Here are these, if anybody wants, here's a little handout on the valid or ideal cognition. So they're right here if you want to pick them up. Don't pass them off because some people don't necessarily want them. I was reading this treatise on human nature by David Hume. And he says at the beginning that all the perception... Actually, that's on ideas, their origin, composition, connection, abstraction, and so on.

[01:09]

The first section is on the origins of our ideas. He says, all the perceptions of the human mind turn themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call impressions and ideas. The difference betwixt them consists in the degrees of force with which they strike upon the mind and make their way into our thoughts and consciousness. Those perceptions which enter with the most force and violence we may name impressions. And under this name, I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions as they make their first appearance in the soul.

[02:17]

By ideas, I mean images of these in thinking and reasoning, much as, for instance, are all the perceptions excited by the present discourse, accepting only those from sight and touch, and accepting the immediate pleasure or uneasiness they may occasion. So he says all perceptions but In the language I've been using, it changes to all cognitions. It would be pretty similar to what is taught by Dignaga and Vasubandhu. The main difference though, if you listen, I'll read it one more time, there's a difference. In that he says,

[03:19]

The difference betwixt these consists in the degree or force of liveliness, and there I wouldn't disagree. I mean, there I wouldn't say he's different. What he means by impressions are more forceful and lively than the ideas. But here's the part where I think he speaks somewhat differently. He says, with which they strike upon the mind and make their into our thoughts and consciousness. See a difference there? What's the difference? Yeah. I think we're talking about it already as part of consciousness. I think we're talking about it already as part of consciousness. You're a little bit sort of between what he said and what I've been saying, by what you said there.

[04:32]

By you saying that those, did you say perceptions and cognitions? No. What did you say? You said perceptions are part of... consciousnesses. They are cognitions. He called them perceptions, but he's sort of saying that perceptions make their way into the mind. So there sort of seems to be an a priori mind in his thinking at this point in the book anyway. He's not done with it, but anyway at this point he started off by saying there's a consciousness and these perceptions make their way in. And one type of perception he's saying is impressions, in other words ideas. So the terminology I'm using is perceptions and the idea is conceptions.

[05:45]

But they don't make their way into the mind. They are the cognition. They are the two different types of cognitions that there are. There isn't a mind before them. They are already. Now there are previous minds, which are conditions for this, but those minds don't get impressed by these cognitions. These cognitions don't make their way into the mind. However, there are minds that have once existed which are conditions for the arising of these impressions and ideas. Anyway, I don't know if he ever resolves this dualism, but there's some dualism in here, not body-mind dualism, There's a dualism in consciousness here, the way he talks at the beginning. And I don't know if he ever works that out.

[06:51]

And Vasubandhu, when he begins the fifth skanda, the vijnana skanda, He says that consciousness is the impression relative to each object. Not consciousness is impressed by the object. Consciousness is the impression of the object. It is the raw grasping of each object. So in a sense, that consciousness is the way that the body grasps the world.

[07:59]

And the way the body grasps the world is not the body. Just like a dance is not the dancer. It's inseparable from the dancer, but it's not the dancer. And the person is dancing in the world, is standing on the earth, being attracted to the earth, and so on, or dancing with another person. Yeah? How does this compare to the third skandha? How does the third skandha tie into this discussion about perception? I think that the third skanda is conception. That's the way I feel these days. The third skanda is not perception. Well, anumana is a special type of conceptual cognition.

[09:20]

It is an inferential conceptual cognition. It's not the same as all conceptual cognitions. Not all conceptual cognitions are inference. But that's the type of conceptual cognition which can be valid. It's like a conceptual cognition except that it's a little bit of a problem because if it coexists with a visconda, that is a direct perception, then to have it be a conceptual cognition coexisting with the perceptual cognition is kind of a problem. Because the other skandhas that coexist with the fifth skanda are of the same type.

[10:39]

So to have a fifth skanda that's a direct perception, we have the observation that the other skandhas will also be direct perceptions. So in a sense, the mental factors can be seen as cognitions, and we're now moving into the more psychological dimension, you can look at that chart of the seventy-five elements which is passed out. And on the seventy-five dharma chart you have, I think the first category on that chart is And so this chart, this chart is taken from the Abhidharma Kosha of Vasubandhu.

[12:09]

It had all those charts there. Here it is. It's under a blankness. So the first in this chart has seventy-five dharmas. The first seventy-two are what are called conditioned dharmas, and the first category is forms gandha, and that's the the sense organs of a living being and the sense data applying to those sense organs and an eleventh type of material which are called uncognizable or actually unmanifestable. And then the third element is citta or mind or vijnana.

[13:16]

And that's what we've been studying the first four meetings. Basic cognition. And that's the basic sense of the existence of something. That's the basic impression of the existence of something. So the body, our bodies live in a world in an interrelated way. When our organs interrelate with the world with sufficient intensity and there's a previous cognition of our body, having had a previous cognition, there arises a cognition of a sense or the impression of the existence of something. That's the basic cognition. And it can be two types, two basic types, and various types of two basic types. That's what we've been studying before. Now with these basic cognitions arise other what we'll call mental factors, which in a sense are cognitions.

