I wanted to begin by thanking you for keeping me so well informed when you weren't able to come to class. Several, quite a few people are not here tonight, but almost all of them I think told me about it beforehand, and two of them didn't, and you know who you are, wherever you are. Also, I wanted to tell people that I'm scheduled on various places, have scheduled, announced that I will be giving a talk at Greenbelt this Sunday, but I won't be. I didn't remember that I was supposed to give a talk then and I bought tickets to go to L.A. for Grandparents Day, so I won't be giving a talk at Greenbelt this Sunday. And I also want to tell you that on Monday there's a class starting at Greenbelt

[01:07]

which will be in the same area of studying the nature of cognition and karma, and also Donald suggested that I offer a class on karma here in the summer. So there's that class at Greenbelt, and then there's a class here in the summer on karma. And what else? Some other thing? Oh, do you want me to draw attention to you or not? Yes? How about you Paul? Yes. Well, I'll be out of town, but somewhere in the Bay Area on Sunday, Tracy and Paul are going to be married. Can I say one thing about that? Sure. You can start now. I think it's interesting why I wanted the attention drawn,

[02:24]

because I thought you'd be interested to know that we became engaged at the August issue during the summer. Part of it. Literally, that was Melvin, Don, Wendy, the ring, the whole thing without a single word. The instruction which I gave towards the beginning of the class from the Buddha of training the mind thus, in the seen, there will be just a seen, in the heard, there will be just a heard, in the smelled, just a smelled, in the tasted, just a tasted, in the touched, just a touched, and in the mentally cognized, just a mentally cognized, that kind of instruction is not particularly theoretical, it's a conceptual instruction to conceptual cognition about how to curtail conceptual cognition and develop tranquility.

[03:48]

But this class actually has been not so much practice-oriented, but rather theoretical. And so the first part of the class was teaching the theory of cognition, which is a kind of philosophy called epistemology. And in the last few classes we're spending, also theoretical, but the theory of the functions of mind, and particularly the theory of action, theory of karma. And some people feel that without the theory of cognition and the theory of karma, the path of the Buddha cannot be realized. Awakening depends on studying these theoretical matters and then finding ways to practice related to the theory. It can't be all theory, but so these are somewhat theoretical, so that people understand what the practice is.

[05:05]

And so I have some more, just if anybody doesn't have these charts, I have some more here, if anybody needs any. And so these charts are, the first part is the charts of the sense organs and the sense fields. And then starting with the 12th of the 72 items, we have mind. And under that category of mind, or citta, is all the different types of cognition, which you've been studying, all these different ways of knowing, fall under that one heading there. So again, this type of knowing, this basic type of knowing, is basically just knowing in the sense of knowing that something exists, it's the knowledge of the existence of something, it's the knowledge of the existence of the object.

[06:28]

And as we've discussed, sometimes people have a knowledge of the existence of an object that doesn't exist, and that's called a wrong cognition. But then, moving from the cognition of unknowing things that don't exist, then there's a gradual evolution of knowing to be more and more and more and more accurate ways of knowing what exists and how things exist. So the most wrong way of knowing how things exist is that something that doesn't exist, you don't know how it doesn't exist, you think it does, that's way off. But then even things that do exist, that you know them, you have various levels of clarity about the way they actually exist, and the highest level is where you have the perfectly clear knowledge of something. And so under this chart, that's only one item in this chart, the majority of this chart is about various mental factors that accompany that basic knowing.

[07:43]

So all these different types of knowing we've talked about, sense perceptions, sense cognitions, they are accompanied by mental factors, and the mental factors they're accompanied by are in this chart. Sense perceptions, we only have sense perceptions, we don't have sense conceptions, sense perceptions are accompanied by things on this chart. These basic states of consciousness which know the existence of the world, they are accompanied by mental factors. There are no examples, as far as I know, of a cognition arising without coming up with mental factors. Mental cognition, there are two types, what are the two types of mental cognition? Direct and conceptual.

[08:50]

Direct and conceptual. Yeah, right. Direct and conceptual. Direct means perception, mental perception, and mental conception. Okay, those are the two types of mental, and those two also arise with mental factors. So there's basically, you could say basically, there's basically two kinds of cognitions, and one way you can say there's two kinds is there's sense cognitions and mind cognitions. Another way you can say it is that there's perceptual cognitions and conceptual cognitions. Okay? That's two different ways of splitting all states of cognition into two parts, two types. All these states of cognition arise with mental factors.

[09:55]

Without the arising of mental factors, these cognitions, the knowing, wouldn't be able to function. It would be a knowing with no function. It turns out there is no knowing with no function. Even knowing something that doesn't exist arises with mental factors and has a function, and its function is suffering. And the clearest, the clearest, most accurate perceptions or cognitions also arise with mental factors, and they function too in a way that's called peace and freedom. Okay? So there's the main, you could say the main cognition is the basic cognition. The fundamental thing about cognition is that it knows.

