GESHE NGAWANG SHERAB

M I N D - nature & function

A Types 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Object possesors Conceptual & nonconceptual minds Sense and mental awarenesses Direct perceivers Inferential cognizers Re-cognizers Correct beliefs Non-ascertaining perceivers Doubts

10. Wrong awarenesses 11. Valid & non-valid cognizers

1.1 Object possesor - a functioning thing that expresses or cognizes an object;

object possessor & objects mutually dependent; obj. possessors & specially 1.2 Divisions 1.21 Expressive sounds - object of hearing, having sense meaning expressing definate object/thing; articulate words mind without an object any time;

sounds such as spoken

1.22 Persons - Inputed upon the five aggregates of form, feelings, discrination, evolving facts & consiousness; cognizing things/objects through their minds; performs actions and expereinces the results thereof; 1.23 Minds - principal function is to cognize objects; clarity (nature) & 1.231 subtle completion stage 1.232 cognition (function); Mind - levels - grosss (normal waking minds) , subtle, very (dream, death &meditative poise for practitioners);

Mind - (subtle) - location - crown chakra (discursive minds, confused minds); heart chakra hatred); navel chakra (desirous

minds, dull (love, compassion, attachment);

2.

Conceptual & nonconceptual minds

2.1 Conceptual - a thought that apprehends its objects through a generic 2.11 Objects: (5 types) image (of the object); a appearing - seeing a table directly

appearing b observed - also the table c ebngaged - also the table d aprrehended - also the table e conceived - table not; any object through image

division (a) - 1. peceiving through image mainly from force of reading or seeing it 2. through image & force of contemplating the meaning of an thinking of it 3. image through previous inprints - like I division (b) - i. Correct & ii. wrong or object - image of flower after listening, image of flower after

THE MIND

since our birth we have been using the faculties we call the mind. It is not something which is new and we are not going to learn something which we do not know. It is possible that we are not very clear about what our mind is as there are different theories about it. If we are going to study the mind from the aspect of understanding the outside world then we will only understand that aspect. If we are going to study the mind with respect to the internal working of the mind then we will understand it from that aspect. If we have about the mind then our

understanding will be limited by those theories.

First of all we should put a question to ourself, in which we ask - what is the mind? Before we try to get any answer we must make it clear about the function of the mind and that which we generally talk about; one is called the subject and one is called

the object. If there is something to be seen or to be known then there must be something which observes, which sees or which knows it. The one which knows is what we call the subject and that which is seen or known is the object. There are three different parts which can take the role of the subject and then all other phenomena are the object. So we have to understand the difference between the one observing and the one observed. @@@@ the entire universe or existance can be divided into two portions, one which observes that is subject and one that is observed which is the object. The subject can have three classes, it can be either a mind, a person or articualted verbal sound. Everything else including these three things can be the object. The subject is dependent on the object. It does not mean that one thing is the subject and cannot be the object, this is not true, the subject itself can be the object. For example, if we talk about a person being the subject that very person at the same time can be the object of another person. In a similar way if we talk about the mind being a subject, the very same mind which is now seeing a house and a flower, can also be the object of

another mind. The mind, the person and the articulated verbal sound can be both subject as well as object. Everything in the universe, everything in existence can be object, however all phenomena cannot be the subject. A chair, is a material thing which can only be the object it cannot also be the subject. A person can be both the object and subject, for example when I am speaking, at this time I am the subject and you are the object, at the very same time you can also be the subject because in your mind you are observing me as the speaker. When you observe me speaking I become the object of your observation.

What is mind? First we should try to define what is mind. The mind is defined to be something which has clarity and which is a cogniser. The clarity aspect of the definition of the mind refers to something which is not material, it does not have a form, it does not have a colour, it does not have a shape, it can be described as similar to space like nature but, it is not space. The mind has the faculty of cognition, it has the conscious faculty of apprehension, it can

know things. Without the mind we would not know. At the time of our sleeping, people may come around us but we do not know because we are on a sub conscious level. We say that material things do not have the faculty of consciousness. The faculty of consciousness is possessed only by living beings. In buddhism we do not only talk of human beings as living beings, generally we consider that living beings consist of 6 classes. One class we are very aware of is human being or the human race. The second class of beings are called gods. Here we have to make the clarification that it is not the God but gods, who like human beings are also numberless. In many ways the gods and demi-gods (the third class) possess similar qualities to human beings but they have other different qualities which human beings do not possess. The majority of gods are said to be self born, without depending on the mothers womb. Their sustainance of living is also not dependent on material foods like we need. They subsist on subtle energies and essences of nutrients. The gods and demi gods are often classed together because in many ways they are quite similar

