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Buddhist Philosophy and Epistemology: An Introduction

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

September 22, 1977

BUDDHISM; EPISTEMOLOGY

TOPIC: Buddhism

SUBJECT: Epistemology

SUBSUBJECTS: Point-Instants, Guenther ("The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism")

CONTENTS:

Reading from Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," on point-instants

Empirical time and space as fictions constructed by understanding; sensible point-instants as ultimate reality

Realist objection that point-instant is also a construction; Buddhist response about mathematical point-instant being real

Indian distinction between grossly measured and subtle time; instantaneous motion as motion of a thing during a single moment; differential of planet's longitude

Explanation of differentials and limits by LS; differentials as basis of modern science and engineering; limit concept approaches but never reaches point-instant

Reading from Callahan, Four View of Time in Ancient Philosophy; time in Timaeus as the wandering of sun, moon, and planets; mundane Gods are manufacturing the image of the universe

Question of whether motion of planets explodes as image

PB's view of karma as twin function to ideation vs. Buddhist separation of point-instants and ideation

Point-instant as power of Idea working its way into imagery

Planets as fourfold

Quote from Dharmakirti on extended form existing in the real object not more than in its idea; group attempts to explain quote; quote is contrasting mentally constructed ideas with point-instants

Contrast drawn to Samkhya's view of mind as a "thing" with attributes vs. Buddhist denial of underlying thing

Reading/discussing Guenther, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism"

Mind's tendency to assume certain states when conditioned and return to natural state when not; termed causal characteristic of mind

Mind's natural state as sunya; compared to disturbed water becoming calm when not interfered with

Various orders of causal characteristics allowing mind to lose/gain causal characteristics

When not pure called 'sentient being,' when pure called 'Buddha'; Zen Masters want you to be an insentient being

Designations of hell beings, spirits, animals, gods, demons as determinable characteristics of impure mind

Your ordinary state of mind is one of discursive concentration; in meditation the idea is to relax from this concentration

Memory and association as fleeting states of mind rather than mind (clear light) itself

The tacit assumption of a thing that persists through its changes can't be applied to an understanding of mind and its states

Sense-field with outstanding sensum apprehended by feeling and expectation; gives situation specific external reference termed 'appearance'; example of listening to music

Appearance as constructive symbolific activity creating subject and object; example of desire thought becoming a dream; as deviation from mind's natural state

Padma Karpo: in pure sensation there is no duality, but constructive mental activity quickly imposes duality; discussion of this point

Padma Karpo (cont.): cognizing whatever arises as it is leads to emptiness (Sunyata); recognition of the dreamlike/fabricated nature of imagery

PB: Real is continuous with its Appearance; dream analogy

Reading quote from Suzuki, Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, on no-birth; compared to insubstantiality of objects in a dream upon analysis

Reference to additional readings; brief mention of striking similarity to Plato's notion of images in receptacle

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

F. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, Vol. 1
Plato, Timaeus
John F. Callahan, Four Views of Time in Ancient Philosophy
Herbert V. Guenther, Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism"
C.D. Broad, Mind and Its Place in Nature
Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga
D.T. Suzuki, Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra
Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself
Herbert V. Guenther, The Royal Song of Saraha: A Study in the History of Buddhist Thought
Frederick J. Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning

DIAGRAMS referred to (not with this transcript version) [Transcriber note: [diagram] means the speaker is referencing a diagram as he or she is speaking. If someone is drawing or writing, with audible sounds of chalk on a blackboard, I indicate this by [drawing] or [writing].]

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2021. Archival verbatim transcript – V11a.

AUDIO FILES: 1977 0922a, 1977 0922b. [Note: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files.]

Highlight:

1977 09/22 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Buddhism; Epistemology

[Audio File 1977 0922a Begins]

AD: --left off, "Motion is Discontinuous"? [1 minute 17¾ pause, flipping of pages, background student talking] Well, let's turn to section 14, "is the point-instant a reality? the differential calculus." [15½ second pause] We'd like to make some general broad observations on the rest of this section, "Theory of Instantaneous Being", and then we'll use this paper as an example of what they're speaking about. But perhaps this is the most dramatic presentation on this notion of "the point-instant, a reality?" [10 second pause] If we read, he says--

[11¾ second pause]

[Transcriber note: I am using Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, by F. Th. Stcherbatsky, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1962.]

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 106, AD reading]: "In the preceding exposition it has been sufficiently established that empirical Time and Space [AD rereads:"…empirical Time and Space] are, for the Buddhists, fictions constructed by our understanding on the basis of sensible point-instants which alone are the ultimate reality."

AD: And, you could fall back on the analogy of a dream, alright. The desire which manifests itself as a dream produces in that dream the space and the time, that is, the locus in which the dream is taking place, alright, and also the sequence of images flowing one after another. And the Buddhists consider these--

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 106, AD reading]: "…fictions [AD adds: which are] constructed by our understanding on the basis of sensible point-instants which alone are the ultimate reality. Against this theory which reduces the reality to the"this", the "now", the "here", and converts all the rest of our knowledge into imaginative and relative differentiation, the Realists raised a very natural objection that the point-instant itself is no exception to the general rule, since it [is] also nothing but a construction in thought, a mere name without any corresponding reality. … The Buddhist retorts [AD reads: The Buddhist, of course, replies] that the shortest time, the mathematical point-instant, is something real, since it is established in science. The astronomer makes it the basis of all his computations. It is an indivisible time particle, it does not contain any parts standing in the relation of antecedence and sequence."

AD: Now, we have to keep that point in mind. Because these point-instants do not stand in a relationship of before and after. So, when we speak of point-instants following upon-- one following upon another, we have to understand that we're taking something within the sensible world to describe something which provides or is the presupposition of the sensible world. So it's a-- a very incorrect mode of speaking. Again--

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 106, AD reading]: "It is an indivisible time particle, it does not contain any parts standing in the relation of antecedence and sequence."

AD: And then he gives this notion. And, you know, Indian astrology has been quite accurate and I understand some of their ephemerises are just as accurate as the naval observatory in Washington. So, we won't underestimate what he's going to say here.

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," pp. 106-107, AD reading]: "The Indian astronomers made a distinction between [AD adds: the]"time grossly measured" and a "subtle time", measured with precision. The motion of a thing during a single moment they called instantaneous motion, or the "motion of just that time", i.e., not of another time, not of another moment. This time is nothing but the differential of a planet's longitude. Such a moment is no reality, says the Realist, it is a mere mathematical convenience. "Just the contrary, says the Buddhist, [AD reads: The Buddhist replies, just the contrary] we maintain that the instantaneousness of being is the ultimately real thing." The only thing in the universe which is a non-construction, a non-fiction, is the sensible point-instant, it is the real basis of all constructions [AD reads: construction]. It is true that it is a reality which cannot be represented in a sensuous image, but this is just because it is not a thought-construction."

AD: And of course they point out that that point-instant is really unutterable.

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 107, AD reading]: "What is utterable is always more or less a thought-construction. Thus it is that the mathematical point-instant is a fiction for the Realist and a reality for the Buddhist, and vice versa empirical time or"gross time", "substantial time" is a reality for the Realist and a fiction for the Buddhist. [AD adds: And] Just as the mathematician constructs his velocities out of differentials, so does the human mind, a natural mathematician, construct duration out of momentary sensations."

AD: Perhaps we can elaborate this for our own understanding a little bit? When he speaks here about the subtle time that is used for the measure of a planet's longitude.

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 106, AD reading]: "This time is nothing but the differential of a planet's longitude. Such a moment is no reality…"

AD: Alright, uh-- Well, you'd like to try to explain that, Lenny?

LS: Yeah, I think I could draw a picture.

AD (simultaneously): Alright, sure.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

[short pause]

LS: What can I erase here, anything?

AD: Whichever.

LS: Just erase?

AD: Yeah, sure.

[10¼ second pause, noises, LS drawing]

LS: You don't have to be thinking of a planet. You could be thinking of anything moving. And the question you're asking is how can I [couple/few words inaudible] Now, it's a substantial time, you always call it gross time, you can't ask that question because as soon as you've asked it this instant is already gone. But mathematically you could ask that question. And essentially what you're asking is something like this. You know how fast it-- say we have something moving like this. Alright? And you could think of it as a planet if you want to go along with his idea. And here's where it is. And, here's where it was and here's where it will be. Right? And we know that it travels [drawing] like that, alright? Now-- so it was here, and it will be here, so that in a certain amount of time it traveled [writing] this distance, alright, and the distance divided by the time is the velocity.

S (faint): Right.

LS: Now, again, you could take it, here we are, we have another place where it was, and here's another place where it will be, and again you have another distance. [drawing/writing] Alright? And you could call this D', alright. And you have another time, D' divided by T', that's another velocity. Right? Now these calculations you can make. Right, you know where it was, you know where it will be. If where it was and where it will be are not the-- are not the same sort of thing as where it is, you can fix those, alright. So you have-- you have a previous place where it was and you have a place where it's going to be. So what you have is kind of-- if you-- if you keep looking at this, you have V, you have V', you could take another one that's even closer, alright, and say V''. And what you have is you have-- you keep--

This is what mathematicians kind of fog up by calling a limit. And they give this outrageous definition of what a limit is. But it's really a very simple concept. We can approximate what the velocity is at any given moment of time in this-- You could draw it like this, you-- the little arrow [writing] which they call dv, and this-- this is a differential, the differential of a planet's motion, right, and that word differential is a-- It's essentially an instantaneous velocity which takes-- in any measurable quantity, you could think of it as an infinitesimal with smaller than any measurable quantity and yet it isn't zero. And if you study these differentials closely enough it'll destroy your belief in the notion of zero. There isn't anything really called zero. But there's only these infinitesimals which are kind of potentials for the whole thing and they come very close to what he's describing here as a point-instant.

So mathematician would say you take-- he would say you take the limit as a difference, the time difference, ok, approaches zero [writing] of this distance where it's going to be minus the distance where it's-- where it was over time, and this is the differential velocity. And what they say is this, you could pick thousands of-- of places where it's going to be and thousands of places where it was, it doesn't matter, you'll get the same answer here. And all the equations for planetary motions, all the equations for any kind of motion, upon which the most accurate calculations can be based, and you can get it to any degree of accuracy you like, alright, are based on these differentials. And they always come like this, they don't say, "We can be accurate." But they say, "Given any degree of accuracy, we can come that close." Alright, everything's expressed in terms of differentials. Alright, given any infinitesimal that you want to set up, (from) any smallness, any degree of accuracy, we can come that close. Alright, so it's all kind of a theory of approximations, everything is expressed in a theory of approximations. If mathematicians were honest, they would always express it that way, in terms of the approximations, which are the actual differentials. So that the differential is the fundamental, the differe-- which is the same as the point-instant, it's-- mathematically it's the same thing. It's the fundamental basis of all modern engineering, modern science.

This doesn't have to be described in terms of motion. You could ask something like this. You could take a-- a slope, and you could say, "What's the gradient of the slope at this point?" In other words, if there were a horizontal slope approximating to this point, what would the slope be? And again you would do the same thing, you'd say well, [drawing] we know the slope at this point and we know the slope at this point, we know the slope at this point. And so by taking a limit we find the slope at this point. And it's a static picture of which that is a dynamic picture. This is kind of based on a observation in static space [diagram] and this is based on the observation of a moving body [diagram]. And, the formula is the same, with exactly same formula. And mathematicians abstract that and they get a definition of what's called a derivative or a differential. And the strange thing is that the most exact calculations are made on the basis of what seems to be a sequence of approximations. And yet when you get to this differential it's the reality that's going on there.

More qualitatively considered, the image that we were talking about last week for a moment is kind of nice. You know, if you take a movie picture of the scene in front of you usually that the camera goes something like eight pictures per second. And you show the film back at eight pictures per second, you get a track of what was moving there. And if you take the film at say 32 pictures per second, and then show it back at eight pictures per second you get a slow motion film of what was going on, and it looks very different, you see a lot of things you didn't see at first, you know, you've seen probably slow motion films of horses running. You know, they use slow motion cameras to decide who won a race and things like that. Well you can imagine that you could have a super camera that could take films as fast as you like so that you could have thousands of pictures per second instead of just eight. And then you could show them back at eight pictures per second. So you'd have this incredible slow motion picture of what was going on there and it would like be a magnifying glass except operating through time instead of through space, and then you'd see this entirely different world there.

Now the method of science, the way I understand it, is to take that magnifying glass, whether you're operating through time or through space or through energy, it doesn't matter, every aspect of science you could take that magnifying glass and to look for the point-instant at the bottom, to take the limit somehow, and what they call that limit is what's really going on. It doesn't matter, they call it an atom, a molecule, they call it a point, a differential. But it doesn't matter, they come down to something and it's a point-instant. And they reconstruct what probably goes on on the basis of the point-instants which they say are the reality. And if you could find point-instants at the bottom of astrology they'd believe in them too I guess.

AD: Any-- any questions?

S (simultaneously, faint): [couple words inaudible] asking about that.

RC: I never understood that notion of the limit. What is that?

LS: Well, you see you can't-- you can't actually ask this question, how fast are you going at this moment? The reason is this moment isn't here anymore soon as you ask it. So you have to find a way of asking that question which doesn't involve a fallacious concept. Right? Now you can measure where you are at this-- at some previous moment and where you are at a moment in the future, right? And you can measure that many different ways, in other words, you can come closer and closer to that moment that you're really interested in. In fact, you can come as close as you like. Right?

PD: But you can never come to that moment.

LS: No.

PD: And that's where I'm lost, I'm not even following Stcherbatsky here because what the analogy seems to be saying, this is how far thought can get or mental construction could get to that point-instant. But in truth it can never grasp that point.

LS (simultaneously): Because-- but you can come arbitrarily close.

PD: Right, but you--

LS: Alright, now that's what mathematicians deal with.

PD (simultaneously): But what I'm saying is there's a world of difference between that point-instant and the thought-construction. No matter how close the thought-ideations will come to that di-- to that point-instant--

AD: Well even your understanding of it would be an approximation too.

PD: Right, that's what I'm saying. So in one sense the-- the analogy is pointing out the inability of thought to grasp the point-instant.

