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4. Continuation of the Abhidhamma Lectures
Breath. A name for the earth.
Understanding is like the earth in the sense of both subtlety and amplitude.
As the earth, apart from rocks, stones, and sand, etc., is called subtle earth,
so understanding apart from the rocks of corruptions is subtle.
Again.
4. Continuation of the Abhidhamma Lectures
I kind of like the reading about that.
A little bit of that.
5. Continuation of the Abhidhamma Lectures
This is, of course, a very important one, too.
This one comes up in about 6 different places during the 3rd Bhagavad Gita, also.
Out of the 6 pairs, are any of them considered...
...prashna again?
I don't know what the pairs are, but...
Like, here it says...
...it says the absence of dullness.
Absence of dullness is...
Well, anyway...
It's here, it's a prophecy of wisdom, and then...
Oh, it's also...
It's also considered right views, or right understanding.
Samadhi is the first step on the Eightfold Path.
Oh, right. Samadhi is considered...
Yeah.
Yeah, right understanding or right views.
See, that's listed at the end of...
On page 18 of the Dhammasanghani, that's listed down there.
Right views.
At the end of the description of...
...of panindriya.
Right views or right understanding, samadhi.
And then, power of wisdom.
And then, number 33, non-delusion, amoha.
Right understanding, again, as a wholesome way of action.
And then, vipassana, insight.
It's also...
Vipassana is...
I think so, yeah.
How can they use dharmas to define dharmas?
I mean, they use a whole bunch of dharmas here to define another dharma.
They don't seem possible, according to a logical way of defining dharmas.
Well, they're not just defining panindriya here.
They're also mentioning that these other dharmas are also panindriya.
So when you get to right understanding, it's going to say...
...see panindriya, you know.
Let's go to the next page.
Yeah, right views on page 19.
It says, what on that occasion are right views?
It says, answer F for faculty of wisdom, number 16.
So under number 16, it lists right views...
...so that you know that right views are a form of wisdom.
It's not defining wisdom by saying it's right views exactly,
but the right views are a form of wisdom.
Yeah, I find it harder when they have a lot of different words,
a number of different words in Pali,
and they keep referring you back to the definition of another word for the same thing.
I don't know exactly what to make of it.
Do they ever get into talking about the different aspects of...
...well, doing the same thing like when they talk about...
...when they talk about the same thing in English,
when they talk about living in here.
And I think they talk about it in Italian also.
Maybe it's also a consciousness of a doctor and a psychiatrist.
Yeah.
Well, that's just...
It may be a totality, but for the whole chitta to be there, chitta has to be there.
Chitta has to be there.
It's not there, it's not there.
So it's considered as one of the elements.
I mean...
I don't understand.
So maybe it's... I don't know.
I don't know logic or something that well,
but it may be that if they didn't list chitta as a value,
they couldn't actually be chitta as a state of consciousness.
I don't know.
But then they also list...
I don't know.
This is coming up on India.
Are we live now?
I don't know.
Does...
Are there any other sort of questions or things about...
about the awakening process?
I just said moral or immoral.
I didn't say moral or immoral, but...
It makes sense or...
Understanding as it arises knows states as moral or immoral, etc.
In other words, it discriminates.
Moral is immoral, black or white.
It's kind of inculcated here.
I don't know.
Maybe that's...
My thought was maybe that's part of them doing karma too,
is recognizing which...
which things are moral and which aren't immoral.
You should learn what they are.
Kind of take them in.
You can't have too big a distraction.
Well, the...
The model is that the more clearly you can just experience what's actually happening
and not sort of hide things in yourself.
That the more you do that, the more things take care of themselves.
It's because of that.
You don't have to actually...
then act on that.
No, you just have to do that and then things actually take care of themselves.
The more accurately you see what's happening,
then you don't need to do anything besides that.
When you...
When you...
When you start experiencing your pain rather than hiding it,
then you don't have to try any longer to hide it.
And...
If you constantly experience the pain of smoking,
then you're not interested in it anymore.
I love the pain as well.
I know.
I know.
I mean, it's been attributed.
You know, I just question that because...
You know, sometimes if you experience something
and you really think it's...
and you experience bad qualities,
well, if there's something else that kind of drives you on...
Yeah.
Well, that sometimes makes you feel quite good.
We think that you are...
We think that, well, that was just this one time
and I can take care of that next time.
I can avoid that next time.
So there's some...
There's some kind of, like, not...
There is a kind of, like, not accepting that that's the way it is.
Thinking, well, that's just because I was clumsy or awkward
and I can do it better next time, so this doesn't happen.
But sometimes there's no thinking to it.
It's just some kind of drive.
You don't even think about it.
But your whole thinking mind can say it's not right.
Yeah.
I mean, your mind is being fed by pleasure.
My question.
Oh, boy.
Let's see if we can find a speaker.
Well...
To be...
For this to be sort of...
For...
It's...
You know, the first novel, Truth of Britishing,
is really set way down the line in the way for it.
And it's...
Like Adele.
I just...
We can't...
We can't get over preference.
And...
To be finally convinced of that is...
I mean, it is...
It's...
It's meant to be, as far as I know.
It's like you're finally convinced of that, as far as I know.
It's like...
The wind is...
The wind is...
Into the chance to be a simple mundane.
Like a car.
That realization is what puts you really on the path.
And ensure...
Because to then ensure you...
Do that...
Clearly.
Then there's...
There's some...
Part of us that is actually on the premise that we can get out...
We can get rid of this thing.
Even though...
It hasn't worked, or...
You know, it's not gonna work, or...
Some part of us still believes that for a long time.
That we can get...
We can get rid of this suffering.
We can get...
We can get rid of...
This...
Unsatisfactory feeling we have.
It's like...
It's like with the...
Ox and the tail.
You know?
We think for a long time...
We can get that...
There's some way to get that tail through the window.
Yeah.
The third one.
The third one.
Yeah.
That end of suffering is in a way realizing...
It's in a...
A way to realize that there's no end.
Wouldn't you have to have some kind of...
Identity?
I don't know.
Transcendence?
The basic...
In that sense...
Well, anyway, in that sense...
The suffering is...
That...
We think that there's an end to suffering.
And we act as though there is.
But in fact...
There is no end.
So the end of suffering is...
Not to think anymore that there is this end to it.
Desire...
Desire is said to be the cause of suffering.
The desire is...
To get over the suffering.
But anyway, this is just the best way to do it.
You know?
If you really want to get over suffering...
Then the best way to do it is not to think that you can get over suffering.
You...
Not to read everything you read.
But don't.
Anyway...
You would have to have some kind of transcendence or...
Alternate...
This mode of consciousness outside of the suffering...
To know that all life is suffering.
Because...
If everything is suffering...
Then there's no possibility of a distinction.
And...
Well, the statement is useless.
I'm just being here.
There's...
A quality draws a distinction.
Yes, I understand the distinction.
There's no distinction and there's no quality.
Well, thanks, man.
Okay.
At the same time, what else can know suffering?
What's that?
What else can know suffering except suffering?
Well, that's like saying,
Well, form is emptiness.
Emptiness is form.
Well, how can we have two words then?
I don't know.
If they're the same thing, how can we have two words?
Yeah, that's true.
But anyway, that's...
That's exactly right, you know?
So that's why...
When you realize everything is suffering,
That's why it's no longer suffering.
Okay.
Okay?
Because there's no longer anything to compare it to.
Well, that's pretty good.
Right.
There's no longer...
You can't compare it to some imagines.
We have always this imagined...
Place.
Or future where there's not going to be any suffering.
If we just do this and this and this,
We'll get to this imagined place where there's no suffering.
And the desire to get...
The desire is...
First of all, that we can imagine such a place,
And then that we can, you know,
Act on what's going to get us there.
We can act that way.
And we get to that place and we find,
Oh, here's suffering.
There's still suffering here.
What's the matter?
And so...
And that causes...
More suffering.
Maybe something like desire and suffering in themselves.
But that's... I don't know.
That might not be the same thing here.
Is it the same thing to say that...
Our conceptual world says that there's no suffering?
Well, we're trying to confuse this world.
And it's not really how it is.
But once we realize it,
And stop having this conceptual world,
And see what we're living in,
It really doesn't matter if there's suffering or not.
You know, these are words.
That's right.
The big problem is, I mean,
In a way, we can imagine something else.
And in our imagination, there's no suffering there.
Is there a Darwin for imagination?
Well, you know, it's sort of like...
You could...
I don't know if there's anything that's a Darwin for it, but...
Or is it a conglomerate Darwinist that you make consciously?
Well, you have to...
You have to have what is possible without sensory...
Impression or something.
Well, that's my problem.
Yeah, I know.
You shouldn't...
Sure, there's all kinds of things to put together.
But, I mean, imagination is so real for everyone who's alive.
And I think it has to be Darwin for it.
Oh, you mean for the whole month?
Oh.
Well, what it is, is...
I guess, is...
You know, recently I heard you talking about deep hate and delusion being...
A way of talking about the fact that we...
Create objects.
That we make objects of.
We have objects of thinking and we have objects out there.
If we have objects, then we have...
Thinking we have such as objects.
And if we have objects...
Then we have...
Trying to acquire those objects.
Trying to get rid of those objects.
And thinking that those objects are real.
That those objects are what's happening.
So, in a way, how Buddhism seems to talk about it is...
In terms of the deep hate and delusion.
Until you get to the system of games.
But there's two kinds of...
Oh, me oh my.
The way they have moral shame and moral dread.
That's too much fun.
They say they're the guardians of the world.
Yeah, they're the guardians of the system.
It's hard to...
It's hard to...
To disengage yourself from deep hate and delusion if you don't have any moral shame and moral dread.
Because it's so much fun.
What? Deep hate and delusion?
Yeah, right.
It's just a lot of fun to...
It's a lot of fun to have imagined objects and play with them.
And then...
Try to bring them about in the real world.
Never quite happens that way.
When they get in the real world, they're...
They're different than how we imagine them.
There's another side to...
But our imagination is not just...
Something that causes suffering.
Because our imagination is also useful if we can...
If we can have our imagination work with the real possibilities.
Well, that's where they get into these things like agility of mental incompetence.
And quietly and workableness.
Yeah.
Proficiency.
Okay.
Anyway, this faculty of wisdom...
Oh my gosh, it's too late.
Next time.
Okay, well, next week we'll continue with these faculties.
And...
I'd like to try to go on and do the...
Path factors.
And then...
Can some other people...
Ken, I guess you're going to do the path factors.
And then...
Can somebody do the powers which...
It's just the five spiritual factors as powers which you've been studying with men with the addition of the two of moral shame and moral dread.
So, has everybody done something already?
Can we start over now?
Can somebody do that?
How about you?
And...
Can someone also start studying the wholesome roots and wholesome ways of action?
Do you want to do that?
Yeah?
You just did one.
I haven't done it yet, actually.
You can do it next week.
