Who does not know who Pete Seeger is? Raise your hand. Pete Seeger? Who is Pete Seeger? He's a singer, right? He's a folk singer. Huh? He's a political... And now he's 87. And there's an article in the New Yorker about him. And... about three years ago. Here's a story told to me lately by a man named John Cronin who is director of the Pace Academy for Environment at Pace University. Cronin has known Seeger for thirty years. About two winters ago, on Route 9, just outside Beacon, someplace in the south, I think.

[01:09]

It's in New York? Oh, in Beacon, New York State. One winter day, freezing. Rainy and slushy. A miserable winter day. the war in Iraq is just heating up and the country is in a poor mood. Cronin said, I'm driving north and on the other side of the road I see from the back a tall, slim figure, a hood and a coat. In a hood I'm looking and I can tell it's Pete. He's standing there all by himself and he's holding up a big piece of cardboard that clearly has something written on it.

[02:17]

Cars are going by him. He's getting wet. He's 84. He's holding the homemade sign above his head. He's very tall. And his chin is raised the way he sings. And he's turning the sign in a semicircle so that the drivers can see as they pass. And some people are honking and waving at him. And some people are giving him the finger. He's 84 years old. I know he's got some purpose, of course, but I don't know what it is. What struck me is that whatever his intentions are, and obviously he wants people to notice what he's doing, to make an impression.

[03:21]

Anyway, whatever they are, he doesn't call the newspapers and say, I'm Pete Seeger. Here's what I'm going to do. He doesn't cultivate publicity. That isn't what he does. He's far more modest than that. He would never make a fuss. He's just standing out there in the cold and the sleet like a scarecrow. I go a little bit down the road so that I can turn and come back. And then I get him in my view again, this solitary elderly figure. I see what he's written on the sign is pieced. So some of us are strong enough to stand out in the cold with signs and others of us do other things.

[04:43]

We do some indoor things, some of us. So we have this class here and the proposal is Well, like I said last week, one reason for Buddha's meditation on mind, one reason for that is awakening. Because of awakening, there's this teaching to meditate on. Another way to put it is, the reason for this teaching about mind is because it's due to a mistaken kind of conceptual cognition that all suffering is produced and continued.

[05:56]

And we started with, and I'm proposing that there's two basic approaches to it. One is a philosophical approach, studying the nature of cognition. And the other is a psychological approach studying the nature of action, which is basically cognitive. So the kind of action that is the source of suffering is a cognitive type of action. There are certain types of activities which are not primarily cognitive. For example, your fingernails growing out, your hair growing, is not a cognitive activity.

[07:06]

But the way you think, the way you're thinking, is the basic type of cognitive activity which is the source or is awakening. And then the bodily and vocal activities, which are based on our thinking, elaborate or unfold that basic cognitive activity. And that's our psychological behavior. There's a relationship between the study of epistemology, or different types of cognition, and the study of karma, or psychology. And I think I said last week that basically two forms of knowing, which are, remember? Direct and indirect. Direct and indirect, uh-huh.

[08:15]

And, or immediate and medium. or perception and cognition. I mean perception and conception. Perceptual cognition, conceptual cognition. And so tonight I'd like to talk a little bit more about perception. And I think I mentioned last week also that there are four types of perception. Did I tell you that last week? No. So we might talk about four types of perception. Or you might say four types of immediacy. You could say four types of immediacy. You could also say four types of immediate perception, which is somewhat redundant in the terminology of the way I'm...

[09:19]

I'm using immediate perception is redundant. Perception is immediate. But you could say immediate cognition, and then you know what we mean by that is perception. And there's four types, basically. First type is called sense perception, or you could say sense immediacy. or sense immediate experience. I'm trying to use synonyms to get used to. The next type is mental immediacy or mental perception. The next type is self-knowing or apperceptive, apperceptive, and again I could say perception or I could say cognition, because

[10:38]

sense perception or sense cognition, because all sense cognitions are sense perceptions. All sense cognitions are immediate. But if I say mental cognition, that wouldn't tell you whether it was mental conception or mental perception. Following that? However, self-knowing or apperceptive cognition, you don't know until I tell you probably that that is immediate self-knowing or self-knowing of immediacy. But also, excuse me, actually, that's a good point. The self-knowing can be self-knowing of immediacy or mediated. But the self-knowing is a type of immediacy which knows whatever kind of cognition is happening.

[11:45]

So it is a direct perception a self-knowing perception, and it applies to all states of cognition. So the third type of direct perception, which is proposed by not branches of Buddhist philosophy, but by most, and I think it's good to start with this before you refute it, But most schools of Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist epistemology say that the third type of direct perception is the self-knowing, apperceptive perception. And it applies to, it knows all states of cognition, both direct and indirect. And the third type of direct perception is yogic direct perception. The fourth is yogic direct perception. And this is the type of direct perception which a bodhisattva, once hearing about this, realizes that aspiring to the Buddha way includes aspiring to realize direct yogic perception.