LS: Yeah. And it's in this-- in this way of this attempt to come arbitrarily [PD simultaneously: Right, right.] close where a mathematician or a scientist actually gets to the intelligibility of what's going on, by taking these kind of sequence of approximations.

PD: Approximations.

LS: Closer and closer observations, not even trying to get to some-- some specific closeness but in getting to this sort of thing where he can get a schema which comes arbitrarily close. So given any degree of closeness he can get there. Alright? And that-- and in that sense you've got as close to the point-instant as you can get within thought. And it's thought itself that goes to the limit. Right?

PD: The limit of the mental construction.

LS: Right. And once you get to the limit of the mental constructions, the idea emerges. Something like that. I don't know, to my understanding that's what scientists are always doing.

PD: But I mean, in following out what he's-- part of the analogy he's working out there, it's-- it's an acceptance on the part of thought as being inable-- unable to grasp the point-instant. That it's [AD simultaneously: Well--] got to be grasped through another faculty.

AD: Well, here's-- here's something-- We're bringing this in from the Timaeus of Plato, ok? And, I wanted to bring this in-- I like to show the way Plato was speaking about this here, ok? [short pause] If you remember in the Timaeus he has the circle of the Same and the circle of the Different. He speaks about two circles, one the Same and one the Different. The Same would correspond to something like the Intellect or the fixed-- the order of the fixed stars. And the circle of the Different would correspond to the seven planetary motions, alright. And that's why-- I'm picking this right out of what he says the Hindu astronomers do, ok?

[Transcriber note: I am using Four Views of Time in Ancient Philosophy by John F. Callahan, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1948.]

John F. Callahan [Four View of Time in Ancient Philosophy, pp. 19-20, AD reading]: "Thus [AD reads: The] Timaeus perceives in the wanderings of the sun, moon, and planets a diversity typical of the diversity of the universe, but this diversity somehow under the influence of the circle of the Same. Time is thought of especially with reference to the circle of the Other, that is, the seven orbits just mentioned. The regular procession of time according to number manifests itself in the seven different orbits of the Other; [AD: That would be planetary spheres.] these are of course governed by the circle of the Same, but it is their diversity that gives time its measurability."

AD: Now in the Timaeus he's saying that the motion of the seven planetary spheres, in contrast to the motion of the Same or the fixed stars, alright, this contrary motion is what's going to make time measurable for us. So that even in the Timaeus, there's based this notion of point-instants because these-- it is these planets, or the Mundane Gods, which are going to manifest the universe for us as individuals. I'm just trying to bring in a-- from the other side of the world the same notion.

John F. Callahan [Four View of Time in Ancient Philosophy, p. 20, AD reading]: "…but it is their diversity that gives time its measurability. They provide the numbers according to which time proceeds. Their wanderings by their diversity distinguish the numbers, but by their fundamental regularity they guard the numbers as well. In this way time is said to be created [AD: Ok?"…time is said to be created] by the very distinguishing and guarding of the numbers. We might admit the possibility that time could be created by other numbers than the ones actually present in the universe…"

AD: But Timaeus doesn't give any. But just-- just one more quote.

John F. Callahan [Four View of Time in Ancient Philosophy, p. 20, AD reading]: "A great deal of light is thrown upon this view of time by the additional declaration of Timaeus that time is the wanderings of the sun, moon, and planets. Time is a moving image and the motion of these bodies along with the motion of the sidereal equator is thought of as being the most fundamental motion in the universe. For [AD reads: And] we have seen that the soul of the universe, from which all its activity arises, manifests itself most prominently in the two great circles. So it is fitting that time should be identified with the motions that make the universe itself a moving image of the eternal nature… [AD adds: And] The planets are also spoken of as the beings that were to assist in the fashioning of time."

AD: Do you get the picture of what the Timaeus is talking about here? It's a short extract. Continue--

John F. Callahan [Four View of Time in Ancient Philosophy, p. 21, AD reading]: "This [AD reads: The] procession according to number, as we have seen, is effected by the sun, moon, and planets."

AD: And he goes on. He refers to them as the instruments of the times. So now here, he's speaking about the Hindu astrologers recognized that they need to measure precisely time, alright, subtle time is what-- what he was talking about here. And the notion in the Timaeus too, alright, of the-- the differential of the planetary motion was something that they established very early in order to be able to tell with precision, you know, the meaning of time and try to clock. So that, the next-- the next step, and this is-- I just leave suspended in the air for your speculative intellect, if you take these two positions together, you will understand what Plato's speaking about, that the Mundane Gods are manufacturing the image of the universe. And that image must be in time. [short pause] But these are very very profound matters.

[short pause]

"That space likewise contains no other ultimate reality than the momentary sensation has already been pointed out. Dharmakirti says:"an extended form exists in the (real) object not (more) than in its idea. To admit that (the extended body) exists in one (unextended atom) would be a contradiction, and to admit that (the same extended body being one) is present in many (atoms) is an impossibility." The extended body being thus a fiction, there is no other issue left than to admit the ultimate reality of the point-instant."

AD: Would you like to try working an explanation out on this? [short pause] We were speaking about, you remember last week, we were speaking about the explosions, you know, in the television, the explosions of light, they're so many numbered across the screen. And each one of these explosions, so to speak, add up to this general image which is on the picture, you know, the picture that you see. Could we take the analogy and apply it to what the Buddhists are doing? Is the motion of these planets, so to speak, the differential, the subtle motion of these planets, the totality of the seven planets and the aspects that they're creating as they're making these motions, does this burst-- burst out or explode into an image? Go ahead, yeah. You know, play with me Paul. Because there's a mechanism involved in the production of the images. And the images, like we spoke-- spoke about are construction(s). The-- the light that explodes in the television, the 400 points of light that explode, the explosion of that light creates an image, alright. And one could say, well, the picture or the image that's created is non-different than the exploding points of light. And the other point of view is one could say that they are different, that the explosion of the light and the image which concurs with that explosion, alright, are different. Some would say that they're the same. And PB for instance, he said-- you remember the way he put it, the-- Well, somebody remembers, karma and its ideation in common?

S (simultaneously, faint): Karma is the twin function to its ideation.

AD: Alright. So that would be one way of looking at it, alright, one way--

PD (simultaneously): They seem to always want to maintain the difference between the ideational element--

AD: Yeah, they want to maintain the difference. They want to keep it different, separate.

PD: Keep it separate, yeah.

AD: Alright.

RC (very faint): Are they speaking of ideation [couple/three words inaudible]

AD: I'm sorry?

RC (faint): They're not speaking of ideation at the same level (as we are).

AD: I don't know what you're saying.

RC (very faint): Well, it seems that that PB quote, like ideation is the function of karma. Whereas (for) the Buddhist it would seem like the ideation follow(s) [one/two words inaudible] you know.

AD: I don't see your point.

RC (faint): Well--

AD: Say it again.

RC (very faint): Just when that when the-- when the Buddhist talks about ideation, I'm using that word in the context of Buddhist logic, I don't think he means by ideation-- what PB means by ideation is that [couple/few words inaudible]

AD: (No/Well) go on, tell me more.

RC (faint): Well--

AD: Karma or power is a twin function to that of the images.

EMK: But which image is that, is that the-- is that the image that's prior to our experience?

AD (simultaneously): The image of the world. Which is prior to your experience, [EMK assents] the world was here before you, you know that. Huh? Power, alright. Let's change the wording, power and the images that it creates. So the power and the images that-- the creation of those images is twin function-- In other words, you can't think of power in itself. But if you think of power then there's images accompanying that power or part of that power.

PD: To play the advocate here though--

AD: Go ahead.

PD: The Logicians lots of times speak of power without ideation.

AD: Yes, yes.

PD (simultaneously): They say the individual is [AD simultaneously: Yes.] the one that's contributing the image that--

AD (simultaneously): Quite well, you're not playing the devil's advocate, that's exactly the point. PB says that they can't be separated, these people say that it can.

PD: They-- what they're saying is that the-- what's objective or--

AD: What's objective are the point-instants [student assents] or the power per se.

PD: Right.

AD: Yeah.

PD (simultaneously): And the individual constructs that into his own world.

AD: Why? Do you-- do you ever remember seeing yourself putting together time, space, and the objective phenomenon?

PD: Yeah, I do. No. That-- that's a (good question).

AD (simultaneously): It must have been a good brandy.

PD: They're saying the individual's frame of reference is the determining factor in creating his images as well.

AD (simultaneously): And-- and I would ask you, how about that individual frame of reference, isn't that also part of the point-instants?

PD: That's a good question [AD simultaneously: Yeah, uh-hm.] and I don't know what to say there.

AD: As a matter of fact, I hope to later on to show you with a startling precision an analogy that these people are all talking about the same thing and coming from different points of view.

S (faint): Tony, I-- I don't know-- I don't know [three/few words inaudible] Could you go-- could you go over that? I'm sorry. I--

AD: The whole thing?

S (faint): Well-- (S laughs a bit)

S: Not interested.

S (faint): I guess-- I didn't know what you're even talking about, that's the one with the-- they-- they would say I forgot-- like a direct perception [possibly one word inaudible] but it's not necessary to have any kind of imagery taking place.

AD: Oh, they don't say that. They don't say-- say that. They're just saying that--

S (faint): Are we talking about it as non-construction?

AD: Imagery always accompanies or is superimposed on those point-instants. [short pause] That's more like what they're saying is-- And these images can be blotted out, you can stop them, [student assents, faint] only for that they require that you go through mystical training, you know, so that you can stop all imagery. But the point that we were trying to make here is that if you think of a series of instant points like this, alright, now you're dealing with something very scientific, you're not dealing with the imagination. Although through the imagination you're trying to grasp its limit, alright. And the reason I brought in the Platonic conception was to make you realize that there are schools of thought that point out that the motion of these planets is actually what-- the motion or the energy of these planets is actually those point-instants that these people are talking about. And the very functioning of these seven planets in making all these various mathematical aspects to one another, alright, these are bringing out the necessary images. And images not-- not only for the individual but the imaged world.

S (faint): But Tony, I think my confusion is coming again. When you say images, you-- you're speaking of like images I see. Ok, I think I'm confusing images that I see(--/.) So that, when they speak of images, they're speaking of constructed images.

AD: Go on, yeah.

S (faint): And, they're not-- they're not speaking in terms of like an idea or-- I'm-- I'm not sure how to express it but it would seem that a point-instant within itself would-- that [couple words inaudible] could be an idea. [AD simultaneously: Well, if--] Say that you could have--

AD: You can bring in that notion, and later on I will, to show that these point-instances are the Ideas or the power or the force of an Idea working its way into imagery, alright. But for now we want to leave that out, alright, and we want to point out that what the Pla-- what is being established here is that, underlying or the substratum of the imagined world is these point-instants, alright, and they are what are the ultimate reals. And we can't get at them simply because our mind is always interfering in the process. The mind must put things in time, in space, in relationship, in a certain mode, so that the mind never directly pierces into the point-instants but transforms it into an image of the world.

S (faint): Now when PB says that twin-- that function-- power and ideation are twin functions--

AD: Karma and ideation, (yeah).

S (faint): Karma and ideation are twin functions, he's speaking of ideation there as the what you were calling the point-instants as real imagined [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): No, ideation there would be the entire imagined world, and all the understanding, the entirety of the understanding. So that, for PB you cannot have, so to speak, these point-instants exploding and producing an imaged world-- In other words, if they explode, there's an imaged world, and if there's an imaged world there's included in that the understanding of it, whether implicit or explicit, we won't discuss. Yeah, go ahead.

AH: Tony, you've mentioned the seven planets in terms of--

S (very faint): (Seven) planets?

AD: No, the seven physical planets, they themselves are part of the imaged world.

AH (very faint): Then what seven planets are you referring to?

AD: They would be the planets in the second quadrant [diagram], it would be the souls. In other words, what Plato was saying here is that time is the life of the soul.

AH: So if the-- when you-- when you said the planets create time, you certainly are not talking about the [AD: Well--] physical planets.

AD: No, we speak about planets at four different levels. The physical planet, the mundane planet, part-- the part of the universe that you see is the mundane planet, alright. Then there's part that you don't see. Just like we say you have a body and we say you have a soul and an intellect and a unity. This applies to the planets too. The mundane planets are themselves the effects of the soul's activity. So when we're speaking about the imaged world that's produced by the planets, we're speaking about either the soul or the intellect of the planet and not the planet, the mundane planet that you perceive. [AH: So (couple words inaudible)] But this-- this I'm bringing-- this is, you know, ab extra.

AH: But at this level there would be no contradiction between the substantial point of view of Plato and the functional point of view that the Buddhists are operating.

AD: No, there isn't. There really isn't.

AH: But eventually there would have to be.

AD: No, no. I brought them together.

AH: But not at this level--

AD (simultaneously): Although they may not agree with me. (AD laughs a bit)

AH: I don't see how they could be brought together at this level.

AD: Well, we first have to study the basic three-- the three theories of the Buddhists and then I'll be able to show it.

AH: Because the point-instant is the-- is the limit and-- I just get very confused when--

AD: Think of point-instant as a pouring out of energies. [11¾ second pause] If we take the example, you remember the example we used last week where we said you were sleeping and someone pokes you, ok, and in that instant that he pokes you that whole body stimulation is turned into a dream, ok. Now the actual physical poking let's say would be something like the sensation, the pure sensation. I'm poking you, that's just a pure sensation, ok. But what the mind does with it is translate it into a whole dream. Now the Buddhists would say, what is real in experience is the poke, alright, and not the dreams that come up in the mind. In other words, the mind took that poke, alright, and translated it into a dream. And you say, "Ah, look at all this." Whereas the Buddhists would say, "No, that's not real, what was real was that poke that you got." So they're making a division between the actual body stimulation and the imagery that the mind conjures up in a dream. Now, it's just an analogy to get you to feel the bifurcation, the separation that they insist upon. Point-instant and the imaged world are two separate realities.

AH: And they also say those are the only two.

