Needy. Chapter 2 of the Avdharmakosha, I believe, here last time. And we just looked at the first of the, we reviewed the first of the viprayuta samskaras, which is called prakti. And the only thing we said was that although property may not seem so important in itself, it is one of those kinds of grease or something, or lubrication, that makes the teaching of the Abhidharma Kosha work.

[01:02]

So if you're reading something in the Abhidharma Quotia and you don't quite understand it, and the word propti is appearing here and there in the discussion, maybe the reason why you don't understand it is because you don't understand what propti means, or you don't understand some particular mechanical aspect of propti. It's a kind of complex theoretical machine. It's got all kinds of little doodads on it and all kinds of little powers and functions. So they're outlined here in these caracas, several caracas. And as I said, we spent some time on it last time and we spent weeks on discussing properties. So rather than trying to master it, I thought perhaps we could just let it go, more or less.

[02:05]

Let's skip over it. Except to remember one small thing about it, two small things. One is that Vatsubandhu considers property to be prajñapthi. Okay? And like many of the Vipadita samskaras, he considers property to be prajñapthi. So it's prapti as opposed to what? Dravya. It's not Dravya. Not a thing in itself. It's just a nominal entity. A temporary accommodation to human thinking. And one thing I just wanted to point out is in Zakarika here,

[03:12]

priority CD, which you mentioned last time. No, priority BC. And there you have the definition of what? What did you find there? Anybody? 40 BC. Apotagina. Apotagina is defined there. Now there's somewhere in Fort Worth.

[04:30]

And what is Apotagina? I don't know if I would say opposite. Anyway, if the person is not yet on the path. Because actually, Protegina has a lot in common sometimes with people on the path. Do you understand what I mean by that? You do? Yeah. Yeah. Does it include, like, everyone in addition to the spiritual practitioners?

[05:32]

Yeah. Right. It includes people that, uh, think the best thing to do in the world is, uh, kill everybody with their family or something like that. Or who's the most kind of darkest person, the narrowest person and the widest person up to the attainment of Buddhist insight, which includes some people of considerable yogic attainment sometimes, including people who say they're Buddhists. were pretty good yogis, pretty good practitioners, but haven't quite let go of certain views. But they're really, they're trying, but their trying includes a heavy view. For example, they're trying, but they hold a view that self is trying. And sometimes people who hold a view that self is trying make people who don't hold a view in self look kind of pale.

[06:35]

Some of the people who, you know, have a view of a self in mind as they're practicing. I mean, they just, they give off a lot of heat sometimes. And right after they attain the way, they may sort of look not so special. So it doesn't mean that lawyers, sometimes they're really hardworking meditators, they're really trying to practice Buddhism, but they just won't let go of certain views. So they're diligent, but their diligence is somewhat tilted. And so on. So there is, as a matter of fact, there's a state of consciousness which precedes entry into the path which is called anuloma citta which means continuity or anuloma jnana. He looked at me. jnana or something like that, which means continuity knowledge.

[07:43]

So just prior to attaining the path, actually, the protajna, if you look at the type of thing they're looking at, their consciousness is very similar to what their consciousness will be like right after they have a kind of turnaround. So it's, you can, even though you're not on the path, your way of seeing things can be very similar, except turn the switch around. take the other side. So to say that the opposite denies considerable range. They have an opposite point of view in some sense, but they have a lot of things in common. And sometimes, as I say, they're even better at something than the Aryan They get really good at some things, but the Aryan used to be maybe pretty good at, but just kind of out of shape on.

[08:46]

For example, they might be better at counting their breaths than Aryans. I don't know, maybe not. Anyway, certain spiritual disciplines they might really be up on, because they're really working on it right now, and Aryans sort of are working on something else. Okay, so that's a protagina. And here is a description of a protagina with some argument about strictly speaking, you know, where, you know, where on the path is it starting? It's a little argument here, which you can read if you want to sometime, but I don't think it's, it's just very subtleties, and in the end, Valkyabandhi says that he feels that the Sartrantikas are right. And to them, the quality of the Patrajana is a series in which the dharmas and the Aryan have not arisen. That's all. Okay. Any questions on this?

[09:53]

No? Okay. The next karaka is karaka 40 CD. And how does non-possession perish? So Pratajana has got a thing called non-possession of the Aryan qualities. And Aryan has got a thing called possession of the Aryan qualities. So how does the non-possession go away? As soon as the non-possession goes away, you get the possession. That's the way property and out-property work. Anything you don't have, you've got the out-property of that. As soon as the out-property of something goes away, you get, you have the attainment of it.

[11:04]

So you have, you either have, right now, in this very moment, you either have some great spiritual attainments, or you possess the non-possession of these great spiritual attainments. Which, if you reflect on that for a moment, means that you're quite close all the time to great spiritual attainment. Because, according to the Vibhasa, you actually have the non, you know, you've got the non-possession of these great things. Lost two people in that. Well, I'm glad you were able to maintain your composure through the realization that you had a non-property of various kinds of great things. But the point is, anyway, it's quite close.

[12:08]

And it shows that the, once again, from the Mahajamaka point of view, if you've got a property of something, the property is implied. Well, having is the same, has the same function. The name of the having doesn't exist aside from not having. but that's what we just said at another level. Okay, now it says that you can abandon it through passing to another stage or through acquisition. For example, the non-possession of the path, which constitutes the quality of the protégion, is abandoned when one acquires the path. When one goes to another stage, the same holds true for the possession of, the non-possession of other diamonds.

[13:21]

This is not particularly profound, but somewhat interesting. Still doesn't mean like kamadatu, rupadatu, arupadatu. So if you are common, if you are a common person, an unenlightened person, and you're in a common dhatthi, if you go to the rupa dhatthi, what happens? According to this. What? Apropti would perish. Apropti would perish. And what is apropti in this case? What's another way to describe this quality of this apropthi? It's the other side of the apropthi. It's the other side of the apropthi.

