma. That is of karma, of action. So, karma is not any activity of your body. For example, salivation is, generally speaking, an activity of your body which is not karma. Goosebumps. Goosebumps. are not karma. And even goosebumps may be when you, you know, see something beautiful or something, are not really karma.

[36:49]

To intend to salivate would be karma. Karma is intentional activity. But lots of our activities are not intentional, so they don't... In other words, lots of our activity is not because of the shape of your consciousness. You could have a sense perception and your consciousness could be shaped it could be shaped in an unskillful way, and an unskillful way that it's shaped would be your karma. But if you salivated at that same moment, it would not be the karma of the moment. Because salivation is not an intentional, motivated thing. It just happens because of the body's response to certain things, like food. Reflexes. Very important. Going on all the time. Get along with Adam. They're not karma. They are activity, though. Digestion is, generally speaking, not karma. You could, if you were really experienced, you could intend to digest things in a certain way.

[37:55]

You could intend to digest faster or slower. You could have that power. Or anyway, you could have that wish. You could say, like you're out in the woods or something, you say, I would like to turn down my metabolism. You might try to do that. That would be karma, but it wouldn't necessarily change your metabolism. But the wish to change your metabolism so that your food would last longer, that doesn't say it's a good wish. Thought formation. Pardon? Thought formation. Thought formation? Is that on the list? Huh? What do you mean by thought formation? Non-physical. In a sense, thought formation is... Image formation. Okay. Where is image formation on this list? What? Where? Who said something?

[38:57]

I heard somebody say it, and it wasn't Marcia. Conception, yeah. Number 14. Conception, idea, that is thought. That is the mental factor which can create images, ideas, concepts. And it's called Samyak, and it is also the name of Ascanda. I won't get into this too much, but... When I first came to Zen Center, in the heart, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness, or we said impulses. And when I became abbot, I changed it from perception to conception, but then I chickened out and changed it back to perception. It should be conception, I think. In other words, of the five forms, which is these first two categories, the second one is feeling, which is number 13. Feelings is a very important mental factor, and in every moment of consciousness there is a feeling.

[40:13]

When you see a color, there's a feeling. When you smell a skunk, there's a feeling. When somebody touches you, there's a feeling. And the feelings are positive, negative, or you can't tell which. Those are the three feelings. And every moment of consciousness has a feeling tone, and it has these three basic styles. It's so important, the feeling of the moment that comes with every moment of cognition. Wrong cognitions have feelings, valid cognitions have feelings. Feelings are present in all states of consciousness. Another thing that's present in all states of consciousness is conception. Even in valid, direct perception? there's five skandhas, and the third one doesn't fall into emptiness.

[41:15]

However, even though they're in direct perception, we don't use it as a medium to get at the object. And a normal person like you and me, when our sense organs get stimulated by physical material, conceptions available, but we don't use them. Too fast. And conception, the choice of the conception has something to do with what? Predisposition. Predisposition. But the predispositions aren't as fast as the sense perceptions. We don't have time Would they get in there and give rise to consciousness before we can whip out, go through and search out and get a concept and slip it in there to get something?

[42:19]

We take revenge. Because when we get these concepts, concepts are ways we try to control things. But we aren't always like that. And even in mental perception, we got the concept that we don't use it. But of course, in conceptual cognition, we do use it. But it's there all the time. It's just a question of whether it's as immediate through which to apprehend the object. But it's there all the time. so uh for example if you look at a color and you have a negative feeling that will have that will be affected or shaped by that negative feeling about the color another state of consciousness sees a color as a positive feeling that will have a different shape just right there both of them will have concepts there but in direct perception in both cases

[43:36]

The concepts aren't being used as a media to get at the object. However, if you switch to a conceptual cognition, then the concept which is there in the perceptual cognition, it's going to be used now in a different way, so it will change the shape of the consciousness too. And anyway, if you go to the next category of consciousness, the general functions of good, or you could say the general functions of skillful states of cognition. So let's say you're seeing a color, or you're seeing a color and you're looking through the media of the image of blue, so you can say it's blue, so you have a conceptual cognition. conceptual cognition, all right? What's the shape of that conceptual cognition? Well, maybe what's going to be there?