[10:59]

So the most basic mind or the main mind or the fundamental mind is the basic knowing, and then it arises with these mental factors. And the mental factors know also, and they know the object in different ways, or they know different aspects of the object. So I just noted that these different types of cognition, we talked, that we have that chart of 11 down and 7 across, those, like I said, 77 different types of cognitions. These different types of cognition that we talked about, each of those arises with mental factors. So one of the relationships between the main cognition and mental factors is that they arise together, and never one without the other.

[12:06]

You don't have mental factors floating around without the basic knowing of the object, and vice versa. So it's one of the things that they have in common is they arise together. Another thing they have in common is they have basically the same nature. So if the mind is a direct perception, if the basic cognition is a direct perception, then the mental factors will be direct perceptions. If the mind is a conceptual cognition, the mental factors will be conceptual cognitions. They have the same basic nature. Another thing they share, well, actually, if I ask you any other ideas about what else they might share, or any other similarities between the basic cognition and the mental factors,

[13:13]

any other ideas about how they might be similar, or share? If it doesn't come quickly, I'll just go on. Yes, Lynn? Oh, you didn't, that wasn't, that was just moving your hand? Oh, you moved it again. Okay, just don't move, otherwise I'll call on you. Okay, so another thing that they share, they're the same object. Same object. Another thing they share, they have the same duration. They arise together and cease together. So it lasts the same amount of time. And what else? This one, this says they have the same aspect. I'm not clear how to explain the difference between being the same aspect and the same object.

[14:16]

Sorry. Okay, so now I'd like to look at this chart. And if you look at the chart, this particular chart has, under mental factors, it says mental faculties, by the way. I think that's not a very good translation. I think it's better to translate it as mental factors. And I could talk a long time about the problem of saying faculties, but the main thing that I think the problem with faculties, it's a little bit too substantial. It sounds a little bit too much like a sense organ or something. So I think mental factor is better. So again, these mental factors each have a specific function in dealing with a particular object, a particular quality of the object. Yes.

[15:19]

You want one of these? Sure. So, and in the first category, there's feeling, conception, will or volition, touch or contact, and wish, intellect, mindfulness, attention, decision, and concentration in this presentation. So these mental factors constitute the inherent makeup without which, as I mentioned before, the cognition would not be able to function. And they also involve determining or ascertaining the individual aspects of the objective field. So I'd like to start with number 13, this tonight, feeling.

[16:22]

Those of you who are familiar with what we call the five aggregates or the five skandhas, which are spoken of in the Heart Sutra. So one of the basic models that Buddha taught or templates about how to look at experience was in terms of five aggregates. The first aggregate corresponds to what's under number one form. First aggregate includes the physical data and the physical organs. That's the first aggregate. Second aggregate is feeling, number 13. Third aggregate is conception or idea, number 14. Follow that? And the fourth aggregate includes everything else on the chart except number 12. Number 12 is the fifth aggregate. So the way this is set up is that three of the dharmas or three of the elements on this list constitute an entire aggregate, an entire skandha.

[17:43]

So those three are very important. One is feeling. Feeling is so important that it gets to be a whole aggregate. Another one is perception or conception, actually. It gets to be a whole aggregate. And another one that gets to be a whole aggregate is mind. And then all the other ones fall under what's the fourth aggregate, which is called in Sanskrit, sankhya. Samskara, or the mental formations aggregate. So all those mental factors or mental formations go in the fourth aggregate. And then the fifth aggregate is number 12, which is the basic cognition. So that, of course, is all-embracing and most fundamental.

[18:46]

So I'd like to look at feeling and why feeling is so important. Number 5 is number 12 on this. Number 5 is the basic cognition, the basic knowing, the basic awareness that something exists, that the object exists. But it doesn't get like, I know Bernard exists, that's the basic thing. But getting into the detailed aspects of how he exists, that moves into the other mental formations. So one is very important, it's the feeling that I have when I look at him. Another one is the conception I have of him, or the way I recognize him. So there's a basic cognition, and then there's a re-cognition of the basic cognition.

[19:48]

And then there's many, many other mental factors, all of which go under one heading, which is called in Sanskrit, samskara, which means basically formations or dispositions. And so I will try to relate, actually, that whole mass of samskaras to the one element of feeling. So feeling, which can also be called sensation, and also could be called experience. In Sanskrit it's called vedana, feeling, sensation, or experience. It is a distinct cognition, which arises with every mind. Every mind has a feeling, every basic cognition has a feeling cognition with it.

[20:49]

All states of cognition have this feeling cognition, this feeling mental factor. And it is the distinct cognition that is an experience of either pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure or pain. Every cognition, every time the mind knows something, it also experiences that thing as, or it also has an experience of that thing. And that experience it has of the thing, the way it knows that thing, the way it knows is painful, pleasureful, or neutral. I like this statement that the feeling, the object of the feeling is not pain or pleasure.

[22:04]

The object of the feeling is the object of the cognition. The feeling is a feeling of pain about the object. There could also be a cognition of a painful feeling, but the feeling is actually to experience the object as painful or pleasureful. And once again, feeling is an inherent quality of experience present in every cognition. In sense cognition, direct perception of a color or a smell, there is a feeling there. The color or the smell will be experienced as painful. Did I say the color or the smell? The color or the smell will be experienced as painful, pleasureful, or neither, neutral. An idea or some other mental phenomena, there will be a feeling of pain, pleasure, or neutral arising with it.

