Sorry, last week's class did not get taped. I had a dog named Lara. I named her after Julie Christie and Dr. Zhivago. So... talking about different ways of knowing. And we have this chart here, which has across the top these seven types of knowing, and then also vertically there are several different types of knowing. And so this is an epistemological presentation on the nature of mind.

[01:05]

And I mentioned, I think last week, that another approach to the nature of mind is to study mind, not so much in terms of what style of knowing is there, but more what kind of thinking is going on. So one is more philosophical, epistemological, and the other is psychological, and has to do with thinking. And thinking is the definition of karma. So, psychological approach has to do with looking at, not so much looking at the ways of knowing, but the type of the landscape of the cognition, And the landscape of the cognition, as it reveals particular directions, that's the thinking that's going on in the cognition.

[02:09]

And the thinking is a definition of action. So the psychological has to do with thinking and acting. And the other is ways of knowing. And as I mentioned, working with the type of thinking you're doing, which means working with your karma, has the potential for developing more and more skillful types of thinking. And as this thinking evolves positively, the style of knowing evolves. And as the style of knowing evolves, up to the type of knowing where you know with a valid, direct perception of certain truths, then there is a reputation of all kinds of wrong ways of knowing. And with that reputation, then the deepest levels of tendencies towards unskillful activity are also uprooted.

[03:12]

So developing more and more skillful ways of thinking and acting causes an epistemological evolution. And with the conclusion of the epistemological evolution, with the most accurate and powerful ways of knowing uproots any remaining deep tendencies towards unskillfulness in the behavior. So in that way, the psychological and epistemological are both part of the program of evolution. In order to move to the psychological, we can't spend too much more on the epistemological. but maybe a little bit more. If you look at this chart again... Do you have a chart, George? It's in your car?

[04:17]

Can everybody see a chart? The major transition is from particularly wrong cognition on the right side of the chart. And as I said before, mistaken cognition in the form of mistaken perception is generally speaking, although at the moment it happens, it's troublesome. Sometimes troublesome, like if you see... You know, like when you're on a train and the train starts moving, you think that the people on the platform are moving, and they're not, you're moving.

[05:27]

Or the train on the next row starts moving and you think your train's moving, but that's less likely because you might feel something if your train was moving. But you still might make that mistake. These kinds of perceptual errors are not the source of deep suffering. The source of deep suffering are the right-hand column, second from the top. That's the source. That's the reason why we have to practice, is the conceptual misconceptions, or conceptual wrong cognitions. Where we imagine something, our mind gives rise to a... image of something that doesn't exist, like a permanent thing or an independent thing or an independent person. Believing in having these cognitions, these conceptual cognitions and believing them creates his ignorance and creates suffering.

[06:31]

However, now that we're mentioning karma, karma comes to fruition as having these false conceptions these ignorant conceptions. These conceptions was to ignore reality. So the evolution here that's possible is to move from through education, to move from mistaken cognition to doubting your mistaken cognitions, to be kind of indecisive about your mistaken cognitions, to not believe them so much, and then to move again across the second horizontal line to correct belief. To not any longer believe your misconceptions. And then to evolve further through developing skillful states of mind to actually have a valid conceptual cognition.

[07:41]

based on thorough investigation of the matter so that you actually have this fresh, incontrovertible certainty about the falseness of the original false conception. You don't exactly have to have a true conception at this point. It's not really a true conception. It's an accurate understanding, the falseness of wrong conceptions. And then you're released in that way. However, this is not the whole story. If you look at the first line, not only can you have mistaken, can you have a state of knowing which is mistaken and is a perception. Perceptions can be wrong. And the ones in the right top corner, those are the wrong perceptions. And there are wrong perceptions. As I say, they're not such a problem.

[08:43]

Then you move horizontally and you come to inattentive perceptions. Inattentive perceptions are occurring gazillions of times a minute to us unless we are in a state of great yogic development. We are actually having fresh, inattentive sensory perceptions and mental perceptions very, very often in a short period of time throughout our life. But it is possible through meditation to evolve down the line, skipping over the subsequent, to a state of valid perception. And that would be a case... Well, first of all, I'll give you a case of seeing blue or seeing green or hearing a sound or smelling a smell or whatever. throughout the day, these kinds of things happening, but they're not ascertained.

[09:45]

They're fresh, but they're not ascertained. So the three main attributes of a valid cognition is freshness, incontrovertibility, or infallibility, or clear comprehension of what's there, and then the third characteristic is cognition, but all the things in the chart are cognitions. So it's really these two that we're looking at. Inattentive direct perception is immediate, it is fresh, but it is not incontrovertible. You're not sure what it was, actually. You know it, but not incontrovertibly. Therefore, it's not a valid perception. When you have a valid perception, like of a blue, you actually know you saw that color.