AD: Alright. That is going to be subject to a lot of dispute. Again, could we go to that paragraph? Could someone try to explain that? The-- that paragraph--

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 107, AD reading]: "That space [likewise] contains no other ultimate reality than the momentary sensation [has already been pointed out]. Dharmakirti says…"

AD: And this is what I'd like to try to see if we can explain.

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 107, AD reading]: "…"an extended form exists in the (real) object not (more) than in its idea. To admit that (the extended body) exists in one (unextended atom) would [AD reads: will] be a contradiction, and to admit that (the same extended body being one) is present in many (atoms) is an impossibility." The extended body being thus a fiction, there is no other issue left than to admit the ultimate reality of the point-instant."

AD: Alright. Can we try to explain that to ourselves?

AD: Go ahead.

S: Is he saying that the extended body is-- is just a product or a result of ideation?

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, louder please.

S: Isn't he saying that the extended body is the result of the ideation? Or--

AD (simultaneously): I can't hear you.

S: I'm sorry. Isn't he saying that the extended body, the extended form, is the result of ideation? And--

AD (simultaneously): Is the what?

S: Is the result or is a-- what you say the product of ideation, of-- of the imagination as putting it in time and space? And therefore it's not-- it's not i-- it's not identical or it's not synonymous with the point-instant, which would be the real body let's say.

AD: Alright, keep trying, go ahead, you started, alright. Keep trying. You want to try it?

AH: I think it's secret.

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 107, AD reading]: "…"an extended form exists in the (real) object not (more) than in its idea."

AH: That's like the limit-- the limit of space, the same way that, in the previous paragraph, this differential shows the-- the limit of time. (He's gonna--) let's apply that to either an individual atom or show the impossibility of an extended body being incorporated in many atoms. [short pause] Like it's not-- it's-- The notion of space has to be dealt with in the same way as the notion of time has been dealt with.

EMK: It seems like he's coming to-- coming to the idea that, ordinarily we would say well the idea of a line doesn't have any extension but if I draw a line it does. And he's saying no, that the line that you draw doesn't have any more extension than the idea does because you've said that a line is just a series of points which have no dimension, and if one of the points doesn't have any dimension, no matter how many you line up, there won't be any extension in the line that you draw.

AD: Ok. And the line, the form of the line, cannot exist in the point.

EMK: The form of the line--

AD: Yeah, (the--)

PD (simultaneously): And the line that you [EMK simultaneously: Yeah.] see also doesn't possess any extended space. That's as much an idea.

EMK (faint): Uh-hm.

AD: Alright, keep [couple inaudible PD words simultaneous with AD] trying, go ahead, keep working this.

PD: The very--

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 107, AD reading]: "…and to admit that (the same extended body being one) is present in many [(atoms)] is an impossibility."

PD: To say that the form, the line form, say that it persists in just one atom is a contradiction 'cause then atom is equated with the line itself, so there's no need for the concept of atom. Or say that exists in many atoms is an impossibility 'cause then you have many form-- you have a form broken up into many parts. So that essentially form or even the extension of form in space is a product of the ideation.

S: Uh-hm.

AD: Go ahead, ok, let's go with this now. We're-- we're getting to it. You see what he's doing here, very cleverly. He's-- he's taking the conciptual [AD mispronounces]-- conceptual fabrications that the mind works with and shows that you can't insert them into the object that you claim is the object. In other words he's really contrasting our mentally constructed object or idea with the point-instant. And he's trying to show that, if you take the idea of a line, or the idea of a form, for instance, the form of my body, alright, he says if you take that idea, alright, it's-- it doesn't belong to one of the parts. You-- you can't say that the form of the body belongs to let's say a cell or an organ or something like that. You can't insert it into that, ok? Alright, so he shows you that that form, because it's not applicable to any of the point-instants, alright, any of the parts of the body, alright, has no existence per se.

S (faint): That's right.

AD: Let's-- let's do it a couple of time(s).

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 107, AD reading]: "…"an extended form exists in the (real) object not (more) than in its idea."

AD: Alright, go ahead, start with-- with the remark you made, Ed.

EMK: About the line?

AD: Yeah.

EMK: Go ahead.

F. Th. Stcherbatsky [Buddhist Logic, Volume 1, "The Sensible World," p. 107, AD reading (simultaneously with EMK above)]: "…"an extended form exists in the (real) object not (more) than in its idea."

EMK: Well ordinarily we would say that the idea of a line doesn't have any spatial dimensions. The idea is something incorporeal. Yet a line that we draw or a line that we see on the-- on the floor has some kind of spatial extension because you can measure it. And he's saying that, we've already-- if you define the line as just a series of points, and none of those points have any dimensions or extension, you can't say that by adding a lot of them together you would ever get anything that had any kind of extension, because no matter how many zeros you add up you still have zero.

S: Right.

AD: In other words, then he's also trying to show you that everything that you claim this line to be really comes from the postulated idea "line". That you're not inquiring into the nature of the object, you're really inquiring into the nature of the idea of the object.

EMK: Ok.

AD: What do you think?

S (very faint): Yeah.

S: I was a little confused when you said that the-- like the idea of the form isn't-- isn't present like through-- to-- or throughout the body. I mean the idea of the extended body isn't present throughout all the atoms in the body.

EMK: Uh-hum.

S: Well I think I'm-- I must be coming at it from a funny point of view because it seems to me that that-- the-- that idea or the possibility of that extension into space would-- would have to exist when they-- within this atom so that you wouldn't know the difference.

AD (simultaneously): Would have to what?

S: Would have to be potential within each of those atoms or else you--

AD (simultaneously): Well that's what they're denying.

S: But--

AD: Here, if [S simultaneously: I'm just saying from an empirical point of view.] we take the analogy of the dream, alright, if we take the analogy of the dream, [S: Yeah.] they would be saying the stimulation that, you know, when I poke you, alright, [S: Yeah.] that that point-instant, alright, is quite different than the dream that you're having. [S: Right.] And that you can't take that dream and insert it into the point-instant or enlarge that point-instant and make it into a dream. You can't do that. We do that but--

S (simultaneously): No, but each time you poke me (you have) the same dream.

AD: I'm sorry?

S: I'm doing something strange, [student assents, faint] I don't know what it is.

AD: I'm sorry.

S: Go ahead.

S: Yeah.

S: I had a-- I'm doing something strange because I have-- I'm getting this idea like each time you poke(d) me, I had the same dream.

AD: I hope so. Makes it easier. (S laughs)

S: Yeah.

S (laughing): I suppose. Never mind, but I'll just figure it out.

DB: Tony?

AD: Go ahead, please.

DB: Working with the dream analogy, could you say something like, well, there's a stimulus and that provokes a-- a dream into activity. Now you're in the middle of the dream, and you say to yourself, "Well, I wonder what it is that provoked this dream into-- to existence?" So you go and you spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure that out. But that's all contained within-- Well, that-- that can never get you to the-- the original stimulus. Like any-- any analysis or interpretation, if you're going on-- that you're developing, it's all within the dream. The-- the perspective is contained within that. That seems to be like a way of illustrating what Ed was saying that the extension-- that-- that when you really try to get at the nature of the object, all that you're getting at is the nature of your own ideas about the object.

S (very faint): That makes sense, yeah, yeah.

AD: Alright, now reverse it. Now the other side, coming from the other side.

[11 second pause]

DB: Well, that you could say that within this-- within this dream, there's an extension and-- [short pause] I don't know if that's right. Then you have-- because-- 'cause the way he does it you have to be--

AD: Well--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1977 0922a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

AD: --the dream, that's a form, alright? Now, could you equate this with the stimulation that the body receives? Can you insert that whole-- the whole of that extended idea and put it back into this bodily stimulation? Which would be a differential too by the way, because you would not be able to say exactly where at the moment or the instant you got touched, alright, that the transformation started taking place.

RC: Why does it say it's an unextended atom instead of a-- an atom?

AD: No, no, then it would-- the atom would be a postulated kind of scientific talk. These people by the way would even break down atoms, there's no such thing, that too is a postulated conceptualizing. To these people there's no such thing as an indivisible atom. They break that down too.

S: But Tony?

AD: Yeah. Go ahead.

S: Well this may be from left field but, if you took a prism and you beamed a single light through it and it burst into all the colors of the rainbow, would they say that that-- that rainbow had nothing to do with that original beam of light?

AD: No, I don't think that the analogy is good.

S: It's not a valid analogy.

AD (faint): No.

S (faint): Go ahead.

S (faint): I mean how-- I think my question was about the-- the relationship between the ideation and the point-instant because I think--

AD (simultaneously): But that's exactly the point we were discussing, weren't we?

S: Yeah, but can I--

AD: That there is no relationship.

S: But then Tony, if you have these individual-- if you have point-instances and they say that the reason we are-- that the reason that you don't see the diff-- we see them as being similar, all the consecutive instants, we make a line out of them, is that because we don't perceive the difference. But if they're-- if-- I think if there's such a similarity it would seem that there's some-- there's something within that pulse which is going to create--

AD (simultaneously): If there's such a similarity between what?

S: Like the point-instances.

AD: There's no similarity between point-instants, [S simultaneously: At all?] each one is unique, particular.

S (faint): Yeah, yeah.

AD: There's no similarity, they say do not have any commonality.

S (faint): Nothing at all.

AD: No.

S (faint): Ok.

AD: If you want, you could think of the point-instants like the objective forces in the psyche or the World-Mind. I'm just trying to help these-- (to discuss) explanation out into the open, uh--

S (faint): Yes, I know that. [10 second pause] Yeah.

AD: You see it's very interesting because what we have here when we were speaking last week, we made a remark something like this. In the Samkhya system, you have-- you have a situation where they speak about mind but they speak about mind as some thing, ok? And, if you remember, we listed that this mind, this thing, has certain attributes. Ok? And you remember the attributes were buddhi, ahamkara, manas, and all the lower senses, the buddha-indriyas, the sense-organs, and the karma-indriyas or the motor functions, ok? And we said that the Samkhya, and the-- and the Vedantists, they use that term too. They speak about the mind, [drawing/writing] and they speak about that-- that mind as composed of all these, alright. And I think what we use-- well we said citta, alright, composed, alright-- included in each individual's mind, every individual has a mind, alright, and that-- that mind has certain functions. And we said buddhi was one of them, ahamkara, "I am", alright, manas, higher-- the higher manas, and then we pointed out five senses, five motor senses, ok? We said, to the Samkhya this is a thing that has certain powers and certain faculties, ok. Now the Buddhists are going to take this out, alright, and they-- and they're going to show that there are these functions, but there's no thing there. There's nothing that underlies them. Like let's say I have a table, alright, and the table is painted in this corner black, this corner white, alright, that corner green and the other corner yellow. And I say there the table is like the substratum for the four colors, alright, the buddhi, ahamkara, manas, ok. The Buddhists would say, "Wait a minute, there's no underlying table." And in this essay they try to make that into a-- Guenther tries to really explain what they mean when they speak about manas or mind. Maybe we could read some of the selections here together. And there would be-- this would be like an application of the theory of instantaneous being to the mind, ok? [short pause] Now, you have to be a little careful with Guenther, he's a bit willful. It's-- it seems that no one else starts out with experience but the Buddhists. Alright.

[14¾ second pause]

[Transcriber note: I am using Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective by Herbert V. Guenther, Dharma Publishing, Emeryville, 1977.]

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 38, AD reading]: "It has been customary…"

AD: Let's start there, on page 262.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 38, AD reading]: "It has been customary to translate the terms…"

AD: Would someone read? Can you read?

S (faint): (Alright.)

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 38, TM reading]: "It has been customary to translate the terms sems (Skt. citta) and sems-las byung-ba (Skt. caitta) by 'mind' and 'mental event' respectively. But this translation, however philologically correct, does not tell us much until we know what is meant by these terms and their relation to each other. At first sight, the relation is comparable with that which common sense assumes to exist between the 'thing' and the 'states of a thing'. In this particular case, mind [(sems, citta)] would be the 'thing' and mental event [(sems-las byung-ba, caitta)] would be the 'state of the thing'."

AD: Ok up to there? Alright, next paragraph.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 39, TM reading]: "Mind [(sems, citta)] is considered to have an inherent tendency to assume a certain state of such and such determinateness when conditioned in such and such a way, so that properly speaking you know the state of a certain mind rather than this mind itself, although we tend to continue speaking of a mind since the states are states of this mind:"This mind under consideration, when it has been changed by conditions such as traces and dispositions, should be known only as a state of mind.""

AD: Ok up to here? Ask questions if you have. Alright.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 39, TM reading]: "But mind also has the inherent tendency to assume its 'natural' state when left alone:"Mind, in the absence of conditions, is without memory and association and is sunya.""

AD: Alright, let's stop here, up to here?

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 39, AD reading]: "[But] mind [also] has the [AD reads: an] inherent tendency to assume its 'natural' state when left alone…"

AD: It's like if you imagine, you know, a-- a pond, alright, and no wind is blowing and it's-- it's settled, it just stays placid and calm, there's no ruffles, no waves, ok? Alright, if the wind starts blowing, then the waves start showing. He says if you leave the water alone, the water tends to be placid. If you leave the mind alone, it tends to get quiet, ok. That's very hard for us to do. We're going to throw rocks in it. You've watched kids, right, they always throw rocks in ponds, right? And like if your mind is getting quiet, you can't stand that. Right? Got to think of something.

SS: Tony, the state of the mind, would that be buddhi, ahamkara, manas?

AD: The state of the mind?

SS: Yeah. And the mind itself, would that be citta?

AD (simultaneously): No, no, I [SS simultaneously: Could it (be) (one word inaudible)] specifically do it that way to show you that when they speak about mind, it isn't made up of five different things but these are five different ways of that thing working.

SS: Right. And would that be the state of the mind?

AD: That would be the state of the mind. So let's say that you have a thought, ok, "I see a tree," alright. All those functions are operating [SS assents] as a wave. Now suppose you wipe your mind clear, no thoughts, ok . Everything gets placid, it gets like a mirror, you can see your face in it. You can see to the bottom.

SS: And so even the mind itself will-- wouldn't be there. That would be gone also. Is that correct?

AD: Well it wouldn't be functioning. It would be resuming its natural state.

SS: Which is not to be at all?