[14:25]

However, they bear on the same object as the basic cognition does. So in terms of the five aggregates, the first aggregate doesn't have mental factors in it. However, the first aggregate interacting with itself things from the five sense realms interacting with the five senses. Interactions between these things, in conjunction with previous cognitions, give rise to cognition. So those, in any experience, there is this interaction between our bodies and the body of the world. We have a cognition. Bearing on the cognition is not in the body which senses it, but on that which the body is interacting with. At that same moment, there are other mental factors which arise with that basic cognition.

[15:35]

The second skanda is one of them. It's called, in Sanskrit, vedana, which is translated as feeling, Sensation could also be translated as experience. Sensation of experience, feeling. It's the most, in some sense, the most basic of the mental factors. And in a sense, it's a cognition because it also knows the object. But it knows the object in a different way. and the basic cognition knows the object. And so, as I mentioned that mental factors, I move into the third category on this chart, which has concomitant mental faculties. And for your information, Vasubandhu in his Abhidharma Kosha has ten things listed under general functions called mahabhumika.

[16:53]

Maha means great and bummika means ground. So the ground mental factors. And so he's saying in his text, he's saying that these ten mental factors arise with all basic cognitions. His brother, In his Abhidharma work, which is called Abhidharma Sammuchaya, his brother says that five of these are always present and five of the other ones are sometimes present. It's pretty much the same list, but his brother doesn't agree that all the things on this list are present, arising with every state of cognition. But they both agree Of course, if you look at the Buddha, you say they must agree because they both agree that the Vena, which is the 13th thing on this list, which is also the second Skanda, is always present for all practice purposes.

[18:00]

What? The vedana, or feeling, and the feeling in this case means a sensation called a pleasant sensation, a painful sensation, or a sensation which is neither. That sensation, that feeling, accompanies all states of consciousness. all states of conditioned consciousness. These are conditioned consciousnesses. And Vedana is also not only an element on the list but is a whole skanda. And the reason why it's a whole skanda is because it is so pivotal in the conditioning process. And then the next one, fourteen, is also a skanda.

[19:12]

And here the translation calls it conception or ideas. So we're chanting the Heart Sutra at perception when we chant the Heart Sutra. For a few years we switched to conception, then we switched back to perception. We're a little bit ambivalent here at Zen Center. For good reasons, but anyway. On this chart, it calls the second skandha kadiya, the third skandha, samnya. Etymologically, samnya, the nya means to know and sam means to gather. So it's a kind of gathering a bunch of examples together and you know things kind of categorically. So these two are very important in terms of our study of how we get in trouble and how karma works.

[20:20]

They get so much emphasis, they get to be a skanda of themselves. And for tonight, I want to draw your attention to the next one on the list, number 15. So 13 things on this list are the ones I want to draw your attention to. Now these are mental factors which arise together with all cognitions. Once again, we've been studying different types of cognitions. All those cognitions we didn't mention, but tonight we see these all those cognitions arose with mental factors and they all arose with these three. Both Vasubandhu and Anasanga would agree that these three arise with all all those cognitions from the wrong ones to the most valid. And the three are feelings, conception, and the next one is called volition or intention.

[21:26]

What are the other two things that asanga and vasubandha agree upon that arise at the moment? Asanga says, feeling, will. Asanga says, Sanskrit, cetana, samya, and cetana, will or intention. So feeling, conception, and intention, they both agree are present with all states. And Asanga also says that contact, which is number sixteen. So Vasubandhu says contact's always there, and Asanga agrees. And then Asanga has one more, and that is Manasikara, which Vasubandhu lists as number twenty.

[22:40]

So both of them would say that those five are present with all states. contact, will or intention, attention and intention, contact, feeling and conception. They both agree at the same time. And Vasubandhu adds five more, which his brother says, I'm not always present. But we don't have to get into that right now. Because we're just working with the first three. Actually, you could use the first four also. We could say that contact, just simple as contact means, is used for the way the body and the world touch in a very intense and lively way, that touch. And then the cognition touches, so it's as though the cognition is touching

[23:43]

the touching of the two. So it's like the touching between the cognition which is the way that they are touching. The way they're touching is touching each of them. That's the touching. So if there's always a conception And in the other scheme, it wasn't part of the idea that you have direct perception that's free of conception? Yeah, so, a little bit back into epistemology, okay? So, there's free of conception... it seems to me does not mean that there's no conception in the consciousness because I don't think that in direct perception we don't have five skandhas. Now someone could say, well, the third skanda is not conception, so you wouldn't have that problem.

[24:47]

But I think there's conception even in direct perception. It's just that the cognition, in this case the fifth skanda, the fifth aggregate, would not be knowing its object through the medium of the conception. The conception would be present, but it wouldn't be using that conception as a way to grasp the object. Does that make complete sense? Good working. I mean, it works. In conceptual cognition, you're mixing the image with the object in conception. So it's an indirect way of knowing the object. Like I'm knowing you in conceptual cognition correctly because you do exist, so it's not a wrong cognition, but my cognition is a little off because there's some mental projection there.