[13:07]

but it's a tremendous feat to be able to do so. For now, we just learn a little bit about it. Okay, did you get those four? Are we going to need a few more? Probably. Let's watch and see. The first type also can be said to be of five types, and the five types are named after... sense organs, which they arise, the five physical sense organs that they arise with. So they're usually called eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, and body consciousness. But body consciousness means basically skin consciousness or, you know, tactile consciousness. Okay? Got those five?

[14:09]

And then there's the mind consciousness is of two types, which are basically the type of mind consciousness which actually occurs to most of us in conjunction with sense And then there's a mind consciousness, which is what we often would call clairvoyance, or it's a type of consciousness that arises through meditation. And I'll tell you more about that later. And the third type, I think it's one type. And the fourth type is also basically one type. I might be wrong about that, but if I am, I'll tell you when I find out that I am. Okay?

[15:13]

Now, back to sense consciousness. I mean, sense consciousness, yeah. Now, I've said this before, and I'd say it again and again. Strictly speaking, we do not, in the Buddha Dharma, say what anything We don't say what people are. We don't say what enlightenment is. We don't say what delusion is. We don't say what sense perception is. We don't do that when we're being strict. We actually talk about how Or we say, you know, such as, you know, we say that type of perception is called sense perception. We can say it's called that. We can concentrate on how things come to be.

[16:24]

Otherwise we slip into substantialistic type of thinking. Or rather we stay stuck in it. We reiterate it. So starting right off, in some sense the first thing to say probably is how does sense perception come to be? And it comes to be depending on various causes and conditions. But, you know, we highlight three causes and conditions, or three conditions. The first one's called object condition. This next one's called the immediate antecedent condition.

[17:25]

The third one's called the dominant condition. Those are the three main ones. There's also what he called the causal condition. So in Sanskrit, these are called... The object condition is called the lambana pratyaya. The immediately antecedent condition is called samantara pratyaya. The dominant condition is called atipati pratyaya. And the causal condition is called... But usually, in terms of looking at the causation, we emphasize those first three. So the first one for sense perception is some part of the environment that's sensible, some kind of sense data.

[18:36]

The second condition is a sense organ. Now, of course, a sense organ is not just floating up by itself. It's usually in some context. some local context called, usually, some other sense organs. And again, strictly speaking, when the Buddha talks about the body, most of what the Buddha is talking about is the sense organs. So I wrote down in my notes here, I said, the body's sense organs. Strictly speaking, it isn't really the body's sense organ, it's really the body, which But there's more to the body than sense organs, you might say. There's a kind of nurturing environment that makes the sense organs possible. Like the heart or the stomach or the liver aren't exactly sense organs, except in the sense that maybe they are a sense organ.

[19:41]

But the actual function of pumping the blood or processing blood or digesting food, those activities are kind of what provide the environment to keep the sense organs alive. So in some sense when we say body, it's not really the body sense organs. The body is the sense organs. you have some sense organ or a body with sense organs or whatever, a sensing being living in a physical world includes other living beings with sense organs and inanimate beings, beings that don't have sense organs and don't have consciousness. when this body living in the physical world is stimulated by the physical world, if it's a sufficient stimulation of some organ capacity and there is a previous moment of consciousness, an immediate antecedent moment of consciousness, when those three conditions come together, when those three conditions arise together, we have what we call

[21:01]

sense perception. That's how it comes to be. But there's also another condition which we don't get into usually when we're studying this epistemologically because the other things don't really turn the investigation much, the hetu pratyaya. There's other conditions like I mentioned. Not the entire world, for example, that we live in, not all of it is sensible. Not all of it is sense data. So it doesn't directly bear, not all of it directly bears on the activation of sense consciousness. But that would be part of hetu prajaya. That would be part of the conditions of the situation, but you don't have to look at that when you're watching to see the birth of cognition.

[22:13]

Yes? What you were just talking about, sense perception. I'm talking about how sense perception comes to be. I have read somewhere in the Tibetan texts that previous life, at the moment of birth, because there is this... Because of this immediate antecedent that you just talked about. Yes. That's their way of inferring that there was previous life. Yes. At the moment of birth. Condition existing. Uh-huh. Can you elaborate on that? Let's see. I would start off by simply saying that the first... find somehow the first perception of a living being that the teaching would be that that perception, that sense perception of the living being, that first one, would have the same conditions, namely it would have an immediately...

[23:39]

cognition. However, that would be a cognition which occurred prior to birth. So that cognition would be a cognition that was not a cognition of a living being. That would be the difference. They also call it consciousness. Consciousness is basically a synonym for cognition. But I confuse it with direct perception. And the difference between direct and indirect, but where does consciousness fit into that topic? Consciousness can be direct or indirect. Cognition can be direct or indirect. So... Chapter 5 of the Shona Sutra, it says whatever kind of beings are born, they're born by a consciousness apprehending sense organs.