[14:32]

Yeah. In other words, it's the quality of being a protagini. So if you go from the kamadhatu to the rupadhatu, the quality of being an unenlightened person is abandoned. Isn't that nice? Does that make sense to you? What do you think? That's right. A protajna can. But what happens to a protajna when it goes to the rivadatta? What? They lose possession various styles. Yeah. more particularly, they lose the apropity of certain dharmas. Because we're talking about the apropity of certain dharmas. Their definition is a negative definition, right? So they lose the apropity, or they lose the quality of the protagion, and they go to the kamadat, rukidat.

[15:32]

So what do you think happens? Does that make sense to you? It doesn't make sense, right? They must acquire it. They must what? Acquire it. They must acquire them again. They must acquire them again. That's right. So you abandon them but then they just come back again. But they're a different set. Why are they a different set? Different experience. Different experience. They have a new way of being unenlightened. But it is according to this teaching here is that you let go of them. You see, you actually, when you go from the Kamadatta to the Rupadatta, you let go of the Kamadatta. And you go to the Rupadatta, and you let go of the quality of Pratajna at the same time. And you go to this other realm, but then the quality of Pratajna for the Rupadatta appears. And then, of course, the same thing will happen if you go from the Rupadatta to the Arupadatta, you'll abandon the quality of Pratajna for the Rupadatta,

[16:43]

and acquire the quality of patajna for the aripidatu. Cause for possessing or not possessing? The cause of possessing the Arya Dharma is prajna. If you have insight, you will possess the qualities of the Arya. Or we could also say one of the main qualities of an Aryan is insight.

[17:48]

If there isn't, if insight is not developed, then prajna is not really prajna, it's more like just a false discernment, vikalpa. And that would be, you could say, one of the causes, or not so much one of the causes, but that's one of the qualities of a partagina. So by having the qualities of Pratajna, you have the non, you have by definition then, the non-possession of the qualities of an arhat. I mean of an aryan. Is that clear? So if you have, if you have prajna, if you don't, if you don't have prajna, it's called kuprayi. If you have bad, insight. And this is one of the qualities of a pratajna. And kuh prajna is the non-possession of regular pratajna.

[19:01]

So you don't have this. You don't possess this quality among other qualities. Therefore, you're protected. You have a property of this, so you have a pratajna. If you have this, then you're not then you have the property of all these characteristics of the iron. Does that make sense? Is there still some question? What causes that? Well, thin, what? Yeah, you always have prajna. What causes high-quality prajna? Well, prajna is caused or developed or cultivated by, well, what we were talking about last week is learning the teaching, reflecting on the teaching, and then entering the yogic

[20:14]

yogic embracement of the teaching. And then yogic embracement of the teaching means that there will be, in order to heal the teaching and memorize the teaching and recite the teaching, there must be faith at some level to do that. Okay? So, you know, even at that level of the development of prajna, there's faith. There must also be to do that level of practice. There must also be mindfulness at some level. Just to keep reading or keep reciting. You have to keep remembering. Or if I want to read this book rather than go over there. So there must be mindfulness in order to read these texts. There must be a vigor or diligence in order to read these texts. And so on. If you think about the dharma is necessary in order to read Buddhist texts. particularly avidharma types, or particularly citrins that are very boring and keep just repeating themselves or whatever, you'll find you'll be able to identify a number of these good dharmas must be there.

[21:28]

And there must be some ability to maintain samadhi or to keep re-realizing or re-creating Samadhi. Then, at the next level of the reflecting on the teaching, that level of prajna, well there, in order to stay with that, you're going to need more of all these things. You're going to need more faith. You're going to need more mindfulness. More vigor. Because you have less support. You're going to have to do more on your own. Because you just kind of you're sort of stepping back from the text a little bit and letting your mind go play a little bit. But even in that play, if it's really reflecting on the text, it's like you've allowed yourself some space and you're still staying with the text. If you wanted to pull around, it'd be easier. But if you actually stay with it, you require more of all these things to actually, in other words, to make this step back from the text also as real and as immediate as study as the other one was.

[22:42]

Then, To enter into yogic enrapturement with the text, of course it means that now your faith is no longer paper faith at all, it's physical faith. That your diligence has now really totally included your body, that your mindfulness is now incorporating bodily awareness into all this and so on. So as you just complete the picture, you bring all of your life into it, the next level. So then the faith will be very strong, the mindfulness will be very strong, the samadhi will be very strong, and so on. And very strong samadhi, unshakable faith. These are the kinds of faith in samadhi that go with this fully developed prajna. And then we run along until finally it culminates in insight. That's one short course in how the cause of prajna, this kind of prajna, or the cause of qualities of the other end.

[23:45]

The stage of faith means that you get back to the source of your thinking. And when you're back at the source and you don't see anything at all, it may be some debate whether or not that's insight. But the stage of the person is the ability to actively express it in daily life. In other words, What do we say? Take the leap off the end of the 100-foot pole. That you can get up and do stuff. You can act from that space. And the beginning Aryan may not be able to do that. So I think you could approximately equate the stage of faith with the first entry into the path. And the stage of the person might even be beyond the Arhat, namely the Bodhisattva. But certainly, in a sense, what we've talked about here before is that you can have insight, your views are correct, and you see, I make this step up.

[25:37]

This is all just a dream. And yet you still beat your dog up or something. Or you still... Don't wash your cups after you drink your coffee or tea. Something, anyway, you're still sort of not so attractive. So, on the darshana marga, your daily behavior may not change much at all, although your view is being really purified and corrected. So the way you say things is getting to be with no self and so on. You're really able to see things without much attachment at all. However, your behavior, you're still afflicted by various behaviors which are set up on the basis of these wrong views. These things are in your body. So after speaking in terms of avidharma, after many years of cultivation of the...