AD: Which is what?

SS: Not to be at all?

AD: Not to be at all? [few inaudible SS words simultaneous with AD] No, according to the-- what we just said, it would just remain in its natural state and we didn't get further than that. What is its natural state? Continue.

TM: Ok, I'll read the footnote.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 39, footnote 6, TM reading]: "…sunya [(stong-pa)] is mostly translated by 'void', 'empty', and the noun Sunyata [(stong-pa-nyid)] by 'insubstantiality'. Such translations are utterly wrong. Sunya and Sunyata mean 'nothing' in the sense of 'not standing for any conception at all'. Sunyata has nothing to do with the philosophically antiquated concept of substance and its negation."

AD: So, you know, he decided what is antiquated in philosophy. He just laid it down and from now on you get his imprimatur when you refer to substance.

S: Yeah.

TM: Ok, ok. Ok--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," pp. 39-40, TM reading]: ""Mind, in [TM reads: is] the absence of conditions, is without memory and association and is sunya." This tendency is compared with what happens when we allow disturbed water to become calm and transparent again: "Like muddy water which becomes purer by itself when it is not interfered with." This characteristic of mind, to assume a certain state when subjected to certain conditions and to pass back into its original state when conditions have been removed, may be called the causal characteristic of mind. The causal characteristic does not belong to any of the states of mind, though they are caused by it, but only to mind itself."

AD: Ok, let's stop, let's discuss a minute.

AH: I don't understand this footnote like--

AD: Ignore the footnote, it's not even necessary.

AH: But his whole argument is based on--

AD: Ignore the footnote. I read this thing-- I mean I marked it, I read this twenty-five years ago, I-- I was trying to understand.

AH: But his argument--

AD: Ignore it!!

AH: I can't. (laughter) His whole argument's incorrect if you base it on his footnote.

AD: No, ignore the footnote and just focus (laughter) on the argument, ok? Just take my word until we finish with it and then we can go back to it. [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] I mean he's got to look very scholarly so he's got to have footnotes. (laughter) You quote an idiot, you know, and you turn him into an authority. Be careful. Alright, back to the paragraph.

RC (faint): What's causal about this state of the mind? Maybe it's [one/two words inaudible]

AD: Well, go ahead, someone answer him.

AH: That's another footnote. (some laughter) He's quoting C.D. Broad, The Mind and Its Place in Nature.

AD: The causal characteristic-- if we go back to the analogy of the water, ok. It is the natural characteristic of the water to be placid. That's its natural characteristic. The wind comes, alright, and you have waves. But soon as the wind stop, alright, the water resumes its natural tendency to be quiet and placid. Now in the case of the mind, you won't have the wind blowing it, you'll have its own inherent samskaras disturbing it. But as soon as a samskara, let's say, gets blown up, alright, it becomes a state of consciousness, gets discharged as a state of consciousness, then when it's over, the natural tendency of the mind is to resume its former, placid, quiet state. Now of course you're going to make sure that that won't happen. So as soon as one explosion is done and over with, you try for another. Go ahead.

DB: Well, it seems that the causal-- what is called the causal characteristic of mind-- Well it actually wouldn't actually be a content, it would just be-- it would be something that would have to have a memory of in order to do. And he starts out in the first place, he says, "Mind, in the absence of conditions, is without memory and association" and is whatever it is. But, then he says that there's a characteristic of mind that causes it to respond to this agitation, and he puts that characteristic in-- in mind itself, it-- in it-- in itself. Alright, and that just seems a contradiction. On the one hand it's-- it's without memory and association and on the other hand--

AD: It can acquire memory and association.

DB: I beg your pardon?

AD: It can acquire memory and association. It's not the natural state of the mind to have these things.

DB: Right. But in the a-- in-- in it-- It's only when mind is--

AD: Is subject to certain conditions will it acquire memory.

DB: Right, memory and association, alright, and that's--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, yeah. All the laws that go-- that you speak about as laws of the mind. [DB, faint: Right.] He says these are not natural to mind.

DB: So that this characteristic then is part of-- is not part of the natural condition of mind but--

AD: Exactly.

DB: --but part of the-- the effect of this agitation.

AD: Yeah.

DB: That in other words it's something that you don't start out with but--

AD: You don't.

DB: --you get added to, and you get-- it gets added to the mind.

AD: Ok. And "add" would be wrong because later on you'll see that you ca-- it cannot become an ingredient of the mind.

DB: Right, yeah.

AD (simultaneously): Ok.

DB: That-- this-- that was what was confusing me because, you know, if you-- The way he has this structured, that--

AD: Well, never mind the way he-- he use languages, do you get the idea?

DB: Ok.

AD: That's all we want. We want the ideas and we throw the words away. You remember the old Chinese saying about catching fish with a net? When you catch the fish, you eat the fish, you throw the net away, you don't eat the net too. Words are just for that purpose. You get the idea, throw the words away. Here's the idea, alright. Next.

TM (faint): Ok.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 40, TM reading]: "In this connection it is even possible to distinguish various orders of causal characteristics. We may say that it is a first-order causal characteristic of [TM adds: the] mind to pass into a certain state when conditioned in a certain way and to pass back into its natural state when the conditions do not obtain any longer. Conditioning may happen in such a way that mind loses the first-order causal characteristic of changeability and acquires the second first-order causal characteristic of staying in the [TM reads: a] particular state into which it has been brought by certain conditions. This feature of losing the [first] first-order causal characteristic…"

AD: Of losing the first first order?

TM: Yeah.

AD: You see how he gets caught up in all this jargon of nonsense. He's imitating Broad's book. [Note: C.D. Broad, Mind and Its Place in Nature.] Broad wrote a book on the five-- you know, about the mind, the five characteristics and five ways of the mind's operation. So now we have to suffer for it. Go ahead.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 40, TM reading]: "This [TM reads: The] feature of losing the first first-order causal characteristic and gaining the second first-order causal characteristic may be termed a second-order causal characteristic. Since this process is assumed to be reversible, mind may be said to possess also the second second-order causal characteristic of losing the second first-order causal characteristic (some laughter) and regaining the first first-[order] causal characteristic. This is evidently implied in the statement that mind has to be tanned like a hide in order to make it flexible again."

S (faint): (What happened to some?)

TM (faint): [couple words inaudible] (laughter)

AD: Alright, let-- let's ignore that and work out the next paragraph where he starts talking without that. "We notice the following characteristics", go on.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 40, TM reading]: "This mind is sometimes 'pure', sometimes 'muddy and having the determinable characteristic d' and sometimes 'muddy and having the determinable characteristic d₁' and so on. As it is stated:"When mind is not pure it is given the name of 'sentient being' and when it is pure in itself it is given the name of 'Buddha'." Or, it is said:

"When there is no mind, no minding, no intellect, no sensation, no perception, no memory and association, what then is the mind of a sentient being?--Sentient being can be spoken of only as long as these function-events operate." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Ok. How about that?

[short pause]

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 40, AD reading]: "…"When mind is not pure it is [AD reads: it's] given the name of 'sentient being' and when it is pure in itself it is given the name of 'Buddha'." Or, [it is said]:

"When there is no mind, no minding, no intellect, no sensation, no perception, no memory and association, what then is the mind of a sentient being?" [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Now if I were to ask you, you know, I'm speaking to you Ed, ok? There's no minding, no intellect, no sensation, no perception, no memory or association in you. What then is your mind?

EMK (faint): [few words inaudible]

AD: Well, exactly. I'm not a sentient being, he would say. I wouldn't-- I'd have no right to call you "sentient". You know what "sentient" means?

S: Knowing?

AD: Capable-- capable of sensing. Yeah.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 40, TM reading]: "Sentient being can be spoken of only as long as these function-events operate." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: They're functions and events. If the mind functions, there's also a mental event simultaneous with its functioning. Only these you can call sentient beings. But you can't call one whose mind is like a block of wood, excuse the expression, alright, you can't call him a sentient being.

EMK: There's no function.

AD: There's no functioning. You remember, the Zen Masters tell you to walk around like you're a block of wood. They want you to be an insentient being.

SS: So-- so as insofar that a Buddha has no mind or no--

AD: Exactly.

SS: --state of mind?

AD: Exactly.

S (faint): (Yeah.)

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 41, AD reading]: "The designation 'sentient being' is just a particular determinable characteristic as are the other forms of being, [viz.], denizens of hell, spirits, animals, gods, demons [AD reads: spirits, animals, gods, denizens of hell, daemons]. All these classes are so many determinable characteristics of mind in its 'impure' state. They are not causal and may be said to belong to the mind in the sense that they belong to all the successive states of a [AD reads: the] mind."

AD: Go ahead. Let's follow that.

[28 second pause]

DB: Well, what does it mean they're not causal?

S (faint): Uh-hm.

S (very faint): It means they're [one word inaudible] (with someone).

[short pause]

EMK: Doesn't it mean that there's not some real thing, like a spirit or an animal or a god or a demon that then causes these states to arise but that those-- the arisal of those states is what we would call that entity. Therefore that-- the entity itself is not causal to its-- to the very determination. There's not some finite individual that then has states of mind or causes states of mind to arise.

S: [one word inaudible]

AD: You see, what we're dealing here with is like, we could almost say something like this, that all these various classes of beings that they're referring to, alright, there's a very impersonal view of the mind here. In other words, if you think of any one of these states, whether a human being, a denizen of hell, a ghost, doesn't matter, it's a certain nature. It's a certain way of operating. Alright? This nature or this operation, alright, it's em-- it embeds itself in the mind, or let's say that this kind of functioning is going on, then we speak of that as a human being, we speak of that as a ghost. But you can't speak of the mind as the ghost or this denizen of hell. Because the mind hasn't got these characteristics.

PD: Jung made an analogy that would speak of the ego as a complex--

AD: Yes.

PD: --along other complexes in the [student assents] psychic sphere. It-- it just seems to be just one among many as you investigate the other luminaries in the psyche.

AD: Exactly, yeah, same similar thing. And you can see what this does, it like-- It's like saying that no matter what sort of entity you're speaking of, no matter what the combination of the functions which we call this entity, in referring to it as an entity, all these various functions, and they could be varied-- It could be a creature with two senses, could be a creature with eighteen senses. It doesn't matter. What does matter here is that functioning, that particular type of functioning, alright, attached to a mind or what we would say, attached to some sort of mental substance, now the mind is this thing. But they would say, no, don't think of it like that. Think of these functions-- It's almost like trying to think of the waves without any water. It's a pure functioning. There's nothing here that is that functioning, but just this functioning going on. What-- what were you referring to in Jung, when he was speaking about like the eye? Imagine the eye as an ego, ok, and it sees something, alright. And then another function like hearing, alright, that too is a separate entity in its own right. Now, if these two live in proximity or vicinity to each other, the eye sees something and then the ear distracts it because it could hear, something is being heard. So, we would have like three, four, five senses, each one going its own way, doing its own thing. It's a functioning that is not ordered in the sense that there's a central guiding, you know, citta which guides all the functions. That isn't there to guide all these functions. These functions just go on.

[short pause]

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 41, AD reading]: "…'sentient being' is just a particular determinable characteristic as are the other forms of being… All these classes are so many determinable characteristics of mind in its 'impure' state. They are not causal and may be said to belong to the mind in the sense that they belong to all the successive states of a mind.

"Finally there is the completely determinate form which these determinable characteristics assume in the various statuses of mind and which is defined more precisely as 'memory and association' [(dran-pa)], 'discursiveness' [(bsam-pa)] or covering the whole field of sentient life, 'Samsara' [('khor-ba)]: [AD: And he gives a quote--]

"What ordinary people understand by concentrative meditative attention is discursiveness, discursiveness is memory and association, memory and association are creative activity, creative activity is Samsara." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Now, let's try to hit that. [11¾ second pause] Let's take the quote, let's work with that quote. Should be easy, go ahead.

DB: Well--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 41, AD reading]: "What ordinary people understand by concentrative meditative attention is discursiveness…" [Padma Dkar-po]

DB: Well I-- I'm assuming that what he means by that is just take one idea and follow it out because-- like the di-- the distinction that Jung talks about between directed attention and indirected attention. He's talking about this as directed. This concentrative meditative thinking is discursiveness. Now any time-- any time you have any kind of discursiveness, you've got a movement of a mind which is going to involve memory and association or be one idea, another idea will follow it, etc, etc, etc. And-- Well, it just seems like what he's saying--

AD: Alright, yeah, that's-- yeah.

DB (simultaneously): --our mental activity is (samsaric).

AD: Yeah, so that actually, actually if you consider even more carefully you could see that a person is always meditatively concentrative. Because a person is never free of these conditions. A man, a person, is always thinking. And insofar that he's thinking, he is meditating and concentrating. Your ordinary state of mind is one of discursive concentration.

PD: There's a lot of energy going into maintaining that ordinary state of mind.

AD (simultaneously): Mind, exactly. It's always going on. So actually, in meditation the whole idea is not to concentrate then but to relax from it. (AD laughs a bit)

AH: The term 'attention' here, like bare attention rather than--

AD (simultaneously): Hm?

AH: Attention without any adjectives as opposed to attentiveness-- attentiveness to something.

AD: Look, Andrew, look at it this way. There's thoughts going on in your mind. You're listening, I'm-- You're looking at them, you're paying attention. That's what they're talking about. That's discursive meditation. You're doing it all the time. The whole idea of meditation is to break you out of that habit. Because you're-- you're in a state of attention. And this state of attention is one, so to speak, of volition. Ok?

AH: But I was just thinking that attention is always sort of the requirements of-- of proper meditation from the point of view of the Buddhists, the Zen Buddhists I mean. The notion of attention is the important one.

EMK: It's not that the attention's not there, it's just that the wrong things are holding the attention.

AD: Yeah.

S (faint): Wrong things.

PD: 'Cause the point of that-- this-- I-- thing here is that the attention that we're speaking of is-- is discursive consciousness. That's-- As long as there's memory and associations involved in that attention, it's purely discursive consciousness.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: Yeah because I think the way Dave pointed out is it's from thought to thought. You're watching one thought, then the next, you're paying attention to thought after thought. And insofar that you're doing this, this is discursive.

