A couple weeks ago I told the story of the sangha. How many people heard the story of the sangha? How many people did not hear the story of the sangha? If somebody told a story about one of us, about our life, that story is, you know, whatever story it is, it would be like one story that you told. You could tell another story tomorrow, and you could feel in some sense that the story you told tomorrow might have some elements that you didn't bring up the day before. That make sense?

[01:01]

Yes. But you might feel both stories were true, and you didn't say either one of the stories, of course, was telling every single thing that happened in your life. But to your ability, that's your ability, you're telling a story about your experience of your life, maybe. Okay. Or your experience of someone else's life. But I suggest to you that any story you tell about your life or somebody else's life, even though you feel it's true, in fact, nothing about your story actually reaches the actualities of the things you've depicted. And yet you might tell the story and feel that's the best story you could tell, even though you might understand that the story doesn't really reach the events that occurred. Because in order to tell a story, I have to convert the events into conceptual images in order to be able to speak of them.

[02:09]

Our experiences, in terms of basic sensory experience, is non-conceptual, and therefore we can't speak of it. without converting the experiences, or without using images to grasp the experiences. Then we can tell stories. And we may feel that these images by which we construct the story do refer to what happened, even though there's nothing in the story in which you can actually find a referent for for the concept. So, for example, my concept of Bernard, everybody knows my concept of Bernard isn't Bernard, and Bernard is not my concept of Bernard.

[03:10]

The word Bernard is not Bernard, and Bernard is not the word Bernard, but most people think there's something in Bernard besides, you know, that actually justifies, that that actually refers to but there's nothing in him that refers to him, even though the word does refer to him accurately or usefully. So I just say that, I'm not trying to talk you into anything, but just say that the story of a sangha is a story of a sangha. And it was a story about him meeting a celestial bodhisattva, and part of the story is that celestial bodhisattva is can actually relate to us through various forms, but depending on our state of maturity, we'll see them in different ways. And we would not be able to see the full dimension of a bodhisattva if we haven't developed sufficient spiritual maturity.

[04:25]

Without great compassion, you can't really see some of these celestial bodhisattvas in any form other than things you've already seen, like dogs and people. So in the story, he actually met a dog, and he cared for the dog so much that he was able to see that the dog was the celestial bodhisattva Maitreya. And then he went with Maitreya to a situation in the universe, called Tishita Heaven, which is this very special, highly auspicious state of experience wherein he was able to receive teachings directly from the celestial bodhisattva. And then he actually sort of left that condition and came back to the world and

[05:28]

taught the teachings which he received from this bodhisattva in this very special state of meditation, you could say. These heavens are, in a sense, very special forms of meditation where you can actually meet bodhisattvas. There's other forms of meditation, you could say, which are called pure lands, where you can actually meet Buddhas. And so part of Mahayana Buddhism is telling us a story that human beings can enter into states of meditation where we can actually go to heavens and pure lands and actually meet and receive teachings from bodhisattvas and Buddhas, and even receive prediction from Buddhas as to our future spiritual progress. And then, actually, the story also goes on that after he was back in this world... which is not usually considered to be heaven, but it's called the world where you can practice patience.

[06:29]

The Saha world means the world where you can practice patience. And you can practice patience here because it's so challenging often. It's so difficult often. There's so much suffering and confusion and cruelty that it's lots of opportunities to practice patience. Pretty much... Almost always you can practice patience here. I mean, there's opportunity. So he came back to the Saha world, and in the Saha world he taught these things he learned, but he also wrote some new texts, and at certain points when he was writing these texts, when he wasn't exactly clear how to express in his own new way some of the things he received from Maitreya, he invoked Maitreya and asked him to come actually into this world again and actually teach him, without going to Tushita Heaven, to actually come into this Saha world and teach here, at least to him personally, late at night on some occasions, and clarify certain points which he then taught.

[07:39]

So he directly, supposedly, conveyed to us teachings which he received from the Sangha in Tushita Heaven, and he also wrote things on his own here in this world, with some assistance from the Bodhisattva, And so that's part of the story of the Sangha, who is a historical figure and who actually wrote certain things himself and transcribed or was the amanuensis for the celestial bodhisattva. I just wondered how you feel about that story. About that story, I wonder how you feel about that. Resistance to cosmology. Yes? I find it really beautiful.

[08:52]

Yes? It's more acceptable to me as a meditation statement. Since I'm in awe of this kind of wisdom, I can't imagine it coming from something other than an altered state of some kind. This meditation state seems to work for me. What's the meditation state you're referring to? Does she have a meditation state where this information is perceivable on a correct level. Yes? I think the story of a dog turning into where he actually saw Maitreya, when the dog became Maitreya, that's just such a powerful point, that particular thing. And also, somehow like having a muse or a bar, having a muse, and whatever that is that people

[09:56]

where poetry and things flow, somehow that's how I understand it, the celestial bodhisattva as muse. In the same way, that's hard to understand how people even write poetry. It's similar to me, what must have been. Yes, I have a dissonant feeling when I heard the story. On the one hand, I have a feeling... disbelief, but also almost at the same time I had a feeling of this almost superior compassion. It felt unreal and very real at the same time. Yes? Me? Yeah. I want to play. Play with this? Yeah. With the tongs. Pardon?

