Namo tassa bhagavato rahato sammasambuddhassa Namo tassa bhagavato rahato sammasambuddhassa Namo tassa bhagavato rahato sammasambuddhassa Today we continue with the consciousness we talked about on Sunday night.

[01:13]

Generally speaking, we have two levels of consciousness. The conscious level, which is the operation of consciousness through the senses. Five physical senses. Sixth is the mental sense. That is thinking, remembering, reasoning. which is the function of consciousness. And it is regarded as a sense faculty. So in this way we can see that Buddhism regards the mind as one of the senses.

[02:31]

When the physical senses can be developed, so the mind can also be developed. And development of mind is as essential as the development of physical senses. so that we can understand that the mental exercises for cleansing off the impurities and intrusive defilements is essential for purification of mind. and for helping the mind to return to its own nature, which is luminous, intrinsically pure.

[03:47]

As the Buddha said, the mind is intrinsically pure or luminous. It becomes defiled because of sense impressions intruding upon it. But it can be cleansed off by the process of meditatum, of bhavana in the Kali term. Bhavana is to cultivate, to develop, to bring the mind to the nature of purity and illuminating nature. And the second level of the mind is what we call in Pali

[05:00]

the life continuum consciousness which is unconscious to us. It is the stream of existing and becoming, continuing. So that stream of unconscious consciousness is like a the stream of water, running water, when the water runs on calmly, unthundered by any obstacles, unruffled by any wind, and unrippled by any wave, Such running or flowing on of the water is compared to this life continuum consciousness, which is the factor of life, the force of life.

[06:21]

We are not conscious of it most of the time because we are occupied by the conscious mind, the conscious level of consciousness. So if we can shut out all the conscious mind, surely we can come into contact with the unconscious, the hidden. So all the contents of the hidden consciousness can be seen. So we know what is contained in our consciousness. And also that we can see some symptoms of the contents of the unconscious which may manifest themselves through the

[07:33]

Door of the mind, the mental door, the mind door. So then talking about doors, we have six doors because of six senses. The eye door and the ear door, the nose door, the tongue door, bodily touch door, and the mind door. then we seem aware that consciousness can travel through the six doors. If we understand the process of cognition or the process of arising of consciousness, we will be able to get deeper and deeper into ourselves.

[08:37]

I think I will explain this process of cognizing, a process of consciousness. It is quite amazing that the Buddha has a very deep analysis of consciousness, which could never be found in many psychology books. And he analyzed consciousness according to the moments of arising. And he has got 17 moments for one consciousness. So one consciousness has 17 moments of arising.

[09:47]

Or can we say one process of cognition is composed of 17 stages of of cognizing. First of all, we are in the state of being, existing with the life moment. which is merely our own karma, the past karma, karamik force. To make it simple, we say that is the life moment.

[10:54]

We live with the life moment in the unconscious, sphere of existence, which is flowing. And then after that, if there is anything coming like the thought or any object coming into contact with any senses, then it will If you make this flow, this flow of consciousness awake, in a way, or at least the process, the flow of consciousness, the flow of unconsciousness will vibrate.

[11:58]

Slightly. First of all, slightly. And after that, that vibration of the flow will be cut off by the thought process, by the object entering any one of the senses. And then there is a turning, turning to the door of the mind in order to see what has happened after being cut off. And then there is a seeing. If the object comes through the eyes, there is eye consciousness. The eye consciousness arises. Or if the object comes through the ear, then there is ear consciousness. So if any object comes into contact with any of the six senses, such consciousness arises.

[13:13]

And after that, there is a process of receiving. receiving what has entered the sense. And after receiving the object, there is the act of investigating whether the object is good or bad. In our common language, the act of examining And then there is the act of deciding. After investigating, examining it, there is act of deciding. And after deciding, then there is operative action, operative process. And that operative process will go on for seven moments.

[14:21]

not just one moment. It goes continuously for seven moments. And after that, there is an act of registering and then go back to the unconscious again. I mean the consciousness drops or returns to its own place. That is the stream of life continuum consciousness. This one conscious arises. To illustrate the process perhaps we can talk about a story of a mango tree a story of mango tree a man lost in the deepest lake

[15:34]

is lying under the mango tree. And then there was the wind. The wind was striking the branches of the mango tree. And he was in consequence, he is in consequence, aroused in his dreamless slumber. And then a man called Fruit falls down. And the man wakes up. After waking up, he was looking in order to see what has happened or what has awakened him.

[16:49]

So after looking around, he sees a mango fruit just nearly fallen. And then he picks up the mango fruit, investigates it, examines it, and then he sees that this mango fruit is ripe enough for eating. And then he eats it. after eating the Nango fruit, he returns to his sleep again. So that man is one consciousness.