[23:27]

The general function of feeling is to fully experience the ripening effects of our previous actions. Feeling is retribution. The way you feel, you don't intend to have pleasure. I mean, you do intend to have pleasure, but when you feel pleasure, it isn't because you intended that pleasure or you made that pleasure happen in that moment. Feeling comes to you, it comes to you as a result of past action. Yes? The general function of feeling is to fully experience the ripening effects of our previous action, of our previous karma. I said feeling is retribution.

[24:35]

Now, there is the total experience of the moment, which you can say is the cognition is an experience, but the actual experience, the cognition is basically, it is the experience, but it is the knowing part of the experience. The fundamental main mind is the knowing of the object, which is this knowing of the object which is constituting the ground or the overall container for the experience. But the feeling is actually the experience of the object, and experiencing the object as painful, pleasurable, or neutral, but what you're actually experiencing, you're actually experiencing the ripening of past karma. So one of the main ways we experience the ripening of karma is as pain and pleasure. In other words, karma doesn't just ripen like, you know, like,

[25:41]

or you did something last Tuesday, or you think this is the yoga room, it ripens as a feeling, it ripens as pain and pleasure and neutral sensation. That's the way it ripens, that's the basic way it ripens in terms of feeling, and there's always a little bit of ripening in every moment. Yes? Yes. So when you say experience it, and it's either pleasure, pain, or neutral, but also the inner body physically, not just the mental, I mean, is it physical pleasure associated? That's action.

[26:48]

That's what you can say this feeling is. It's like you do something, and as a consequence of what you've done, there will be an embodied experience of it, which we call feeling. But it's not just a mental concept. Not just a mental concept? Well, if the overall state of consciousness is a conceptual cognition, then the feeling will also be a conceptual cognition. However, the conceptual cognition is based on an actual object. And the feeling of pain, for example, you could have a conceptual cognition of pain, but it would be based on an actual painful sensation. So that's part of the reason why people are maybe surprised to hear

[27:56]

that there's a feeling in every moment, because when your study of epistemology comes in handy now, because if you're having a direct perception that's inattentive of a color blue, for example, you don't ascertain that you're perceiving the blue, even though you are. At the same time, there's a mental factor that arises with that called feeling, and you have a painful feeling about the blue. However, if you have a perceptual cognition of blue, and it's inattentive, you will have a perceptual cognition of feeling of pain, and it will be inattentive. In other words, you won't know it. You won't be able to ascertain it. That's why people may be surprised that you have feelings all the time, because usually you don't ascertain it. If you were able to ascertain the color that you're seeing in direct perception,

[28:57]

you would also be able to ascertain the feeling you had about the color. So I'm suggesting to you, according to this, that whenever you have a direct perception of a color, you have a feeling about it. And your feeling about it is not just your feeling about the color, but your feeling about it is actually that the maturing of your past karma is maturing on you while you're looking at the color. It's not really about the color. The color doesn't make you feel blue. That was nice. The color doesn't make you feel pain. Your past karma makes you feel blue. Your past karma, maturing as you're feeling, leads to you experiencing the blue as painful, or experiencing the blue as pleasurable, or experiencing the blue with a neutral sensation that depends on the maturing of the past karma. And in direct perception, you might not know it. If it's a conceptual cognition, like I see the green here,

[30:03]

it's green. That's a conceptual cognition. That green is a conceptual cognition. So the feeling about that would be a conceptual cognition too, and therefore I might know better that I'd feel good about that green if I did. Because we tend to be more aware of our conceptual cognitions. They're not so often inattentive. As a matter of fact, almost never inattentive. Even when you're mindless, when you actually experience it, it can often be pointed out to you that you did have that experience and you can remember it. But if I have a direct perception of this green and it's inattentive, I would also be inattentive of the feeling I had about it. Does that make sense? You can try to clarify this. I'm kind of thinking, if you can experience your feelings physically,

[31:04]

in other words, it's not just a mental concept, because then it manifests in the body physically. So, all these things are embodied, but the body experiences happen in dependence on sense organs. And body experiences are about five things, and pain is not on the list. So feelings don't come in red, blue, and so on, or touches, tastes, sounds, smells, and so on. That's not the way feelings come. Feelings come in positive, negative, and neutral. You can have feelings about colors and about touches,

[32:09]

but the feeling is actually... its organ is not the sense organ. Okay. It's a good time to keep working this. If you want to have more questions. Yes, Elizabeth? Years ago, there was a science program in the community that was talking about a physiological level, that emotions were... that your body communicates chemically. So, I don't know if that's emotions and feelings, if that's the same category, but it is a physiological... It's fine to make it physiological. Seeing a color can also be seen as a physiological thing. Electromagnetic radiation stimulates this area of your eye called the retina.

[33:11]

It creates a chemical reaction. The reaction creates electrical impulses. They go to the brain, and they're interpreted as blue. You know, let's say correctly, that's a chemical reaction leading to a chemical reaction leading to an electrical reaction stimulating the brain, which gives rise to a cognition, an awareness of blue. But the cognition, there's some debates about is the cognition just physical? But it's totally embodied. Now, it is also the case that there can be a physiological, a chemical reaction in the brain which gives rise to a cognition of pain. But it is chemically based. And the chemical basis of it, according to this, would be the maturing of past actions, which can also be physical and chemical and all that.