Huh?
Yeah, we won't get to that.
Well, I've been hearing the demons a lot here.
And...
What else?
Wholesome ways of action.
You've heard of the same thing, but they list it twice.
So, maybe you can find just one and list it twice.
Okay, and...
The guardians of the world.
Now, maybe you should just take those two different...
It's moral shame and moral dread listed again.
So, maybe you should just take those and then see if you can find out why they're listed twice.
Okay?
Why they're listed?
They're listed twice.
They're listed as powers.
Power of moral shame.
Power of moral dread.
And then they're listed as moral shame and moral dread later on.
And called the guardians of the world.
So, maybe you can do those two.
And you can see why they're listed twice.
Now, what about the six pairs?
We probably won't get to that next week, but maybe somebody should start...
Studying what the six pairs is all about.
Should we split them up?
I don't know that...
I don't think it's going to be as extra difficult.
They're so difficult, so...
Tom, do you want to do something?
Or Jerry?
No?
Did you say you wanted to split them up?
No, well, I don't know that there's...
I don't know...
I think that there's probably not actually that much to it.
I think one person probably should just cut it in.
I think it's basically sort of talking about the same thing.
I mean...
Some fact of what this...
This wholesome consciousness...
How this wholesome consciousness...
There's ways in which it can be characterized.
Things like buoyant or pliant or workable or...
Flexible or something.
And it's a kind of just...
The shifts are generally described.
Again, mindfulness and mental clarity.
Did someone pick that?
Mindfulness and mental clarity.
Oh, we've already studied mindfulness.
Here it is again, mindfulness.
Okay, mental clarity.
Can you please...
Can you send me to just take the last six?
Because a lot of those are ones we've already done, actually.
Can I just talk about it again?
Okay, who can take the last six there?
Mindfulness to unrestrictedness.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Alright, I'd like to try and finish this...
Probably in the next two weeks,
the next two class meetings,
we'll try to finish this first wholesome state.
There's fifty-six factors.
First wholesome state.
And then there's nine supplementary factors, so...
Before we get to the end of this meeting,
we can take those nine, too.
I don't know where I put it, though.
So, anyway, in the next couple weeks,
I'd like to try to finish this,
and then we'll have three meetings after that
to...
We can decide what we want to study.
I don't know. I'll think about it.
Between now and then, I'll try to figure it out.
And three weeks from now is when I suggested
that people try to have their papers sent,
December 2nd,
so that we would have a couple class meetings after that
where we might...
have people talk about their papers
or read their papers.
And so...
I don't know if you've all decided what to do with the paper on, but...
It might help, but...
Depending on what you've decided to do with your paper on,
then we could decide what to do in our last two classes.
If somebody's studied something we took in,
then we could talk about that
in one of our last two classes.
Okay.
People have been waiting for such a long time.
So, shall we start?
Shukran, shukran, shukran...
I vow to save them.
The earth are incestual.
I vow to the nature.
The darkness are endless.
I vow to the human.
Though their story is unsurpassable.
I vow to the angels.
I'm not really as well versed in this material as Ed is, so...
I don't know how...
exhaustively I'll be able to...
read, but I'll do the best I can.
Just to keep us on the track.
Did we...
We left off last week with ponindria,
or did we get to monindria?
We didn't get to monindria.
Monindria is...
Ed and Spencer.
Fine.
Is there anything that we want to review from the last time?
There was one question that came up that Ed said he wanted me to talk about,
and he'd like to leave me a piece of paper that had his notes about it on it.
Does anybody remember what that question was? It had to do with...
I don't remember what it was.
Are there any leftover threads from last week that...
about the first...
about the spiritual faculties that we should talk about?
Let's forge ahead to monindria.
You have the next three, right?
Yeah, the next three.
Okay, let's see.
Monindria was the faculty of mine.
Let's see.
I couldn't find much on monindria
separate from manas,
which is M-A-N-A-S,
or mano, which is...
Mano is used as a synonym for pranayama, consciousness,
and citta, state of consciousness.
That mano is a term sort of mixed up with those.
Let's see.
Before I get into talking about what manas is,
I'd like to sort of draw a distinction about these final three faculties.
Gertler points out that all the dominances,
that is, the faith energy through to wisdom,
have a worldly character,
but also are overpowering and subduing in nature.
That is, they can control and subdue other factors that come up.
And then, this is a quotation.
They are invested with such continual energy
that they become unshakable powers.
Bala, that is, down here in the Abhidhamma studies,
it's fairly clear on the chart in Abhidhamma studies on page 32,
is that the five faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom,
become powers.
One thing I'm not so clear about is sort of what is the difference
and sort of how they become powers and so on.
This is a different sort of stage.
That's one of the things that may be useful for us to try to clear up.
Maybe the theme of tonight's class is one of the main questions that has to be looked at.
We're starting to get into repetitions now of virtually identical,
in terms of the definition of virtually identical dharmas,
and the question of what's the point of repeating them in various ways.
So I think that will be underlying, I think,
most of the ones we're going to talk about.
We're not really talking about something entirely new.
If you have anything, just in terms of these three,
that you've noticed or that you would like to say,
whether these correspond to anything previous or later on,
and how they fit in to...
First of all, why aren't there eight spiritual faculties?
Why do we have these five spiritual faculties?
Why these three guys?
Yeah, I don't know.
The faculty of mind, joy, and vitality,
just sort of seem like extra added on things, almost.
That is, it's somewhat...
The first five faculties, that is, 11 through 15, have a kind of unity,
but I just sort of had trouble figuring out where the last three came in,
and how they fit in.
Anybody have anything to say about that?
What's the distinction between them?
But actually, maybe I should talk about them individually.
Yeah, I'm back to that.
Okay, I think Gunther also points out that the charging of power
of the first five faculties is caused by following the eightfold path.
Now, these three diamonds I'm going to be talking about...
You said they're vitality comes...
They're charged by the eightfold path.
They're charged by following all these practices and so on.
I guess that's perhaps what we're saying,
that the faculties become powered through following the eightfold path.
Some of those five faculties aren't what are called path factors.
Am I correct?
I understand.
Some of them are path factors and some aren't?
I understand.
Like...
Four of them.
Four of them aren't, and which one is it?
Let's see.
Concentration is...
Wait a minute.
What did you say?
Path factors?
Yeah.
I mean, can you respond to that?
That's an interesting question, which maybe we can take up when we get to that.
Who has the path factors?
Do you have the path factors?
I do.
Yeah, you have the path factors.
Okay.
Maybe that's something you can deal with.
You have the path factors?
Yeah.
Okay, so these final three faculties, then,
are dominance because of lordliness.
That is, dominance is because they're noble and true to all that stuff,
but they're not necessarily so characterized by kind of subduing energy or whatever.
Let's see.
Gunther talks about what the manas are and how...
The last three are faculties by dominance but not by rule anymore.
Well, let's see.
They're faculties by lordliness.
That is being...
The last three are?
Yeah, the final three.
But not so much because they're characterized by subduing or controlling.
I'm glad we came up with the word.
It doesn't seem to be the emphasis.
I think maybe what that's getting...
This is from Gunther?
Yeah.
One thing they're getting at there is that I believe that the first five
have corresponding opposites in the bad states which they suppress.
The state suppresses doubt.
And so there's an opposite.
Those of you who have the Belinda book,
on page 125 there's a chart which shows you which factors suppress which other factors.
It's a kind of complicated line.
It's wonderful. Look at that.
Some factors suppress more than one,
but I think the one characteristic of these five spiritual faculties
is they suppress some corresponding unwholesome darkness that are there.
And whereas the last three don't have, I think, the corresponding opposite per se.
Maybe that's what you mean, but I don't know.
That makes sense. That clarifies it quite a bit.
So I'm going to try and talk about what Manas means.
I'm not so clear on it myself.
Let's see.
The Manas according to these passages denotes what we might call
the subjective disposition that receives a sense stimuli and comprises them,
giving them the peculiar subjective admixture
that is never absent in either perception or cognition.
As a comprehensive term, it is mentioned last in enumeration.
Because the field and object of the five senses is experienced by the mind,
it is mentioned last.
And as a power that cannot simply be ignored,
it controls and coordinates the coexistent psychic material.
And as a controlling power, the Manas put the coexistent psychic factors
under its dominance.
So I guess sort of what he's talking about is kind of a sorting faculty,
that is, being able to sort of receive things
and put some kind of personal stamp or direction on a perception.
Okay, let me read a little bit more.
Insofar as the Manas perceives the sense perception,
i.e., before the actual process of sense perception sets in,
it performs the function of attention.
As Buddhaghosa says,
The Manas which perceives the activity of visual perception
and other sense perception
and which discriminates the visual object from other objects
has the function of attention.
Its actual phase is the becoming confronted with visual and other objects
on the moment and basis from which its function starts and operates,
is the interruption of the unconscious stream
by the object that has come into the range of psychic activity.
So it seems we're talking with the Manas,
we're talking about sort of a...
sort of like in the flow of moments or whatever,
the Manas is sort of the faculty of attention,
of sort of noticing an object or beginning the process of perception.
When Buddhaghosa speaks here of the discriminating action of the Manas,
he does not mean so much the actual conscious discrimination
but the initial stage of the process of becoming conscious,
which is marked by utilizing the sense of selected and discriminated.
So we're talking about a very, very subtle process here,
not so much thinking,
but just sort of the automatic process of our selecting what we pay attention to,
that is, selecting what we perceive.
We have this enormous sphere of sensory data or stuff streaming in,
and sort of what the consciousness of the mind is directed to or picks up,
I think that's sort of the process of the Manas.
It's a very subtle process of what we're actually paying attention to,
because we're always paying attention to one thing
or sort of stuck in a specific sphere from one moment to another,
and the Manas is sort of directing that.
So what the Manas is,
I had trouble really sort of grasping what the exact meaning of the Manas.
Yeah, I think that's basically what Manas is all about.
I think that when you say specifically about this indriya,
or Manas indriya or Manas indriya,
why that's here or what...
As it says, I think, in the text,
this is essentially the same definition as chitta, which we've counted before.
Yeah, it seems to be rerunning chitta through that.
Manas is almost just a synonym for that.
So why is chitta being rerun through this particular place?
What's it doing here?
Why isn't, let's say,
Sparta's contact or some of the other constant factors
that we encountered before, feelings and so forth,
why aren't they here?
What's special about chitta or Manas that causes it to reappear?
Well, it's kind of the basic receiver.
It's kind of the net result of the process or something like that.
Sort of right at the center of the process.
Can you look at this?
If what you're asking is why,
or the question should be answered,
why did they change the name Manas for chitta and indriya for factors?
Why is there a contact between chitta and indriya for Manas?
Yeah, I think that as long as we're going to study the system,
which we have here,
I think the system has some rationale,
which supposedly has some practical value.
So this is all kind of meditation.
