It has been said that all living beings and all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are just one mind, and that outside of mind there are no separate And last week I talked about an analysis, a way of the ocean of mind, which includes all of us and all enlightened beings. And a particular analysis that I suggested last week was analyzing mind or or awareness or cognitions or knowings or knowers.

[01:04]

They're synonyms, okay? Knowledges, awarenesses, knowers, and so on. Analyze it into seven different types. You could analyze it into two types. You could analyze it into, like, enlightened consciousness and unenlightened consciousness. But the analysis I suggested was a sevenfold one, and the first type was, do you remember the first type? Direct perception. Yeah, direct perception. Second type? Conceptual cognition. Yeah, conceptual cognition. Third type? Right. Subsequent type. Correctly assuming cognition.

[02:07]

Fifth type. Yeah. Fifth type. Right. An awareness to which the object appears, which is not ascertained. Sixth type. Doubting consciousness. Seventh type. No? Wrong. Wrong consciousness. And then we started talking about direct perception last time, and that can be analyzed into four basic types. Remember the four basic types? What?

[03:08]

Object conditions. Those are the conditions. OK. But the four types of direct perception. Yeah. Sense, direct sense perception, direct mental perception. What? Self-knowing or apperceptive direct perception, those four. And so under the first type of direct perception, sense perception, there are how many types of sense perception?

[04:11]

Five, yeah. Five sense perceptions. And those five have three conditions. Dominant conditions. Yeah, dominant conditions. Remember the dominant condition, object condition, and antecedent condition, those three. So what's the dominant condition for direct sense perception? The organ, the physical organ. So, for example, the direct perception of colors, the dominant condition, the eye organ or the eye capacity. the power of the eye organ. And then the object condition is what?

[05:16]

For the direct perception condition is, yes, some kind of color or some physical data that is perceived as color. And then the immediate antecedent condition is... Yeah, the previous moment of consciousness or the consciousness which has just perished. That's the immediate antecedent condition for sense perception. Okay? And then there's And then within each of the basic five types of sense perception, for example, within direct eye consciousness or direct perception of colors, so we usually call the consciousness or the perceiver in sensory perception, we usually call the perceiver, we name it by the dominant condition.

[06:29]

And also another name for the dominant condition is uncommon dominant condition or exclusive dominant condition. Remember the reason for calling it uncommon or exclusive dominant condition? Because if we were experiencing some electromagnetic radiation, we would not require that. You know, we could be sent a certain kind of electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength. It could be sent into the room. And that would be common. The object condition would be common. But the dominant condition is we don't share the sense organs. So there's a dominant condition, and they're particular to the individual perceiver. particular individual direct perception.

[07:39]

And then within sense perception, within each of the five types, there can be true and false sense perception. So true sense perception is the type of knowing or type of which is non-conceptual, which is free of conceptuality, and which is not deceived by what appears to it. And most sense perception is of this true... An example of a false sense perception would be... Yeah, a false sense perception, I think, would be a mirage. What appears is, it looks like your father is not, or it looks like your father, but it's not.

[08:47]

A reflection. A reflection. A reflection. You could see a reflection and see that it was a reflection, or you could see a reflection and think it was a person. That would be wrong. Or another thing is you could have, they often use the example of having jaundice, and then things look yellow. Usually when you put, huh? Yeah, hallucinations, where actually something appears to you, it's actually appearing to your sense in a certain way, but it's not really correct. But that's actually not very common for us. So yes. When you say that the true sense perception is free of conceptuality, does that mean that the false sense perception contains conceptuality?

[09:52]

No. It's also free of conceptuality. And then in parentheses, I don't want to get into conception now. Sense perception or any kind of perception is free of conceptuality. But false sense perception or false mental perception are similar to conceptual cognitions, because conceptual cognitions are also mistaken about what appears to it. how you appear to me is as the concept. I see you as a concept, I see you as an image, and I'm mistaken because I think you're the image I have of you.

[10:54]

I'm not actually understanding what you're saying to me. I think it's you. But there I'm using an image to make my mistake. Whereas in direct sense perception, you're not using an image. You're directly dealing with the object, but you're dealing with an incorrect appearance of the object. So this is maybe look at that. You're looking at something, and you're looking directly at it, and you're not mediating. There's no conceptual mediation, but the way the thing's appearing is false to what it is. Like, for example, you see it as yellow. but you don't see the concept of yellow. There's no conceptual mediation, but you're deceived. Or you see some rippling, some thermal rippling, and it looks like water. But it looks like water with no conceptual mediation.