[10:48]

Which is, you know, if you think about it, just really amazing that you could have basically a nanosecond experience of a color and you would know for sure you saw it. So you'd have to be in a very high state of concentration to have that. So that's the evolution on the horizontal, that's the evolution of the perceptual level. So back to the conceptual level, if you have a direct, not a direct, if you have a conceptual cognition, which is sufficient to refute and overthrow your belief in permanence and separate self, to refute your belief that you're separate from other beings, that you're actually convinced, completely convinced, not at all believing anymore you're separate from other beings. And the first time you have that experience, that's the valid inference or ideal inference.

[12:01]

And you get there through thinking. why you have to develop skills in thinking to have this kind of cognition. This cognition is not thinking, it is a way of knowing, but that way of knowing depends on skillful ways of thinking and behaving, which we're going to turn to soon. However, this correct conceptual cognition of the way the objects you're experiencing are, the way... color is, the way a person is, the way a feeling is, this correct, incontrovertible knowledge of it, which refutes wrong knowledges of it, still is got a problem. It's still basically a mistaken cognition because all conceptual cognitions are mistaken. And how are they mistaken? Yes?

[13:05]

The image is mixed. The image is mixed with the image. So you have a correct image of, for example, impermanence, but the image of impermanence is mixed with the actual impermanence of the object, which you understand. So it's confused to some extent. That's why there's another parallel development of developing direct... sensory perception or direct mental perception so that once you understand this, you can have a direct mental perception of this understanding without mixing it with the image. And so that would be the place where you'd have the final and deepest understanding of the truth. It's in the upper left-hand corner. And that would follow from the other. And in both cases, once you have a, if you could have a direct perception of a color, and the first moment of that, a direct perception of a color which is not only true, because again, you could have a direct perception of a color which is true, but controvertible because it's inattentively, correctly,

[14:36]

Does that make sense? You're having a direct perception of a color, but you're inattentive, so it's not incontrovertible. You can also have a direct perception of a color, and also, in the case where it's inattentive, it's fresh. Perceptions are always fresh. Perceptions can't not be fresh, because they always deal with the impermanent objects. Perceptions have impermanent objects. So they're always fresh, but they're mostly inattentive for most people. When you have a direct perception and it's not inattentive, in other words, you are attentive to it, you do ascertain it, then it is incontrovertible. You actually see the color in the extreme freshness of a tiny, tiny moment relative to, like, for example, a minute. So that's both fresh and incontrovertible.

[15:45]

And then there can be subsequent, once you have this incontrovertible experience of a color, or of the impermanence of any color or anything, once you actually see the impermanence, there can be subsequent cognitions to it. But those subsequent cognitions, which are still incontrovertible, infallible, and overcome, Misconceptions, too, they're not fresh, so they're not valid. And it's hard for us to actually find impermanence, however, in direct perception until we have cognized it conceptually. And it's hard for us to find the selflessness of things and non-separation until we've cognized it through conception. So we need to use our imagination to become free of our imagination.

[16:48]

We have a mind which has a capacity called imagination or conception. A mind which can create, can construct things out of mid-air, so to speak. And some of the things we construct do not exist. So when our mind constructs something that doesn't exist, we have a cognition which is false. Unless we simultaneously know and do not take it as real. Now, taking it as real would either be a subsequent or a valid conceptual cognition of knowing that that wasn't real. There's a thread there that I just lost. And so we use our imagination to overcome wrong imagination, to overcome doubting imagination, to overcome correctly assuming or correctly believing imagination.

[18:05]

And when we use, and when we overcome correctly believing imagination and come to certain imagination or certain cognitive, conceptual cognition, refuting all incorrect and wishy-washy conceptions, even that conception has to be overcome, and that conception is overcome partly by conception, and then finally, by overcoming all conceptions, we have refuted all conceptions, and then we even overcome all conception itself. and enter into direct perception of correcting all of our... of using imagination to overcome all imaginations, and finally, that final imagination is also dropped. So that's the evolution of cognition, evolution of the ways of knowing, in these two ways of knowing, okay?

[19:10]

And there's... A lot more we could study in terms of getting into details about the valid or the ideal cognitions, both conceptual and perceptual. But I think I'd like now to turn to the psychological side of the mind, the psychological way of contemplating mind. And here are some... of what are called elements of existence, or dharmas. Passing these out, you want to hear a story about my grandson?

[20:19]

It's a fresh one from this morning. I think it's from this morning or yesterday morning. On the way to school, one of the advantages of commuting is he talks to his mother in the car about various things. So he asked her this morning or yesterday morning, can we fire George Bush? And she said, well... It's hard to fire a president. And then she gave him a short talk on U.S. history and the current events and the, what do you call it, the religious right and fundamentalism and people who think that people who have other religions must be wrong and that they really, they should switch and... After listening to that, he said, but we might not like their religion.

