Transcription
Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān
Video Link: YouTube
Namaste 🙏🏼
Today I want to begin the introduction to the Matrix Learning course. And I’ve already mentioned that one of the the first things we’re going to study in the course is the meaning and definition of terms.
Now, I know from experience, a lot of people are going to be wondering, ‘What does the meaning and definition of terms have to do with learning?’ And the answer is, everything—because learning is a form of communication, and a form of becoming.
The communication part of learning is to define what we are going to become. And the becoming part is to actually apply the knowledge that we received in the communication.
Say, for example, I want to be able to play music; I want to be able to play an instrument. So the first part of learning is to receive communications about music. What are notes? What are measures? What are time signatures? What are keys, flats and sharps, and so on? And then the second part of that is the actual practice, where we learn to actually do what we’ve been learning about.
Okay? Words are not things; words are symbols about things. Words are abstractions. They’re just sounds; but they’re sounds that have a coded meaning. And the meaning is simply whatever the society agrees that it is; the consensus of all the users of that language. So somehow or other, we have language.
And the dictionary, and the definitions in the dictionaries, are the code by which we encode and decode the symbols called words in order to communicate something. And then, once we have communicated it—whether rightly or wrongly—we base our thoughts, words and actions on those definitions as we have understood them.
And that, along with our practice of whatever kind of knowledge it is, leads to our becoming. Let’s say I want to become a flute player, right? (Well, actually, I am a flute player…) But at first, I have to hear about it. Then I have to practice it. And slowly, slowly, I will become a flute player.
Now, that’s just an example. The real purpose here is spiritual advancement: we want to become enlightened. Well, how you become enlightened, of course, is by stopping the process of becoming. But in order to reach that realization, there is a certain process of becoming that leads to it. And that is what is communicated in the various scriptures and teachings, and what is realized in the various practices, of all the different yogas and different forms of Self-realization in the world.
So I’m going to read a quote from the Buddha just to underscore this—how important this is:
“Insofar only, Ānanda, can one be born, or grow old, or die, pass away or reappear—insofar only as there is any pathway for verbal expression, insofar only as there is any pathway for terminology, insofar only as there is any pathway for designation, insofar only as the range of wisdom, insofar only is the round kept going for there to be a designation as a this-ness. That is to say, name-and-form together with consciousness.” — Dīgha-nikāya, Mahānidānasutta
This is deep, deep, deep, deep stuff. The Buddha was probably one of the greatest intellectuals who ever lived, and so his teaching is extremely deep—and for the beginner, almost incomprehensible. Why? Because they don’t have the proper definitions for the terms. Duh!
So this is what we’re going to be studying: How does terminology, name-and-form together with consciousness, lead to becoming? He says, “only insofar as there is a channel or a pathway for verbal expression, can one be born or die, can one come into the world and become whatever one wants to become.” This is how important verbal expression is; this is how important name-and-form is.
Name-and-form causes what we call a vortex. Name-and-form creates consciousness; consciousness creates name-and-form. And they keep going around and around, and that is what is known as a vortex, or what Buddha calls in this verse a this-ness: a something, a thing, a location where something exists or is going on.
So what is the vortex in terms of verbal expression? Well, it’s the matrix. That’s why we call it Matrix Learning. The matrix is a network of terminology that are defined in terms of each other.
Try to understand: if we have a language which is full of words—right?—we have to define the words in terms of that language. And of course, we can only define them in terms of the other words in the language, so that they’re understandable. So that becomes a circular process where one word is defined in terms of other words, which are defined in terms of other words, which are defined in terms of that word, and round-and-round it goes. But the point is, you have to be able to explain the meaning of any word in order to understand its significance, in order to communicate important data, in order to transfer knowledge and skill from one person to another.
So here we’re dealing with the all-important skill of Self-realization. So we want to create a matrix, also known as an ontology, which is a network of terminology that gives a certain background understanding for the definition of terms in our discussion.
So our whole point, our whole focus, our whole effort here in this course, is to discern and explain how this process takes place, and then give a number of practical examples, so you can experience it for yourself: in other words, realize it.