[25:53]

and everybody that looks at you through conceptual cognition has a different projection upon you. The projection, as I'll get into again some number of times tonight, the projection is related to past conditioning. So the conceptual cognitions are using images. The images that we use conceptually know each other. are conditioned by past karma. In direct perception, there's perceptions present, but they're not being mixed with the object. If they're mixed with the object, they're conceptual cognitions. in them being mixed. It's not mistaken in that this image does go with this person. That's maybe correct and works quite nicely. But to mix the two is mistaken. And that happens in conceptual cognitions.

[26:57]

But one's saying that in perceptual cognition there isn't the third skanda, which is concept. So there's still concept. So freedom from concept doesn't quite mean that there's no conception. It just means that conceptions don't get mixed with the cognition of the object. You don't look through a concept. So in conceptual cognition, in a way, the image is kind of like the organ. Or anyway, the image is kind of like the object. And there's confusion around that. And we'll get into epistemology now. Notice this is an epistemological discussion. Do you see the difference? It's not about action. It's not really psychological. It's more of a cognitive, it's more of a consideration of the nature of knowing. different ways of knowing in the most basic sense, not knowing the aspect of something, but the existence of it.

[28:07]

Yes? This may not be epistemological. You said, when you were discussing direct perception, that if you had enough concentration, you could experience Yes? What is the connection between intense concentration and the lack of confusion with the conception? We are having, we are having drug perceptions. Okay? And, but they're very fast. They're so fast that both both David Hume and Dignaga and Vasubandhu. Vasubandhu in the twenty verses, Dignaga in his works, and David Hume point out that even though these direct perceptions are forceful and lively, they may be so fast that we don't notice them.

[29:13]

But in states of great concentration, and maybe David Hume got that concentrated, An amazing young guy, he wrote this book when he was in his twenties. Like some young people, they get into these really desperate situations sometimes. Up there in the traffic control centers and in the middle of poker games, you know, backflips. They get so concentrated that they actually are almost tuned in to direct perception. They can actually know this very rapid sensory experience in states of high concentration. So then perception is... Pardon? Perception at that time is not in the way. Yeah, right. And it's not in the way to you also. You have direct perceptions just like great yogis do.

[30:14]

It's just that you're not like ticking them off one after another most of the time as far as I know. Yeah, like saying, blue, [...] but much faster than you can say it. Like, for example, most people, we could flash them a little blue, and then ask them if they saw it, and they would say, no, they did not. Like, not a 24th of a second of a flash, but a thousandth of a second flash of light. You can send light in little packages like that. you send it to most people, they would not know you sent it. If you send people a flash that lasts a twenty-fourth of an hour, then that would be a lot of flashes of blue. That would be many flashes of blue. Are you following me? I'm not seeing the relevance, but yes. You're not seeing the relevance? No. Oh, if I had some device which sent electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength to you,

[31:19]

in a band that's usually called blue, and if I gave you like 50,000 of them, you would probably notice that they're blue unless you have your eyes shut the whole time, or you're looking the other direction. You would probably see them. Because so many blues have so much force that you probably would eventually notice. Did you see any blue? You'd say, yeah. Or even if I said, did you see a color? You'd say, yeah, I saw blue. Would that be direct perception? Maybe not. And when I say shoot the light, the blue, at you, what I mean is shoot it at something so that it reflects off something into your eye. Now, that might not be direct perception if I put a concept onto it. That's right. If you put a concept on it, it would not be direct perception. What I'm saying to you is that if we send you this energy, this physical energy, bouncing it off certain surfaces into your eye, if we send it to you, we could tell actually that it did stimulate you, that you did actually, your chemistry, your eye did change in relationship to it.

[32:26]

And then we check with you, did you see it, and you say no. You know, you're being honest, and you say no, I didn't see any blue, I didn't see any color. Which is true, right? in a nice dark room where you're not seeing any color and send some electromagnetic radiation into the room, bounce it off something into your eye, check your eye to see that your eye did go beep, check the optic nerve and it did go zoop, check your brain and it does go beep, you and you say, I didn't see anything. That can happen to people and it does. a lot of the day. So you are having these direct perceptions, but you don't know. Now if we send, in a period of a second, if we would send a thousand of these radiations and bouncing off your eye, and then we would check and we'd get like, I don't know how many, but we'd get like hundreds of fire rings of your retina.

[33:31]

And your retina also has a lens on top of it, right, that's constantly moving in three different ways so that as the light comes in, it won't keep shining the light of the same part of the retina. It'll keep shining it to new sense organs. very rapidly. Are you following this? Because if you keep shining in the same spot, there's no time right away. You have to give it a rest. It has to go off and then it has to rest. And then after a rest period, you can stimulate it again. But if it's turned on and you shine the light on it again, it doesn't send any more information. You have to take a break and then come back and do it again. that can send lots of different stimulations into the body. And if there's enough of them, we do kind of like know it. And what we know it though, however, is that after a bunch of sensory organs, sensory stimulations, then we have a mental perception of this big sensory event that's been going on.