[21:23]

That might not be good for us. And then he said to her, what are we? What religion are we? And she said, I don't know. And after a little while, he said, I think I'm a Buddhist because I meditate and I sit in full lotus. He does sit, he has a very nice little lotus, which he shows me now and then just to give me a kick. And a little while later he said, do Buddhists believe in spirit? And his mother said, I don't know, you have to ask granddaddy. And a little while later he says, I think I'm a Buddhist who believes in spirit. That's the story. Now you've got your charts. So the first category there are forms.

[22:25]

And so these are things we've been talking about in terms of these are things which you can know, some of those forms. Which of the forms can you know? Go ahead. You can say it, Bernard. How nice of you. That's wrong. One more guess. We'll probably get the next time you get it. Bernard? I don't understand the question. We see the forms there? Which ones can you know? Which ones can you know? Not only which ones can you know, but which type of knowing would know them? Well, first of all, what are the objects?

[23:26]

What are the objects? Well, I just answered the question. The objects, the sense objects you know, right? You can know the sense objects. And how can you know the sense objects? By what? With perceptual cognition. What kind of perceptual cognition? What? Sense perception. Sense perception, yeah. Sense perception, you'd know them. And what other kind of perception would you know them? Mental perception would know them too. So sense perception can know these objects, but sense perception does not know the organs. It doesn't know the eye, the ear, the nose. Sense perception does not know the eye organ. However, its dominant condition is... I mean, the eye consciousness or the perception... High consciousness, which knows colors, its dominant condition is the sense organ.

[24:28]

Mind organ, I mean, direct mind perception also can know colors. But it knows colors, its dominant condition is... Yeah, its dominant condition is the mental organ, which is... Yeah. So a mental consciousness can know a color... because its dominant condition is a previous moment of consciousness, and it's also its dominant condition, its antecedent condition is a previous moment too, but its dominant condition is that sense consciousness which knew the color. And then what else can know these objects? Actually, that's it. Excuse me. And one other kind of perception can know these objects. Yogic direct awareness could know them too. And it doesn't depend on the sense organs to know these either.

[25:33]

So anyway, the perceptions now, can conception know these sense objects? Can conceptual consciousness know them? Linda says yes. That's right. Conceptual consciousness, conceptual cognitions can know colors. They give them a name or a concept. They know them through the media of an image. But they do know them. But they don't know them directly. And they need that mental consciousness. They don't use the sense consciousnesses. They use the mental consciousness, which knows the colors. They use that as their antecedent condition. And then they come up with an image, depending on the predispositions of the moment, they come up with an image which they mix with the sense data.

[26:39]

And through the media, through the medium of the image, they are able to grasp the color. However, they do not grasp the media. And the conceptual consciousness not grasping the media, which is the image, they do not grasp the image. They do not see the image. They see through the image. That's the same as the sense organs, sense consciousnesses, which do not see the sense organ. They see through the sense organ. The sense organ is physical, but they see through it. So in the media of the sense organ, they apprehend the sense object. And conceptual cognition is like that, too. And mind conscious and mental perception is like that too. Mental perception sees the color through the media of what? Wrong. Through the media of what? Did I say conceptual cognition? Mental perception.

[27:41]

Mental perception sees a color and through what? Does it see the color? Predispositional. What? Predispositional. The pre- what? Previous consciousness. The previous consciousness is the organ through which mental perception can see a color. So, mental perception, so in some sense, all the cognitions have some kind of an organ through which they apprehend their object. But the conceptual cognition, the organ, in a sense, is their image. It's the image that they see through. But they don't see the image, just like the sense perceptions don't see the organ. You don't see the eye when you see the... When I see the colors on your cheeks, I do not see my eye. When I hear you talk, I do not hear my ear.

[28:47]

And so on. When I touch your skin and feel your skin, I do not feel my sense of touch. I use that. It's through that that I experience you, and it's through that that I can feel separate from you. Without that intervening media, everything in the universe and mind would collapse together, and there would be no knowledge. So somehow, in some sense, Dualism has some causal basis. Because to know things, in some sense, means to create, in some sense, a media through which to know them. However, sense perception knows things directly, even though it's through the organ, it knows them just as they are, because the organs are clear. Okay, that's the first group there. You can see how you can apply what you've learned about the nature of cognition to the first group. That's what they're there for. Then comes the second category called mind.

[29:51]

Here it's called citta. Okay, can you see that? It's the twelfth item in the list. It's the only item in the second group. Now, that item there, how does that correspond, do you think, to what we've been talking about the first whatever number of meetings we've had? John Smiling? I think that's all... You think mental cognition? Mental perception? Great. However, incomplete. That's a hint. What? And conceptual cognition as well. That's right. And incomplete. It's a hint. And sense. And sense. And sense perception? All of them go in that category.