[44:38]

There's going to be a conception, and the conception is going to be used now to get at the object, which could be a color, and there's going to be a shape. And what's the shape going to be? The shape's going to be affected by the use of the cognition, the use of the conception, and whatever feeling is there, but also it might be affected by what's in under B. There might be faith. There might be energy or effort. There might be equanimity. There might be self-respect. There might be decorum. There might be non-greediness. There might be non-ill, non-violence, confidence. There might be all those. And if you had all those mental factors in this perception of a color through the media of a concept of blue, a conceptual cognition, that would be a very skillful state of consciousness. And the shape of that would be very skillful.

[45:45]

So the karma, the action, actually, of that moment of consciousness, would be very good, would be very skillful. You might not have all the things on that list. You don't have to have all of them. You could have just some of them. You can actually learn to look and see what mental factors are there and assess the quality of that intention. It means to assess the quality of your karma because intention is already karma. If you have a state of consciousness and there's nonviolence in there, that's already a pretty good state of consciousness. Hardly there can be nonviolence with Greed. And that's not as good as non-violent with non-greed. There can't be non-violence with ill-will.

[46:51]

That doesn't work. But there could be non-violence with greed. Again, that's not the highest quality non-violence. The highest quality non-violence is when you're not being violent and also greed is a slightly violent and so on. You can make up all, you can or you do make up all kinds of combinations of these. Some combinations don't happen, can't happen. Some can, and among those that can, some don't. But they could. And then the shape, every moment, the shape of your consciousness is the karmic quality of that state of consciousness. And then Local activities can arise in dependence on this state of consciousness. Then you can speak and you can move your arms coming from an intention.

[47:58]

You can want to be kind to someone and you can speak kindly or you can try to do something with your hands or your shoulders, or your elbows, to be kind to them. Some states of consciousness, if you look at the shape, whether it's skillful or not. For example, somebody who has greed and nonviolence. Or they have faith, but they don't have energy. In other words, there's not much. They have faith, but they don't have the energy to execute what they believe in. And so although faith is positive, without the energy, the shape is different than when you have the faith together with the energy, together with the nonviolence, together with the non-greed, and so on. Well, I think maybe I'll stop now and see if you have some questions about this.

[49:08]

And then I'll answer. When you raise your hand, I'll say something. Yes? What are you talking about? Yes, what about it? What did it do with perception? Okay, so you're seeing blue, okay? And if faith arises with that? I'm just saying. I'm saying it could. It could. There could be faith there. And you don't see how it would apply to seeing blue. Well, it depends on what you're... Let's say it's faith in non-ill will. Okay? Okay. You could hate blue. Even before you said it's blue, you could hate it.

[50:15]

I could touch you. And before you even said, oh, you know, he's touching me or, okay, I could touch you. And the sensation could be what? The feeling could be what? Huh? Huh? Negative. Negative. Huh? What? Positive, neutral. Positive, neutral, or negative. But Fred offered negative. Okay? So I touch you. You have a direct perception of the touch. Or you see a blue. Maybe you like blue better. You see blue, and lo and behold, there's a negative feeling there. So now you're not just seeing blue, but you have a negative feeling. So then what? You will? Some ill will towards the blue? Could that happen? Yes. Some kind of aversion to it? Could that happen? Yes. Some kind of whiff of violence towards it?

[51:19]

Yes. That could happen. Now you can also then bring in, bring out the number 14, bring in some conceptions, and then you can really womp it up. But you're not talking about that yet. You're just talking about things. How could that, wouldn't that have to be, generally speaking, it is simpler because you're not pulling in the concept real heavily of this, you know, this is separate from me and so on. But that concept is still in the environment. And if you haven't refuted it, it's still lurking there. The belief in separation is still in the field. So even in direct perception, there could be a somewhat unskillful state of consciousness in direct perception. But usually the things we do that are really bad are conceptual cognitions, where we have ideas of how to implement ill will.