[26:46]

cultivation or the path of meditation, the bhavana marga, then you'll find that the person's actions will be clear expressions of the world of the nirvana which they've seen. So the things they do will express this insight. Now of course it is possible to express some of this insight before you complete the trip, but if we talk about when all your actions are expressing this clarity of mind, then that would be at the end of the path. So not all Aryan's behavior will be the clear and excellent expression of their insight. Well, yeah, there'll be still some kind of residual afflictions that will be being... being expressed even though they're viewed as proper.

[27:47]

The stage of the person, at least at a particular instance, is now that you're able to express from that place rather than from delusion or from some past habit that's still in the way. So, for example, once you reach the top of the harmful pearl, you got to the top but still may not be able to jump. There you are, but you just can't quite jump. You understand where there's no place to go and nothing to do, but you can't quite jump. You can't quite enact your attainment, which jumping would do. So you sit there for a while, but eventually you'll jump. If you stay up to the top of the 100-foot pole long enough, you will jump. Well, can't you crawl back down? And the answer is, well, yes and no.

[28:56]

Even if you crawl back down, you crawl right up again. You're basically on the 100-foot pole, someplace on it, in the top or someplace. You can't get off it. When you're on top, basically, you will eventually jump. You just have to wait. falling off also counts as jumping. Okay. So you go to these stages but you reacquire similar types of problems at these new situations. Yes? What's the difference? Your attitude. Trumping is more... Trumping is more accurate. Who decides?

[30:00]

The top of the 100 foot pole. At the top of the 100 foot pole, there's nothing up there. It's just the top of the 100 foot pole. That's why it's not really a problem. But when you first get up to the top of the 100-foot pole, you know, the you is in parentheses, when you first get there, you can't figure out how to do it because you isn't there. So how can you, that isn't there, figure out how to jump? It's a very difficult task. Because that's the point. The top of the 100-foot pole, there's no view of you anymore. So how can action be done without a view of you? You've never done it before. It's never been done before. So it's a new trick. It's a new trick called action without a U. The U has been totally eradicated or let go of. So how can I be jumping without a U to jump, without a U to push or whatever?

[31:05]

So it's not exactly, the top of the hand of a ploy, you're not afraid of Not so much that there's a fear of falling, but rather just no way to figure out how to do it. Because there's been no background, or anyway, recently there's been no background. So it's difficult to imagine how one would do it, since there isn't anyone. Even though it's difficult to imagine, nonetheless it can't be done. It's a leap. It's a leap from nothing at all to something. And then you find out that something can be done. You can do anything. You can start saying you again without being fooled by it. So anyway, this is... The other point is that

[32:14]

So then you see that the property and not property belong to the stage that the person who has them exists. A person has these things, possessed by a personal stream. The being of the kamadhatu can only have the quality of the pratajana in the realm of the kamadhatu. That's when one cannot say that you acquire the path that by the acquisition of the path, this being loses the quality of the protagina of the realm of three spheres. However, by acquisition of the path, every quality of the protagina of whatever sphere becomes impossible. One can then say that this is the quality under its three-fold form, Kamadatu, Rupadatu, Arupadatu is abandoned. Although a given being has it only in one form. So if I'm in the kamadhatu, and that's where most people are when they first abandon the quality of the protagina, you only abandon it there.

[33:30]

You don't abandon it in the other realms. However, after you abandon it, it's not possible in the kamadhatu, it's not possible in the rupadhatu, and it's not possible in the arupadhatu. So this kind of, maybe this is a somewhat subtle point, but although it's subtle, it's not that difficult. It's just simply, if I'm in the kamadatu, if I'm in the world of the senses, when I give up my, for example, my view of self, and have insight, that only happens to me here, on this particular situation. It doesn't happen in other realms. However, after that, it's And once you abandon the quality of Patajna, you don't ever get it back again. That's why I say once you climb the pole, you're always on the pole. But not only do you abandon it in the Kamadatu where it happened, but you also abandon it in other realms.

[34:42]

in a sense that it's impossible there. You don't really abandon it, just that it can't happen there again. So, if you have the quality, if you're an unenlightened person in Rupa Kama Datu, you go to the Rupa Datu and you're unenlightened there. And you're unenlightened in the other places. Although you abandon that quality as you make the transition. If you abandon the quality of being a tajana while in the Kama Datu by becoming an Aryan, by having insight, if you abandon it there, But you don't abandon the other realms. But if you go to the other realms later, you find out that it can't happen there either. So it goes across realms. However, okay, is that clear? Yeah? Why you make that point? Just to know that, I guess, in case you thought that perhaps someone would think, well, you become an Aryan in the Kamadatu, you're enlightened in the Kamadatu, but in going to the Rupadatu, things change and you wouldn't be enlightened there.

[35:56]

See, if you're in the Kamadatu and you go to the Rupadatu, you abandon the quality of attachment, but it reappears again. If you're in the Kamadatu and you abandon in the Kamadatu by becoming an Aryan, rather than by going to the Rupadatu, Then it can grow the Rupadattu if it's not possible for it to occur again. Why couldn't you say that when the Bangla people come about them, don't they show us the Rupadattu? Why couldn't you say that? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that you want to make clear that it happens in a certain place, in a certain circumstance. That it's actually something that happens. Acquisition, non-acquisition actually happens. And that it actually doesn't happen in other places.

[37:00]

That personally occurs. That does occur. It can go on, I suppose, but... Isn't that satisfying? Okay. Good. Now, in addition to this, you know that in the Kamadatsu, although you are not an Aryan, you have insight, you still have a lot of work to do in the Kamadatsu, in terms of learning how to jump off the end of 100 foot poles in the Kama Dattu. In other words, you still have various afflictions in this world of senses. And similarly, you have to go to the Kama Rupa Dattu, and I Rupa Dattu, you should be able to go there too, and you may have afflictions there that you have to go through too. Is that clear? Right.