[10:59]

Yes? The part... I really like the part where he calls on my train to help with his writing because it reminds me of calling... an Avalokiteshvara or Jizo Bodhisattva, or you're having a relationship with the Bodhisattva where you're in dialogue with them, and that energy is available. So that part of the story I really appreciate. Yes? Yes, it's sort of twofold on the one hand, because somehow it's the real person, in a sense, then it's sort of inspirational. think that the cultivation of practice, I might be able to touch the iceberg of a little bit of that compassion.

[12:02]

On the other hand, the first time I heard the story, it was told that he picked the roots of the dog, and I found myself feeling extreme revulsion at the thought of, in this body, attempting to do that, and I was confronted with the same thing. Yes. I think it's said that he felt revulsion when he got close to the smell, that he felt revulsion, but he was able to hang in there. And I think that compassion where you come close to someone who's suffering and you don't feel revulsion towards them, that still is compassion. There's some people who you wouldn't mind sticking your nose in their shit. It's possible, you might not. But still, you know, to stick your nose in their shit in order to help them would still be compassion.

[13:03]

Just because it's easy doesn't mean it's not compassion. When my daughter first vomited in my face, you know, just shortly after she was born, she really chowed down and then she just put the whole thing up in the air in this beautiful arc right in my face. And as it was coming, I thought, uh-oh. But actually, I thought, wow, that doesn't smell bad at all. It's actually very mild stuff. I was surprisingly unrepulsed. But I used to help paralyzed men move their bowels. They used to reach up inside them and pull the stuff out of them because they couldn't move it out themselves. So I used to help him when I first did it. I thought, oh, jikes. But after a while, it was really not a problem at all. Just really easy after a while. But at first, there's some repulsion of doing that kind of thing for a person.

[14:06]

But anyway, he did feel repulsion. The fact that we can go ahead and help people, even if we do feel repulsion, even if we don't. Of course, if we don't, we have to be careful that we aren't indulging in some central desire. that someone you're attracted to might need your help and you can get close to them to help them, you have to be careful that you aren't really indulging, getting gratification out of it for yourself. You have to watch out for that, because then that can hurt the person, that you're using them to stimulate yourself to get some jollies off on being close and helping them. So that wouldn't be appropriate either. But I think it's fine. And so we have to We have to meditate on how we could have a mind that our compassion would be strong enough so that we could actually move into the repulsion space if it was necessary, if somebody needed us to. And there's some people on the streets of our country who never, you know, really like, you know, I kind of feel like they deserve a donation because of the smell, you know, because that's a real-class smell you got there.

[15:12]

This is not a joke that they smell like that. But it's very hard to get close to that smell, because your nose kind of goes, well, this is probably not healthy here, you know. The nose says, get away from here. You know what I mean? But they may need your help, so you can get close. And as you may know, if you get close, if you can just very slowly move closely, your nose starts to adapt. After a while, it doesn't smell so bad anymore. It's the first thing that's difficult. Yes. I was encouraged by the 12 years of effortful practice that Hassan had made and how, I think it was four times after four years, he was about to leave his retreat and he'd see some sign of how long things take, like what I'm wearing, what I'm wearing.

[16:14]

And so he'd think, oh, that was only four years. I'm probably encouraging. Yes? Thanks for telling the story, but actually I heard it before. I guess I raised my hand. But the story reminded me of your speech several times about to get into the mouth with the other person, with the other situation, getting into the mouth. I think that There is no other way to feel that much compassion to the way the story goes . Any other responses to this story? Cynthia? Yeah, I also found the story just inspiring and kind of wondrous.

[17:15]

And I was able to just accept it, kind of not first listen. But then, you know, my conceptual brain has all these questions about just how that's possible. And, you know, just, yeah, the transmission of these truths, it seems like it's a very mysterious process that I don't understand. Mary? For me, it was like an insight into a mystery unit that is unimaginable, but it's possible. Eric? Because on the one hand, my rational mind says, well, this couldn't be true.

[18:17]

The other hand, from my own experience, tells me that there are things in this world and beyond this world that are beyond my comprehension. So given those two together, I'm willing to just kind of take it at face value and kind of either believe it or disbelieve it and just say, well, what's the teaching here? Without believing or disbelieving. Yes? I'd like to... kind of let it enter my body and plant seeds, that idea about it. And I don't really feel a need to know. I don't feel a need to figure out anything about it. Except tonight when you talked about it, I had this desire. I thought, I really wish I could go to one of those heavens and receive teaching. That would sound really great. Yes?

[19:20]

It seems to me like a birth story. This is Maitreya of future birth, and out of this story comes this marvelous literature. It's born from whatever this other way, like a creation story. To me, it was inspiring to hear it sort of in that. Yeah, kind of a birth life. I heard someone say death, but actually it's more like this story. giving birth in sort of a different way than they would think. I wonder about really nice things wrapped in nasty little packages. One of the advantages of wrapping dharma in obnoxious packages is that if you can open to the obnoxiousness, then you might also open to the dharma.

[20:25]

So sometimes it works out that the dharma comes in a very difficult-to-accept way, so that if you can accept the appearance, if you cannot resist the appearance, then you'll also open to something which you're closed to when it's in a nice appearance. Because when it's in a nice appearance, the dharma's in nice things, too. But if you open to nice things, you can still be closed to obnoxious things. Because if you open to obnoxious things, you're probably open to nice things, too. So the dharma coming in in a noxious presentation is saying, can you accept the dharma even here, can you open even to this? Because we're usually somewhat closed to receiving the Dharma, because we're a little bit into picking and choosing. And our into being in pick and choosing, that blocks the Dharma.