[34:45]

And if that's strong enough, we have a conceptual cognition, and then you know it. So most people, again, in a dark room where they don't see any color, if you would stimulate them this way, they would respond and not know it. And again, they could respond and not know it. And again, they could respond and not know it. This could happen quite a few times. But finally, after we get bombarded enough, a mental direct perception arises, and then a conceptual cognition arises. Then we go, oh, blue, or whatever. Dark perceptions are going on anyway during that whole time, but you don't know it. Now, if you were in a state of concentration of a sufficient strength in a dark room, as soon as they shot one little beep in there, you might get it. And you'd know it. However, you wouldn't say, it's blue. You would see the blue color without saying, that's blue. And you'd know you saw it.

[35:46]

If someone asked you, you could say, oh yeah, And you would answer by converting that thing into a conceptual cognition in response to their question, which is a cognition like, well, he's asking me if I saw blue. Well, actually, I did. But at the time, I was just seeing blue. I wasn't recognizing. I wasn't saying, oh, I'm seeing blue. And you could be quite sure, even. And so that's one of the things that can happen when you get really concentrated. Things like that. So that doesn't really have... That's different. By the way, you were not taught this is epistemology, which is okay, but this went back to epistemology. This is epistemological discussion rather than psychological. Okay? That is different than the conception of the object, and then that prevented direct reception. This is different from preventing direct perception.

[36:49]

What I'm describing is direct perception, and direct perception is different from preventing direct perception. That's right. But conceptual cognition doesn't prevent direct perception. It's just a different type of cognition. You don't have to say it prevents direct perception. It's just a different type of cognition, which is mistaken in the sense that... Is that, like, really clear to everybody? I mean, it could have been completely clear, or it could have been, like, totally unclear. I never know. Yes?

[37:54]

Say again? Freedom from concepts, direct perception. You were saying that freedom from concepts isn't that we don't have concepts because they exist in each moment. But the free are not mixed up with the object. And I was wondering if it was karmically, is it karmically more conducive to liberation to be free from the concepts? In the final, in the final liberation, whatever, what do you want liberation from? I'm sorry? In the final phases of it, direct perception is operating. But conceptual cognition can also set us free, just to a great extent, from

[38:56]

So it's not like one is better than the other, really. They're just how they function and seeing how they function. Well, one is more final, but the other is necessary. They work together. Yeah. So let's see, I have... That's epistemological. Epistemological is to point out that there are different types of cognition that are necessary in the process of liberation. How you manage to get either one of those types of valid cognition, the epistemological discussion about how we happen to be able to have such wonderful forms of liberating knowing But you were just discussing, are these different ways of knowing more or less relevant to the process of liberation? And I would say that that discussion is relevant, plus the response that they're both relevant is also part of the discussion of epistemology.

[40:08]

In the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra, we have this definition of cognition only. Vijñapti matra. Vijñapti sometimes is translated as concept or it could be translated as, sometimes it's translated as cognition. Sometimes they translate it as mental construction or conscious construction, or you can translate it as projection. And matra means only. So today I remember we suggested, the sutra doesn't say this exactly, but that this represents the cognitive entrapment of sentient beings.

[41:23]

In other words, what we know is that we're kind of entrapped by a cognition. that cognition works in such a way that it looks like a world. So the way we work with the world is in some sense called cognition. And the way cognition works is to entrap us in the way we're working with the world. So we actually are working with the world living beings are, and then cognition arises. That doesn't sound entrapping, but as cognition arises, it then gives rise to processes which cause us to be entrapped in the cognitive processes which arise from our interaction with the world.

[42:42]

We see and understand our interaction with the world through the cognitive way that we interact, which is really the way we do interact. But the cognitive way is at the same time limiting the whole picture of the way we interact with the world. So we have the arising of cognition. And cognitions arise with these, and there's various words for cognition. One of them is citta. And again, this is synonymous with consciousness and mind.

[43:44]

And then these cognitions arise with what are called chaitasikas, which are related to the word citta, which mean mental factors which arise with mind. Under that heading we have, which we just talked about tonight, we have vedana, we have feeling, we have conception, and we have intention, and we have contact. and we have a tension.

[44:53]

We have those arising. Now, the thing I want to draw your attention to, the thing I want to draw your attention to is the one called intention, which is the word chaitanya, which is also related to citta. So there's citta-cittasica, and we have this very important mental factor called intention. And this mental factor is what Buddha uses to explain what he means by karma. which is a type of activity, the type of behavior which is part of the entrapment process, which is a source of suffering, is basically cognitive because it's defined as a mental factor.

[46:26]

It's cognitive, it means intention. So all types of behavior, mentally, vocally and physically, that involve, which are cognitive, and in particular which have intention or are intentional or willful, they are basically karmic, they are karmic activity or they are moral or evolutionary activity. So, let's see, we have cognition, leading then to karma. I don't know which... So this is karma here, right? Cognition going to karma.

[47:33]

And then karma does this little thing called creating a world. So each of us has, each of us in our entire past and all other beings are cognitive beings who have intentions. And in all of our activity, all of our intentions have created a so-called triple world. Well, because there's three parts. There's the realm of where things appear in kind of gross form like arms and legs and rivers. There's a more subtle world where things appear like as shapes and smells and so on, but not in such kind of gross, compounded way. And there's another world where things are formless, where they're just mental factors.