PD: Right.

AD: And the further point that we're making is, you're doing this all the time. And so naturally at the end of a day you are tired. (laughter) I mean it isn't-- it isn't that you live a life without any volition, alright. Your life is one of constant volition. You don't live the non-volitional life. Right? Because you're always listening, you're-- "What's going on? Hm, hm, hm." [S: Sure.] You ever watch person? I used to watch them on the subways. [AD demonstrates, laughter] It was a real scream. (AD laughs, laughter) But if we watch each other I think we see that very clearly, you see the person's always paying attention to thoughts going on, alright. So he's very seldom alone, if ever. Nobody really knows what it is to be alone. He's always got his friends with him.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 41, AD reading]: "Inasmuch as memory and association are of primary importance in all our mental operations, the term for them, dran-pa, has been used to include all operations as well. Memory and association are characterized as 'fleeting' (yal-ba)."Memory and association are fleeting like mist," or they are termed 'accidental' [(glo-bur)]: "Memory and association appear accidentally," and since they dim the clear light and [AD adds: the] radiance of the mind they are spoken of as "the stain of accidental memory and association." As completely determinate occurrences they [AD reads: that] belong to the states of a mind rather than to mind itself. Hence these completely determinate events are linguistically distinguished from mind [(sems, citta)] by the term [sems-las byung-ba] (caitta) 'that which has originated from mind'."

AD: So, if you take a look here now-- Don't impose any temporal limits on this, you know. When they say, for instance, that-- Think of this mind as, the way they say, a clear light, a radiant clear light, and it gets stained by the-- by an accident, the accident here is memory, association, alright. What you have to see here is that what they're trying to say is that this is a determinate occurrence or a momentary flash in the pan and it's gone. From the point of view of mind which is eternal, always this radiant life, alright, the tendency is for us to confuse it with the events that are going on, alright, and think of the mind as these events rather than the way he says here, "that which has originated from the mind".

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 41, AD reading]: "[Hence] these completely determinate events are linguistically distinguished from [AD adds: the] mind…"

AH: They probably speak of a mind when it's other than causal. But--

AD: Yeah, but when they speak of that mind, you're going-- you'll see that they're going to speak of it not as-- as mind but as an ongoing process. In other words, if I ask you, what do you know of your mind, all you could do is point to a series or a succession of states, one after the other. And if-- you'd probably end up by saying "Mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts." You never got to mind per se. You're-- it's always one of those occurrence.

AH: [few words inaudible] if you're talking about individual mind as opposed to--

AD: It doesn't matter, doesn't matter. If you get rid of memory and association, then-- I mean, how are you going to speak of mind, singular, plural, would it make sense? Alright. "To sum up…" Would you go on? Ed. "To sum up…"

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," pp. 41-42, EMK reading]: "To sum up: Like a material thing and its changing states, mind [(sems)] under certain conditions assumes a certain state and returns to its natural state as soon as the conditions that brought about the change or deviation from the natural state, are no more. By dividing up the history of a mind into successive adjoined slices, it is found to have certain determinable characteristics which belong to all the slices and which are termed 'sentient being' [(sems-can)] and it is further found to have even the more determinate or primary characteristics of 'having a state which is memory and association' [(dran-pa)]. That is to say, mind, having assumed a certain determinable status of, say, a human being, and retaining this status throughout its history of a human mind, has completely determinate occurrences of these determinable characteristics, viz., memory and association. This analogy of mind with a material thing has important consequences. Just as there are many things in our world (so at least common sense asserts), so there are also many minds, each individual being a certain 'mind'. But not only does such a conception of mind account for the differences that exist between individuals or individual minds, it also allows for the variety of mental operations, because every event of memory and association may be a different determinable event of the determinable characteristic 'human being', without ever failing to be a state of this mind under consideration. Moreover, it allows for the variety of all life. Just as memory and association in a human being have a man-ish or a woman-ish determinateness, so also that animal's mental operations have a distinctly animalish determinateness. So far the analogy of mind with a material thing has worked out very well. It can be advanced one step further."

EMK: Want me to go on?

AD (faint): Yeah.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 42, EMK reading]: "When a thing changes from one state into another its primary characteristics, a definite color or a definite shape, may be different, but since these states are states of the thing, we say that the thing has changed. At the same time we tacitly assume the thing to persist through its changes, and so we seek for causes producing changes."

AD: Alright, let's stop there and let's reread that.

EMK: Just that last paragraph?

AD: Yeah, "When a thing changes..."

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 42, EMK reading]: "When a thing changes from one state [EMK reads: stage] into another its primary characteristics, a definite color or a definite shape, may be different, but since these states are states of the thing, we say that the thing has changed. At the same time we tacitly assume the thing to persist through its changes, and so we seek for causes producing changes."

AD (faint): Alright, keep reading.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," pp. 42-43, EMK reading]: "There are three causes which produce changes of what is termed mind. They are appearance [(snang-ba)], traces and dispositions [(bag-chags)], and symbolism in the widest sense of the word [(brda)]:

"While the Sphere of Mind, being pure, is not stained by the dirt of perception against the apperceptive mass of memory and association as background which is only accidental, under the conditions of appearance, traces and dispositions, and symbolic expression, it emerges as anything. [Padma Dkar-po]

"'Appearance' [(snang-ba)] is a term which, when left unspecified, is apt to mislead us into the assumption that it refers to a three-term relation of appearance which stood at the beginning of modern science and subsequent philosophy. Although this theory presented many difficulties to the modern mind, it remained hardly unchallenged until recent times. Since the Buddhist conception of appearance does not presuppose a doctrine of absolute space as the common matrix of all objective constituents of perceptual situations, a three-term relations theory is not implied by 'appearance'. Nor is 'appearance' equivalent with illusion which may be said to be a stronger term for the denial of the reality of the world."

AD: Alright, now let's discuss this second-- Ok? "When a thing changes…" The-- what we just finished.

[10¾ second pause]

AH (faint): (Say it.)

[short pause]

EMK: Is he saying that, if we speak of it as ideas being lighted up by this mind or intellect, there could-- there's an idea of man, and then within that are these determinations, memory and association, whatever. But that what we ordinarily do is look at these secondary aspects of the idea of man and see them changing and then therefore assert that the-- that the man that those are aspects of is something real rather than being it too as an idea, as something that's a changing thing.

AD: Man or sentient being, yeah, yeah. Ok. [11 second pause] See here he's pointing out the first big contradiction that he thinks you're going to have to deal with. We say of a thing that it has changed a quality, and then we speak about this thing as changing. Now if the quality has changed, you know, the implication here is, what thing are you speaking about that's changed? If a thing is a bundle of qualities, the totality of all its qualities, and there's a change in the qualities, alright, he says you're carrying over this notion that there's some thing which is changing.

S (very faint): (Right.) Go ahead.

AD: So--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 42, AD reading]: "…we tacitly assume the thing to persist through its changes, and so we seek for causes producing changes."

AD: And that would be like, you remember, when we were speaking about instantaneous being, that the-- the thing is its own annihilation. Now if the thing changes, if there's a change, alright, alright, there's this point-instant, then there is the next point-instant, alright-- There's nothing left over, so to speak, when there's a complete change from point-instant to point-instant. Now we still speak about something which is changing. If we take their premises, that nothing is, but everything is in constant change, alright, then we have this dichotomy of speaking about the mind or the idea of a sentient being changing, alright, and we get into difficulty.

DB: In order-- in order to speak of change, you have to postulate it (passively/tacitly) to something.

AD: That's changing. They would say, "No."

DB: Well-- Yeah, but if you don't-- if you don't, then what is there going-- I mean, just logically, there's no reference point, so you might--

AD: That's exactly what they would like you to agree to.

DB: But then you can't-- then you couldn't really [couple/three words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): You have trouble saying that "I have an ego". [short pause] Wouldn't that be so?

DB: Well--

AD: There's no I.

DB: Right, there's no [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): That's exactly what they want to do, they want to corner you into that situation. [DB: (Is it/That) all--] There's no "I". If I have a state of mind, then another state of mind, what "I" are you talking about? If everything is completely changed from instant-to-instant, and there is no remainder, what "I" are you talking about as changing?

DB (faint): See this-- this is the problem that I get into because when I consider change-- [short pause] But the notion of change logically implies that which it doesn't.

AD: It does not logically imply.

DB: Well--

AD: If you shoot an arrow up into the air logically it implies it must come down. So they shoot a spaceship up in the air, it may not come down at all, ever! But you've been set on the notion that it's got to come down. (laughter)

DB (faint): Well-- (some laughter) Well it-- it's exact-- that's [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): I mean you're trying to turn a habit of thought into a reality.

DB: Well-- no I'm saying if-- if I say this changes, alright, if when I say that all-- all of this that-- I mean--

S: You say fire changes.

DB: Well, alright, they would deny the validity of the fire. They would say, "No, there's only this instant of-- of the state, and then the next instant of the state." [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, the ri-- the ri-- the river never stops flowing.

DB: Right. But, you-- In order for it-- in-- in order for me to assume that there's a change occurring, alright now, maybe this is-- this is just my own possessive hang up here, but in order for me to consider the notion of change, [short pause] its gotta be a change-- [short pause] No it-- I can't do it. Not yet anyway.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, that's because you cannot conceive of pure functioning.

DB: Right, I mean, that's the--

AD (simultaneously): Well, that's no-- that's no criteria.

DB: Well how can you conceive of pure functioning? How-- how is it--

AD: Well, you'd have to get rid of some gravity, I admit. (laughter)

S: (Write people letters?) (bit of laughter)

S: Of ink.

AD: Where in this universe, which from instant-to-instant, [DB, faint: Yes.] alright, is not-- I no sooner say something is and it isn't. [DB: Right.] Where in this momentary instantaneous universe of becoming can I say something is? Even Plato makes the remark, "You no soon-- you no sooner name it and it isn't."

DB: Right.

AD: Alright, now what's this thing that is changing that you insist on holding to?

DB: No, well that's fine. I mean what you just said, I mean there's-- if I operate on the assumption that well I say-- I no sooner say this is then it isn't, then the next thing I say of it is, then it isn't, that's it-- I don't perceive that or don't understand that as a change of anything. I mean, that-- that constant annihilation but there isn't-- but what is it that's there that's changing?

S: Gonna be a fight.

[Audio File 1977 0922a Ends]

[Audio File 1977 0922b Begins]

DB: --then there's another.

AD: No, if you take the totality of con-- constituents that go into making a flame, alright, you know, [DB assents] the candle, the wick, the fuel and all that, [DB assents] and we know that from instant-to-instant the flame is changed, it's not the same flame.

DB: Right.

AD: Ok?

DB: Right, exactly.

AD (simultaneously): What's changing? So-- You come up with a--

DB (simultaneously): Yeah but then-- but-- but that's the whole point, there isn't anything there that can change.

S (faint): Right.

AH: But yet there is change.

AD: But they do speak of this flame.

DB: Yes, I mean--

AD: Well then there-- then perhaps your language is a barrier here.

DB: Right, I mean, that's [AD simultaneously: Ok.] all I'm trying to get at. I mean that-- I mean-- I mean accepting this I can't find that there is anything that could change.

S (faint): Well--

AD: Good. Let's go on to the third part now, where they apply this.

EMK: "When a thing changes…"?

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, AD reading]: "The Buddhist conception of appearance begins with an analysis of perceptual situations…"

AD: Go ahead.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," pp. 43-44, EMK reading]: "The Buddhist conception of appearance begins with an analysis of perceptual situations which contain a sense-field with an outstanding sensum [(yul)]. This is apprehended [('dzin)] by entering into a certain specific relation with feeling and expectation [(zhen)]. The apprehension together with feeling-emotions and expectations gives the situation the specific external reference: all of which is the perception of an external object and termed 'appearance' [(snang-ba)]. It is a complex phenomenon of mental activity and in the widest sense of the word it expresses the ordinary dual mode of cognition involving a perceiving subject which owns the specific perceptual situation [(yul-can)] and the perceptual situation with its sense-field and sensum therein [(yul)]. Being constructive activity, symbolific in creating the symbols of subject and object as its end-phase or product, appearance is a deviation from mind in its 'natural' state or, to put it more precisely, since the 'natural' state is also an occurrence, [appearance is] a relinquishing of pure sensation [(rang-rig)].

"Although as far as instantaneous experience is concerned there does not obtain any duality, by not recognizing it as such, there is no emergence of pure sensation. Due to this failure a first instant is born as a sense-field [(yul)], and a subsequent one as apprehension and feeling-expectation [('dzin-zhen)]. The perception of an external object is the rising of constructive mental activity [(rtog-pa)] or 'appearance' [(snang-ba)]. But by cognizing whatever arises as what it is, there is Sunyata, perception being pure and leaving no trace because of the non-origination of apprehension and feeling-expectation. While these two topics, appearance and Sunyata, on the side of appearance seem to be different from each other, on the side of immediate experience [(so-so-rang-rig)] they are not different, hence the primary characteristic (of mind) is the non-duality of appearance and Sunyata. [Padma Dkar-po]

"This passage contains a number of terms which will be explained later on. Here it is important to note that while we have no difficulty in recognizing 'appearance' as an occurrence, a change of a thing, it is more difficult to recognize persistence in a state as an occurrence. But this is what the Buddhists texts make clear. By terming mind 'instantaneous'[(skad-cig-ma)] it is pointed out that there is no logical justification for distinguishing between the two cases of mind having a certain state such as is designated 'sentient being' or being in a certain state such as is termed 'Buddha'. Both states have primary characteristics: 'sentient being', 'ignorance' on the one side and 'Buddha', 'knowledge' on the other. Apart from the fact that there is no logical justification for assuming the two cases to be absolutely different, any differentiation (differentiating evaluation) would destroy the unity of 'mind'. Hence Saraha declares:

"Although the manner of pointing out a Buddha or a sentient being may be different,

They (i.e., sentient being and Buddha) are born together, as are knowledge and ignorance."

AD: Now this is a very interesting paragraph and maybe we might be able to benefit from it if we discuss for a moment. [short pause] The first sentence please.

EMK: "The Buddhist conception of appearance…"?