So I think that as we go further,
the inner relationships in the system begin to come up
once the out of the indriya is related to the balance.
The path factors.
Who had chitta the first time around?
Anybody here?
Actually, I have a list of people.
Chitta was... Oh, Gregory.
Well, kind of, they sort of have this...
They sort of have the Manas in process at the four and a half, the perception, right?
Yes, it's a...
It's sort of your basic thing.
You don't necessarily have to have the sense of question or whatever for chitta to be...
It's an activity.
Well, I think it's very clear that, you know,
chitta is a whole bag,
what we're always talking about.
So it's very essential.
But I noticed that, I mean, for instance, joy is here too,
which we encountered earlier.
And maybe, actually, maybe we should let you go on.
I'm not really so clear why these are here.
I couldn't figure it out.
Maybe if we do all three of them,
we're going to get some triangulation.
I mean, one answer could be that it's just...
somebody felt like putting them in.
What I understand is why maybe they don't call this chitta indriya,
and the next one, why they don't call it sukha indriya.
Why do they make up a whole other word,
and then say it's the same definition of another word?
Well, your Manas is a pretty...
Manas is a pretty valid term to use.
It is pretty prevalent throughout.
Well, the next one is samatha indriya.
Yeah, why do they call it sukha indriya?
Maybe there's a key system.
To me, it just sort of develops as you go on.
So, like, it might be another stage of the process.
Such as you can say, you know,
you can say no,
and you sort of...
you can develop the power or strength in a certain way.
So, you can actually see the development occurring,
and maybe as this particular thing,
this Mana, or Manas, reoccurs,
at this point, it might be particularly significant.
Or at least in the realm of being noticed again,
because it has developed.
Let's go on and hear about joy and vitality.
Somanas indriya is a faculty of joy.
I'll quote from the start.
A certain mood which gives a specific evaluation to the whole of an attitude,
without, however, interfering with the intrinsic nature of the psychic process.
Serenity of mind, which is found in a healthy attitude,
is because of its...
...
...
This might just be a translation of the Alasana.
I'll read the Alasana again.
Okay.
Sumano joyous means that one's mind,
being associated with zest and joy, is beautiful,
and the state of being joyous is joy.
It exercises government over associated states
by the characteristic of pleasantness,
hence it is a controlling faculty,
and gives a compound joy faculty.
It is another term for happiness, ease, mentioned above.
So, they're referring to happiness, ease, mentioned above.
I guess they're referring to pleasure.
Or...
One of the factors of absorption.
They refer to happiness, ease, mentioned above.
Yeah, they're referring to...
Anyway, it seems to me that this one is even more
a faculty of just, you know, nobleness or whatever.
It seems to me kind of an outgrowth.
It doesn't really overwhelm or dominate.
It's just kind of a mood or whatever
that grows out of a positive or a kusala state of consciousness.
It's just almost kind of like a mood or something.
It's just characteristic...
of positive states of consciousness.
Let's see.
The final one, the final faculty mentioned in the whole list
is the Jyotindriya, faculty of vitality.
Let's see.
It's mentioned in the office.
I'll read you that.
Life, that is Jyotindriya,
is that by which associated states live.
It exercises government over associated states
by the characteristic of ceaseless watching,
hence it is a controlling faculty
and gives the compound life faculty.
It is the dominant influence over continuity in organic processes.
As regards its characteristics, etc.,
it has the ceaseless watching over states undivided from itself
as its characteristic.
The processes of such states are coexistent states as functions.
The placing of them is manifestation.
States that have to be kept going as approximate cause.
This mention of states that have to be kept going,
they're sort of referring to the sustaining nature of Jyotindriya
that is just some kind of...
some kind of continuity giver.
And although there is orderly arrangement
and life's essential properties, etc.,
it watches over those states only in the moment of its existence
as water over its lotuses, etc.
And although it watches over them,
arisen as its own property, as nurse over the infant,
life goes on only by being bound up with these states
that have gone on as the pile on the boat.
I don't really...
To me it's sort of a difficult term,
so I don't understand these similes very well.
It does have one simile here that I sort of understand somewhat.
At the cessant instant it does not maintain them
owing to its own destruction
as the stint oil and the wick cannot maintain the flame of the lamp.
Its effective power is as its duration.
That is, Jyotindriya is not some kind of
sort of external faculty or whatever
to a particular state of consciousness or whatever that arises.
It's more a...
I guess it sort of gives energy
to a particular state of consciousness or whatever
and it doesn't carry on by itself.
It's intimately associated or completely associated almost
with a state of consciousness,
a particular citta that comes up.
So they're talking about a lamp or with a wick or whatever
that has oil rising in it.
Once you use the oil up, the flame goes out.
It doesn't sort of carry on by itself or something.
Almost disappears by itself.
Under characteristic it says it has the ceaseless watching
over states undivided from itself as its characteristic.
Well, what would be a state divided from itself?
I don't get what that's...
I don't understand what that's saying.
It seems to me that it's so tied up with the moment,
a particular state of consciousness,
that it's almost not there.
You know, it's sort of like...
It seems to me they're defining something that
is only found with the, you know,
within a very complex citta.
You know, you have just some kind of life force or whatever.
But this life force disappears with each instant almost,
you know, with each citta.
I think my interpretation of that...
I have the same question.
My interpretation of that is that
basically what it's saying is it's saying
it has the ceaseless watching over states
as its characteristic.
And then somebody reading that might say,
what do you mean watching over the states?
Is it separate from the states? Is it outside?
How does it watch over the states?
You know, is it some dharma apart from the other dharmas?
So they add in as a reminder.
This is what I...
Well, actually, this book is, I think,
I rarely ask, and this book is almost
directed from the Abhidhammada Sangha,
which is this manual of all the dharmas.
This is a little bit layered system.
And in this layered system,
instead of five, we have in this system,
we have five constant factors
that are present in every moment,
which we've already studied,
which are, you know,
pen-tatted sense impressions,
you know, sense impressions, feeling perceptions.
In this Sangha system,
it has expanded to seven.
And if you look on the chart on page 125,
that book here,
on the extreme left,
this is a chart here,
I'm not even supposed to see,
but this is the chart of all the mind,
mental dharmas.
And over on the left here is
a list of seven dharmas.
It starts out with the five that we
have already studied as being constant
in every moment of consciousness.
Contact, feeling, perception,
volition, and mental unpointedness.
And added to that is jivitindhya
and manaskara, which is
advergence, or something like that.
Is that advergence?
Well, attention.
Anyway, this is seven,
and they say the seven are constant
in every moment of consciousness.
How come many of them are excluded?
It's not like these are added, right?
And they're not excluded.
No, they're here.
I mean, jivitindhya is under the indriyas.
Yeah, but it's not called one of the
constants or primary factors.
Yeah.
Check it out.
Well, I don't think that that means...
I don't think that's a substantial change in the system,
because I think if you go through
every state of consciousness,
you'll discover that those two are
also there in every state.
I think it just mainly has to do with
the way they decided to classify it,
is my guess.
Maybe Ed knows for sure.
I'm not sure.
That's my guess, is that the sangha,
you know, I haven't really studied it very much.
Jerome has ordered a lot of these books,
and I'm waiting anxiously for my
copy so I can study it.
But I have a feeling that this attempts to
make the system more smooth.
And so this follows the actual
dharma-sanghani pretty closely.
It lists the factors the way they're listed,
but I don't think it's so actually
such a consistent classification,
because some of the most important dharmas
are tacked on at the end, actually.
Like Manasikara,
just sort of tacked on in there.
I think mostly because that's the order
that it comes in, in the dharma-sanghani.
And so the sangha, I think, is the system
to try to put it together even more tightly
so that you can see the logic of the system,
whereas my guess is this was more
so that you'd be able to memorize.
That's the main reason that it's the way it is.
It's just, it's listed in such a way
that it's easy to memorize,
which is the main point of studying.
So, that's my guess.
Again, I'm not sure I'm right,
but I think that's what it's all about.
From the standpoint of logic,
Jivitindriya and Manasikara
go with the other five
because they're present in every state.
This works in the sense that Jivitindriya
is the basis and uniting principle
of the other six factors,
which kind of gives it a pretty primary position
and it's the basis and it unites
all the other six factors.
So, it's the support.
That's the point.
That's maybe the basic idea of all of them.
It's the most basic.
It's maybe, it's like, it in itself
could be a definition of Jivitindriya.
Jivitindriya.
Maybe we're back now to trying to
recapitulate what the definition of Jivitindriya is.
It would be good if we could,
before we go on,
if we could try to come to some conclusion
about what is Jivitindriya.
What does it mean by India?
What other translation is it?
Is it dharma?
Or is that just some of it?
You know, that's the hint.
That's what it means.
That's what the word means.
Let's just say it's like the faculty.
Just another word.
Oh.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, faculty is sort of an English description
of what all the words sound like.
Dominance is more the actual literal translation
of the meaning of the word, I think.
But it doesn't mean so much that
when you say the twenty-two dominants,
it doesn't make too much sense.
When you say the faculties,
then you say, oh yeah, the faculties.
So it has more meaning to it.
What does that mean, the dominants?
It means two things.
That's right.
That's where it matches up with another faculty.
Another dharma.
It can be subdued and overcome.
That's where it doesn't.
It's a broad layer.
Sort of like a king or a dominion.
I don't know if it's helpful or not
because it's only the first five spiritual faculties.
Something that I was interested in last week
when I had my break
was something that said
the five spiritual faculties,
together with the corresponding five spiritual powers,
continue the work begun by the factors of absorption.
They increase the agility and pliancy of the mind
in its capacity to affect deliberate inner changes,
whether positive, negative, or adaptive.
These last features are the basis
for any mental and spiritual progress.
It is mainly owing to the operation
of these five spiritual faculties and powers
that noticeable transformations of character, conduct,
ideas, and ideals are made possible.
What's that about?
That's litigant.
I think it said a little further on
that actually it's more personality.
What does it say right after that?
If the intensifying and controlling factors,
which are the five before the five spiritual faculties,
are weak or partly absent,
a general heaviness and unruliness
of the mental process results.
You're inclined to dogmeat, nasty things like that.
And if a single faculty is developed exclusively
while the others, especially the counterparts,
are neglected or deliberately suppressed,
perhaps the faculty may develop a tendency to dominate.
I think that means really, really dominate.
It gives some examples which are sort of interesting.
It's true.
I think this gets into the area of spiritual types a little bit.
If it's somebody who's dominant,
faculty may be his energy.
If his energy is too strong,
if it's untempered by, let's say, mindfulness,
or if it's untempered by concentration,
it can be very destructive,
or at least very scattered.
It's very hard to do much with that.
The path factors, I think, are supposed to be
kind of balancing qualities.
Maybe when we get to the path factors,
we'll talk about that more,
but the path factors are supposed to be
kind of a balancing agent for these dominant things.