[21:31]

What do you want us to open to? What do you want us to open to there? Is it like the essence of... of the meaning behind it, or do you want us to open to everything, the literal meaning and everything? Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, the literal and then the non-literal. Yes, right. That's what I would want for everybody. So again, I think Eric said something about, you know, Some part of his mind might say this is not true. But again, the story of the sangha, this story of the sangha is not actually what happened. We know that for sure. We know that no story you can tell about anybody is really what happened. What happened actually is very mysterious. So in this text, in chapter six of the next chapter of this text,

[22:31]

It speaks of the three different patterns of consciousness or the three characteristics of phenomena. One of the characteristics is that everything is a dependent co-arising. And the dependent co-arising or the dependently co-arisen nature of things and everything that exists has this dependently co-arisen nature. You can't grasp that because it's not out there separate from you because you're part of the dependent co-arising of it. the dependently coerisen nature of everybody you know, including yourself, is ungraspable because you can't put it out there to grasp it. You're part of it. Your relationship with everybody is really basically very mysterious and ungraspable. In order to grasp something and tell a story about it, you have to put some kind of packaging on it. And so this story is a story about a sangha meeting Maitreya.

[23:37]

And a sangha did meet Maitreya. But what I just said does not actually characterize a sangha meeting Maitreya. The actual other dependent phenomena of this bodhisattva meeting a celestial bodhisattva, this historical bodhisattva, meeting a celestial bodhisattva who takes a historical form in a historical bodhisattva's life. This story about that, that thing, if I say, a sangha said this happened, his saying of what happened isn't what happened. But what happened is the basis of him saying what happened. Something happened between him and the bodhisattva. If you say you didn't meet Maitreya, there is something on There's some basis for you saying that you didn't meet Maitreya today. There's some basis of that. You can't say anything without there being some actual creative event upon which you've based your story.

[24:44]

You can't try to lie about what happened or tell the truth about what happened. You can't feel like you're telling a lie without basing that lie on something. You can't tell what you think is the truth without basing it. that story of what you think really happened today, on what happened. You are grounded in reality of dependable arising. However, the story you're telling requires that you render what actually happened into a conceptual package so you can talk about it. So Asanga did that in his meeting with Maitreya, but there was actually something happened there with him and something that led him to make this story. And then he proceeded to have something else happen, which is the basis of him saying, I went to Tushita Heaven with Maitreya. But that story, I went to Tushita Heaven, does not actually reach what happened.

[25:48]

But something, of course, did happen. Something dependently co-erose, which he called, and then Maitreya took me to his special school. And there he taught me these things. And he comes back from this experience, which he tells this story about. And the story is not the experience. And then he writes these texts down. Which, you know, transform a huge, very flourishing Indian culture. And make this whole new wave of things. But some experience happened to him so that he could If you look at these texts, just imagine yourself writing them. First just read it and just say, okay, now imagine yourself writing these things down after having some experience which you tell the story about. And again, the story is not the experience.

[26:51]

But the story is the way you know the experience such as you can talk about it. How do you know it's true? How do you know? How do you know? How do you know? How do you stand? Did it... I think you can forget the meaning of Maitreya. Like, there was this interaction with Maitreya. How do you know for sure? How do you know for sure? I really don't know for sure. What I feel more confident about is that the story... is based on something. And I feel confident that the story does not reach what happened to a Sangha. And I feel confident that a Sangha, I know enough about Sangha to feel confident that he did not think that the story he told about what happened between him and Maitreya actually reached what happened between him and Maitreya. I've listened to enough and read enough of Sangha's writing to understand that he's not saying that the story he's telling us about what happened actually reached the actual ungraspable basis of the story.

[28:06]

That I have confidence in. Now, do I actually know who Maitreya is such that I could actually ask Maitreya, did you do this with the Sangha? I have not yet been myself been able... to experience Maitreya in such a way that I actually felt that he or she actually, I can bring him into my house and ask him questions and really feel like he's actually giving me answers to my questions about the text he wrote. I had not been able to do that. But I'm saying, even if I was able to do that and tell you about that, I still would have the, I think my understanding would continue, which is this teaching of Maitreya. that what actually happened between me and Maitreya was really ungraspable. And I rendered it into a way that I could tell you, now I'm sure because of that experience. But the thing I say is not the experience. But I still could be confident that something that never happened before, I call Maitreya or I call a bodhisattva.

[29:15]

If I'm studying a text, I could actually call. Would some bodhisattvas please come and help me understand this text? And even doing that, I might feel a little calmer. Like, I'm not doing this all by myself. Actually, I was in Texas studying this sutra, studying chapter 6 with people, and we were reciting it. And this one guy that was in the retreat, he said he was, like, really having a hard time with this text, with chapter 6 and chapter 7 of this text. He said, didn't really understand anything. And then he thought, and I was talking about some other things, about invoking the presence of the bodhisattvas to help us study. And so he did that. And he understood. And he said, I'll never study this stuff alone again. That's how he felt at the time. And we do a lot of ceremonies like that where we actually invite the bodhisattvas to come to help us in the practice.