[30:55]

All seven and all 11. The whole chart goes in that category. That category, right there, has the entire chart in it. All those different ways of knowing belong in that category. See, this arrangement is not emphasizing a detailed unfoldment of... which is the basic knowing. It's not unpacking the mind here. Oops, wrong chart. This number two here is condensed. That whole chart is in number two. Okay? Now, what this chart's doing is then now we move into number three. Okay? Concomitant mental factors. These are mental factors... which accompany all those cognitions we've been talking about the whole time, every one of those cognitions we've talked about, a sense consciousness, all the sense consciousness, which means a sense perception, mental perception, conceptual cognitions, all of them, the wrong ones, the right ones, the inattentive ones, all of them arise with these mental factors.

[32:08]

Okay? But we didn't talk about that. Now we're talking about it. These things accompany number 12, or, you know, the second category. These things, some of these things, not all of them, but different patterns of these things accompany every one of those cognitions we've been talking about. And once again, the particular combination of these elements, which go now from 13 to... 72, okay? 13 to 72 makes, is that 59? No, yeah, 59, right? The next 59 items are mental factors that arise in different combinations with every cognition. And the different patterns of these mental factors create different shapes of these ways of knowing.

[33:16]

Like we have direct sense perception, that's correct. Okay? And it's accompanied by some pattern of these. And the pattern of these is the number 17 on that list. Excuse me. The pattern of these is number 15. Number 15 is a very important... mental factor, it's the mental factor that's... And some people say that it's not really even a mental factor because it's actually just the shape of all the other mental factors. So you have this all-embracing moment of cognition, of knowing. And I say all-embracing, I put my arms out nice and wide, and I do that because the two characteristics of cognition are what? No, of all kinds of cognition, the two characteristics of all kinds of cognition are... Knowing.

[34:28]

What? Knowing. Knowing, yeah. And clarity. And clarity. I put my arms up big because clarity means there's no limit to it. It's very spacious. And there's no limit to it, no hindrance to it. All cognitions have a very spacious, are very spacious, radiant... forms of knowing. All of them are. They can be wrong, but they're still spacious. Then within every one of those, no matter what they were, none of them arose without mental factors. Even seeing a color, before you name it, there's mental factors. And all those mental factors that are there, they shape that... They shape that knowing of that color. They shape the knowing of that sound. Or they shape that knowing of that, the conceptual knowing of the color or the sound through an image. They shape it.

[35:28]

And the shape of it is number 15, which is called will or volition or intention or motivation. So the shape, where the consciousness seems to be inclining, which way it seems to be going? Is it going in a wholesome direction? Is it skillful direction? Unskillful direction? And we can talk about how you can look and see. And that shape of it is the definition of karma. That is... Huh? of karma, of action. So, karma is not any activity of your body. For example, salivation is, generally speaking, an activity of your body which is not karma.

[36:34]

Goosebumps, when you get cold, are not karma. And even goosebumps may be when you... you know, see something beautiful or something, are not really karma. To intend to salivate would be karma. Karma is intentional activity. But lots of our activities are not intentional, so they don't... In other words, lots of our activity is not because of the shape of your consciousness. You could have a sense perception and your consciousness could be shaped... It could be shaped in an unskillful way. In an unskillable way, that shape would be your karma. But if you salivated at that same moment, the salivation would not be the karma of the moment. Because salivation is not an intentional, motivated thing. It just happens because of the body's response to certain things, like food. Reflexes. Very important. Going on all the time.

[37:40]

We couldn't get along without them. They're not... They are activity, though. Digestion is, generally speaking, not karma. You could, if you were, you know, really experienced, you could intend to digest things in a certain way. You could intend to digest faster or slower. You know, you could have that power. Or anyway, you could have that wish. You could say, like, you're out in the woods or something, say, I would like to turn down my metabolism. You might try to do that. That would be karma, but it wouldn't necessarily change your metabolism. But the wish to change your metabolism so that your food would last longer, that sounds like a good wish. Thought formation. Pardon? Thought formation. Is that on the list? Huh? What do you mean by thought formation? In a sense, thought formation is... Image formation.

[38:58]

Okay, image formation. Where is image formation on this list? What? Where? Who said something? I heard somebody say it, and it wasn't Marsha. Conception, yeah. Number 14. Conception, idea... That is thought formation. That is the mental factor which can create images, ideas, concepts. And it's called Samya, and it is also the name of Ascanda. I won't get into this too much, but when I first came to Zen Center, in the Heart Sutra, we said, you know, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness, or we said impulses. And when I became avid, I changed it from perception to conception. But then I chickened out and changed it back to perception. It should be conception. I think. In other words, of the five skandhas, the first one is form, which is these first two categories.

