Working with Mind: The Fifty-One Mental Factors of Yogacara Buddhism

"Mind is the forerunner of all things," says the Dhammapada. "The triple world is only mind," says the Avatamsaka Sutra. "If the mind is pure, the Buddha-land is pure," says the Vimalakirti. The centrality of mind — knowing it, working with it, and (in the language of the sutras) purifying it — runs through Buddhist practice from the earliest teachings forward. The Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism took this centrality of mind as its foundational principle — our world, as we experience it, is a construction of mind — and developed from it a detailed map: fifty-one mental factors that arise, combine, and shape moment-to-moment experience. Some are wholesome, some afflictive, some ethically neutral. Learning to recognize them as they happen, in one's own experience, is a practical, hands-on approach to what the sutras call the work of purifying mind. Over five sessions, Gareth will provide context for the Yogacara tradition — which shaped much of later East Asian Buddhism, including Chan and Zen — and work through the fifty-one factors, including contemporary additions relevant to twenty-first-century life. For each, we'll look at how it shows up, how it affects mind and body, how it hijacks our attention when it does, and what antidotes and practices help restore equanimity. Reference materials are provided as aids for ongoing practice, and each session includes guided meditation alongside teaching and discussion.