Some people have joined us this morning, and their names are Tae, Patricia, Judy, and also someone who was not here last night, I guess also came this morning, is Rosanna. Okay. And it looks like Ruthie's son is coming here. What is your name? Yuran? Yuran. Yurai? Yurai. Now, as advertised, we'll give teachings about mind.

[01:24]

And so, there's a story that mind depends on three conditions, which must be there for there to be mind. One is, I'll be technical. Is it okay if I be technical? And I borrowed back the Zafu. If you need it, let me know. It's up here if somebody wants to sit on it. One condition is called the dominant condition. Another condition is called the object condition. And the other one is called the immediate antecedent condition.

[02:25]

Those are the three conditions for the existence of mind. That's it. Yeah, I'll say it in Sanskrit this time. Atipati Prajaya, Alambana Prajaya, and Samanantara Prajaya, which means, as you know, dominant condition, object condition, and immediately antecedent condition. Did you get that, Roberta? Immediately antecedent. Immediate antecedent condition. Yeah, I'm not done.

[03:32]

So, the dominant condition is what you might call a sense organ, a sensitive body, and then that's the dominant condition, a sense organ. Which is a physical, sensitive tissue. And then the object condition is a sensible phenomenon, sensible data. For example, electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength is sensible to certain sense tissue. Actually, our whole body is somewhat sensitive to light.

[04:37]

Our body is also sensitive to electromagnetic radiation a little bit beyond the light range and before the light range. So, ultraviolet is sort of before or shorter, is that right? Ultraviolet is shorter electromagnetic radiation. When that touches us, we turn brown or get burned. And when the longer wavelengths touch us, we feel warm. But between those, we actually are even more sensitive in a way. And a certain part of our body is particularly sensitive to it, which we call the eye organ. So that organ is a dominant condition for the arising of the mind which is aware of light. And the object condition is the electromagnetic radiation.

[05:44]

And the immediately antecedent condition is the previous moment of cognition, the one that just went away. So when those three are there, there can be a consciousness. A cognition, a knowing of the presence of, for example, light, of a certain color, which we can experience as color. Some other animals can sense the presence of light, but apparently they do not experience color, most of them. But they can tell there is a light, but they don't seem to respond to the different wavelengths the way we do. And some humans, as you know, are unable to experience color,

[06:49]

even though they are aware of light. But for them, it's pretty much the same. It's stronger or weaker, but it's black and white and gray. Now, the cognition is those three conditions. It's not something in addition to them. I used to think, when I first learned about this, that you have these three conditions and then this thing called cognition rises up above them. But now I don't think that anymore. Now I think that it's just those three conditions

[07:50]

and not something in addition to it. The idea that you have these three conditions and something in addition to them, rather than those three conditions being cognition, that sense that those three conditions, when satisfied, give rise to something else called cognition, is similar to the understanding that when you have cognition, there is somebody who has the cognition. Which we do think. We think somebody has a cognition, somebody has a consciousness. We think that. But there is no evidence of this somebody who has this cognition in addition to the cognition.

[08:53]

There is evidence of somebody who is composed of cognitions. Like, you're not just a cognition, but you experience cognitions. But you don't have the cognitions. It's not like you having a cognition over here. You are a cognitive being. You don't have cognitions. You're not in addition to your awareness. But you can think you are. And most people do. Most people think there's me and my cognitions. Just like there's me and the universe. Right? People think like that, right?

[09:58]

But you don't think there's you and the universe and somebody else. You think everybody else is in the universe. Don't you? There's only one person who gets to be in addition to the universe. And isn't it a coincidence who that turns out to be? And we don't usually think there's the universe and Elizabeth. But she does. But it kind of starts with this sense of there's conditions which are the creation of a thing and then the things in addition to the conditions. But I don't think so. The thing arises, not exactly from the conditions,

[11:05]

but as the conditions. When your body interacts with some part of the universe, not the whole universe, but some part of the universe that stimulates a certain part of your body. And there's other parts of the universe that are stimulating other parts of your body. But in a given moment, a certain part of the universe is stimulating a certain part of your body. And partly the most intense one there, in conjunction with a previous cognition, gives rise to a knowing. And knowing is actually the way your body is interacting with the physical universe. Just like two people dancing,

[12:07]

they're dancing with each other, and the way they're dancing with each other is the dance. The way they're interacting is the dance. The dance isn't something in addition to the way they're interacting. It includes both of them. Neither one of them is the dance by themselves. And the dance is not something in addition to them. It's just the way they're interacting, which includes them. With the additional thing, that there's a previous dance that just went away. So, mind, consciousness, cognition, knowing, is like that. You can't get it aside from its conditions. It's not something in addition to its conditions, it is its conditions.