[24:51]

So that's the story in Chapter 5. You can look at that. It's a simple story. But the Buddha also said, Shakyamuni Buddha, in the early teachings, that consciousness descends into sense organs, and that's what constitutes birth of a living being. Before consciousness descends into sense organs, you don't actually have, you can't have direct sense perception. So the consciousness, but consciousness is not entirely, what do you call it, annihilated at the time of what we usually call not just death in the sense that the doctors say you're dead, because sometimes the doctor might come and say you're dead, but some other person might say the person's not completely dead yet. And don't embalm them yet, because the consciousness is still present in the body. But we don't destroy the body either.

[25:52]

We burn it or we compost it or we feed it to dogs or something, right? The body doesn't lead to the birth of the next body in that there's no continuity between the body and the next body. But there is a continuity between like during your life, the body has some continuity and your consciousness has some continuity. But after dissociated from the body, the mind becomes dissociated from the body. However, it continues in a causal process by which the consciousness can inhabit another sense organ field. And at the moment that the mind descends into a set of sense organs, there was an immediate antecedent cognition. However, that cognition was not associated with a body.

[26:56]

So that cognition was not the cognition of a living being. Living beings, like us, have cognitions. But our cognitions are not living beings. according to this way of thinking. Cognitions are something living beings are. Living beings are cognitive beings, but their cognitions are not a living being. Sense organs are also living beings. No, sense organs, living beings are sense organs, but sense organs are not living beings. if I can do it that way. So consciousness can become dissociated with the sense organs and the sense organs first, but the consciousness then goes into a process of causation and it can inhabit another body.

[28:08]

At the time of inhabiting, if it gives rise to a sense perception, which is probably the first perception that it will give rise to in the sense field, the immediate antecedent condition probably a what? What would you guess the type of cognition that that was? Yeah, it would be a mental direct perception, probably. That would be the only option. It could be something else. In the case of some people, it could be a direct yogic perception. In the case of a Be'i Buddha, it could be like the first, you know, causal continuity of direct yogic perceptions which inhabit sense organs. Was there a hand back there? Yeah. Yeah. Does Buddhist teaching ever discuss when this occurs?

[29:13]

Yeah, that's an important point, isn't it? And I've Well, the question is, at what point does it descend in? Does it descend in at the zygote? The zygote, I think, refers to the fertilized egg, right? Is that the correct use of the word zygote? Fertilized egg. That means one cell. We start as a one-celled organism. Now, does conception start at that time? I would say it could, theoretically, if you could specify sense organs in the zygote. And the zygote has some kind of sense organs, you might say. So I would say I do not know of any or a great teacher has said what point in the embryological process the consciousness can inhabit the field. Even if you could see that the being sort of has sense organs, like you could actually see them with your eye or test them, I think you'd have to be able to ascertain that they weren't just there, but that they look like they're operating the way it does when you have what we call sense consciousness there, too.

[30:32]

So at what point there's sense consciousness in the embryo, I don't know any dharma where it has actually set the date, which is a big controversy now, right? But at what point, like stem cell research, right? At what point can you say that consciousness has descended into the womb, into the being, and a conscious living being? I don't know. So this is part of the reason why it's hard without knowing this to say how much you're going to allow that to happen, to mess with embryos. At what moment? The question is, when is the moment of conception? That's what I don't know anybody saying. Right, but still it doesn't say when is the moment of conception.

[31:56]

It just says when these conditions are there. It doesn't say at what point when the conditions are there. It actually doesn't even say about them getting together. It just says when the mother provides the blood and the father provides the semen. He doesn't say about them even coming together to form something, as far as I know. So it's not...Vasubandha doesn't say... Again, this is a... Remember, this is a story. What do you mean by it's a story? I mean, it's a narrative. It's a linguistic utterance. Well, what else would it be? What else would it be? You might think it was a reality. something more than a story. Like I could tell a story that Lynn is a nice person, and people could think that that's a reality. A story about Lynn.

[33:01]

And some people could say, well, that's not a true story, someone might say. Well, okay, then we have another story that is not a true story. So direct perception now, you have these conditions coming together and so there they are, they're together and that's enough for direct perception at this point. So that's where it is. It's when these things come together. Yeah? Is the immediate antecedent condition, does that any other function besides that there was something alive there the moment before? Does that interact in any way? Well, one way is that it was not necessarily something alive, but there was a cognition, because there's a possibility that there wasn't something alive there before.

[34:13]

Cognition, just before that, provides a condition for there to be now, with other conditions there, that you can have another cognition. That's one way it does. The other way is that cognition has consequence. Another way is that the cognition just got out of the way. That's another way to look at it. It just deceased, so now there's room for another cognition in relationship to these conditions. That's another way that it's a condition. Yes? Yes? Are there any other kinds of antecedent conditions besides cognition? No. In this particular scenario, talking about the arising of experience, the antecedent condition is an antecedent cognition.

