Mind and the Five Aggregates: Karma Kagyu

Dr. Alexander Berzin

CONTENT OVERVIEW

 The Importance of Understanding the Mind

 Mind Is Mental Activity
 The Definition of Mental Activity: Clarity and Awareness
 Each Moment of Mental Activity Is Made Up of Five Aggregates
 The Aggregate of Consciousness
 The Aggregate of Forms of Physical Phenomena
 Conceptual Cognition
 Mental Factors
 The Aggregate of Distinguishing
 The Aggregate of Feeling a Level of Happiness
 The Aggregate of Other Affecting Variables
 Summary

The Importance of Understanding the Mind

Mind is important to understand, since we all want to be happy and not to suffer and
be unhappy. The source of a stable and lasting happiness, however, is not material
wealth or physical pleasure, but the mind and our attitudes and emotions. Therefore,
we need to understand what mind is and how it works in each moment. We also need
to understand everything that makes up each moment of our minds, which is what
the five aggregates are all about. When we understand them, we will understand our
attitudes and emotions and how they work. If we understand how they work, we can
gain confidence that we can overcome the destructive ones and we can change our
attitudes. In short, we need to work on our minds, and doing that
requires understanding our minds.

All Buddhist schools agree on what mind is, but there are several ways of presenting it
and several different analyses in Buddhism of how mind works. Here, we shall present
the sutra explanation given by the Karma Kagyu school.

Mind Is Mental Activity

In general, mind in Buddhism refers to mental activity – the individual, subjective

experiencing of something. It refers to the mental activity of seeing, hearing or
thinking something, and so on. That means that mind is not some immaterial “thing”
that is doing the seeing, hearing or thinking of something.
 
Mental activity changes from moment to moment as it does different things at
individual moments of its continuum, like seeing, hearing or thinking different things.
In that sense, mental activity is impermanent and conditioned or affected by what it is
doing. But, its essential nature – namely, its conventional and deepest natures –
remains the same. In that sense, mental activity – meaning the essential
nature of mental activity – is a permanent, unconditioned or unaffected phenomenon,
not created by anyone.

Mental activity is individual. Buddhism does not assert a universal mind or collective
unconscious. Although the conventional and deepest natures of all minds are the same,
that does not make all minds one mind, like the example of noses. We all have noses,
but we don’t all have the same nose. My experiencing of something and yours are not
the identical experience, although both are the same in terms of their natures of being
the experiencing of something.

Mental activity has a gross physical basis – in humans, a living, functioning brain and
nervous system within a body. Even at the moment of death there is the mental
activity of experiencing death; it occurs on the physical basis of subtlest energy. After
death, there is the mental activity of experiencing the in-between state, bardo, and that
occurs on the basis of subtle energy. The mental activity then continues when
the mental activity connects with the gross physical elements of its next rebirth and
goes on to function with them as its basis. Mind does not refer to any of these gross or
subtle physical bases, but to its activity, its functioning, which in nature is always the
same in essence.
 
Let’s restrict the discussion to just the mental activity in a human rebirth. We’re not
talking about stimulating a neuron in a Petri dish with an electric current to fire. We’re
talking about an actual living, functioning brain and nervous system. There can’t
be mental activity without a living, functioning brain and there can’t be a living,
functioning brain without some mental activity. So, mental activity cannot exist
without a functioning physical basis. The activity and the functioning basis
are inseparable.

Each individual continuum of mental activity is eternal. It has no beginning and no

end. No one created it. It never has a break in its continuity, even when asleep,
unconscious or dead. In that sense of being eternal, it is also permanent. Even
with enlightenment, it still retains its individuality and goes on forever. Not all rivers
enter the ocean, as in some Hindu tenets. Thus, Shakyamuni Buddha
and Maitreya Buddha are individual different Buddhas, though their attainment is the
same in nature. Their difference is demonstrated by the fact that different disciples
have karmic connections with one or the other.

The functioning of mental activity, whether seeing, hearing or thinking, can be

described from a physical, material point of view as the transmission of neural energy
and biochemical exchanges in a neural network or it can be described from an
individual, subjective point of view. Both refer to the same phenomenon, the
functioning of mental activity, but can be differentiated from each other from two
conceptual points of view – objective and subjective. The objectively, physically
described phenomenon and the subjectively, experientially described phenomenon
are nondual. “Nondual” does not mean identical. It means if one is a valid description,
so is the other. The subjectively, experientially described mental activity of a living,
functioning brain and nervous system is what we mean by “mind.”
 
Further, mental activity always has content. There can’t just be the mental activity of
experiencing, it has to be the experiencing of something. There can’t be something
being experienced without there being the experiencing of it. The two are nondual in
this sense.

The Definition of Mental Activity: Clarity and Awareness

The most general definition of mind is clarity and awareness (gsal-rig). “Clarity”

refers to the mental activity of giving rise to a mental aspect (rnam-pa) – what I call a
“mental hologram.” Mental holograms are not necessarily visual, they can also be
audio, olfactory and so on. Further, they are not necessarily clear or in focus.