[40:02]

The second one is feeling, which is number 13. Feelings is a very important mental factor. And in every moment of consciousness, there is a feeling. When you see a color. there's a feeling. When you smell a skunk, there's a feeling. When somebody touches you, there's a feeling. And the feelings are positive, negative, or you can't tell which. Those are the three feelings. And every moment of consciousness has a feeling tone and has these three basic styles. And that's a whole skanda. It's so important. The feeling of the moment that comes with every moment of cognition Wrong cognitions have feelings. Valid cognitions have feelings. Feelings are present in all states of consciousness. Another thing that's present in all states of consciousness is conception. Even in valid direct perception?

[41:06]

Even in valid direct perception. There's five skandas. And the third one doesn't fall into emptiness. However, even though there is conception, indirect perception, we don't use it as a media to get at the object. And a normal person like you and me, when our sense organs get stimulated by physical material, we've got conceptions available, but we don't use them. Too fast. And conception, the choice of the conception has something to do with what? Predisposition. But the predispositions aren't as fast as the sense perceptions.

[42:07]

We don't have time. Would they get in there and give rise to consciousness before we can whip out, go through and search out and get a concept? and slip it in there to get something. But then later, we take revenge. Because when we get these concepts, concepts are ways we try to control things. But we aren't always like that. And even in mental perception, we got the concept there, but we don't use it. But, of course, in conceptual cognition, we do use it. But it's there all the time. It's just a question of whether it's being used as a media through which to apprehend the object. But it's there all the time. So, for example, if you look at a color and you have a negative feeling...

[43:16]

that state of consciousness will be affected or shaped by that negative feeling about the color. Another state of consciousness sees a color and has a positive feeling, and that will have a different shape, just right there. Both of them will have concepts there, but in direct perception in both cases, the concepts aren't being used as a media to get at the object. However, if you switch to a conceptual cognition, then the concept which is there in the perceptual cognition it's going to be used now in a different way, so it'll change the shape of the consciousness, too. And, anyway, if you go down the list and, like, go to the next category of the general functions of good, or you could say the general functions of skillful states of cognition, okay? So let's say you're seeing a color. Or you're seeing a color and you're seeing it through the media of the image of blue.

[44:26]

So you can say it's blue. So we have a conceptual cognition. A conceptual cognition. All right? What's the shape of that conceptual cognition? Well, maybe what's going to be there? There's going to be feeling. There's going to be a conception. And a conception is going to be used now to get at the object, which could be a color. The end is going to be a shape. And what's the shape going to be? The shape is going to be affected by the use of the cognition, the use of the conception, and whatever feeling is there. But also, it might be affected by what's in under B. There might be faith. There might be energy or effort. There might be equanimity. There might be self-respect. There might be decorum. There might be non-greetiness. There might be non-ill, non-violence. confidence, there might be all those. And if you had all those mental factors in this perception of a color to the media of a concept of blue, a conceptual cognition, that would be a very skillful state of consciousness.

[45:37]

And the shape of that would be very skillful. So the karma, the action, actually of that moment of consciousness would be very good, would be very skillful. Now, you might not have all the things on that list. You don't have to have all of them. You could have just some of them. You can actually learn to look and see what mental factors are there and assess the quality of of that intention, which means to assess the quality of your karma, because intention is already karma. If you have a state of consciousness and there's nonviolence in there, that's already a pretty good state of consciousness. However, there can be nonviolence with greed.

[46:41]

And that's not as good as nonviolent with non-greed. There can't be nonviolence with ill will. That doesn't work. But there could be nonviolence with greed. But again, that's not the highest quality nonviolence. The highest quality nonviolence is where you're not being violent and also greed is slightly violent. And so on. You can make up all... You can or you do make up all kinds of... combinations of these. Some combinations don't happen, can't happen. Some can, and among those that can, some don't. But they could. And then, the shape, every moment, the shape of your consciousness is the karmic quality of that state of consciousness. And then, physical and vocal activities can arise in dependence on this

[47:45]

state of consciousness. So then you can speak and you can move your arms coming from an intention. So you can want to be kind to someone and you can speak kindly. Or you can try to do something with your hands or your shoulders or your elbows to be kind to them. Some states of consciousness, if you look at the shape, you can't tell whether it's skillful or not. For example, somebody who has greed and nonviolence. Or they have faith, but they don't have energy. In other words, they have faith, but they don't have the energy to execute what they believe in. And so although faith is positive, without the energy, the shape is different than when you have the faith together with the energy, together with the nonviolence, together with the non-greed, and so on.

[49:02]

Well, I think maybe I'll stop now and see if you have some questions about this. And then I'll answer. When you raise your hand, I'll say something. Yes? What are you talking about? Yes, what about it? What did it do with perception? Okay, so you're seeing blue, okay? And if faith arises with that? I'm just saying it could. It could. There could be faith there. And you don't see how it would apply to seeing blue. Well, it has to do it. Well, it depends on what you're... Let's say it's faith in non-ill will.

