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20070712GRNYMIND

Good evening and welcome here for tonight. So now I must say, we had this break in between and during the break that, I don't know where did I go? I went to Malaysia, that's right. Then we had a very, very nice Summer Retreat, actually really wonderful Summer Retreat. It was originally to focus more on compassion, but then it changed it's shape physically sort of by itself and became a very compact lam rim, a very good one. Many of you had attended so you know. So it was very good and including the wisdom aspects and everything. So looking back I was very happy with that.

So now we'll continue what we have started here. So what we started here is the mind and mental faculties. The reasons why we do this is actually all of us are getting together for one and only one purpose and that purpose is to be able to bring joy, happiness in our lives as well as to be able to reach to the total enlightenment because that is the only ultimate that one can get and without which neither the self purpose or the purpose of other, both are not fulfilled. So that is the reason why.

Many of us will have different ideas thinking 'well I'm here just to know something' or 'I'm here to be happy to bring happiness.' You may say, you may have any thoughts of your own, but the whole purpose will be to become totally enlightened and we can't bargain with that. There is nothing to be bargained with.

In beginning with we were not interested, we didn't even know what is enlightenment. We don't even know whether I am enlightened or not enlightened, what difference does that make to me? Why? Because we don't know, honestly. I don't mean I'm looking down on you people ok, please don't misunderstand, but we don't. So that is why; we don't know what our goal is.

Many times we go and do some spiritual practice and then our ultimate goal is not there. So something good, something nice, something you know and so the goal is not settled so therefore we do all kinds of things, all kinds of things. This is a problem you all know. This has been a problem ever since alternative spiritual practice has been developed in this country and even in the '60s this is the biggest problem. The goal is not clear so all kinds of things happen.

Now we are like you know, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, so it's really like five decades later, by now if we don't really clearly focus our main goal and then we we're going to get lost in that for another 100 or 200 years. So that is probably not very good. So I think it is really time, there are a number of you and a number of others also have set their goals and know that they know where they are going but many don't have it. So to settle the purpose for what you are doing is important.

Tibetan Buddhism always tells you enlightenment, enlightenment, enlightenment and it is very hard to swallow because: 1) You don't know what enlightenment is all about. 2) Even if you begin to have some idea 'alright Buddha is enlightened and there's no reason why I have to become a buddha' so many people keep on thinking that.

So those are very valid thoughts and ideas. These thoughts have to be entertained, these thoughts have to be analyzed. It is also positive that we must come down to really settle down to what is my goal and that is very important.

Sometimes people go and ask some lamas and rimpoches and some big names come around and then they will go and ask 'what is my purpose of life?' or 'what is my yiddam and what is my goal?' I mean we go, sometimes we go to people who have definition and ask them 'give me the definition.' Sometimes we go to astrologers and ask them 'what is the purpose of my life?' and 'what is my goal, can you find out?' So probably they say good life.

What is a good life? Well if you don't become good and you become yak or something in your future life, some astrologers tell them. Somebody keeps on telling me some astrologer, Tibetan astrologer, told that person somebody in Jewel Heart, I don't remember and you going to be Who? Oh it's you, you will be sheep [laughs]

Anyway that sort of thing, you know there is no point. So you know the traditional teaching advice tells us we don't have to go and find an astrologer or rimpoche or teacher to tell you because the traditional teaching says Buddha has already told us what our goal is. Not only told us once, but has given us three different goals. The best goal, middle level, and least. So the Buddha has already given us three goals already:

The first goal is at least we should get a good future life so that we don't suffer.

At least we should be free from all the pains and miseries and obtain nivana

We must, why settle for less than the best, to be fully enlightened

So this is the goals Buddha has given to those who are interested in the Buddha's path. So we do have a goal, we do have a focus, we do have a purpose. We are not just having spiritual practice to feel good. We're not just doing the spiritual practice to feel better. We are not here to practice spiritual practice to get cure my disease, that's not the purpose. The purpose here is, these are the three purposes and that is why we are here.

So the question is, how do we achieve our purpose? It does not depend on anything else except our mind. Our physical condition has nothing to do, almost. Almost it has nothing to do whether you are nice thin tall guy or big fat short guy like me or whatever you are it has nothing to do physically. Nothing. It is the mind, the mind. We've begin at the beginning of this and I don't mind looking back and repeating the words here.

11:45

kun du ku yue ma lu pah

sem leh cho wah yeh no che

tu beh so nam leh che beh

noh tu nam che je nam jeh sem di che bah jez

kwan de geh yu ma lu pah

Even in nirvana or samsara all the faults and good deeds, benefits and faults, advantages and disadvantages, all totally depend on the mind. They are all coming from mind, they're all created by mind, they are mind.