but they do have some different characteristics. These three groups of beings; gods, demi gods and human beings are said to be of the better part of the universe. The other three lower classes of beings are; the animal kingdom, the hungry ghosts and hell beings. The animal kingdom consists of the smallest insects to the biggest animal such as the elephant or even earlier the dinosaur. The hungry ghosts are said to not always be miserly and living in misery but their main problem is always suffering from the inability to supress or satisfy their hunger,thirst and so on. It is not that they do not have material things, many of them are said to be rich with lots of material possessions but they are not able to enjoy them. The last class of beings is the hell beings. The western term hell suggests a very horrible thing but there are human beings who are also in this part of existence as a hell being. It is not easy for us to know or to have a good understanding of these things because as human beings we are only aware of ourselves and we do not give much thought to other beings but it is possible to have some idea about such things. Even among human beings we find that

some people have a better physical body and a lighter way of living, which we can compare to the gods and demi gods. On the other side we can see similar situations to the hungry ghosts or the hell beings. Very often we find in many countries that there are wars going on, especially now in Bosnia, many people are living in the terror of guns and they do not find security in their lives. When we see this kind of thing we can imagine the possibility of other beings in such conditions. We are talking of these different kinds of beings because the subject which we are talking about is the mind and the mind is possessed by each and everyone of these beings. As living beings we have the nature of either suffering, having pain or having pleasure and this is because of the mind. We will all agree that this material table does not have pain, nor can we think of this table as having pleasure. The function of the mind is to cognise, for example through seeing things, observing things, tasting and so on. These are the functions of the different aspects of the mind. So whoever possesses a mind can be described as a living being. An overall general quality of the consciousness is

apprehension and consists of seeing, observing and so on. The work of the mind or the capability of the mind is to know, for example the hand itself cannot know although when I touch this I will feel something, this feeling is actually because of the mind. We sometimes say that our hands are senseless, this is because the mind is not able to give the connectivity to that part of our body and so we feel it to be senseless. This is a basic definition of the mind and from that definition we can talk about the mind as being something subtle, it is not a material thing and it cannot be touched. It is a substantial phenomena and it is a phenomena having a mental function, a knowing function. It is momentary, from one moment to the next it is moving, for example the second moment of the mind is caused by the earlier moment of the mind. Todays mind is the cause for the birth of tomorrows mind and todays mind is the result of yesterday mind. This is cause and effect, any phenomena can be the cause and the effect. So what is the cause now can be the effect in the next moment. One important thing that we need to know about the mind is that it is not

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permanant. When we say that a thing is not permanant it does not mean that it will disappear it means that it is moving from one moment to the other.

Many people these days believe that the brain is the mind. Many people who think that the brain is the mind do so because if we observe the brain, by using different kinds of mechanical instruments, whenever there are sensations or activities taking place somewhere something is definitely happening in the brain. Even medically whenever the brain is damaged the person is said be in a dying state. There are many reasons why we think that the brain is the mind; firstly when something is happening in the brain it is very evident and secondly many of the sensual organs (except the physical body) are on the head. The eyes we find on the head, the ears we find on the head, the nose and the mouth, even part of the sensation of the body is here. So we find everything on the head and the brain is in the head. This might

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lead us to believe very easily that the brain can be identified as the mind. There are other traditions and theories according to which, the energy channels in the body are considered to be the mind. We have a lot of energy passing through our body, the channels are there and they pass through different points. So why do some people take these channels to be the mind? It is because the mind itself is dependent upon these energies, they are related in many ways. The mind is said to ride the energies which are passing through the channels and therefore those who theorise these things are basing their reasoning on this kind of thing. It is said that the energies are used like a vehicle by the mind and therefore for those who are observing or studying the working of the energies it is very difficult to differentiate which is the mind and which are the energies because the mind is very much dependent on the energy. For us who perhaps cannot even recognise these energies then there is no point in making this confusion.

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Many other theories subscribe to the theory that the sense organs can be regarded as or identified as the mind. When I use my eyes to look at something then I think that the eye sense organ is observing that thing I do not recognise that the mind is also working there. In a similar way each of the sense organs are regarded or confused to be working as the mind. The confusion is because the functions of the sense organs are

working similarly to the function of the mind.We need to observe how the sense organs themselves are working. We have to observe the materials of the organ itself, when we observe the eye organ we find the eyeball itself or even the different parts of the eyeball. This cannot really be the only agent which makes it possible to see something. If it was then without the mind working people should still be able to see because the sense organ is still active.We know that a dying person has a certain time limit, but still the sense organs can be very active and can be utilised even for other human beings, that means it still has the capability of a full organ. In a similar way the different sense organs of a person are still active even

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when the person is dead, so why is the dead person not able to observe, see, hear, say something. When someone is declared to be dead, at that moment, the organs still have the capacity of regular organs but why are they not able to do the functions which they did? By technological advancement we have learnt how to identify things, which makes it possible to see things such as the organ itself and so now we can also replace things. Although we can make these things we cannot make the functioning of the sense organ. We have studied these things and we know that it is the mind which is coming through the sense organ of the eye and so we still cannot make fingers see like the eye sense organ does, that is the difference. Can we consider the camera to be similar to the eye sense organ? If we observe this kind of thing then we will have more understanding of this kind of mental factors. Even if we examine sound, the tape recorder when it is played is making some sound so can we say that it has the same capability as the mouth? In a similar way the tape recorder when it is recording has the similar capacity as the sense of hearing. The reception of