[50:04]

Okay? You could hate blue. Even before you said it's blue, you could hate it. could touch you and before you even before you even said oh you know he's touching me or okay I could I could touch you and the sensation could be what the feeling could be what negative what positive neutral negative it could be there positive neutral negative but Fred offered negative okay So I touch you, you have a direct perception of touch. Or you see a blue. Maybe you like blue better. You see blue, and lo and behold, there's a negative feeling there. So now you're not just seeing blue, but you have a negative feeling. So then what? Ill will?

[51:06]

Some ill will towards the blue? Could that happen? Yes. Some kind of aversion to it? Could that happen? Yes. Some kind of whiff of violence towards it? Could that happen? Yes. That could happen. Now, you can also then bring out the number 14, bring in some conceptions, and then you can really whomp it up. But you're not talking about that yet. You're just thinking, well, just in direct perception, wouldn't that have to be... Generally speaking, it is simpler because you're not pulling in the concept real heavily of this, you know, this is separate from me and so on, but that concept is still in the environment. And if you haven't refuted it, it's still lurking there. The belief in separation is still in the field. So even in direct perception, there could be a somewhat unskillful state of consciousness in direct perception.

[52:12]

Usually the things we do that are really bad are conceptual cognitions because there's where we have ideas of how to implement ill will. It's hard in direct perception to make a big plan about how to be mean to somebody. But you can basically kind of feel like, yuck. You can't say yuck, but the consciousness could have kind of a bend in it towards aversion. And that's not so skillful. Indirect perception? Indirect perception. Because there can be a negative sensation. Indirect perception. You can't see how... You can't see how... You can't see how... Did you say... Indirect perception, okay? I could come over there now and give you a direct perception that would be very negative by just punching you in the body somewhere. And you'd have a direct perception.

[53:17]

Maybe if I came over there, you'd start being conceptual as I'm approaching you. But if you weren't watching, I could hit you real hard and you would have a direct perception of a negative sensation called pain in the arm. That would be negative. And various other mental factors might come up with that negative sensation. Before you move in... No, pardon? Well, actually, maybe I should also say this. All of these mental factors, in a sense, these mental factors are not conceptual cognition. Well, all these mental factors are, in a sense, conceptions. Feeling, in a sense, is conception. Effort, in a sense, is conception. So you have this main cognition, which knows the object. That's the main thing. And then what arises with it are mental factors, each one of which is a kind of conception.

[54:24]

So the cognition, in your example, Tracy, is a perceptual cognition. The knowing of the color is not by mixing it or seeing it through the media of an image of blue. So we're not saying, oh, that's blue yet. However, it is accompanied by all these different kinds of conceptions like pain, pleasure, neutral, effort, not effort, ill will, avoiding, coming, going, up, down, all this stuff is accompanying it. So a perceptual cognition arises with all kinds of conceptions, which are mental factors. You could even say that there's a lot of little conceptual cognitions arising with perceptual cognitions. And there's also little conceptual cognitions arising with conceptual cognition.

[55:31]

But what we've been talking about basically is the overall main mind of knowing the object. These other conceptual cognitions also know the object, but they know it in a different way. Like they know the object as... Pleasant or unpleasant. The basic knowing is knowing the existence of the object. That's why wrong cognition is when you know something that doesn't exist. It's like you know a self that's not there. Or you know permanence that's not there. So the basic cognition has to do, the correctness of it is whether it's about whether it knows something that's there or not. And then that's the correctness of it. And then the incorrect cognitions are those which know things that aren't there. Correct cognitions know things that are there. And again, conceptual cognitions are correct when they know something that's there, but they're mistaken because they mix an image.

[56:34]

Perceptual cognitions, if they know something that's there, they're unmistaken in the sense that they don't mix it with an image. Okay? Now, just a second. That's just the knowing of the existence. The other kinds of mental factors, they know the object not in terms of existence or non-existence, which is the fundamental problem. When we think things that don't exist do exist, like a self, they know it in other ways. They know it in terms of positive, negative, neutral. They know it in terms of like and dislike. or greed and hate. They know it in terms of, is this object something I have faith in, or I practice faith with this object in terms of effort, this object in terms of, also this object in terms of how is this object related to in a total patterned way. So, isn't that something?

[57:40]

So perceptual cognitions... arise with mental factors which are conceptions, which are mind-constructed ways of relating to the object. But they're not mixed with the object. They just color the overall sense of the experience of the object. And, once again, the overall pattern of a particular momentary concoction of a certain type of knowing together with a certain set of mental factors, that is the action of the moment. That's the basic action of the moment, which then can ramify into speech and physical postures, physical gestures. Yes. So are these functions what you mean by predispositions?