[52:25]

It's hard in direct perception to make a big plan of how they mean to somebody. But you can basically kind of feel like, yuck. You can't say yuck, but the consciousness is bending it towards aversion. And that's not so skillful. Indirect perception. Because there can be a negative sensation. Indirect perception. You can't see how... Indirect perception. You can't see how... Did you say... Indirect perception, okay? I could come over there now and give you a direct perception that would be very negative by just punching you in the body somewhere. And you'd have a direct perception. Maybe if I came over there, you'd see what I'm approaching you. But if you weren't watching, I could hit you real hard, and you would have a direct perception of a negative sensation called pain in the arm.

[53:31]

That would be negative. And various other mental factors might come up with that negative sensation. Before you move it... No, pardon? Well, actually, maybe I should also say this. All of these mental factors, in a sense, these mental factors are not conceptual cognition. Well, all of these mental factors are, in a sense, conceptions. Feeling, in a sense, is conception. Effort, in a sense, is conception. So you have this main cognition, which knows the object. That's the main thing. And then what are mental factors, each one of which is a kind of conception. So the cognition, in your example, Tracy, is a perceptual cognition.

[54:33]

The knowing of the color is not by mixing it or seeing it of an image of blue. So we're not saying, oh, that's blue yet. However, it is accompanied by all these different kinds of conceptions like pain, pleasure, neutral, effort, not effort, avoiding, coming, going, up, down, all this stuff is accompanying it. So a perceptual cognition arises with all kinds of conceptions which are mental factors. You could even say that there's a lot of conceptual cognitions arising with perceptual cognitions. And there's also little cognitions, little conceptual cognitions arising with conceptual cognition. But what we've been talking about basically is the overall main mind of knowing the object.

[55:38]

These other conceptual cognitions also know the object, but they know it in a different way. Like they know the object as pleasant or unpleasant. The basic knowing is knowing the existence of the object. That's why wrong cognition is when you know something that doesn't exist. So like you know a self that's not there, or you know permanence that's not there. So the basic cognition has to do, the correctness of it, is whether it knows something that's there or not. And then that's the correctness of it. And then the correct cognitions are those which know things that aren't there. Correct cognitions know things that are there. And again, conceptual cognitions are correct when they know something that's there. but they're mistaken because they mix an image. Perceptual cognitions, if they know something is there, they're unmistakable because they don't mix it with an image.

[56:42]

Now, just a second. That's just the knowing of the existence. The other kinds of mental factors, they know the object not in terms of existence or nonexistence, which is the fundamental when we think things that don't exist do exist, like a self, they know it in other ways. They know it in terms of positive, negative, neutral. They know it in terms of like and dislike, you know, or greed and hate. They know it in terms of, is this object or I practice faith with this object in terms of effort, this object in terms of, also this object in terms of how is this object related to in a total patterned way. So, isn't that something? Cognitions arise with mental factors which are conceptions, which are

[57:49]

mind-constructed ways of relating to the object. But they're not mixed with the object. They just color the sense of the experience of the object. And, once again, the overall pattern of a particular momentary concoction of a certain type of knowing together with a certain set of mental factors of the moment. That's the basic action of the moment, which then can ramify into speech and physical postures, physical gestures. Yes. So are means of function what you mean by predisposition? The predispositions, where do they go on this thing? These mental factors are the predispositions, and we do not make those come up.

[59:10]

They come up by the force of past karma, which means they come up by the force of past patterns. If your mind is a certain shape or a certain pattern, the consequence of that will be to make, at some point in the future, a similar pattern. So you're predisposed for certain patterns to come up, and the pattern makes you predisposed for a somewhat related pattern to come up again, and then once a pattern arises, that makes you predisposed to experience things in a certain way. I think you were next, Michael. Well, I was kind of about that comment that it almost seems like there are multiple layers of karma. It almost sounds like you might have a subconscious karma, a predisposed karma.