[38:27]

It's not even temporarily. Just instantly he loses a certain kind of... For example, if you have any attachments to Cadillacs or Mercedes-Benz or Sprouts or You know, a nose, a nose, good teeth, nice skin, a piano, whatever. All the stuff that people are attached to in the kamadhatu, fame. If you have any attachments or problems with those things, grievances, anger, any kinds of delusional systems related to this world, when you go to the rupadhatu, they go away. If you're just an ordinary yogi that does that, loses all those things. However, when you get to the Rinpoche, you say, oh, goody, look at all these colors and smells and taste. They're different stuff, but you can hold another delusional system comes up. Right away, like that.

[39:31]

You lose the one you had before and you get a whole new one. The one in the Rupadhatu? Well, it can be abandoned in the Rupadhatu, but the first time it happens seems to happen in the Kamadhatu. Then after it happens in the Kamadhatu, if you go to the Rupadhatu, you could abandon it there. It looks, as far as I've been able to tell, it looks like it always starts in a Kama Dattu. It's the first step where you enter the path. I haven't heard of people entering the path the first time in the Rupa Dattu. Maybe it's just some place, it's hidden in you some place, or it's one of the opinions of the masters of such a place, but it looks like you enter the path in the Kama Dattu.

[40:40]

First time. And later you, you know, you can clarify your view and have other insights in other realms, though. That's possible. Why is that? I think it's because people are born into the Khamadatta, human beings. Fundamentally, human beings are, you know, we have six worlds, right? We have six worlds. And we are humans. And humans exist in the common doctor. However, humans have the ability to go to rupa-doctor and our rupa-doctor, which is deva realm. Okay? Human beings have the ability to go to hell realms and hungry ghost realms and animal realms. Fundamentally, our main intention in this particular incarnation

[41:47]

is to spend most of our original intention. Our original intention was to be human. Once we got to be human, a lot of us spent most of our time other places. But that's our center of gravity. And to project yourself into the rupadhatu and our rupadhatu is deva. So you always, center of gravity is kamadhatu, human for us. Some beings, the center of gravity is kamadhatu of hell. And some beings, the center of gravity is parupidhatu, or parupidhatu, mahabrahma, deva heaven. But for us, the center of gravity is human, kamadhatu, or common to human, which is in the kamadhatu. So we release ourselves at the place which is our center of gravity, And then we spread out from there.

[42:49]

And Buddhism is directed to those of that group. The Buddhism we talk about is primarily directed to that population, which are the humans. And by the humans, I mean that harder human experience called humans, the manusha. So that's the main thrust. And we also know that there are teachings that could be... all you can feed on most of the plants for hell beings and for gods. But these are kind of the very minority, even though those beings are the majority. The other beings are the majority, but Buddhist teaching is directed towards him, and Buddhist teaching is said to be. All the best situations you study Buddhism is to be treated by the Buddhist dharma. But humans should also understand, because their consciousness can take on these other forms, they should also understand that from that point of view, all these other realms can be released too.

[44:01]

Once you understand in the human realm, you go to all these other realms in Cosmos, and also not after all. It looks like it starts here, and Zen seems to be very much into that. Because we don't even teach those, we don't even encourage people out front anyway. We don't encourage people to do any of that stuff. That old stuff. We just emphasize, you know, just sitting on a cushion. It's a very kamadatu kind of thing to do. Yes? Yes. Out front, there isn't. Behind the scenes, some teachers will recommend for some students to go to the John realm just because it might be useful for them to know what's happening there and to be free of it.

[45:07]

Those things that you, you know, anyway, we do experience those things. Yeah, it would be to, in those realms, in those new realms, to be able to experience them now from the point of view of freedom from self. You see, in order to enter the Buddhist path, in order to practice insight meditation, you must have a state of consciousness, a state of concentration, which is on a par with that which, if you wished, you could enter these trances. Although we may not enter these trances, we should be able to.

[46:14]

If you don't have that kind of concentration that would get you into the first levels of trance, if you wanted to, then you can't do insight meditation. So for some people, it might be that, and Buddha did recommend for some people to do these trances. And they said to him, why do them? And he said, well, because they're good. But why are they good? He says, because I told you to do them. But Buddha, I said, do it. See, you really can't explain because they're not really Buddhist practices, but you have to have that level of concentration. And some people may have to do them in order to practice insight first. But a lot of other people, they need to be able to do them, which means they have quite well-developed concentration, but they don't have to actually do them. even though you don't have to do them, you will do them accidentally sometimes because there's nothing there to stop you. You just, you're not, your insight practice is not strong enough so you'll just flip into them.

[47:19]

Yeah, you'll experience it whether you intend to or not and you also may, you may intend to experience it and you should also know if you intend to experience it So, intending it or not intending it, both ways you should be ready for it. But anyway, people, when doing such things, people do accidentally get into these... Not accidentally, definitely not accidental, it's just very mechanical. You get into them because you just would like, you basically would like to just really be happy. And... You want to be liberated from certain kinds of suffering. So you do get liberated from certain kinds of suffering, and you get into these trances. This subtle differentiation between being liberated from wanting to sort of be free of the pain, and being liberated from wanting to be free of dualistic views. So you start floating away, and everything's just ducky.