[35:21]

And it's the just antecedent, the just immediately one, just deceased or just a ceasing cognition. There are other past conditions, but this is the one that's been focused on for the arising of consciousness. Because this is direct perception without conceptual mediation at this point, does the nature of the immediate antecedent, you know, concept, conception, the shape of it or the type it was or the way it was going, does that affect anything? if it was a kind of a strong perception, in a sense, a strong, let's say, perception that was the immediate antecedent? Is the nature of it, is it karmic? Does it have a shape and then therefore... It often... Whatever kind of cognition it is,

[36:31]

it does arise with mental factors which are also, in a sense, cognitions. The pattern of those other cognitions which accompany the main cognition of the object, which arises with the object, they form a shape which is what we call intention or thinking, and that is the definition of karma. factor in these cognitions. But in terms of the strength of the cognition, yeah, if the cognitions, depending on the type of cognitions they are, that will be a factor in what will follow. More than one antecedent? No. We just say that there's one antecedent, but the antecedent could have various mental factors with it.

[37:34]

And the mental factors that are with it could be considered as cognitions or not cognitions in the basic kind of cognition. The basic kind of cognition, the source of the cognitive process is the awareness of the existence of something. And the other types of mental factors are not primarily concerned with the awareness of the existence of the thing, but they're more, for example, aware of different ways to experience it, which is called feeling. But also the cognition comes from alaya, too, in terms of yogachara. Yes? How does one make these discernments about how or why it begins?

[38:41]

And by what means does one learn that these antecedents, these consciousnesses inhabit this body and we sense already that it creates life? They would be, first of all, you ...about them through conceptual cognitions, which is probably most of what's going on. What's leading you to ask that question, I would guess, is because it's in conceptual cognitions in relationship to what I've said that led you to ask that question. Are you following that? Yeah. Yeah. So... Part of the way you get to learn about this is through conceptual cognitions of this teaching about direct perception. Okay? You're hearing about these... For example, you're hearing about the teaching of consciousness descending into sense organs, and you're asking, how do you get knowledge of this?

[39:54]

I'm saying part of the way you get knowledge of this is by hearing me talk, reading. So part of the way you get it is by conceptual cognitions about this that are arising in your life, as your life, and you start to learn about it in that way. Now I'm going to tell you another way which you're going to hear conceptually about direct perception. And the second type of direct mental perception is different, basically several types of clairvoyance. And one of the kind of clairvoyances is you would be able to actually see this process of rebirth. You would actually be able to observe your past lives, the past lives of other people, and other people's minds, And these would be direct perceptions of this process. And now I'm giving you the answer of how you'd know that. And I haven't yet got into telling you what those direct perceptions, what the cause of those direct perceptions would be.

[41:02]

But those direct perceptions would be how one actually has an experience of what I'm talking about. But most people will not have those experiences Or rather, some people could have those experiences just by practicing concentration to a certain level that they would actually see this stuff. Concentration, you can't even see this. And so the Buddha, being a yogi who could see this, he saw these things differently than some other yogis who could also see this thought. So the Buddha saw people die. ...to this intermediate state and being reborn. He'd heard about this story before he attained this direct perception of it. But other people also had direct perceptions of these things, but they understood it differently. And so that's another thing you can do is have even though you have indirect perception of these states which most people can't see.

[42:05]

In the meantime, you're hearing that Buddha and other yogis have seen this, and also you can hear how Buddha interpreted it, and you can also hear how other people interpreted it differently, and what the Buddha had to say about their different interpretations of this, which is, first of all, experienced in direct perception. So use conceptual cognition actually to get into these states where you can have direct perception. And use conceptual cognition to help you perhaps be able to see these things in the way the Buddha did rather than the way some did. Is that enough for now? Okay. Yeah. In the story you were telling about sense consciousness, in that case the immediately deceased sense consciousness is not yet called Manas, is it not? What are the definitions of Manas? It is called Manas. Even in this case of sense perception?

[43:09]

It is. But there's two kinds of Manas. One kind of Manas is the basic function of mind, to act as an organ for mental consciousness, or just be the immediate antecedent condition for sense consciousness. That's Manas too, because Manas is the just deceased sense consciousness, even for sense consciousnesses. So that's Manas there too. In other words, in that case, Manas is as a support for the arising of this sense consciousness. But in this case, it's not a mental organ. Now, when we shift to mind consciousness, it then becomes both the antecedent condition and the mind consciousness. But when it's serving as an antecedent condition, it's also manas. In other words, manas basically means mind.

[44:11]

It's mind which is a condition for the arising of a mind. But it's the antecedent. It's an antecedent. It's not there anymore. That's the arising for it. Maybe it's the overall mind, the overall state of mind preceding. It's the overall state of mind preceding, right, giving rise to this present mind, which is not called manas. So the preceding overall mind is called manas. The current overall mind is not called manas. It's usually called vijnana. or, you know, usually. So, eye vijnana, ear vijnana, and so on. So, before I, well, maybe I'll just finish the causation thing, all right? So you get the causation down. So then moving to the next one, direct mental perception.

[45:12]

the conditions for direct mental perception are basically the same, object condition, median antecedent condition, and dominant condition. In this case, however, the antecedent condition and the dominant condition are the same thing because the antecedent condition is a mind state that has just ceased, Mind consciousness, the organ in this case, is a mind. It doesn't depend on a physical sense organ. That's why this would be a good candidate for the type of consciousness which arises and ceases. Not consciousness that lasts, because no consciousnesses last. But all consciousnesses that arise cease. But when they cease, they aren't annihilated, so they can be a condition for further consciousnesses to arise. However, not all consciousnesses which cease give rise to another consciousness.