[13:12]

Yeah, yeah. So we don't usually think that... Actually, sometimes people do think that the eye sees. But people don't usually think that the color sees. But some people might think that the mind sees. But it's not really that the mind sees, but that seeing is mind, and mind is these conditions. So these conditions actually see. But it's not that the color sees or that the eye sees, but the color interacting with the eye in conjunction with the previous cognition, that's what sees, because that's the cognition. But you can't really get a hold of the cognition, because when you reach for it, what you get is its conditions. If you get one of its conditions, you don't get the cognition.

[14:24]

If you get all of the conditions, you get the cognition. But again, when you get the conditions, you get the cognition, and when you reach for the cognition, you get the conditions. You can't really find the cognition, because the cognition is just the conditions. So cognition itself is basically ungraspable, unfindable, and it is light. Basically what cognition is, is it's light, and it's clear. It doesn't have a color. It doesn't have a shape. It's clear, and it's light. It illuminates, it knows, and you can't grasp it. But there is this clear light, this knowing, and it depends on physical things interacting with each other,

[15:26]

and it depends on a just deceased, immediately antecedent moment of clear light. So that's the basic Buddhist epistemology about mind. So the example I gave is mind in the form of knowing color. There can also be knowing of smells, tastes, tangibles, and sounds. Sounds are mechanical waves interacting with a certain part of the body. Tastes are chemical things interacting with a certain part of the body. Smells are gases interacting with a certain part of the body. And then there's tangibles. Tangibles are the most basic.

[16:27]

The knowing of touch is the most basic form of knowing, in a way, because all the other forms are actually variations on touch. So originally the whole body surface is touch, and then it specializes in making indentations, basically. Indentations of ear, of eye, of nose, and of tongue. They're places where the body folds in on itself and made a special thing other than being touched by these grosser things, like warmth, hardness, softness. And then, in addition, there is the arising of a knowing that knows non-physical things. So the first five are what we call sense cognitions,

[17:30]

and then there's a sixth, which is mental cognition. And this mental cognition can also know the same things that the sense cognitions know, but it can also know things that they don't know. Like it can know 2 plus 2 is 4, and it can know enlightenment. It can know our relationship. And it can know the stories we tell about our relationship. And if you're ready, I'll tell you the conditions for that. Are you ready? No? Okay. Yes? Questions? You want to sit over there? Okay.

[18:34]

Can you hear that? No. I didn't think so. I'm not sure... You're not sure how the previous cognition relates to the object in the sense organ? What does it do? It supports it. It supports the arising of something like itself. The sense organ has a previous sense organ.

[19:43]

For example, electromagnetic radiation has a previous electromagnetic radiation. Well, you probably wouldn't have an ear if there hadn't been sound waves coming in on tissue for billions of years or many millions of years of mechanical waves in the air and mechanical waves in water have been pounding on sentient, on living tissue and made all these different types of ears. Fish ears, dragon ears, octopus ears, human ears, dolphin ears, bear ears. So, there have been previous moments of mechanical waves

[20:54]

and there have been previous moments of cognition. The cognition you're having now is not the first. It doesn't really have a beginning, but it has a past and it has a future. So, it's not a specific previous sound heard in this ear? It's not necessarily even a sound. It could be a previous sense, it could be a previous eye consciousness. The consciousnesses are traditionally named after the organ. So, you have eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness and body consciousness and mind consciousness. So, they're named after the organ. So, for mind consciousness, mind is the organ for mind consciousness. So, we have previous of all of them, but some cognition has just occurred.

[21:54]

The cognition we have now, we're being taught, was preceded, has a past, has a history, a cognitive history. Which we accurately sense. We actually sense that we have a history, that there's been minds before this one. We actually call that remembering past minds. Right? Like you remember that this morning we had a class, we had a discussion and you were very happy. Right? You remember that. So, you know that there was a previous cognitions, we had previous cognitions. But also, we don't count all of them for the current consciousness. The one just happened is the one. There are all the other ones, okay? All the other ones are important, but we're just focusing on three.