[48:33]

And things are very soft, And one of the characteristics of knowing that you might have been, suspecting that you might have been in one of these trances is when you come back into daily life, it seems like, you know, shrapnel. Daily experiences seem very kind of rough and have a lot of sharp edges that keep getting entangled in your innards. People's voices are very sharp and push you around. Whereas before that, everything seemed to be very ethereal and soft. So sometimes people get depressed after seshines because of this transition back from some kind of trance experiences, even though they didn't have their eyes shut, and even though they didn't really notice that the foam of the walls went away or something like that. Strictly speaking, if you knew a rupadatta, you might expect that there wouldn't be any of these

[49:39]

conglomerate forms. But that sometimes happens for a few minutes to people sitting too. So some version of these things can happen. And you learn actually that the best, the smoothest transition is not to be attached to them. Okay, well maybe that's enough on this karaka. This karaka is an important karaka. It has lots of implications. If you study this character for a long time, we've thought about it a lot. We come up with lots of fruitful questions and things to think about in terms of what the meaning, the relationship between attainment and not attainment, Buddhist path and different realms, and let that come out of this character. So it's a kind of a character that you should star. Okay, then the next one is We discussed some, and that is the sabhagata.

[50:41]

And I asked you to think about what the significance of this one was last time. Did you think of anything? Why this is in the Abhidharma system? Yes? Well, I thought of why anything was necessary. The chart of self is going to be spankyam. It's just one garment, but if you look at the garment shard itself, it's not just one minute per unit, but everybody's studying, they make good material for it. Uh-huh. That way they really need a good thing. But I mean, they have a special garment. I thought that garment shard still. Okay, well, you've come about to realize or to suspect that this thing is unnecessary, extra.

[51:55]

And that's Vasubhanda's feeling too. Any other things? Yes? They were going to do it in order to justify treatment. And it's something that everybody said. They might have done a few years. They would say I could speak out the .. [...] So, your take is, in a sense, the complement to his take. Your take is kind of like, as a theoretician of the Abhidharma, you can see why you'd need this. Your take is, you don't care about the theory very much. So, from your point of view, not having to explain the theory, you wouldn't particularly want this, because in some sense, you already see what he's bringing up.

[53:02]

It's implied. But he's seeing the necessity of naming it, that there's an sort of a theoretical need to do that. And there's another kind of reason why it's here too, which I mentioned to you before one time. Not only is there similarity among beings, but there's similarity among beings that are co-existent in a sense, which we imagine to be co-existent. Actually, they're not. It's just conglomerates of things we say co-exist. But also it has to do with the continuity, the idea of continuity of consciousness. What we call... Samanya? Not that's generality.

[54:03]

So as I mentioned before, lots of times the Abhidharma Kosha shows the inclusion of a theoretical construct to balance the philosophical systems of its neighbors. And they grew up in, the Abhidharma Kosha grew up in a neighborhood, the northern Abhidharma neighborhood is a very philosophical area of India. And some of the other systems had a concept called Samanya, S-A-M-A-N-Y-A, which you do not find in early Buddhist texts. Shakyamuni Buddha did not argue with philosophers much, and he wasn't particularly worried about his system being philosophically and systematically coherent. said the truth as it was at the time.

[55:15]

And later people saw that unless you keep track in your mind of when he said it, under what circumstances, for what purpose, to compare different parts they didn't necessarily agree. So the Abhidarmists tried to put it all together to make sense of it. And their philosophical concerns, or their systematic concerns perhaps I should say, made them susceptible to the philosophical and systematic concerns of the times. So Buddha didn't talk about the samanya or generality among phenomena. But the Abhidharmas, in response to other systems of philosophy that did bring it up, they included it in their theory. But they didn't give it the same name. They didn't call it samanya. They called it sabhagata or sabhagata, nitaya sabhagata. Okay, so that's, and then Valsubando again gets in here into a discussion on saying that he feels that this is just prajnapthi, which both of you agree with.

[56:33]

You're sort of saying, it's just prajnapthi, why do you need it? And he's saying, we need prajnapthis. Because if we don't have prajnapthis, we can't, our whole dharma system... is thrown partly into doubt, which is true. Without these viprajita samskaras, most of which, according to Vasubandhu, or all of which, according to Vasubandhu, are prajñaptis, the vaibhashika abhidharma system gets kind of, you know, it's hard for them to live with it. So in this Discussion which part of here, you have another example. If you want examples, you can note, here's an example of Vasubandhu taking what the Vaibhavshaka say is a real thing and showing you that it's just a prajñapti. So it's another exercise in converting the thing in itself into a temporary accommodation to the human needs.

[57:39]

even the human theoretical needs in this case. Now we come into the three diamonds, the unconsciousness, the meditation on unconsciousness, and the meditation on extinction, which we've already spent quite a bit of time on. So I wonder what the way to do it is. zip over the various points. One way to do it. One thing I want to mention, that is Vasubandhu, as I said, in showing how the thing is not a dravia, but a prajnapti, you show how a thing does not have an existence in itself, okay? Dravia means that it exists in itself. and you should think about if you know what they mean in the Abhidharma what it means for something to exist you understand what dravia means and again if you understand what it means for a dharma to be dravia

[59:08]

What does it mean for a dharma to exist or a dharma to be dravia? Do you understand that? Okay. So I think it's important to understand what it means to exist. And I don't want to talk about it right now, but I'd like you to maybe write that down and see if you can find out. What in Indian Buddhism, the issue of existence and whether it exists or not, what's that about? See if you know. Because that's what this discussion back and forth throughout this text is about, about that it doesn't exist or it's just nominal existence. Okay, so now we come to... Okay... The non-consciousness, all right? Non-consciousness is compared to here, compared to a dike.

[60:20]

The dike in the flow of consciousness stops it. So once again, of course, this can be criticized as prajñāpti because what's the difference between consciousness just stopping and a dike that stops it? There's really not a dike there. Just consciousness stops. So why don't you just say conscious stop? Why do you have to have a thing in there that does it? Anyway, that's what this dharma is, a thing that stops consciousness. And this karma, this dharma, this karma dharma is exclusively retribution. It's a result. The result? The karmic result.