[46:18]

The Buddha did not say that every consciousness gives rise to another consciousness. He just said that nothing is annihilated. Often consciousnesses cease and become a condition then for the arising of another consciousness. all day long, we're having that experience. Sense consciousness is rising, ceasing, and then being conditioned for the consciousness. That's going on all the time, basically. Or, you know, extremely often, during every minute. Except in certain special states, like certain special yogic states, the sense consciousness. But anyway, Mind consciousness has these three conditions, and the object can be the same object that the sense consciousness is looking at. So a mind consciousness can know color in relationship to, or depending on, electromagnetic radiation.

[47:27]

But it doesn't use a sense organ. It uses a deceased consciousness, which is a sense organ. That's how it gets contact with the sense object. Does that make sense? If it doesn't, I wouldn't be surprised. So you just described it for a sense, you know, where the immediate antecedent is a deceased sense perception, but it can also perceive a mental object, right? I didn't quite follow what you were saying. I was saying that a mental direct perception has three conditions, just like a sense perception has three conditions. The mental one has the same three, basically, names. It's just in its case, the antecedent and the organ one are the same.

[48:31]

The dominant one, which is the organ, is not a physical sense organ. It is a mind organ. because it's a mind consciousness. It's not a sense consciousness. And the mind organ, in this case, is exactly the same as the antecedent condition. So, and the organ is the same organ, I mean the object is the same object. Can you describe the word antecedent? Pardon? I don't understand what antecedent is. Well, like, now you have a state of consciousness, it has just ceased. and now you have another state of consciousness which depends on the one that just ceased. Does that make any more sense? It means that as soon as a consciousness deceases, the next consciousness that arises will depend on the one that just ceased.

[49:32]

The next experience, cognitive experience, will be dependent cognitive experience, the previous cognition. And that's the immediate antecedent condition. However, in the case of mind consciousness, that immediate antecedent condition is also the dominant condition. It serves like it has the same force the sense organs have for sense consciousness. And the object condition is basically the same as the previous one has because if it's a mind consciousness that's following after a series of sense consciousness, it will bear on the same object that they were dealing with. But it won't need to use the physical sense organ to have this cognition. And again, there's two types of mind consciousness. The most common type is the ones we experience many times a day, which occurs after a series.

[50:36]

It doesn't occur all the time, but it occurs after a series of perceptions. And then that becomes, and that may be strong enough, then, to be the basis for conceptual cognition. Let's see. Kazan? Okay. Yeah. I mean, the taste, and it's in the mind, isn't that related to, like, the taste? The only reason why I, like, sense, or if I go into a movement area and I see popcorn, isn't it because I've already had that relation with popcorn? Yes. The story I'm telling is that when, do you want to have taste or do you want to have smell? Because you can't really taste the popcorn at a distance, but you can smell it.

[51:40]

Do you want to actually wait until you get your tongue on the popcorn or do you want to have it be when you're just walking, when you're purchasing it? Or do you want to have it be when you're seeing it? At what point, which one do you want to use? Seeing, smelling, or tasting? Do you know what popcorn tastes like, what it touches like? Kind of slimy, oily? So you want to pick one of those sense things? Taste. Well, now you've already bought it, you can put it in your mouth. So when the popcorn interacts with your tongue, then if there's a previous cognition, The previous cognition was, it could be a previous cognition of a friend's voice. All you got to do is have a cognition, previous cognition. It doesn't have to be about the popcorn. And then you have the arising of the sense called the taste consciousness, in this case of the popcorn.

[52:45]

of the tasteable aspect of the popcorn. There's now an experience of that has arisen. You don't have to have any past. You don't need to have tasted popcorn to have a taste of it. You didn't need to taste it before. Well, see, that's where I don't get how can that arise? Because in the memory block, how can that arise? When I see popcorn, I walk to the movie theater and have the memories of the past taste. That sounds like you're recognizing the popcorn as popcorn or something. But direct perception is not recognition. When you taste the popcorn, you would know, but you wouldn't know that it was popcorn. you wouldn't recognize there was popcorn. You just would actually be tasting popcorn and knowing.

[53:49]

And you might be able to, you know, if we gave you some more popcorn to eat, you might be able to eat. You might or might not be able to ascertain that that taste you had before was the same taste you're having now. Most people, when they have these experiences, do not ascertain them. But if you eat enough popcorn, have enough popcorn taste from one kernel of popcorn, if you have enough moments of tasting that popcorn, that can give rise to a strong enough series of sense perceptions such that you can actually then think about the popcorn and say, this is popcorn, and then you know about it. But in order to do that, in order to do that, then you would have to consult with some image or some concept of popcorn, which you have from previous experience.