[22:55]

The previous one has a previous one, and so on. But we're not talking about that because, even though the previous one had a previous one, if that previous one didn't happen, if that previous one wasn't there, there wouldn't be a consciousness. So it is possible to have a conscious being, conscious, conscious, conscious, organ and object coming together with previous conscious, and then it's possible to not have a consciousness. To have not being followed by one. That's possible. And that can happen when the tissue and or the stimulating environment are not sufficiently intense. Which is what happens at a certain point in our development. There comes a time when our sense organs start to withdraw from their location, or that the animation of our sense organs starts to withdraw. And I think the first one to go is the eyes, right?

[23:59]

It's getting dark in here, Fred. And then the hearing goes. Smelling. The last one to go, I think, is touch. And the final one is the mind organ. So, in fact, the time comes when the organs don't interact with the environment much anymore, so those conditions break down. So then another cognition is not coming up. Even though there's a previous cognition, it's not working for this one. So it doesn't come up. So, when a baby is born... When a baby is born, yes. When a baby is born and they take birth... And maybe even before the baby is born, in the womb, this is a big debate now, in the womb, we have some indication that there's somebody in there at a certain point.

[25:00]

And one of the big debates now is at what point is somebody home? And the Buddhist teaching has not specified exactly at what point in the embryological process there is a conscious being in there. So you say the baby is born. That doesn't mean when the baby comes out of the womb or through the abdomen. The baby is... I think in almost all cases there's a conscious being prior to that. And that's when the baby is born. But I can't really tell you when, except I can tell you the conditions for when it happens. Okay, so we have a baby born, and the previous cognition... So here we go. The previous cognition... Where is that? It's the last cognition of somebody just before they died. That's the previous cognition.

[26:01]

And that's why we have the Buddha telling us that there's rebirth. Because the first cognition of this embryo in the womb, the first cognition has an immediately antecedent condition. And the immediate antecedent condition could be some number of days prior. But there's no consciousnesses between that one and this one. That's the most immediate previous one. And we have no way of knowing how much space there is at this point between this cognition and the next cognition. Except by looking from some other person's point of view. So we see somebody die, and some people can see a person born, and they can see this person died, this person was born, and this person's last cognition is this person's just previous antecedent condition.

[27:05]

But we do not say this person went over to this person. We say this person's cognition is the condition for this person's first cognition. And similarly, right now, we do not say that Susan is carried over from now to now, but that Susan's cognition now will be the immediate antecedent condition for the next cognition, which arises depending on your cognition. But you don't get carried over. But there's a rebirth in the sense that a birth depends on a previous cognition. So there's a living being who has a cognition, that being goes away, but not annihilated because that being's life is a condition, and that being's cognition is a condition for the arising of another being who is not the same being, but who depends on the last being.

[28:08]

So this being doesn't get carried over, but this being is the past of this being. But they're really past. This being is gone, doesn't get carried over. They're past, but they're the condition for this one. So that's why this isn't eliminated, I mean this isn't annihilated, because everything has consequence. So it isn't annihilated, and it doesn't last, either one. It exists in another way, namely it exists conditionally, and it is a condition, potentially, for another cognition. But if another body isn't sufficiently sensitive to the environment, there won't be the ground for this cognition to be the previous cognition, so there might not be rebirth. It's possible. Okay, any more questions? Or do we even get to your question?

[29:12]

We got to my question. I do have another question, but it's not on this track. It's not on this track? Well, depending on... How far off the track is it? It's in the same environment. Same environment, okay. Well, since you're here, go right ahead. You've been talking to us about precepts, and precepts of compassion in particular. Yes. And I'm wondering, what is the relationship between precepts and Eightfold Path? How do those fit together? Well, strictly speaking, I mean, kind of literally speaking, the Eightfold Path has the elements of right action, right speech, and right livelihood. Those three go with these precepts of compassion. In particular, I told you the first six,

[30:13]

taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The next one, avoiding evil, doing good, and saving beings. So, avoiding evil applies to those, to the Eightfold Path of right action, right speech, and right livelihood. Those three are three ways to avoid evil, and they're three ways to do good. So, those three are related to karma, to action. Action of body, speech, and mind. Okay? And so, that's how they relate to those three. But then the next ten, in this school we have sixteen, then we have ten. Not killing, not stealing, not intoxicating yourself.