[48:38]

So it includes all kinds of worlds that yogis get into also. And then from the triple world, we get this thing called suffering. The suffering of impermanent risings and ceasings. And then because of cognition and intention and karma, we create a world which is also impermanent, and we experience it as old age sickness and death. And then that becomes a condition for further cognitions, and that's the cycle. So this cognition, this cognition is, you can see, is driven, you can say it's driven You can say it's driven by the world, but the place that we often choose to emphasize is that it's driven by karma or driven by intention, which is kind of the pattern, you know, or the apparent direction of the mind in a given moment.

[50:09]

So cognition is driven by the karma, the world and its sufferings, but also it expresses karma, the world. It expresses karma, it expresses intention. So our cognitions are driven by intention and express intention. So karma drives our cognitions and our cognitions express more intentions which drive our cognitions. this intention-driven, karma-driven cycle, which is basically a cycle of cognition, which is called the world of suffering, or the world in which we suffer. Or cognition, which partakes of a world in an intentional, karmic way, which is suffering. So what?

[51:16]

Yes. I have a question. I just wondered how is this 12-hole chain of causation where karma comes from ignorance? It seems like it's related. Ignorance goes right in here. This is a 12-hole chain of causation. Put ignorance right there. comes in the 12-fold chain, comes after the mass of suffering. Old age, sickness, lamentation, the mass, the whole mass of suffering is the 12th length. Then that goes to ignorance. Ignorance. An ignorant cognition, which leads then to karmic formations. And then the next thing that I have on there is consciousness. But it's a consciousness that's coming which is now driven by this karmic formation.

[52:23]

So you can put consciousness in here if you want to. And then you have, after that, you have, what do you have, name and form, mind. So now, then you break down the consciousness, which is into basically the five skandhas. However, this is five skandhas which are conditioned by this process. Got all this world and suffering and ignorance and karma behind it. Okay? So then you have contact. Between those elements, what? Name it from six sense fields, then contact, and then you have feeling. Now feeling is, again, it's important because this is a big one here. This is the first place that the conditioning process usually is specified to take place.

[53:26]

Feeling could also be described as the way a cognition experiences the maturing of karma. And the way we experience the maturing of karma, when you have a feeling, you're actually having a little moment of karma maturing. Maturing, yeah, or ripening. One of the ways karma brightens is in every moment as a feeling, as a way of feeling about what's happening. You see a green color, you feel a certain way about it. The way you feel about that color is a maturing of past action. The past action arises. The past action was conditioned or was the way we responded to past feelings.

[54:31]

So the feelings are the maturing of past ways related to feelings. So the way that we mess with feelings conditions the feelings so that when they arise again we're predisposed to mess with them again. So we're driven by this, which is a version of the way we condition past sensation. And I think it's, as I mentioned before, it's slightly more subtle how you condition your feelings than to notice your intentions around your feelings. But they're closely related, pretty much the same thing. So the way you want to avoid or hold on to a sensation is very similar to your intentions.

[55:40]

Your intentions are slightly grosser. Like, for example, if you want to get something, it's slightly different than noticing that you have this, what do you call it, this kind of, and then because of this attachment to it, there's an impulse to go towards it. And sometimes you don't notice the conditioning, but you do notice the impulse to go towards it. So I want to say also that the point of this, this is a picture of cognitive entrapment, of how we're in some sense enclosed by our cognitions. The point of telling you this is not to sort of make a case that this is the truth or something, but the hope is that by understanding this entrapment, we will be able to basically

[56:43]

open it up and even erase it. Because the whole thing is not really anything in addition to anything. It's not really an entrapment. But it gets to be an entrapment, a pervasive entrapment called, you know, cyclic existence. And by understanding this, the whole thing can be erased because it's all just mixed up with imagination and mental construction. However, it doesn't say that this process doesn't happen, that there isn't cognition. It's just saying that our sense of the world is cognition. It's not that there's no world, it's just that we mistake the world for our cognition of it and in particular for our conceptual cognition of it, our projections upon it.

[57:55]

And again our projections are driven by our past ways of relating to the maturing of our past ways of relating. And again I want to also say for now and for the future that the Buddha doesn't teach that all of our experience is due to karma. There's many other factors than our past experience which determine our experience. For example, springtime, which we're having now, is not our past experience, and yet is contributing to our present experience. is just that springtime is not the point of emphasis in the practice, usually. But the practice isn't saying that our life is just our psychological response to the world.

[58:59]

It isn't saying that the practice is just... it's not saying that the practice is just our cognition of the world. and understanding that, plus understanding the psychological process that arises with our cognitions. It's not saying that that's all that determines what's happening. That's the whole story of the world. This is more the story of our problem. The 12-fold chain of causation is not the whole story of the universe. The 12-fold chain of causation is the story of suffering and bondage in cyclic existence. And then we can actually understand how we're actually living together with spring and summer and so on. That's part of our experience. But we're actually like entrapped in springtime, in our version of springtime. And not just our version of springtime, but our habit of intention-driven, karma-entrapped way of being in spring.