[12:02]

It looks like that same water with no conceptual mediation. So there's no conceptual mediation of the thermal radiation, which looks like water. And in that case, you don't say, it's water. You're actually looking at water and you see it clearly and not deceived by it. You also, in direct perception, don't say, quote, it's water. There's no naming in direct perception. There's no discursive thought in direct perception. So the mind knows. That's why it's called sometimes direct perception. But in conceptual cognition, it's always mediated by the image. So what's causing the mistake is not an appearance of the thing in terms of the thing actually being there non-conceptually but looking kind of like

[13:09]

in a deceptive way. If actually you're seeing the thing correctly, there's two kinds of... I'm getting into cognition too much. But just anyway, the basic mistake, all conceptual cognitions are basically mistaken because they're all mediated by an image and they appear as the image and we think and we take them as the image and we can't not take them as the image. So all conceptual cognitions are but there's further discussions of that which I'm trying to stop talking about now. Yes? I don't understand the term . Why is it called dominant? It's called dominant because there's lots of physical media or physical data impinging upon us, but what determines

[14:11]

the arising of the perception in us is the activity of the organ. Now the intensity of the data is also important, but more important than the intensity of the data is the sensitivity of the organism. Is that right? You're thinking in sound and sound and everything at once, right? But your consciousness is one of those. Yeah, lights are coming at you, sounds are coming at you, smells are coming at you, tastes are coming at you, tangibles are coming at you, all of them, you know. And all of those will be conditions for the arising of any sense consciousness.

[15:13]

Some of them will be conditions, but when the sense consciousness arises, one of them will be the condition. That's the object condition. But it's called the object condition, not the dominant condition, because the most important is which organ is functioning at the time most strongly and effectively. But you can also have simultaneous sense consciousnesses. So if lots of organs are turned on, then you could have five sense consciousnesses rising together. But the thing that would make the Mostly, the big factor is whether the sense organ is ready to be stimulated. And if, for example, the sense organ just was occupied with something, it may be sort of in recovery and can't function again.

[16:19]

Even though things are pounding on you, you're not going to have a sense consciousness if the organ's not operating. Whereas usually we live in this physical world, it's always vibrating with us, and we're vibrating with it. I don't want to get into this, but anyway, we live in this physical world, and even if you're not perceiving some particular sent data, like colors and so on, some other people or other beings are. None of these physical phenomena exist without minds. There's no physical phenomena in the Buddha Dharma, there's no physical phenomena without a mind. Phenomena are things that sense organs are in relationship to. That's what a phenomena is, it's something that's sensed.

[17:23]

Numina is something that's only intellectually intuited, but phenomena are objects with senses. So there aren't any phenomena that aren't engaged by minds. But even though they are engaged by mind, like a mountain over there or something, you may not... Lots of beings are engaging with the mountain, so it's there, you know. The gazillions of animals that live on the mountain keep it alive, you know, keep making it over and over. They're not going to all forget about the mountain at once. So the mountain is being created. It's impermanent, but it's being created in a very reliable way, even though it's moving up towards Seattle, the kind of mountains we have around here anyway. But you may not. your sight organ is not up for taking the mountain in at the time.

[18:25]

But you could have six direct sense perceptions arising right now, and then they go away. Another six could be arising. And the key factor is whether the organs are up for it. And so some of us could have all five, and the person next to them could have none. because their organs were, like, just not into that at the time. The person could be, like, in a state of meditation where they're so focused on the mental direct perception that they do not have any sense perception. This can happen. Okay, now we have lots of questions, but let's...should we take some questions or should I go a little further before more questions? So then I also brought up mental perception.

[19:32]

And I'll say it again and come back to it again. Mental perception has different conditions. Direct mental perception has different conditions from direct sense perception. By the way, sense perception is always direct sense perception. And mental perception is always direct mental perception. So when we say mental, when we say perception, in this class, when I say perception, I mean perception. When I say perception, direct perception, I mean not conceptually mediated. And then, again, within mental perception there can be two types. Well, actually, there are two types. One type, one-two type, is false and true. The true type is the type where it's free of conceptual mediation, free of conceptuality, and no error or deceptiveness in what it knows.

[20:41]

That's true mental perception. And mental perception can know. So you can have the arising of a sense consciousness and the arising of a true mental perception along with it. And the mental perception can know the same things that the sense consciousness knows. So there's a direct perception of color. But the mental consciousness can also know the color, but it doesn't know the color independent on the physical organ. But it can know the color. But it can also know mental objects. It can know other minds, other minds. It can know other subjects. And it can know mental data, like it can know feelings. You can also know images. You can know images.

[21:45]

Did I tell you that last week? That direct mental perception can know images, directly know an image, but it doesn't mediate the way it knows the image. It knows the image directly. So it could like, hey, this room doesn't have an exit sign over the door. I'm going to tell the fire department. So you could see an exit sign. And that could be a sense perception, a visual sense perception, you know, red in the shape. You could learn. Direct sense perception doesn't put words on things, right? No discursive thought. But it can learn that the exit sign means that you can go out the door. It can learn that. Mental perception doesn't, I mean, sense perception doesn't put a name on things. but the mind can be trained so that you can, generally speaking, accurately, when you see your daddy or mommy, say, not say, but know that that's daddy and that's mommy.