[31:16]

No, no, not misusing sexuality. Not lying, not intoxicate self or other, not slandering, not praising self at the expense of others, not being possessive, not holding to things that you want to hold on to, not being inappropriately angry, and not abusing Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So those practices correspond to those three elements in the Eightfold Path. Right action, right livelihood, and right speech. They go with those ten. Okay, so, not killing, not stealing, not misusing sexuality, what? Not killing, not stealing, not misusing sexuality, what? Not, not misusing,

[32:19]

not being involved in harmful sexuality. And, and what's the other one? Oh, intoxication, okay. So those all relate pretty much to right action, physical. And then comes right speech, so then the other ones are not slandering, not lying, not praising self at the expense of other, and not disparaging the triple treasure. So those four are speech. And then mind is being possessive or being angry. So those ten relate to those three in the Eightfold Path. Are they tools to work in the Eightfold Path? Yes, they are. Are there meditation topics on the Eightfold Path? And particularly there are meditations on

[33:24]

what I haven't got into yet, because you wanted me to wait. There are meditations on the activity of the mind, which I just told you about. So the, two steps away from where I was at was to point out that these cognitions, when they arise, this basic knowing comes with activity. That consciousness arises with, it comes with the ability to act. And its action is a definition of karma. And then that action can be ramified, that mental action, which is basically what karma is, that story we're telling about our relationship with the universe, that can ramify into speech and postures. And the speech and postures can be wholesome or unwholesome. And the original story, as I said earlier,

[34:25]

can be wholesome or unwholesome. You can tell stories about your relationship with the world that sound like you really think you're against the world and the world is against you and you want to take revenge on it. This is a very unwholesome story. Or you could have another story. So these precepts are ways for you to look and see what your story is. And if your story is, you know, like, I think I'll steal because these people don't really need their food. Or, you know, that really belongs to me, even though they aren't giving it to me, I'm going to take it. Or I'm not even going to pay attention, I'm just going to take it and not even notice that I'm taking it. These kinds of stories are the kind of stories on the Eightfold Path we're being encouraged to give up, to renounce those kinds of ways of seeing things. Or if we have those kinds of stories, to confess that we've got stories of wrong conduct in our mind.

[35:29]

And then be careful, if we notice stories of wrong conduct, not to enact them with our body. And if we have stories of unskillful action, unskillful things to say, we actually pass on the unskillful speech. That's part of the training there. But coming back to what I was talking about earlier, if you see unskillful intention or you see a skillful intention, I'm recommending that you practice with those in such a way called generosity. Then you will be able to see the light in both types of mental activity. And then from there you can see the light in your speech and the light in your postures. And the precepts are to help you locate your intention,

[36:33]

to help you not ignore your intention. And then once you locate it, then you can see if you're holding to it, if you're tense around it. And if you're tense around it, then you can confess that you're tense. And by confessing you're tense, you can see how you feel about that. And you don't feel comfortable when you're tense around your intentions. You don't feel comfortable when you're tense around good intentions, even. It's a good intention, but I wish I wasn't uptight when I have good intentions. It's a bad intention, and of course you're somewhat uncomfortable with bad intentions, unless you are generous with them. But usually we're holding to bad and holding to good both. So by these precepts, we find the good and the bad, and then we notice how we're relating to them. And we may be able to find a way to relate to wholesome stories, wholesome stories of action,

[37:37]

stories of right action, stories of avoiding wrong action. We're relating to that. Also, we have right view behind us on the Eightfold Path, which tells us that all these actions have consequence, so it's important to pay attention to them. So now we've located them, so now we can pay attention to them. You've got an intention, give it your close attention. Now you've got it, close attention, now be generous with it. Now you're paying attention to it, closely, being generous with it, then you open to the light. You open to the selflessness of your intention. And precepts help in that process. So, as part of the practice,

[38:41]

sometimes we have formal ceremonies where we vow to observe these precepts. It doesn't mean we're saying, actually we're vowing, we're saying, I would like to not kill, I want to not kill, I want to realize the precept of not killing, but I'm not saying I'm going to realize it in the next few days. But I am vowing to observe this precept, to observe the precept of not killing, all the time. And even though I may feel like I'm still somewhat participating in killing, I'm still observing the precept of not killing at the same time. I'm looking for that precept. Where is the precept of not killing in this world? I'm committed to look for that precept all the time. I'm committed to look for the precept of not stealing. I'm not saying I never will steal.