[34:16]

But these actions now come to fruit in the present as a chemical composition of the neurological, physiological situation, such that when the blue comes up, the person experiences pain. And this teaching is saying that the experience of pain will have to do with past karma, which I'm sort of leading up to, which maybe I'll just go a little bit further and you can still ask all these questions, but just get this out in the open. So, there is a tendency among living beings, which you're probably quite familiar with, that when a pleasant sensation comes up, and I just said that a pleasant sensation is the maturing of past action, but anyway, when a pleasant sensation comes up, if it ever came up, where it wasn't a maturing, anyway, a pleasant sensation comes up and there tends to be a reaction to it called going towards it

[35:18]

or trying to hold on to it. If a negative sensation comes up, there tends to be a response of trying to avoid it. You can see this in very simple organisms, like amoebas or something, and our cells can't move around much, but they can do various kinds of openings and closings, so that even in our own cells there might be some demonstration of, if it could sense that the cell could feel pain and pleasure, that it would respond in these two ways, and if the cell couldn't tell whether it was pain or pleasure, the cell might be kind of confused about what to do. But I think you can tell that at the cognitive level, sometimes you're aware of a positive sensation and you want to hold it, you want to repeat it, you want to go towards it. A negative sensation, you want to cut it off,

[36:19]

get rid of it. A neutral sensation, you're kind of a little bit unclear about what to do. This response to the sensation has an effect, and the effect it has is called a conditioning, or a samskara, that because of that kind of response there's a kind of conditioning. Every time pain comes up and you do something in response to it, or pleasure comes up to it and you respond to it, it conditions the whole mind. That conditioning then has effects. Or rather, excuse me, the conditioning is an effect. That response gives rise to an effect called a conditioning, a samskara. And the conditioning, again, we're not usually aware of. The way we usually become aware of it

[37:21]

is as number 15. We become aware of it through intention or volition. Once there's a kind of like a certain kind of response to pain, the consequence of it is that the consciousness has been conditioned by that response and that response then, that conditioning comes up then later. And it comes up in the form of, again, let's say it again, we are not necessarily aware when a pleasure comes up and we move towards it, we're not necessarily aware of what the consequence of that response is. We're not necessarily aware of how that moving towards it conditions us. But one of the ways you can be, you could be aware of it, but most people aren't, but one of the ways you can be aware of it is to feel intention.

[38:21]

Because when you feel intention, that's that feeling of when the pain comes up, you feel the intention to move towards it. Or the pleasure comes up, you feel the intention to move towards it. That intention is the basic definition of karma. And that karma then, again, has the results of conditioning us to intend that way again. So the response conditions us, creates the karma, and when the karma goes around and will make it more likely, the next time the pleasure comes up we'll be likely also to try to hold on to it or repeat it. So in this way, it goes round and round and this is the basic mechanism. One of the basic mechanisms of going round and round. In other words, samsara, which means to go round and round. This is a basic thing, which is why feeling is both the experience of past karma

[39:23]

and then the basis upon which you respond in such a way as to condition further karma. So because of past karma you feel a certain way about things and feeling a certain way about things is something that we really have a hard time not responding to and part of the reason we have a hard time not responding to is because we're predisposed to respond to it in a certain way which just again continues the mechanism to go round. So that's why feeling is both the experience of the past and the thing upon which the past will be re-enacted and cause a future which will make us predisposed to do a present the way we did in the past and so on. So this is how important feeling is in the creation of karma and bondage to this cycle. So where does suffering fit in?

[40:27]

Where does it fit in? Where does it fit in? Well, I could go around I could do this a couple more times and you start to feel nauseated. If you pay attention to if you pay attention to this you can have a feeling of nauseation. However, there's also a little bit of feeling of waking up to the nature and the fundamental pattern of nauseation. If you're able to follow this scenario you're probably in what we call the human realm where pain is not so intense or frightening that you can't even pay attention to this story. But if you go over this story you can see how it's not very comfortable that you're trapped into this pattern that you're fed feelings which are the maturing of your past action.

[41:29]

So part of the maturing of your past action is that you have to keep feeling things and you feel them in these very important ways. Pain is very important to us. Pleasure is very important to us. And it feels important because we thought it was important in the past. And because we thought it was important in the past and we did something about it now we have to feel it again. Not only that, but we're supposed to do something about it. If you look at this you can maybe imagine how this would be kind of painful and entrapping. We can go on from here but basically this gives rise to greed attachment and hatred. When painful things come up we start to develop hatred towards them. And then the hatred conditions us. And so feeling hatred in response to the pain

[42:31]

it conditions us to feel pain. And then not only conditions us to feel pain but it conditions us to be angry at it again and to do something about it. Just feeling anger is not bad but then to do something about it on top of feeling anger the karma the intention to enact to want to do something about this thing we feel anger towards that has the consequence of trapping us into another moment of pain another moment of habitual reaction to the pain another moment of acting in habitual reaction to the emotional reaction to it and then propelling us into that cycle again. This is suffering, basically. That's what it is. You can whop it up higher bringing fear and cruelty and all that stuff but basically this is the this is the basic, very basic one, the feeling one.