S (very faint): Uh-hm, which--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, AD reading]: "…begins with an analysis of [AD adds: the] perceptual situations which contain a sense-field with an outstanding sensum [(yul)].

AD: (Is that clear/Does that fit)?

RC (faint): "Outstanding sensum", what does that mean?

AD: An object.

RC (faint): Oh, outstanding in a sense of [couple words inaudible]

AD: Sense-field, what would that mean to you?

AH: All the senses?

AD: All of the senses, yeah. And you can see that all of the senses, so to speak, in a certain way are formless, you know. If you think of all the senses operating simultaneously, there's a certain formlessness about them. It's only when they grasp an object that a certain kind of determination of that formless sense-field is held within that indeterminate sense-field. So you have the two of them right there in front of you.

RC: Is this indeterminate sense-field to be equated with that first characteristic of mind that he talked about as the char-- the capacity to assume a form and [couple words inaudible]

PD: I don't think so Randy.

AD: To assume?

RC: Right at the beginning he said that the endless--

AD (simultaneously): Oh.

RC: The primary-- that the causal characteristic of mind was twofold. One was to assume a form when provoked and the other was to lapse back into--

AD: No, the primary characteristic was for the mind to be able to lapse back immediately into its original condition. And then he called the first first causal characteristic, this one that you're speaking now about it being able to-- But I ask you to forget that. You know, that's an unnecessary elaboration, you know, of a pink elephant.

RC: Well, I was just asking it maybe because I was wondering if he's talking about-- talking in terms of--

AD: Alright. The second part of this sense-field with an outstanding sensum, and this-- this is apprehended by entering into a certain specific relation with feeling and expectation.

RC (faint): This outstanding sensum is apprehended?

AD: I'm sorry, I can't hear. [RC simultaneously, faint: This (experience--)] I'm half deaf, you got to speak louder.

RC (faint): This outstanding sensum is what is apprehended like (what the basic) [couple words inaudible]

AD: Yeah. But I-- this-- this apprehension, can you speak about it?

EMK: Who enters into this specific relation, because this--

PD: Certain creation of the mind [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Wait, wait, before-- bef-- before we get into that, could I have this sentence, "This is apprehended by entering into a certain specific relation with feeling and expectation."

S: Ok.

AD: Yeah.

AH: Because this-- this activity or this-- this function in natural circumstances is always tied to the feeling life of (objective) experiences, to the feltness. Whereas this field of senses in its undifferentiated form reaches out and like wraps around an object, there's a feltness about it. The apprehension would be the craving for that experience. It's got to be poised.

RC: This seems to be like that Shelley quote that I read on Sunday about how among this-- among those that-- impressions that [few words inaudible]

AD: Here look, let me-- let me try this way. You've heard a piece of music, ok? And let's say you heard it enough times that you enjoy it. Now, let's say someone announces that they're going to play that piece of music and you go there and you're going to listen, right? And if you watch very carefully, regard very carefully your feeling-expectations, you will see that you will come up with a feeling that you expect to come up with. Don't shake your head. Do you know what I'm talking [S simultaneously: Well (one/two words inaudible)] about, you have the experience?

S: Yes. But I [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): You're listening to a Brahms quintet, alright, and you're sitting back and you enjoying it. And then something says to you, "How mechanical, how contrived, this feeling is just produced." That clicks, the bell rings and the dog runs for food. That feeling is about as conjured up and as mechanical as any motor activity in your digestive tract. Remember the story of Pavlov's experiments? They ring the bell, the dog runs out and gets the food. And every time they ring the-- the bell, the dog runs out and gets the food. Every time they play the Beethoven or the Brahms quintet, out comes a feeling appropriate for it. You ever notice how mechanical that is? That's a feeling-expectation. You apply that indiscriminately to life and you'll see how that's always working. "Oh there's a boy, I should feel a certain way about it. There's a girl, I should feel a certain way about it." It's like the-- you know, the left-- the backside of the coin. The front side you know what it is and there's the backside with it.

S: Are those your ninth house attitudes?

AD: Never mind that now, ne-- one minute.

[short pause]

S (faint): Go.

S (very faint): What?

AD: If you watch your inner life you see how mechanical it is. That to experience spontaneously a pure feeling situation is something that probably give you a shock. I used to-- I used to enjoy so much, I was going to go to the opera, "Ah, I'm going to have a tremendous experience." And so when I got there I happened to be in that day in a bad mood. The hell with the opera. And I used to go home delighted. Because my inner being was telling me, "You're full of baloney. You don't feel like listening to any of that today." But if I was a good conventional boy, you know, and I had spent my five bucks, I want my five bucks. (AD laughs a bit) I got to get my feeling-expectation satisfied. Oh no. Oh no, not-- not if there's something authentic about you. You begin to see through that. If you don't feel that day like experiencing it, you're not going to. But, you'll be surprised what tricks we could play on ourselves.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, AD reading]: "This is apprehended [('dzin)] by entering into a certain specific relation with feeling and expectation [(zhen)]. The apprehension together with feeling-emotions and expectations gives the situation the specific external reference…"

AD: Now is it making sense? [short pause] Alright, I have these expectations. Today I'm going to go hear Tristan. Good. I go there and I have a certain kind of feelings that I should have when I'm listening to it, ok. And there's the objective sensum, ok. Now these two combined together produce that notion of externality or reference to an object. There is no reference to an object in itself. It doesn't exist, you're conjuring it up. You're conjuring up the notion of externality continuously.

[short pause]

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, AD reading]: "The apprehension together with feeling-emotions and expectations gives the situation the specific external reference: all of which is the perception of an external object and termed 'appearance' [(snang-ba)]. It is a complex phenomenon of mental activity and in the widest sense of the word it expresses the ordinary dual mode of cognition involving a perceiving subject which [AD emphasizes next word] owns the specific perceptual situation [(yul-can)] and the perceptual situation with its sense-field and sensum therein [(yul)]. Being constructive activity, symbolific in creating the symbols of subject and object as its end-phase or product, appearance is a deviation from mind in its 'natural' state…"

AD: Let's speak about this for a minute.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, AD reading]: "Being constructive activity, symbolific in creating the symbols of subject and object as its end-phase or product…"

AD: Let's talk about that for a bit.

EMK: Well would this-- would this be a place to talk about psychological projection?

AD: Yeah, sure. Ok.

EMK: That-- Sometimes you can actually-- you can feel yourself about to project something or about to be negative about something as soon as you have an excuse. And you just walk around waiting for somebody to do something so you'll go--

AD (simultaneously): To provoke it.

EMK: Yeah, to provoke it. And as soon as they do, you're concretized into that over there, this over here, and the relation between them, the subject and the object.

AD (simultaneously): Right.

EMK: But before that happens, well it's just sort of a pregnant state. It's more of a-- a feeling that hasn't been symbolized on an object.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, hasn't been concretized.

EMK: Yeah.

AD: Alright. Let's go back to this very simple example but which I think is extremely useful. We're speaking about the mind, alright? We take the analogy-- Well what is the mind, and you can't explain to me what is, nobody can. So we say, alright. This mind we'll imagine to be a point, alright. It has no position, no parts, nothing, ok? And this mind gets energized. You remember the way we explained it? And when it gets energized it produces the imagined world for you. Alright? This was the old analogy we used. Just like for instance, let's say I have a dream of a beautiful girl, alright. I have a desire. I go to sleep with the desire. Now that desire, that desire, alright, is going to project itself. This thought is going to project itself and it's going to create the subject and the object and the relationship between them, the feeling, the feeling-expectations, ok, the perceptual situation. It's going to provide the dream character with a deluded mind and deluded senses. This is the s-- this is what we mean when we say symbolific activity at an epistemological level. Not at the dream level. At an epistemological level, your mind is doing this. It's creating this experienced world for you, with all the objects necessary in it, alright, with the perceptual sensum, with the feeling-expectation. This, in a large sense, is what he means "symbolific activity of the mind". Just like in the dream, the analogy of the dream. But just blow it up to me-- to be your world of experience. Go ahead.

RC (faint): I get the impression from-- from the paragraph--

AD: Louder.

RC: I get the impression from the paragraph there that-- that the sense object is already presented and what--

AD: Is already what?

RC: Is already presented. And then what he's describing is the arisal of the projective response to that object.

AD (simultaneously): No, no, no. That wouldn't be the symbolific activity at all.

EMK: He's actually talking about the vritti getting divided into subject and object.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah. This is the Buddhist language. The example I gave is one to go by, that this desire thought becomes a dream. And in that dream, there's a subject-object relationship with the perceptual appearance, with a feeling-expectation.

RC: I follow that, I just don't see how that comes out of (this).

AD (simultaneously): Well, where do you see your point?

RC: Well he starts right off saying that--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, RC reading]: "The Buddhist conception of appearance begins with an analysis of perceptual situations which contain a sense-field with an outstanding sensum [(yul)].

AD (simultaneously): Yeah well, go ahead.

RC: And that's what you said was an object.

AD: Yeah.

RC: Ok, and you begin with a sense-field and an object.

AD: Isn't-- isn't the perceptual field, the sense object, all included within the epistemological analysis?

RC (faint): Epistemological--

AD: They don't start out by saying there's an object and then I see it. They start in experience, within the symbolific activity of the mind.

RC: Well it seems like one of the things that they are trying to impose (and/or) trying to make available is the possibility of objective experience arising in your mind, arise in you mind without [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Alright now look, you're constructing-- you're building up what's not here, just read the sentence.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, RC reading]: "…with an outstanding…"

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, AD reading]: "…an analysis of perceptual situations which contain a sense-field with an outstanding sensum [(yul)] [AD reads: with a sense-field and a sense object]."

RC: What does [couple/three words inaudible]

AD: Where do you-- you don't even have to bring in the notion of a prakritic entity, an unknown thing-in-itself. You don't have to bring none of that in. And the Buddhists would not permit you to.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 43, RC reading]: "This is apprehended…"

RC: What he's going to do--

AD: "This is apprehended", yeah.

RC: "This" refers to the object or--

AD: "This is apprehended" is the whole perceptual field.

RC: The whole perceptual field with this--

AD: Yeah, the sensum, the sensum with the sensum-- the sense-field with the sensum, alright, "this is apprehended". [student assents, faint] And in the apprehension, of course, it's tied in with or correlated with the feeling-expectations.

[short pause]

AD: Ok? And by that alone it shows you that the notion of an external object to them is a conjured constructed fabricated idea. The whole purpose of the passage is show you that that whole notion of an outside world is a figment of your imagination. And here you start out by talking about the prakritic entity.

RC: Well, it seems like you could also get the notion of an outside world by stepping into an ego too, I mean then you would have created an outside world by creating (an ego).

AD (simultaneously): Oh no, no. No, they're explaining to you that process of what it-- what you just spoke about as stepping into an ego. The point that we're trying to emphasize here is to look at this very carefully.

AD: Because the subject that you're talking about and the object you're talking about are symbols. This is the same position like for instance that Cassirer takes. In Cassirer the unity of consciousness which projects itself outwardly becomes a subject-object relationship. This subject-object relationship is real, it's not an imaginary one, it's not illusory, it's real. But the object, so to speak, defines the subject, just as much as the subject defines the object. All this exists within the perceptual field. And they refer to that as a perceptual-- I'm sorry, as the symbolific activity of consciousness.

AD: So then this appearance, alright, is a deviation. Like for instance you're in a nice natural state of sleep and someone provokes you and now your mind deviates from its natural rest and you have a dream. And you get up and you say, "Ah, nightmare. Let me go back to my sleep." In other words, if you consider the mind in its natural state, which would be an illuminated mind by the way, the mind naturally at rest, this they call Sahaja, natural peace. Any activity, alright, which is not integrated with that Sahaja would be a state of agitation. Let's read this quotation which is very, very good. But before we better put this out.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," pp. 43-44, AD reading]: "…its 'natural' state or, to put it more precisely, since the 'natural' state is also an occurrence, [appearance is] a relinquishing of pure sensation [(rang-rig)]."

AD: Alright, let's read this quotation which is very valuable.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, EMK reading]: "Although as far as instantaneous experience is concerned there does not obtain any duality…" [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Stop. Is that clear?

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

RC/S(?): Sense-field.

AD: Hum?

RC: Sense-field [couple words inaudible]

PD (simultaneously): No, no sense-field yet Randy.

AD: No sense-field, exactly the point.

RC: How would you (introduce--)

AD (simultaneously): Soon as you got a sense-field you got a headache.

RC: How would you ex--

PD (simultaneously): Only non-dual.

RC: How would you experience?

PD: It's non-dual, that's the point.

AH: It's not experienced by any individual.

S: Yeah but there is a di-- there is difficulty about it because--

AD: Read the sentence again.

AD: Now what's the matter, can't you read?

RC/S(?): But the sense-field doesn't seem a whole if you don't have a sensum.

AD: Huh?

DB: Well--

AD: In a point-instant how there-- how could there possibly be two?

DB: Well, alright, but then-- (some laughter)

S: You (still have a) cup of coffee.

DB: No, I'm not disagreeing with (Tim), just that what--

AD: Instantaneous experience is subjectless and objectless.

DB (faint): Right. Now is that-- [AD simultaneously: Ok.] is that instantaneous experience my own mind in its natural state? Or is it something different from that?

S: That would be--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "…by not recognizing it as such…" [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: By not recognizing what as such, Dave? That experience is instantaneous, right?

DB (simultaneously): By not rec-- by not recognizing the simultaneous experience as dual. I mean that's what I think.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "…there is no emergence of pure sensation." [Padma Dkar-po]

[short pause]

S: Yeah.

AD: Alright, you try. Read the whole [one word inaudible] Yeah, let me give you a text. Paul, hold on.

DB: Well, no it--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, DB reading]: "Although as far as instantaneous experience is concerned there does not obtain any duality, by not recognizing it as such, there is no emergence of pure sensation." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: In other words, because you don't recognize that the instantaneous experience has no duality, [DB assents] you don't experience pure sensation.

DB: Right. You only experience--

AD: Never mind that.

DB: Yeah, well, ok.