[17:57]

You can see the symbol The dreamless deepest sleep of the man is compared to pavankat, the unconscious consciousness or the life continuum consciousness. And the striking of the wind against the tree is the past life moment. which is slightly perturbed by something entering the senses. And then the swaying of the branches.

[18:59]

Swaying of the branches is compared to the vibrating of this life continuum consciousness. after being perturbed, slightly perturbed. And then the falling of the fruit, the falling of the fruit from the tree is compared to the arrest, arresting of the object by which the stream, the flow of life from today of consciousness, it is cut off. And then the waking up of the man is compared to looking around, to turning to the mind door.

[20:07]

Mind door is the nearest. is mirrored to the life continuum consciousness and mirrored that my dog is dividing life between the unconscious and unconscious levels of mind. And then the man removed the head covering The removal of the head covering is looking, opening the sense, the other senses to look and see the object. So suppose in this case, a mango is object of the eye, so the eye consciousness arises. The picking up of the fruit is the act of receiving the object.

[21:13]

And the inspection, examination of the fruit is the investigating act of consciousness. And then The understanding of the food as something good for eating. That is the, we call, sometimes we call it full cognition. Or sometimes we use the term operative consciousness. In Pali it's called cavanat. It runs quickly, very fast, for seven moments. in order to make things stronger, so that we human beings can commit, can do the good thing or bad thing when we are alive at this stage of consciousness, the ca-va-na stage.

[22:20]

Before that, the consciousness is too feeble so that good or bad action cannot be performed. But after performing the action, after eating the food, this kind of swallowing of the last morsels that are left in the mouth. And this is compared to registering. So after doing some action, whether good or bad, then the action performed is kept in the unconscious. So any action we do is kept, is registered in our unconscious level of mind, which is our pavangka, the factor of existing and continuing of life.

[23:39]

So that it is very essential for us to look into this matter. Because very often that we are not aware of what we do. And then according to Abhidhamma, anything we do is registered. So if we do something which we are not fully aware of, it will be contained in this unconscious mind. Then it becomes the psychic disturbance. So if we want to keep our consciousness pure in its own form, in its own nature, we have to take care of the actions.

[24:58]

Actions performed through the senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and thinking. So if we take care of the actions, or we take responsibility of all the actions performed through the senses, then our consciousness can remain pure and luminous. There is no disturbing factor. as we are born into life and we didn't know this before so we did accumulate something and resisted it in our consciousness in life so there is the need for us to go into it and to bring out the unhealthy

[26:15]

disturbing influences in the unconscious to bring these things to the conscious level by meditation, by the cultivation of mindfulness, awareness, attention, concentration. And then this consciousness will be purified. And then we have the work to do all the time, that is to be very aware of the process of cognizing, the process of being conscious of things. That's why awareness is really essential in order to keep consciousness pure.

[27:18]

And we have to do it all the time, not just only during the sasen sitting, but with anything we perceive through any senses. And then in a way that sasen is practiced All the time, 24 hours. We may say that there is formal satsang and informal satsang. Formal meditation and informal meditation. But that is not too burdensome because just the work and awareness does not bring about any burden. if we can look and observe things carefully. So this is the process of consciousness. After understanding this nature of kavanka consciousness, I like to use the word kavanka really.

[28:42]

The translation is not very good. When we say life continuum consciousness, or we say the stream of existing, becoming, and continuing, it's not quite clear as the word kavanka. Only when we achieve full enlightenment, in the Buddhist term, in the Theravada context, when we become an arahant, the fully enlightened person, then the pavangka will be completely purified. We can say there is no pavangka. For the fully enlightened person, nothing is left as the contents. It means a person comes to complete emptiness.

[29:48]

There is only luminous consciousness which does not contain anything, whether good or bad. Good and bad things are contained in the ordinary consciousness. And when a person becomes fully enlightened, he transcends all good and bad things so that consciousness is completely empty of the conscious. That's why those people do not live according to the good and bad concepts, but according to reality. Maybe we may say that it means the road, the path, the way through which consciousness can travel.

[30:58]

So every consciousness has seven mental properties or seven mental states arising with it. Now we have to look more, more carefully. Anytime we are conscious of something, try to see whether there are seven factors present in each consciousness. whether it's good consciousness or bad consciousness. All these seven mental factors are present. The first thing is contact or impact. The second is feeling. The third is perception. The fourth is will.

[32:02]

Will. And the fifth is oneness of object. The sixth is psychic life. And the seventh is attention. So consciousness is alive, a living thing. Because there is psychic life as one of the factors. Now you can see, first of all, there is contact or impact. The contact between the external object corresponding to internal object or internal sense organ. like the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body touch, and mind are the internal sense organs.