In more scientific terms, the mental activity is the activity of transforming the data of
photons or electromagnetic waves, or sound waves, or the sensibilia of smell, taste or
physical sensation, or brain waves, so that they arise as intelligible visual, audio or
mental information. The mental activity displays that intelligible visual, audio or
mental information in the form of a mental hologram of a sight, a sound or a thought.
It is similar to the activity of a computer in transforming the data of strings of zeroes
and ones into information and displaying that information as images on a monitor
or sounds from a speaker, so that they can be further operated upon.

“Awareness” refers to a cognitive engagement (’jug-pa), though not necessarily

conscious. “Cognitive” and “cognition” are the most basic terms for knowing – so,
seeing, hearing or thinking something. The cognitive engagement can be accurate or
inaccurate, decisive or indecisive, with understanding or without understanding,
conceptual or non-conceptual.

Clarity and awareness are nondual. Transforming the data of photons or

electromagnetic waves into intelligible information can be described as either giving
rise to intelligible visual information or as seeing. They are nondual: they are the same
phenomenon described from two points of view. Seeing is equivalent to transforming
photons into intelligible visual information. It is not that the mental activity first
transforms the photons into intelligible visual information in the aspect of a
visual mental hologram, and then it sees that mental hologram. It is not that first a
thought arises and then the thinking of the thought occurs.

Most importantly, there is no independently existent “me,” findable inside the material
brain or inside an immaterial mind that uses the “brain” or “mind” to see or think
things. That is a deceptive appearance. That doesn’t mean that no one is
the agent of mental activity or no one is experiencing it. Mental activity, after all, is
individual and subjective. It’s just that the person or individual is not something
totally separate from the mental activity. However, the person is not identical with it
either. Again, the person and mental activity are nondual. One cannot arise on its own
without the other also arising. There can’t be mental activity without it being
the mental activity of someone and there can’t be someone without some level
of mental activity.
 
Thus, mental activity is devoid of being dualistic, both in the sense of clarity and
awareness being established dualistically as existing independently of each other as
well as persons and mental activity being established dualistically as existing
independently of each other. The total absence of those dualities is called “voidness”
(emptiness). The total absence of these pair of phenomena being established in
impossible dualistic ways, when known non-conceptually, is known as voidness
“beyond words and beyond concepts” (brjod-pa-dang-rtog-pa-las ’das-pa).

Each Moment of Mental Activity Is Made Up of Five Aggregates

Mental activity is multipart. There are seeing, hearing and thinking, but they are
always accompanied by a cluster of many mental factors. These include
interest, attention, concentration, feeling some level of happiness or unhappiness and
either constructive emotions or disturbing ones. The various variables that make up
each moment of individual, subjective experiencing of something are organized into
the analytic scheme of the five aggregates. The five, though not in the traditional order
in which they are usually presented, are the aggregates of:

 Consciousness (rnam-shes-kyi phung-po)

 Forms of physical phenomena (gzugs-kyi phung-po)
 Distinguishing (’du-shes-kyi phung-po)
 Feeling a level of happiness (tshor-ba’i phung-po)
 Other affecting variables (’du-byed-kyi phung-po).

These five aggregates should not be thought of as five “bags” located somewhere in

each of our brains; they are merely an analytical tool. One or more items from each
group comprise each moment of the individual subjective experiencing of something.

The five aggregates include all non-static, changing phenomena. Although mental

activity also includes static phenomena (like conceptual categories), the five
aggregates do not include static phenomena, since they do not change
from moment to moment.
 
We want to be able to identify the five aggregates in our moment-to-
moment experience, so that when what we are experiencing – a mood, etc. – seems to
be some solid heavy thing, we can deconstruct it into all its everchanging components,
all of which are changing at different rates. Then we can understand what we need to
work on and change within our mental activity.
 
Also, by understanding how the self, “me,” fits into these everchanging, multipart
moments of experience, we can overcome our unawareness, the ignorance with which
we imagine that the self exists dualistically as something separate from
this clarity and awareness. Either we misconceive that the self is separate from
both clarity and awareness, observing it or trying to control it, or that the self is
identical with the awareness component and dualistically separate from the mental
holograms that arise. When we think in either of these mistaken manners, we feel
insecure. We want to try to make this independently existing “self” secure by getting
things to us (desire), getting them away from us (hostility) or putting up the walls
(naivety). These disturbing emotions lead to compulsive behavior and, as a result, we
experience problems and suffering.

The Aggregate of Consciousness

The aggregate of consciousness includes the various types of primary consciousness.

There are six basic kinds – five sensory and one mental – not just one as in science:

 Eye consciousness
 Ear consciousness
 Nose consciousness
 Tongue consciousness
 Body consciousness
 Mental consciousness.

These six types of primary consciousness cognize the conventional essential nature of

what some data is – a sight, sound, smell, taste, physical sensation or mental object.
The five sensory ones are always non-conceptual. Mental consciousness may be non-
conceptual or conceptual.