AD: Always a postscript, right? (bit of laughter)

DB: You get the preface, it's getting--

AD: Postscript, alright, we're getting it. Pretty soon we'll drop that too.

DB: Right. (laughter)

AD (amidst laughter): Next one, Dave.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, DB reading]: "Due to this failure…" [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: This failure of what?

DB: To not recognizing the--

AD: Ok.

DB: [couple/three words inaudible]

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, DB reading]: "…a first instant is born as a sense-field [(yul)], and a subsequent one as apprehension and feeling-expectation [('dzin-zhen)]." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Now, let's analyze that.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "Due to this failure…" [Padma Dkar-po]

DB: Right, well, the--

AD (simultaneously): The failure not to recognize--

DB: The sensa-- the instantaneous experience is non-dual.

AD: Yeah.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, DB reading]: "…a first instant is born…" [Padma Dkar-po]

DB: That's the first time he's talking about numbers, process. First [couple/three words inaudible]

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "…first instant is born as a sense-field…" [Padma Dkar-po]

DB: Sense-field, right. And then--

AD: So, what would that mean? "And then", before we get to "and then", what would that mean, "A sense-field is born"?

DB: Well, it would-- it would mean sentient being is established.

AH: (By all means) the body's established.

DB (faint): Well--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "…a first instant is born as a sense-field [(yul)], and a subsequent one as apprehension and feeling-expectation [('dzin-zhen)]." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Let's try to see if we could analyze this. I'm going to use language which is not Buddhist, ok? Let's imagine this Go-- this essence of God, alright? Oh, better still, we could do it without using religious language. Objective psyche has certain forces in it, ok? [drawing] Let's imagine this is the totality of experience and within this here, ok, there's these objective forces of the psyche. Ok? And your mind is part of this field, ok. Let-- let's make a dot stand for it, ok. Now your mind grasps this essence or this-- these forces. You know like if you take-- the example we give is imagine there's a magnet here, ok, and there's lines of force over here, but you don't see the lines of force, ok? Now, if you throw iron filings, you see the lines of force, you actually see them, you know, like that [diagram], you know like paraboles, you know? Parabolas. Ok? And now you see, you see the force-field. The sense-- I mean the iron-- the iron filings, are not the forces. The forces, so to-- they seem to outline where the forces are. "Ah, here's a force," ok? In the same way, in a similar way, alright, imagine the mind, alright, where he speaks about here the first instant is a sense-field, imagine the mind goes out and grasps the object. In that instant, alright, that you don't recognize non-duality, then the sense-field is born. Let's say that this is the sense-field. This would be your mind and this would be the sense-field that's born within it [diagram].

RC (faint): You mean that's the sense-- that's the sense-field outside of the body essentially gone out [one word inaudible]

AD: Yeah. Like for instance if it was poss-- if you can imagine this, try to imagine this, because this actually happens. You go to sleep at night, for instance, your whole-- what they call the astral body, alright, which is the sense recognizing, alright, goes out and grasps the world. But it's not the world that you see now, but these forces, alright. [couple inaudible RC words simultaneous with AD] That's the sense-field.

RC (faint): That's the one.

AD: That's the sense-field. Because that's not recognized yet. In order-- in order to recognize it you have to bring in categories: understanding, time, space, modality, quality, quantity. Let's try this way. Your mind-- this desire thought you have-- you go to sleep and you have this desire thought, ok. Now your mind grabs that desire thought. The same way like, when we speak about the mind going out, it grasps the object, and in that instant that it grasp the object it's turned into a sense-field. In other words, it has qualities.

AH (faint): The mind?

AD: Yeah. It has qualities. These indeterminate formless functions have qualities. Like you look at the blue sky. That's your mind, isn't it? [student assents, very faint] If-- if that blue is a sensation in your mind, then your mind is where that blue is. Wouldn't that be so? Or would the sensation of blue be in your head? By the way, they never seen any colors in the brain. [short pause] You see, he's-- he's trying to make this sound very simple but it isn't, it's-- it's a little complicated, ok.

RC: I'm confused, I don't have a-- These-- this sense-field is what we'd normally-- what we would probably [three words inaudible]

AD: Yeah. When I say senses, I am not referring to the physical eye. Because the physical eye doesn't see. I mean if you look at a dead man with his eyes open he doesn't see anything. Right? And a sleeping man too, he doesn't see anything, alright. So what is it? Well, it's not the physical senses. It's the psycho-senses that see. Like for instance you see in a dream, alright, let's say you see a blue color in a dream. There's no blue. But you see a blue color. Isn't that a transformation of the psycho-essence of the senses themselves?

RC (faint): Yeah.

AD: That's the sense-field. So the sense-field is as wide as your experience. And that's why I took the example of the blue. You see a blue sky, alright. Now, if sensation of blue is only something that the mind could produce, then your mind is where that blue is, if you want to speak about the mind being any place. Am I making any sense? You're not disagreeing, you're not agreeing, so I can't tell.

EMK: If I could go back to that-- that quote about the image that's prior to our experience. Is this image then the sense-field?

AD: Yeah. That image which, so to speak, the empirical personality perceives is the result of that prior image, the [EMK assents] alogical whole.

EMK: That empirical personality would be the subject of this subject-object--

AD: Yeah.

EMK: --what they're saying is set up by that.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AD: It would be-- in other words if we say that the-- the sense-field presents you with the experienced world and the physical, let's call it the physical body in that world. Now that physical body in that world is the empirical personality that experiences the activity of the subtle senses. If you don't put it this way, you will always have difficulty. [short pause] This is the Hidden Teaching, that's all I'm talking about.

RC: But doesn't-- I mean, before what we read from the Buddhist Logic book when he talked about these instants were like the differentials of the planetary longitude, there's like-- The activity of the planets-- or there's a subtle level. Whatever kind of motion that is, each time you'll redefine your relation to these-- to-- it'll be some different point-instant that you could call the sense experience.

AD: That would be the production of the sense images.

RC: Ok. But isn't that field--

AD: And that-- and-- and your astral body or your sense-- psycho-essences would be part of that.

RC (very faint): Would be part of that.

AD: Yeah. That's what they're taking in.

RC: It would [one/two words inaudible] of the in-- instant (would be--)

AD: Yeah.

RC: So how-- how could there be a point-instant and then an arisal--

AD (simultaneously): Wait, wait, wait, we're not talking about point-instants now.

RC (faint): Ok.

AD: Don't bring that in.

RC: Well, it was just on the point to bring up experience [couple/three words inaudible]

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, RC reading]: "[Although] as far as instantaneous experience is concerned…" [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Alright, go ahead. Go ahead.

RC: Well, it would seem to me that it-- that that would be the level he's talking about instantaneous experience as that arising of the subtle senses with the motion of the planets at a subtle level, the subtle motion of the planets.

PD: Instantaneous experience is prior to the subtle senses.

RC: Well that's-- that's what you're saying, yeah.

AD/PD(?): Yeah.

RC: And I'm asking how can you say that.

AD: You're asking--

RC: How can you say that?

AD: I just said it. (laughter)

RC (faint): [three/few words inaudible] I can certainly see how my experience [few words inaudible] I can see how experience at that level is very much tied into the experiences [few words inaudible] I don't have any problem with that. But like that's the level at which the karmic seed is born.

AD: Look, the gross senses are the senses that you are operating with now [RC assents, faint] in perceiving me.

RC: Right. And that's--

AD: But the sense-- sense-field is that which is prior to it and which makes or let's say presents you with this image.

RC: And instantaneous experience is prior to even [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Well I-- I'm-- I don't want to discuss that, just for a moment now, I want to see if this is understood first.

S (very faint): Yeah.

AH/S(?) (faint): I hope.

AD: Look, let's try this way. You have a dream. And the dream presents you with a whole scene, alright, and you're inside that scene. It presents you with a blue sky, trees, mountains and all that, ok. Now you inside the dream say, "Ah, look, the blue sky," alright. Now, the blue sky is not something that the dream personality has conjured up. He didn't make that, that is presented to him. So the empirical personality is within that image-field that the psycho-senses have created for him. Now he has images, reflections, in himself, of what he sees out there. So what I'm trying to say is the subtle senses are the exits of knowledge, the gross senses are the entrances of this knowledge which was thrown out. Ok? You got to keep that order, otherwise you're going to get confused all the time. Now, if we go back to this.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "Due to this failure a first instant is born as a sense-field…" [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Now what was the failure? Due to what failure?

RC: I don't know if we talking at the level of-- of arising in the subtle senses what the failure is.

[short pause]

AD: Well, someone, what do you think the failure was here?

PD: A lapse from non-dual consciousness to dual consciousness.

AD: And? And you would say that that lapse brought about the sensum.

PD: Will bring about the whole world of manifestation.

AD: Yeah. [S simultaneously, faint: So is he--] That brought out the whole sensum.

PD: Right.

AD: Yeah. Due to this lapse, to forget that.

AH: Could that lapse be considered as a movement?

AD: In other words it's like saying the least desire, alright, and you have a whole imaged world in front of you. Let the least desire work. Because the desire that we're speaking about, this is the astral body, this is what it concerns itself with. This is what that inner life of the person is all the time. And that's always in motion. So in order-- if a person has a very quiet mind, that means even his astral body is absolutely still. When you sit down, what do you think you're trying to keep quiet? The physical body stays pretty solid now, right? But the inner life doesn't, that gets even worse. [short pause] Let's keep at it.

AD: Just the first part. [short pause] Another way of putting it, let's say something like this, there's pure perception, alright? Pure perception, there's no preferences here. Let the slightest desire or preference, alright, and you lapse into the dual state. Now if you lapse into the dual state, that means subject-object. Now the subject has certain expectations.

RC (faint): But-- but does that take place in the view of the senses as exits? I mean--

AD: Does that take place what?

RC: Preference. Does that preference take place in the-- in the operation of the senses as exits of knowledge? Since now we start--

AD: Of course!

RC (faint): It does? That's where I'm lost. I really am not understanding.

AD: Why? The deepest recesses of your beings are crea-- are nothing but craving, hunger, thirst. The hell do you think you're living in? In the clear top-- in the clear mountain air of the Himalayas? Your-- your inner being is seething, it's like a cauldron! You got some serious misapprehensions. The very nature of the astral body is that. And to-- like one of the remarks that you might have heard is like if a person gets into the astral world he gets frightened because of the imagery that comes up, which is overwhelming. Well that imagery is nothing but your thinking. Now you don't see your thinking but it's going on. You only know it in the states, you know, when it's-- becomes conscious. So if you think of the astral body as a seething cauldron, you know, of desires and thirst and cravings and hunger, you tell me when it stops. Not even when you're sleeping. Always going on. Alright, the point that we're trying to get at here is this here. At the very first instant, alright, you have a state-- the first, very first instant-- instant of experience you have a state of non-dualism. We could say like, in the very first instant of perception, everything is absolutely pure and immaculate. There's no subject, there's no object. Ok? There's no division of time and space. Objects seem to interpenetrate one another. Alright. Now because you fail to recognize that, the non-dual state, there is no emergence of pure sensation. And due to this failure, an instant in the sense-field is born. And then after that, of course, the expectations that you have of this sense-field satisfying some of your cravings.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "The perception of an external object is the rising of constructive mental activity [AD rereads: The perception of an external object is the rising of constructive mental activity]…" [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Yeah?

DB: Would that-- the arising of constructive mental activity be the apprehension? Would that apprehension--

AD: Look, let's read right there what he's saying. What he's saying is your mental activity creates an object.

DB: Right.

AD: That's all he's saying.

DB: Well, see, what I was-- well-- What I was trying to I guess get at was this-- this word 'apprehension'. I was thinking of it in terms of stopping.

AD: Yeah, but I'm on the next sentence! You have to excuse me for being dictatorial, fanatical, maniacal, ok? Because one of the things I'm trying to get you to do is to read what is there. Don't go back, don't go forward, let's understand that and then we discuss. I want that sentence.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "The perception of an external object is the rising of constructive mental activity [(rtog-pa)] or 'appearance' [(snang-ba)]." [Padma Dkar-po]

AH: Well, one impli--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, what is he saying?

AH: One implication for sure is that there is no-- there is no object this-- that the senses reach out for. The two are-- the experience emerges together. Like, insofar as the mind is constructive, that is the--

AD: That is the object.

AH: That's the object.

AD: Yeah. Samkhya says the same thing. You have a-- you have a tattva, you have a vritti. If the mind works, if the mind functions, you got an object, whether you like it or not. Ok? That's all. Next sentence.

AD: Yeah.

DB: That would-- that would be contact with the-- by knowing what arises as an external object be able to [couple/three words inaudible] subject.

S (very faint): Yeah.

PD: No, I think (the--)

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "But by cognizing whatever arises [AD reads: arising] as what it [AD reads: as what this thing which arises] is, there is Sunyata…" [Padma Dkar-po]

EMK: Is he saying that what you thought was an external object has no self-existence.

AD: Ok. So then in other words the functioning, the mental functioning, alright, produces this as determinate object, this object which is of course determinate, alright?

EMK (faint): Uh-hm.

AD: And the determination of this object is really the result of this functioning activity.

EMK: The definition.

AD: Yeah. So if you have one you have the other. But if you understand the-- the subjective functioning, if you understand it as a slice of the mind the way he says, then by definition the object that's created with it has to be just as empty as the functioning which pro-- which is producing-- producing it. In other words, if the subjective modes of knowing are illusory, the object it creates also has to be illusory.

[short pause]

AH: As what it is-- as what it is is as a process?

AD: Yeah. If you recognize, alright, if you recognize that the senses are working, ok, and you know that the senses themselves are illusory fabrications, they're illusory in the sense that they're like slices of-- Think of a loaf of bread, you know, and it has a hole running through it in the middle and every slice of that bread has a hole in it, ok? If you think of any mental event, so to speak, as that hole, and you think of the bread as the functioning, you could see that they're related to each other in that way. That is, the functioning, the knowing of something, if you understand that knowing itself is illusory, that knowing per se, uh-- How can I put it, well-- [10¾ second pause] If we-- if we take the analogy, go back to this here. We say that the mind grasp these forces. Now, the forces in themselves are intangible, incorporeal, alright, you have no extension, no body, anything like that. And then the mind makes it into an imaged object. And you understand that this-- the mind is always doing this, ok, then you recognize that what the mind is doing so to speak is like fabricating or producing images and these images are not reality. They are your experience but they're not reality. Now, it's the very nature of the mind as it works or produces to make an object. The object and the functioning of the mind are like two sides of the same coin, two ends of the same stick. And if you understand that your subjective knowing, alright, is illusory, then the object that it makes must be illusory. You can't have a subjective knowing that's not real creating objects that are real.