Does anybody have any feeling about why
of the first ten guidelines that we studied,
the sense impression of five,
plus the fact that there's absorption,
that some of them are dominants,
but some of them are not?
Mindfulness...
I'm sorry.
Concentration is a dominant,
and mind is a dominant.
Joy is a dominant.
But we talked in vichara,
citta is a dominant,
perception is not, and so forth.
Does anybody see any logic to this?
So that's the question before,
which is sort of left-handed,
and all this went on.
I feel basically I don't understand
what things are involved
when you're speaking about the dominant.
What are you talking about?
Well, like, sometimes too,
well, there could be several of these controlling faculties
present at the same time.
They're each called controlling faculties,
and yet some of them control more than others among them.
So...
So isn't the dominant responsible for all this?
No.
I mean, that's one of the things I thought,
maybe that's why it's,
maybe it's because it's dominant on a more basic level
of how it controls.
I don't know, it depends a bit
on how you sort of switch over into the negative,
the unwholesome state and to the neutral state.
Do you have any specific examples?
Well, when I was listening to you,
you said perception.
I think if you perceive something negative in a way,
how does it stay at all in that state?
Then you said joy.
Joy is an overriding feeling,
and it's hard to feel.
The other thing is that maybe,
a couple of years,
you might have to think about joy
to make sure it's what I'm saying.
It's just an idea.
If we're using dominant in the sense of overriding,
or, you know,
the controlling factor that controls mostly,
could you just let me think that
many of these controlling factors
can be present in a single state,
in a single moment,
that's how we're trying to get rid of it.
Don't you have data on this program?
I did.
Oh, you did.
She raised some questions about it,
and I was trying to talk to her about it,
similar to the game cases.
My question is,
is there any data that you could recall
that could be considered to be true?
How far do you think it could go?
Is there a quick fix to anything?
Is there anything that you could recall
about data knowledge,
or feeling, anyway,
which might go with what Lin was saying,
in terms of some overriding,
something that feels overriding,
Thank you.
They've done this by participating.
Thank you.
We're going to colorize everything a little bit.
It sort of takes over.
You know how people come on the concentration tape, but
sometimes when you sit, you can have very strong feelings
and you don't pay any attention to it.
And you do that in other things too.
And then sometimes you put some action to that feeling.
Was, maybe not, how was that listed?
I can't remember if you said that it was or wasn't.
In here?
Well, it's represented, I mean, by, you know, by joy.
And joy is a kind of feeling.
Yeah.
We have a particular kind of feeling.
Here.
I think it relates to what you were saying,
but I think that things like feelings are the kind of things that can color everything.
You know, it takes over, it colors the entire state.
The whole state is colored by grief or joy or whatever,
so it has a tremendously wide-reaching effect.
Whereas some other factors may not be so, you know,
not color everything that way.
So, I think maybe that India has maybe that kind of...
Or at least the potential.
I think that that's maybe the point with having, you know,
some of them be a little bit in conflict with others,
is that they each have the potential.
They study that now.
They're trying to find a way to talk about Indian nature,
or let's say that they mastered their optics.
They seem to be saying that the state, by definition,
will master lack of faith, and that confrontation,
and control of that confrontation,
is that if it works, then it will dominate or master the other,
because that's the way it is.
Because of the Indianness.
Well, that actually could work the other way, though, couldn't it?
Because lack of faith is also an Indian.
So, I mean, it depends on the state of consciousness.
How long does this dominance last?
I mean, that's one question that might come up.
How long does the dominance last?
Just up to this point, how long does the dominance last?
As long as there's vitality.
It just lasts for one moment, this dominance.
So even though it's a dominance,
particularly speaking, it's only a dominance in the moment that it appears.
It's not very dominant.
So, actually, it's kind of a ping-pong game, up to this point,
in terms of what's actually happening.
In one moment, you have this state.
Next moment, that state.
I think this is really where the next category we'll get onto,
where the path factors and the powers come into play,
is, up to this point, up to just talking about the Indians,
we have a momentary dominance of something.
But it doesn't have any particular direction or tendency.
It's just whatever happens to be on top at that particular moment.
So, next is path factors.
And you would just go through whatever you need, however you want to do it.
There are five path factors.
Right understanding, right thought, right inference, right mindfulness, right concentration.
And four of these are the same as the spiritual faculties.
And the fifth is right thought, and it's the same as we talked about.
The same definition.
Path factors continue the work of the spiritual faculties
in effecting a stronger direction for energy.
It was mentioned here that the tendency of the spiritual faculties
was not harmonized to dominate and suppress their counterpart.
And this is countered by emphasizing the path factors or their aspects.
Path factors have been described as factors of deliverance
or conditions or requirements for the attainment of sainthood.
Each factor is preceded by sama, translated right,
because only that which is conducive to deliverance is called right.
Path factors have the quality of being unshakable by their opposite qualities.
Conducive to deliverance.
The bodhidharma studies in the last area of the old path factors.
Sorry.
It means, path factors means the gradual liberation of the mind
from skeptical or muddled aimlessness by pointing to a well-marked way
leading to a definite and noble destination.
The path factors are an appeal to make every moment of one's life
upon the great way and continue in that effort
until the goal is near and assurance of reaching it is attained,
until the way is transfigured and becomes the supermindent path.
All that I have.
Could you go over again which are the repetitions of earlier ones and what's been added?
Well, right understanding, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration
are the same definition they're given in spiritual fashion
and right thought is the same as the content.
Do you have anything you can say about the significance of that shift there?
There's been something dropped and something added.
Well, right.
Which one's right thought?
Right view?
Right view is the right thought?
Right view is the right thought?
Yeah, the sama is on there. What does that mean, sama?
What is that to deliver?
So, what would they be if the sama weren't there?
What's the difference between sama
and sati and just sati?
What's the difference between right mindfulness and just mindfulness?
Do you have any feeling about what that signifies?
We've encountered mindfulness before, so now it's the sama that's been added.
So, what does that mean?
Right view is the right thing to do.
Right view is the right thing to do.
Right view is the right thing to do.
Anybody else have anything to add?
I have noticed the faculty's lack of attention.
The passage where it talked about discrimination, how it caused you to recollect both the good
and the bad.
Now it's probably asking you to recollect the things which are conducive to divergence
or which would keep you on the path.
So now it's right.
Why does it sound like it's a complete different thing?
You could think of it as a finite relation of, like, quality of life force and faculty
of life force, as it supposes some kind of understanding.
Dr. Simpson, to your right, to your right understanding, do you gain through continuous
contemplation and direct experience?
Well, maybe we could get back to the other question, which comes up, is why is, why
does faith not appear, and why does right thought come in?
It's said that they're not included because they are variable factors, and they don't
necessarily appear in every instance through that kind of contemplation, and they do not
arise at the same time.
Where does it say that?
Page 75 of the Avidana study.
Now that's referring to the, that's referring to the right speech, right action, right livelihood,
which in the dharma lesson a few later on, they're not necessarily in every state.
What I was, what I was asking was, we have four of these path factors we've seen before
in the Indias, but one of them we haven't seen before, which is essentially a repetition
of, what was it?
Vittaka.
And if you see four out of the five spiritual faculties repeated in India, one question
might come up is, well, why do they just repeat all five?
Why isn't right faith, let's say, here as one of the more, what's the significance of,
for instance, the powers.
The powers is, first five is just a repetition, you know, verbatim of the five spiritual faculties.
So there it's very straightforward repetition with no change.
But here we have pretty much repetition, but there's something that's a little bit different.
So what I'm getting at is, does anybody, do you have any feeling about what the difference
is, or do you mean the right thought?
Yeah.
Well, I've got another gun to report.
It is out of correctly viewing things that we are able to form a correct faith.
In the past, I could have taken, not from the spiritual faculties, but from the Eightfold
Noble Path.
And that's where, that's where they come from.
It leaves out the morality section of the Eightfold Noble Path, right speech, right
action, right livelihood.
And it includes the wisdom part, which is right faith and right thought, and the concentration
part, which is effort, mindfulness, and concentration.
I think it leaves out the morality part because that's not in the medical realm.
I prefer to explain it.
One.
Does this deal with any, I would have, I mean, the possibility of wrong faith, maybe it's
just something called right faith.
But I think it includes just every one.
Yeah, I think that's, that's an important point.
I think that's discussed in one of the readings.
I don't remember where, but I think it's the two points of the prefix sama.
And this second question we're talking about now, I think are related.
In terms of the idea of directedness, something that is directed.
It seems that faith actually can be, it's hard to direct faith by itself.
We have faith in all the same things.
Whereas all these path factors have some definite direction toward deliverance.
So they're all directed, they give direction to, to the darkness that we're talking about.
And as Ken said, right thought or actual applied thinking, which is pitaka, is essential
to directing yourself toward, toward the path.
Whereas maybe, maybe one possibility is maybe faith is not as useful in directing you in
this particular direction as it has.
Okay.
Say about the path factors.
Okay.
These are the, the five things.
Say again, what, why do, why do all eight not care?
What's that?
But they're all morality ones.
Why is it eight after the three seconds?
Yeah.
It's in the matter.
No.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Could somebody, could somebody re-intitulate me?
Better summarize what that, what that means.
Like, what's the actual significance of this sign?
Can someone give an example of, of, well, maybe that's enough.
Okay.
This was a passage I was thinking of about faith.
Faith, you're, for example, the strong urge, urge felt by some people to believe in something.
Parentheses, subsiding, you know, faith.
They cause them to change with surprise and facility, the obstacles they believe.
Or a keen intellect can join in first to pose its superiority, which would be pondering that,
may it all too soon be ready to prove, hit the opposite of what it advocated a while ago.
So without the sama part of directing it toward the path,
the individual by himself can take you in all kinds of directions other than the one you're delivering.
If it's one of the few.
Faith is a necessary, like, given an object.
So it's interesting, I, when I heard David's idea,
it made more sense to me actually that, that actually faith, as defined in the text,
is defined as faith in the scheme of God.
I guess I, I emphasize that faith is one of the powers of religion.
I think it's one of the powers of religion.
But the reason I think of that is because it could go off on how we could tackle it.
I don't know if it's a power of religion.
I don't know if it's a school of religion.
I don't know if it's a school of religion.
I don't know if it's a faculty of faith.
I don't know if it's a church of faith.
Thank you.
Ours was
Mr. Smith and Mrs. Miles.
The first one is the April Sabbath, which is right here.
So that's where, that's the, the first step in the April Sabbath is, is, is doing right things.
It may be a good experience for you.
Well, I have here in some notes that it says,
faith won't work with conflicting values.
So if you have the right view, you know, a view that conflicts with what you believe in,
maybe that would hinder faith.
And that's tied to
faith.
Well, then why don't you have
Right view is kind of neat.
And what time of the Sabbath?
Fifth.
Right, right.
Right thought or intention.
A right intention, that's what we use.
A right thought is a right thought.
So if you have right understanding, right perception.
Right perception.