Each moment of sensory non-conceptual cognition with one of the five types or

sensory consciousness is immediately followed by a moment of mental non-
conceptual cognition with mental consciousness. Each of the two gives rise to mental
holograms of the same information. In this fashion, the Buddhist analysis does include
a presentation of the central role of mental consciousness: it just analyzes its role in
more subtle detail.
 
Karma Kagyu accepts eight types of primary consciousness.

 Foundation consciousness (kun-shes rnam-shes,

Skt. alayavijnana; storehouse consciousness) is the foundation on which
karmic tendencies, potentials and habits, as well as memories, are carried
 Seventh mind (bdun-yid) is simultaneous with foundation consciousness and
is aimed at it. It affects the foundation consciousness so that it gives rise
to dualistic appearances.

The Aggregate of Forms of Physical Phenomena

There are three groups of forms of physical phenomena:

 Sensibilia, meaning everchanging, momentary sensory data. These are

conglomerations of particles and molecules large enough to be detected by
sensory consciousness and only last for a tiny moment. They include tiny
 colored shapes (colored pixels of light, photons or electromagnetic
waves), sounds, smells, tastes, and physical sensations. They arise from
external elements and can be known by both a specific type of sensory
consciousness and mental consciousness. This is not a Chittamatra view of
Mind-only.
 Forms that are only objects of mental consciousness – forms in dreams,
imagination and visualizations, as well as atoms and subatomic particles.
 Cognitive sensory cells – the photosensitive cells of the eyes, the sound
sensitive cells of the ears, and so on. Although the traditional Buddhist
presentation does not include here the cells of the nervous system,
neurochemical transmitters and the brain, they could comfortably fit into this
group.

Although the Gelug school includes as forms of physical phenomena conventional

whole objects that extend over all their sensory data and extend over time, the Kagyu,
Nyingma and Sakya schools do not include them among the five aggregates.

Momentary photons or electromagnetic waves, sound waves, etc. are what function
and produce effects. They change from moment to moment. Non-conceptual
sensory cognition of them lasts only an instant, followed by an instant of non-
conceptual mental cognition and then, immediately, by conceptual cognition.
 
During non-conceptual sensory and mental cognition, there is no manifest grasping for
truly established dualistic existence. That is because during these two phases
of cognition, the mental activity has not yet given rise to mental holograms of
everyday, conventional whole objects. They give rise only to mental holograms of tiny
colored shapes, tiny moments of sound and so forth.
 
First, a moment of an electromagnetic wave occurs and then, in the
following moment, when that previous moment of an electromagnetic wave is no
longer happening, mental activity gives rise to a mental hologram of the sight of
colored shapes. The mental hologram is opaque, in the sense that the no-longer-
happening moment of an electromagnetic wave that conditioned it is not visible
through it. Another moment of electromagnetic wave is presently happening at
that time.

Conceptual Cognition

Conceptual cognition mentally synthesizes and gives rise, as its appearing object, to

an appearance (a mental hologram) representing a conventional whole object that
extends over the sensory data from all the senses and over an extended period of time.
As we continue to see tiny colored shapes slightly changing each moment, we have
continuing conceptual cognition of this mental representation of a whole conventional
object, but with a tiny time lag. These mental representations of conceptually
synthesized conventional whole objects are the appearing objects of only conceptual
cognition, starting the moment after sensory cognition of one moment of one sense
followed by one moment of bare mental cognition. We do not actually “see” them, we
only know them through mental cognition.

The conceptually synthesized conventional whole objects themselves are static,

metaphysical objects. They do not actually function, because to function they would
have to do something, which means they would have to change. It only seems that the
nonstatic, changing mental representations of these conceptually synthesized
conventional whole objects are functioning, but this is a deceptive appearance. It is
an illusion. Actually, it is the everchanging, momentary electromagnetic waves that
are functioning and producing effects.
 
Being static, mentally synthesized conventional whole objects are not included among
the five aggregates. The mental representations of them are included as forms of
physical phenomena knowable only by mental consciousness.
 
In the first moment of the arising of the conceptual cognition of a conceptually
synthesized conventional whole object, there is still no manifest grasping for truly
established dualistic existence, as was the case during bare non-conceptual
sensory cognition followed by bare non-conceptual mental cognition. This is a special,
unique Karma Kagyu assertion. That grasping only occurs from the
second moment onwards, where grasping for truly established dualistic existence
projects a dualistic appearance.
 
In the second moment of conceptual cognition, the conceptual cognition gives rise to a
static, fixed category – a table, a dog, a hand and so on – which it mental labels on the
conceptual synthesis of a conventional whole object. Together with this mental
labeling, the habit of grasping for truly established existence now interpolates
the deceptive appearance that the category is like a solid, concrete box and that the
mentally synthesized whole object is a truly established object that exists in this box
and is findable as a “this” or a “that.” The conceptual cognition may also give rise to a
word or name designated on the category, and through the category, onto the
synthesized whole object and its conceptual representation. Grasping for truly
established existence takes this deceptive appearance to correspond to actuality
and ignorance is unaware that this is not true. This confusion triggers disturbing
emotions to arise, and they trigger compulsive karmic behavior, which results in
suffering and problems.
 