[58:41]

The predispositions... Where do they go on this thing? Yeah, I think these mental factors are the predispositions. And we do not make those come up. They come up by the force They come up by the force of past karma, which means they come up by the force of past patterns. So if your mind has a certain shape or a certain pattern, the consequence of that will be to make at some point in the future a similar pattern. So you're predisposed for certain patterns to come up. And the pattern causes another, makes you predisposed for...

[59:42]

somewhat related pattern to come up again. And then once a pattern arises, that makes you predisposed to experience things in a certain way. I think you were next, Michael. Well, I was kind of about that karma, that it almost seems like there are multiple layers of karma. It almost sounds like you might have a self-conscious karma, the predisposed karma. It sounds like there's volitional karma. There's also karma that might be predisposed. It's almost like a subconscious karma. I don't see where that would be on this chart. Neither do I. That's what I'm asking. I'm asking if there are different layers. For most people, the shape of their consciousness...

[60:44]

is more or less unconscious. Especially in direct perception, which is generally speaking, as we know now, not ascertained. But the mental factors are there, even so. But you can't even ascertain the object. So if you can't ascertain an object, it's pretty hard to ascertain the mental factors that arise with the cognition of the object. it would be easier to be aware of the mental factors that are arising with an object that you ascertain. That's one of the advantages of ascertaining clearly the object, because then you can look and see what the mental factors are that are there, and then you can see whether the mental factors that are there are forming a skillfully shaped consciousness. And if they aren't, Then you get to watch and see what happens then, which is not pretty, but because you're gifted now to get a chance to see how your mind works when you have an unskillful pattern.

[61:58]

So for some people, but the material here is on the list. The proposal is there's nothing in addition, there's no unconscious stuff in addition to this that's going on. This is all that's going on according to one of the main schools. There's not some other stuff going on. Now, you could also say, well, again, this is why I say sometimes people say that the overall pattern is really not a mental factor. It's just the overall pattern. Why call the overall pattern a thing? So some people say that's not really an additional thing. There's just a pattern. And one of the translations of Chaitana, which is the number... 15, one of the translations of it is synergy. So is synergy something different than the way all the different parts of something are working together? Something in addition to that? Anyway, there's the word synergy, which is something more than that.

[63:01]

And there's the word intention, which actually is just the shape of your consciousness. but it's a word to draw your attention to what is your intention, what is your intention. So, basically, this is given to us to help us meditate on our karma, on our intention. As we meditate on our intention, there's a possibility of transforming the predispositions. By transforming the predispositions, also... there's a chance for us to move towards clearer and clearer ascertainment of what's going on. And the clearer ascertainment of what's going on, you could eventually see, for example, in direct perception, in direct sense perception, you would be able to see the karmic quality of that state of consciousness. But I think you can probably, to some extent, you can identify when you look at somebody's face... You maybe can identify if there is, what the shape of the consciousness is. So how am I going to figure that out?

[64:03]

Well, look to see. Is there any ill will? Is there any kind of spirit of violence? Is there any greed? Is there any pain? Is there any pleasure? Is it kind of indeterminate? I can't tell. And so on. If you actually just assess, look on this list. you can actually examine your mind and find out what the quality of consciousness is. Generally speaking, if you can examine your mind, your state of your quality of consciousness is pretty good. And you probably will find that the more you examine, the better your state you find. Now, if you don't examine, it's hard for you to ascertain that you're not examining it as a bad state of mind. But generally speaking, people who don't examine their state of mind are in a bad state of mind. The less you're aware of yourself, generally speaking, the more the pattern runs downhill and you move over into the corner of the chart.

[65:09]

Why? Well, you know, I don't answer why questions. Can you ask it another way? What is it about... of these things and the ability to look at it that causes your mind to shift towards the more the better I think you find on this chart too I think you probably find where is it where is mindfulness 19 so mindfulness is Mindfulness can be there even in an unwholesome state. Because it's not categorized under the wholesome or unwholesome. So mindfulness can be there for wholesome or unwholesome. In order to examine your mind, you need mindfulness. When you start examining your mind, as mindfulness develops and you start to see unwholesomeness, you start to see how it works.

[66:23]

Now, if you have unwholesomeness without mindfulness, and you can because number 19 isn't necessarily involved, but it must be involved for us to examine our state and to find out that it's wholesome or unwholesome. But if it's not involved and it is unwholesome, then there's no awareness of it and there's no learning from seeing how painful it is to have these unwholesome states. So they just generally reproduce themselves with no supervision. But if you're mindful even of an unwholesome state, it positively evolves. And if you're mindful of wholesome factors, it's because they need supervision. Unwholesome states don't need supervision to operate. They operate very nicely in the dark, as I mentioned often. You can go out of this house now, out of this place. You can get in your car. You can close your eyes and plug your ears and drive unskillfully. It doesn't take mindfulness to drive unskillfully. But to drive skillfully, It does take mindfulness, and sometimes your mindfulness shows you that you're driving unskillfully, which can help you drive more skillfully.

