Attention and aspiration

• Review and continuation of omnipresent mental factors—mental engagement (attention)
• Five object-ascertaining mental factors (determining mental factors): aspiration, appreciation, mindfulness, single-pointedness (concentration), and intelligence
• Detailed discussion of aspiration and classification
• How the five mental factors influence each other
• Discussion and description of terms desire, thought, emotion, mental image
• Examples of non-conceptual mental consciousness i.e., clairvoyance, dream

Mind and mental factors 04: Attention and aspiration (download)

Review: Impulses

When you were watching for the impulse or the intention, what did you find? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): Why? Paying that much attention to all the impulses is driving you crazy. 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

VTC: But it’s quite amazing how many different impulses arise in our mind in a very short period of time, isn’t it? The mind flits back and forth and back and forth. The more awareness we can maintain of this, the more we’ll really begin to understand how our mind works. And then begin to slow down and really make conscious decisions. Because so much of our life is lived on automatic because we aren’t aware of our intentions. The impulse arises in the mind, we act it out, and then we go, “How come I’m doing this?” or “How come this happened?” When we become more aware of these impulses and slow them down or at least make some gap between the impulse and the action, then we can really begin to change things and make conscious choices and think about what we’re doing. 

This is quite good to do when you’re doing the breathing meditation, to just be aware of all the impulses. Or when you’re just puttering around in the kitchen or in the garage or wherever you putter, just be aware of the different impulses. Notice the impulse to move our hand, the impulse to shake our head—whatever we’re doing. Maybe it’s the impulse to speak.

That’s the benefit of silent retreats: you see so clearly all these impulses to speak. And we see how difficult a time we have making the gap between the impulse and the action. Because the silent retreat turns out to be pretty noisy.

That’s just reviewing a little bit about impulse. Last week we also talked about contact, which is the mental factor that helps us to connect the object, the sense organ, and the consciousness, so that the consciousness gets activated by the organ becoming activated and being able to connect it to the object. And then that was divided in six according to the six different senses.

Mental engagement

Then we started to talk about mental engagement last time, didn’t we? No, we didn’t? We didn’t yet. No? This is a good one. Mental engagement is also sometimes translated as attention. 

Mental engagement is a distinct mental factor that functions to direct the primary mind and mental factors with which it is associated to the object and to actually apprehend the object. It focuses and holds the mind on an object without allowing it to move elsewhere. 

This is the mental factor of attention, where we actually attend to an object—we hold an object. Or it’s called mental engagement because our mind is engaging with the object. This can, again, occur with both conceptual and non-conceptual minds, because remember, it’s one of the five omnipresent mental factors, so it’s there with all the consciousnesses. It acts as the basis for us to develop mindfulness or memory—which we’ll come to shortly, because that’s one of the five object-ascertaining mental factors—and also to develop single-pointedness, which is another one of the five object-ascertaining mental factors. Attention kind of holds the object, and upon that basis we develop mindfulness; we develop concentration. 

It also serves as the basis for us to develop introspective alertness, which is another mental factor. Introspective alertness kind of pops up and sees what our mind is paying attention to. In other words, when we start to meditate, the mind pays attention to the breath for about as long as a finger snap. As the mind starts paying attention to other things, introspective alertness pops up to check and see if it’s still on the breath or has gone elsewhere. We’ll talk more about introspective alertness later, but it’s just to show a little bit how these different mental factors relate, and how they really affect one another.

Attention focuses the mind on the specific details of the object. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to hold the mind or focus the mind on an object. We wouldn’t be able to attend to the object, to engage with the object.

Incorrect mental engagement

Now this can probably be broken down into the usual six according to the six types of consciousnesses. But there’s another real interesting way it’s broken down, which is into realistic mental engagement and mistaken mental engagement. For those of you who took the lamrim retreat, remember how we talked about six factors that allow for the disturbing attitudes to arise? Remember that? It’s in the path of the person of middle capacity, and habit and predisposition and media and things like that. And incorrect mental engagement was one of those factors that causes the disturbing attitudes to arise. Because when we have incorrect mental engagement, our mind is attending to all of our own internal hallucinations. Hallucination is another way to say neuroses. 

Incorrect mental engagement is the one that gets all obsessed with our problem; it’s the one that worries. We get really worried about something, so the mind is paying attention to the object of our worry, which we have misconstrued, we have misunderstood. So, we develop all this worry and tension about it. Or we misconstrue our problem and make our problem super solid, and then we do our single-pointed concentration number on it, so then we have our attention right on “my problem.” And then we spin around our problem: “He said this, and then they did that, and what’s going to be this, and how’s that, and this and that, and blah, blah, blah.” 

I won’t give you all the boring details of the latest chapter of my problem, but it’s a bit exciting. I still don’t know if the book’s going to get published. Hopefully we’ll have some resolution. Anyway, the mind gets completely obsessed with this book, and totally wandering around all the politics going around this book, which is designed to eliminate politics. It’s a very interesting procedure. 

This mental engagement is the incorrect variety. Because it’s making a whole bunch of different conditions into some super solid thing, which is the national crisis of the week. So, this is incorrect mental engagement. It’s very clear how that makes the disturbing attitudes arise. Because when we focus on things in an exaggerated way, and we misinterpret them, and we make them very solid, and we make them more important than they are, then, of course, all of our disturbing attitudes arise one after the other like the rose parade and all the floats go by. All the disturbing attitudes just flow on by effortlessly. That’s the incorrect mental engagement. 