[61:27]

And what is it a result of? Yes? What? Yes, you're right. And what kind of effort? What kind of karma? What's the name of this kind of karma that results in it? What? Good? That's right. The karma which leads to it is good. What kind of karma is it? What kind of karma is the asamnika? What kind of karma is that? It's retribution, right? The unconsciousness is retribution. It's exclusively retribution. So what kind of karma is that? Neutral. What kind of karma introduces it? Good. And what's the name of that good karma? Right. Asamnica samapati. In other words, the kind of karma that leads to it is a meditation on unconsciousness. The meditation on unconsciousness is different than the unconsciousness itself.

[62:34]

The unconsciousness itself is a result is a neutral dharma, a neutral state, whereas the meditation is a very strong, wholesome state of consciousness. Perhaps you can imagine how powerful the state of consciousness is. It's not powerful like, however, it's not powerful like, what do you call it? a tractor, a bulldozer. It's not powerful that way. It's powerful in its subtlety, actually. It's very powerfully subtle. Because this meditation is practicing from what state? Where do you practice this contemplation from? Huh? That's close. Rupadakti. But the first Rupadakti. So you practice it from a very refined state of form, the highest form state, which is characterized by equanimity.

[63:44]

So this is a state where you have, once again, you have fully developed equanimity, high development, high concentration, in a very world of very subtle form. And in that world, You now imagine, you can imagine, this unconsciousness. And contemplating it, you can produce unconsciousness, right from there. So you're in a world of, you know, imagine a world of subtle form. If you imagine a world of subtle form with enough energy, you'll be there. You'll find yourself in the force you'll be down to. turns out you have to work your way up there. You have to work through some other stuff to get there. You will be afflicted or accosted by certain things before you get to the state of equanimity.

[64:48]

What kinds of things will you be accosted by on your voyage? Joy and pleasure and thinking you'll be accosted by a highly defined concentration, a discursive kind of concentration, a joy and a pleasure. You have to get through all that stuff before you can reach equanimity. Then you reach there, in this fine material state, and there you are. Now you can imagine unconsciousness, and if you make a great effort, you can produce this and stop the consciousness and you can also produce another state which stops the consciousness. Two things. When the somapati is attained, that stops consciousness, plus it also produces another state which stops consciousness. Two.

[65:49]

Okay? The meditation itself stops it, plus the result of the meditation stops it. So it's not just the result that stops it. Even the meditation, when it's fully attained, will stop it. No. Yeah, the meditation, when the meditation is attained, fully attained, there's a kind of, you'd have sort of a burlap to the meditation, right? When you fully attain the meditation at that moment, the consciousness just stops. Because you are meditating on meditation. or on the result, or on that state of consciousness. And when you are run with that, you will stop consciousness. For us, that sends off another thing, which also stops unconsciousness. So it's, huh? That's the sama-asamnika. So you bring the mind down to unconsciousness.

[66:49]

From this fourth Rubhajana, or whatever you want to say, you bring the mind into unconsciousness. The mind... get closer and closer to the imagination of unconsciousness until finally you clearly satisfy yourself. I am now meditating on unconsciousness. This is unconsciousness. But if I'm saying this is unconsciousness, this must not be unconscious. So I must now, ready, get set, now I'm going to do it. There goes. That's the meditation on unconsciousness. And that, of course, produces another one. which is not the meditation but is a result of this little trick you just did. Okay? Both of those, because it says, it says, the theme is the theme for the meditation and consciousness. Okay? Namely, it is just like the asamnika which it produces. So this is a funny way of thinking, you know.

[67:52]

First you introduce the result. And then you go back to the cause and you say the cause has shared with the result, the stopping of the cause and the result stop consciousness. But the cause also is a first. It has a definite good vector. It produces this. This doesn't produce anything else. Yes. Brad, this is the same problem that you have when you say, now, I'm a human, right? I wanted to be born as a human. I was cruising around in the, you know, Bardo, and I was bored, and so I looked around for birth, and I thought my mommy and daddy were interesting people, doing interesting things, and I like my mother best, so there, here I am.

[68:59]

I wanted to be born. I wanted to be born at that place at that time, down there in the hot summer sun of Mississippi. Now I got to be a human being of a certain type, which is a combination of my own whatever with these two people. that were down there in Mississippi. And then I grew up, and now if I want to, I can, by various means, I can, if I'm a good boy, like when I was eight years old, one day I said, I decided I wanted to be president of my class. So I just did this thing. I sat in class and went like this. I just had to like this until the teacher said, today, Reb is president of the class.

[70:05]

So I produced it, I produced, I would call it either a shveram or a low level, maybe, you know, low level of the Kamadatu Devaram. You know, four guardian kings. A lot of guardian king and that kind of thing. Then I also learned that if I attached to those states, I could go to hell. If we do attach to those states, we can go to hell. And if we eat too much chocolate cake or whatever, we find ourselves in a state called hungry ghost. You can't be satisfied anymore. No matter what you do, you can't satisfy. You sense your desire for food. You're insatiable at that point because of your tremendous greed. and so on, I learned how to go to these other realms besides the one I originally had chosen.

[71:06]

Now, when I go to those realms, I meet beings of those realms because I'm not alone in those realms. Now, those beings, you could say, now, were they there before you got there? So, are they there all the time? Or are they just other humans that just sort of happened to be meeting you there? Well, certainly sometimes there are other humans who happen to be in the same place. It's like you ate a lot of chocolate cake with one of your friends. There you'd both be, maybe. in the Hungry Ghost film is both sort of plotted out insatiable beings with a still craving, but you can't do anything about it. You had this habit of overeating, and yet there's nothing you can do at the time. It doesn't work. Are there some beings that are there all the time? And the answer is, well, nobody's any place all the time, okay? Even beings in those realms go other places. But there are other beings in that state at a given time and place in these various ways of meeting them.