Further, the habits of grasping for truly established existence give rise to a dualistic
appearance of the conceptually synthesized conventional whole object on the one side
and the mental consciousness and mental factors cognizing it on the other, as if they
were each truly established as concrete objects separately from each other. It also
makes the mental consciousness and mental factors side appear as if they were
identical with the self. It is like the dualistic appearance of ourselves watching life
around us as if watching a movie, with the mental side being the self, “me,” and the
mentally synthesized conventional whole objects extending over time being the movie
we are watching from inside our heads. Grasping for truly established existence also
takes that deceptive appearance to correspond to reality.
 
That grasping is not classified as belonging to any one of the five aggregates, but it is
non-static and part of a cognition. It is neither a primary consciousness, nor a mental
factor (such as attention or a positive or negative emotion), since it interpolates
(projects) something that is not the case or not there, which neither primary
consciousness nor mental factors do.

Karma Kagyu uniquely asserts that both non-conceptual cognition of colored shapes

and this first moment of conceptual cognition of a mental synthesis into a
conventional whole object are, by nature, Dharmakaya – mind-
itself (clarity and awareness). Mind-itself (sems-nyid) is like an ocean and the
appearances of colored shapes and mentally synthesized conventional whole objects,
as the effulgence or shining of awareness (rigs-kyi rtsal), are like waves of the ocean.
These tiny first moments of conceptual cognition are not to be abandoned, just not
followed out.

Mental Factors

A network of mental factors accompanies each moment of primary consciousness.

Mental factors are aware of their objects in special ways, but without interpolating or
repudiating anything. Interpolation (sgro-’dogs) projects and adds something that is
not there, while repudiation (skur-’debs) denies something that is there. It is grasping
for truly established dualistic existence that interpolates and repudiates. Some mental
factors perform functions that help the primary consciousness they accompany to
cognitively take or engage with an object. Others add an emotional flavor to the
cognitive taking of the object.
 
Each mental factor shares five congruent features (mtshungs-ldan lnga) with
the primary consciousness it accompanies:

 Reliance – relying on the same cognitive sensor

 Object – cognitively aiming at the same focal object
 Mental aspect – giving rise to the same cognitive semblance (mental hologram) of
the focal object
 Time – arising, abiding, and ceasing simultaneously
 Natal source – arising from its own natal source, its own tendency.

There are five ever-functioning mental factors (kun-’gro lnga) that accompany

each moment of mental activity. Two of them, distinguishing and feeling some level
of happiness, constitute their own aggregates. This is because craving after feelings of
happiness causes disputes among householders and also activates karmic potentials so
that a “throwing karmic impulse” propels the mental continuum into a further
rebirth. Distinguishing this view of reality from that view causes disputes among
monastics. Moreover, distinguishing an incorrect view and then considering it correct
is a further cause for uncontrollably recurring rebirth.
The Aggregate of Distinguishing

The aggregate of distinguishing focuses on a defining characteristic mark of

an appearing object (a mental hologram) and differentiates it from everything other
than itself. According to Karma Kagyu, in sensory cognition, which is always non-
conceptual, it is unmanifest. So, when Karma Kagyu asserts that there is no
distinguishing in bare non-conceptual sensory cognition or in bare non-conceptual
mental cognition, this refers to no distinguishing of conventional whole objects as this
or that object.

In the next moment after this sequence of bare non-conceptual cognition, conceptual

cognition gives rise to an appearing object, a mentally synthesized conventional whole
object that extends over all sense data and time, and a mental hologram that represents
it.
 
In conceptual cognition of conventional whole objects, distinguishing focuses on
the individual defining characteristic mark of the representation of the mentally
synthesized conventional whole object and differentiates it as distinct from other
objects that are not this representation. It also focuses on the composite feature of the
mentally synthesized conventional whole object itself and differentiates it as distinct
from other mentally synthesized whole objects that are not this object.
 
Starting in the second moment of conceptual cognition, distinguishing also focuses on
the composite feature of the mentally labeled category and the individual defining
characteristic of the designated word or name, if there is one. Distinguishing,
however, does not apply a word or name. The second moment of conceptual
cognition itself does that. Moreover, distinguishing is not the same
as recognition. Recognition implies remembering what was cognized before and
comparing with it what is cognized now.

The Aggregate of Feeling a Level of Happiness

Feeling refers to cognizing an object with happiness, unhappiness or a neutral feeling.

Most feelings are somewhere on the spectrum between extreme unhappiness and
extreme happiness. Most of the time they are undramatic. A neutral feeling is what we
feel in extremely deep meditation in the fourth dhyana – a level of mental stability far
deeper than shamatha – and in formless absorptions.
 
