FEELING that factor which experiences an object as pleasurable, painful or neutral FEELING is to experience and what we experience is the result of karma. If we are attracted or repulsed to an object it is because of an habitual patterns What we experience is the result of karma.
Just saw a painting of the torture of animals for research, it brought up feelings .of compassion and anger Question: Is it mindfullness that will free us from these habitual patterns?
CONCEPTUALIZATION DISCERNMENT to see , hear, specify, and know Serves as a bases of memory, good discernment increase memory, strengthens mindfullness. I seem to be a visual learner. Through eye consciousness I get to know an object. Again as a painter ,I love to work in and from nature. I am very focused during these hours of observation, it is like a meditation and gives me a peaceful feeling. It is very pleasurable and I am drawn to it. Question Are addictions always bad
DIRECTIONALITY INTENTION VOLITION the mental activity that propels the mind forward. Intention actualizes what feeling has initiated, can be wholesome or unwholesome, be positive, negative or neutral. We may perform actions with our bodies or speech but it is our mental acts and our perceptions of our physical or verbal acts that create karma. Question if I hate bugs, and think they are disgusting will that create negative Karma?
RAPPORT ATTENTION the factor that filters information, an awareness. When the object is seen and there is a pleasant feeling. Question if my object of meditation engages me wholeheartedly is this Rapport?
When I reflect on "contact" as the "first occurrence in a mental process" I wonder if there are ever times when the newness of an experience or the surrounding environment makes it difficult to make this "contact"? Learning a foreign alphabet is an example. The character may be so complex that there is difficulty even making the initial contact, or at least that is the way it can feel. If a feeling of "shutting it out" arises is that is really the same as "contact" in this sense? Alternatively, does one have contact in a situation of sensory deprivation if the sense consciousness is necessary for contact?
Discernment seems more like the mind's efforts at creating some kind of experiential/conceptual taxonomy. Again, when one is in a new environment one searches for those events/customs/objects/people which seem similar to ones that have been experienced before. Is that discernment? What happens when there are difficulties with the brain's ability to retain this taxonomy (if that is what it is)? Are we not really using our minds then or is it because we have "weak" discernment? What does it really mean to have "weak" discernment?
"Feeling is both conditioned and conditioning". A behavioral psychologist could not have said it better. Yes, it is clear that this mental factor is always connected to sensory consciousness. What is most intriguing and interesting to consider is that feelings arise from four conditions: natural condition, training, mental disposition, and personality. We either have an aversion or an attraction to varying degrees towards something...makes sense but I am curious to know why this is part of the feeling aspect of mental factors? Training seems to imply that strong attraction or aversion is less skillful than gentle attraction or aversion. Is this correct? That strong feelings are possessed of those with more ignorance? My question with mental dispositions is: does one come into this lifetime with a general mental disposition towards all objects or is it specific to the object? Or, is it merely a geographic quality? In other words, we are reborn in the West or East and have feelings towards objects that are only reflective or our place of rebirth? Finally, "personality makes a big difference" is an enormous statement. In the West personality alone is studied in great detail. Curious to see that it is only the fourth aspect of feelings which are only one of 51 qualities of mental factors! This is so fascinating to me. How is personality developed? Is it a karmic result? From where does it arise?
"Intention is the factor that actualizes what feeling has initiated." "Intention, or volition, is a karmic action." Is it correct to say that this is the mental factor which creates our future karma and therefore, the mental factor to which we must be most attentive? If we are able to keep our feelings in check are we more successful in controlling our intentions so that they only create positive karmic seeds...or mostly positive karmic seeds? Is this where we should focus the changes in our mind? How much can we change this if it is a result of previous karmic imprint? How much of our behavior is predetermined by our previous karma? Could you please explain, "When our attractions and aversions seem random, it is only because the level at which karma is working is too subtle for our comprehension"?
Attention is another always present mental factor and it caused me to reflect on those with ADHD. How frustrating and difficult it must be to not have a long attention span. Yet it seems that even those with moderately good attention spans need to develop stronger ones as that is what is required for liberation? Is a strong attention necessary to focus on liberation itself or is it part of the process to maintain meditation so as to reflect sufficiently to achieve liberation?
Summary Object Ascertaining Mental Factors This group shapes the minds experience
1.aspiration like intention moves us toward an object of attachment or away from an object of aversion. Mind wishes to engage and there is strong interest. Aspiration functions as the basis for enthusiasm. Question What is unconscious aspiration? Or aspiration that is not present?
2.Appreciation the mental factor that develops the mind. Appreciation directs the mind towards the object with more force. It has the function of desiring the object and securing it’s recollection. Feeling is attachment, aversion or indifference. Appreciation goes further, it recognizes the quality of the object that triggers that feeling. It appreciates the object Question if I meet a teacher who reminds me of my father I like him right away .Is that an example of appreciation.?
3.Recollection the ability of the mind to return to the object different from appreciation . Appreciation can ascribe a quality to the object but cannot return to it, in the next moment or at a future time. The ability of recollection to return to the object at a later date is the basis of memory. Question In the example of the teacher who reminds me of my father, because I like him Does it follow that I will want to please him in the future .Is this a good motivation for the path? 4.Concentration the ability of the mind to remain on the object. Recollection brings us back, concentration holds the object. There has to be motivation to hold the object. Question If I want to improve my concentration ,does the object of meditation need to be one that I am really interested in? or is it more learning to return to the mind to whatever the object is? 5. Intelligence the ability of the mind to examine the object and determine its value. This mind state is a decision maker Question can an unkind act ever be an intelligent decision?