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the sound is done by the recorder and this function is similar to the sense of hearing. There are many similar questions that we can put about the different sense organs, then we will know that the sense organ itself is not mind as some theories now say. It is sure that the mind is dependent on the sense organs because when an organ is damaged the mind cannot function for example, if the organ of hearing is damaged we cannot hear, when the eye sense organ is damaged we cannot see. If someone has a damaged eye he may not be able to see for some time but after medical care and if the eye organ is repaired then he is able to see again. This also shows us that there is something other than the sense organ itself through which the mind is acting. Without the eye organ then the mind cannot have the function of seeing. We know that there is a relation between the eye organ and the sense of seeing but they are not seeing. The fourth theory is that the mind itself is some kind of a phenomena which is a part of the body, a physical force which is present in the body is considered to be the mind. This kind of

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theory is different from thinking that the brain is the mind or that the sense organs are the mind because they think that it is some kind of identical part of the body, it is very similar to the body and when the body goes the mind also goes. They think that the mind is something which can not be differentiated from the body. It is a physical force which is present in the body, an element of the body and that the life span of the mind is the same as that of the body. This kind of thinking was also quite prominent in ancient times as it is now. That is why it is thought that when a man dies the life of the mind also dies. There is nothing different between the mind and the physical body itself, because they think the mind is something which is similar to the physical body itself. This kind of attitude makes us very much concerned only with this present life and so we do not bother about any future existence, it makes us concerned only for the physical body and the requirements of the physical body.

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Even if we are not concerned about future existence, having this kind of attitude in this present life will make us only more concerned for the physical part of

the body than for the different parts of life which we can talk of as the mind. This kind of thinking leads us to the attitude of considering or treating this body as the most important thing and for this reason we are very much concerned with the physical body. Why is this kind of attitude making us only concerned with our physical body? It is because this thinking makes us not able to even consider existence apart from the physical body, the existence of a mind seperate from the physical body. We can understand that there is something other than the physical body in our life by examining and asking ourself - what are the requirements of the physical body? We could meet every requirement of the physical body and still there would be

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something which makes us feel unhappy or discontent. If we think what the requirements of the physical body are and we meet every requirement, there would still be something which we would find missing in our life. We have to go into detail on this because if we are not able to arrive at an understanding about the mind, the existence of a mind apart from the physical body then we would not be able to talk about the mind which is having an effect. We know that there are certain things which effect us that are not the physical or the material body. During the last one and half hours I have been thinking and talking and you have been listening and thinking. All of this process is seperate from the physical body and even apart from the sense organs. If we try to go back into our childhood and from then onwards we try to remember different levels of our age we can still remember a lot of things and these memories are also not a physical thing. If we have been to many different places even sitting here now, we can go back to those places immediately. The pains that we have had in our life, the pleasures that we have had in our life, even if they were ten or

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twenty years before, however far we go back we can still remember those things very cleary. Without the phenomena called the mind which has the cognitive force, we could not have these memories going into the past or project ourself into the future. I think we need to leave a little time for some questions. We may still have to cover the same subject in more detail going into the different factors of the mind but first we must have a clear idea about what the mind is and how far we can comprehend this idea of the mind. Only then can we talk about the factors. Therefore it is very important and so tomorrow we may touch again this subject in more detail. I think you would also agree that it is not important what we know quantity wise but it is more important we know something clearly, in this way it is much more useful. if it is not clear it is not useful. Knowing anything depends upon us applying our own mind, somebody telling you many things cannot make you understand unless your mind is going with those things. Otherwise there are millions of books in which there is all of

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this information but until we apply our mind to knowing it even while reading we do not understand because the mind is not applied. We have laziness in everything, maybe physically we are very active, maybe we are holding a book and reading a lot but applying the mind is very difficult in the beginning but when we become used to it it can become quite easy. Enthusiastic perserverance generally is not only hard work it means having the wish to know the good and positive things.

Question Can we say that the mind and the consciousness are the same thing? ANSWER Yes.

The mind is not the brain, it is not the sensual organs, it is not the energy, it is not material. We can say what it is not and at the end we realsie what is the nature of the mind by the process of elimination.

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Other questions?

QUESTION/DISCUSSION What is the difference between the mind and the person?

ANSWER The person is a physical and mental entity. We say this person and that person, it is a physical entity which is composed of both physical phenomena as well as mental phenomena, it is very clear that man is a person but animals are also person. Generally we misunderstand this but animals are person because they are made from physical and mental. Every sentient being has to be regarded as a person, that is why at the beginning I was going around the different classes or realms of human beings, gods and so on because if we do not do this then we may think that human beings are the only person. When we talked about the subject which consists of three things; one is the mind, the second is the person and third is the articulated

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verbal sound. The second class, the person, consists of all living beings. Not every phenomena is the subject but everything can be the object. This means the subject is less and the object is more.