[30:20]

But most of us do not actually feel like, oh, I'm actually seeing the bodhisattva. So I haven't had that experience, really, of feeling like I've been able to evoke the presence of a bodhisattva and feel like they're actually having a conversation with me. You know, not a celestial bodhisattva. I sometimes think I've met some humans that are acting as bodhisattvas in my life. At least, if not like 24 hours a day, at least once in a while they seem to suddenly manifest great compassion in my life for me at that time. I sometimes feel like that. And I was thinking of, you know, Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoitsu, you know about him? Have you heard about him? Suzuki Roshi has a son named Hoitsu, and he's the successor of Suzuki Roshi back in Japan. And he came and told us this story about he was having an asthma attack back in his house in Japan, and he was just barely getting any air, and he heard his mother's voice basically saying in Japanese, you know, don't give up, keep trying to find some breath, you know.

[31:38]

And she kept saying that, he kept hearing her say that, and then he did find some breath, and he said later, I forgot how he put it, but I think he said, My mother was Abelokiteshvara. But I didn't so much think exactly that his mother was Abelokiteshvara, but Abelokiteshvara used his mother's voice rather than just like having some voice which he never heard before. Like, hello, this is Abelokiteshvara. And I would really like you to try to find some breath here. That Abelokiteshvara used his mother's voice through his memory to get him to keep trying to live a little longer because, you know, he's a helpful person to live a little longer. So he had that experience that his mother was the Avalokiteshvara. I thought it was the Avalokiteshvara used the sound of his mother's voice through his memories to stimulate some kind of different part of himself than his adult, you know, part, stimulate the little boy part, maybe that more skillful at finding breath than the old smoker.

[32:49]

who had kind of lost touch with his breathing process by abusing it with cigarettes. So anyway, that's how I feel about it. And I also feel like it's kind of like I feel like this Mahayana thing, it has certain horizons, which I feel in the West, we have not looked up. We've been kind of keeping our nose down in the Zen garden, which is really beautiful. But there's certain dimensions of the Mahayana which I'd just like to tell you about for you to start opening up to. Like, for example, what I was leading up to is also what I talked about last week. The issue of rebirth. How are you going to think about rebirth? The founder of the tradition says there is rebirth. He said that. The Buddha said that. How are you going to deal with that? Well, first of all, listen to it. You don't have to believe it And the Buddha didn't say, part of right view is that karmic activity has consequences.

[34:03]

Another part of right view is that there is rebirth. That's part of right view, that teaching. But the Buddha didn't say, believe that because I said it. He's just saying, that's right view. He's not saying, you should have right views. by believing what I just told you is right view. I'm just telling you what right view is, according to me, so you can consider how you feel about that, and that will be a way for you to cultivate right view. So last week we brought that up and talked about it because the first part of this chapter is saying that when there's birth, it tells you how birth happens. But another way to come to understand and have right view is not by just believing what the Buddha said, But by studying these teachings on mind, as you study the teachings on mind, as you become more confident in the teachings of mind, then you can use these teachings to deduce the reasonableness of rebirth as just part of the way the mind works would tell you that there would be rebirth.

[35:13]

So by understanding and being more confident about the teachings of mind, not believing them right off, listening to them and reasoning with them and arguing with them and coming up with alternative suggestions and seeing how they work. But as you become more and more attuned through the study of mind, you can use that same teaching and that same kind of meditation and you can just turn it over on rebirth process. And that's how you can actually prove to yourself and be certain that there's rebirth. So that's on the horizon too. It's not just the horizon that there is rebirth, on the horizon is actually you being able to verify for yourself, first conceptually and then through direct perception, without even entering into these special high levels of trance, that there is rebirth. Because even if you could see rebirth through meditation, you wouldn't necessarily understand what you were seeing. And different yogis that have seen rebirth have had different interpretations from the Buddha about what they were seeing.

[36:17]

And at the end of the talk, last week I also said something about, you know, what did I say? I said something and Elena said, thank God. What was it? Yeah. You said don't forget the end of the chapter five. Yeah. Don't forget the last part of chapter five, which is saying that, so the first part of chapter five is giving you some information about rebirth process. And the last information it's giving you is in terms of the appropriation of sense data and appropriation of predispositions, and then the star house consciousness as a basis for perception and all these different types of consciousness and all that. That's part of understanding the secrets of mind, consciousness, and intellect. But the real understanding is when you actually realize that these are fictions and you actually don't perceive them as real. and you actually don't perceive them, because you're actually looking at what's real, and when you look at what's real, you don't see these things anymore, because these are actually appearances.

[37:32]

So that's sort of an antidote to a misconception about what this teaching about rebirth is. And yet there is the teaching that there is rebirth. So I guess we could maybe read this chapter again together. Actually, I want to tell you one more story. Is that okay? So there was this Chinese monk who I think he died in about 430 in the Common Era.

[38:42]

And he was, you know, he was a person. And he, I think he was a person who was, if I remember his story correctly, he... Well, I'm not going to tell his whole story. I'm just going to say that after being one of the most important monks in Chinese history, and we visited his temple, a beautiful temple, and next to his temple was the nun's temple where we went and visited the lady. There were kind of those two sets of temples overlooking the rice fields. His name was Dao An. And he... And so he knew he was perhaps at that time the most learned monk in all of China and one of the greatest influences on developing the tradition. And as he was dying, he said that his great hope was to be reborn in a pure land where he would be able to understand the Prajnaparamita literature better because he didn't really quite understand it.