[39:42]

I'm saying I'm looking for and I want to realize not stealing. So I commit to that, then I watch and then I see. And once I locate the issue around stealing and not stealing, then I practice generosity towards both of those. The purpose of these precepts is not just that we will stop stealing and practice giving. It's not just that. You have to stop stealing and practice giving in order to see the light. Because if you're not stealing right now and you're giving right now, but you haven't seen the light yet, you're still afraid that you'll start stealing and stop giving. Which is, if you don't see the light, you can slip back into stealing. You can slip back into taking things that you haven't really understood or giving. And if you start practicing giving and the more you see,

[40:44]

oh yeah, I'm not taking what's not giving, I'm receiving what's giving, and I'm giving, oh now I see, then you start to see the light. When you see the light, you will continue to not steal and to practice giving, but you won't be afraid anymore because now you see the light in the process. You have wisdom. So the precepts tie you into the process of waking up. If you're just following them successfully, although that's a good basis, it's not enough. You still have to open to how everybody's helping you follow them. And how even if you don't follow them, everybody's helping you. So some people, if I look at them and I think they're following the precepts, which is great, they look at themselves, everybody's happy they're following the precepts.

[41:45]

Now, of course, I look at them and I realize the only reason why they're following the precepts is because I'm helping them. Not the only reason. I should say the only reason they're following the precepts is because we're helping them. I see that. But if the person who I think is following the precepts and who thinks they're following the precepts thinks that they're following the precepts by themselves, If they think that, they can. Some people are successful following the precepts and they think they did it by themselves. Can you imagine that? I did that good thing. Who did that good thing? I did that good thing. Did you do it all by yourself? Yes. People can think that. So they're happy that they're famous, they're being a good guy, but they're scared. They're scared because they think they did it by themselves. They're scared because they're deluded.

[42:50]

They're scared because they're deluded. I have to say deluded on both sides of her sneezes. I'm not sorry that you're sorry. I'm happy that you're sorry. I would have been happy that you weren't sorry if you weren't, but you aren't, so I am. You know about that? Somebody does good, people do do good, which is great, and then they blow it. They think they did it by themselves. So then they did good, and they're afraid, and right after they did good, and they're afraid, somebody goes, and they go, they do bad. They do bad because they thought they did good by themselves, and thinking that you do good by yourself, you're afraid. Now, if somebody said,

[43:51]

who did that bad thing? You say, I did, but I didn't do it by myself. And if you say that, and not as an excuse, but because you understand that, you're not afraid of what they're going to do to you. I did a bad thing, you all supported me, I'm not afraid. You may beat me up, but I'm happy. I'm going to get beat up anyway. Conditions are going to beat me up pretty soon. But if I know everybody is supporting me, in all my actions, I will not be afraid, and I will get beaten up in happiness. Does that make sense? It's amazing, isn't it? The amazing power of compassion to awaken wisdom. Compassion towards your actions.

[44:53]

Compassion towards your good and unskillful actions will awaken you to see that everyone is supporting you, no matter what you do. Still, what you do, it's good to know. That was bad. That was stupid. Thanks for helping me. Now would you help me be skillful? We already did. You're skillful now. You skillfully confessed, you skillfully noticed what you were doing, and you woke up, and we helped you. You don't get deluded by yourself, you don't wake up by yourself. You don't do skillfulness by yourself, you don't do unskillfulness by yourself. But, now you hear about that. To see it, you've got to look at what you're doing. And then see, when you're looking at it, now that you're actually looking at it, do you think you did that by yourself? Yes, I do. I admit it.

[45:55]

And admitting that, you can be generous towards your unskillfulness of thinking that you do things by yourself. And in that generosity, you can open, Oh, I thought I did it by myself, and now I see I didn't. I thought I did the skillful thing. Everybody else thought it was skillful too. At least everybody I heard from. But that's not what's important. It is somewhat important. What's important is to be watching it. Doing skillful things is fine, but more important than that is that you're aware of them. Doing unskillful things is not so good, but more important than that is that you're aware of them. If you're aware of them, you can be generous. If you're aware of them and generous, you can wake up to the fact that everybody's helping you wake up. And before you woke up, everybody was helping you too. You just didn't see it because you were asleep, because you weren't paying attention and you weren't joining the giving program.

[47:02]

See how it relates to the Eightfold Path? Paul. I'd like to come back to the question of immediately antecedent condition, because I had exactly the same question, but now I have more questions. I guess as you were talking about the antecedent condition from a dying person, let's say the last cognition of a dying person passing to be the antecedent condition of a new baby.