Right, right thought.
Right thought.
I guess I'm feeling that it's no longer a case of right and wrong.
In these past chapters, the other,
experience,
another stage,
my preservation,
in great ease.
It's just another level, it's a refinement of where we've been before.
And it kind of, it feels to me, I mean, Tom said that
another translation is complete,
that it implies a level of understanding, or at least,
a kind of a spiritual understanding.
And before you get to this
right view, right thought, and all the down the line,
it doesn't, as opposed to
a dharma,
that we've been working on also.
You know, it's like going through, it feels like it's going through a tunnel,
going through the five spiritual faculties.
So it's just, you know, looking up the mountain,
up to the, to the, to the final.
And it's kind of,
you feel a bit more, it's interesting to listen to it.
Because it's no longer, you know,
it's already there, it's implied, isn't it?
If someone says something like, right view,
right view,
contains faith, then?
Yeah, I think maybe that's right.
If you have these five pathways going for you, then
automatically faith, your faith falls into line.
It's pointing in the right direction by,
by faith.
But if you don't have it, then it could go awry.
But if you do have it, you don't necessarily need
anything to add it to it.
It kind of falls into line.
Because you still need, even at this stage, you don't,
you don't know everything, you still need some kind of faith.
And it's honest.
It's honest.
Right view, kind of a laser,
right view, kind of a laser,
The men are the first of the five, but without that your intention and your endeavor in mindfulness and concentration is a do-right.
I think you're asking...
I was wondering if right views was the most, was the basic or main thing in the practice.
It seems like kind of the answer of all five, the other four would be possible without right views.
It seems, I don't know, it seems more important.
It seems that way to me.
I think it's called no-pass-function kind of, that it begins with it and then everything else is continued in that.
Like it begins at the end.
Does anybody know which factor has more critical cause and primalism than the other?
Appears more times.
Which factor?
Well, which cause.
There's a certain one that appears once, there's one that appears twice, there's one that appears seven times.
What type of concentration is it?
Well, they're up here, but I think...
I don't understand it.
Yeah, I think wisdom appears seven times in various guises.
Right understanding?
Well, yeah.
In various forms of consciousness.
I don't understand it.
There's a passage I didn't think about that I was reading today,
and I found when you were talking about number of experiences.
It also...
Do you know that?
Do you want me to talk about that?
I clearly feel...
Well, it's kind of interesting because it sort of shows you the various creations of what's happening.
Wow.
The power is in.
Do you have another clue for another class when you get through the whole thing?
Well, I'm thinking about next week we should try to finish the first healthy state,
and we should do not only that, but we should finish all the first eight healthy states.
Where did you say you were this weekend?
I can tell you the ones that I think everybody should read about if you haven't yet.
These two, the power of conscientiousness,
given that Thomas and Johnny are called the power of conscientiousness,
and the feeling of conscious... the power of the fear of blame.
Those two are awfully important,
and they occur later as the guardians.
They occur later as...
And those two are very important.
If you don't have those two, there's no chance for you.
You've got to have them.
No, no.
You should all be sure to read about those two.
In the Chatham Media and wherever else.
And then the next ones after that are, of course, extremely important too.
The absence of love, the absence of hate, and the absence of delusion or dullness.
Those three are the three good things,
which are what make the whole country compulsive.
So, there's a lot of material on those two.
So, you should study those for sure.
And then after that, the rest of it is fairly general,
and you might look a little bit at all these things about the buoyancy and wielding of the sword.
I was reading that buoyancy crushes heaviness.
Is that lighting?
I could just say it.
It depends, I guess, which translation you're using.
Here it's 42.
Uh-oh.
42 and 48.
So, I think it was particularly those two, shame and fear of blame,
and the three good roots, absence of fear, hate, and delusion,
everybody should be familiar with.
And if you can finish it with the first Hulton State,
and then there's some supplementary facts you can look at briefly,
and then we should talk next week also about the other Hulton States.
Dullness here is delusion?
Yeah.
And what distinguishes, you know, what the difference is in the first eight?
How is 2-3-8 different from the first one?
Which isn't very much.
I mean, once you know this first one, then you dip through 2-3-8 and say,
yes, well, number two is unprocessed, and number one is processed.
You want this next week?
Yes.
So we should finish up through, and as I was saying,
it goes up to page 42.
We're going to finish through there next week,
better we finish it now.
Where are we supposed to go?
I think it's pretty well.
I thought maybe we could get up through shame and fear of blame,
but we can start off next week.
You better study.
Or fear, I mean.
He'll be full of shame.
You better get it together by next week.
And so we can try to do that next week.
That's through page 42.
And if you want to start looking at the genres, fine.
You can go right on into the genres.
So please start reading about the genres,
because we're not going to have that much time, you know,
like, go ahead and send the class, our class,
to read down the genres,
and one class on Hamilton spaces,
and one class on Bunker colors.
And that's about what we're going to cover.
The papers are going to be...
The papers are going to be...
Can those papers just be presentation notes?
Yeah, they'll just be presentation notes.
They'll be written down in types and stuff.
So, yeah, you put a note in,
in the geography, you know.
You don't have to.
It might be nice if you can do something like that.
But...
But I certainly would like people to prepare
to really help out on something, you know,
because we're not all going to have a chance
to study all those things in detail.
I've just sort of figured, like,
we spent so many weeks on this first one
that everybody actually should have read, you know,
at least the Thomas and Donnie and the Fossetters,
considering all these genres.
And then, for the people who have been specializing in the area,
make sure they read the other books as well.
But everybody actually should
do the reading of the Thomas and Donnie
and the Arthur Summers,
and, you know, at least that much about all these.
And our resident experts can read things
through a lot of those things.
No, no, no.
Okay?
I just wanted to mention the place I was referring to.
I thought it was very helpful.
You can track everything.
I'm going to auto-stop.
It is 177, 178, 179.
It talks about the number of times
when certain things appear.
Three times, three times, four times.
And it classifies everything.
It sort of nails everything down,
so you can see where it's all in place.
And similarly, it's to a king who asks for...
asks for artisans to come and build a building.
He says, first the artisans would know one art come up,
and then the artisans would know two arts come.
Those who know two arts come up,
and one dies.
Fossetters know seven different arts.
But, you know,
it kind of helps you get an overview
of the whole darn list
and how it all fits together
in terms of repetition.
It tells you exactly what...
how it's named and how it's being used.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
The entire is already possible.
I vow to put an end to it.
The darn letters are timeless.
I vow to master them.
The middle way is unsurpassable.
I vow to be...
We...
We're going to start with a recitation,
and then there's a summary of the constituents
of the first type of thought.
And then after that summary, there's something called the emptiness section, which says now
at that time there are, and it lists what there are, it doesn't mention anything about
a self, or a person, or an individual, or an identity.
And then when it says, in that particular section, the emptiness section, it says there
are these states, it's meant to be an inclusive list of what there exists in that consciousness.
A complete, unexpurgated list of all things.
That's on page 33 in the emptiness section.
Page 33.
It's right before they go into the, into the emptiness section.
Okay, why don't we, why don't we get started.
Okay, tonight we're going to finish the first chapter of The Good, Good Consciousness.
Alright.
Tonight we're going to go through page 44, I think, 42.
And we're going to finish chapter 1 on page 42, okay?
We'll see you very likely tonight.
Well, we'll listen to it.
It is likely tonight.
Okay.
And we're going to start with, this mission is your time.
We'll start with the powers of shame and dread.
And take it from there.
We should get to your questions.
Take a little bit from our meeting.
Um, I wasn't aware that, I mean, I thought you were going to do it last time.
So I don't, I didn't bring my, um, little note.
Um, my little bunch of notes that I was going to do.
I could go get it.
It's probably in my room.
Oh, do you know where it is?
Yeah, it's probably in my room.
I mean, I think it is in my room.
So why don't we just talk about it?
Okay.
So, um, here.
Okay.
Okay, um.
Let's get started.
What are we going to talk about?
We're going to talk, we're going to start tonight with, um,
well, last week when I got here you were talking about the past factors.
And so tonight we're going to start with, uh, we're starting with shame and dread.
And what are shame and dread and how come they're powers?
Um, okay.
As I said, I don't have my notes, but I do have some stuff here.
Okay.
Um, one of them is conscientiousness and one is spirit of light.
And, um, one has a subjective cause and the other is external.
What does that mean?
Well, one comes from inside and one comes from without.
I mean, to stop or to influence actions, you know, or to influence what you do.
Um, so, and it said that if you are, if you have hearing, which is the official term for this?
Or conscientiousness.
Let's see.
Which one, which one is that in your phone or something?
I can't find it.
It's 20.
It's on 20 and it's numbers 30 and 31.
Oh, yeah.
And 30 here is listed as hearing problems.
It's O-T-T-A-P-P-A-N.
O-T-T-A-P-P-A-N.
Okay.
And this is, uh, conscientiousness?
Yes.
Um, the other one is spirit of light.
Spirit of light.
Yeah.
Um, it's, it said that if, if you have the first one, you don't need the second.
That it's, you can row yourself in the waves.
And this is, uh, 50-60.
Or, and this is, uh, X-T-E-N.
Uh, the, uh, Otisolami has a very nice, uh, comparison.
One is, um, it, well, it compares it to two balls.
Two iron balls.
Two iron balls.
One is, um, one is covered with dung and the other is very, very hot and burning.
Um, one being cold and being smeared with dung, the other being hot and burning.
A wise man does not catch the cold one from loathing its being smeared with dung.
For the other one, for fear of getting burnt.
So, the first one, very lava.
It would be the one smeared with dung.
The other one would be burnt.
Okay, this one is, uh, uh, uh, based on shame.
Excuse me for the shame.
This one is based on dread.
Uh, so this one is, uh, changing from, uh, something that is, uh,
something that is shameful.
This is, uh, uh, having some dread or, or fear, fear, uh, fear.
Uh, the characteristic of each one is, um, respectful obedience to the Christian.
And...
This one?
Respectful obedience.
Is that the same characteristic?
No, the other one has fear of flames.
That is the characteristic of the other one?
Um, fear of flames and respectful obedience.
So, this one is, uh, uh, respectful obedience.
And this one is, uh, regards, regards, views, thoughts, but community and fear.
Um, also, the first one is subjective, and they go into that quite a bit by saying, uh,
he, uh, a person would consider his high birth, you know, he would say, uh, fishermen and women folk would do that.
Would do that.
Would not, oh, yes, he would do that.
But since I was...
But I'm of high birth, and I...
Since I'm of high birth, I wouldn't do, I couldn't do that.
Right.
Yeah, there's four, um, there's four, uh, things that are given as considerations.
And then the other, uh, and subjectively, or what, what, what the considerations are of, uh, birth, age, uh, heroism.
Heroism.
And experience.
And experience.