[43:32]

And again, feeling is in every moment. However, in the realm of of sense perception our ability to hate and avoid and attach to and you know, move around is turned way down so it's mostly in the conceptual cognitions that we that we really, you know cause more trouble for ourselves. The mental, I should say. Not just conceptual but in the mental perception and mental conceptual conceptions. This is the basic mudra the basic circle of suffering of bondage and suffering that you can generate by looking at feelings which are an experience of the maturation of past actions and then feelings as a basis for new new habitual responses and new habitual reactions leading to further feelings which are very hard for us to not be reactive to.

[44:35]

So the practice here one of the fundamental practices is practice mindfulness of feelings. Learn to be mindful of feelings rather than reactive to them. So just once you hear this teaching you can really see how it would be good to just like watch your feelings put energy into mindfulness of them which is there anyway but emphasize that factor that's one of the factors on this list number 19 you actually are mindful of these things but your mindfulness can be weak if your mindfulness gets strong it tends to turn down the reactivity the reactivity in some sense is is generated by the consequences of 15 of the intention and the intention is showing you the consequence of past reactivity you can still see all this I should say you can still

[45:36]

you can see this all better if you're putting a lot of mindfulness on your feelings rather than just sort of abandoning yourself or yielding to the not to the feeling but yielding to the reactivity to the feelings as you become more and more if your mindfulness to the feelings gets stronger your reactivity to them can actually decrease however the the feelings will still keep maturing the retribution of past karma will still keep happening to you a lot of consequences in the form of consequences in the form of pain but not just pain pleasure not just pleasure neutral so even if you are mindful really and have very strong mindfulness there's an ocean of past karma dumping a tendency to experience life in those ways

[46:41]

but you can say fine more opportunities to practice mindfulness of feeling right and again as you practice more mindfulness of feelings various other types of wholesome dharmas occur skillful dharmas occur which are conducive to understanding this process understanding this process dismantles it feelings, you know so that gives you a little bit more about feelings anything else you want to any other questions about it you want to ask now? the cycling of feeling and action feeling and action it's actually feeling it's not quite action, it's feeling and then reactivity in terms of like wanting more of it or attaching to it or trying to avoid it or confusion if the feeling is neither then that then that leads to

[47:42]

actually usually a more conscious thing an intention to do something about it makes me think of addiction yeah, this is addiction Buddha's first teaching was I found a middle way which avoids two types of addiction and he said, you know, addiction to sense pleasure and addiction to self-mortification but self-mortification in a way is anger so yeah, the basic thing of these two types and then confusion and the middle way is like isn't just the confusion between the two yeah, it's very close to addiction sense pleasure he didn't say that, that's not the problem it's the being reactive to it that's the problem, that's the addictive part that's the habitual part the reactivity to it the reactivity to the pleasure kind of like not just pleasure but focusing on getting more of it

[48:44]

or how to how to hold on to it again, even while it's happening not enjoying it very much because you're so much concerned with getting more of it sense pleasure without that addiction is actually just plain old pleasure for a moment and also pain without the addiction of trying to avoid it it's just pain it's just like a perfectly normal function of mind which is happening all the time called the maturation of past karma in the form of tempting us with pain what are you going to do about that? well I know what you're going to do about it you're going to react to it and then you're going to want to do something about it and then we're going to have some more hey, that program's working really well but we're addicted to that rather than living it we're we mess with it why do we mess with it? because it is the result of past messings plus

[49:44]

since it's the result of past messings it's the kind of thing that draws us into messing with it again so that's why that one dharma gets to be a whole aggregate because it's so fundamental in forming attachment and aversion and self-cleaning yes can you say a little bit more about say you're involved in a wholesome activity or meditation so that that creates a peaceful state which we perceive as pleasurable so the desire to repeat that would come up so how would one deal with that with that kind of an activity if one is practicing if one has a wholesome state of consciousness the feeling that that consciousness is working with

[50:45]

could be pain like you have a somebody has a disease like the Buddha was sick you could have a person who who is feeling pain and the feeling of pain is partly due this is not the whole story but this is one part of the cycle this is one little picture the person is feeling pain about some object some people have cancer but they're not in pain some people have cancer and they're in pain sometimes and other times they're not in pain sometimes people have a sickness but they have positive sensations even though it seems like the sickness is continually kind of like reappearing but they're having a lot of positive sensations and negative sensations or they don't have much of a disease people say oh he's healthy

[51:46]

doesn't have any diseases right now okay but whether he's diagnosed with having one or more diseases or no diagnosis of any disease still he can have a negative sensation and if he's practicing wholesomely he can still have negative sensations because negative sensations are the ripening of past karma so past karma is ripening I feel a negative sensation about the color blue not about the color blue but I experience the blue in a painful way but I can practice wholesomely while I experience pain about the blue or pain about the person I'm thinking so you're doing this practice and as you're doing this practice it brings generally more happiness, more peace