[33:19]

They have the sensitivity or the basis for perceiving And then the external sense objects refer to light or color or sight as for the eyes. Sound for the ears and smell for the nose and taste for the tongue. qualities of object like hardness, extension, heat or temperature, and pressure become the object for touch, bodily touch.

[34:25]

And then all the ideas and thoughts become the objects for the mind. But they are external. They come from outside. So when there is contact between external and internal sense organs and sense objects, immediately there is sealing. We put it another way that, first of all, when the subject is in contact with something, then the subject will be affected by such contact. So this subjective affection refers to the feeling. The subject will have the feeling of

[35:35]

pleasantness or unpleasantness or neutrality, indifference. So feeling can be agreeable or disagreeable or neither. After the feeling, there is perception. So perception is used in the sense of recognizing, recognizing the object. The act of consciousness in the first place is just to be aware of the presence of the object. Awareness of the presence of an object is the function of consciousness. But the function of perception is to recognize the object as something.

[36:44]

Like recognize that this is the building, that is the stream. So recognition of things is the function of perception. And then there's the will. the will to act. The will refers to an act of determining. In this feeble form of jetana or will, volition, it means that This factor, mental factor, determines the other mental properties who act with it. It's like a leader trying to see which would be good to work with.

[37:53]

And also, chetana can be developed into action when it becomes very strong. That is why the Buddha said that what he called karma is jetana, the will. First of all, the will as action or karma comes to the mind's door. It becomes a mental action. The thought is a mental action. Or any activities of mind is the mental action, mental karma. And then it can manifest in words, which become the speech, verbal action, and it comes to the physical action, so that we can perform actions of karma through the physical act, through the verbal act, and through the mind act.

[39:03]

We accumulate karma through one of these three doors. And then Jetana also can be, no, Jetana can function in this sphere of karma only. coming to the higher level of consciousness, like coming to the transcendental consciousness. Jnana does not play active part because in one of the eight factors of the path we have sammasangapa, the right intention. right intention, which is the awareness of the end.

[40:06]

So we have that. So then the Ditsetana does not appear. And then there is the oneness of the object. Then the one object can be the object for one consciousness at a time. And the attention is making up the mind, making in mind. So it becomes stronger when you make in mind to perceive the object. And the psychic life is present in that consciousness. In one act of consciousness, is composed of these seven mental factors. Now you see that this analysis is very deep and really in order to strengthen our mindfulness and to bring attention to completion or to make it complete,

[41:21]

It is very essential to look into these factors arising with any consciousness. At the moment we become conscious of things. Perhaps we may not be able to do it all the time, but if you can do it once and see it clearly, then it becomes a natural process. it becomes easier. Perhaps now we say, when does dream arise or occur? Because it seems that we human beings must have dream, except the fully enlightened ones, like Arahant. They don't have dreams because they don't have pavanga.

[42:25]

Or people in general that if you don't have dreams, you are unusual. There's something wrong with you. If you have dreams but you don't remember them. Buddhism talks about dreams. which occurs in the transitional stage. So something between the conscious and unconscious levels of mind. It's not in the deep sleep. In deep sleep there is no dream. Maybe it's compared to the sleep of a monkey. A sleep of the monkey was very quick and not very deep. So at that stage of transition, or transitional stage of consciousness, dream occurs.

[43:42]

And then Buddhism talks about the conditions giving rise to dreams. There are four. Four reasons. The first reason is concerned with organic and muscular disturbances because of taking the wrong food, or because of taking something wrong into the body. It affects the organism and the muscles. So when these things are disturbed, it can give you the dreams, even the nightmare. Nightmare comes to be because of the organic and muscular disturbances. And the second reason is because of recurrence of the previous impressions.

[45:04]

Or putting it in more in the simple way, we say just because of our anxiety, our worry, thinking about things, about one thing, again and again, the mind is obsessed by some kind of thought, some kind of event. So if you think about something again and again, then you have to dream about it. Anxiety state can become the cause of dream. And the third reason is because of the influence of spirit or spiritualistic influence.

[46:10]

The influence comes from spiritual beings. In Buddhist terms, it refers to deities, different kind of gods. Sometimes they may give you some indication Or they may try to contact with you by giving you some symbols so that it comes out in dreams. And the last reason is because of foregoing, foregoing karma or action. which is the prophetic dream, which is called Pupaninitta, the foregoing impression and action, which is contained in our unconscious consciousness, Pavanca-citta.