[39:46]

And you know he didn't actually understand it very well. He died before... the great translator Kumar Jeeva came to China and translated the Prajnaparamita literature quite a bit better than before. So the Chinese translations actually weren't too good, and he didn't speak, Dalan didn't speak, read Sanskrit. So he actually was having trouble understanding these Mahayana texts. So his hope was to be born in a pure land where he was able to understand them. And I always thought, this is just amazing, that the greatest, in some sense, the greatest heart and mind in certain ways in the whole ocean of Buddhists in China, still kind of knew that he didn't fully understand this Mahayana teaching and wanted to be reborn in a pure land. So he wanted to be reborn and reborn in a special situation where he could learn these teachings so he could help people more effectively. And again, I tell you that story because I heard that story, you know, 20, 30 years ago and I thought,

[40:50]

It's kind of a different perspective from what I have at this point in my life. I wouldn't necessarily say, well, I hope to be reborn in a pure land so I can understand the Dharma better. But I think the more you study, the more you understand specifically where you actually don't understand very well and really do want to understand well. and you want to get help from some great teachers to understand, before that you might have some other thing you want to do, I don't know what. But I just thought that was interesting, that that was how he felt right at the end of his great long practice career. You know, just, it was kind of a drop in a bucket. And he just wanted to go on and keep studying forever the Dharma.

[41:51]

Would you like to be born in a pure land? Yes, I would. Yeah, I think I would. I'm willing to not be born in a pure land, but I do understand that I either have to be born in a pure land or I have to wait for the next cosmic era. in this world, for a Buddha to help me out with my vow. It's not so much help me out, but help us out. It's not really like me becoming a Buddha, but rather me doing my part in making a Buddha. And in order for that to happen, there has to be some prediction happening. And so I don't know if exactly I have to go to a Pure Land, but I need somebody to get prediction. So I don't really know. But it... Yeah, right.

[43:00]

You can be born in a Pure Land and come back to this world. Yeah. That's right. That would be born into a heaven. I don't usually think about it that way, but I more think about it just in terms of I know I should practice concentration practice. because I understand that when I'm concentrated, I can understand things that I can't understand when I'm not concentrated. So I know when I'm studying a text, if I don't calm down, it's just going to bounce off me. So I've told you many times that the first talk during a session, I kind of feel like I should just not say anything, because most people, whatever I say just sort of bounces off them, because people are so tough at the beginning of session, generally.

[44:06]

They're kind of like, tough. Nobody's going to fool me. I know how to defend myself from any untruths or whatever. But towards the latter part of the Sachin, people are kind of like, you know. If people want to lie to me, fine. If people want to tell me the truth, if people want to spit on me, If people want me to, like, you know, help them do ball movements, you know, like, anything. Anything but this. Would you like to come and clean the toilets? Fine, fine. So, by the end of session, you know, just, you take up, you take the teaching and you just sort of, just, it just goes right in. Like, you know, again, this, the idea of it When you haven't watered a plant in a long time, it's just kind of crusty on the top.

[45:11]

If you pour water on, it just runs right off, right? It doesn't go in. But if you spray it with a mist, the mist doesn't run off. You spray it with a mist, it just gets wet. When you spray it again, it gets wet. And pretty soon it gets moist and soft. Then you pour the water, and the water just goes right through. You just keep pouring and pouring. It just keeps going right through. So I know that when I'm concentrating, This stuff just goes right in and goes right through me. And it's good for it to go right through and not get stuck. Just like water going through the earth, nourishing the soil. And the root hairs aren't holding on to the water. They're just receiving it and letting it bring the nourishment of the soil to them and also some of the water in. But everything's passing through, right? Everything's, you know, leaping through us. moving through us. But if we are tough and like, I'm only going to let certain stuff, I'm only going to let purified water come through.

[46:17]

Water that's been tested before. Rather than just let whatever comes through come through and we'll see how we do with it. I know that. So in that sense, I do feel like I need to enter into meditation in order to understand these teachings. I have that confidence. And that's kind of like being reborn in a heaven or entering a heaven. Pure land is a special situation, though, because the heavens don't all have Buddhas in them. Pure lands actually have Buddhas in them. And Buddhas perform special services that wonderful bodhisattvas... Bodhisattvas are almost everywhere, but the Buddhas are not... At certain levels of organization, you won't find Buddhas... unless you go to certain locations. They kind of have a certain position in the picture, different from bodhisattvas. So anyway, there are these different ways of preparing yourself, preparing your state of mind so that you can receive the teachings.

[47:27]

And that preparation, to some extent, is preparing yourself for a kind of In a sense, heaven is a place where you can study better than some special situations, difficult situations. Situations where it's very difficult for you to let stuff in because you feel like it's going to pollute you or poison you. So you get in some situations, they say, okay, I can open here. In Sashin, I can open to this pain. It's okay if I cry. It's okay if I, you know, people will take care of me. And if I die in Sashin, I'll be like the first person at Zen Center to die in Sashin. It'd be great, you know. So far, nobody's died in Sashin. You could be the first. Huh? That's right, he did die during Sashin, you're right.

[48:32]

But he wasn't in the Zen room. Right? So actually, people have died during seshines, but none of them have been in the zendo. So zendo is really a safe place. Really. If you go to some rooms a few feet away. Okay, let's chant the scripture. The questions of Ishalamati. Let's chant it. Thus the Bodhisattvas are wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought and consciousness. the secrets of mind, thought, and consciousness. By God, just how are bodhisattvas wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought, and consciousness? For what reason does the Tathagata designate a bodhisattva as wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought, and consciousness?