AH: Probably a question that--

AD: Go, go, go.

AH: But-- [short pause] Cognizes it but by cognizing like what it is, like, in order to cognize there has to be cognizer. Alright, cognizer is of necessity part of the illusion. Like I don't understand his language. I don't know if he's been precise or-- this isn't his language, this is a--

AD: Well, could we put it this way, suppose-- suppose you stand aside and you watch the dream mind create a dream for you. Alright? Now, if you stand aside you would be like the cognizer and you're watching the dream mind creating the dream for you. Alright? The cognizer--like you're standing aside and you're watching all that going on.

AH: Yeah.

AD: Ok?

PD: Like your wakeful consciousness watching the dream unfold in front of you and you're consciously reflecting, you won't believe in that dream. Even though there's images there and the scenario is going on, if your wakeful consciousness is present it remains just a dream.

AH: I don't know if that analogy is altogether appropriate because--

AD: Could you really believe in something after you saw it was phony?

AH: I think it's a question of belief, that's what I wanted to get to.

AD: Suppose, suppose you walk out of [couple words inaudible] and you see--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1977 0922b Ends; Side 2 Begins)

AH: I think that would be good. (bit of laughter) Seems that instead of cognizing, it would be by not cognizing whatever arises as what it--

AD: No, you can use cognizing because they're going to come to a pure subject. They're going to come to a notion of a pure subject.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "But by cognizing whatever arises as what it is…" [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: That is, if you recognize the cog-- in the-- in the cognition of the dream analysis, you see that the dream is a fabrication, alright, you can't believe in it. This-- this is emptiness.

AH: So, it's an issue of belief.

PD: There's no identification with it.

AH: And that belief would be--

AD: Look, if you were awake and you were very hungry, you were starving, and you were getting images or dream images, alright, of a big nine course dinner, you gonna run after it? [short pause] It's empty, isn't it? It's empty, in the sense that you don't run after it anymore. And once a person wakes up, you know, and I'm not referring-- but once a person wakes up, and he sees the very nature of the way his experience is constantly being created and he's always chasing after it, running after his memories, his dreams, this, that and the other thing, and he sees that this is a constant fabrication of the mind, he no longer has any interest in it. It takes-- it doesn't take much mentality to see that. Even-- that's part of the whole idea of growing up, to look at your mind, see the pictures it comes up with constantly, and you begin to say, "What baloney." It doesn't take much maturity to see that. It may-- it may take a little effort to cut it off.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "…perception being pure and leaving no trace because of the non-origination of apprehension and feeling-expectation." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Now he finishes the sentence so we have to read the whole sentence.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "But by cognizing whatever arises as what it is, there is Sunyata, [AD reads: emptiness] perception being pure and leaving no trace because of the non-origination of apprehension and feeling-expectation." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: Now try, try that. This is important here.

AH: The non-origination of apprehension and feeling-expectation--

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "…leaving no trace because of [the] non-origination…" [Padma Dkar-po]

AH: Would be-- would be that this [one word inaudible] which brings it--

AD: Would you get the Studies in the Lanka, is that around? Well is there any around here? This is a technical word, 'non-origination'. It's not an English literary device, you have to know the meaning of it. It's a very technical word. 'Non-origination', 'no-birth', those are technical words, even though you think they're--

[32¾ second pause, faint background student talking]

AD: You don't know that? Non-origination or no-birth? [few words inaudible]

S (faint): Oh I'm telling you. I'm [few words inaudible]

AD: A great deal depends on understanding the meaning of this word.

S (faint): What's the word you're (talking) [three/few words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): What's the word?

AD: 'Non-origination', or they might use the term 'no-birth'.

PD: Look in the index, I think he's got a section on it in-- Table of contents.

AD: You see what's (coming through) if you're studying, you're a Buddhist, the methodology they-- I mean-- I know Freud thought he was the first awakened one but believe me it's not true. This was the Awakened One, the Buddha. This whole method, this whole notion of philosophy that-- I mean they deprive you of even the grounds, any rational grounds, any fantastical grounds of believing that there's an "I" here that you've got to preserve, construct, you know, take care of. They deprive you of that. You have no ground to stand on. It's not there?

S: Couldn't find it.

AD: Alright, then let's go (through/do) this again. I know I put it in-- Found it? It doesn't [one word inaudible] but you'll never find it.

S: Never find it.

S: Is it expensive?

S: [one/two words inaudible]

AD: Yeah, the conception of no-birth. [short pause] Well, take a look in there and we'll-- Take a quick look in there and we'll continue. If I say s-- if I say something like that to you, that-- that no origination is possible-- In other words, these images that arise, alright, and they say-- I told you that they were never born, alright, what would that mean to you? I mean could you imagine horns on a hare or the son of a barren woman? You see the kind of context they're putting it in? Think of the son of a barren woman. Go ahead, try. No? You can't, huh?

[short pause]

S: Ok, (go).

AD: But how could-- how could the-- how could this sensum, this field, you know, of appearance arise? You know what they'll tell you? It never arose.

[9 second pause]

S: It never arose, what are we talking about?

AD: That's what they'll ask you. What are you talking about?

PD: That's why the Buddhist Logicians keep ideation and sensation completely and totally different and separate. They don't-- you're not trying to reduce a ground ideality in the reality of the point-instant. Because that would be trying to define an origination or source to these images.

AD: Uh-huh.

PD: And they won't do that.

AD: They won't do that, no. You are not going to put this sensum field which arises or this appearance, you're not going to enter it into those point-instants. They won't permit you to do that. [S: No.] Because a point-instant's a reality. They're unutterable, unspeakable. So where do these images arise? And they will ask you, alright, they will ask you the same thing, where does this hallucination, there's an oasis, arise from? Could you answer them? The Vedanta tries to handle the same thing too. And Plato too says the same thing, you know. [short pause] Alright, you look at it and we'll reread this paragraph, we-- we read the whole paragraph without stop.

Herbert V. Guenther [Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism," p. 44, AD reading]: "[Although] as far as instantaneous experience is concerned there does not obtain any duality, by not recognizing it [AD reads:"…failure to recognize it…" I'm sorry. "…by not recognizing it] as such, there is no emergence of pure sensation. Due to this failure [AD: The failure to recognize a pure sensation.] a first instant is born as a sense-field [(yul)], and [AD adds: then] a subsequent one as apprehension and feeling-expectation [('dzin-zhen)]. The perception of an external object is the rising of constructive mental activity [(rtog-pa)] or 'appearance' [(snang-ba)]. But by cognizing whatever arises as what it is, [AD: (As/If) you see what is really arising--] there is Sunyata [AD reads: emptiness], perception being pure and leaving no trace because of the non-origination of apprehension and feeling-expectation. While these two topics, appearance and Sunyata [AD reads: emptiness], on the side of appearance seem to be different from each other, on the side of immediate experience [(so-so-rang-rig)] they are not different, hence the primary characteristic (of mind) is the non-duality of appearance and Sunyata [AD reads: emptiness]." [Padma Dkar-po]

AD: You remember the way PB put it? He put it this way, he said something like this, he said, "The Real is continuous with the Appearance." (Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself, p. 306, 2015 edition) But if the Real, if the Real is of the nature of Void Intellect, then what in the dickens can the appearance be? Alright. Reality is continuous with its Appearance. What is Real? Well, Atma, Spirit, pure Intellect, ok? But is it some sort of thing? No, it is not. It's no sort of-- it's no sort of thing. If you think of pure Consciousness, alright, it's not some sort of thing that I can grab and say "I got you." Right? It's pure Spirit, it's not tangible, it's not a rock, it's not a stone, it's not a color, it's none of these things. It's not a concept. It's not the definition of a circle or anything, ok, like that, because you would be determining it and it wouldn't be Pure Spirit, ok. Alright so, if we say-- instead of saying Reality, suppose we say "The pure Sprit is continuous with its manifestations." Alright? That makes it more-- like more acceptable to our way of understanding.

RC (faint): [one/two words inaudible] (like) this manifestation, um--

AD: Now within that manifestation, alright, you're within that manifestation. And you see within that manifestation so-called a sensum-field. And if you know that the whole of that manifestation, alright, is identical with emptiness, then how could anything arise? If you really understand it. If you don't understand it, things will go on arising.

S: How can anything [couple words inaudible]

RC (simultaneously): I can-- I-- I could follow the part of how can any thing arise, how can [three/few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Did you ever try kicking a dream table? From the point of view of wakeful consciousness there would be nothing there, right? Like for instance you go to sleep and you have a dream and you walk twenty miles. And you get up and you say, "Twenty miles? I didn't budge. What am I talking about?"

S: Where does the dream concept 'table' come from in the first place?

AD: Wouldn't it be coming from the mind? The mind would be like the substance of that whole dream. The dream would be the manifestation of the mind. The mind would be continuous with the appearance of that dream. And yet when you investigate into the nature of that dream, you find out it's empty, you turn it inside out there's nothing there. Now transpose this to a higher level where you say, "Well the sense world I see has got real objects." But the real that you're talking about, alright, is a subjective feeling-expectation and the sensum-field. And they're both at the same level. In other words, the scale of perception, alright, will account for the phenomena that you're dealing with. But let's go back to this analogy. The dream, alright, and the mind. The mind produces a dream so the mind is continuous, it coincides with the dream. And yet when you investigate into the nature of what is the substance of the table in this dream, no answer. [student assents, faint] Images in a vacuum?

S: What?

AD: Yeah, that's what Plato said. The whole world is this manifestation of objects in a receptacle. They're only appearances. You find it--

SP (faint): Yeah well I found a-- a few passages, I don't know if what you're looking for is a-- let me-- Well this is sort of typical of what he says but then--

[Transcriber note: I am using Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra by D.T. Suzuki, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1998.]

D.T. Suzuki [Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, p. 287, SP reading]: "In the Lankavatara it [SP: No-birth, the idea of no-birth.] is frequently mentioned together with the first three of these terms."

SP: There's emptiness, no substance, and non-duality.

D.T. Suzuki [Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, p. 287, SP reading]: "Because of emptiness there is no-birth, and as there is no-birth there is no world of particulars in which the notion of self-substance obtains, and also that of duality or opposition or pairs of opposites; and when this is realised one has what is technically known as"compliance with reality not born [(anutpattikadharmakshanti)]."

SP (faint): (This is a term), non-duality, (yeah).

AD (simultaneously): Ok? I mean, you see how it fit in with the dream analogy? Would you reread that? First two, three sentences.

SP: Ok.

D.T. Suzuki [Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, p. 287, SP reading]: "In the Lankavatara it is frequently mentioned together with the first three of these terms. Because of emptiness there is no-birth, and as there is no-birth there is no world of particulars in which the notion of self-substance obtains, and also that of duality or opposition or pairs of opposites; and when this is realised one has what is technically known as"compliance with reality not born [(anutpattikadharmakshanti)]."

[short pause]

AD: Do you see for instance how when we speak about a table in a dream how that table is part of the whole dream context, the chair, the ceiling, the room it's in. And when you examine each and every one of these things, alright, you find out that there's no one thing here, there's nothing here. How could you tear it apart, there's no self-substance. If we said before, if we said before, that there's change but there's no thing that changes, then we begin to get the feeling of this kind of-- that there's no ground under our feet in the sense like for instance we say, "Well, I weigh 180 pounds." But you go up in space you don't weigh 180 pounds. There's no such thing, there's no such thing as weight. So it's only a determinate number of relationships while you exist here that you speak about a weight. But there's no weight in itself! Just like in a dream, there's no table in itself. Because if you examine it there's nothing there. There's no particular object there.

SS: But the thought of the table is there. The thought of all the objects are there.

AD: They're going to subject thought to the same scrutiny, even more delightfully. If the object and the chair isn't real, the thought is going to be even less real. Look, suppose I'm sitting here, alright, and a thought comes into my mind, "There's a car," ok? Now I look around, there's no car. Now if there's no car, alright, does that make my thought more real? (bit of laughter)

SS: Where does the thought come from if it doesn't exist at all?

SS/S(?): Your thought.

PD: [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): But isn't "where" also another thought? Isn't "where" also another thought?

S (very faint): Right.

AD: Yeah, it's like a dog chasing his own tail. In other words, if space, time, and causality, the whole thing, you know-- Space, time, and causality, you know, like we said the dream mind constructs, alright, a space, and then there's images in it, and then one sequence after another, if the mind is fabricating all this here, then you start asking for an explanation in terms of where or how or when, I-- isn't that absurd? If the very premises are fabrications-- [9½ second pause] I'm sorry. What time is it, I don't want all these people--

S (faint): 10:15.

S (simultaneously, faint): 10:15.

AD: Oh, almost 10-- Oh, alright, that's enough. Why don't yous read this for next week. [flipping of pages] Finish the whole thing, huh? The Royal Song of Saraha, if you have that there's-- there's good parts of that in there, nice commentary on these kind of ideas. If you have Streng. Look at these books now, start looking at them. The Streng, the one on emptiness. That's a very nice write up.

PD: Which chapter do we [one/two words inaudible]

AD: The one on emptiness, I don't remember the name. We're going to attack the main schools. We're going to try to understand the main schools. I will try to, not in the Buddhist class, but I will try to show you, I've worked it out for myself but I haven't verbalized it yet, the epistemology of the three schools coincide. This-- The one on Platonism almost made my hair stand up. Platonism speaks the same way. He speaks about these images in the receptacle and that we cannot speak of these images except as suchnesses, alright. It's-- it's hair raising. You know, and these traditions are, you know, worlds apart. Alright. (Let's--)

[Audio File 1977 0922b Ends]

Anthony Damiani Archive

Class

Thursday, September 22nd, 1977