Still working? Yes. I've been talking about the hundred dharmas as outlined in the Yogacara School of Buddhism as propounded by the great teacher Vasubandhu. I'm going to continue today. So this understanding of dharmas is very complex and yet somewhat simple. I'm trying to present it in as simple a way as I can. what these 100 dharmas apply to is the arising of consciousness and how consciousness works in our life.

[01:16]

So when consciousness arises, it divides into two parts, the subjective side and the objective side. So originally consciousness is one, but discrimination, when we say the arising of consciousness, it means the arising of discriminating consciousness. which divides into subjective and objective. So we think of the subjective as our self, and the objective as the world around us. So my self lives in a world of objects. This is called our delusion. But The way we understand it is either in an enlightened way or a deluded way.

[02:28]

So Vasubandhu is trying to help us understand the enlightened way to observe the self and the dharmas. He says that The idea of a self and the idea of dharmas or things doesn't necessarily imply a real self or real dharmas, real things. It's simply a designation that we have applied according to our discriminating consciousness. So what we call a self is that which grasps. And what the self grasps is dharmas.

[03:36]

So the 100 dharmas are physical and psychological constituents of our existence, of our human existence. So the first eight dharmas are the dharmas of the mind. The first eight consciousnesses, they're called consciousnesses. There's eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, and body consciousness. And then there is the sixth consciousness, which is mind consciousness, discriminating consciousness, and manas, which is self-consciousness, or the identified ego.

[04:45]

Buddhists have identified the ego. It's called self-consciousness, the eighth consciousness, and what its place is in the hierarchy of consciousnesses. And then there's the eighth consciousness, or the alaya, which is the storehouse consciousness of all of our thoughts and deeds, which contains the seeds which keep recreating our karmic life. And then, of course, there's the ninth consciousness, mahala consciousness, which is pure consciousness. which is not subject to division, or is actually the basic consciousness which is not affected by anything.

[05:48]

So then there are the dharmas which are interactive with the mind, which I've talked about. and there are wholesome states of consciousness and unwholesome states of consciousness. And the wholesome states of consciousness are non-egoic. I call them ego relaxants. I've talked about these before. Faith, figure, shame, remorse, absence of greed, absence of anger, absence of stupidity, light ease, non-laxness, renunciation, and non-harming.

[06:53]

These are the wholesome dharmas, and there are only 11 of them. but there are 40 of the unwholesome dharmas, many more unwholesome dharmas. But these are simply the categorized dharmas. There are many, many more dharmas, of course, but these are the ones that are manageable and all the rest derive from them. So this is how this school describes and works with these dharmas to describe the functioning of consciousness. So I talked about greed, anger, stupidity, arrogance, doubt and improper views. And these are the first six of the unwholesome dharmas.

[08:04]

And I also talked about lack of shame, lack of remorse, lack of faith, laziness, laxness, torpor, restlessness, distraction, improper knowledge, and scatteredness as unwholesome dharmas. The thing about unwholesome dharmas is they're called the grasped. what they do, their effect is to entangle us or stop the free flow of consciousness. Suzuki Roshi, one of his constant phrases was, don't get caught by anything. Don't be caught by anything. That's what we say all the time. Meaning, don't grasp onto any unwholesome dharmas or wholesome dharmas. When something comes up, to recognize it and see what its effect is, feel its effect, and then let go of it.

[09:19]

Or if possible, one has to become aware, one has to feel something and then you can decide what to do with it. So today I'm going to talk about the 20, I'm sorry, the 10 minor grade afflictions. The major great afflictions are greed, anger. These are the fundamentals. Greed, anger, stupidity is also called delusion. Arrogance, which is conceit. Doubt and improper views. And these next 10 derive from those. subcategories, like from anger, there are three subcategories. So I'm going to talk about these ten today. The first three actually are wrath, hatred, and rage,

[10:29]

the aspects of anger. So what is wrath? Wrath is impulsive, seems to be impulsive, and a combination of anger and hatred. Anger is at the base and hatred is the expansion of it. So it's a kind of exaggerated feeling. In Tibetan Buddhism they have their wrathful deities and they're very vengeful. It seems like wrath has a kind of vengeful quality to it. It's unbridled, in a way, enmity, unbridled enmity.