It depends on the mind. So therefore, if you are an intelligent person it is important to know how mind functions. This is how we began here. Then on top of that the Tibetan Buddhism is very rich from the literature point of view or from the teachings point of view extremely rich with dealing with the mind. I mean you turn anywhere everybody is whether they say it or don't say it it is dealing with the mind. You go anywhere, they talk to you about dzogchen. Dzogchen is nothing but the mental aspects of it. Then you go and talk to somebody they talk about mudra, and it is nothing but again mental aspects, mind. And you go to talk to gelupas they talk to you lam rim and this and that and that also nothing but the mind, dealing with the mind. Then you go and talk about the virtue and non-virtue, this is also mind. You go and talk about karma, it is based on the mind. So wherever you turn they talk to you emptiness, it is the mind aspect of it; compassion, mind aspects of it. So wherever you look it is dealing with the mind. Whether you, you know Tibetans old Tibetan saying:

14:25 [this Tibetan is just way too fast for me to make heads or tails of]

It's saying: if you make a right turn you reach the lady who is selling the bread. If you make a left turn you reach the lady who is selling the bread, so it is all bread.

So just like that, it is all mind. Whatever you talk, dzogchen is mind, uma that is mind, tun yen or emptiness it is mind, compassion it is mind so it is the mind is the most important thing.

There are a lot of ways of looking into this mind, so this is one of them. What we are looking at; mental principle and mental faculties. We call them 51 mental faculties or 51 different, but each one of them are not separate mind, but in order to understand the mind better we take the mind into pieces and parts and parcels and then we label them and we give a definition of them. We look at it, turn them around; whether this is this or that what it is. That's what we do. That's why these 51 mental faculties are coming.

Out of those we just briefly explaining covered the principal mind was already covered, and then the first segment of five of what we call it gun doh which is omnipresent mental factors. Omnipresent mental factors, did I pronounce that correctly? So there are five sets. Five of them called omnipresent mental factors

5 Omnipresent mental factors

5 Ascertaining mental factors

11 Virtuous mind, that's simple

6 Root negative emotions

20 Secondary negative emotions

4 Changing mental factors

So that makes 51, right? So that is 51. These are not separate 51 minds, no. Otherwise we have to be 51 different, what do we call it? Fifty-one different split personalities within us, so that's not it. It is the part and parcel of our mind and it is one functioning mind so out of which we have already covered three. Can you name those three? Dun bah.

Audience: feeling

GR: feeling tsor wah, then?

Audience: Discerning, discernment.

GR: Ok, you're reading Gunther, right? You're reading Gunther?

Audience: No I'm reading...

GR: Geshe Rabten, alright. Anybody have Gunther with you? Anybody? Actually there are three, yeah you have Gunther? Oh, confusing, that's why we meet and talk

[Can't make out talk from audience]

GR: Well feeling is fine, there's no problem, that is tsor wah in Tibetan and then second is du che in Tibetan what do you have?

Audience: We also have collecting and functioning, but Geshe Rabten says discernment.

GR: Discernment, that's fine and Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says what? We've got like three English books available on that in English then? Who? Gunther calls sensation, ok, then the third one is mind or sem pa,

Audience: Gunther called that correctionality of the mind, sem pa

GR: Ok.

Audience: Geshe Rabten calls it intention.

GR: Intention, right. One is intention and the other is attention, I think. Attention and intention. Alright and then? Then reg pa is ....

Audience: Collective contact.

GR: Contact, it's contact reg pa is contact and intention, that's it. Attention, ok.

So I think we've supposed to have covered three already, so whether we are ok with the terminology today or not you have it. It is already done in my case and you have the transcripts are probably available, not available, right?

Audience: Not yet..

GR: Not yet, ok. Huh? You've go four of them, ok.

So now what we have to deal with today is contact and attention, right? So unless I finished that, so we're going to be stuck a long time.

So it is very funny the contact what we have is called reg pa in Tibetan, it is not the same as Sogyal Rimpoche's organization called Rigpa Organization, it is not the same. That is 'rig' and this is 'reg' the only difference is the vowel, i and e.

So here it's actually contact. What happens is mental factor called part of mind called contact what does this mind do? This brings three things together, object on what you are going to look and mind which is acknowledging and what the result is going to be. So they are going to bring together. When the three come together then it's qualified to be contact.