Correct mental engagement

Then the correct, or the realistic mental engagement, is what we’re trying to cultivate in our meditation. For example, when we sit down to do analytic meditation, we are focusing our mind on, let’s say, precious human life, or on death and impermanence, or on the qualities of the Buddha so that we can take refuge. Maybe we focus the mind on cause and effect and how they work, and the different qualities of karma, the different results of karma, the different factors that make a particular action complete or incomplete. We focus our mind on one of the lamrim subjects, and we make an effort to understand that, and that becomes realistic or correct mental engagement.

You can really see the scope of our mind and how important it is to be aware of where our mental engagement and our attention is. Because we can be spinning around our stories, driving ourselves and everybody else around us nuts, or we can be concentrating on something useful and really developing our qualities. It depends a lot where our mental engagement is.

Audience: It’s kind of a silly question, but how come it’s so easy to do the incorrect one if there won’t be the same factor? It’s the same mental factor. 

VTC: How come we so easily put it in the incorrect way and not the realistic way? 

Audience: Couldn’t we obsess about emptiness? [laughter]  

VTC: Yes. This is it.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: It’s by the power of habit. We just have a lot of habitual energy to obsess about our relationships and obsess about our money and obsess about our looks and obsess about all these other things. There’s a lot of habitual energy there, so the attention flows very easily in that way. Also, of course, the more we watch TV and listen to the radio and read magazines, the more that’s directing our attention to objects of obsession also. It just reinforces that whole habit, so it goes more easily in that direction.

Your point is very good. It’s the same mental factor. Why not just put it on something constructive and realistic? We need aspiration to do that. We’re going to be talking about aspiration soon. We need the intention, because the intention is going to direct our mind there. We need habitual aspiration and intention. Again, as we make these other mental factors stronger, then the mental engagement focusing on realistic things is also going to be stronger. And if you start studying about emptiness or start studying about bodhicitta, and your mind’s really interested in it and you’re really eager to understand it because you understand the benefits of it, then that whole subject seems very, very interesting to you. And then as you’re walking around the city, you begin to think about emptiness. You begin to think about bodhicitta. It comes in the mind quite easily. When the aspiration and the intention aren’t there, and then there’s no habit there, and then the mind starts paying attention to everything else.

But you’re right. It’s the same mental factor. And it’s occurring in every single moment of our consciousness. So, all we have to do is just shift it one degree towards something else. 

Audience: Just as you were talking, I felt that also. There’s so often that correct engagement might be a realization that we’re not ready to think upon ourselves.

VTC: I don’t think we need to be afraid of that. 

Audience: Well, you know, it’s like if you really think of emptiness, or if you think about something, that might mean that you might have to make changes in your life. Do you know what I mean? So, that’s probably one reason. I just gave myself a question when you were saying that. That might be a reason why it would be easier for me to think of something that I’m comfortable with in my life, even though I’m not happy with, but think of something that means if I get deep into this, I might have to change something that I’m not ready to change. 

VTC: It’s not that we’re not ready to change. Ego isn’t ready to change. And ego’s never going to be ready. Yes, ego’s never ready to change. But that’s very true what you say. Lots of distraction comes in. Distraction just diverts the mental attention off to the right field.

This is another really good one to be aware of in daily life. Again, just as you’re moving through your day-in-day-life, where is my attention? What am I putting my attention on? When you’re driving down the highway, you’re stuck in the traffic jam, you’re sitting in the bus, or you’re waiting in line at the bank or at the supermarket: what is my attention going towards? And then watch that whatever we shift our attention towards, it in turn generates a whole response and either other disturbing attitudes or other beneficial attitudes. Because we shift our mind towards ice cream, then the mind starts going off around ice cream.

Well, it depends because you can shift your mind to ice cream and then offer it to all the Buddhas. So, that’s okay. But just be aware of where the mind is going and how we’re interacting with the object. 

That’s why I think it is very important to really watch, and I encourage people a lot, as you’re getting into Dharma practice, to really be aware of your relationship with the media. Because the media controls a lot of our attention. And it puts a lot of values in us. And not only is it an object of addiction that we totally plug ourselves into, but it really directs our attention away from the Dharma and feeds us a lot of garbage kind of thoughts. Unless we can be really astute and aware—in that case, the media can be an incredible lamrim meditation. 

Really, you read the newspaper and what a lesson it is about karma, what a talk about the disadvantages of self-cherishing. Read the front-page of the newspaper. It’s an incredible Dharma talk about the disadvantages of self-cherishing. And it doesn’t matter on what day you read. Any day is an incredible Dharma talk about that, or about impermanence. So again, we not only have to be aware of where our attention goes but also how we interact with whatever object our attention is on. When our mind is very, very uncontrolled, then it’s good to really be aware of where we’re putting our attention. Because the disturbing attitudes arise very, very easily, as we all know.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: I think that’s more or less neutral. If you’re thinking about taking your shoes off, in terms of intention, not attention then that’s pretty neutral. And that’s why actually the thought transformation practice can be very good. Because instead of leaving it as a neutral action of taking your shoes off, you can try and think, “Now I’m leaving behind all the defilements. I’m leaving all my anger—and not only my anger, but all the anger and disturbing attitudes of all sentient beings—on the doorstep.” So, every time you take your shoes off, if you think like that, if you develop that kind of intention, then it transforms a normally neutral action into a constructive one. 