[49:36]

The Bhagavan replied to the Bodhisattva, Vishalamati, Vishalamati, you are involved in asking this in order to benefit many beings, to bring happiness to many beings out of sympathy for the world and for the sake of the welfare, benefit and happiness of many beings. including gods and humans, your intention in questioning the Tata Yata about this subject is good, it is good. Therefore, Vishal Amati, listen well, and I will describe for you the way what Esau just are wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought, and consciousness. Vishal Amati, whatever type of sentient being there may be in this world, beings manifest a body and arise within states of birth such as egg born or womb born or moisture born or spontaneously born initially in dependence upon two types of appropriation the appropriation of the physical sense powers associated with the support and the appropriation of predispositions which collaborate conventional designations with respect to signs names and concepts the mind which has all seeds private

[50:52]

It develops, increases, and expands in its operations, although two types of appropriation exist in the form realm. Appropriation is not two-fold in the formless realm. The Shalamati consciousness is also called the appropriating consciousness because it holds and appropriates the body and fully connected and thoroughly connected. It is called mine because it collects and accumulates forms, sounds, smells, tastes of tangible objects. The Shalamati, the six-fold collection. depending upon and abiding in that appropriating consciousness an eye consciousness arises depending on an eye in a form in association with consciousness functioning together with that eye consciousness a conceptual mental consciousness arises at the same time having the same objective reference it shall not be in here consciousness

[52:06]

and body consciousness arise depending on an ear, a nose, a tongue, and a body in association with consciousness and sound, smell, taste, and tangibles functioning together with nose, ear, tongue, and body consciousness ...arises at the same time having the same objective reference. If there arises one eye consciousness, there arises together with it only one mental consciousness, which has the same object of activity as the eye consciousness. Likewise, if two, three, four, or five consciousnesses arise together, as the five-fold collection of consciousness.

[53:13]

In Chalamanti, for example, if the causal conditions for the arising of one wave in a great flowing river are present, then just one wave will arise. If the causal conditions for two waves or many waves are present, then multiple waves will arise. But the river's own continuity will not be broken, it will never be entirely softened. If the causal conditions were the arising of a single image in a perfectly clear mouth, there are present than just one image. of two images, or when many images are present, then multiple images will arise. However, that round mirror will not be transformed into the nature of the image. They will never be fully linked to the Shalamati, just as it is with the water and the air, depending upon and abiding in the appropriating consciousness to the causal conditions for the simultaneous arising of one-eye consciousness. In just one eye, consciousness will arise one time. If the causal conditions were the signal arising above to the fivefold assemblage of consciousness are present, then I'll do that fivefold. like this bodhisattvas who rely on knowledge of the system of doctrine and abide in knowledge of the system of doctrine are wise with respect to the secrets of mind thought and consciousness however designates bodhisattvas as being wise with respect to the secrets of mind thought and consciousness it is not only because

[54:36]

And he designates those bodhisattvas as being wise in all ways. He shall haughty those bodhisattvas wise in all ways do not perceive their own internal appropriators. They also do not perceive an appropriating consciousness, but they are in accord with reality. They also do not perceive a basis. . [...] They do not perceive a tongue, nor do they perceive a taste, nor do they perceive a tongue consciousness. They do not perceive a body, nor do they perceive a tangible object, nor do they perceive a bodily consciousness.

[55:44]

These shalamati, these bodhisattvas, do not perceive their own particular thoughts, nor do they perceive phenomenon, nor do they perceive a mental consciousness, but they are in accord with reality. These bodhisattvas are said to be wise with respect to the ultimate, This is how Bodhisattvas are wise with respect to the ultimate and also being wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought and consciousness. This is how Bodhisattvas are wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought and consciousness. This is how Bodhisattvas are wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought and consciousness. Bhagavan spoke this verse, if the appropriating consciousness deep and subtle of all its seeds, flowing like a river, were conceived as itself, that would not be right. Thus I have not taught this to children. This is the piece of the fifth chapter of the Shalammati. So another frame put on this text.

[56:48]

is another frame I would suggest to you put in this text is the frame of... This is a framework to help you reverse the framework which you bring to every experience. I shouldn't say every experience. The framework which we normally bring to experience by studying this framework, it's not that you should adopt this framework as a new framework exactly, but you try on this framework as a way to upset or reverse or invert or turn around the framework that you already have, the framework or frameworks you already have. So like I was talking yesterday, the Buddha way is basically leaping or turning But it's not so easy to leap and turn unless we kind of like reopen to the situation.

[57:52]

So if you can reopen to this text with all of its obnoxiousness and difficulties and dangers that are in this text, what dangers are in this text? Well, it's the danger of misunderstanding. There's a danger that your new understandings that you develop with this text will be worse than your old understandings, but you won't be able to go back to your old understandings. So you'll be like, lose with your bad old understandings, which were pretty bad, but you're surviving on them. Get these new understandings, which could be a lot worse. But these new understandings are provided primarily to help you overcome your old understandings and these new understandings. But if you don't make a lot of tremendous effort on the new understanding, you'll just stay in your old understanding. And new understandings or the new frame is also partly a part of it is to apply to your old understandings. Part of what this text is telling you about is the structure of your habitual way of doing things.