[48:11]

I sort of received the thought that whether the antecedent condition come from everywhere all the time, or whether there is, let's say, a story that somehow the antecedent conditions are localized around this body or that body, and that the antecedent conditions are... I think you're saying too much. I think you're... Pardon? I said a little bit too much. I think you got overloaded, our circuits. It's okay. So at one point you were saying something about the antecedent condition coming from everywhere or something like that? Okay. So the antecedent... Actually, your cognitions are supported by many, many factors,

[49:15]

not just those three. It's just that if you don't have those three, you don't have a cognition. Those are like the... What do you call it? Those three are necessary, but that doesn't mean that you're just three. So the immediate antecedent condition had those conditions too, had those three, but it actually was supported by all beings. Every one of your cognitions is supported by all beings. However, if one of the beings that supports you is a limp organ, you won't have a cognition. Limp means not fully functioning. So if electromagnetic radiation is coming on nice and strong, hello, and your eye organ is asleep, or even... still kind of like pooped out from the last turn on, it won't get stimulated, it won't perk up. So then, even though one of the conditions is there,

[50:18]

if that one is missing, and we're all rooting for you to see something, like you can imagine, I don't know what, he's a baseball player, right? He's ready to hit this home run, he's our hero. We all want him to see the ball coming, but his eye isn't ready. So the cognition of seeing the ball just doesn't come, so he misses it. So even though we're all supporting you all the time, we also support you to miss seeing something sometimes. And one of the key supporters, pivotal supporter if you're not seeing, is the fact that your eye is turned off, your eye organ is not functioning. So we mention these three because these three are particular to the arising of consciousness, whereas all of us are not just... we're supporting you in gazillions of ways, and each other, but those three have to be there for the cognition to arise. So you're right, your immediately antecedent condition

[51:18]

of your current cognition is being supported from all over the place, but those three in particular must be there. If you take away those three and everything else is there, you won't have one. If all of us are wanting you to be conscious, which could happen someday, that we're all around you and we all want you to be conscious, but you're sitting there saying, It's getting dark. Your organs are withdrawing. In other words, you're getting ready to take off and go get another body. We're rooting for you, but you're gone. So then we're asking you to stay, but really we're supporting you in leaving. So we've got to get with that program. We want you to stay, but if you want to go, we'll support you to go. So we're supporting you if you stay and we're supporting you if you go, but those three, when they're here, they support you to stay, and when they fall apart, they support you to go. Did that address that question?

[52:19]

Well, I think I'm... yes and no. Okay, go on then. I think I'm partially confusing this with the sense of me and the rest of the universe. Yeah, that is not the same topic. That's the topic of the mental activity. And I guess the place that I'm stuck, which is the sense of, is the immediate antecedent condition from my, whatever that means, previous cognition, or does it come from anywhere and everywhere at the same time? What's this? Oh, this is for you probably. No, it's for you. This is a payback? Okay, and if you need them,

[53:21]

I got them for you. Okay, so, it's the immediate antecedent condition that is connected to an immediate antecedent condition. So, it's one that was connected to another one. Okay, so that causal sequence of this immediate antecedent condition and this immediate antecedent condition leads to your immediate antecedent condition. Now, could this be the immediate antecedent condition of somebody else? It is of somebody else. But that somebody else just happens to be called by the same name as you. And the immediate antecedent condition arose with a body

[54:25]

that people say is the same body as you have. And you also say so, but other people say so, too. But it is somebody else. But it's not everybody else, it's just one other person that used to exist, and it's not you. It's not you, and it's not me. However, people think it's you. And I do, too. And you do, too, probably. We have a story, and that's the karma. That's the karma is we have a story of that connection, and that has consequence of creating a world where we make these connections. But the story is that it's from one antecedent... It's from one antecedent cognition. That used to be called Paul. Yeah. Not from... Or that used to be called Tim, if Tim died. Or maybe Paul died,

[55:30]

and the next Paul is Tim. Yeah, right. So I could suddenly appear different to people. Like a lot different. And actually, you do appear a lot different to people who can see. People who can handle it see you changing a lot more than people who can't handle it. Some people can tolerate, like Proust. I just... You know, Proust spent... He wrote this book, about 3,000-page book, and for the first 2,800 pages, he basically is telling stories of people who are kind of... who are changing all the time. He develops these characters that have continuity, but are almost unrecognizably different at different points in the book. And the last part of the book, he deals with how he can't recognize these changed people. In some cases, specifically, because they look the same. So, this is his genius,

[56:32]

that he could see that and stay in that dimension and invoke this reality where there's basically the reality of impermanence and no self. And at the same time, not violate the continuity of causation. Thank you. You're welcome. Before. Before. Past. Past. Preceding. Can you... Is it okay if you kneel? You can stand if you want. You want to stand? I'll try. You sure? Be careful. He had knee operation. It's good. It's okay? It's good. Okay. Please move if you need to, okay? Thank you.