Those are the five omnipresent mental factors that we just went through: feeling, discrimination, intention, contact, and mental engagement.

Five object-ascertaining mental factors

Now we’re ready to start on the second big section of mental factors, which are called the five object-ascertaining mental factors. They’re called object-ascertaining—or another translation is determining mental factors—because they apprehend the individual features of an object. There are five of them here. There’s aspiration, appreciation, mindfulness, single-pointedness, and intelligence. 

Aspiration [for example] ascertains what is desirable in the object. Appreciation—[or another translation for that one is belief]—ascertains what’s valuable in the object. Mindfulness ascertains what has to be borne in mind. Concentration ascertains what the object is and holds the mind on it. Intelligence ascertains the reality or unreality, [the usefulness or unusefulness], of an object. 

These five are also very, very important ones, because the more we can develop these five in a constructive way, then the easier it is to create positive thoughts and thus positive karma. Some texts say that if one of these is present, all five are, in some form or another. They actively engage in a task, and they give direction and coherence and meaning to our perception, because they ascertain different aspects of what we’re perceiving. 

There are kind of two different views on these. One text, the Abhidharmakosa, says that these five can occur with both constructive and destructive, virtuous and nonvirtuous, minds. And Asanga’s text, which is called Ngönpaküntü, says that they only happen with virtuous minds, and that the ones that happen with nonvirtuous minds are only similitudes of this. In other words, they’re like this, but they’re not the real ones. 

For example, they would say that it’s only this mental factor of aspiration when you aspire for Buddhahood, but when you aspire for more chocolate cake, then it’s only a similitude of this mental factor. Whereas the Abhidharmakosa says, no, that aspiration is also this mental factor. I think what’s kind of interesting; I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. The highest tenets say it’s only the virtuous ones, so I trust their opinion, but I don’t know why.

I think it’s also interesting to understand how these five can work in non-beneficial ways, too. Because whether it’s the real mental factors or only similitudes, still it really helps us understand our mind more, for example, when we have unproductive aspirations or unproductive beliefs, or we use our intelligence in a wrong way, or we develop our single-pointedness and our mindfulness on incorrect things. I’ll talk about them, making examples of both, because I think it’s helpful in terms of practice. 

Audience: Are you saying that you can aspire to be Buddha, but you can’t aspire to be…?

VTC: What I’m saying is, in the debate between these texts, some are saying you can aspire to go out and clobber somebody if you want to, but other texts would say that it’s not this real mental factor, it’s only a similitude. It’s only one similar to it, but it’s not really this one. It’s an aspiration which is a similitude of this mental factor; it’s not the real one. That’s what they’re saying. They’re not saying that it’s not possible to aspire to clobber someone.

Audience: Is that because you kind of trick yourself into saying it’s a good cause? “I’m killing this person because they like killing me.” 

VTC: No. No, it has nothing to do with that. We’re just talking about a textual debate here. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: No, they’re saying it is a mental factor, but they don’t classify it as this one. So, what they’re doing is they’re getting into all these detailed classifications and saying, “Well, we don’t say it’s the real aspiration because the real mental factor of aspiration only is a virtuous one, but it is a mental factor that’s a similitude of this one.” They are saying it is a mental factor, but it’s like a different one. Because, remember, the 51 mental factors are not an exhaustive description of all the mental factors. There are many more.

Is this clear? Are people okay about this? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: They would call it aspiration, which is a similitude. And I think the reason they would do that is because the reason they sometimes make these fine lines in how they classify things is because they want to emphasize to us the importance of these five when developing positive thoughts. They want to really emphasize how important these are for practice by saying these are the real mental factors and the other ones are similitudes.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: It’s just a way of classifying things. The Abhidharmakosa would say correct aspiration and incorrect aspiration. Whereas the other one would say, “Oh, well, one is the mental factor of this and one is a similitude.” So, it’s just different ways of classifying, I think, as a way of giving different emphasis. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Why fifty-one? It’s because these fifty-one are like the main principal ones. For example, the Buddha said in the teachings that we have 84,000 disturbing attitudes. Well, there are six root ones and 20 auxiliary ones. If we got into an exhaustive list of all 84,000…. I’m sure there are 84,000 positive ones, too. It’s just a way of condensing the material to point out the really important things to us. Also, because as you get down into all these classifications of 84,000, obviously you’re getting into subcategories of principal ones. Because, for example, when we start talking about the six root disturbing attitudes and the 20 auxiliary ones, the 20 auxiliary ones can be categorized under the six.

Are people okay? Just remember that symmetry is stupid. And we’ll all be clear then. [laugher]

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Ngönpaküntü—It’s Asanga’s abhidharma text. What’s the title in Sanskrit? Abhidharma-samuccaya. Ngönpaküntü is the Tibetan.

The importance of aspiration

The first one under these is aspiration. 

Aspiration is a distinct mental factor that having focused upon an intended object takes a strong interest in it. 

And so it’s the basis for joyous effort. It’s, in general, any wish or yearning or longing to obtain something. That’s an aspiration. In terms of practice, it’s very important to gear our aspirations towards constructive things. In fact, a lot of our Dharma practice is basically centered around cultivating this particular mental factor. For example, when we meditate on precious human life, as a result of that, we generate the aspiration to use our time wisely and not waste it. When we meditate on death and impermanence, it causes us automatically to generate the aspiration to practice Dharma, to practice it now, and to practice it purely.