[11:47]

The problem with wrath, hatred, and rage, well, let's just go through these. Hatred is more like repressed anger. expressed yet. So it's simply the grinding and the mulling over before expression. And a rage is explosive. It's kind of when anger gets out of hand. So these are all are aspects of venting, except for the anger. Venting makes us, is a release. When someone insults us or we feel some, whether we're wronged, then we want to be right.

[13:03]

So what these stand on is righteousness. Someone has made me wrong or done something wrong, and I want to make it right. But there's only one way to do it, and that is through rage or expressing in this way. So, it's very difficult. These emotions are, these dharmas, emotional dharmas are very difficult to deal with. Because we do feel righteous. Someone insulted me. I was reading through a catalog of my old art teacher, a catalog of an exhibition that he had, and lo and behold, I was mentioned in the catalog.

[14:22]

This was 1992. I had stopped painting in 1964. And it was insulting, terribly insulting to me. And I was in a rage. I was enraged, actually. I can tell you from personal experience. And I felt wrathful. I didn't feel hatred. There was no hatred there, but I felt wronged and frustrated. And so my reaction was, I'm going to write this personal letter. But what am I going to say? Well, what I wanted to say, I can't say here. I've thought of all the most clever retaliatory remarks, you know, to make.

[15:33]

And then I thought, I can't really do this, you know, I could do this. But, so I had to think about, and I'm still thinking about it. So what I think, what I'm going to do is I'm going to write the most retaliatory letter that comes to mind, you know, and really have fun with it. And then I'm going to edit it and say something that doesn't bind me to my own anger. I don't know how to do that yet, but I have to do that. So that's an interesting project. how to, because rage and wrath and hatred, these are all called binders. As soon as we get into that state of mind, we're bound, we're restricted.

[16:37]

So how do we find our freedom in those states of mind? And also these states of mind can become very addictive. As I said before, it's easy to take the angry way out. We have some choice. What kind of choices do we have? I think it's important to realize that these are ego builders. All of these dharmas are ego builders. They create a sense of self. Anger is the biggest one. Well, it's the second biggest one. Anyway, anger is very big as an ego builder and a self builder.

[17:58]

So how to address the situation without creating a sense of self or an ego or a sense of self-righteousness and address the situation according to what's really important and necessary. To ignore is okay in some cases. There's also the idea that patience means, the meaning of patience is not reacting to insult. So how does one address the situation without reacting to insult? So this is called the realm of practice.

[19:03]

how to address the situation without creating, building an ego and creating a self and speaking from the heart of wisdom to address the situation without ignoring it. And so the fourth Dharma here is called covering. Covering is like concealing your feelings. We have a lot of feelings, but we don't express them. We don't let them be known. This is a big one. We don't know what goes on in everybody's mind or in everybody's feelings but as we begin to know people we kind of sense what's going on and then we get clues as to what's going on.

[20:11]

So how can we be free enough to express ourselves? How do we find that freedom? If I don't conceal my feelings, people will think that I'm ill of me because my feelings are so bad. That's a big one. But there is a way of expressing feelings and we don't have to act out feelings necessarily, but often we keep something hidden, and the more we keep it hidden, the worse we think it is.

[21:15]

Whereas if we actually say something about it, we realize that it doesn't really amount to so much necessarily. So to express ourself, I noticed that the people that I trust the most are the people who are always expressing their feelings kind of like little kids. And they would say something that maybe I wouldn't say, but I really love them and appreciate them for them actually doing that. And because of their honesty, I feel closer to them, despite what it is that they're revealing. So when we keep stuff in too much, as we all know, it creates little demons inside of us. So I think it's good to,

[22:18]

say what's inside, to bring out what's inside. We all know this. It creates bad psychological states to keep things hidden. And then there's deceit. Deceit, we know we don't like that. It's when you betray people. And we think that someone's doing something and they're doing the opposite. It's a little like hypocrisy, but it's different. It's a kind of betrayal. So this is also a a kind of ego binder, ego builder, because it's self-serving.