Happiness is that feeling which, when it stops, we wish to meet with it
again. Unhappiness or suffering is that feeling which, when it arises, we want to be
parted from it. A neutral feeling is one that is neither of the former two.

Feeling a level of happiness is defined as how we experience the ripenings of our

karma – meaning the ripenings from the karmic potentials and tendencies laid down
by our previous compulsive karmic behavior. What ripens is our compulsively
encountering and cognizing various everchanging phenomena in each moment. Our
feeling some level of happiness or unhappiness while that happens is how we
experience it. Our karmic potentials do not give rise to these phenomena we
experience, but to our encountering, cognizing and experiencing them.

Feeling, then, refers to

 How we experience the aggregate factors with which we are born – body, intelligence,
talents, personality, etc. – and the aggregate factors in each moment as they
change moment to moment over the lifetime. Note that feeling itself is one of these
aggregates.
 How we experience the environment in which we live
 How we experience the events that happen to us similar to what we have done in the past
 How we experience our compulsively wanting to repeat our past patterns of behavior.

We experience each of these with some level on the scale

between happiness and unhappiness, or if we are in very deep meditative absorption,
with a neutral feeling. A level of happiness is what we experience as the ripening of
constructive karma; a level of unhappiness is what we experience as the ripening of
destructive karma. Without feeling some level of happiness or unhappiness while
our mental activity is giving rise to a mental hologram of these above-mentioned
things and cognitively engaging in them, we are not experiencing them. Feelings can
accompany sensory or mental cognition (both non-conceptual and conceptual) of these
happenings and the content that arise.

The Aggregate of Other Affecting Variables

The aggregate of other affecting variables (’du-byed-kyi phung-po,

Skt. samskaraskandha) include all the other mental factors
besides distinguishing and feeling a level of happiness. It also includes noncongruent
affecting variables (ldan-min ’du-byed), like impermanence, aging, motion,
tendencies, and persons (the self). Some presentations refer to this as the aggregate of
volition. This is because one of its components, urge (sems-pa), is the most prominent
member of this aggregate and, in these presentations, what I translate as “urge” is
translated as “volition.” But, as can be seen with the definitions of the mental factors
given below, “volition” or “will” in English comes closer in meaning to the mental
factor “intention,” rather than “urge.”  

The Five Ever-Functioning Mental Factors

The five ever-functioning mental factors include distinguishing and feeling a level of
happiness, but here, in the aggregate of other affecting variables, only the other three
are included.

 An urge (sems-pa, mental impulse) is the main mental factor that affects

the mental activity and what sets it in motion, causing it to go toward
something specific, like the movement of a piece of iron caused by a
magnet. It causes it to go toward tiny colored shapes as well as to
conceptually synthesized conventional whole objects, so as to cognitively
 engage with them. By describing the functioning of an urge as like the
movement of a piece of iron caused by a magnet, the definition indicates
that it is not that the urge first sees an object and then goes toward it in order
to see it. Karma is equivalent to an urge when it is compulsive, based on
previously built up potentials and tendencies. A mental urge or karma moves
the mental activity into thinking something about an object. A physical and
verbal urge or karma moves it into doing or saying something to or about the
object.

 Paying attention or taking to mind (yid-la byed-pa) is the mental factor that

differentiates an object as an object to focus on, thus enabling the mental
activity to cognize it. This mental factor pays some level of attention to the
object, from very little attention to very much attention. The attention may
be only momentary, or it may be repeatedly when we lose our focus; it may
be painstaking or effortless. In addition, attention may consider an object in
a certain manner, in which case we may call it “consideration.” It may
consider its object correctly in accord with what it actually is or incorrectly
as what it is not – for instance, happiness rather than suffering, clean rather
than unclean, static rather than nonstatic.
 Contacting awareness (reg-pa) is the mental factor that differentiates that the
object of a cognition, whether non-conceptual or conceptual,
is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and thus serves as the foundation for
experiencing it with a feeling of happiness, unhappiness, or a neutral feeling.

The Five Ascertaining Mental Factors

The five ascertaining mental factors (yul-nges lnga) help primary consciousness to
take its object with certainty:

 Intention (’dun-pa) is, in general, the wish that causes the mental activity to

take possession of this or that desired phenomenon. Aimed at a phenomenon
that has previously been thought about and in which it has keen interest,
the intention may be wanting to meet (or not to meet) with an object or goal
previously thought about, wanting not to be parted (or to be parted) from an
object or goal previously thought about, or having keen interest (or no keen
interest) in an object or goal previously thought about. So, intention includes
interest and varies in strength on a spectrum from strong to weak. Further, it
is the wish to do something with or to the object once obtained.
 Regard (mos-pa) takes its object to have some level of good qualities – on
the spectrum from no good qualities to all good qualities – and may be either
accurate or distorted.
 Mindfulness (dran-pa) holds on to some cognized object without losing it as
an object of focus. It is equivalent to a type of “mental glue” that holds on to
the object of focus without letting go and prevents the mental activity from
leaving it. Its strength spans the spectrum from weak to strong.
  Mentally fixating (concentration) (ting-nge-’dzin) keeps the mental
activity staying focused on an object and may vary in strength from weak to
strong.
 Discriminating awareness (shes-rab) decisively discriminates that something
is correct or incorrect, constructive or destructive, and so on. It adds some
level of decisiveness to distinguishing an object of cognition – even if that
level is extremely weak – and may be either accurate or inaccurate.

