That's pretty involved, let's break it up a little bit. "Please explain in more detail how the mind process works when we try to increase beneficial qualities and try to decrease unbeneficial ones?"
It is helpful to always think about the Four Great Efforts. Some people don't practice the Four Great Efforts, they only practice three. This is interesting to look at as far as a meditator goes. The Four Great Efforts are: The Effort to Prevent, The Effort to Let Go, The Effort to Develop, and The Effort to Maintain. Now nearly every meditator knows that they have to try to develop some good qualities, they know they have to try to maintain it. Those two efforts are fairly common for everyone. But with the other two regarding unbeneficial things, some meditators only work on the Effort to Let Go. They don't always work on the Effort to Prevent. So, this is very important to look at.
Regarding trying to increase beneficial qualities and decrease the unbeneficial ones, the increasing parts are the Efforts to Develop and Maintain, the decreasing ones are the Efforts to Prevent and Let Go. You have to really examine everything. The mind has to develop a very broad mindfulness. And to know the difference between Sati and Sati-Sampajanno, these two Pali words. In the Satipattana Sutta, Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the word Sati is often translated into the word mindfulness, and the compound word Sati-Sampajanno is often translated into the word mindfulness, but they are different.
Sati is a pure knowing what is happening, just whatever is in the moment, just knowing what is in the moment. Say I am going to practice Sati, I am going to practice being mindful of moving my arm. So, I raise it up and I feel every muscle in the arm, raising, the air on my shoulder, and my hand movement. And I practice more Sati and I move my arm over to the side. I stretch it out, reach, I feel the muscles and so on. That is Sati by itself. Now if it happens that somebody was sitting next to me, I just hit them in the face. No Sati-Sampajanno. Sati-Sampajanno means mindfulness and wisdom in action, or clear comprehension. Clearly comprehending the moment and the result of the moment. So, if I want to practice Sati but I also have Sati-Sampajanno, then I raise my hand up, I feel every movement, feel the shoulder and whatever. And then when I get it up here, I think, well, I want to move it left or right but is there anyone sitting next to me? Yes, there is to my right, so I will move it to my left and continue practicing Sati that way. This is Sati-Sampajanno working with Sati.
So, in the mind process, to increase the beneficial and decrease the unbeneficial, we have to have an overview of what is the action and what is the possible result. We actually go back to the third of the Five Reflections - Actions and the Results of Actions. To reflect, to think about things and ask wise questions: is it beneficial, is it not, is it helpful, is it not. For those of you who got the email attachment of the 20 Suttas from me, if you have read any of them, the very first one is a Sutta in which the Buddha is teaching his son, and his son is only 7 years old. He tries to explain to his son the proper ways to think. That included reflecting on actions he hasn't done yet, actions he is doing, and actions he has already done. Future, present, and past. And that he should look at it and think to himself
Will this lead to my own harm? Or the harm of others Or both. Is it a skilful action speech or thought bringing what consequences, what results?
To really look at it before doing it.
Next, how does the sense contact, thought, work in-between. When we reflect, that is our thought process. So, sense contact, thought, work in-between, to me it is always working, it is not something that is kind of working in-between, it is just always working. The consciousness, of the Five Aggregates, Vinnana, that consciousness is always present with our contact, with our Vedana, with our mental formations or with our perceptions. So, it is not like thought is kind of in-between, to me it is just always there.
Are beneficial qualities processed in-between right thinking and some wise reactions and mental formations? Yes, of course. If you have good, wise, right thinking in your mental formations, then you are going to be making beneficial qualities.
Is consciousness just guiding this process? Consciousness, in the sense of Vinnana, doesn't guide anything, it is just aware of what is happening. So, if you are looking at me and you are aware of seeing me, your eye consciousness is working. The eye consciousness did not guide your eyes to see me, you decided to see me therefore your consciousness became aware. You are listening to me, your ear consciousness is working. Your ear consciousness did not dictate to your ear, go listen to Steve, you are just already listening to Steve. So, the consciousness as far as Vinnana doesn't guide anything, it is just present.