[72:10]

And some may have been there a long time, others may be there a short time. Some may be beings who are visiting, others may be once they have chosen, made a decision to be there sort of for a while. There's all different kinds there. Like in that bar scene in Star Wars? With all those beings in that bar? Remember that? Anybody here see Star Wars? Anyway, you don't have to go to that bar. Go in any bar. And you'll find all kinds of beings there. Now, some of them work there, right? They're there every night. Others are visiting as a sort of an assignment in their Abhidharma class. They're very worried to wind up in a bar. And so you say, are these bar beings, or are these visitors, or, you know? So some have been there a long time, some have been there a short time, some have been there first time, some have been there last time. And some of them are great Buddhists and bodhisattvas who just sort of happened to be there, kind of spreading the Dharma over the TV or whatever.

[73:21]

So the same, if you grow with unconscious realms, there's other beings in those realms. That's why I said before it was that the majority of beings is non-human just because there's so many alternatives and even humans are spending part of their time in non-human realms so that's the majority of what happens and the majority of beings in the cosmos are not human or they're in the non-human form of experience but Buddhism is taught for us, to us who have chosen a certain birth, and the way for us to be free of our birth is to know our birth. Not to know some other birth, but to know this one. Once we know this one, we can also go to the other ones which we have ability to contact. But we must know the one who's chosen, which we call knowing yourself, right? So these Asamblikas are beings who are in a similar boat.

[74:24]

You know what you mean? for a variety of reasons and a variety of backgrounds and a variety of time stays, they are in that state of consciousness when you arrive there. And they all sort of have the same location, which is these particular Bratthalas. That's the name of the heaven they live. And this particular heaven doesn't have much of a location. But anyway, it has a place in the conceptual hierarchy of the universe, the Buddhist universe. Okay? Yeah, we just said.

[75:27]

and the neuroticomopathy, they also arrest the mind and mental states. That's it. You're sitting in this world right here, see, and you go, you know. Mind and mental states have been arrested. You're not in that heaven. Then, the resultant state is at heaven. When you first do the contemplation of the unconsciousness, You don't, you're not in that heaven. You're in this world, wherever you were when you did it, you're in the fourth group of jhana. Right, asamnika is the result. See, it's not the meditation. So the result, the results of various meditations are heaven, right? But when you first do them, you're not necessarily in that heaven. You can be, you're in another place. You're a place of active karma when you're doing the meditation.

[76:28]

And then the result will be sort of just there. You'll be hanging around this heaven. And in this particular heaven, you can't continue to do this practice because, of course, you can't do it because you're unconscious. So that's why you know it must come to an end. These beings are wiped out. They can't do any more meditation there. So it comes to an end. They fall back. Where do they fall back to? They fall back to... Rupadatsu. And from the Rupadatsu, you fall back to the Kamadatsu. And from the Kamadatsu, you might be kind of, geez, this is kind of heavy here. Watch out when you get back, because you might really... My wife, when she got back from Paris, was still a bit depressed. Imagine what you'd like if we could get back from this particular heaven. Ooh, my head, you know, it's working again.

[77:36]

Okay, so, now, so, that's that. Now these people, they grow in the fourth group of jhana, And then when they get there, they go to this asamnika. They do this meditation because it says there in Karaka 42b, they get there through a desire for deliverance. The aesthetic, the yogi or yogini, falsely imagines that the asamnika, the millenarian non-consciousness that constitutes the result of the meditation of non-consciousness, is true deliverance. Samnika being retribution, the paka, is necessarily neutral. That's what we just talked about.

[78:40]

The meditation itself is good. Okay, so this poor little yogi thinks that now this yogi has attained quite a state. Let me tell you, the fourth group of jhana, that's pretty good. And now they think, I could imagine myself right out of existence. I've got quite a bit of concentration going here. If I just not think of non-consciousness, just think of all this just going away, I mean, I might be able to pull the plug out of the bottom of the thing. I mean, I might be able to bring on the promised land. I could maybe make it all peaceful. I mean, it's already quite peaceful. Here I am, I've got all this, I'm completely quantumist. Aquanimous in my mind. I've concentrated. I've given up pleasure and joy. So they try. And if they succeed, well, it's not so bad.

[79:42]

They just go back. You know, as I said, they have just only the danger of withdrawal when they come back. But they do come back. So... It's their millenarianism that's the problem. You could go into this state without it. Now, do you know what millenarianism means? It's a person, a millenarian is somebody who believes in the millennium. And millennium, one of the meanings of millennium is, the doctrine of millennium is a doctrine of promised land or of eternal peace and joy, freedom. So it's this millenarian hope produces a state called the asamnika, or is the asamni niroda. And it's not practiced by Aryans, because Aryans don't think that way.

[80:46]

Some Aryans do their meditations without trying to pull the plug out. They know that there's just another desire, another false hope. So, briefly speaking, we've talked about this before, but anyway. The meditation on extinction, the Neuroda Sumapati, is basically meditation on the same thing. but it's practiced from a more advanced stage. Yogically speaking, it's practiced from an even more advanced stage. You go up now beyond the fourth rupadhatu to the top of the arupadhatu, and there, non-Buddhist yogis can get to that state, by the way. However, you can see there's a difference, right? The state at the top of the arupadhatu is quite similar to the state which the yogi is imagining at the top of the rupadhatu.