[52:47]

as opposed to suffering it generally does bring wholesome activity generally does bring more positive sensations, it's true I think that's part of the way it works however almost all of those might be coming a long time from now maybe not even in this lifetime so it's possible that you'd be practicing very well and have almost no positive sensations it's possible not very likely though but possible right, so when something positive comes through practice we want to not try to not try to repeat that and that's where you mean when a pain, when a pleasurable thing does come yeah, that was your original thing but let's just stay with feeling, okay because there can be other positive things which you don't experience by a pleasurable feeling there's other factors on here

[53:50]

which aren't called pleasurable feeling but which might be what you would call feeling very alive which might make you feel like I am extremely glad to be alive I am so happy, I am so grateful you know and what while you're having a negative sensation the feeling of gratitude might be actually sort of one of these mental factors under the category of general functions of good, okay if you look under there you see there's faith energy, equanimity self-respect, okay if you feel you know, I don't know what to call it a enthusiasm well the word enthusiasm means full of God full of the divine, you could be full of the divine and feel you know having a great, having the joy of being diligent and so on

[54:51]

you could have all these wholesome factors and be having a big fat old pain okay, now she's saying what about if you're having all these wholesome factors and you have a big fat pleasure well if you're practicing wholesomely you're not so likely to think because you've heard some teachings in association with your practice you're not so likely to think that the pleasure is coming from the wholesome practice because you know that the pleasure is coming from past action and you could say well maybe it's coming from my wholesome practice earlier today maybe so your thing is what about becoming attached while you're practicing wholesomely to positive sensations can it happen the answer is why yes wholesome practice wholesome practice doesn't mean that when you're practicing wholesomely you totally eliminate this tremendous background of conditioning vis-a-vis positive sensation doesn't mean that it means

[55:52]

if you practice wholesomely a very long time you will be able to eliminate the conditioning vis-a-vis positive sensation entirely is the proposal well pointing out the other category of general functions of good so general functions you can be practicing general functions of good you can be practicing all of them and still a positive sensation could come up and you could still be reactive to it in terms of past action or not and of course negative things can come up and you can also be reactive to that or not but you could also be not reactive to it in the moment and then you would be fed later for a long time you will keep getting fed feelings which are coming from past moments innumerable past moments of reactivity

[56:53]

with conditioned reactivity will keep feeding you feelings to test your practice of skillful of skillful means of skillful ways in relationship to all these feelings that are coming to you but when you're practicing wholesome dharmas it's more like yeah feed me the feelings pass them to me I'm here to accept feelings because I know they come with every moment and I'm going to try to practice with them negative one, practice with it not even and also practice not getting bored with the same old story negative, negative, negative, negative no, you know can I have a positive one please or even positive, positive, positive, positive even that's boring, give me a negative one no, that's not so skillful you learn to practice dealing with what's given to you with more and more not being reactive while there's this great force for you to be

[57:54]

reactive which is coming two ways, one as feelings which are very important, very powerful coming, that's the result of past reactivity plus that habit floating out there two, is coming along with the feeling the feeling comes with the habit you can just do the same old thing, that'll be really easy but there can be a wholesome response such that the habit doesn't kick in another feeling habit's possible mindfulness and so on doesn't kick in but one of the problems with being successful over a long period of time of not being reactive and practicing wholesomely with positive, negative and neutral feelings is, you tend to get more and more intense experiences of pleasure which are more and more tempting to be reactive towards so like that Humphrey Bogart movie

[58:56]

you know, this guy squeals on him and he goes to prison, and when he gets out of prison he goes to kill the guy he goes to the guy's room, puts the gun up the guy's head and the guy goes, yeah? go ahead so depressed, you know, just save me a bullet, thanks so does he shoot him because he doesn't want to do the guy a favor put him out of his misery and take the karma of the murder because the guy didn't have to commit suicide so he does he works behind the scenes and gets this guy a really good job and a really swell partner whatever you think a swell partner was he got him a swell partner and etc, etc and the guy is like getting all this stuff and feeling really, really good and then he comes back to get him so if you really practice well, you're going to get really happy

[60:01]

and it's really going to be hard not to get attached to that but that's more deeply getting into the subtleties of conditioning at one point, you know you know things weren't so gross you can go back to that place and it'll be more difficult was there some other questions? yes, Sarah? I have a question about taking action if you're not reactive in other words, something you call for action and one of the reasons that you experience pain, for example might be because someone is hurting you and one of the so one of the reasons we have the experience of pain is that it tells us to do something about it and so I don't think, but maybe you are saying never do anything about it but I'm trying to figure out how do you know when you're being reactive and how do you know when you're appropriate in taking action to get away from somebody or something that's hurting you you know because you've been

[61:01]

practicing mindfulness of feelings for a long time and you've gotten very concentrated and you can see the difference between a pain which would be good to like, you know, I don't know what for example, don't move like broken leg don't move that's a reasonable thing to do and you can see the difference between just doing a reasonable thing in relationship to a pain and that reactive pattern if you've seen the reactive pattern quite a few times you know what it looks like and you know the difference between an action which is not based on past action and an action that is based on past action. Most actions are based on past actions so you've got to learn that most of them are like that and that there's a kind of