When we meditate on the Buddha’s qualities, it helps us develop the aspiration to turn to the Buddha-Dharma-Sangha for refuge and to also actualize and become the Buddha-Dharma-Sangha ourselves. When we meditate on cause and effect, it helps us develop the aspiration to abandon negative actions and create positive ones, and to purify negative ones. When we meditate on the four noble truths and on the disadvantages of cyclic existence and the causes of cyclic existence, then that helps us to develop the aspiration to be free of cyclic existence. That’s the determination to be free, one of the three principles of the path, remember? So, that determination to be free, that aspiration to attain liberation, that’s this mental factor.

When we do the whole series of bodhicitta meditations, it helps us develop bodhicitta, which is a primary mind that has two associated mental factors of aspiration. One is the aspiration to benefit sentient beings, and the other is the aspiration to become a Buddha. So, bodhicitta has those two aspirations with it. We can see that a lot of the lamrim meditation is designed to help us develop aspirations that are really constructive. Because once we have the aspiration, then the aspiration causes the joyous effort to engage in the practice. And the joyous effort, of course, brings the result of the practice.

To develop aspiration, it means that we have to learn something about the Dharma, learn these different meditations. And then from the learning and contemplating, then we develop the aspiration, which leads to joyous effort, which comes later under the eleven virtuous mental factors. And then that leads to actually gaining experience.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: The relationship between intention and aspiration, they go very much together. Because as you develop aspirations, then your mind really intends something. Intention accompanies every single moment of mind whereas aspiration doesn’t necessarily. Intention moves the mind to the object. Aspiration gives intention a lot of oomph to move the mind to a constructive object. Or conversely, if we have goofy kind of aspiration, then intention goes that way. And then we intend to play poker all night because we aspire to win. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes. For example, if you’re meditating on precious human life, aspiration would see the desirability of a precious human life. It would be able to ascertain that and therefore aspire to use it in a wise way and not waste it. Or in meditating on cause and effect, aspiration would see why it is desirable to be aware of cause and effect and pay attention to it. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Ah, desire: here we run into some translation problems. Because the English word desire has many, many different meanings, and some of those meanings you’ll find Buddhist words for. But there’s no Buddhist word that has the whole variety of meanings that the word desire has in English. So sometimes, for example, the word that I often translate as attachment, some authors translate as desire. That’s why in some texts you’ll read, and the Buddha said eliminate desire. Or you’ll read that the path to enlightenment is desireless-ness.

If you understand correctly that the word desire in that context means an attitude that projects good qualities and exaggerates good qualities and gets stuck on an object, then you’ll understand what desireless-ness means. But if you don’t understand that and you’re just going by the English word, then you think, “The Buddha said that we should stop all desire, but does that mean I should never eat again? Does that mean I’m not supposed to have the aspiration for enlightenment? Does that mean I shouldn’t desire to help somebody?” The English word has a negative connotation in the sense of attachment, but the English word has a very positive connotation in the sense of aspiration. 

So, regarding the English word desire, some desires are this mental factor of aspiration. They’re quite constructive when you desire to help somebody, or you desire to do your practice, or you desire to understand reality. Other desires are clearly counterproductive to our practice.  It’s a tricky word in terms of translation. And I explain this to you in depth because you will read other books that use the word desire in a specific way and so that you don’t go into crisis when you’re reading them. Because really a lot of misunderstandings that we often get from reading Buddhist books have to do with the vocabulary because there’s no exact English word that means the same thing as the Buddhist word. That’s why it’s really important to rely on all the technical terminology that we understand exactly what its definition is and not just rely on our English meaning.

This one of aspiration is very important. Also, for those of you who were in the lamrim class, remember when we talked about calm abiding and we were talking about the eight antidotes to the five hindrances? Remember that? So, remember? [laughter] Actually, it’s quite interesting because if you remember the five hindrances and the eight antidotes, a lot of them are sprinkled in through the mental factors here. Because, for example, one of the hindrances is laziness, which will come when we get to the secondary disturbing attitudes. Then there are four antidotes to that. One was faith or confidence, which is going to come when we get to the eleven virtuous ones. Second one was aspiration, this one. Then third was joyous effort, which is one of the eleven. And fourth was pliancy, which is also one of the eleven. 

This one of aspiration is real important if we’re going to develop concentration. Because we tend to be very lazy, it’s difficult to get ourselves on the meditation cushion. So, first of all we have to develop some conviction or confidence by thinking of the advantages of meditating. When we think of the advantages, then we develop an aspiration to do it. That’s this mental factor. As soon as we have the aspiration, then the enthusiasm comes quite naturally. We don’t need to force it. And then, of course, the results start happening. 

Aspiration is a very, very important mental factor. Because in some ways we do get what we want. It just depends what we want. What we aspire for is really going to impact what happens to us. The more we can learn about the Dharma, the more we can begin to tell the difference between positive aspirations and negative ones. The more we learn and the deeper our understanding, then the more the aspirations grow and then the easier the practice becomes. At the beginning, very often, our aspiration is weak. So then very difficult to practice, isn’t it? Because the aspiration to stay under the covers in the morning is stronger than the aspiration to get up. [laughter] Unless you have a cat that jumps on top of you. See, that’s the advantages of having cats.