[60:15]

A subconscious karma? Volitional karma? That's also karma that might be predisposed. It's almost like a subconscious karma. I don't see where that would be on this chart. Neither do I. That's what I'm asking. I'm asking if there are... For most people, the shape of their consciousness is more or less unconscious. But you did also say... Especially in direct perception, which is generally speaking, as we know now, not ascertained. But the mental factors are there, even so. But you can't even ascertain the object, so you can't ascertain the object. It's pretty hard to ascertain the mental factors that arise with the cognition of the object. It would be easier to be aware of the mental factors that arise that you ascertain.

[61:21]

That's one of the advantages of ascertaining clearly the object, because then you can look and see what the mental factors are that are there. And then you can see whether the mental factors that are there are forming a skillfully shaped And if they aren't, then you get to watch and see what happens then, which is not pretty, but because you're gifted now to get a chance to see how your mind works when you have an unskilled pattern. Some people, but the material here is on the list, according to the proposal is there's nothing in addition, there's no unconscious stuff in addition to this that's going on. This is all that's going on according to one of the main schools. There's not some other stuff going on. Now, you could also say, well, sometimes people say that the overall pattern is really not a mental factor, it's just the overall pattern.

[62:26]

Why call the overall pattern a thing? So some people say that's not really an additional thing, there's just a pattern. And one of the translations of Chaitanya, which is the one of the translations of it is synergy. So synergy is something different than, you know, the way all the different parts of something are working together, something in addition to that. Anyway, there's the word synergy, which is not. And there's the word intention, which actually is just the shape of your consciousness. but it's a word to draw your attention to what is your intention, what is your intention. So, basically, this is given to us to help us meditate on our karma. As we meditate on our intention, there's a possibility of transforming the predispositions.

[63:27]

By transforming the predispositions, also there's a chance for us to move towards clearer and clearer ascertainment of what's going on. And the clearer ascertainment of what's going on, you could eventually see perception, in direct sense perception, you would be able to see the quality, the common quality of that state of consciousness. But I think you can probably, to some extent, you can identify when you look at somebody's face, you maybe can identify if there is what the shape of the consciousness is. So how am I going to figure that out? Well, look to see. Is there any ill will? Is there any kind of spirit of violence? Is there any greed? Is there any pain? Is there any pleasure? Is it Is it kind of indeterminate? I can't tell. And so on. If you actually just assess, look on this list, you can actually examine your mind and find out what the quality of consciousness is.

[64:32]

Generally speaking, if you can examine your mind, your state of your quality of consciousness is pretty good. And you probably will find that the better your state you find. Now, if you don't examine, it's hard for you to ascertain that you're not examining it as a bad state of mind. But generally speaking, people who don't examine their state of mind are in a bad state of mind. The less you're aware of yourself, the more the pattern runs downhill and you move over to the corner of the chart. Huh? Well, you know, I don't answer white questions. Can you ask it another way? about awareness of these things and the ability to look at it that causes your right to shift towards the more, the better.

[65:38]

I think you find on this chart, too, I think you probably find... Where is it? Where is mindfulness? Nineteen. Nineteen. Good. So mindfulness... If mindfulness can be there even So because he's not it's not categorized under the wholesome or unwholesome so mindfulness can be forever wholesome or unwholesome In order to examine your mind you need mindfulness when you start it when you start Examining your mind as mindfulness develops and you start to see unwholesomeness You start to see how it works Now, if you have unwholesomeness without mindfulness, and you can because number 19 isn't necessarily involved, but it must be involved for us to examine our state and to find out that it's wholesome or unwholesome. Okay? But if it's not involved, then there's no awareness of it and there's no learning from the concept, from seeing how painful it is to have these unwholesome states.