[62:01]

activity that can emerge which is the activity which emerges from understanding that most activities based on past action and in that understanding a new kind of activity emerges which is not based on past action, in other words, which is not karma well there's like there's activity which is karma and karma liberating or liberates us from karma there's activity which is not intentional which is not karmic and then there's activity which is intentional, karmic and locked into the habitual pattern so by being mindful and sitting still one can learn quite a bit about the process and learn that there's new ways to respond to positive, negative

[63:02]

and neutral sensation new ways of responding and particularly first of all the new way of responding of mindfulness almost as fast as the reactivity or almost along with the reactivity rather than just pain, reactivity and then impulse to do something pain, reactivity and impulse to do something so observing the usual thing will develop again in terms of going back now to the basic type of cognition about its clarity and so on there will be an evolution there will be an epistemological evolution going along with the study of the karmic process that your vision will get clearer about the process as you study the karma more as you see karma working more as you see the reactivity working more that will tend to make you clearer about this whole process so you'll be developing

[64:03]

clarity while at the same time developing wholesomeness so you'll get clearer about the process as you practice meditation on the process and your meditation on the process will get clearer as your cognitions get clearer and they sort of pull each other along that way until finally you can see that this is all you know I don't know, just conditioned just totally conditioned and then you're free of it that's the proposal of the amazing attainment yes? you mentioned direct yogic perception yes direct yogic perception yes, direct yogic perception but I don't know much about it you don't know what? I don't quite understand what it is it's a it's similar to

[65:04]

direct sense perception in that it's that it's knowing some object it could be like a color or it could be like a painful sensation it could know it could know a feeling for example but number one it's not inattentive it's a clear it's a fresh clear irrefutable knowledge of the thing and it's connected with its organ, instead of being a mind organ or a sense organ its organ is the union of insight and concentration so it's a way of knowing which is valid like we were talking about before which means you clearly ascertain what it is it's free of all conceptual mediation and it's happening in a state where there's insight

[66:06]

and there is tranquility so it's a very it's a state which, you know, sort of at the end of the line of evolution of this process it's not just a valid cognition which it is it's not just a cognition where you very clearly irrefutably and freshly cognize something, whatever can be anything but it's also that you're in a state of tranquility and insight so this is like more or less the Buddha mind that we're talking about there yes, Michel I just thought when you were speaking about the neutral you said confusion confusion or dullness, yeah dullness because if you don't react you may become neutral so when I'm neutral I'm not reactive

[67:07]

well the react the reaction to neutral is to become dull or sleepy, so like Zen students sitting in the Zendo occasionally I've heard they have pleasureful sensations you know, sometimes quite strong and they're sitting there kind of like this is nice, you know the body feels like pleasure they're having a bodily sensation and it's pleasureful they're having a pleasureful feeling about it or they see a light you know, which is not a bodily sensation but it's not touch, it's light and they have a positive sensation or they hear a sound and they have this feeling, this very positive feeling about the sound so then they don't go to sleep usually at that moment kind of like okay and sometimes people say they like pain because when you have pain they don't go to sleep either but when they have kind of neutral sensations Zen students have a hard time staying awake because neutral sensations are kind of confusing and dull and

[68:08]

kind of like going to sleep like going to sleep, so that is a reaction that's a way of responding to neutrality is to get sleepy and maybe in sleepiness you might be able to have some pleasure rather than this kind of boring thing here so that's a reaction, that's a response and people tend habitually to respond to neutral sensations with sleepiness, dullness confusion they tend that way and that can be, again the neutral sensation may tend to be the maturation of moments where you're kind of like your feelings were unclear and your intentions were kind of unclear and dull and you wanted to do something but you didn't know what it was but you just tried to do something and you're not sure if you did it that gives you more neutral sensations

[69:11]

because you're not like trying to keep all the neutral sensations to yourself you're not trying to get rid of it or punish somebody for a neutral sensation or attack somebody because you got a neutral sensation so you have this very strong greed and hatred aren't coming up with the neutral sensation so then you get this kind of like neutral sensation as a result which tends to make you want to do what you did last time or many times in response to it namely not get too worked up one way or another so that's another reactive pattern which is also uncomfortable but in kind of a dull way where you don't really know but you're kind of and you're kind of afraid but it's not really acute you know it's kind of chronic and you're so dull kind of like kind of like yeah well I'm dull but at least I'm not in a lot of pain so I guess maybe this is better than being

[70:13]

in extreme pain I don't know you claim to have a productive heart yeah it's a strategy for dealing with some sorrow and sometimes I feel like this is really no good I'm getting angry you know and now things are getting really bad but at least I feel a little bit more life which is kind of positive anyway, get the picture? this is reactivity I have the belief that I can engage in certain activities that will result in pleasure or pain you seem to say that pleasure doesn't come from reactivity but from the past what comes from the past is the feeling that something will be pleasurable that's coming from the past the idea that