They say that of the five object-ascertaining mental factors, this one is the most important because it makes us seek the desired object. And if we seek that, then the other ones naturally follow along. It’s also very curious because as you begin to understand the other of these five object-ascertaining ones, you can also see how when you develop those more, it helps you develop the proper aspiration, too. As our intelligence and our single-pointedness develop, then we can focus our mind more on meditating, and our aspiration to meditate increases because our understanding of meditation is deepened. So, all these different mental factors really influence each other very much. 

Ways of classifying aspiration

There’s one way of classifying aspiration into three. This is not necessarily talking about the virtuous aspiration. This can include a lot of our screwy aspirations also. 

One is aspiration to encounter again that which has passed. 

This is, for example, when we get stuck in our daydreaming and our aspiration wants to encounter again what we experienced in the past. So, you spent this fantastic holiday with this great person and the mind starts daydreaming about it, and you aspire to have it happen again. That’s this one. Or, when you meditate, you have a really good meditation session and then you aspire to recreate that meditation session in every single next one. So, you get so tense and so tight because you want to recreate that good, blissful feeling that you become totally blocked. 

Another kind of aspiration is to not be separated from what one is presently experiencing. 

The first category of aspiration dealt with aspiring for the things in the past. This one is aspiring not to be separated from things in the present. When you’re having a really good time, you don’t want it to end. You want your piece of chocolate cake to last forever. Whatever it is. We’re aspiring to not be separated from what’s going on.

The third kind of aspiration is to aspire to attain a certain goal in the future. 

So, you see these three kinds of aspiration. One deals with the past, the others the present and the future. We can also see that they can, all of them, be either constructive or destructive depending upon what we’re aspiring for. Now this one about aspiring for the future, that’s divided into four. It has four subdivisions.

Subdivisions of aspiring for the future

The first one is taking a strong interest in sense objects. This is a type of aspiration for the future where your mind is strongly interested in sense objects. You’re planning about what you’re going to buy, and what you’re going to cook, and where you’re going to go, and what kind of clothes you’re going to have, and how nice it’s going to be to go skiing, and all the pretty things you want to see at the antique store. The mind is aspiring for something in the future which is a sense object. That kind of aspiration is very directly linked to attachment. That’s very clear, yes? 

The second one is aspiration for hustle and bustle, aspiration to keep busy. This is the aspiration where we invent ten million things that we have to do that are crucially important. Where we can’t sit and just look at the people we live with, or look at ourself, or be peaceful. We have to always be involved in going to the disco, and going to the movie, and going to the museum, and going to the concert, and going this and going that. Complete hustle and bustle. The mind that aspires for busyness.

The third one is aspiration for a particular opinion or view. This one is where you’re aspiring to understand something. Again, sometimes we aspire to understand things that are quite useful and beneficial. Sometimes we aspire to understand just exactly whodunit. I won’t mention the case, because you told me you were fed up with it. [laughter] Our aspirations can go in all sorts of directions to aspire to understand something, to aspire for a certain view.

The last kind of aspiration for the future is aspiration for liberation. This is the determination to be free, which is commonly translated as renunciation, but renunciation is really not a correct English word that adequately expresses the meaning. Because with renunciation, we get a real horrible feeling, don’t we? We have to renounce something: “Oh God, I have to live in a cave and eat nettles.” That’s what we think of with renunciation. If we hear about that, well, who wants to renounce? Who wants to meditate to develop renunciation? It sounds like starving yourself or something. 

But if you think the aspiration to be free, the determination to be free, well, that is actually a much better translation of the word. The Tibetan term is nge jung. Nge means definite and jung to arise or to come forth. So, you definitely want to come forth. You aspire to be free. That’s something that’s interesting to us, isn’t it? And we don’t get this feeling of a torturous path if we develop it. That’s this fourth kind of aspiration here, which is a very, very important one. 

So, you see how so many of the analytic meditations are directed towards helping us develop proper aspiration in our practice? Because if we don’t have the aspiration, then we’re not going to put our intention and our concentration on certain things, and then of course we’re not going to be able to develop them. So many of the meditations, especially like in the lamrim, so many of the meditations are about the advantages and disadvantages of this and that. The advantages of meditating on death, the disadvantages of not remembering death, advantages of taking refuge, advantages of developing concentration, advantages of meditating on emptiness, advantages of cherishing others, disadvantages of self-cherishing. So many of the meditations in the lamrim are talking about advantages and disadvantages. And they’re really designed to help us develop this mental factor of aspiration.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: The first two sound like they’re on the harmful side to me. But of course, desire for aspiration for sense objects: if you’re aspiring to go out and get some food so you can give it to somebody, or you’re aspiring even to go out and get some food so you can eat it and keep your body healthy, that’s a fine kind of aspiration. It’s when we aspire for the food because it tastes good and it’s going to really make me happy. So, it depends exactly what the aspirations are. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Are the thoughts the mental factor or the object? Well, this is a real interesting question because in English we usually think of the thought as the object, but in Buddhism the thought is the consciousness. It wouldn’t just be that particular mental factor, it would be the consciousness that has that mental factor. Remember, it’s the same nature as that mental factor. The object of that conceptual mental consciousness would be a mental image of whatever it is you’re thinking about.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: When you say chocolate cake, it’s the image of chocolate cake appearing to your mind. With the sound of a ball, it wouldn’t be the actual sound, but it would be the conceptual ringing of the bell. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: How is it held by this? There you would be having a primary mental consciousness, and its object of perception, maybe you’re thinking about p’s and q’s in philosophy, would be the observed objects, would be the philosophical p’s and q’s. But the thought would be that mental consciousness that is thinking. Because our English word “thought” is a very ambiguous one. We use the English word “thought” to refer to the object and to the subject, the subjective aspect. In Buddhism you’re using “thought” mostly to refer to the subjective aspect and the image.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: No. That would be the object that you’re thinking about. Like, I don’t know—what do they think about in philosophy nowadays? It’s been so long; I don’t know. You’re thinking about: does God exist? So then all those thoughts about “Does God exist,” they would be mental images appearing to your mind, but it’s your primary mental consciousness that’s doing the thinking. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: When you visualize the Buddha, the image of the Buddha appearing to your mind, that’s a mental image.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Then the image is whatever concept you have of God.