QUESTION The person is a knower?

ANSWER YES.

QUESTION So, the mind is also a knower?

ANSWER Yes. The mind, the person and the articulated verbal sound are the three subjects and they are what know.

QUESTION

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The mind is the part of the person that knows.It is not the body of the person that knows.Why do we not put together the person and mind?

ANSWER The person does not mean only the physical part of the body. The person is a living entity. Here it may be confusing because we are saying mind and then articulated sound and then the person. In the person there is also mind but here the person is regarded as one of the subjects seperately. It is important because person consists not only of the mind but also of the physical aspect and that is why it is put seperately, the mind is only the mind. The mind is singular whereas the person is a combination of the body and mind. Otherwise if we simply take the mind, then person can also be seen as the subject but we may be confused because of the physical body. The person consists of both the physical body and the mind. We have to regard the person seperately as a subject because if we simply talk about the mind and articulated sound as subject then we

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will see that the person can also be a subject and then we will get confused because of the physical entity.The two exclude the misconception of confusing the person when regarded as a subject and exclude the misconception about the physical body as an object.

QUESTION Is it correct to say that the mind itself cannot exist without the person?

ANSWER Yes. Mind is not existing as a living entity, it is necessary for the mind to be person.

QUESTION Then it is the person who is knower not the mind?

ANSWER

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Within the person the mind can also function to know the different aspects of the mind. The subject mind becomes the object of the mind of the person. We often talk about the six senses, when you are looking at something at that moment your sixth sense can know that you are seeing something.

QUESTION The mind exists by itself or only with the person or with the body?

ANSWER Generally every phenomena even the smallest exists by itself but to be a functional thing then it has to come into composition. If we define and seperate things into atoms and further into atoms then they exist but to be functional they have to come into some composition.

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QUESTION Does the mind remain with a body which is dying?

ANSWER That is what we discussed in one of the theories. There are those who regard the physical body as the mind, something which is not different from the physical body, they say that when the man dies the mind also dies. If we do not accept the existence of the mind other than as a part of the body we have to believe in the disappearance of the mind along with the death of the body.We know however that while living the seperation of the mind and the body can take place, even for short periods of time. I can relate one quite recent event.

QUESTION The mind is knowing also without sensory organs?

ANSWER

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Yes. It is the sixth sense. The five senses come through the five sense organs and the sixth is not requiring this. We call it mind, mental.

QUESTION >Not possible to hear<

ANSWER Inherently nothing exists; observing the idea of one thing in my head has a seperate identity but it is still existing. I remember something so that memory itself of one item exists.

As we discussed yesterday the mind, the person and the articulated sound are the three things which are regarded as the subject and all other phenomena are regarded as the object, so the mind or the subject can never be alone it will always be attracted to certain objects. We generally have millions and

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millions of objects in our daily life so our mind will always be scattered, there is no point when our mind is not holding an object. You will not find your mind idle, even when we say it is idle it is still attracted to some object. The mind is always holding some object, there is no time and space when the mind is not totally drawn to an object. For example you can see at the back of me a tangha, when you just look at the tangha you will see many points, there are thousands and thousands of points in it, generally we say that we are looking at the tangha but when you are looking at the tangha you will be drawn to the blue and red and round and square and after some time if you are really observant you are not looking anywhere just going around and around you are not on a point so you are not able to catch anything well. This is the way that our mind is just wondering around, from this wondering we have to say - now we are going to look at this square or this thing. When we develop motivation it means that we are drawing the mind from its scattering and we are making it do an appointed job. When we are looking at the mind from this point of view it

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really needs to be brought up properly like we bring up a child. Every moment we need to take care of the mind and draw it to certain work otherwise it is always wondering. For this you can say I am just looking at something and that is why my mind is wondering but if you close your eyes it will still be wondering. If you close your ears then still it will be wondering. If you close your nose then still it will be wondering. This wondering is not dependent on the sense organs alone, the mind the sixth sense itself is wondering. Sometimes it wonders through the eyes, sometimes through the ears, sometimes through the nose and smell and so on - the senses are very important because the mind gets more doors to go out of but still it would be wondering even if it was not going through these senses, it will wonder through its memories because it has seen a lot of things. As we already discussed yesterday and just started today the mind as such is really very powerful in one sense, it is able to observe many things, whatever we find in the universe is actually been apprehended by the mind. What happens is that generally we have not been given the information that the mind

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even without the requirement of the five senses can still apply itself to all phenomena. If you were born blind then many aspects of the phenomena such as the colours, shapes and so you may not receive but still you would develop a lot of other aspects because for example through your touch you would come to know what is rough, what is smooth, the kind of shape and so on.