[54:51]

But I think we're getting into now conceptual cognition, but we just got into a little bit there. How you would be able to do that, we haven't got to yet. But that's not direct perception when you recognize it. That's conceptual cognition. And conceptual cognition does use, in different ways, does use memory or, you know, the reservoir of images and concepts that we have available to us. Yes? Could you give an example of a consciousness which, I would see, does not become a consciousness? Well, one would be the consciousness of what we call an arhat, or a Buddha at the time of what we call parinirvana. When the Buddha dies, the enlightened cognition of the Buddha is not followed by another cognition.

[55:59]

It isn't annihilated. Matter of fact, it radiates throughout the entire universe, but it does not give rise to another consciousness at a certain point. Before that, it does. Enlightened cognition becomes the antecedent condition for enlightened cognition, becomes the antecedent for, you know, at a certain point, in the state of Buddhahood, you have this unbroken series of enlightened cognitions. But there is a final enlightened cognition for the Buddhas. For bodhisattvas, you can have enlightened cognition followed by enlightened cognition followed by enlightened cognition and then antecedent to enlightened cognition. Enlightened cognition, that can go on for a long time, but for bodhisattvas, their final embodied cognition does lead to another one. For living beings, as long as you're alive,

[57:01]

Every time a cognition ceases, it becomes a condition for another cognition. If it doesn't become an antecedent condition for another cognition, the being will die. You will lose your heat and you will die. Without that, you will not live for very long. Now, there can be some breaks. There could be breaks and you could resuscitate the person. you could revive the person, bring them back to life. There are cases like that where, in fact, that's exactly what happens, is that there's a break, there's an antecedent condition, cognition, it's not followed by another cognition, that sometimes happens. And the person's able to be revived in some cases. But still there was an antecedent cognition, but there was enough of a break so that the organs started to deteriorate. So your sense organs, if they're not inhabited by consciousness for not very long, they will wilt.

[58:09]

And if they wilt to a certain extent, you won't be able to re-inhabit them. Get the picture? This is something which you can actually see. Medical people can kind of see this in some cases. When people go into shock, that sometimes happens. Their consciousness moves away from the sense organs. They're not actually that badly hurt, but their consciousness moves from the sense organs. The sense organs start to go into a state of degeneration, and sometimes they can't get the consciousness to go back into the sense organs, and the person dies. That can happen. However, that last cognition... dies can still be an antecedent condition for another cognition, but this won't be in a living being anymore. The image which I haven't really conveyed to you is that perception is this interaction, this interplay between your body

[59:29]

and the rest of the world. When you have your in the rest of the world and they're not interacting, you don't have perception. When they are interacting and when the interaction is mutual, you don't have perception. But the perception is just the interaction. Knowledge is an interaction of the living with the rest of the world. And there's an arising of an interaction, just like two people dancing or two people talking, When they're actually talking, this thing called their conversation arises.

[60:36]

That is actually, that is knowing. That is what knowing is. It's the interaction between your body and the rest of the world. And then you're also saying if that ceases, then the person dies. If that ceases, then the sense organs will deteriorate along with the physical world and they'll have trouble hanging together. They'll go the way that electromagnetic radiation does. Electromagnetic radiation doesn't hang together. It just goes But bodies, because of interacting with the environment, the dance between them and the world keeps the organs in a condition we call alive.

[61:48]

I'm talking this way because I want to give rise to an understanding I'm talking this way in a conversation between the part of the world that I'm part of your world, and as a part of your world I'm creating a conversation between you and the world to give rise to a cognition. In this case, there's a direct connection that's leading to a conceptual cognition. But I'm hoping that you would understand that there can be cognition without somebody having the cognition. And then you also understand that there's no person, there's no cognizer, prior to this interaction.

[62:54]

There's no person prior to the interaction between in the sensible world. So I refer you to Dogen in Genjo Koan saying, the way he usually translates it is, To carry the self forward and experience all things is delusion. But another way to say it is to already have a self and carry it forth to experience things is delusion. In other words, there isn't having a self and carrying it forth to see There's no cognition aside from our body being born together with the world.

[63:57]

So our body arises together with the world. Our body arises together with the world. And when our body arises together with the world and interacts with the world, That's perception. We say, oh, and also that there's a previous cognition. So when there's a previous cognition, okay, we got a cognition in the room? Okay, it's gone now. Now our body arises with the world and our body interacts with the world. Our body and the world inviting each other into this interaction, and transforming each other in this interaction. And it was a previous cognition, now there's a new cognition, and the new cognition is not something in this interaction.

[65:02]

And there's not somebody that was there before who has this interaction or who has this cognition. Now this more in a sense is necessary to understand the causation, the basic causation of perception. It's more like actually an implication of this causation. Because you see, I'm not saying that there's something in addition to the causation. I'm just saying you've got the body and the world interacting. That's perception. It's not like perception is another thing on top of the conditions. Antecedent condition, antecedent perception, body interacting with sensible world. That's perception. But there's not something in addition to that, so really I'm just saying how it comes to be. But there is an idea,

[66:11]

that somebody has a perception and that a perception is something in addition to giving rise to it. So again we say it isn't that the eye sees or that the consciousness sees or that the color sees. It isn't that there's a seer. Rather than the process of seeing. It isn't that the seer sees the object. There is seeing of the object. Now you could say the seeing of the object is the seer, as I mentioned in some other context recently. You could say there's a seer and there's the color. But there isn't the seer which sees the color. What's the difference between the two?