Audience: [Inaudible] 

VTC: No, it would just be God and that whole thing around it. 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

VTC: Language is all concept. When we talk to ourselves, even though we’re not moving our lips, those are images of sounds. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Then the content, that’s also images. It’s like when you say a word: you have the sound of the word and the meaning of the word. When you’re talking to yourself, you have the image of the sound of the word, and then you have the image of what the word is referring to. It’s just an image appearing to the mind. It’s not a real object appearing to the mind, is it? Anything that appears to conceptual mind is an image.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Well, remember, feeling here in the mental factors is used in a very specific way. It’s pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling. The image, if you’re thinking of a friend, your friend would be the observed object. You’d have a mental image of your friend’s face and your friend’s voice and what you did with your friend. And then from that, from the fact of thinking about your friend, then you would develop pleasant feelings and then other things would start to flow from there. 

This is another one to be aware of: “What does it mean to have an image appear to our mind? What does it mean to think? What’s going on when we think? When we’re thinking about something, the thing that’s appearing to the mind, is it a real thing?” When you’re sitting in this room thinking about the Olympic Mountains, are the real Olympic Mountains appearing to your mind? No, it’s an image of the Olympic Mountains. And remember when we did that experiment, and I had you look at the color and then close your eyes and imagine it? You were saying that when you close your eyes and imagine it, it wasn’t as vivid, and that it’s mixed up with all sorts of other images of things you had thought of in the past? That’s all images. It’s appearing to a conceptual mental consciousness. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: We develop images. It doesn’t have to be a visual image appearing to the mind. It doesn’t matter when you’re thinking about “Does freedom exist?” It doesn’t mean that freedom is purple with pink polka dots. That’s a visual image appearing to your mind, but you can have an abstract image, like when we do all of our thought about “What does freedom mean” and “What really is freedom.” 

Audience: What is the abstraction outside of the word? What kind of image of freedom can you have outside of the word freedom—pictures of a pyramid square or something?

VTC: We develop our own whole repertoire of what freedom means, don’t we? And very often we might relate it to something that we’ve perceived with our senses, but then we really make it more abstract from there, too. Like sometimes we may just think of freedom and just think of this exhilarating feeling, or we might think of freedom as the First Amendment. Whenever we think about anything, we’re looking at it from a whole variety of different sides and we’re really developing a lot of mental images about a certain word, trying to understand it. But maybe look in your own mind. Because I’m describing just what I’ve observed with my mind. Maybe check your minds and see what’s going on. Because maybe you find something different, or maybe you can be more precise about it than I am. But it’s real interesting—just watch when you’re thinking about something, what’s going on.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Well, like we said, the thought is the subjective aspect. Whenever you have a perception, there’s a subjective aspect and an objective aspect. When I perceive yellow, yellow is the object. My consciousness perceiving the yellow is the subject. When I hear a sound, the sound is the object. The consciousness hearing the sound is the subject. When I’m thinking a thought, the mental image of all freedom, this, that, and the other thing is the object. The consciousness that’s having this appear to it is the subjective aspect. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: That’s one of the things. It’s not the object.  It’s not something external. We can both look at yellow together. But because I’m thinking about freedom doesn’t mean you’re going to perceive what I’m thinking about. So, it’s a lot of internal objects, isn’t it? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: They exist interdependently. That’s why in Buddhism usually they say the thought refers more to the subjective aspect. Because we’ll say you have a thought about the dog. The thought about the dog means the mental consciousness conceiving the dog. The image of the dog is the object that’s appearing to the mind. The dog is the object. But it’s the image of the dog that’s appearing to the mind. And then that conceptual mind that’s having that is the thought. 

Audience: What about emotions?

VTC: Well, regarding emotions, it’s very interesting because I think when we have emotions often our thoughts are very, very involved with them. And in fact, the disturbing attitudes are considered to be conceptual consciousnesses. In other words, for example, when we’re angry although we think of anger not as a thought but as a feeling, in Buddhism anger is described as a conceptual consciousness. In other words, it is a type of thought which exaggerates the negative aspect of something and then wants to strike back at it. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Well, it’s our whole experience of anger. But it’s an interesting thing to look at when we’re angry because sometimes it’s hard to, even in our own experience, decide what’s mental and what’s physical? Because we’re so used to experiencing it all together in one packet that when we get angry and our stomach tightens, we’re not aware that the body that we’re experiencing something with is actually a tactile consciousness. Our stomach tightening when we’re angry is tactile consciousness. That feeling of tightness is a physical object appearing to the tactile consciousness. Then there’s the mind that is involved in all the thoughts of anger. Then there’s the whole adrenaline that’s doing its trip, which is giving us other tactile consciousnesses. 