[47:40]

So this kind of dream can predict what is going to happen to you. It gives you the symbols so that you have to understand your symbols in order to see the meaning of the dreams. Something like the dream of seeing the sun, the bright sun. could imply that you may have a new discovery in your life. The sun, the bright sun, signifies seeing something, discovering something new. Or it can mean a kind of glory, glory and prosperity of what you are doing, the work you do. The Buddha's mother, before she had conception, she had a dream of seeing a white elephant entering her stomach.

[49:04]

And it was a wonderful experience. by having an elephant entering the stomach. So she woke up, and the experts, spiritualists in dreams, told her that she would have a child who would have great power, the man of great wisdom and great merit. So soon afterwards, she became pregnant. And the Buddha just entered the womb. In the dream, too, first of all, she saw a white elephant descending from the heaven.

[50:11]

So it was true that the Buddha, as a bodhisattva, was living in the Dussita heaven. So he came down from Dussita heaven to enter the womb of the mother. So this kind of dream is a prediction. But perhaps sometimes you have the dream of having a ring, somebody put a ring on your finger, so it means that you will have something very satisfactory, or perhaps if you are single, you will get married soon. This depends on the understanding of the symbols. So that this kind of dream is considered the right one in Buddhism.

[51:16]

It means that we can rely on this reason for having dreams in order to see what is going to happen to us. Sometimes our intuitive insights cannot tell us directly in the waking life When we are so busy, it can tell us in the dreams, giving us some symbols and some signals in a way that we are well taken care of by what we have. Or we can have a very good secretary receiving or keeping all information for us. The only thing is to be able to communicate with our secretary.

[52:21]

And then we can make use of it. So awareness again, we come to the matter of awareness and mindfulness again. Because awareness can flow in and out between the inner and the outer, so that the inner and the outer can be integrated. The interflow of awareness, the interflow between the inner and the outer is awareness itself. So when awareness has been fully developed, it can bring about insight, understanding, freedom. That's why Venerable Buddha was asked, who is a great man?

[53:28]

The great man is a man of awareness. So when one is fully aware, he can be fully alert and awake in every moment. So there is no doubtness, there is no conflict, there is no contradiction in the aware, awake mind. Then the mind is... occupied by ideas and concepts, it can become dull, it can become confused. But when the mind becomes fully aware and alert, confusion and doubtness disappears. So there is clarity and clearness and emptiness. The mind is not run by any content. So it comes to its own nature.

[54:34]

In that case, we will say there is no mind. Because it's not the same as what we call mind in the ordinary consciousness. That's why sometimes in the same terminology we talk about no mind. No mind is a mind. But it is not the mind as we normally, ordinarily see. It is here, luminous mind. So now, I think today we just deal with two forms of... consciousness the conscious the consciousness arise arising operating through the senses and the consciousness as the factor of life continuum but then then we can learn to observe how consciousness arises

[55:55]

or how we become conscious of things. Is there any factor, any influence operating, working with any consciousness? By this way, we will understand that in order to renew consciousness, we have to die, dying to the ego, to the self-consciousness. or dying to the past, to the past experience, dying to the thought.

[57:09]

By dying to all these things, we mean that we do not use the past, the thought, and equal to conditioned life, So when there is an act of dying, there is an act of renewing. So consciousness can be renewed every moment. According to Abhidhamma, we say that we cleanse off the impurities and disturbances. And I will sometimes present any sense impressions, the unhealthy sense impressions, from pouring into consciousness. By establishing awareness at the door of the senses, we can be well protected

[58:34]

well guarded. Like you said, when the consciousness is renewed, it becomes refreshing. It becomes very fresh, clear, and joyful. So such consciousness is the food of life, is nutrition, nutrition of life. We have four kinds of food normally. The first kind of food is the material food we eat every day. And the second kind of food is the contact, the contact between senses and corresponding objects. is a food for life. That's why life is always involved with contact, with relationship.

[59:42]

And the next category of food is the will of the mind or mental volition. My mental volition is the will to act, the will to live. And surely that Chopin hour came very close to Buddhism by talking about the will to live, the will to do. And Buddha regards this as a food, a kind of food for life. So when there is no will, there's no living. That's why we have personal will, personal choice, we use another word.

[60:52]

Personal choice is the personal will or is the will, the will to do. The will is one of the factors of consciousness. So that in Buddhism we don't say the will is given by something, but the will is already there as a factor of consciousness. And then the last category of food is consciousness itself. The consciousness becomes the food for life. That's why we have the life continuum consciousness, which is the factor of existence. The crowd, yes, the crowd of existence. It is flowing on and on without stopping. If that stops, it means we die.

[61:56]

So it's like the screen running on and on. You think what dries up? When it dries up, we die. Physical body dies. So we can renew.

[62:17]

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