[22:50]

If I say go to daddy, you go left, and if I say mommy, you go right. That would be true or correct sense perception. But you can also see the same thing with the mind correctly. But you would see it without being, without, that consciousness would arise without dependence on the eye organ. The three conditions for the mind consciousness are different. Remember what they were? Same three conditions, actually. Same names. Object, immediately antecedent, and dominant. Same names, but they're different, referring to different things. Remember? What's the object? Now, what's the object?

[23:54]

What's the object condition? I just told you some mental. It could be mental formation, right? It could be mental formation. What else could it be? I just told you this. It wouldn't be the sense... It could be a sense consciousness. You could actually be aware, not... You could be aware of some other person who is having a sense experience. You could be aware of them, of another person. But you could also be aware of your own sense consciousness, but not your sense consciousness, but you could be aware of what the sense consciousness knew. You could actually be aware of the color that the sense consciousness knew. So mind consciousness directs Mind perception can know mental things and mental things. Direct sense perception does not know mental things. It is a mental thing. It's a perception. It's a mental thing, but it knows physical things. But mind direct mental perception or direct mental cognition

[24:57]

Direct cognition and perception are the same. Direct cognition, mental cognition know, can know physical phenomena and mental phenomena. And it's free of conceptuality. And there's two types of that, there's two types of two. One type is erroneous or deceived and the other is undeceived. The undeceived is true direct mental perception, so like seeing the color correctly or identifying some mental phenomena correctly or correctly ascertaining somebody else's mind, you know, a deceived version of it, to be deceived. Just a little bit more before we get into it. Now here's another big installment. The third type of what?

[26:06]

There are so many types. The third type of perception, the third type of direct perception, the third type of direct non-conceptual cognition. What's the third type? Self-knowing. We have the word apperceptive, apperceptive cognition. Apperceptive cognition is a type of direct perception. So when a sense consciousness arises, There is simultaneously another direct perception. And in parentheses, most of the schools of Buddhist tenets say that there is such a thing as this type of consciousness.

[27:16]

But there are disagreements with this. But I'm teaching you the presentation of mind that puts forth that there is this type of cognition. Okay? And maybe someday we'll get in time to discuss the other side of the story. I'm proposing to you to consider that there is this type of cognition that lots of great masters have taught that there is such a thing. so what is it called a perceptive in the dictionary it's in the option is in the dictionary and I'll tell you maybe the dictionary definition later but it's in the dictionary in the dictionary definitions very somewhat among themselves and a little bit different from the way the terms used in the Buddha Dharma and ever since consciousness arising

[28:23]

a direct sense perception arising, or a direct mental perception arising, or a conceptual cognition arising, any type of cognition that arises. And arising at the same time with that is a cognition that's free of conceptuality and free of mistake. And it is the awareness of the cognition of itself. It's an actual knowing that it's not just having what he called the thing of old blue, but it's knowing that you're having the experience of it. I shouldn't say, oh, blue, because that sounds like you're naming it. It's not just the direct perception of blue.

[29:29]

It's the awareness that you're having a direct perception of blue. Or in the case of mental cognition, direct mental perception, you're having a direct mental perception. Or in a state of conceptual cognition, it's the awareness that you're having a conceptual cognition. It's not understanding the nature of entities, it's just the awareness that you're aware. And, let me just say this, it's not causally related to the state of consciousness that it knows. It's related in the sense of being the same as it is. It's really the same as any whatever state of consciousness it is. It's just that the state of consciousness has a quality, that whatever state of consciousness it is, it has a self-knowing quality.

[30:37]

And that self-knowing quality adds a state of consciousness, which I propose you consider it that way for a while. Third type of direct perception. And this type of direct perception... So, direct perception is saying that all cognitions experience themselves. So again, you're aware of blue. Blue is the object of the perception. Okay? You're right. So it's a true sense perception. There's no conceptual mediation. This knowing, however, is knowing of an object. Okay? What's simultaneous with this knowing of the object, color, is a knowing which isn't knowing objects, but it's knowing-knowing.

[31:50]

One case, you're knowing an apprehendable object. The other, apprehension of an object. And every apprehension you make of objects is known simultaneous. But in this case, you're knowing the apprehension rather than knowing what's apprehended. And whether it's a perception, direct perception, or a perception via a concept, like in conceptual cognition, in both cases you're knowing the knowing. The knowing is always known. So that's the proposal, is that all states of cognition know themselves or experience themselves. All states of consciousness are possessors. of an inherent self-awareness. So all states of consciousness possess objects, but they also possess self-awareness.

[32:57]

And all non-aperceptive cognitions, without an exception, are experienced by aperceptive cognitions. all the cognitions which are not self-knowing. Not all cognitions are self-knowing, but all consciousnesses which aren't self-knowing are known by a counterpart which does know them. And the main function, I think, so far that I've seen of this, besides opportunity to use your brain and intellect around a slippery presentation, is that this is one of the main functions which accounts for memory. You have knowing of a color. So the proposal is that you could have knowing of color, but without the awareness that you knew the color, there would be no memory of it.