In English, what we call anger is a very loose thing that encompasses all these different things going on. But when you dissect our English meaning of it, it actually has many different parts, doesn’t it? It has a part that’s going on in the mind, a part that’s going on in the body, and they influence each other.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: The mind’s impermanent. The whole thing’s impermanent. Anything that functions is changing moment by moment. 

Audience: I think that what confuses the issue is the word image. Because I think that I have an understanding of the word image as something concrete—again, as something visual. So, when we’re talking about abstraction and the idea of having a mental image then we can’t really see that a feeling can be a mental image or that an image is actually a perception of reality. Because if you say “love,” there’s going to be an image, but it’s not going to be a visual image. It’s not like how when you say freedom, there’s going to be an image. But for us to call what we feel about freedom an image is very hard. Because when you say image you almost immediately think that you have to have a visual component in the word freedom.

VTC: So, we have to give the word image a new definition, a Buddhist definition. Can you think of another word? Except again, conception in Buddhism is referring to the subjective aspect. 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

VTC: It’s a memory; it’s an image. I see what you mean because the word image connotes a visual image. But here we’re referring to any kind of image, not necessarily a visual one. But it’s definitely an abstraction. An image is definitely an abstraction. Anything you’re thinking about is an abstraction. It’s not the real thing. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: That works to some extent. But then we also talk about karmic imprints, so that complicates it.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: No, it’s really good. Think of other words because it is a type of impression that’s going on in our mind. 

Audience: I think it means thought as a factor and thought as a relationship.

VTC: If you’re thinking about the dog, the dog is the engaged object. But what’s appearing to your mind, the appearing object, is a mental image of a dog. Now, your mental image of a dog could be a visual mental image, or it could be an auditory mental image as you think of a dog barking. It could be that when you remember the smell of a dog, you get an olfactory mental image. Or when you think of petting the dog, you’re getting a tactile mental image. So, image doesn’t mean just something visual.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes, representation. Okay, so you get a mental representation. I wish English had things with fewer syllables. But that’s it. Yes, thank you. That’s good.

Audience: I was wondering if the representation of freedom as an unenlightened being is not what it actually is if I were a realized being, so then my aspiration for it is not to be virtuous? 

VTC: This is a very good question. Because we are aspiring for things that we don’t have direct perception of. This is one reason why it’s important to study, because as we hear teachings, then our mental representation gets finer and more refined. And it gets more accurate. And it’s still a representation, but eventually by doing the practice it becomes the reality. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes, I mean like with “freedom.” They would say that’s something that is an imputed object. And they also say that the Buddha doesn’t have conceptual mind. So again, this one I have a little bit of an issue with because freedom is something that exists by being imputed, which means that somehow there’s some concept. So, I don’t get that myself. Add that to the Geshe-la list. Are you making a Geshe-la list? No, I have to have one from you guys, because then I can go and I can say, “Geshe-la, look, it’s not just my questions; it’s their questions.” It’s this Geshe with the small picture—Geshe Sonam Rinchen—he’s the one. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Oh, the intention. Yes, how can it have the same object? That’s good. Maybe I’ll make a tape. I have to borrow someone’s tape recorder. I’ll make a tape of him talking to you. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Well, probably you would say that the determination to be free is a primary mind with this aspiration for enlightenment, and the bodhicitta is a primary mind with two aspirations. Determination to be free is aspiring for liberation and aspiring to be free of cyclic existence. Bodhicitta has two aspirations. One is for enlightenment and one is to benefit sentient beings. The wisdom realizing emptiness is not an aspiration.

Audience: Wait a minute, I thought that renunciation and aspiration were the same thing. 

VTC: No, no, no. Renunciation or the determination to be free is a type of aspiration. 

Audience: So that means that the first one of the path is not a mental factor. 

VTC: No, it is a mental factor. It’s a type of aspiration. 

Audience: Oh, okay. 

VTC: Yes, it’s a primary mind with that aspiration. 

You can see why those two aspirations are really important, because if you have the determination to be free, if you have the bodhicitta, then we’re going to be able to get it together to realize emptiness, which is the third of the three principles. If we don’t have either one of those two aspirations, then we’re not going to get it together to perceive emptiness, because we’re going to have no reason for it, no aspiration for it.

Audience: Are there any examples of non-conceptual mental consciousnesses ordinary beings experience?.

VTC: Are there any kind of non-conceptual mental consciousnesses? Well, they say that at the end of a series of moments of any sense conscious, then there’s a very brief moment of non-conceptual mental perception of that object. But it’s so brief that we’re not aware of it. But they say it’s there. Some schools, anyway, say it’s there. If you develop clairvoyance, which you can do before you get enlightened, then maybe.So, there’s hope. Then that’s a non-conceptual mental consciousness. 

This is an interesting one. I’m sure you won’t like this. Dreaming is a non-conceptual consciousness. It would seem that dreaming would be a conceptual one, wouldn’t it? That’s what I thought. But they say that it’s a non-conceptual mental consciousness that’s perceiving the dream objects—not the real objects, just the dream objects. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: It’s a mental consciousness, not a sense consciousness, and it’s non-conceptual. It doesn’t have the representation.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Right. No, they’ll say dreams is you have a dream object and you are having a direct perception of the dream object. But the dream object is not the real object. So, when you dream about your mother, you’re not perceiving your mother. It’s not the same as thinking about your mother, and it’s not the same as being in the presence of your mother. A dream mother is not your mother. [laughter]

Audience: I don’t know why it’s so hard to put dreams into words. If you kill somebody in a dream, you are not really killing someone. But don’t you still get the bad habit or karma?