There are many aspects to the mind some are positive and some are negative, some are good and some are bad, some are more

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powerful and some are less powerful. We might think how can this one mind have all these aspects? How can this mind act in a positive way and the same mind act negatively? How can the same mind act as a very small thing and a very big thing? The mind has a different variety of roles and this we can understand even within one person. one mind can have different roles and aspects, just as we have already described different roles in your life, as a mother, as a daughter and so on. How long will you be playing each role in each day? In one day how many minutes of each role will you play? In a similar way the different roles of the mind, we should try to choose the more positive ones, we should give more roles to the positive mind and give less roles to the negative mind. Suppose you are living with your mother and your daughter, there are three people, when you are behaving like a child in front of your mother, your mother may remind you do not behave like a child you already have a child with you then you realise that you have to behave more like a mother than like a child. So this same sort of thing can apply to

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your mind, mind can also remember that - I should not be having this kind of negative attitude I should be having a positive attitude. Getting used to something is one of the points that you have to keep in your mind.Actually we are all using this very mind the only thing is that we are not able to identify it and we do not know the different aspects and different roles. The mind is working all day even if we do not talk about it, it is still working. When we know about the different roles and aspects of the mind then it may be useful. People are now employing many different kinds of techniques, for example the scientists are looking into each matter and when they know the secret of each phenomena they use this for making something useful. Any materials that we use in making things, in the past we did not know them so we were not able to use them but when we know them we are able to put together many things. Earlier we were using mostly natural things, that we did not apply so many minds to make, but now because we use many things we need more resources

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I am giving these examples because knowing the mind and making use of the mind can be used all of the time in our life from our birth until our death. It can be used by everybody.Even if other people do not need to use it at least you need it yourself all the time.Our life is very much dependent not only on the physical part of the body but it is more dependent on the functioning of the mind. When we say I am happy or unhappy, I am having a problem today, I am not feeling well if you remove the mind of the person then you cannot talk of suffering, you cannot talk of happiness, you cannot talk of being happy or unhappy. All these we cannot talk of unless we have mind, because it is the mind which is apprehending all these things. Therefore we have happiness or unhappiness, pain or suffering, good feeling or pleasure because of the mind. When you go around the city everyday you will find many people moving this way and that way, they are doing many things, people are going this way and sometimes that way, some are going to the shops, some are

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going to the church, some are going to hospital and all these movements are activated by the mind of each person.On the highways and roads we find so many vehicles moving. Do these vehicles move without the drivers? the person who we are talking about, the man or woman is moved also by an internal driver which is the mind.

our mind always gets attracted to different objects. Of all the objects, we try to choose the objects which we feel are more important. Some people choose some things and others choose different things. Suppose we bring in this house a thousand items of foods, some maybe from Africa, some from Asia. When you go around you choose only the things which you are used to, in general you do not choose the things you do not know. Of all the things you find some of them tasteful,you may find many not tasteful, but out of those tasteful ones many of them may not be very good for your health! So who is going to make the decision to take this one or not? From the material point of view, when you see from your eyes

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something which is colourful, good shaped and so on then you choose it. From the sound point of view you might choose sounds which are nice to your ear. If we leave it entirely to the material objects themselves and to the senses then we will choose those things which we like but which may not be very useful to us. So we need certain things which do the right choosing. We need to know first about the nature of the mind and then, when we know a bit better the nature of the mind then we need to know the aspects which are going to take us in the right direction, then we need to choose because what comes naturally to us is not necessarily always the right thing. We have the natural instinct of hating somebody when they appear aggressive, our natural instinct is to fight back and we get attracted to something which is attractive. This is a natural thing, we say it is naturally attractive but we do not have the choice in that because, either we attract what we do not like or we just get attracted to what we like. Generally what we call natural instinct we call natural but the natural things are not always the best things, so when we say it is my instinct or

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natural we need to go into more detail about these things. What is natural? Is habit natural? Do we call the things which we got through habit natural? What is habit? If there is something which we do repeatedly and we get used to it then that is habit and that is becoming natural! Why dont we make an effort to remove the negative things from our habits? We know now that everything that centres around the mind is important so we need to have a little control over the mind and we also need to know that the controlling is done by some aspect of the mind itself.I would like to add some points here, generally we talk about it is my wish, I desire this kind of thing we also often say that I should have the freedom to do this thing and freedom to not do that thing so here when we talk about freedom or liberty..........;

In general in a social sense we can talk about liberty and freedom as something that permits you to do the things that you like but does not encroach upon the liberties of other people. Suppose now I wished to shout, you have the liberty to

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not be disturbed by such noise. So I can use this liberty of shouting only when I am alone in my room. In our social sense liberty has certain limitations. In a similar way the different aspects of the mind each have one aspect as their own liberty. If we have children we need to send them to school, but the child does not necessarily like to go to school, he wants to play all the time, so what do we do? We try to convince him by telling him good things but he does not listen so we have to use force to take him to school or we deny him some privledges such as having sweets or we even beat him. This kind of beating and punishment we do not do against his freedom because we do these things for his betterment, so sometimes betterment for him means that we need to encroach upon certain limits of his freedom. So this study of the mind needs one intellect which should be very sharp because we need to go into the subtle aspects of the mind. To know the mind we should be very sharp, very sensitive and aware of each thing. The mind itself is very subtle so if we want to know the different aspects of the mind our application of the mind should be sharper because we