[34:13]

That's the proposal. And this type of cognition, although it sounds pretty good, you know, self-awareness or self-knowing sounds pretty good, and it's by that title, it's not the self-knowing that comes from, like, studying yourself. It's not that kind. Because it's present in people who are totally oblivious to any awareness of what's going on with them. but it's also present in people who are completely insightful about the nature of their mind. It's present in all states of mind. Most undeveloped, medium-sized development, all those states of consciousness are known by the habit quality of knowing themselves. So we don't really develop this quality. This quality is just something which you're being told about so that you understand where you know, how it is that we can remember things.

[35:19]

This inherent self-knowing quality to all our states of consciousness. And I think the next, I might as well do the next one now, the fourth. It's actually just amazing, this fourth one is just an amazing such state of consciousness, but just to sort of fill out the picture. the yogic or contemplative direct awareness. Okay? And this direct awareness, this direct perception, it has an unusual dominant condition. It has object conditions. It can know colors and smells and tastes. It can know mental phenomena. Sense consciousness can and mind consciousness can.

[36:26]

And it can also know the results of sense consciousness. It can know what sense consciousness knows and it can know what mind consciousness knows. But it has a different... Causal basis. And also, I didn't finish the causal basis from mind consciousness. I want to go back again. Okay, what are the conditions from mind consciousness, the three conditions? It has objects, right? Object condition. What's a dominant condition? The other, another. What? Another cognition. The object condition for a mind consciousness, or I mean a direct mental perception, is pretty much the same as the object conditions for sense consciousnesses, except that it can also know mental phenomena. Its object can be mental or physical data. Its dominant condition would be the parallel to the dominant condition for sense consciousness.

[37:32]

The dominant condition for sense consciousness is what? Organ. So the dominant condition for mind consciousness is the mind organ. But what is the mind organ? The mind organ is the just deceased, the just previous cognition, either sense or mental. And what is its immediate antecedent condition? deceased cognition so mind consciousness or mind direct mental perception has the same I mean the object the immediate antecedent condition and the dominant condition of the same condition its organ its organ is a is a just deceased consciousness and its antecedent condition is the condition which makes it be able to happen is that there was a consciousness just before it.

[38:34]

And also, first of all, that there's a consciousness just before it. In other words, that consciousness got out of the way. That consciousness is a condition for another consciousness to arrive. Consciousness needs consciousness before it to happen. Consciousness doesn't come out of nothing. It comes out of the condition of a consciousness which has made space for this consciousness to arrive. But mental direction also uses that thing not only as antecedent condition but as its organ. Now, direct perception. What's the organ of direct perception? What's the dominant condition for direct perception? You probably won't guess it. I wouldn't have myself. And I'm still amazed that what the dominant condition for yogic direct perception is. Any guesses of what it is? Hormones of all cognition.

[39:38]

Let's guess. Who wants to guess? Yes? I'm just wondering where intuition comes in. Where does it come in? Could you hold that in parentheses for a little while? Okay, any other guesses before I tell you this shocking... The dominant condition for the mind, for the direct yogic perception, is a state of samadhi, a state of concentration, in which tranquility and insight have been... That's the organ for direct perception. That's the dominant condition for direct yogic perception. What's the object condition for direct yogic perception? I told you. Do you remember what I said? The object condition? It could be any other direct perception, yes.

[40:46]

What else? It could be all the sense data that are being sensed. It could be all kinds of mental phenomena. It could be other people's minds. It can know all the stuff that mental perception knows and that sense perception knows and also can know all the things of, I was going to say, it can also know the things that are known by conceptual cognition. You wouldn't know them conceptually. This is direct non-conceptual cognition, yogic cognition. And what's its antecedent condition? I think it's the same as antecedent condition, the other states of direct perception, namely the just deceased state of consciousness. And that just deceased state of consciousness could be another state of this fabulous kind of stuff, another one of those yogic direct perceptions.

[41:57]

It could be the just deceased one. But yogic direct perception arises for the first time at some point, and before that there wasn't a yogic direct perception. So the antecedent condition for direct yogic perception could be an ordinary state of sense consciousness. So you could see a peach blossom. And when we see a peach blossom, the object condition is the peach blossom. The dominant condition is the eye that's sensitive to the peach blossom. sensitive to the actually to the not to the peace possum but is sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation bouncing off the peace the peach blossom and the immediately antecedent state of consciousness so that state of conduct that sense perception of the rises it goes away and when it goes away it becomes the immediate antecedent condition for

[43:08]

the arising of this yogic consciousness and the object of the peach blossom becomes the object condition but the dominant condition is not the previous the previous condition like the mental consciousness the dominant condition is a state of samadhi in which tranquility and insight are united and that gives rise to this this special state of direct perception this this thing is the thing we're trying to develop the other things are just going on already all the time and we should know about them i i mean it helps to know about them i think in your progress in your process your your pilgrimage to work your life in this direct yogic perception That's the thing we're trying to develop. So we're being told of something we can develop. We're also being told about what's already going on.