VTC: To have a full action of karma, one of the factors you need is an object. If you kill somebody in the dream, it’s not a real person, so you’re missing the object. So, it’s not the complete action of karma. But I think if you have that dream, it creates some imprint. Also, that dream arose out of some imprint, too. The real vital thing is how you react to the dream once you wake up. You could wake up and say, “Oh, too bad it was a dream; I really wanted to kill them.” [laughter] Then you create a whole pile of negative karma. Or if you wake up and you think, “Oh my goodness, I don’t want to have that kind of wish towards anybody, and I want to even purify any impressions in my mind for that kind of stuff to appear,” then that becomes a very virtuous thing. 

Q & A

Are there any other questions? It’s too late to go on to the next mental factor, so if you have questions we can ask.

Audience: I’m not sure I know what a thought is. It’s a word, and it’s not a representation. 

VTC: No. A thought? Remember, we’re playing with the tricky English word. Yes, the thought is referring more to the consciousness. The representation is the content of that consciousness.

Audience: Consciousness is kind of a process?

VTC: Actually, I think the whole mind is just process. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: And even though we say mind, we say mind like mind is a thing, but actually it’s just a process. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: No, primary mind can also be with our sense consciousnesses. Yes, primary mental mind for us, mostly in our waking time, is conceptual. We’re busy thinking about stuff all day long. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: The primary mind is the thought. Because remember, thought is referring to the subjective aspect. This is how I understand it, anyway. 

Audience: I was thinking about people that I encounter that are Buddhists, and yet they have such a difficult or different understanding. Like, I feel very lucky for being in this group, and having this experience where you’re very clear about what you’re teaching us. And I thought that it might also have to do with the relationship between the teachers. Like, because we’re not sure, or because we’re not so clear, is that what we need? It’s like you need to have a teacher or a guru to guide you, to verify what it is that you are acquiring. Because I see so many people that end up with this perfect single-pointed concentration on their one object. And then they get very deluded. So, in a way, I think we have to have—I don’t know what to really call it—almost like faith. I don’t know what to call it—maybe refuge? 

VTC: Refuge combined with intelligence. So, we learn, and we definitely need to learn, don’t we? And then we need to use our intelligence to really think about what we learn and ascertain it for ourselves.

And that’s why His Holiness, two years ago at the teachers’ conference, really emphasized why it’s important to learn the scriptures. Because they aren’t just blab-blab words and theories, but it’s actual meditation instruction so that you know how to distinguish a positive from a negative aspiration, and so that you know exactly how to develop concentration and exactly what is emptiness. It’s very important. Because otherwise, if we don’t have the correct understanding of the path, we can meditate for years and years and not get anywhere. Or get to the wrong place. This all came about because someone at the conference asked His Holiness about how sometimes it seems that some people who we think have great realizations do very strange and seemingly unethical things out of negative motivation. And they asked, “How can they do that if they understand emptiness and if they’ve realized bodhicitta?” And His Holiness said, “Well, maybe they haven’t.” 

Of course, there’s the whole thing of when somebody does something that looks unethical, what’s their motivation? We don’t always know if they’re having an unethical motivation or not an unethical motivation. But if it is an unethical motivation, then you can’t have that realization at the same time. He was saying that that’s a pitfall of not actually knowing the steps of the path and how to practice them. As he was saying that, I almost started crying in this room because I just had so much gratitude for my own teachers.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Can we just have one? You can have whatever you want. [laughter]

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Devotion is very important. But devotion and intellectual understanding are not contradictory to each other. They go together. When you have a good understanding, then your devotion is solid. When you don’t have a good understanding, then you can be devoted for anything and it changes every week. But when you have understanding, then your devotion gets very deep and very stable. 

In Buddhism, this whole thing of faith on one hand and understanding, they aren’t diametrically opposed. We need to cultivate both. And they really enhance one another. As you understand, then you have more faith and confidence. The more faith and confidence that you have, then the more open your mind is, the easier it is to understand. And the more understanding you have, the more devotion you get. They go back and forth.

We can have unquestioned devotion. And very often many people enter the Dharma with kind of devotion. And that’s fine. We enter with all sorts of different things. Some people get in with unquestioned devotion, but then if they don’t cultivate that devotion and deepen it into some kind of understanding, then the devotion next week will go to Hare Krishna.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Somebody in the Wednesday night class complained about everything being so rational. I tried to explain to him that there’s nothing wrong with reason. It doesn’t prevent devotion. It doesn’t prevent feeling and experience. In fact, it actually enhances it. It’s just that our Western mind conceives of right brain and left brain as two separate different dimensions. That’s our wrong conception. We make everything with this line down the middle. And either you’re the intuitive type or you’re the intellectual type. If you’re one or the other you can’t communicate. You can’t have both sides. And from a Buddhist viewpoint that’s off the wall. Because we have both sides, don’t we? 

Sometimes in our practice the devotion side really takes over and we really focus on that. And that becomes stronger at certain times—maybe for a few months or a few years. But other times, when the mind shifts and it focuses more on the understanding side, sometimes they really come together.