All Ten Ever-Functioning and Ascertaining Mental Factors Work Together

If we analyze in terms of the combination of a sequence of moments of bare sensory
and bare mental cognition of the data of one sense together with subsequent moments
of conceptual cognition, we can understand how all ten of these factors work
simultaneously and harmoniously together, directed at the same focal object with the
same mental hologram. 

When cognizing an object, there is

 Initially, a compelling urge to go in its direction

 Distinguishing it from other objects that it is not
 Paying attention to it
 Regarding it as having good or bad qualities
 Discriminating awareness, adding certainty that it is not some other object and that it is
constructive or destructive
 Intention, wishing to obtain the desired object of interest, having thought about it before,
in order to do something with it or to it
 Contacting awareness of it as pleasant or unpleasant
 Feeling a level of happiness or unhappiness
 Mentally fixating, staying focused on it
 Mindfulness, not letting go.

The Eleven Constructive Mental Factors

 Believing a fact to be true

 Moral self-dignity or having a sense of values
 Care for how our actions reflect on others and so restraint from acting outrageously
destructive
 Detachment – bored disgust with objects of compulsive desire
 Imperturbability – not being belligerent in response to negative behavior of others, or
getting cranky and aggressive when suffering
 Lack of naivety, not being insensitive to the effects of our behavior on others and on
ourselves, and on our own and others’ situations
 Perseverance
 A sense of fitness – self-confidence that we can stay focused and accomplish what we
wish
 A caring attitude – taking seriously cause and effect and situations, thus bringing us to
act sensitively and constructively, not wanting to hurt others’ feelings
 Equilibrium – mental activity without flightiness or dullness, in a natural state of
spontaneity and openness
 Not being cruel – not wishing to hurt anyone, plus compassion for them 
 Many more – love, patience, compassion, generosity, ethical self-discipline, and so on.
Root Disturbing Emotions
Disturbing emotions are defined as mental factors that, when they arise, cause us to
lose peace of mind and self-control. There are six root disturbing emotions, the last of
which includes five disturbing attitudes.

 Longing desire (for objects we do not have), attachment (not wanting to let go of what we

do have) and greed (the wish to have even more of what we already have)
 Anger (’khon-khro) – hostility (zhe-sdang) is a subcategory of anger, aimed at persons.
 Arrogance
 Unawareness or ignorance – the bewilderment or dumbfoundedness of not
knowing behavioral cause and effect or the very nature of reality. Bewilderment is a
heaviness of mind and body. Naivety (gti-mug) is subcategory of unawareness, aimed at
persons.
 Indecisive wavering about accepting or rejecting what is true
 Deluded outlooks – a group of five disturbing attitudes, the most important of which is
a deluded outlook toward a transitory network (’jig-lta). It seeks and latches on to
some transitory network from our own samsara-perpetuating five aggregates with an
accompanying conceptual framework (attitude) that it tightly holds on to. The conceptual
framework is that of “me” or “mine.” It itself does not fabricate and interpolate this
conceptual framework; the grasping for an impossible self or “soul” of a person that
accompanies it interpolates it. This grasping is for the aggregates to be either identical
with a static, partless, independently existing “me” or completely separate and the
possession of that “me” as something it lives in and can control.

Auxiliary Disturbing Emotions

These derive from the three poisonous, toxic disturbing emotions: longing
desire, hostility or naivety. This list includes

 Hatred  Smugness or  destructive

 Resentment conceit behavior)
 Concealment  Cruelty  Foggy-
of having  No moral mindedness
acted self-dignity (n  Flightiness of
improperly o sense of mind
 Outrage values)  Disbelieving a
 Envy  No care for fact
 Miserliness how one’s  Laziness
 Pretention actions reflect  Not caring
 Concealing of on others  Forgetfulness
shortcomings (lack of  Being unalert
(hypocrisy) restraint from  Mental
outrageously wandering.

Changeable Mental Factors

These mental factors are unspecified as either constructive or destructive. They
become constructive or destructive depending on the ethical status of
the cognition they accompany. 
  Sleepiness
 Regret
 Gross detection – rough investigation
 Subtle discernment – fine scrutiny to discern specific details.

Bodhichitta is not included among the mental factors, and it is also not a primary
consciousness. It is what is called a principal awareness (gtso-sems), a type of mental
activity that is a composite of primary consciousness and specific mental factors. It
consists of mental consciousness aimed at one’s own not-yet-happening
enlightenment and is accompanied by the intention to attain it and the intention to
benefit all beings by means of its attainment. It is held by the force
of love, compassion and exceptional resolve with which it is generated.