[44:11]

And there's a little bit more about this, which I'm going to just tell you true, but maybe I'll wait, because I'm getting really peppy now. So maybe that's enough for today. I have new stuff. Is there another type of this one? Another type of yogi? No, he's the only, the last one I've heard of. Yeah, there's four types. Yeah. Four types are sense, direct sense perception, direct mental perception, direct apperceptive perception, and direct yogic perception. Those are the four types. And each of them has three conditions for their arising, for the three types. And knowing the three conditions, the three conditions vary for the four types. So now we take the questions.

[45:14]

Steven, I think, was maybe the antecedent. I actually have a new question that I have. I heard you say somewhere that direct sense perception, although it's not conceptual, still has the delusion of a separate self in it? I wonder if that's different types of direct perception, that it's the delusion of a separate self in that. Let's see. Yeah, so in direct perception, you see the object, in an undeceived, non-deceptive way, an unmistakened way, non-mistakened way. So you see blue as blue, or you see, not so much blue as blue, but you see something, you see these colors, and you see these range which we call blue, and you see them correctly just as they are.

[46:24]

You see like this many Armstrong units, of wavelength, and then in the next moment you see a slightly different set and you see it directly. That's unmistakable. Separate from the subject, even in direct . There's an influence of that ignorance painting even direct perception. Whereas the fourth type of direct perception doesn't have that. Yes? It's significant that it goes in that order from one to four. It goes from direct to mental to obsessive to yogic. Because it becomes more internalized. You said, I thought you said direct, but you... Yeah, it goes from sense to mental. Well, it's an interesting observation that goes from perceiving something external to perceiving.

[47:34]

Well, the second one can perceive external things and internal things. The third one is self-referential. And the final one is actually to get over any sense of separation. Yes. But they're all they're all non-conceptual. This first this first type. Everything's non-conceptual, no conceptual mediation in any of these mental perception. can be colored, color without that conception, because color is an illusion. At that point, it doesn't. The mental perception doesn't access the sense data in, what do you call it, in isolation from some sense of perception picking it up.

[48:38]

Depend on the... It doesn't depend on the... It doesn't use the sense organ to get at what the sense organ's sensitive to. But once the sense organ being sensitive to electromagnetic radiation or to mechanical waves or to gas, the sense organ that's sensitive to this gets activated and the consciousness arises in that pattern, then along with that can be a mental cognition which arises and it knows what the sense consciousness knows. It knows the color. or what we call color. There isn't really a color out there, but there is the perception of color that arises with the interaction between living tissue and electromagnetic radiation. So it can know that. But if you didn't have any sense consciousness, it wouldn't . And that's one other detail which I wasn't going to mention to you.

[49:45]

But since she brought this up, I'm going to. And that is, this kind of mental perception happens the actual mental, the knowing, the mental perception after a series of sense perceptions. Now, there's also a mental perception that's going along with all the sense, with all the sense perception, but the particular mental perception happens after a series of sense perceptions. And most sense perceptions Sense perceptions from ordinary people who haven't yet attained yogic direct perception, they're too fast for us to be aware of. They're too fast. We experience them, but we really don't know them. is the experience of some kind of continuum of sense perceptions about a particular object.

[50:47]

The object's changing all the time, but there's a causal continuity among objects. It's like this room has been changing the whole time we've been here, but there's a in the causal process of this room. Now eventually this room, of course, will deteriorate in such a way that We won't have it at all, but we've had it during this whole class, and in various ways it's been an object of sense and tactile and so on experience. We weren't actually able to be aware of each individual moment, but we were aware of a continuity of moments of, for example, visual consciousness about this room. And at the end of a series, it's possible then that there's a rising of, just for one moment, a rising of a mental consciousness. But also, for ordinary people, that one moment at the end of a series,

[51:48]

you could have a little bit of contact with, but that one moment of mental consciousness, without great development, you wouldn't be able to spot it. And then, that's enough for then there to be a rising of conceptual cognition. And conceptual cognition is what... Conceptual cognition happens after the mental cognition that happens after a series of sense cognitions. So we are kind of aware of a series of sense cognitions and But the mental cognition, which appears between a continuum and a moment of conceptual cognition, we don't know much about. But we do know a lot about conceptual cognition because when it comes to, like, concepts and images, then we can have names. And those are the things where we, of course, you know, really impact us. And easy for us to remember. So that was another piece of the puzzle.

[52:52]

Could you wait for that second question and tell somebody else? Yes. We're talking about the subject condition, talking about the object, but I don't remember the dominant condition. Yeah, thanks. I didn't say. Let's see, what is the dominant condition? uh... dominant condition actually i haven't but i i'm just gonna guess that it's the same dominant condition of whatever the dominant condition of the state of consciousness that it's aware of is because it is it's it's substantially identical to so if it's a sense consciousness Its object condition is the sense consciousness, and its dominant condition would be the physical sense organ, and the immediate antecedent condition for it would be the same as the immediate antecedent condition for the sense consciousness.