[57:33]

You're welcome. You can go like this if you want to. Oh, great. That's better. This is the bad one. Yeah. It's the bad one? The one that had the operation. Yeah. It's your sweetheart. It's my sweetheart. Yeah. When I first broke my leg, people said, you know, they said, which is your bad leg? Even the physical therapist said, which is the bad leg? I said, this isn't a bad leg. This leg is, for 58 years, this leg has been a real pal. Yeah. You know, I've been tying things up. For quite some time, I've been observing the precepts, practicing, and I have noticed that. Thank you. Thank you for supporting him.

[58:36]

that when I am observing all my precepts, I feel that compassion and love arises, also generosity and light. I feel that the light is with me in the world. And whenever I notice that I miss the precepts, I do something, there is anxiety and I lose the light. So I go back on track and keep observing the precepts. And I feel that I've done pretty well, and lately in my life I've been doing very good, doing good things and all of that, and the light is with me. But the other day I woke up screaming at night,

[59:38]

so I said to myself, something is not right. And I would like to give you an example of something that I think that I didn't handle very well. I was in the bus, and I just had the knee operated two months before, so I had to be very careful in stepping down. And there is this guy with a suitcase about this size, big suitcase, and as I step the first step, he pushes me with the suitcase. So I look back like, be careful. And then as I'm going down to the sidewalk, he pushes me again. And I look back and I say, you know you're pushing me with the suitcase. And the guy said, yeah, you're mine, man. And I look at his face, and this was in a second rep, I felt compassion for the guy.

[60:39]

I said, who knows where this guy is? And I just turned around and kept walking, and I just forgot about it because I really feel that a compassion arises because maybe this guy was kicked out of the house, or who knows? So I just went on my way. But many things like that happens in my life, that I find compassion immediately for a bus driver that is really messed up, and I ask a question, he answers really bad. And I just don't do anything about it because I kind of say, well, these guys have problems. But maybe all these situations arise inside in me because why was I waking up screaming? So maybe I'm doing something that is not right, and I don't know exactly what it is. Yeah, maybe.

[61:44]

But also, maybe something in the past that you did that's being a condition for this fear in the dream. Maybe some past moment when you didn't see the light has a consequence now of giving a picture that's frightening. So it's not the current... It's not the current action, maybe, but still in the story in the dream, you couldn't see the light, probably. Correct. So even though you're not doing anything wrong, there still may be some limit in your ability to see the light. So when you don't see the light, you're basically somewhat afraid. But it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong because you can do something right now quite good, like being compassionate to someone who's upset and being aggressive. That's fine. That's good.

[62:46]

If you're practicing like that, it may be that you've been good for several days, but still you might lose your vision of the light and then become afraid again. So to have a sustained openness to your relationship with everyone, your inconceivable relationship, your radiant relationship, that's maybe not quite attained yet. In the meantime, if you can occasionally see this light, this is great. And if you can act from there, like on the bus, that's wonderful. But that doesn't mean every situation you can see the light. And then if you don't see the light, you won't necessarily scream, but you might. So I have to be more alert to things that I'm not seeing. Yeah, and also be generous with yourself

[63:47]

if you're in the moments when you don't see the light. Somebody asked me to bring a picture of my grandson. I have one. But anyway, just like my grandson, when he doesn't see the light, he looks scared. And he can see it, and it's lovely sometimes. And he's not afraid. And he's a very cheerful, happy person because he kind of sees the light, for example, of his grandparents' love. He sees the light in our eyes shining on him. He gets it. He's happy to see it. It's beautiful. Even before he sees it, he kind of knows he's going to see it. So he's very cheerful to see. But sometimes if I just go, hello, do you know what's going to happen next? He says, oh no, don't talk like that. Just changing my voice, he can lose the light and get scared. But when I see him, I'm generous towards him. So if you get scared, then be generous towards yourself,

[64:50]

and the light will come back. The thing that I believe that worries me the most is that in my awakened life, I'm good, is that in my sleepy time, when I'm sleeping, it manifests that missing of the light. But in my daily life, I feel pretty comfortable. I don't know if I'm cheating myself, but I feel that it's honest. Well, you said sleepy, and you can be sleepy while you're standing up, walking around too, right? That is true. So yeah, when we become sleepy, that lets any greed, hate, and delusion come forth more easily. So again, we need to somehow have a strong practice of compassion, so that when these unskillful tendencies come forth,

[65:50]

we can meet them with compassion, with generosity. Thank you. So the next step is mind consciousness, and that has three conditions too, the same three conditions. Organ, object, and antecedent consciousness. It's just that for mind consciousness, the organ is not a physical sense organ. It's called mind organ. And you stopped me, do you remember? But here's another dimension of the answer to your question. The mind organ is the immediate antecedent condition. The same thing.