[66:48]

So they just generally reproduce themselves with no supervision. But if you're mindful even of an unwholesome state, it positively evolves. And if you're mindful of wholesome factors, unwholesome states don't need supervision to operate. They operate very nicely in the dark, as I mention often. You can go out of this house now, out of this place. You can get in your car. You can close your eyes and plug your ears and drive unskillfully. It doesn't take mindfulness. But to drive skillfully, it does take mindfulness. And sometimes your mindfulness shows you that you're driving unskillfully, which can help you drive more skillfully. And sometimes your mindfulness shows you you're skillful. So then you say, I'll keep this up. But without paying attention to your to see its quality. What's my state of mind while I'm driving? Am I too tense? There's other things on here about tension and relaxation.

[67:49]

Is my body relaxed and alert? Am I awake? You can look and see. But if you don't look and see, you might not be able to find out, oh, yes, it is. So now I'm going to use that now to drive well. Or you might not be able to look and see. I'm not in a good condition to drive, so I shouldn't. But that would be skillful. Find out you were in an unwholesome state. Like, I'm really angry. I see that. They say, I probably shouldn't drive because I might run over pedestrians who are not where I want them to be, who I find irritating. Huh? Yeah, those inattentive jaywalkers, you know, who do they think they are? But you don't have to be aware and mindful when you see a jaywalker that you hate. You can hate them without being mindful, noticing, oh, I hate them, and I'd like to run them over.

[68:54]

You don't have to notice that. You can run them over without noticing that you hate them. I say, well, you know, if you really pay attention to drive the car to hit them, that would take a little bit more attention than just basically... I'll just try it in such a way that if there are any jaywalkers, they'll probably get hit because I'm just all over the place here. I'm not going to look. So basically, the principle of attention to unwholesomeness, the unwholesomeness itself perpetuates. Attention to unwholesomeness makes a positive input to it and starts to transform it. And attention to wholesomeness promotes it. Wholesomeness needs attention in order to grow. Unwholesomeness grows well with attention. And, in fact, that grows very well without mindfulness. Okay? Does that make some sense? That's how I propose it works. Anything else tonight?

[69:55]

Yes, Linda? they met with perception, and these things accompany it. They kind of color a direct perception. Yes. They don't mix with it the way with a conception. Right. The image mixes with the object. And so I was just wondering, you know, what's the difference? Because I can see how the things you said are true, that our perceptions are covered by all of these tools. Yes. What's the difference between that and mixing? Oh, the difference between that and mixing? Before I say the difference between... One thing I want to say before I say about the mixing is that previously we said one type of perceptual error is that Perceptual cognitions, they have the dominant condition of the organ, they have the object condition of the color or whatever, and then they have the antecedent condition, which is the previous state of consciousness.

[71:12]

The previous state of consciousness isn't the media through which you see the object. So the previous state of consciousness, if it's really extremely unwholesome, for example, It can color the perception and make the perception wrong. But it's not an image. It's like you look at the mountain and you see the mountain directly. But the previous state of consciousness can change the color of the mountain. But it's not like an image. Mixed in with it, it's more like an influence than you're using the image. And you can see that the difference is that the image you can't see, that's the difference, is mixed so you can't see. Whereas if you look at a mountain that's covered with snow and you see it as blue, you can actually see the blue in the snow. That's the difference.

[72:13]

It changes the object. It isn't that it mixes with the object. Yeah. Whereas when you mix it... Yeah, exactly. When you mix it, you can't see the image by which you see through the image. But in perception, the influence changes the object. That's why it makes the object wrong. Because then the object you're engaged with is wrong, plus the way the object appears to you is wrong. Whereas in conceptual cognition, the image gets mixed, but doesn't make it a wrong consciousness unless the object you're apprehending doesn't exist. So that's... Didn't quite get that? You just put me back there. It was once. It's rapid. Pardon? Conception is always mistaken because... Because by seeing the object through the image, we see it in a false way.

[73:30]

But we don't see the image through which we see it. We just see the object in a false way. The conceptual cognition is not wrong. So, for example, if I see you right now, you exist, so my conceptual cognition of you is not wrong. It's just mistaken because the image I have of you is mixed with you as you're actually happening to me. It's an auditory image. as whatever, all these different ways that you come to me are mixed in conceptual cognition with you, but I can't tell the difference between them and I can't ascertain you. So that's not a wrong cognition. It's a valid, well not valid unless it's irrefutable, but it's a true, so it's a true, so there's true conceptual cognitions and there's false conceptual cognitions.