[23:26]

Deceit is always self-serving. Like you're in charge of the treasury, and you start using it for your own benefit. That's deceitful. So using something for your own benefit that belongs to everyone is deceitful. So then there's a sixth one is flattery. Flattery is to make people feel like they're somebody in order to gain favor.

[24:35]

That's a big ego builder. you don't feel, you feel that you want something. And so it's a kind of false, it's a kind of deception in order to curry favor. And then the seventh one is conceit. Conceit is an inflated opinion of ourself. Oh, I know all about that. In order to raise yourself up, you feel that you know more than others. Conceit is one of the biggest ego builders. The need to feel superior. So it's a kind of insecurity, actually, conceit.

[25:40]

Conceit reveals a kind of insecurity and conceals a kind of insecurity. The need to have position or to be looked upon as somebody when you haven't really deserved it. And then there's harming. Harming is to hurt somebody, hurt people. To express your own hurt, maybe. People that are beaten beat other people. We keep perpetuating violence. by harming others.

[26:46]

And the cycle just goes on and on. So ahimsa, himsa is harming, ahimsa is non-harming. So harming people is a kind of big self-builder. I've never been able to understand the mentality or the psychology of people who like to torture others. It's so cowardly. You have someone at a disadvantage and then you torture them. Torture goes on all the time, not just in dungeons, it goes on in families. And we see somebody's weak point and then we kind of dig at it, you know, and it gives us a kind of secret delight to watch them squirm. Totally unwholesome dharma.

[27:54]

I don't know what it does. I can't imagine what it does to somebody or how, because I can't imagine having the satisfaction of doing that. I've never experienced that, so I don't know so much about it except that it is very repulsive. And then there's jealousy. Jealousy is the feeling that someone has taken the place that I should be in. Someone has, yeah, taken my place. Someone has taken my boyfriend where I should be there. Or someone has so much money and I should have that money. Why don't I have what they have?

[29:02]

So jealousy and envy kind of go together. They're a little different. Envy is when you wish you had what someone else had. And jealousy is someone has taken what I have or what I want. So jealousy and anger are really two of the biggest ego builders, graspers. Because jealousy is totally grasping and causes so much suffering. So all of these unwholesome dharmas are creating a sense of self. reinforcing ego and causing suffering. That's the problem. They're all, every one of them is a cause of suffering.

[30:11]

And then the tenth one is stinginess. Stinginess is a aspect of greed, a kind of holding on and protecting the self from disintegration. You know, hang on to something as if you owned it. But in actual fact, we don't own anything. There is a sense of temporal ownership. As Suzuki Roshi used to say, these aren't really my glasses, but I appreciate your letting me use them and not taking them away from me. And Akin Roshi said, Although this typewriter doesn't belong to me, it's in my care and I want to use it and please don't take it.

[31:15]

There was a, in San Francisco recently, there was a movement by dog owners. to declare that they're no such thing as dog owners. They're only dog caretakers or dog guardians, which I totally agree with. No one owns any animal. That's slavery. Dogs are not our slaves. They're simply our companions. So you can take my dog if you want, but my dog will come running home to me. So stinginess, you know, is avarice. hanging on to the self, you know, as if, hanging on to material things as if they were the self.

[32:31]

So, all of these are at bottom aspects of insecurity. One who has true security doesn't need to hold on to any of these dharmas. But because of our insecurity, you know, I often think about the greed that goes on in the world, the banking interests, you know, and the corporate build-up, and the people who need all this power and wealth. Why is that necessary? It's simply insecurity. trying to create some kind of security by reinforcing the fact that you'll never be poor.

[33:54]

You need so much power and so much wealth in order to feel secure, but you can never feel secure that way. So what is real security? being able to do with nothing, realizing that there's nothing to depend on. So we tend to think that real security is holding on to something, grasping something. And all these dharmas are attempts to find our security through grasping. But real security can only come about through letting go. The more we let go, the more secure we are and feel.