[67:13]

A seer that sees the color and the seeing of the color, or a seer and the color. You could have a seer and a color, but not the seer which is doing the seeing. The seer is actually seeing. Instead of saying seeing color, you could say seer color. You could say seer color, that'd be fine, yeah. Instead of seeing color, it would mean the same. You've got to be careful when you say seeing color if you don't watch out and hear me say if there's seeing color, there's not somebody seeing the color. There's not cognition aside from the body and the physical world together with the antecedent condition of another cognition. but there's a strong feeling that there is something there.

[68:19]

It relates to, what is it, khajito ergo sum. So this is a reputation of that. One who is conscious of himself before the object is perceived You ever seen such a thing? Being conscious of yourself before perceiving an object? That's refuted. There is no such thing. If there's self-consciousness, which there can be, it can be there, but it's at the same time as the perception, none other than the perception. And the perception is none other than the body in the world preceded by another cognition, another perception. There's no more than that. That is perception. That is experience.

[69:22]

That is consciousness. And you could even say it's self-consciousness, partly because It's accompanied by this third type of direct perception, which is self-awareness. So when there's a cognition, there's awareness of having the cognition. The cognition is self-aware, but there's no self in the cognition. There's no self in the consciousness, but there is awareness, self-awareness of the cognition. In other words, there's cognition going on. But it's not other than the cognition. It's identical to the cognition. The cognition senses the world. The cognition is the knowing of the world. But there's nobody who has the cognition of the world. and there's no causation, there's no causal story for the birth of somebody who knows the color.

[70:30]

There is the causation or the causal story of the arising of a which is simply a previous cognition and there's no kind of cognition added to the situation of the body interacting with the world. There is no grasping either. There is no grasping either. There is no grasping either, right. I just wanted to just parenthetically mention to you that we have a brain In the brain, according to recent research, recent research suggests that the brain creates an illusion which certain neuroscientists call the interpreter.

[71:36]

It's the result of a device which creates the illusion that there's somebody here having the cognition of objects. Neuroscience has recently discovered that. There is nothing there having the cognitions, but the brain has devices which can be located, which create the illusion of somebody who is actually controlling or having the cognitions. And it's called by some neuroscientists the interpreter. You can remove it. That wouldn't necessarily help us, right? It wouldn't necessarily help, no.

[72:39]

The thing that helps, as usual, is to find out about it and study it. Yes? Do you think that an evolutionary function is such a thing? Yeah. I said this is a parenthesis. I'm just telling you, just want to tell you this for future reference. We're not there, you know, but I just want to tell you that to remind me to talk about it more later. I'd like to next mention to you something more about perception. And this is from Basu Bandhu. in his, not 30 verses, but 20 verses, 16, 20 verses, 20 verses, verse 16, he says something like, direct perception or immediate, immediate knowledge, cognition, okay,

[73:42]

is as in a dream, etc. When that occurs then the object is not perceived. How then can immediacy be conceived? Another translation is direct perception is as in dreams. At the time of direct perception, at the time direct perception has occurred, seeing and the object of perception are already non-existent. How then can the existence of direct perception? There is direct perception. However, at the time of perception, the object, at the time of perception of the object, there is no awareness that one is perceiving the object. there is perception without somebody perceiving.

[74:50]

When awareness of someone perceiving an object arises, at the very moment the object is no longer perceived, which is the same as the object is non-existent. So Vasubandhu is making the distinction between perceiving an object and being aware of perceiving an object. Vasubandhu is making the distinction between perceiving popcorn and being aware of perceiving popcorn. What is generally understood as immediate synonym perception is perceiving an object, not being aware of perceiving an object.

[75:58]

Being aware of perceiving objects, however, at the time of being aware of perceiving objects, the object is not being perceived. That was a previous moment? At the moment of direct perception... Perceiving an object is not the same as perceiving or conceiving that you're perceiving an object. When awareness, at the time that awareness arises, the object perceived is already past. Nietzsche said, that for which we found a word is something that's already dead in our heart. That for which we found words is something that's already dead in our heart.

[77:08]

Mm-hmm. When you're just saying that one type of direct perception is that of self-awareness, is that not... At the moment, when you're having a direct perception, at that moment, there is another direct... which is identical to whatever kind of direct perception it is, at the same time, which knows not the object, but knows that this direct perception is occurring. It's another direct perception. No, that's a third type. And with the mental direct perception, you have an apperceptive direct perception. You could have a sense direct perception. At that moment, you have a sense direct perception, and with that, you have a direct apperceptive conception.