[74:32]

True conceptual cognitions are still mistaken. False conceptual cognitions, of course, are also mistaken. But you can have a true conceptual cognition that's also a valid conceptual cognition. So there's true conceptual cognitions and there's false conceptual cognitions. False conceptual cognitions are never valid. True conceptual cognitions can be valid. A subset of true conceptual cognitions is a valid one. But all cognitions, even valid ones, even valid ones which can actually liberate you from misconceptions, they're still somewhat mistaken. And they need to be gone beyond to have the valid perception of the truth, which you also can realize through valid conceptual cognition. But still, there's a little bit of a problem in valid conceptual cognition because of this mixing. Did you catch up?

[75:35]

There's a temporary setback to the first class. But I also have a little bit of trouble with conceptions. Who decides that they are valid? That valid book? Again, the determination of validity is... We're not just consensus. It can be also that the next moment, like if you look at a mirage and you get closer and look at it again and find out it's not a mirage, just you yourself checking it again and finding it's wrong will refute that cognition, that conceptual cognition. What is that? And then another one comes along and repeats that. So what happens to the validity? If it gets refuted, it's not valid. But if you check it again and it stands up, it is valid. Huh?

[76:36]

What did you say? Yeah, right. But a lot of them get checked over and over. Like, you know, I keep checking Rochelle. So far it's been working. But I could make a mistake and, you know, see you from a distance and think that you were Jerry. And then, you know, that wouldn't be valid because it would get refuted when I look more closely and find out that it's you. But that one, you know, maybe would never get refuted. Irrefutable. That's not right. I didn't say anything about permanent. Well, last thing you said, conceptions are permanent. Well, conceptions are permanent, yes. Well, if you want to talk about it more next week, we can talk about it. But basically, perceptions know impermanent objects.

[77:39]

Conceptions know permanent objects. Perceptions are not impermanent objects. Conceptions are permanent. So that's the thing, is you look at impermanent things through an image which is permanent. The image is permanent. I know you're not permanent, but I look at you through a permanent Rochelle image, which doesn't... No, no, I'm not saying, I'm not believing. You have trouble believing anything's permanent? Oh, well, some things are permanent. Because conceptions don't arise and cease. They're standard, generic images. The mind creates them. But they change. They don't really deteriorate, though. You can change them, but then you just change them into another permanent thing. They're temporary, but... They're temporarily permanent, but permanent, permanent does not, permanent, impermanent means, of course, no duration, right?

[78:50]

But permanent doesn't mean duration. Oh, well, some things are permanent because conceptions don't arise and cease. They're standard generic images. The mind creates them. But they change. They don't really deteriorate, though. You can change them, but then you just turn them into another permanent thing. They're temporary. They're temporarily permanent. But permanent does not... Impermanent means, of course, no duration, right? But permanent doesn't mean duration. Permanent or eternal doesn't have to mean duration. It doesn't have to mean it lasts. I think that if you really want to talk about this, it's going to take a long time, I think.

[79:58]

Basically, the reason why it's permanent is because it's just a mental imputation. It's just a mental construction. Mental constructions don't, like, arise and cease. They're just constructions. Freshly permanent. Huh? Freshly permanent. They're freshly permanent. Yeah, they're temporary or fresh permanent things. They're just mental constructions. They have no existence. My image of you doesn't really exist. you know, in any way other than a permanent thing. Because it's just a mental imputation. But it's useful. Static? Static's okay. Static, generic. Another way is it's negative. It's the elimination of And when you eliminate everything else, the causal nexus has been removed, so the thing's not impermanent anymore.

[81:07]

It's not a dependent core arising. You're not seeing a dependent core arising. You're seeing a permanent thing, a generic thing. I gotta go. This class was taped.

[81:22]

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