[58:59]

So it's a frame or a structure or a story. It's a fiction to help you understand how you usually believe your fictions. until you actually don't believe him anymore. And then you're not going to believe this one either. So the point of this is not that you learn all this information and get all this psychological teaching and carry that around too on top of everything that you've got. But to use it in such a way that it really changes the way you see things, but not just to change it to this way, but it changes the way you see and that you understand more thoroughly how... the way you usually see things, is delusion. But without making that into something else that you hold on to, a new understanding into something you hold on to either. So this teaching should be self-destructive. What's the word?

[60:02]

Self-destructive? Self-anial. Self-destructive. Self-anial. Self-destructing. Self-destructing. This teaching is self-destructing. Whereas our old teachings, our old views, don't seem to be self-destructing. They seem to be self-perpetuating. So this teaching is about how they self-perpetuate. So you can get tipped off to how they're self-perpetuating. And then this one shouldn't be self-perpetuating either, even though you might keep studying and keep teaching it the more you do it, the more rapidly it'll self-destruct. Finally, you're just spinning all the time with this teaching. And you're using this teaching as the stuff you spin. And you draw in other delusions and attachments into the vortex and just keep spinning them and throwing them off and spinning them and throwing them off and invite other people to come in and do the same.

[61:08]

So this is just one possible way to do that. in other possible ways. Like in that movie, I Love Huckabee, just bounce a ball in your head. Just bounce a ball in your head. Just keep bouncing a ball in your head. Yeah, I wouldn't reckon Matthews is better, actually. So, anyway. And also, I want to point out that here's a text. This is one of Asanga's texts. The main sutra... The main sutra for Sangha in his teaching of Yogacara is the sutra that you're just chanting. This is his main sutra. In terms of his unique teaching, he also, of course, studied the Prajnaparamita, but in terms of his main inspiration to this new teaching which he and his brother brought forth, this sutra is most important to him. And this chapter is the part that's very important for the Abhidharma part.

[62:13]

The first part of the sutra, is about the ultimate. And in the ultimate, you don't perceive mind, thought, and consciousness. The first four chapters of this are about that. Very interesting. Now, in this fifth chapter, we start studying the conventional structure of consciousness. This isn't the ultimate. The latter part of the chapter is when you see the ultimate, and you don't see the... In the latter part of the chapter, when you tune into the ultimate, you don't see the first part of the chapter, which is the conventional. Because in the ultimate, you don't see the conventional. In the ultimate, you're seeing the ultimate character of the conventional rather than seeing the conventional. You're looking at the conventional, but you're seeing the ultimate. So you don't see the conventional. So the latter part of the chapter, you don't see the first part of the chapter. The first part of the chapter is the part of the sutra where they first are introducing conventional psychic phenomena, conventional conscious structuring and conscious functioning.

[63:20]

So this book here, which is called The Summary of the Mahayana, it actually starts out, a sangha starts out in the first chapter by giving a summary of the Mahayana. And he says that, it's not in the first chapter, it's in the sort of the introductions. and he talks about this Bodhisattva, who talks about these ten excellent qualities, the ten excellent teachings of the Mahayana. And he lists the ten excellent teachings, the Sangha does, reciting this sutra, this Mahayana sutra, of the ten excellent teachings. So the first of the ten excellent teachings in the Mahayana are the excellent teachings of the support of the knowable, or the support of cognition. That's the first of them. Ten Excellent Teachings of the Mahayama. So then, so in his text, the first section of text is the support of the knowable.

[64:21]

And the support of the knowable is what? What do you think that might be? That's conceptual, right? I mean, that's conventional, right? Is that conventional? Actually, it is conventional, but, you know, what... Mind, thought, and consciousness. This chapter is about this chapter here in the sutra. These are the supports of the knowable. The support of the knowable is alaya, mind, or alaya vijnana, thought, manas, and the six sense consciousnesses. These are the supports of cognition. These three working together are the support of cognition in this sutra. And in the Sangha's work, he goes in and talks about these. So this first chapter of this text is really helpful to study this chapter.

[65:27]

This first chapter of Mahayana Samdraha, the summary of Mahayana, is very nice for this chapter here. So you might want to check out chapter 5 of the Mahayana Sangraha as you're reading chapter 5 of the Sambhir Marchana. And the beginning of the first chapter of the Sangha says, this summary of the great vehicle is an Abhidharma teaching on the scriptures of the great vehicle. So this is Mahayana Abhidharma of the Sanghas, and this is one of the basic texts. And this one... This first chapter goes right to this chapter. You mentioned opening to this. How to open to this text? My mind goes, okay, yeah.

[66:32]

How do I actually open to it beyond going, okay, yeah. Um, besides that, or you could like open to it and not say, okay, yeah. Just open it and read it without saying, okay, yeah. You can also say, okay, no. You can also, you know, just, there's many things you can do as part of, in response to opening to the text. Just, you have to basically give yourself to the text. give the gift of reading the text, or reciting the text, or memorizing the text. That's memorizing it. Like, yeah, I guess people read a text and say, okay, yeah, but how about, if you like it so much, how about memorizing it? And then many could also memorize chapter one, this Mahayana Avidharma. So again, this text is not really Mahayana Avidharma.