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are talking of or learning a subtle thing so our mind has to also be very sharp and very clear. Only then can we pick up these things. We have already talked quite a lot so what you need to do when you go back to your homes is you need to give a little time to reflect upon these things. That reflection and going back on these points we need to do immediately because we are going to attend another session in the evening and at that time we are going to again accumulate more information and more points to reflect upon. If we do not apply some time to reflect on these points we will have a lot of information and then we may get tired. It is also our human tendancy to say I will do this tommorrow, I will do this the next time, so we will be waiting for some free time which we will never get. We should not make notes only for keeping a record and say I will have the time to go through these notes later on This tendancy of noting down is sometimes not a positive thing, I do not say that we should not make notes or we should not record but our intention should be that I will directly record myself in my brain or my mind, these notes I will only use when I forget

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about certain things then I will look back, I will not depend on these notes. This kind of motivation is very important otherwise when we are making notes our mind says ok I have made this note and I will find some time to go back over them later. So we should try to record directly into our mind. Whenever we are making notes or recording we should think that this is only a secondary source for when we do not remember certain important things then we can go back over them otherwise we should never use our notes. This kind of motivation is very important because we go on and on making notes and we never get the time to go back and we never make our mind record immediately. This is very important and I think the people who are making notes will realise this because we do this thing very often. I know this from my own experience. We have 5 or 6 minutes left which we will leave for some questions and answers.

QUESTION

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You said before that each and everyone of the mental factors has its own freedom, how is this possible?

ANSWER In society we talk a lot about freedom and I just simply carried that comparison to the mind. I do not say that there is freedom or there is no freedom.

QUESTION If someone is using the visual organ too much they become distracted by sight so does this mean they lose the other of the sense organ functions?

ANSWER Yes it is possible.

QUESTION

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If you balance the sense organs does it make the mind more sharp and attentive?

ANSWER Actually the point is not balancing. The point is whether we need to use these things or not. For example if I need to know something this knowing is not always dependent on my eyes. There are thousands and millions of things to be seen but you only tend to see those things which are useful to you for example, if you are resting and watching television just because it is there you do not watch everything you only look at those things which are useful or interesting. If I need to know something which is not coming on the television and if I can get this information from a book, I can shut off the television and then read the book but what often happens is the television is there so we put it on and we hold the book but we are looking at and we give more time to the television if we are really interested in the book we could put the television off. We can even go to a different study room and read but generally what

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happens is attraction, we get lost in whatever draws our attention most strongly.

We find that the younger generation whenever they find something restricting their thinking they rebel against society. - Mind is difficult to grasp it is sleeping all the time. So it is important to develop attention to the present, the very moment. It is very difficult but just one second in order to be centred on one point.

Both the car and the human body come into existence but both are unable to function until there is some force which operates it. In a motor car there are some sensitive parts such as the lights, the steering wheel which controls the car and so on and in the human body we have the sense organs such as eyes, ears and the senses of seeing and so on. So there are different parts of the car which more or less function like the human body. For

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the motor car we need regular fuel like petrol, in the case of human beings we need food and drinks. For the motor car to be really active, working and operational there has to be a human being which controls it. In the case of the human being the mind is similar to the man in the motor car. In a similar way, when the human mind is formatted in a proper way, organised properly then the human being as a whole can also function properly without many difficulties and problems. When the mind of the human being is not well organised, when it is not well settled then the human person cannot function properly, he will always be having problems and difficulties and he will not be able to work properly.

the human body, both the parents (the father and mother) were working together to produce the new human body. but the mind has to come from its own source and that source is the proceeding mental factor. The proceeding mental factor is the seed for the generation of the next mind. Maybe we think that

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the parents (father and mother) had a mind so maybe the new mind is coming from their minds.

In the case of the human body the mother alone or the father alone cannot give all the things necessary, both of them have to contribute to produce the new human body. Here now arises the suspicion about the mind, if the father and the mother can give the seeds for the production of the human body then why cant the father and mother give the seeds for the production of the new mind? One problem in this is if the father and mother are going to give the seed for the human mental product then the father and mothers mind need to join together to produce the new mind. Generally mind is of one nature, it cannot be combined together through different sources. Also from our experience we know that children have different natures from the father and the mother.