And these are all, this is all, these are all where you say to yourself, uh, somebody, uh, who's one of, as, uh, I'm just going to say,
somebody who's born as a, a fisherman or something, uh, a fisherman can do that, but since I'm, uh, a merchant, I can't do it.
I, I, I would be shameful for them to do it.
What, what if they, uh, I mean, are they meaning something else?
I mean, they, they're not just meaning, I don't know, if you're born a fisherman or you don't have this, so...
No, no, no, it's just as an example.
Then why, why would they use, uh, such an example?
Well, maybe they, in the society which comes out, fishermen are sort of low, and, and are considered to have some fun behavior, and not to have manners or something.
So they use it, kind of from the point of view of society rather than, you know, food and, uh, the reason.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, these others are maybe better examples, because, uh, they, this age, it's like,
you know, it would be alright for a child to do that, but I'm grown up now, so I can't do it.
But, uh, I'm 40 now, so it's, you know, it's about time I didn't act like I was, start acting like I was 20.
You know, I'm 60, and, uh, I'm going to die soon, and, uh, I'm just too old to behave, to be behaving like this.
And, uh, this one is, well, somebody, uh, so-called heroism here, somebody, uh, uh, uh,
somebody who's weaker or has more problems or, uh,
and, um, this is sort of, this is, this is, uh, somebody, somebody who's, uh, what's the example, I don't know,
somebody who's, uh, weak or, uh, hesitant or shy or something, retiring,
and it may be alright for somebody like that to do it, but that's really not the way I am.
I have to do better than that.
An experience is a, well, somebody who hasn't had the experience I have, uh, can do that,
but since I, I, I've had some experience of it, so I, uh, I can't do that anymore, because I've had some experience.
And what are the, um, is there a similar list for the other one? Is that right?
Well, I mean, again, it is, uh, over here.
Oh, no, there's no...
The idea is over here is if...
...what's called evil, uh, uh, you will get blamed.
Oh.
And it says in the four classes, uh, you will get blamed.
Uh, you'll get blamed by the, from, from the, the four assemblies.
Now, I don't know what the four assemblies are. I guess it used to say...
But especially, that's like, uh, if you're a, if you're a monk or a Buddhist,
this in here is, uh, you're going to get blamed by your teacher,
you're going to get blamed by your fellow students, by the other monks.
Uh, and so on, you get blamed by other people as well.
Oh, also, he said, well, one of those would be your teacher.
And he says that, um, that some, well, your teacher and other monks can see a thought,
and so they'll be able to see you, even if...
Oh, yeah, those people who read minds.
Right, yeah.
Uh, he says, look at this son of noble family.
Though he's become a monk by faith, leaving his home for the home of state,
he is mixed with evil and moral filthiness.
There are spirits with supernormal potency, clairvoyance,
knowing the thoughts of others, they see a thought.
So, so this falls under that.
Uh, uh, uh...
They're also called guardians of the world,
and I think their function is the same, is to be blamed.
Now, under guardians of the world, it seems to specifically list that
They're guardians of the world because otherwise, um, um, let's see here, it seems to have mostly
to do with wives, and they're considered to be guardians of the world because otherwise
wives wouldn't be safe, and if there wasn't shame and a fear of blame to guard the world,
uh, this is on page 171, uh, they're considered guardians because if there wasn't shame and
a fear of blame, what would, what regard would be paid to mother, mother's sister, uncle's
wife, the teacher's wife, or the wife of honorable men, and the world would be full of promiscuous
birds. So in that sense, they're considered guardians of the world, uh, so that regard
is paid to mother and the rest. So that, uh, maybe two's are cultural. Anyway, these two
seem to be quite important, uh, and, uh, these aren't present in unwholesome states,
and if you don't have these two, uh, it's very difficult to get out of unwholesome
states, or to, uh, to, to, to prompt wholesome states to do it. This is actually kind of,
this, uh, this one here, you know, this shame, uh, you know, our culture and so on doesn't
have much of a shame or guilt, it's so, uh, helpful. But what this is considered to be
actually, you know, is, uh, respect. Also, that the, uh, respect for, uh, Buddha, Dharma,
and, uh, it's because you feel respect that you can feel shame. The other side of shame
is actually, it's shame because of your respect. If you don't have this respect, uh, then you
can't have shame. You understand? You know, you don't, you don't feel shameful if you
don't have some, if you don't have respect for Buddha, you don't feel bad when you do
something, or for your teacher or something, you never feel bad, because you have no respect.
So, and if it's, if it's feeling bad or, or respect which prompts respect or shame, it
prompts falsehood. So this one is actually a similar respect for, this is respect for,
uh, something like Buddha's sake, or, uh, true nature or self, you know, some self.
And, uh, this is, uh, respect for simply, like, teachers and, or maybe this is more
like, uh, this is maybe more Buddha and Dharma, and this may be more pure, uh, Sangha.
Respect for, uh, teachers and, and, uh, and, uh, you know, other, other generalists.
So this one also, aside from, um, uh, dread or fear of blame, I guess it also has, uh,
and it also has, uh, fear of, uh, of punishment and, uh, retribution, as well as, uh, blame.
Uh, fear of punishment and retribution. Uh, retribution can simply be in the sense of,
uh, like rebirth, or, uh, you know, some future existence, some way to go, and, uh.
Anyway, if you don't have it, it makes it very difficult to, uh, if these aren't present,
then it's, uh, much more difficult, it's almost impossible for wholesome states to arise.
It's quite likely that unwholesome states will continue.
So this is, uh, we have, there's a, there's a Dharma in the, uh, the Sarvastivadana Dharma list
that we were studying in the next class, uh, called, uh, uh, repentance, which is similar to these.
In that case, uh, repentance can be either, uh, good or bad, or wholesome or unwholesome.
If it's repentance for evil done, or a good deed not done, then it's, uh, beneficial.
If it's repentance for a bad deed not done, I mean, for a bad deed not done or a good deed done,
if you repent of a good deed done or a bad deed not done, and you're sorry, uh, then that's unwholesome.
Is that like, so these are specific. Is that like when you repent of a good deed or a bad deed not done?
Is that like when you think, well, I really should have said something like that.
Yeah, right.
That really would have shown you.
That's a very powerful one.
After you think of all the ways to repent.
So, these here are specifically, you know, like, uh, shame at attaining to, as it says in the Sanjani here,
shame, uh, at attaining to bad and evil states.
It's not shame at attaining to good and wholesome states, but,
specifically that's what it's talking about.
Okay, let's go on.
Next, uh, next three are kind of similar.
Does someone have the next three or six or something?
I have them.
Alright.
By the way, we're going to finish the first chapter tonight, so I'm going to go kind of quickly.
If you have any questions, you're going to have to speak up to get them in.
The next three are the, um, three of the four samudras, and they're non-greed, non-hate, and non-delusion.
Okay?
The first two, non-greed and non-hate, are present in every class of Karmic and wholesome consciousness.
And the third, non-delusion, is found in all of the states that are associated with knowledge.
Non-greed and non-hate appear in the list, appear for the first time,
and they will occur later in the ways of wholesome action, which are the next three.
And they'll be non-coveted and non-ill-will.
And non-delusion was represented previously by the faculty of wisdom, right understanding, and the power of wisdom.
And non-delusion will occur three more times, but right understanding will take the power to the next level.
Is this a moha?
Non-delusion is a moha.
Okay.
Non-greed and non-hate can be either negative or positive depending on the particular case.
Or that, what, how's that?
What do you mean they can be, they can be negative or positive?
You mean you can have an unwholesome state of non-greed?
I think what they're saying, well, the next example is...
Would they be referring to the aspect of desire, or desire for wholesome states?
Actually, I thought that they meant that you can be non-greed about...
Or is that what it means, or does it mean that you can state the same thing negative or positive?
That would mean like non-hate is considered to be love, or friendliness, or compassion.
So that would be a positive way of saying non-hate.
That wouldn't answer it. That's probably what they mean.
Or does it mean the other?
It might mean the other.
No, I think it means that it just depends on how you state it.
That, you're right, non-hate can be love and non-greed can be stated as different.
But then they said that non-delusion is always positive, that there's no way that that can be...
Because it always represents knowledge.
And the reason they said that was that it motivates...
It represents the knowledge which motivates greed, well, which motivates states of consciousness, which...
Well, positive states of consciousness.
It's always one of those positive states of consciousness.
What does it mean?
They're referring to... Where do you get all this from?
That's from...
You know what they...
It's probably in that section right on those pages.
Yeah, it says the positive character, for example,
non-greed as renunciation, liberality, non-hate as anarchy, kindness, forbearance, non-delusion,
has always a positive meaning for it represents the knowledge which motivates the respective states of consciousness.
In their positive aspects, non-greed and non-hate are likewise strong motives of good actions.
They supply the non-rational, volitional, or emotional motive,
while non-delusion represents the rational motive of a good thought or action.
Okay, why are these called wholesome roots?
I was too into that.
All right.
All right, I guess they're called wholesome roots because they're motive powers
in that they induce and compel other simultaneously arisen factors
to act in the service of the motive of non-greed, non-hate, and non-delusion.
They seem to be at the base of all the other factors.
And they talk about root rays.
What?
Root rays?
R-A-Y-S?
In Bhakti we have root hairs.
I think the root rays actuate and nourish other factors and do such
as are themselves colorless or neutral, the color of a wholesome quality.
Okay, the other factors here by themselves are not necessarily wholesome or unwholesome, a lot of them,
but given these three as roots, the others are covered by these three,
or the others are rooted in these three in some way with a digit staff.
The staff comes up on the screen and illuminates the rest.
You mean all others?
Huh?
You mean all others, all other dharmas?
All the other dharmas present in the same state,
in the same consciousness, in the same state.
So, these wholesome regions belong to a sphere of value
as opposed to the perfect distinction of the past factors.
They're more of a value rather than a purpose.
And...
...individual things like...
All right, in the absence of these, it has the characteristics of the mind being deeply devised for the object of thought,
detached like a drop of water on a lotus leaf.
Its function is not appropriated like an irritated monk.
Not appropriated?
No.
And the manifestation is detachedness, like a man falling to a foul place.
What?
Manifestation is detachedness, like a man falling to a foul place.
He gets detached from that?
No, it's like...
Not appropriated.
Mark, what do you think?
I saw that too.
Yeah, I know, it's there.
The absence of hate has the characteristics of freedom from resentment, like an agreeable friend.
The function is expelling distress, like sandalwood.
And the manifestation of season, like the full moon.
That's the mind.
What was the other question?
Season.
Season?
Season.
Who is the function?
The function is expelling distress.
Thank you.
For a moment...
So the absence of resentment is exactly the same as the faculty of understanding.
Okay.
So...
The absence...
The absence of greed is opposed to the taste of prejudice.
The absence of hate is opposed to the feeling of wickedness.
And the absence of greed is opposed to not developing moral qualities.
With the absence of greed, there's the condition of given.
The absence of hate, the condition of virtue.