[54:01]

But the mind consciousness, same. It'll have the same three conditions as the stated knows because it's not causally related to the stated knows. Like, for example, sense consciousness is causally related to what it knows, namely colors or whatever, to the object. It's not identical to the object. It's inseparable from the object. It's dependent on the object, and the object is dependent on it. They're interdependent and inseparable. but they're causally related, they're not identical. Whereas in this case, the apperceptive thing is, it's not true what it knows, so it'll have the same true conditions. This is an example of reasoning, not intuition. But intuition could have been there too. In other words, I just reasoned the answer to that question. And I did notice, as I was studying, that, which reminds me, I brought you a reading list.

[55:04]

And you need a magnifying glass to read it, unless you're young. But I wanted to get it on one page. So here's 18 billion texts for you to read about this material. Anyway, as I was studying, I did notice, it did cross my mind, what are the three conditions of aperceptive? And thanks to your question, I now found them. by reasoning. My further studies may show me I was wrong. It's by reasoning. I don't have a text where I read these, but I noticed that they didn't say what the three were. And I think the reason why they didn't mention them is because, of course, what they are, they're the same as whatever the thing it knows is. The dominant condition of the apperceptive cognition, of the direct apperceptive cognition of yogic awareness, will be the same dominant condition as the yogic awareness.

[56:09]

Namely, the samadhi, the state of concentration, where tranquility and insight are united. Okay? That was cool. Patty, was there somebody else over here? Did you have your hand raised? No? You don't think you did? What's your name again? Yeah, what's your name? Did you have your hand raised? Yeah, that's what I mean. Not right now. I can see where it's not up now. I'm going back to ancient times. Did you have a question? A color. I perceive it to be a certain color. I believe it's a different color. Yes. Okay, so again, there aren't actually colors out in the world. Colors are things that happen to you. They don't even happen to all animals, but they happen to humans, and not all humans.

[57:14]

Colors are something that happens to human beings. We experience colors, but the colors aren't out there. There's electromagnetic radiation out there, and when it's a certain type, we make color out of it in our mind. However, for example, blue is a range of different wavelengths that could be . But each time you see something in this wavelength that could be blue, each moment it could be a slightly different wavelength, or it could be the same wavelength, and they conceptually as blue. But even before you categorize them under the heading blue, quotes blue, you still can, from perceiving these wavelengths and having experience of color, you just wouldn't be calling it blue.

[58:17]

But you would know it's blue. And if somebody said, go over to the blue house, you can go over to the blue house correctly. But there's places where people make different... Some people stop saying blue and start saying purple, you know, before other people do. You know, people... And so... But that... And the naming part. So if somebody sends us... jolt bolt of electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength, and we're both sort of in the same area, but we can get pretty much the same wavelength. And we're both directly experiencing that unique wavelength. And that's what you experience in direct perception is the actual wavelength. And also, that thing will never happen again in the history of the universe, except at the same time in a parallel universe.

[59:24]

But things don't repeat. But conceptually, we can go blue over and over and over. But when it comes to conceptually, we can disagree. And differently. Okay, and Vera, did you want to talk about intuition now? I was thinking about a neurologist who wrote books, Oliver Sacks, and he worked with smell color. With smell color, yeah. Synesthesia. Yeah. Wait a second. Wait a second. They might. Yeah. Yeah. Synesthesia, actually. But usually it's not so common to have synesthesia and then drop off the more common part of the synesthesia and do the uncommon part.

[60:31]

Well, I think one of the interesting things is like looking at a book. You look at the black marks on the page and you see these black marks and you hear also. So we see and hear at the same time. But some people, of course, have synesthesia and then it breaks down and they can't hear anymore while they're reading or vice versa it breaks down and they can hear but they can't see they can be looking at the book and reading it and not be able to see it but hear it and they you know so they can be reading the book and thinking that they're hearing that'd be a neurological anomaly right such thing could happen but for most of us now we have a strong synesthesia about looks, about language, written language, is that we see it and hear it at the same time.

[61:38]

It seems like in ancient times, people used to hear and smell at the same time, or see and smell. particularly, you know, actually smell and hear and smell and see, right? Like you go, rattlesnake, you know, or wet desert, or springtime. Yeah, this is a very interesting topic, and I hope to unpack that with you sometime. Deirdre, you done? How many over there? Bert, yes? I wonder what the relationship is with direct mental perception and thinking. Direct mental perception and thinking? Well, in the basic

[62:49]

definition of thinking in this teaching is that one direct, did you say direct mental perception? Because you have direct mental perception arising. Whenever consciousness arises, even a sense consciousness, it arises with, you know some things it arises with. What does sense perception arise with? The organ. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mind consciousness. When it arises, what does it arise with? Yeah. The object? Yeah. The organ. What's the organ? Hmm? What? The brain. The brain, no. Mind order. Which is? the cognition. Yeah. The mind consciousness arises with, it arises with the preceding cognition. In other words, it arises depending on if there was a previous cognition, and also its organ is the previous cognition.