Noncongruent Affecting Variables

Noncongruent affecting variables do not share all five items in common with
the primary consciousness and cluster of mental factors that they accompany – the
same reliance, focal object, mental hologram, time and being the same in each arising
from its own natal source, its own tendency. 

They are imputation phenomena that are tied to an individual

mental continuum (mental activity), which is made up of five ever-changing
aggregates of experience. They can neither exist nor be known separately form
the mental continuum that is their basis for imputation. In other words, they are
nonstatic facts about the various items in the five aggregates. No one imputes them;
they are objective facts. They perform functions; they produce effects. Examples
include:

 Impermanence
 Change
 Aging
 Motion
 Tendencies for mental factors to arise, including karmic tendencies for
compelling urges to arise to repeat some behavior
 Persons.

All these are facts that apply and, in a sense, are present, with each moment of
the mental continuum. That includes the tiny moments of bare non-conceptual
sensory cognition of tiny colored shapes and moments of conceptual cognition of
mentally synthesized conventional whole objects.

In each moment,

 All five aggregate factors of the cognition (the forms of physical

phenomena, primary consciousness and mental factors) are impermanent
(nonstatic) – they are changing
 The forms of physical phenomena (the tiny colored shapes) are in motion
  The primary consciousness and mental factors have varying strengths
because of the strength of their potentials and tendencies to repeat, which are
also changing
 There is a person experiencing all of this
 The person is aging.
 And if we see the tiny colored shapes that our conceptual
cognition synthesizes into an appearance representing a conventional whole
body – our own or someone else’s – it is a fact that these are the colored
shapes and body of a person.

Impermanence, change, aging and motion are not the same as what is impermanent,
changing and aging or moving, nor can they exist on their own as something separate,
independently of what is impermanent, changing and aging or moving. A tendency to
repeat also is not the same as something that repeats, nor can it exist as something
separate and independent of what repeats. So, these are facts about these objects that
change every moment and perform functions.

Although these facts are valid facts that apply to moments of bare sensory non-
conceptual cognition and all their aggregate components, they are too subtle for the
mind to perceive them instantly in the first moment. Change or motion or
a tendency to repeat can only be cognized over several moments, which means that
they can only be cognized conceptually then as static conceptual syntheses. But that
does not mean that change, motion, and so forth are just conceptual constructs, like
conventional whole objects are. The motion and moment to moment changing of
electromagnetic waves or tiny colored shapes are objective facts and they produce
effects. The changing of the presence or strength of various mental factors in
each moment is also an objective fact and it produces effects.

Persons, the “Self”

The same is the case with persons, “me” and “you.” In terms of moments of non-
conceptual or conceptual mental activity made up of five aggregates, each moment is
the individual, subjective experiencing of something, and so it is a fact that there is
a person experiencing it. The person as someone experiencing something is not the
same as what he or she is experiencing, nor can a person as someone experiencing
something exist as something separate, independently of something it is experiencing.
But like impermanence, change or motion, a person is too subtle for the mind to
perceive instantly in the first moment – whether it is oneself or someone else.
 
The cognitive sequence for cognizing a person is:

 A moment of electromagnetic waves or photons that are the basis for

a person
 A moment of bare sensory non-conceptual cognition giving rise to a mental
hologram of the tiny colored shapes that are the basis for a person
 A moment of bare mental non-conceptual cognition giving rise to the same.
This moment and the previous moment of non-conceptual cognition are too
 short to be able to ascertain their cognitive objects, either the colored shapes
or the person. They are non-determining cognitions (snang-la ma-nges-pa),
without manifest distinguishing.
 A moment of conceptual cognition giving rise to a mental synthesis of a
conventional whole body of a person that extends over all sense data and
over time, and a mental synthesis of a conventional whole person as an
imputation on the basis of this whole body, extending over all five
aggregates and over time. The mental factor of distinguishing becomes
manifest and distinguishes what appears as this conventional whole body
from what is not this body, but it does not distinguish what appears as the
conventional whole person from what is not this person. The conceptual
cognition ascertains the conventional whole body, but not the conventional
whole person.
 A moment of conceptual cognition giving rise to mental syntheses of both a
conventional whole body and a conventional whole person as an imputation
on it. The mental factor of distinguishing distinguishes each of them from
what is not them and both the body and the person are ascertained. So far,
there is no problem.

In the next moment of conceptual cognition,

 The habit of grasping for true dualistic existence gives rise to the deceptive

appearance that the conventional whole body and the conventional whole
self are objects whose existence is established by something findable on
their own sides, independently of the conceptual cognition that mentally
synthesizes them; and this grasping cognizes them as such. It also gives rise
to the deceptive dualistic appearance that the body is established by itself on
one side as the cognized object, and the consciousness on the other side as
the cognizing person; and this grasping cognizes them as such.
 At the same time, the habit of grasping for the impossible self (or “soul”) of
a person gives rise to the deceptive appearance of the conventional whole
self as knowable by itself, independently of cognition of the conventional
whole body immediately preceding and simultaneously with it.  
 These two graspings cause discriminating awareness incorrectly to take
these deceptive appearances to correspond to reality, and the
accompanying ignorance (unawareness) adds not knowing that this is
incorrect.
 Based on this unawareness, mental activity gives rise to disturbing emotions
and compulsive behavior. As a result, mental activity gives rise to suffering.