I better give you an example. The example here is the eye consciousness sees a beautiful body or whatever. So the beautiful body is the object so what do you contact? You're contacting your consciousness; eye consciousness with the object there by bringing the result of joy or joy of pulling or rejection. So that is how it works.

I remember I gave an example to you ok? So I gave the example because I remember Allen Ginsburg wrote a poem called 'John Madison has Chocolate Toes,' right? So you know our John Madison has chocolate toes.

So when you're looking at it, the chocolate toe is the object. Seeing the chocolate toe is touching. Touching you know, not physically touching but touching the mind touching the object. Then whether you feel this chocolate is delicious, tasty, or 'Oh, it's terrible get out of my way,' you know whatever it is; so the result there bringing together.

So what this mind, this part of the mind has done most our problem of pull and push, rejection and obsession are coming out of this particular mind this contact. Some people may think 'oh if that is the problem I'd better not have contact,' People do that, people say I retreat myself completely so I don't want contact because contact brings me suffering. It doesn't work. Why? Because your mind will not function properly without contact.

They have to have these five faculties in order for the mind to function properly. If one of them is missing the mind gets defaulted, so you cannot. Although certain traditions, religions including Buddhism will tell you contact is terrible; let's see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil. You can do all that, but that is not going to lead you anywhere because you are just forcefully separating the mind from the contacting the object.

You cannot remain for the rest of your life after life in isolation. The rest of your life after life you cannot spend in the Himalayan caves or the Southeast Asian forest, we have to live in Manhattan. So the contact will be there. So that is why it is necessary to understand how this is functioning so where we handle how we're going to handle this.

Here, what we're going through, we are going through with this part aspects of the mind does. This has a type of this, this is the definition, that's how we go, but we're not talking here how we handle it. That is when we have lam rim teachings coming, they tell you how to handle this. Here we are really identifying which aspects of the mind how it works if it's there how it functions, if it's not there what happens, that's what we're talking about. So the contact and I must finish the other one no matter how hard it is I'm sorry.

Then is what? Yelu che bah What is it? Attention. Different than intention. Attention. What attention makes; it draws the mind making it focus. Remember at the beginning I told you mind just sees, but did not really notice anything, and each one of these mental faculties makes you see it, touch it, clear, remember it, categorize, catalog, and recollect later, capable to recollect. Each one of them has their job to do.

So this attention makes it specifically zoomed in. Intention is sort of a willingness and sort of looking at that direction, but attention makes you zoom down. Even if you're looking at this, you are looking at really zooming down sort of knowing this is 'fiji water' and also zooming to the 'f' zooming to the 'i' and 'j' and 'i' really sort of very much zoomed down. Not only paying attention, but really zooming it down, so without which mind will be 'oh, I just saw it, I don't remember what happened, probably I just saw, maybe it's a dream, maybe I didn't know, maybe somebody told me.' Because there is no attention. This is what happens so anyway.

So I'm making it short, so these five are called omnipresents. Why? Every mind has to have all these five, it has to have it, without which they cannot function. Without feeling, no experience. What is the second one? I have only Tibetan 'du che.' Ok, discernment. Without the second one you don't really see very specific point of object whatever you are really looking at it. Then without the thing called mind we call it, but in English they call it intention. Without intention you don't even look at it. Without attention you don't recognize, without touch or without contact you don't make basis.

So in order to function a simple mind at least just a normal regular function all these five faculties have to work together. Simultaneously functioning together, without which the mind cannot function. If any one of them is missing and then you know there is some problem.

When you see the problem you see what is missing within these five then you can identify what the problem the individual is having you can diagnose what is wrong with this mind. These are the basis on which you diagnose, like a doctor goes and looks at your urine and look at your blood and look at your sugar level and blood pressure level and all this and that and then they tell you, this, this, this.

Just like when you're dealing with the mind, these mental faculties and where what is lacking to that individual see what is that person's problem so then you deal very specifically either yourself or the help or helping others or whatever because without single one of them missing if any single one of them is missing the mind doesn't function properly actually 21 of them will come but 5 omnipresent is the fundamental basis, plus 5 ascertaining will say if you don't have the 5 ascertaining then you have this problem, that problem, all that.

I had better shut my mouth, because it's really hot. I don't want everybody getting steamed here, so I guess that's it. I want to thank you for coming, but I just have to tell you these two pieces for tonight and as is scheduled I will be here next Thursday, all Thursdays during this whole month, right? And August, I believe that was scheduled, and I think we better have a short dedication and get out and get some fresh air. Oh, you have announcements? Thank you.