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The father may be a very gentle person and the mother may be a very kind person but they can have a child who is neither kind or gentle. The father may be a very learned and educated person and the mother may be very patient or have different qualities but the child may not posses these qualities. The main characteristic of the human mind is knowing, therefore if the mind is coming from the parents, then the father and mother who are not learned parents cannot produce a child who is more knowledgable or learned. If it was so then a generous father and mother should necessarily produce a generous son or daughter but a great musician father does not necessarily produce a great musical child. From our experience we will come to know that it is very unlikely that our mind is a part of the mother and fathers mental product. Even if we go to the material level, a glass particle whatever we do with it cannot produce gold. A glass comes from a product with a glass nature. In this way we can also, to some extent think that the mind must come from something with a similar nature to the mind itself. The question now coming is - when and how this

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new mental product comes into being? When the human conception take place the past mental continuum of the previous mind is generated into a new mental continuum. When the human mind and body seperate that is what we call death, immediately the body disintegrates into the basic elements and they absorb into their own elements and in a similar way the mind, because it is not a static thing, it is a dynamic and fluid force, immediately takes a next

moment.Here there maybe some interesting points that even the scientists and biologists need to consider and think about, such as the fact that every sexual union does not result in conception. As we have now learnt from the biologists, in the scientific explanation the human male semen has the potentiality of producing many lives but in reality only one or two of the sperms have the possibility to come into contact with the ovum and ocassionally three but generally it is one. Even though there are many sperms - why are only a few able to fertilise? In some cases an husband and wife try to conceive but fail. I do not know whether the scientists can tell us why even

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with the meeting of the sperm and the ovum that conception does not take place. This kind of thing we have to take into consideration then we will come to know that there are other factors which must be present for the rebirth of a being. Even in taking a new life there are different kinds of form coming into being which are not always dependent on the mothers womb. Beings are born from eggs, even by having implants, humidity and so on.

The mind is a continuation, generally the present mind is coming from the first moment and it is moving to the next moment. The next moment is generated by the earlier moment and in this way each moment is taking a new birth, this is taking place and therefore the mind should also have come from a previous mind. A very endless sort of thing. At each station there maybe a longer stay but then there is a change. The same thing applies to the mind, the mind has been travelling for a very vast and infinate time, it is sometimes in the form of a human being and during that time it sometimes

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lives the length of 100 years and sometimes it lives to the age of say 2 or 3 years and then it takes a new life and it depends upon a new container. In this way the mind has been travelling and each time it is using a different kind of vehicle the mind has been travelling for an infinate time but it is a fluctuating thing. At this point I think that we must consider another very important aspect - which is most important, the person who uses the car or the car? Is the car for the person or is the person for the car?

I am making this comparison because the mental life is much more important than the physical life. We are talking about controlling the mind because it effects much more in life than the physical body. Controlling does not mean that we do not allow something it means that we are not giving the possibility or the chances to the negative aspects of mind we are giving more time or chance to the positive aspect of the mind, otherwise there is no need for controlling. If we like having pain we can leave the mind to get attracted to the pain feeling

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mental aspect. In a similar way we can think about which is better for life. First we should try to recognise these things, generally we know that pain is not something that we like and naturally we like something pleasant and pleasurable. If we recognise the nature of the mind then we come to understand that these are states of the mind. If we do not want to feel continuously angry or irritated then we do not allow this state of mind to occur. We face depression very often and if we keep hold of the depression we will keep it for a long time. If we are attracted by the negative, depressed states of mind then we should recognise them and let them go away because there are other aspects of mind which are not bringing us this kind of feeling. Since pain and pleasure, happiness and unhappiness are all aspects of the mental states we must know these states and so we must know the mind. Here it is not important that it was the Buddha who said that pain and pleasure are a result of the mind, we have to see for ourselves whether pain and pleasure are aspects of the mind and if we find that it is so then we have to change these aspect. This is in our hand, Buddha is

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only pointing to us. We do not need to become a buddhist, we do not need to become anything, we need to remove those aspects of mind which are causing us these difficulties and we need to bring up those aspects of mind which make us more flexible, open and happy. I got this information or teachings from my teacher and my teacher got this message and teaching from his teacher, so in this way we can trace to the Buddha. The Buddha first gave these teachings to the Indian scholars and monks and they passed them on and they came to us. By taking this information and using it I did not have to become an Indian. If we get any message and we realise the knowledge of it then it belongs to us, it does not belong to anybody, it does not even belong to the Buddha. I confess that I do not know very much but whatever I know it is not necessary that I know it in the order and the countings. If I realise whatever meaning there is and I put it in my life and it helps me to remove the negative attitudes from my mind and it helps me to bring positive attitudes then I use it. If it helps me then I take that thing.

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I am not giving this talk or discussion or giving this kind of teaching to show that I know it, I share these things because many of them have improved my life so I think that it is better that many more people also have the chance to try. Everything may not help you at this stage but gradually some may help you and at certain other times others may help, even at this time you may realise something and gain help. In this way if you find some of these things interesting and useful then you carry on doing them and pass on the information. This does not mean that you do not use it, you use it and share it with other people. Other people could also be benefitted by simply sharing some of our experiences, information and techniques.