[81:53]

But you know that you just got there by these yogic steps. The state of neither perception nor non-perception has a lot in common with the state of the unconsciousness that you're imagining here. So you're yogically more experienced and yogically less likely to be enticed or misconstrue that that kind of state is actually nirvana. However, these people up there, these yogis, could still make that mistake. However, at that stage, if they make that mistake, it's just erroneous views. They're not trying to produce the unconsciousness. If at that level you can tell that this is just another karmic state, you'll have Buddhist insight. Now, what some Aryans can do when they're up at that very high level of existence, is they also can imagine this unconsciousness they wish but they don't imagine the unconsciousness for anything more than just knowing that unconsciousness is a rest so they imagine it and they and it comes about and they get a rest they do not have these what's so-called millenarian aspirations they just want to take a break and in fact that's accurate it is a break and so they take it and when they come back they're not surprised that they come back

[83:22]

They know they took a little vacation, they know it was restful, and they know it's going to be heavy when they get home. So they're not surprised, oh God, I'm back here again. Not surprised at all. They know that it will end. They know what they're doing. They know that it's produced by causes and effects, all these states, that they're karmic states. And one more interesting thing, which relates to karma, is that they say that, um, they make a point of uniquely, uh, on Kaka 42 CT, it says it's uniquely retributable in the next existence. And then it says, just before... Well...

[84:28]

Under 42d, third paragraph, it says, when Aryans enter into the fourth dhyana, you find that part? When Aryans enter into the fourth dhyana, do they obtain the property of this asamnika, past and future meditation, the same as one obtains the property of the fourth dhyana, as the past and future, as soon as one enters into the fourth dhyana? Now, this is kind of interesting. If you enter into the fourth jhana, fourth rupajhana, when you do that, you obtain the property of the fourth rupajhana in the present. In other words, you obtain it in the present right now. Okay? Any questions on that? I didn't think so. But what you may not know, which is true and which you also would know, if you knew more about property, and that is that you also obtain the property of the fourth rupajana in the past and the future.

[85:40]

And you obtain the property of rupajana for as many pasts as you want and for as many futures as you want, for all pasts. In other words, you can obtain the fourth rupajana endlessly, you know, endlessly backwards. And this is one of the reasons and ways that one is able to reconstruct past lives. If you can, you know, warp your mind into a fourth rupajana in the present, which is basically, yogacarically speaking, imagining that you're in that state and imagining that you're not in any other state, deimagining this realm, then deimagining the first rupadatta, deimagining the second rupadatta.

[86:46]

Well, first of all, imagine the first rupadatta, then deimagining it, and imagining the second one, deimagining the second one, and imagining the third one, deimagining the third one, and imagining the fourth one. There you are. After doing that trick, if you can do that and convince yourself that you've done that, then you have done that. And now that you can do that, you can imagine that you did it yesterday, too. Why? Because you just say you do. You put a label on it called past. And you put one on the day before yesterday and the day before. And you can make yourself, having attained the rupa da, that kind of concentration, way into the past. And you can keep yourself concentrated, going way, way back. That way you can pay attention as you make these transitions through time and be quite sure about what your past births were. How are you sure? because you know you're very concentrated and you wouldn't, you certainly wouldn't be mistaken. That's the way you have confidence to jump across even, you know, jump over wombs and into the immediate beings and do whatever you want and you'll be right because you'll be tremendously confident because you're tremendously confident now and you can do that in both directions.

[87:52]

Okay? So they're asking me, they say, can you do that with this Atamnika? Can you do that same trick? What's the answer? Non-Aryans themselves do not obtain the property of the meditation non-conscious in the past and future. Why? Since having practiced it many times formally, the meditation cannot be realized except through great effort, as it is not mind. So this particular thing you dream up, you can't do it in the past. So apparently this particular form of compulsion These are compulsions, right? They're very sophisticated compulsions. But they're compulsions. They're just the mind doing things, as usual, but in a very sophisticated and subtle form, in a form that most people can't begin to think about how they can't begin to think about it, which is what it is.

[89:01]

It's thinking about something. in a certain way. But this particular trick requires such effort. And since it's not mind, we have trouble figuring out how to make ourselves think that we did it before. So we can't get the property of it in the past. Isn't that interesting? That's what it says, I think. But there's two ways, you can't remember because you don't know how, you can't do this little trick called remembering something that's unconscious. How do you remember it unconscious in the past? It's hard enough to think of it in the present, but how are you going to put it in the past? It's hard, you know? So, next time, I think there's a little bit more work to be done on the Vipra Yuta Samskala, so keep reading the Vipra Yuta Samskala. Next time, I want to talk about life and death.

[90:03]

We already talked about life some. And next time I want to talk... This next section is... After this, the next section is on... Yeah. Next section is on life. And then there's a section on death. So I'd like to talk about this section on life and death in here. At least that. So read over the part about life and death, please. And then also, then after that comes... There's two more sections. One is the section on... the characteristics of dharmas, the characteristics of arising and maintenance and decay and destruction, okay? And the next section, which we could spend lots of time on, is the Abhidharma theory of language, you know, of phonemes, words, and sentences. So, I mean, I don't know how much we've never done that here, and it would be a point of departure just to discuss language in general. So my inclination is either to skip it or to do it in some detail. I haven't myself decided which is best.

[91:05]

If we do it in some detail, it would take a few weeks. You could skip it, though. It's all right to skip it. And you just know that therein is the basis of Buddhist observations on how language comes up and functions. And then after that, we go on to, if we want, we go on to the rules of succession of consciousness And that finishes chapter 2. So at least one more week on this vipayukta klamskaras of birth and death, actually not birth and death, but the life principle on death. Maybe some more, some weeks after that. But then to the section on the successions of consciousness. And those things, as I maybe mentioned before, I'd like you to read them and try to think about why. Why they happen that way. See if you can... figure out why. Okay?

[92:06]

Yes? No. This discussion will be relevant then, but that will come up when we talk about, in chapter 3, chapter 3 talks about the death consciousness, the intermediate consciousness, the birth consciousness, and destinies. It's there, the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Actually, that section of the Abhidharma Kosha is in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Tibetan Book of the Dead has that chapter three of the Abhidharma Kosha with various kinds of images of Harukas and stuff. It just sort of fills out that basic structure with the Mahayana Buddhism thrown in. But this little section on death would be relevant at that point, but it's a different point of view.

[92:54]

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