[60:07]

But spring is still contributing to our life. And everybody else is contributing to life, and our body is contributing to our life. Lots of stuff is going on. So in discussion of this process, we're just saying that karma counts for everything, and it doesn't. It's just that it's the story of our entrapment. It's the story of our prison. Yeah. Yes. which you started out saying that it represents the cognitive entrapment of sentient beings. Yes. But it seems like, at least in some things, consciousness is written about in a way where it isn't only the cognitive trap, where it includes the rest of the experience that we're talking about, the rest of the relationship.

[61:11]

So I just wonder which... How does it include the rest of the relationship? So it doesn't sound like . So I just wanted is to understand there's something not karmic that's outside of the karmic condition. Could you hear what she's saying? Would you say it back in that direction maybe a little bit? Well, the question is whether the karmic entrapment picture, which I think is very clear, whether that would be equating it with the cognition only teaching as an image of that entrapment, but outside of the entrapment, but still part of the consciousness only understand of our condition.

[62:28]

Is that what I wanted to say? I don't know. Was that better or not? I don't know. So Bernard liked the first one better. Yeah, but Sarah, did you hear the second one? Yeah, okay. So Sarah can't judge, but when I heard Bolton, I thought Crystal was better. It's fine, but could you ask Crystal? Well, we tell, Vasubandhu and whoever wrote the Samadhi Ramamurtana Sutra and his brother tell the stories, these stories of karmic entrapment. And it's not exactly that there's something else in the entrapment, but rather that when you're not entrapped, and the teaching which helps you not be entrapped, and the teaching that helps you not be entrapped almost seems like the entire world which you

[63:40]

So you can say that the teaching which frees you from living inside of your cognitive processes, that that teaching is itself your cosmic relationship. Because the teaching, when you understand it, is also understanding the unentrapped way of being in the universe. that understanding, that untrapped understanding, of consciousness only. Say it again. Once the understanding is not trapped in the current... It's not so much that the understanding is not trapped, but you understand entrapment. And as a result of understanding entrapment, you are liberated from entrapment, including that you have an understanding that's not entrapped.

[64:42]

Is your understanding still that your understanding and within your understanding is consciousness only? Consciousness only applies to the teaching of consciousness only, right? So that understanding still continues. Yeah, otherwise people would criticize this teaching. In that sense this teaching is a little bit of a problem because you could become entrapped in the teaching which is teaching you about entrapment with the intention of telling you this is all just mind encirclement. But at the same time that teaching, when you understand it, is supposed to erase the teaching. of concept only or cognition only. You're supposed to erase that teaching. And then that teaching is telling you how to erase the teaching.

[65:44]

Teaching tells you, use this teaching in your usual enclosed way to understand it and then use this teaching to erase the teaching. But that doesn't mean it's just that there's no inside or outside anymore. However, there's something funny that goes on here because we're just poor little living beings interacting with the world and that interaction is this thing, this thing happens called cognition. And it's just part of the deal of living beings interacting with the universe dash cognition. Cognition is our way. And then with cognition comes feeling and comes in a beginningless way, which is the maturing of past karma. But where did this start? Well, it's a circle. And then how does it end?

[66:49]

Well, by understanding this process. But that's not an end like, you know, it's more like being free of endings. It's kind of, to some extent what this is about, it's about being free of endings. it's being free of impermanence and the suffering of impermanence through doing the work of studying the suffering of impermanence. Yes? If you have good karma, what? You have good karma and then what?

[67:51]

Right. That's right. That's right. That's right. But you shortened the process a little bit there. You made it kind of short. You missed the part about good karma. You had good karma, no suffering. But between the good karma and the no suffering is the erasure, is erasing good karma. No more good karma, no more bad karma. Understanding that, you know, when you're first doing good karma, you're in the circle of good and bad karma. Good karma is in this circle. You can do good karma and still keep going around here. But if you keep doing good karma, keep doing good karma, keep doing good karma, then this whole thing gets erased.

[68:55]

Even the part about do good karma and suffering, there's no good karma and suffering anymore. There's just us being together in the universe in harmony. There's no more good karma. And there really isn't. I mean, you can't ever find the good karma or the bad karma. But doing good karma helps you understand that you can't find good karma. If you do bad karma, keep thinking that you can find bad karma. And that even then it's good to do bad karma. And you can find the good from doing bad karma. Or anyway... you really think you can get this good and bad karma. And that keeps you in this cycle. But if you do good karma enough, you can erase, you can eliminate karma, which means eliminate good karma too. As long as there's good karma, there's suffering. As long as there's good karma,

[70:00]

Now it's true that do good karma and there will be the end of suffering. But there won't be the end of suffering while there's still karma. Okay, it goes, ignorance. I is for ignorance. Hey is for ignorance. V is for consciousness, name and form, for name and form, six sense fields, six sense doors, contact, feeling, suffering. As long as there's karma, there's going to be suffering and more ignorance and karma. Huh? Even good karma. Just good. G is for good. B is for bad. Okay? As long as there's karma, we're still in the process. In good karma, one of the nice things about good karma is you can study this process.