[71:15]

it will be pleasurable to eat an ice cream cone especially a certain brand that's really delicious but has low fat somehow they've made this ice cream that is good for your heart and also really delicious as delicious as the most fat kind so you think of that eating that would probably be pleasurable to think of what will be pleasurable is conditioned by the past and even to while thinking about what will be pleasurable having a positive sensation about that that's also maturing a past and and part of our nervous system is to think of is to think of things that we think would be pleasurable and also to think of things that we think would be painful and try to avoid those painful things

[72:19]

and try to promote those pleasurable things but if also if you look at this situation you will probably find especially if you watch other people it's easy to see like with my grandson it's really easy to see maybe I told you this story one time we were, I was playing with him he said I have an idea of something that will really be fun let's take all of these African animals giraffes and elephants and stuff and put them in a big tub let's take them downstairs and fill it with water and put them all in the water that will really be fun he said and I didn't say to him you know it's not going to be as much fun as you think it's going to be I didn't say that to him and as we're going down the stairs and he's talking about granddaddy this is going to be so much fun I didn't say it's going to be very short lived I didn't say that I just you know go along his son's program so we get downstairs and he puts all the animals in his tub

[73:21]

and we pour the water in but before we get the water in he's already lost completely lost interest in it and has moved on to something else which he thinks will be really fun I don't know if he had any fun at all doing that thing but he barely got to what he wanted to do before he thought of something else to do I don't know if it's the least bit pleasurable but we generally think that that ice cream cone is going to taste really good and when you actually taste it it doesn't taste as good as you thought it as you anticipated and felt motivated towards and also negative things are not usually as bad as we think they're going to be and if you like they've done research on people but generally speaking if you're going to if you're a college student and you go to a football game and your team loses you think you're going to feel bad and you usually do feel kind of bad right after the game but a few minutes later while you're having pizza

[74:23]

you may have almost forgotten the feeling of pain almost entirely gone and a week later your feeling tone and happiness is almost indistinguishable whether your team won or lost but you think your painful sensations are going to last longer than they do you think your pleasurable sensations are going to last longer than they do and you think that they're going to be more pleasant than they are or more painful than they are that's the way we imagine and we're conditioned to do that and it's like it's embodied there's a physical way of being that we're conditioned to feel this way about our actions and we have to actually physically change ourselves too in this process but anyway like I said he said it was going to really be fun and I just thought you know I think he's overestimating the fun of this thing but we'll see and when you have the ice cream cone

[75:26]

generally speaking it is a little bit fun but sometimes it turns bad really quickly and part of the reason for that too is that the conditioning process wants you to go and condition something else once it's got you hooked and you fell for it it then pushes you to do another thing to feel the next feeling and to condition that so you can't stay with the thing as long as you plan to and often times it switches from pleasure to pain like you taste and again if you're mindful and you taste these things that you think are going to be good sometimes you think it's going to be good and you taste it and it feels good for a second but then it gets and you realize it's actually it's poison sometimes you realize that but if you don't pay attention you may not even notice that a bad painful sensation is coming because you have this idea this is supposed to be good

[76:27]

and so on and so forth so it's very important to be mindful of the actual feeling because you will learn how untrustworthy these conditioning things are that they're not reliable they are painful and so on but they're not they're just due to conditioning they're not due to reality yes so can mindfulness also be considered habitual reactivity to the practice of previously practicing mindfulness in an attempt to reduce your reactivity so that in fact even mere practice of mindfulness is conditioned as a result of past practice and therefore is a result of past karma karma of habitual practice of mindfulness I will think about that but but I'll think about it more beside my initial reaction

[77:28]

which is I don't think so because mindfulness is not really being reactive it's just paying attention to the thing and it's not so much coming from past greed hate and delusion I mean the greed hate and delusion are part of what conditioned us to be interested in mindfulness but mindfulness is more a general factor of the working of consciousness than it is a kind of reactivity to to pain or pleasure or neutral sensations mindfulness yeah but there could be some kind of causal process by which mindfulness tends to be a condition for further mindfulness but mindfulness isn't reactive in the sense of creating a sense to want to do mindfulness mindfulness doesn't make you want to do mindfulness I think

[78:29]

when you want to do mindfulness that's more reactive when you think of mindfulness karmically but that's not really mindfulness that's more like an intention see the difference it's kind of an important question the impulse to do mindfulness is more coming from the conditionality of the past but mindfulness isn't the impulse to do mindfulness it's being mindful it's not an impulse it's not really karma however so again if you look at the chart the beginning of the chart has basic functions of the mind which can be operating in very high levels of consciousness or low so mindfulness could be

[79:32]

part of the habitual reactivity in the sense it would be infected by an impulse to practice mindfulness to get pleasure or something or over expectations of mindfulness that could be happening with the mindfulness so mindfulness can occur in a wholesome state of mind but the mindfulness itself is not even positive mindfulness itself isn't really skillful or unskillful when it's in a skillful mind it's just mindfulness when it's unskillful mind it's mindfulness to get something or avoid something so if you can bring this kind of study into any particular composition and so if all goes well we will continue to study how the functions of mind work with karma to create the world and then how

[80:33]

we respond to the world to keep the world going or we study the process understand the process and become free of the process through the study okay so thank you very much for your heroic efforts to in this difficult class

[80:51]

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