[78:15]

You could have a conceptual cognition. You could have an apperceptive direct perception of a conceptual cognition. You can have a wrong conceptual cognition. whatever kind of cognition it is, it's accompanied by this according to most schools. Okay? That just comes along. It has nothing to do with... It just comes along with all different states. Okay? So, when you have a direct perception, at the time of having it, you're having a direct perception. There is a direct perception. I'm saying you're having a direct perception, but that's not right. the time of direct perception there is perceiving, but at that time there is no, like Nagarjuna says, seeing does not perceive itself. Perception does not perceive perception. What's perception?

[79:19]

It is the coming together of an antecedent condition of a cognition the body, our body in this world, interacting with other animate and inanimate things. And when that interaction occurs, there is a receiving, this is a self-receiving, the self-receiving and creative employing awareness. The cognition is received is the reception of these conditions. In antecedent cognition, body is in the world, and interacting with the world, that interaction receives the birth of cognition. And that interaction creatively changes the world. The world changes the body, and the world changing the body is a perception. depending also on previous cognition.

[80:25]

The world being changed by a body together with an immediate antecedent cognition, the world being changed by a body is perception. Perception changes the world and the world changes the body in perception. That's perception. There's nobody there having this experience And the body is not having the experience. The world is not having the experience. The antecedent condition is not having the experience. The experience is antecedent condition. The world transformed and the body transformed together. That interaction is perception. Nobody there having the experience. Everybody getting... Yes. What is this antecedent condition?

[81:31]

Is it just life? It's the life force? Well, all of life is the immediate antecedent moment of the life of the universe. Yeah. Yes. But one particular thing in that huge universe that just deceased is a cognition. and that somehow that condition is there for this body. Why does it need to be there? So we have to have something there? Did you ever hear me say something about why questions? You never did hear me? No. Well, anyway, please don't ever use that word with me. Just ask some other question besides, why?

[82:31]

And I'll tell you some questions, is they are not very often in this practice productive of benefit. They're dead ends, generally speaking, or open-ended wayward paths. So I'm not going to encourage you to go down that. To make a long story short, I don't answer why questions. When we talk about a moment, something arriving in the moment, is there an understanding that this is a quantifiable length of time, or are moments a particular length? You said something about something arises in a moment.

[83:39]

Yeah, I think you said something like that. Yeah, I did say that. So something arising in a moment is similar to suggesting that there's somebody there before perception of the object. that an experience would occur in a moment sounds like there's a self there, a moment that has the perception. So in other words, I'm suggesting that's refuted. There's not a moment in which things happen. Moments are, by definition, the experience. So the moment is exactly the same length as an experience. And is there a common understanding of Yes, the length of experience goes from the arising of it to the ceasing of it. That's the length of it. And if you use like, I don't know what, do we have some standard timing mechanism on the planet that's connected with Greenwich, England or something?

[84:56]

atomic clocks, that somehow by which you have things called seconds, you could ascertain that certain people have, that actually a lot of people have quite a few experiences, or rather I should say, people are, how do you call it, people are experiencing beings And people in a second, in what is called a second, these people would be, they would be, what do you call it, many, many different people. In other words, they would be many, many different experiences. In other words, they would be many, many different cognitions, many, many different bodies in a second. So by that means, people have calculated that there are extremely large number of moments in a second. Moments are very short.

[86:04]

If you think a second is a short time, then moments are much shorter than seconds. Now if you think seconds are really a long time, then you might think they're moments for a long time. If you think there's an eternity in a moment. But anyway, there are many, many changes Many cognitions arise and cease in a second. Like I mentioned, I think last week, didn't I, about the movies are in 24 frames a second. That's quite accessible for us to see. If you show 16, we can tell that something's missing. It's easy for us to get into 24 different visual expressions in a second. and so on. So moments are, for most people, visual moments are much faster than 24 in a second. In other words, our body changes with the environment considerably more rapidly than 24 times in a second in the visual dimension.

[87:10]

Now if you look carefully at that, you can probably also find that not only does the physical body change that way, but there can be other changes too And does that address your question somewhat? Well, yeah, it seems to put at least an upper limit on a moment, that a moment isn't going to be lasting in the city. Pardon? A moment won't last in the city? The experience that we're talking about. Yeah, our experiences, actually, in direct perceptions anyway, to me it doesn't make any sense that they would be a second long. I don't think a direct perception could be a second long. Except, you know, if we move this to some other solar system, you know, or turn the temperature way down or something like that. I guess what I'm trying to explore is if you're having a, excuse the language, but

[88:15]

There's an experience of popcorn that, even if your consciousness isn't interrupted with, gee, that's good popcorn, or something like that, that rather than saying, this moment lasted X length, you would be saying, well, there was a series of these, or What's being proposed here again, which is related to the question that Cormac raised, most of the time when we're aware of the popcorn, number one, the popcorn we're aware of is long gone, but also there were many moments, actually, or several anyway, moments of popcorn experiences

[89:19]

position where we're aware of it. That's another factor. It's quite late, yeah. So I guess we should stop, but I would encourage you to check out the conception which is your body and the world dancing. supported also by an antecedent moment of cognition. Check into that world. Even though, as I just said, if you're aware of it, that's not it. May our intention equally tend to everything and place where the children and the mad are jealous.

[90:27]

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