[63:57]

So that's how it arises. So it arises, and so does, go back to sense consciousness, sense consciousness arises, but it also arises with feelings, And feelings means experiencing of the sensation. So now we have a sensation of color. But when you have a sensation of color, it arises with the experience of the color. And the experience has basically three valences, positive, negative, and neutral. And this experience of the sensation arises with every sensation. Every time sense consciousness arises, it arises with a mental factor. called feeling, or sometimes it's called sensation, but what it means is the way you experience the sensation of the color or the smell or whatever. Okay? So you experience the blue and you feel pain. You experience blue and you feel pleasure.

[64:59]

So there's actually a mental factor that arises with every state of consciousness called, we call, in Sanskrit it's called vedana. It's translated as feeling or experience and sometimes sensation, but what it means by sensation is the way you experience a sensation. Same with mental. Now we're going to go back to direct mental, right? Arising with direct mental is a feeling, but also, in both cases, both in direct sense perception and direct mental perception, feeling arises with it, conceptions arise with it, all kinds of other mental factors arise with it. Lots of other mental factors arise with this conjunction, in both cases. with no conceptual mediation. And in both cases, the overall kind of landscape of all the mental factors that arise in direct sense perception and the overall landscape of all the mental factors that arise with direct mental perception, that overall landscape is called the intention.

[66:12]

or the will or volition of the moment. And that's the basic definition of thinking. And also that of what? Karma. So in... the world of direct sense perception. The same is true for all those other states of consciousness. Every state of consciousness that arises arises with mental factors. And one of the factors that arises with every state of consciousness, whether it's sense perception, direct sense perception, perception, direct yogic perception, or conceptual awareness, or all those other kinds of awareness that we mentioned, subsequent awareness and so on. All those states of consciousness, they all arise with a variety of mental factors.

[67:14]

And one of the mental factors that all of the company is in is feeling. Another one of those companies is image or conception. And another one that arises with it is volition. And there's lots of other things like faith, lack of faith, violence, lack of violence, confusion, greed, anger, lack of diligence. Many, many, many, many, many mental factors arise, but not all of them with each one, always constantly changing. OK? The pattern of all the different mental factors that arise with the state of consciousness. Third of sense consciousness. There's a whole bunch of other mental factors that arise with it, which make the unique experience. There's a unique object in direct perception. Direct perception has unique objects. Conceptual cognition has generalized objects.

[68:15]

categories but in direct perception you're directly dealing with a unique object and you have unique mental factors coming up with it the overall landscape of that is called intention and that intention is also called that's the way the mind seems to be acting the way the mind seems to be acting is the way the mind's thinking And that is also the definition, the basic definition of karma, because karma is mental, physical, and vocal. But the basic type of action is mental action, and mental action is the intention of a moment of consciousness. So there is a certain shape in a moment of mental consciousness, and that's the thinking and the karma. So there's karma even in direct perception. However, if you go to this direct perception of the yogic awareness, the shape there will be very different from the shape in these other states.

[69:31]

The landscape of a state where there's concentration and where tranquility, concentrating the tranquility The shape of that consciousness, the karma of that consciousness, will be the type of shape which liberates beings from all the other shapes. Liberates. This consciousness liberates itself and its possessors from the previous patterns of karma which have karmic effects. Now, the liberating process, but it's also the pattern of the consciousness is transformed by the fact that the dominant condition is a strange thing. It's not a moment of cognition or an organ. It's this yogic state. So the shape of that consciousness, the thinking in that consciousness will be very different.

[70:34]

And that's one of the things which I said in the The purpose of this club was to connect these descriptions of mind to karma, and that's one place that's where it connects. That's the beginning of discussing the relationship between the shape of the consciousness and karma. Stan. Human lives are extreme. Our thoughts are negative and neutral, but these are not conceptual. They're not conceptual. They're not conceptual, no. In a sense, you could make, you could have a, you could see a color and have a negative sensation, but when you see the color and have a negative sensation about it, the negative sensation is not what you're aware of. You're aware of the color. You don't know that you have a negative sensation about this color because you're looking at a color.

[71:37]

The object of your awareness isn't the color. No. The object of your awareness is the color, but the feeling you have about the color is not the object of your awareness. However, the feeling you have about the color does show and influence the state of consciousness. Because I'm looking at blue now and I'm in pain. I'm looking at blue now and I'm in pain. I'm looking at blue now and I'm in pleasure. I'm looking at blue now and I'm in neutral. But I also could in the next moment switch the object of awareness from the color to the feeling. At that time I won't be looking at the color anymore. I'll be looking at the feeling. And I'll be aware, oh, I'm in pain. Then, so the feelings of pain and pleasure can be objects, and they will be objects of direct mental perception.