[34:57]

The less we own, the less we depend on. And then we find, well, what do I depend on? This is Zen practice. What do we really depend on? At the bottom of it, what's the bottom line? And the bottom line is there's no place to stand. So when we look at consciousness, consciousness is not something fixed, but simply a process. Our life is a process. And the joy of life is in following the process, giving freedom to the process. The only way we can enjoy the process and give freedom to the process is to let go of any kind of fixed idea about ourself.

[36:05]

This is called flowing. So we say the five skandhas in their own being are empty. Every day we chant this heart sutra. Five skandhas in their own being are empty. So the five skandhas are the skandha of form, the skandha of feelings, skandha of perceptions, the skandha of karmic, it's the karma skanda. It's called formations, mental formations, consciousness formations, dharmas. That's the fourth skanda. Then there's the skanda of consciousness. And these are called five streams. these five streams are flowing together.

[37:16]

And that's what we call our self. Myself is these five streams flowing together. There's nothing fixed as a self. So how we harmonize these five streams and let them flow and flow with them There's no way to identify a self other than that. So when we try to identify it, when we try to fix it, that's called creating a self or an ego. So we have to have a sense of self, a sense of ego, but without grasping.

[38:18]

Do you have any questions? Thank you, and I really appreciate it, especially what you said about Yes.

[39:31]

I'm feeling confusion or trying to grasp a point. The idea that also build self, in a sense? They build character, but they don't build the self. They're non-self builders. Does that mean even those don't matter?

[40:34]

Even those what? What we would classify as the wholesome, small dharmas. Well, see, most of the wholesome dharmas, if you look at them, are absence of something. Absence of greed, absence of anger, absence of stupidity. They're simply the non... And so many of them are the absence of something and the ones that are not are like faith, which means to have a focus, and vigor, which is to have energy to do to have ease and lightness, which means not be burdened by these dharmas, by your attachment to dharmas. When there's no attachment to these afflictions, as they're called, then there's just lightness and ease, buoyancy.

[41:44]

And the rest are nons, non-harming, Renunciation is letting go. Non-laxness is absence of stupidity, absence of anger, absence of greed. Remorse is as I said before, etymologically means to bite back. But I think it means, in this case, to chew on something. In retrospect, you're chewing on your shame. And shame is to wear a chemise, to wear a covering. introspection.

[43:05]

And then vigor is just enthusiasm. So when you have lightness and ease you have enthusiasm and when you have faith you have a place to put it. So very positive. These are the three positive Okay. Is that about the right time? Yeah.

[44:15]

Yeah. Percolation. Percolation. Yeah. It's like when you dig the ground, you know, and you put all the amendments in the ground and the ground is very loose and full of oxygen and a lot of space between the molecules and everything works very well. And the event only was brought to mind 10 years ago. Well, I just read it now. Right, but 10 years ago you read about it. No, I read about it now, just now. I picked up the book just last week and looked at it. But it was written 10 years ago. That's right.

[45:32]

I hope it won't be a typewriter. I hope you use a fountain pen. Well, I'm getting addicted to the typewriter. Although I always wrote everything by hand. Modern times. When you said you have to have patience, so when you have the patience to wait, say, to write the letter, I like that word because I think it comes from the word to suffer. Suffering, and the patients in the hospital are people who are suffering, so sort of like that practicing with it is when we are really suffering. working it out. Yeah, that's right. Patience actually doesn't mean to wait for something.

[46:33]

It means to actually be in your place with it. My friend, Santikara Bhikkhu, he quoted his teacher, Urdhasa, once. but oh, that's pretty good. So it's not just a passive receptive process, but it's actually, it's like the fire that transmutes. Incinerator of the violence. This is a little question about consciousness. You said near the beginning, consciousness is originally one. Yeah. What does that mean? Originally means that before the division.

[47:33]

What before? Before the division. I don't know any before. Keep sitting. What is your original mind before your parents were born? Keep sitting.

[47:53]