We need to develop discriminating awareness that this deceptive appearance is

incorrect; it does not correspond to reality. The refutation that this deceptive
appearance does not correspond to reality, however, does not negate the existence and
functioning of the self. It is just that we cannot distinguish it in non-conceptual
cognition and, when we do distinguish it, we distinguish it as a static mental synthesis,
mentally constructed by conceptual cognition. But that does not render the self as
merely some imaginary object that doesn’t know, do or experience anything. The self
is part of the aggregate of other affecting variables, but just too subtle for us to
cognize it non-conceptually. Thus, the arising of a hologram of it in non-conceptual
sensory and mental cognition and the arising of a hologram representing a mental
synthesis of the self into a conventional whole object are inseparable as waves
of Dharmakaya.

Summary

Mind is the individual, subjective mental activity of experiencing something, and it

constitutes a beginningless and endless individual continuum. It is not some
immaterial object that is doing this activity, moment-to-moment. Its conventional
defining characteristic is that it is clarity and awareness.

Clarity is the activity of giving rise in each moment to a mental hologram:

 Either non-conceptually to a mental hologram of sensory information –

a moment of tiny colored shapes or a momentary sound
 Or conceptually to a mental hologram of a static conceptually synthesized
conventional whole object, represented by a nonstatic mental appearance,
together with a static category and often also a word or name.

Awareness is the cognitive engagement – seeing, hearing, thinking and so

on. Clarity and awareness are nondual. They are two ways of referring to the same
occurrence – a moment of mental activity.

Each moment of mental activity can be analyzed as comprised of five aggregate

factors, but these are merely an analytical scheme that includes only the non-static
components, since these are affected by other phenomena and, in turn, affect others.
The static phenomena cannot be affected by anything.

The mental hologram that arises is the aggregate of forms of physical phenomenon.

The cognitive engagement is made up of the four other aggregates. On the basis of
these four are items, like impermanence, motion and the self, that are neither forms of
physical phenomena nor ways of being aware of something, and which are included in
the aggregate of other affecting variables.
 
The aggregate of consciousness is the primary consciousness that cognizes
the essential nature of the mental hologram as a sight, a sound or a mental object.
The primary consciousness is accompanied by a cluster of mental factors sharing five
things in common with it – they are focused on the same external focal object, give
rise to the same mental hologram and so on. These are divided among the other three
aggregates.

The aggregate of feeling is the mental factor of feeling something on the spectrum

between happiness and unhappiness is how the mental hologram is experienced and it
arises as what arises as a result of karmic aftermath. It can also be a neutral feeling in
deep states of meditation.

The aggregate of distinguishing is the mental factor of distinguishing the individual

defining characteristic mark of the mental hologram as being this and not anything
other than this. It is not manifest during sensory non-conceptual cognition and mental
non-conceptual cognition of tiny colored shapes, but only with conceptual
cognition of mentally synthesized conventional whole objects.

The aggregate of other affecting variables includes all the remaining mental factors

plus the noncongruent affecting variables, such as impermanence, motion and the self.
The mental factors include:

 Mechanical ones,
like urge, attention, intention, concentration and mindfulness
 Constructive ones, like belief in facts, love and patience
 Destructive ones, like attachment, anger, pride, jealousy and ignorance
 Changeable ones, like regret and sleepiness.

When we are feeling disturbed or in a bad mood, we need to deconstruct it into all its
component parts with this analytic scheme of the five aggregates and recognize that
each component is changing each moment and each at a different rate. There is
nothing solid about the conceptually synthesized “experience.”
 
If one or more component is weak in the cognition, like attention or concentration, we
can strengthen it, or if one component is a troublemaker, like anger, we can counter it
by activating or strengthening other components, like love.
 
The scheme also helps us to understand that the self is a fact about each moment of
the mental activity. But one moment of non-conceptual cognition is too fast to be able
to distinguish and cognize the self. The self can only be distinguished and cognized
conceptually, over a sequence of moments, when it is mentally synthesized into a
conventional whole object.
 
Nevertheless, the self is not just a conceptual construct. Someone is experiencing
the mental activity, not no one. But that person, me, is nondual with the mental
activity. It arises simultaneously with the mental activity but is neither identical with
the mental activity nor totally separate from it. It is what is called an imputation on
the mental activity. When we understand that, we can counter the ignorance with
which we believe that the self is a concrete separate entity, which then triggers longer
desire, anger and naivety to get things to it, get things away from it or build walls
around it to make it secure. In this way, we gain liberation from suffering, and
eventually, with bodhichitta, enlightenment for the benefit of all.