And the absence of virtue is the condition of culture.
With the absence of hate, there's the condition of given.
And this is the culture.
Okay.
Do you want to say something about those?
I'll say something about those.
Okay.
All right.
So in a condition of non-greed,
there's giving.
Or...
giving up.
Or...
All right.
This is...
This kind of giving is even...
You know, even after you've given up,
you've given up everything,
then you're always asked to give up harm.
So...
There's non-hate when virtue is interesting because...
Like...
If you hate, you don't see the virtue.
You don't see people's virtues, you just see the faults.
So if you're going to see virtue, you have to have...
There has to be non...
If there's going to be virtue, there has to be non-virtue.
And...
This here is non-delusion, and then culture is...
Non-delusion is where there's the necessity for culture,
for practice, as it were.
We were mentioning the other day that in Golden Mountain,
they used the expression cultivation
for what we call practice.
And that's what this culture is.
It's only...
It's non-delusion which sees the necessity for that.
It realizes why practice is necessary.
Okay?
This...
This type of statement in Golden Mountain
is something...
Something like...
Non...
Non-hate is when...
Virtue can be something...
Too much, and non-hate is when...
Virtue can be too little, and non-delusion is when...
Okay?
I'm not going to say today...
I'm not going to say today...
I'm not going to say today...
There's something fairly...
Elsewhere in Golden Mountain Church we...
Down here, we use...
This non-degree...
Degree promotes...
Insight...
Into...
Extended...
And...
This...
Non-hate promotes insight into ill...
Or suffering...
And...
Non-delusion promotes insight into no-self.
These are the...
The three marks.
You know, and it says...
There's a story given of...
The monk who...
Was looking for a bowl...
And...
Saw a nice bowl...
And...
He looked good, and then he noticed there were these three holes in it.
Whereupon he got more interested in the three holes than in the bowl.
The bowl, at that point, did not seem as though it was so...
Desirable.
When he found the three holes.
And so...
His insight into these three, of course, would...
Uh...
Which is really...
Sort of what the...
What practice is all about.
It's having insight into these three.
Uh, so...
Non-greed...
Non-greed...
And also, these three...
Uh, insight into each of these three promotes...
Like, insight into impermanence promotes non-greed.
So, it says they work both ways.
That...
Like...
Non-greed...
When non-greed is present, it promotes this insight.
You notice that...
Uh, what you wanted...
Uh, goes away.
It disappears after a while.
So, you realize, oh, it brings you impermanence.
Whereas, if...
You didn't have non-greed, you'd just...
You'd...
You'd try to grab the thing, and you wouldn't notice so much about impermanence.
And, uh...
Non-hate...
Uh...
Promotes insight into ill or suffering.
If you...
If, when you...
When you have non-hate, then you...
Then it says that you don't feel like...
You don't feel like...
Causing any more ill or suffering.
Yeah?
Uh...
Non-greed, uh, makes you notice that what you wanted goes away.
Does non-greed mean that you don't want to suffer?
You want things, but you don't mind not having them?
Yeah.
What was that again?
He said that non-greed makes you notice that what you wanted goes away.
But, I was wondering if non-greed is...
What that has to do with...
Whether you can watch something and still have non-greed.
Yeah, well, I think, you know, I think it's supposed to be here.
It's detached.
And...
Not appropriate.
It doesn't say that...
Non-greed, there can still be, uh...
Objects.
In a way, there's objects there.
Whether you exactly want them or not, there's these objects there.
And maybe you want...
But, you're detached from the wanting.
Or you're...
This is...
This detachment is not...
It's still...
It doesn't mean the absence of wanting.
It doesn't seem to mean necessarily the absence of wanting.
And this...
Not appropriating...
It still may be like...
There's objects there that...
Uh...
You know, there's...
There's an object...
There's still objects there.
But...
You don't try to...
You don't...
You don't try to appropriate it.
Make it yours.
So...
These are maybe...
These three insights are maybe more obvious.
They work in the other way.
If there's some insight into impermanence, then...
There's not...
There's non-greed because...
You wouldn't desire something that you can see as impermanent.
And when you really have an insight that it's impermanent,
you can no longer...
You no longer have...
Desire for it.
And...
When you see suffering until...
How much suffering until there is, you can't...
You can't any longer eradicate or do more of that.
See, there's plenty of it.
And you better...
And you...
You get...
Rather resign to not venting your own.
You know?
Not giving more vent or adding more.
And...
In the sense of no-self, then...
When you see...
When you have that...
When there's that insight, then...
That...
Causes non-delusion.
Yes.
When you detect an actual fault,
the disinterested man discloses it,
but the grieving man hides the fault.
Similarly, the man that honestly discloses a virtue is detected.
For the hater, he faces a virtue.
And the wise man reveals what he finds is really true,
while the dull man holds the truth false in a false case.
And again, if the actors agree,
one does not feel the pain of separation from that which is beloved,
affection being the inclusive nature of the grieving man,
as well as inability to bear the pain of separation from the beloved.
For actors of hate,
one does not feel the pain of association with the unloved,
hatred being the inclusive nature of the man of hate,
as well as inability to bear the pain of association with the unloved.
For actors of delusion,
one does not feel the pain of not getting what is desired.
Such considerations, made by one without delusion,
are however possible.
Good catch, man.
Yeah.
Want to just do it again?
Um...
Your question was about that last sentence,
that last thing, how were it possible?
Why, is that a delusion, or...?
Or not a delusion, or...?
Put down, I guess, the...
Or down below.
Yeah, it's kind of a little bit vague, I think.
So, what was the delusion, or down below?
Wait, how were it possible, and then down below?
Oh, I see.
Oh, I see.
It's like if you just brought a new car,
and you parked it in the building,
and you see a piece of metal,
and you think,
God, how is that possible?
Yeah.
It also has in it
that absence of hate will make you look young.
Absence of greed will give you good health.
Absence of delusion causes a long life.
Well, first you've been talking about,
as I can see,
you've been saying that
non-greed is a delusion,
that's why I put it at the base
of the real problem
that we have.
Of course.
And that the root of greed, hate, and delusion
is the very idea, or
conception, or
perception of something that is separate from its object.
So as soon as you have...
If you have objects, then you have
greed, hate, and delusion.
If you have objects, then you have
wanting more objects,
or wanting certain objects,
and then not wanting some objects,
and
doing something self-destructive,
or sort of ignoring objects.
You sort of just turn away, or
there's something you don't want to do.
And, of course, as soon as you have objects,
then you have self,
because if there's objects, then there's subject.
And you can't have objects without
having self.
So, like the other day when we were speaking with Andrew, he said to me that
that
the idea of objects, the idea we have about objects is that
we can realize ourself through objects.
Whatever, you know, I mean, objects,
this sense of objects is used in a very
very general way.
You know, to include even
when we look at our consciousness
as an object.
I mean, when we look at our consciousness, it's already, it's immediately an object.
We say, what's my state of mind now?
Then that's making an object of consciousness,
an object of our own mind.
So as soon as we do that, as soon as we sort of step back and look,
and say, what's going on?
And we look and say, oh, there's this, and there's this, and there's that.
Like, we're essentially just talking about topics, so.
So, as soon as we,
as soon as we look at things from that point of view,
and say, well, what is it?
And then we say, oh,
do we know what it is?
That's the meaning of being analytical.
I mean, we have to.
I mean, what are we finding out from being analytical then?
We're looking at the issue of breaking down this object?
Well, we're trying to be a little more exact, you know,
and take the object out of the object for all we see.
The way we're realizing how arbitrary our
divisions are, and they're making up all these ridiculous words and divisions,
there's implicitly a possible one.
Or a de-workable one.
Yeah, right.
Or just as possible, as per the conditions of the illusion.
I don't know.
It's possible, only,
I can say to be more helpful,
if you use these divisions in your,
divisions in your custom view,
more liberating to use
these arbitrary divisions in your own arbitrary view.
Because we speak of consciousness as a flowing,
sort of, interlacing, interconnected stream,
and what they've got.
One thing I noticed is that,
at least the way we're studying it,
there's a tremendous dependence on nouns,
but, you know, I have so many birds here.
Lots of nouns.
We have one noun after another.
And we think about every kind of energetic,
or every kind of little process,
or kind of event,
that becomes a noun.
Yeah, well, this is, it's, that's true.
And that's where,
as I said earlier, in all these other studies,
that that's what we do when we objectify things.
That's exactly what we do when we objectify things.
We could make up a little set of arbitrary blocks,
you know, with all these curves on there.
And, and, you know, like,
well, like, right now I'm studying the 7th form of,
of a cognition of a,
a sense of, you know, I mean,
you could have these little blocks all laid out,
and then you could, you know,
have little sub-blocks that kind of,
would have, if you put them together,
they'd be the size of a block.
I mean, there's many possibilities,
We can make metal molecules out of this.
That's a great idea.
Metal molecules,
a new way to study Dalai Lama teaching.
It's terrific.
We should patent it.
It'd be a good shot card.
This is,
this is a problem, you know,
of, of our intellect.
You know, this is why it's said that,
if you just,
if you just try to understand things through your intellect,
and think that's where it's at,
and progress things through your intellect,
you can't seem to ever get it.
Because,
but you can get it through your intellect,
you can get hold of,
through your intellect, you can get hold of samadhi,
which aren't there anymore.
You know, which are quite different.
By the time you get hold of it,
they're no longer there.
You've got to hold it.
Uh-huh.
As though she said, since you perceive something,
it hasn't been there for quite a while.
It's probably gone.
Another thing about this deal with suffering like this,
and this is not hate,
is that,
normally, when it,
when you feel,
feel,
this is something I've mentioned before,
but when you feel,
feel,
feel,
just feel,
you can sense that you're suffering,
your first number two,
is that life is suffering,
or something kind of ill.
you know,
the, uh, ox's tail doesn't go through the window.
Why is that?
Uh,
it's,
it doesn't go through.
And, uh,
when you,
when you have some,
when there's some insight that that's the way it is,
uh, you don't get distracted and upset about it.
It is not,
not in pain anymore.
You don't get angry,
or hateful,
that that's the way it is.
When you,
when you see that that's the way it is,
when you have that insight,
when there's that insight present.
If, if you think that there's,
if you,
when you think that there's some other alternative,
it's possible,
that you have some other ideal,
and say,
oh,
really, it ought to be like this,
and we have lots of nice,
ideas about the way it would,
way it could be,
and some other possible existence,
and it could be.
And,
as long as we have that kind of,
other idea,
then,
when ill or suffering arises,
we get angry.
Because,
we are holding out for something else.
And,
it hasn't gotten there yet.
And,
it still hasn't gotten there.
You know,
it's kind of like,
I still haven't gotten rid of this suffering,
or this ill.
It's too bad.
So, uh,
that's another way in which,
you're suffering or ill,
from non-hateful,
non-hateful messages.