Gangchen Rinpoche has been giving different kinds of teachings and currently he is giving the message of Self-Healing and a message of peace, this is because all sentient beings like us always find some problem in their life and we get tired of many things. Rinpoche is trying to give some techniques and some methods by which we can find some relaxation and remove some of the problems that we create for ourself.

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mind is something similar to space that is to say it is not a physical thing. Unlike space which is just abstract, mind has the capability of the conscious faculty of knowing or apprehending any object. Any phenomena is an object and the mind generally and usually always apprehends an object. We cannot think of a blank mind which is not holding an object. It maybe holding an object such as a colour or shape through the eye, a sound through the ears, a smell through the nose, some kind of taste through the tongue, maybe some kind of feeling through the tactile bodily sense of touch or maybe some idea through the mind. The mind is always holding a phenomena as an object. At present we do not seem to have the choice about which kind of phenomena we want to choose as an object for the mind. Most of the time we have the desire to hold something colourful, a beautiful shape and so on. We think that it is our desire and that we like it but it is some kind of compulsion that occurs in us. We think that this selection of the object is done by free will but if we examine it properly it is not free will, we

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must also realise that happiness and unhappiness is because of the mind. When we feel hungry perhaps we may feel that it is a physical kind of thing but without the mind we cannot feel hunger. Even the cold, heat, pain and so on is coming through the body but mainly it is experienced through the mind. When we recognise the mind, we can train the mind and we can make the mind more major and in this way we are able to tackle the many different problems in life much better for those who have had very good exercise throughout their life, when they become older they are quite active and move easily, they can handle their life much easier. In a similar way those who have had a lot of mental exercise during their earlier lifetime will have a much easier mental life in the later part of their life. Everybody agrees that the later part of life is always more difficult than the younger part of our life because as a younger person our physical body has more energy, it is stronger and healthier but as we age we become weaker and we lose our good health and so on. Many of the things that we would like to do in later life we cannot. Of the two aspects of

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life, the physical life and the mental life, the mental life is much more difficult if we do not have good training. We find in our present system many life insurance companies, many health insurance companies, many things that are going to insure us for our later ages but nobody comes to insure us for our mental health. We need to give some kind of education and training to the mind right now so that we are assured a better life in the later times.

QUESTION Does the mental training of this life help for future lifes?

ANSWER Yes. It helps, but what we are talking about generally is that we train the mind now so that it can help us in the next year. If we continue to train the mind well it can help us in the next five years and in this way it can carry us to the end of our life and then it will definately help us in our next life. If we live a proper life this time we can be assured of a better life next time.

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what we are giving in the west to the next generation, we are giving them a new culture of fighting and fighting even in the cartoons. What will the children have impressed in their minds? They will never learn that compassion or being kind is something good they learn that you have to fight and kill. They get a very distorted and very aggressive impression and then it is difficult for them to get a good kind of message. Actually the human nature has a negative attitude and superficially the negative attitude is always more stronger but if we go deeper then we have got a very good nature.

Any more questions?

QUESTION To train the mind positively means doing Self-Healing, bringing about good thoughts?

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ANSWER Yes and it is a very pratical way. Suppose we feel irritated, we must immediately look why we are getting irritated. Maybe it is because somebody has spoken some hard words to us. The harsh words alone did not cause our irritation because we are conscious that a person spoke the words, a word itself does not have that effect. This you can check yourself. You can go home and you can record into the tape recorder some harsh words and then you can listen to them, you will never get angry at these words because you know that you spoke them. The harsh words do not have any effect on you because you know that you spoke them yourself. In a similar way if somebody praises us we generally like it, in the praise itself there is nothing that we should like, we simply want to be praised because we like it. These are just simple examples that I am giving. In our life whenever we face something then immediately we should try to find the reason for this kind of mind. There are many phenomena in this world but certain phenomena we like and others we do not like. We need to find the reason why we like

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certain things and we do not like others. In this way we can try to bring some changes in our attitude to the phenomena that we come across. This is very pratical and easy to carry out, the only difficulty is that we do not do it. We need to ask oursleves why!!

QUESTION When we move in one direction the mind wants to go the opposite way, like to the laziness which stops us from going forward.

ANSWER Yes one problem in us is laziness. We know many good things but we do not move enough to reach them. Either we say it is not good or we say we will do it the next time. We need to tell our mind - do not wait, do it right now. We have to adopt 2 policies, the policy for the positive things - whatever we think to do we must not leave it for tomorrow, we should try to do it

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today and what we have to do today we should do it right now. For the negative things we need to do the opposite - what we feel to do now we should say that we will do it the next time. This can be done by us, but we never have enough courage to do it. As human beings we have the intelligence to know all these things but what we actually need is strong determination and some support, that is why we have to look for good friends. Good friends are those who try to encourage us in the positive ways and those who try to take you to the negative side are unfriendly or what we can call enemies. When we talk about the devil it is only those things which are leading us to the negative side, it need not have horns.

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