[71:05]

If you don't do good karma, you can't study this process very well. I mean, you wouldn't be able to study this process at all if you didn't do some good karma. If you do lots of good karma, you can study the process. Karma is connected to suffering. Even good karma is connected to suffering. But if you practice good karma a long time, you can erase karma. Or rather, practicing good karma, practicing good karma, practicing good karma, you start to study karma. The more you practice good karma, the more you study karma. Because practicing good karma means you have to pay attention to karma. You can't do good karma without any attention to karma. You can, however, do bad karma without attention to karma. Right? You understand that? It's easy to do bad karma without any attention. But the more you do good karma, the more you pay attention to good karma, the more you study karma, the more you study karma, the more you understand good karma, bad karma.

[72:09]

But the more you understand karma, the closer you get to... erasing karma. If you erase karma, you erase suffering. Yeah, but you can't drop off everything if you don't practice good karma. Because you can't drop off everything unless you're paying attention to everything. And you can't pay attention to everything if you don't particularly pay attention to karma. That's the driving force of the cognitions. Karma is like driving you to what you think about the world. And then what you think about the world projects more karma. So you're driven by karma, you're driven by intention to have cognitions of a certain type. Because of having cognitions of a certain type, you have intentions of a certain type. You're driven by this process. The more you study this process, the better. And the more you do good intentions, the better you are studying this process.

[73:11]

The more skillful you are at cutting vegetables, the more you start Karma. Intention. Suffering. Karma. Suffering. Karma. Suffering. Karma. The more you see that, the closer you get for the karma to be erased. We don't erase the suffering. We don't erase the world. We erase the karma. You don't intend the world. You intend the world, but that's not the world you get. But your intention is your karma. Studying your intention is necessary for good intention. Good intention helps you study intention more. And the intention gets better and better. Finally, you have the opportunity to drop the intention. So we have to do good karma. In order to do good karma, you have to study the process.

[74:12]

You can do good karma, but when you're really good at karma, you also understand its consequences That's part of being skillful at it. You actually need to be an expert at it, not just good karma, but you need to write sutras about it and stuff like that. About your own karma, right? Yeah, and also about your karma, too. But for you telling me and me writing sutras, you have to tell me. Did you sign a waiver for me to write a book about your karma? We sent you a little thing about that. Anyway, you study your karma, you study other people's karma, and you do that work, which is very, it's good karma. The more you do it, Closer you get to eliminating it, but again, we should not think that because this is what we're studying, that this is all that there is. There's a lot more to making our life than that. And this isn't all that makes our experience of suffering.

[75:19]

It's just suffering. It's the part of the causation of suffering that by study undermines the suffering. And the other part of it If you don't do this part, if you study the other part, it doesn't seem to be sufficient. If you just study meteorology or astrology, studying those things without studying karma does not end the linchpin of the intention. If you study the intention, it liberates you from the suffering which is not just due to this, but it just disturbs the whole system. And then you get to realize how which is not just by your intention. It's our bondage that happens by our intention. Stephen, and then Sarah, and Laurie, and Jane. Study your intention.

[76:24]

Study intention. Yeah, what you want. Like, you know, for example, study whether you're doing something to acquire pleasure. Notice that. If you can't notice that, just notice the intention. I want to go to the ice cream store. you might not be able to notice that you're actually trying to create a positive sensation or hold on to one. Or even that you have the thought of how pleasant it would be to go to the ice cream store or go to the refrigerator store. It's the thought of the pleasure of the thought and that you're actually trying to hold on to that thought and augment that thought, that imagination of pleasure and the feeling that comes with that. That would be even more to the point conditioned by that. But if you start noticing your attention, you start to notice your conditioning process.

[77:26]

The more you are aware of our conditioning process, the more we notice how many opportunities there are, actually, so many opportunities to notice the conditioning process. In other words, our addictions, to notice that. And so tuning into our habits, our conditioning habits, our addictions, is there, plus noticing the intentions, which are pretty much the same thing, our intentions and our conditionings. And the fourth skanda is called the samskara skanda, which means the skanda of the conditioned things, the made things. And the three main factors in that skanda are feelings, conceptions, and intentions. But all those factors in there are conditioned factors. So karma is kind of the door to understanding this process.

[78:27]

And you can notice your intentions. So when you notice an intention, is there some kind of thing about avoiding pain? holding on to or augmenting or initiating pleasure? If there is, do you want to act from there? Maybe, yeah. Okay, watch how that goes. Or maybe, like, try to find some other way to relate to that thing. Some other intention, maybe, that would come from noticing the intention to augment, hold on to pleasure. And again, notice, another way to study it is to notice the teaching, beware the teaching, that your pleasant sensations are the result of past conditionings around those. And some people think of doing something like going to the ice cream store. At the time they think of it, they do not feel pleasure. They don't even feel pleasure at the idea of going.

[79:28]

Some people think of the ice cream store and feel pleasure at the thought of it. there's various possibilities. All of these are opportunities to notice this conditioning, this messing with, messing with our karma, actually, rather than just like, let your karma mature. Let your karma mature. Let your karma mature. Pain, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, pain, neutral pain. Rather than just observe your karma maturing, we mess with it and create then intentions and more karma and more maturing. Now, we're not trying to end the the sensation process, but rather learn a new way to relate to it. So noticing that we're still caught in the old way is good, and having some opportunities to have a new way is good, too. So both of those. To just observe the feelings gone down as it arises, as much as you can. And you're not going to get all the moments of arising, but you can get a lot of them.