Five Omnipresent Mental Factors
ReplyDeleteFEELING that factor which experiences an object as pleasurable, painful or neutral
FEELING is to experience and what we experience is the result of karma.
If we are attracted or repulsed to an object it is because of an habitual patterns What we experience is the result of karma.
Just saw a painting of the torture of animals for research, it brought up feelings .of compassion and anger
Question: Is it mindfullness that will free us from these habitual patterns?
CONCEPTUALIZATION DISCERNMENT to see , hear, specify, and know
Serves as a bases of memory, good discernment increase memory, strengthens mindfullness.
I seem to be a visual learner. Through eye consciousness I get to know an object. Again as a painter ,I love to work in and from nature. I am very focused during these hours of observation, it is like a meditation and gives me a peaceful feeling. It is very pleasurable and I am drawn to it.
Question Are addictions always bad
DIRECTIONALITY INTENTION VOLITION the mental activity that propels the mind forward. Intention actualizes what feeling has initiated, can be wholesome or unwholesome, be positive, negative or neutral. We may perform actions with our bodies or speech but it is our mental acts and our perceptions of our physical or verbal acts that create karma.
Question if I hate bugs, and think they are disgusting will that create negative Karma?
RAPPORT ATTENTION the factor that filters information, an awareness.
When the object is seen and there is a pleasant feeling.
Question if my object of meditation engages me wholeheartedly is this Rapport?
When I reflect on "contact" as the "first occurrence in a mental process" I wonder if there are ever times when the newness of an experience or the surrounding environment makes it difficult to make this "contact"? Learning a foreign alphabet is an example. The character may be so complex that there is difficulty even making the initial contact, or at least that is the way it can feel. If a feeling of "shutting it out" arises is that is really the same as "contact" in this sense? Alternatively, does one have contact in a situation of sensory deprivation if the sense consciousness is necessary for contact?
ReplyDeleteDiscernment seems more like the mind's efforts at creating some kind of experiential/conceptual taxonomy. Again, when one is in a new environment one searches for those events/customs/objects/people which seem similar to ones that have been experienced before. Is that discernment? What happens when there are difficulties with the brain's ability to retain this taxonomy (if that is what it is)? Are we not really using our minds then or is it because we have "weak" discernment? What does it really mean to have "weak" discernment?
"Feeling is both conditioned and conditioning". A behavioral psychologist could not have said it better. Yes, it is clear that this mental factor is always connected to sensory consciousness. What is most intriguing and interesting to consider is that feelings arise from four conditions: natural condition, training, mental disposition, and personality. We either have an aversion or an attraction to varying degrees towards something...makes sense but I am curious to know why this is part of the feeling aspect of mental factors? Training seems to imply that strong attraction or aversion is less skillful than gentle attraction or aversion. Is this correct? That strong feelings are possessed of those with more ignorance? My question with mental dispositions is: does one come into this lifetime with a general mental disposition towards all objects or is it specific to the object? Or, is it merely a geographic quality? In other words, we are reborn in the West or East and have feelings towards objects that are only reflective or our place of rebirth? Finally, "personality makes a big difference" is an enormous statement. In the West personality alone is studied in great detail. Curious to see that it is only the fourth aspect of feelings which are only one of 51 qualities of mental factors! This is so fascinating to me. How is personality developed? Is it a karmic result? From where does it arise?
"Intention is the factor that actualizes what feeling has initiated." "Intention, or volition, is a karmic action." Is it correct to say that this is the mental factor which creates our future karma and therefore, the mental factor to which we must be most attentive? If we are able to keep our feelings in check are we more successful in controlling our intentions so that they only create positive karmic seeds...or mostly positive karmic seeds? Is this where we should focus the changes in our mind? How much can we change this if it is a result of previous karmic imprint? How much of our behavior is predetermined by our previous karma? Could you please explain, "When our attractions and aversions seem random, it is only because the level at which karma is working is too subtle for our comprehension"?
Attention is another always present mental factor and it caused me to reflect on those with ADHD. How frustrating and difficult it must be to not have a long attention span. Yet it seems that even those with moderately good attention spans need to develop stronger ones as that is what is required for liberation? Is a strong attention necessary to focus on liberation itself or is it part of the process to maintain meditation so as to reflect sufficiently to achieve liberation?
Summary Object Ascertaining Mental Factors This group shapes the minds experience
ReplyDelete1.aspiration like intention moves us toward an object of attachment or away from an object of aversion. Mind wishes to engage and there is strong interest. Aspiration functions as the basis for enthusiasm.
Question What is unconscious aspiration? Or aspiration that is not present?
2.Appreciation the mental factor that develops the mind. Appreciation directs the mind towards the object with more force. It has the function of desiring the object and securing it’s recollection. Feeling is attachment, aversion or indifference. Appreciation goes further, it recognizes the quality of the object that triggers that feeling. It appreciates the object
Question if I meet a teacher who reminds me of my father I like him right away .Is that an example of appreciation.?
3.Recollection the ability of the mind to return to the object different from appreciation . Appreciation can ascribe a quality to the object but cannot return to it, in the next moment or at a future time. The ability of recollection to return to the object at a later date is the basis of memory.
Question In the example of the teacher who reminds me of my father, because I like him Does it follow that I will want to please him in the future .Is this a good motivation for the path?
4.Concentration the ability of the mind to remain on the object. Recollection brings us back, concentration holds the object. There has to be motivation to hold the object.
Question
If I want to improve my concentration ,does the object of meditation need to be one that I am really interested in? or is it more learning to return to the mind to whatever the object is?
5. Intelligence the ability of the mind to examine the object and determine its value. This mind state is a decision maker
Question can an unkind act ever be an intelligent decision?