[72:49]

First of all, direct mental perception. Direct mental perception. And along with that direct mental perception, there will be what else? What? No? Yeah, there'll be self-knowing awareness with that direct mental perception. And that can lead, then, that direct mental perception of the painful feeling, which is actually a painful judgment, to a conceptual cognition, which then knows, oh, I'm in pain, and you can talk about it. But you can also be in pain when you're looking at a color and not know you're in pain, but other people who are watching you, for example, other people who had direct mental perceptions could be looking at pain. You think you're looking at blue, you're feeling pain, but you don't know you're in pain. But they think by the look on your face that you're in pain. They're not experiencing the pain.

[73:54]

They're actually aware of your state through they've developed awareness of their own mental perception. But also, they would also be aware of sense perception because they're actually, I take it back, because they're actually, it could be a sense perception, that they see this look on your face and they know that that look means pain. They've learned that. And then they could also have a series of sense perceptions of the look of your face leading to a moment of mental perception perception of your face, leading to a conceptual awareness of your face, and then they can say, oh, you're in pain. You can say, what? They say, yeah. And you say, oh, yeah, I feel the tension in my face. Yeah. Oh, yeah, there is pain. Okay, did that make a little bit more sense? Anybody, any other? Glory, I think. Yeah. The question that I had was going back to the perception of a color and where it starts to be another color.

[74:56]

If that would be an optical image, it would not be electrometically. And my eye might be put together a little bit differently. My eye didn't pick up those lights a little bit differently. And it's not the biggest deal in the world that would do that. I think, no, I think it's perfection. I'm just wondering if the actual condition, the physical condition of what you feel is the information. You're wondering if the actual physical condition of the eye makes a difference? Yeah, and that makes that difference, where somebody still thinks that. Well, you know, um, We could do some experiments, you know, where we get some machines and a variety of observers, and we kind of conclude, this is actually this many angstrom units of wavelength.

[76:00]

And this person says it's orange, and that corresponds to what usually we call the range of orange. And you say blue, and we say, there's something funny about your eye organ. You have blue in your eye or something. And in that case, we would say that you're deceived by the wavelength of that radiation. And so the anomalies or defects in the eye will cause some people to see things quite differently from most people and also from what the measuring equipment say. It's not really a big problem. No. The important thing is to understand the process. Most of us do not have neurological damage to much extent at all.

[77:08]

And most of us in this room anyway are fortunate to be able to basically say, yeah, that is a red light up there. I don't know, most of you can do that, right? The red light, that's a green light, that's a yellow light. Most of us can do that. There may be variations, but if you can't do that, then you can still be a great yogi and attain direct yogic awareness, but you might not be able to be a driver. But that's an important thing, to be able to be a driver. But most of the time, we're right. Most people, I don't know what the percentage is, but a lot of people seem to be able to tell the light thing, whether they're driving or not. I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing. Just that there's slight variations, and it's not necessarily just the visual, but the touch, how we will...

[78:12]

pick up things slightly different to a point where it becomes just that borderline. It's just the gray area. And it's not that important, but we get into big, it's almost like a medical for me, but we get into what seem like big differences between them. It's perceptual. I think that maybe if you want to talk about this next week, because it's now, it's 22. And I think for us to get into this, we'll take a little time. If it's important to you, bring it up next week. And we can go into it. It's relevant. And we have two more people who have questions out there. Are they sure? It's an ancient question? Yeah. Why don't you ask them? And you want to put your question out there. And it'll be on tape and then it'll help us remember to do it next week.

[79:14]

Three in a row there. Yes? At what point does the antecedent begin? At what point does the antecedent begin? We're just talking about the... First of all, I said, in this, the mind does not have a beginning. And beginning is a mind-made thing. Beginnings and endings... Mental constructions. There aren't actually some beginnings and endings floating out there someplace in the universe unattended and uncaused by minds. Minds cause the appearance of beginnings and endings. But mind, that which creates the images of beginning and ending, does not have a beginning and ending. It just thinks it does. But also some of the minds don't think that they do. And those are called the Buddha minds. They say, no, there isn't a beginning or end. But people think so. But there isn't really a beginning and ending to the thinking that there's a beginning and ending.

[80:17]

But there is a previous... that we're mentioning as to help us grapple with the causation of our experience. Okay? Yes, you want to put your question out too? Do you want me to say it? Just say it. If you want to say it, because I won't have time to respond to it. In your sequence of events, from blue to pain to concept, why is it... It's not a sequence from blue to pain. Blue, simultaneous, simultaneous with blue is a... Simultaneous with the experience of blue is a feeling of pain or pleasure. Why is it a concept, not a perception? It's not a concept. Feeling is not a... There are concepts, but feelings are not concepts. You can have concepts of feelings, but concepts are concepts, and feelings are feelings, and you can have concepts about feelings, and you can have feelings about concepts, but they're different.

[81:19]

Okay, do you want to talk more about that next week? Bring it up. I'm happy to talk to you about it. Thank you. And if you want a reading list, they're right up here. Look at me.

[81:38]

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