If there's,
if there's non-hate,
if you practice non-hate,
as it were,
then,
you notice that,
oh,
this is the way it is.
There is suffering in this ill.
We can't get rid of it.
And,
when you've got time to,
you know,
it's like,
I'm doing this about falls.
I mean,
if you always,
like,
if you always,
if you find yourself criticizing other people a lot,
being very faithful,
and finding a lot of falls,
then,
you know,
it's like,
it's like thinking that it was possible,
that they really shouldn't be like that.
They really should be like this.
They really shouldn't be that.
They should be some other way.
And they should all work harder.
And,
so on.
You know?
But then,
you get mad at other people.
And so,
it's,
it's,
and so,
if you stop,
when you stop getting mad at them,
you find that,
oh,
that's just the way it is.
People are like that.
There's no,
there's,
we can't,
I mean,
it's just unusual to expect people to be some other way.
So,
when you start,
all of these things,
when you start,
when you start practicing these things,
as it were,
it,
it,
it,
it,
it,
it,
it,
it,
it,
it,
when you stop getting angry at other people,
you find,
you find that what you're angry with doing
was
trying to say that
there shouldn't be ill or suffering
was a way of not saying that there is ill or suffering.
And that if you practice non-greed,
what you greed is,
greed is an attempt
to
say that things aren't impermanent, because I can get hold of these things, see?
And when that one goes away, I can get another one, see?
And I can keep doing that, I can keep finding something to get hold of,
so that I don't accept that things are impermanent.
And this one too, if you stop, if you...
When we have delusion, because then you can think that there's a self.
So the opposite of you think, create a delusion, hide the insight for it.
And keep us from seeing that really things are impermanent, you know, and there's no self.
We can't accumulate anything and we can't get a better self.
That's not what it's about.
This could be kind of a continual...
I'm sorry, you have to write?
Yeah.
No, the insights, yeah, like, so this is like insight effort.
I mean, in these kind of terms, this is a moment of, you know,
a moment of non-divisiveness, and this is maybe a moment of insight.
I don't know exactly what I mean by this.
This would have to do with each other, back and forth.
There's non-divisiveness inside of this, insight produces more non-divisiveness.
Whereas, of course, greed, the more you act on greed, the more you implant that,
you're seeing, in a sense, that there's some purpose possible.
Would this whole process be taken into consideration around one of the Javanese?
The Javanese?
Yeah.
The whole thing stays here.
So, yeah, that's a good point, because all these things are all just kind of momentary, you know,
or...
How much time do we have?
Anyway, oh, he says something about, like, one step is 50%, you know,
so 50%, 50%, you know, you can go either way, you know, for a long time.
You can go either way, and you can act on greed or act on non-greed,
and that sort of prompts an insight or hides an insight.
So you can see the things that are in front of you, or you can ignore the things that are in front of you.
Do you have some choice with regards to religion or non-religion?
Do you have a choice about whether you want to be...
Well, Buddhism, if I say so, there's some choice, you know.
That's called faith and intention, right intention, right views.
That if you have faith, you know, you can... you have some choice.
From what point of view?
And that you can practice, you know.
For people who are delusional, the practice that's recommended is following the Buddha.
Each of these also has a practice that's recommended,
and that's the practice for deluded people is to follow the Buddha.
And anybody, you know, there's...
sometimes it says that there's mean type, hate type, and delusion type,
and, of course, in any case, there's delusion present,
but there has to be some delusion, and you don't have the other two.
So the practice in following the Buddha is good for all types.
What do you think?
But it seems to me like if you're going to choose...
For greed types, it's good to choose,
because it says in here about non-greed,
what non-greed sees the foul side of things,
and that is what non-greed does.
So for a greed type, you meditate on corpses and skeletons and all that kind of thing.
What about hate types?
Hate types do love and kindness.
And maybe a pleasant kind.
Do you think they do devotional practices?
Devotional practices are more for a greed type,
but definitely not ascetic practices.
Wisdom practices are for hate types.
Don't the Tibetans divide those three into five?
Or some schools of Buddhism make five roots instead of three?
I don't know. It might be a little different.
Look at this. There are five roots.
This is a little bit different from these three.
The five roots are sensual desire, sloth and torture,
I don't know, deceit, following the Buddha, and all those things.
We're going to go on.
What's the next three, and why is this listed twice now?
This is listed three times in Buddhism as three what?
Ways of actions to hate.
And then they're called something a little bit different.
They're called non-covetousness, non-ill will, and right understanding.
And they can cause mental action and so on.
And the reason is that in the Adhāna studies,
they say that these three factors considered in three
belong to the impelling or motive powers of the unfeasibly turning wheel of life.
But as ways of action, they're sections of the wheel.
I didn't know what that was.
That's in Abhidharma studies?
As ways of life, they're sections of the wheel.
Do you expect a target?
I don't think so.
I don't think the powers of the unfeasibly turning wheel.
I don't know what that is.
The wheel of life.
Well, I guess it's that wheel of life.
Okay, well, anyway, it's saying that these wholesome roots
that were present not only as a sort of motive or coloring,
but also in the sense of action,
that this helps us take.
So sometimes, of course, I don't know if it's actually possible,
if there is such a thing in here where it's not that way,
but it wants to emphasize that these aren't just there as
sort of nice intention or something,
good intention, but they're being acted on.
This place has to stay.
They're acting.
Okay, let's go on.
We talked about the guardians of the world already.
Now what about the six pairs of qualitative factors?
Between all six?
Huh?
Yeah, okay.
Well, it wasn't that difficult, was it?
No.
Which one was it?
I'm supposed to do it.
What do you mean what you're supposed to do?
You had something a long time ago.
I know. Did you give me another one?
I don't have any down here for anything more.
Really?
All right.
The six pairs of what?
Qualitative factors, okay.
And they're kind of ways of looking at human consciousness.
The interesting thing about what you mentioned earlier
was the healthy attitude compared to Western psychology
and so much emphasis on abnormality.
So that was kind of nice to read about.
Oh, let's write down the six pairs.
So I know these things are hard to ask.
Do you know what the six are?
Well, I'll write them down up here.
Tranquility.
Tranquility of mental concomitants.
You said English.
Tranquility of us.
What was that?
In the quote from Darwin,
it says serenity in sense and thought.
It lists all those in sense and thought.
Serenity in sense and thought.
Lightness in sense and thought.
Turn the next one.
Six pairs?
Turn the six pairs?
Yeah, I was talking about the six pairs.
What are they in sense and thought?
These pairs are listed twice, right?
They're listed once as determines the tranquility,
serenity, tranquility of the mental factors,
or mental concomitants.
And then it's listed again as tranquility of mind.
Uh-huh.
So all of these are listed twice, first as,
and where's the person referred to the tranquility of mental factors?
Where?
When it talks about the mental factors,
what is it talking about?
About the kind of equanimity?
Well, how does it describe what the mental factors are that it's talking about?
About all of them?
Yeah, about all of them.
Well, it makes a serious statement that they always arise together,
and that they occur on good consciousness,
like a kind of perfect state.
Uh-huh.
So where are they?
When it says kaya-pasadi and citta-pasadi,
then what is kaya?
Yeah.
Well, citta is mind,
and kaya refers to concomitants of mind.
And how else do we describe what the concomitants of mind are?
Okay, mental factors.
Factors.
Okay.
And it's also listed in the manual as feeling, perception, and intellect.
Feeling?
Yeah.
It's also listed as the three other,
three mental skandhas of feeling, perceptions, and impulses.
Or the vedana skandha, samya skandha, and samskara skandha.
Samskara skandha.
Okay, these are listed quite there.
Including the mental concomitants for feeling, perceptions, and impulses,
and then including the mind.
And that next one is?
Agility.
Agility.
Is that the second one?
Okay, agility and how else do we describe it?
It's likeness or quietness.
Can you say mental concomitants number two and number three?
Or in that case, if you close the sentence.
Where are we now on page 23?
Number 40.
Number 40.
Okay, what on that occasion did you close the sentence?
Right.
It's kaya pasadi.
Pasadi.
And kaya, when she says sentence, that's her translation of kaya.
And kaya refers to three skandhas, three mental skandhas.
Is it the same as body?
No, it's not the same as body.
It's a different kaya.
Okay, and what's the third one?
Quietness.
Silence.
Silence.
What's the one on the down here that's called pasticity?
Pasticity.
Pasticity.
This must be before pasticity or not.
We can't make the same.
So, what do you think the sentence is in the mental concomitant?
Like what are your sentences?
That's what you thought?
Yeah.
This is quiet, right?
Yeah.
What's the mental concomitant?
What is the concomitant that you would think?
I don't know.
It's just that, you know, it's just what you think.
What is pasticity?
It's nothing to do with pasticity.
What's the concomitant?
Three.
Silence.
The mouth.
The tongue.
And the lips.
The lips again.
Silence.
There's no...
These are...
We're talking...
We're in this whole...
First question, we're talking only about incorporeal, as it were, mental factors.
So, anyway, this is what quiet is.
So, there's tranquility of the quiet and tranquility of the citta,
and agility of citta and agility of quiet.
Pasticity of quiet, pasticity of citta.
What's the fourth one?
Workableness.
Workableness for what?
Just a quick one.
Well, I understand that the other two are functions.
Functions?
That you would have quiet.
Uh-huh.
Okay, well, I understand, anyway, that this workableness means it's workable for all six states.
Specifically.
But, anyway, just tell me it's workable.
It could be work.
Yeah?
Some people call it readiness to work.
Readiness?
Yeah.
What's the fifth one?
Proficiency.
Huh?
Proficiency.
Proficiency.
Proficiency.
It's also called fitness.
And that's the fifth state.
Appendix.
Or directness.
Straightforward.
What is it?
Uh, not crooked.
Non-crookedness.
The example given is somebody does an evil thing and they say, oh, that wasn't bad at all.
I didn't do anything.
That's it for being crooked.
This here is the assignment of the C.
Um.
Can you explain why you think you're being translated?
Why what?
Why it's bad when you're translated.
Um.
It's making a comment that, uh, you know, the, uh, kaya here refers to, in some ways,
mentioning all the other dharmas in the list other than, uh, citta.
So in this first state, there's 56 wholesome dharmas that are present and one of them is,
well, there's citta and then there's manindriya.
Are there any others that refer to citta?
So, uh, there's citta and then there's, uh, manindriya, right?
And otherwise, the other 54 are, uh, kaya.
Or in other words, it's sometimes used as chaita.
And, uh, it's said, of course, that citta and chaita, as it says in the, uh,
Abhidharmakosha, which is pretty nasty,
and one of the rarest things is to memorize these things.
And the first point is, citta and chaita don't necessarily arise together.
You don't get, uh, citta without chaita and you don't get chaita without citta.
So, uh, all of these are referring to the fact that the dharmas present in this wholesome state
have a different quality than the same dharmas present in a non-wholesome state.
Continued on tape 2, side 1.