So I’m going to go on and read some more from my Buddhist mentor, Ñānananda Bhikkhu:
“There are a number of canonical passages that show us the relevance of this vortex simile to the understanding of paṭicca-samuppāda. In the Mahānidānasutta of the Dīgha-nikāya, we find a lengthy description of how the Bodhisatta Vipassī got an insight into paṭicca-samuppāda. We are told that his mode of approach was one of radical reflection, or yoniso-manasikāra, literally “attention by way of the matrix.” One might as well say that it is an attention by way of the vortex, because a matrix is a vortex.”
See, a matrix, an ontology—a group of words that are defined in terms of one another—is a vortex, because you’re always going round and round and round in it, you see? And as long as you stay within the vortex, everything makes sense.
But of course, what we’re trying to do in Self-realization is escape from the vortex, especially the vortex of birth-and-death, saṁsāra. So what we have to do before we can escape from it, is to understand it completely; [because] the reason that people get caught up in this consciousness and name-and-form is that they don’t understand it.
They don’t understand, for example, that because they don’t have a proper ontology for the description of consciousness, for example, they are trapped by consciousness. They can’t escape from consciousness—even during sleep, they’re dreaming; or even in deep sleep, they’re still conscious of nothing whatsoever.
So this trap has to be understood. Just like if you get caught in a hunter’s trap in the forest—if you understand how it works, you can spring the trap and escape. But a poor animal who can’t understand is trapped, and then the hunter comes and kills it.
So this is the situation in the vortex of birth-and-death. It is driven by name-and-form and consciousness, which create each other. Name-and-form creates consciousness; consciousness creates name-and-form.
For example, if a person doesn’t understand the terminology relating to consciousness, they cannot discern that between the moments of waking consciousness and dreaming consciousness, there is a small moment of transcendental consciousness [turīya]. And likewise when they’re coming the other way, out of dreams into waking.
So one must be extremely astute in the knowledge of the different categories of consciousness, even to observe this. This is what I mean when I say—as I do often—that people have spiritual experiences all the time, every day. But because they don’t have adequate terminology and understanding, they don’t recognize them. And those experiences, those impressions, are just thrown in the trash heap of neglected and denied experiences in the subconscious mind. Later it comes back to bite them.
So let me continue with this quote from Bhikkhu Ñānananda:
“It is clearly stated in the case of Vipassī Bodhisatta, that his understanding through wisdom came as a result of radical reflection: yoniso manasikārā ahu paññāya abhisamayo. So his insight into paṭicca-samuppāda was definitely not due to recollection of past lives. Yoni literally means womb: the matrix, or the place of origin. So in yoniso manasikāra always the attention has to turn towards the place of origin.” — Nibbāna the Mind Stilled, Sermon 3
Now, if you’ve been following this channel for more than a few days, you’ve heard me talk about paṭicca-samuppāda. Paṭicca-samuppāda is the core teaching of the Buddha, and it describes the process of becoming; and it also describes the process of getting out of the trap of the vortex of becoming, and reaching nibbāna or nirvāṇa.
The way you get out of the trap is by undoing it, one step at a time. So in order to even perceive those steps, you have to master the terminology. The terminology of the process of becoming is in the Buddha’s teaching of paṭicca-samuppāda.
Now Vipassī Buddha, while he was still a bodhisattva, before he attained enlightenment, inquired into this process of becoming through this radical consciousness or radical attention, this contemplation called yoniso manasikāra, where the consciousness always turns toward the origin.
So, what is the meaning of the origin in terms of verbal descriptions, terminology, and so forth? It is the definitions, because the definitions are giving the meanings that are transferred using the code of language.
So, just like spies, they’re always using and trying to break codes. So the language is a code. It’s a code for a certain meaning. And if you know the meaning, then you can break the code or decipher the code, and understand the meaning that’s hidden in the words. Otherwise, it’s just sound.
And people who, like, get dissociated because of drugs or whatever, sometimes lose the understanding of language. Why? Because they have lost focus on the source. They become distracted by the phenomenology of the sounds, and they forget that those sounds are meaningless unless they’re filtered through a certain matrix, a certain vortex of meaning.
So, in this course, we are going to pick apart, analyze, and discuss this process of the assigning of meaning to words. That’s actually just the beginning of it. And then there’s decoding the words, and then there’s realizing the words or actually understanding, in practical terms the meaning of the words, which leads to realization, which is also called metacognition.
And this is the process of enlightenment, the ulimate goal of all learning, and especially Matrix Learning or Becoming Genius.