[67:32]

And sometimes your mindfulness shows you you're skillful. So then you say, I'll keep this up. But without paying attention to your state and looking to see its quality, like what's my state of mind while I'm driving? Am I too tense? There's other things on here about tension and relaxation. Is my body relaxed and alert? Am I awake? You can look and see. But if you don't look and see, you might not be able to find out, oh, yes, it is. So now I'm going to use that now to drive well. Or you might not be able to look and see. I'm not in a good condition to drive, so I shouldn't. But that would be skillful to find out you were in an unwholesome state. Like, I'm really angry. I see that. So that would be a possibility to say, I probably shouldn't drive. because I might run over pedestrians who are not where I want them to be, who I find irritating. Yeah, those inattentive jaywalkers, you know, who do they think they are?

[68:38]

And I'm feeling pain about that. But you don't have to be aware and mindful when you see a jaywalker that you hate. You can hate them without being mindful that... noticing, oh, I hate them and I'd like to run them over. You don't have to notice that. You can run them over without noticing that you hate them and you want to run over. Now you say, well, you know, if you really pay attention to drive the car to hit them, that would take a little bit more attention than just basically, I'll just drive in such a way that if there are any jaywalkers, they'll probably get hit because I'm just all over the place here. I'm not going to look. So basically the principle is, Inattention to unwholesomeness, the unwholesomeness self-perpetuates. Attention to unwholesomeness makes a positive input to it and starts to transform it. And attention to wholesomeness promotes it. Wholesomeness needs attention in order to grow. Unwholesomeness does not grow well with attention.

[69:42]

As a matter of fact, grows very well without mindfulness. Does that make some sense? That's how I propose it works. Anything else tonight? Yes, Linda? Going back a little bit, it's interesting to me, you were saying that with perception, when these things accompany it, they kind of color a direct perception, but they don't mix with it the way with a concept. the image mixes with the object. And so I was just wondering, you know, what's the difference? Because I can see how the things you said are true, that our perceptions are colored by all of these things. Yes. So what's the difference between that and mixing? Oh, the difference between that and mixing?

[70:44]

Before I say the difference between... One thing I want to say before I say about... the mixing, is that previously we said one type of perceptual error is the perceptual cognitions, they have the dominant condition of the organ, they have the object condition of the color or whatever, and then they have the antecedent condition, which is the previous state of consciousness. The previous state of consciousness isn't the media through which you see the object, However, it influences the object. So the previous state of consciousness, if it's really extremely unwholesome, for example, it can color the perception and make the perception wrong. But it's not an image. It's like you look at the mountain and you see the mountain directly, but the previous state of consciousness can change the color of the mountain.

[71:46]

But it's not like an image... mixed in with it, it's more like an influence than you're using the image. And you can see. The difference is that the image you can't see, that's the difference. The image is mixed, so you can't see. Whereas if you look at a mountain that's covered with snow and you see it as blue, you can actually see the blue in the snow. That's the difference. It changes the object. It isn't that it mixes with the object. Yeah, whereas when you mix it... Yeah, exactly. When you mix it, you can't see the image by which you're... You see through the image. But in perception, the influence changes the object. That's why it makes the object wrong. Because then the object you're engaged with is wrong, plus the way the object appears to you is wrong. Whereas in conceptual cognition, the image gets mixed, but doesn't make it a wrong consciousness unless...

[72:47]

the object you're apprehending doesn't exist. So that's... Didn't quite get that? You just put me back to the first day of class one. Pardon? Conception is always mistaken because we... By seeing the object through the image, we see it in a false way. But we don't see the image through which we see it. We just see the object in a false way. However, if the object actually exists, the conceptual cognition is not wrong. So, for example, if I see you right now, you exist. So my conceptual cognition of you is not wrong.

[73:50]

It's just mistaken because the image I have of you is mixed with you as you're actually happening to me. As a visual image, as an auditory image, as a whatever, all these different ways that you come to me are mixed in conceptual cognition with you. But I can't tell the difference between them, and I can't ascertain the... I can't ascertain you. So that's not a wrong cognition. It's a conceptual cognition. It's a valid... Well, not valid unless it's irrefutable, but it's a true. So it's a true... So there's true conceptual cognitions and there's false conceptual cognitions. True conceptual cognitions are still mistaken. False conceptual cognitions, of course, are also mistaken. But you can have a true conceptual cognition that's also a valid conceptual cognition, but it's... So there's true conceptual cognitions and there's false conceptual cognitions. False conceptual cognitions are never valid.

[74:54]

True conceptual cognitions can be valid. A subset of true conceptual cognitions is a valid one.

[75:01]

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