[67:02]

The immediate antecedent condition is the immediate antecedent consciousness. The immediate antecedent condition is the immediate antecedent consciousness. That's what it is. Other things, like if you're bowling, the immediate antecedent condition to a strike is a bowling ball hitting billiards? No, what do you call it? Pins. The immediate antecedent condition of a cognition is an immediate antecedent cognition. So for the sense consciousness, some people are kind of wondering, why do you need this immediate antecedent condition? But when it comes to mind consciousness, it's easier to see why you need it, because for mind consciousness, the organ, the dominant condition, is the immediate antecedent condition. The organ for mind consciousness is a previous cognition.

[68:04]

That's the organ, and that's the dominant condition for mental cognition, is a previous cognition. So for a mental cognition, the dominant condition and the antecedent condition are the same thing. So they still have three conditions, but two of them are the same phenomena. And mind consciousnesses can know the same thing that sense consciousnesses know, so at a moment of sense consciousness, there's also a mind consciousness. So sense consciousness is the awareness of color, and mind consciousness can also know the color. But mind consciousness can also know objects which are not sense objects, like it can know memories, it can know feelings, positive, negative and neutral sensations. The sense organ for feelings is not the skin, the eye, the ear and so on.

[69:15]

The sense organ for feelings is the mind. And not only the mind, but the previous cognition is the sense organ for feelings. And then there can be another kind of sense consciousness, which is a conceptual cognition, which doesn't know the same object as the sense consciousnesses. The mind consciousness, that's a direct perception, can know the same thing that the sense consciousnesses know, but it can also know mental things, which the sense consciousnesses do not know. And then there can also be conceptual cognition, where we're aware of concepts or images of the sense consciousness. So like we're aware of blue, but now we're aware of the word blue. And that too will have the same three cognitions.

[70:20]

So that is technical, but I just thought I'd say that to you since I said I would, and then the next step is to tell you that those cognitions, all the different types, sense cognition, mind cognition, which is direct perception, that can know directly what the sense consciousnesses know, and then conceptual cognition, which knows things indirectly by means of images or ideas. All those consciousnesses, all of them come with activity. Feelings, emotions, various other functions of mind, all of which can create a cognitive, an enclosed version of an unenclosed relationship. Our relationship with the world is not closed, but we make a closed version of it, and that's our karma.

[71:21]

And that closed version of our relationship with the world has consequence. And if you want to, I'll go into more on that later. But that's basically the two big functions of mind is one, basic knowing, and mental construction, storytelling, karma. Knowing is not karma itself, but knowing comes with karma, and knowing has this huge consequence of blocking our vision of the story of creation, which I just told you. Because you see, the way our life actually arises, the way our cognitions arise, is interdependent and ungraspable. It's clear light. It's radiant and interdependent. And our cognitive processes are exactly the same as living processes.

[72:24]

Living processes are cognitive processes. But some part of living process is clearly interdependent and ungraspable. But it arises with mental activity, which can imagine a constricted, enclosed version of this interdependent process. And that has the consequence of creating enclosures and bondage and suffering. But we can't get away from this. But by studying it generously, we can see through the enclosure to the radiant interdependence which creates it. But it requires a lot of training, of course. It requires tremendous generosity and patience and precepts, which is fun, right? So now, if you like, you can eat some more.

[73:26]

More food is provided. They want to make sure people have enough food, so there's lots of snacks out there for you. And you can have an hour and a half to recover from your snack. And Catherine would like to make a small announcement. Yes, thank you. Somebody requested a copy of Red's annual schedule, so I will put some copies out on the table. I'm not putting out 50, so if you already have it or you know how to get it on the website, you can do that. But I'll put some out. And if they run out and you want more, let me know. So an hour and a half break. Okay? And so we reconvene here for sitting at 2.30. Thank you very much.

[74:15]

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