[80:30]

and then notice if there's messing with it, and then notice how that's conditioned by past ways of messing with it. How do you notice that? Well, sometimes you can feel the force of it. That's one way you feel the force of it. And also you can remember that you did it before sometimes. And the more you have a chance to maybe actually, someday, actually verify that. Now you're just kind of like trying it out as a teaching. So somebody might say, if you do, this is called maybe correct belief. Raise your hand. Sarah? Sarah? Is it theoretical or what?

[81:45]

You can be human, but you wouldn't be a sentient being anymore. You'd be a Buddha. Buddhas can be human beings too, but So you can be a human, but you're not a sentient being. Sentient beings are those who are entrapped in their cognitions. When you're not entrapped by your cognitions anymore, you have a new type of cognition, which is not this type. It's not this vijñapti-matrata. It's a type which understands vijñapti-matrata, which has realized it. It is not limited anymore by cognition. And that such a being could now teach beings who are entrapped, give them this teaching without being entrapped by the teaching or the situation that it's tipping people off to. So we're talking about, yeah, we're saying that Buddha, Buddha-hood is the project and realizing that Buddha-hood is to be free of our cognitive entrapment.

[82:47]

When you're free of cognitive entrapment, you don't think you're Buddha That's cognitive entrapment language. You realize Buddha. I mean, there is realization of Buddha. So in that time, such a realization is not the intention of a sentient being. It's a cognition about Buddha. Or it's Buddha's cognition. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. Yes? It seems like one thing you're saying is that good karma leads to good karma. Good sensation doesn't lead to good action and bad. Good sensation doesn't lead to good sensation. Good sensation, by the way, is interesting. I thought that was interesting. Good sensation is what we call vipaka pala. which means it's a retributive fruit. It's also called karma vipaka. It's a maturation of karma.

[83:48]

Feeling is not karma. Feeling is not... It's an activity, but it's not an intentional action. But it's a result. It's a result, yeah. But it seems to drift toward bad. In other words... We drift towards bad? Yeah, part of what you're saying is that you get good, get sort of on a good cycle and it makes it easier to see the whole thing. Yeah, that's the idea. But you need intention to get onto the good. So we sort of have a penchant. We have a habit to be habitual. There is force of habit. It's a powerful force. Yes. And for some reason, for various reasons, teachings are coming to beings who are habit-oriented and habit-entrapped. Teachings are coming to these beings to tip them off about habitual patterns and addictions.

[84:51]

And tipping this off seems to be disturbing the habit But the people who are entrapped are not in charge of giving themselves information which is about the situation. We're just habitual about the habitual pattern. And yet we do live in a world where in some ways the fact that not everything is karmic is part of the reason why something which isn't just our karma can get through to us. So we can receive instructions which tip us off to the fact that we're in prison. And we have. That's contravening in tendencies towards deeper and deeper ruts and then deeper and deeper suffering and more and more difficulty about doing good karma. There's contravailing forces in the universe of awakening getting through to us to some extent.

[85:59]

And so in that sense we're evolving positively. So there's a force of habit which is drawing us down, down, down, deeper into its vortex. And there's teachings of the Buddha coming to try to lift us into higher and higher awareness of being drawn deeper down. And there is kind of a stress. That's why we sometimes scare ourselves by reminding ourselves that our habits get stronger and stronger as we get older. If you watch older people, they don't generally get less afraid and more flexible and more new things. They tend to get more habitual. That's why we should practice as though our hair were on fire, because we need strong practice to confront keep us open to receiving teachings as we get older we need to keep questioning our practice questioning our conduct questioning our karma looking to see what it is and somehow that's and that has to be like somehow not habitual way

[87:19]

And that's partly what good karma is. Good karma is partly like, please give me feedback on my karma. I'm trying to do good karma. If you don't see that it's good karma, please ask me about it. And if you want me to ask you about yours, I can maybe do that too. It's past nine o'clock. I'm sorry that some people had their hand raised and we didn't get to you. We have one more scheduled class and we will meditate on the following concept which is also a possibility in the real world and that is having an additional class where the ultimate truth will be revealed. So think about whether you want to have an additional class for free. One more meeting at this one?

[88:25]

One more. No, there's one more scheduled next week. But after the class is over, since you made such a great effort of going through this difficult class, I've been asked by the Buddhas and Ancestors to give you a class for free. Oh. if you want to come. So next week, would you tell me how many people would like to come on Memorial Day night? If a lot of you do, I'll have another class where finally you'll understand everything. Because you're getting really close, I can tell you. So that would be the next Monday, Memorial Day, not this Monday? Two weeks from now? Yeah. Monday. Memorial Day is a Monday, right? Yes. Memorial Day, yeah. Yeah. And on Memorial Day, we will potentially have a... If you think about it ahead of time, next week, tell me about the additional class. But according to the schedule of events, next week is supposed to be the last one, not supposed to be.

[89:32]

But I don't think we're off the mind from having another class. Oh, yeah. So I think we can have another class if you want to. So let me know, okay?

[89:44]

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