[67:33]

Because Abhidharma is not really a sutra. Abhidharmas aren't really what the Buddha teaches. Abhidharma is the commentary of Buddha's disciples on the Buddha's teaching. So this is an Abhidharma teaching on the sutra. Make sense? And so it starts out by talking about mind, thought, and consciousness. And then it talks about rebirth and how Alaya works in rebirth. but it goes into a little bit more detail than what's said in the chapter. And then it talks about... And then it expands on what it says in the sutra. It particularly expands on this. It gives more information about manas than the sutra does. And in some sense, he says something the sutra doesn't say. I don't think the sutra says this part here. He says, when he's telling you about thought...

[68:34]

it tells you that thought is of two types. Thought or manas says it's of two types. One type is that thought is just the previous cognition. Remember I told you that I consciousness arises from... What are the conditions for I consciousness? I... sensible radiation and... What? Eye consciousness? No, no. What's the support of eye consciousness? We've got eye consciousness. What's supporting it? What's supporting it is the eye organ, the sensible radiation, visible radiation, and... Huh? Huh? No, no. What support? Eye consciousness doesn't support eye consciousness.

[69:37]

The previous cognition. Right? It's not... Eye consciousness isn't necessarily supported by eye consciousness. In other words, you could have an ear consciousness. You could have an ear consciousness. Cognition of sound. Okay? And then that goes away. And now you could have the arising of eye consciousness. So what's the support of eye consciousness? It's the previous cognition, whatever it is. So in the case of a sense consciousness, like an eye consciousness, a direct perception, the conditions that it depends on, the main conditions it depends on, organ, sensible field of the organ, and the previous consciousness, the previous cognition. Those are the three main conditions for the arising of, for example, an eye consciousness. It could have been an eye consciousness, but It's whatever was just the just deceased consciousness. Those are the supports.

[70:38]

But for manas, manas is actually the just previous consciousness. So this consciousness, the second type of consciousness in the mind-thought-conscious, is the previous thought. So this is actually the condition. This is a condition for... the arising of these six sense consciousnesses. So when each one of these arise, they depend on manas, in the sense that because manas is just to see sense consciousness. And when I say six consciousnesses here, because the mind consciousness, the direct perception in terms of mind consciousness, is also here. And mind consciousness also, it depends on, It depends on the mind organ, right? It depends on the previous cognition, which is the same thing.

[71:40]

Does that make sense? And it depends on mental data. Or it can also have the same object. It can coexist with an eye consciousness, so it could also be looking... The object of Freud could be the eye consciousness. I mean, it could be the sensible radiation. visible radiation. So you could be seeing visible radiation, but it wouldn't be supported by the physical organ. It would be supported by manas. And it would be supported by manas and its organ, and it would be supported by manas and its previous cognition. So it would be a double manas support for the sense consciousness, the mental sense consciousness. So all these consciousnesses depend on manas. However, What Sangha points out in this chapter, which we don't see in the sutra, is he says that manas is of two types. One type is this type we saw in the sutra, and we see other places.

[72:43]

Before this Mahayana Sutra, in earlier Buddhism, the same structure of support was there of these three conditions. Antecedent cognition, organ, and object. Those are the three main things for all sense consciousnesses. But now, the Sangha tells us that there's another kind of manas, which is a defiling manas. And this defiling manas is the part of... It comes with this function that we do need to have sense consciousnesses or mind consciousnesses, direct perception. It brings with it a conception, an image of what's happening. And it confuses the image of what's happening with what's happening. It takes the image by which it grasps and clearly knows to be the object, which is a mistake.

[73:46]

So, that starts the defiling process of this whole setup. Plus... it also is always associated, according to Sangha and Vasubandhu, it's always associated with four defilements. The view of self, pride of self, love of self, and confusion of self. So, this chapter in the Mahayana Sangraha elaborates on this point, which is not really unpacked in the sutra. That's why it's good to read this commentary together with this chapter in the sutra. Well, particularly the first chapter with this fifth chapter. And then the other chapters will apply to other chapters in the sutra. And then the other thing that we're being told here is that this consciousness, the first one called mind, is latent.

[74:58]

and somewhat passive. It's the consciousness which has all the seeds for all the images which Manas uses to grasp what's happening. So these sense consciousnesses are always evolving in relationship to the world and coming up with their... their direct perceptions, but their direct perceptions are tied together with this other state of consciousness, or this other transformation of consciousness, which is necessary because it performs the function of being the previous cognition, because the previous cognition is it, but the previous cognition brings with it these images, and it performs a defiling function, and the images are coming from what is latent in the Alaya Vijnana, which collects all the possible seeds from past karma.

[76:02]

And then based on these seeds, the organ function of mind, or actually the antecedent condition function of mind, brings in the defiling into the process. Could you explain exactly? The defiling. The first aspect of the defiling is that... And another thing is... Another way that... Another way that the Sangha posts this is that Alaya comes to term as Manas and the Six Vision Janas. Alaya comes to term as thought or thinking and consciousness. So Alaya is this latent... storehouse of all possible seed from past action, which include all the images that come to us because of our ancient activities.

[77:05]

But they're latent. But then they come to term, or they mature, as these forms of consciousness. When they come to term, and one of the things they come to term is they come to term as the function of the previous moment of cognition. is a support to the current cognition. But that brings with it some of the seeds from past karma. And the seeds of past karma then manifest as images. And the images then get projected upon the results of the sense cognitions. And when they get projected, the nature of using the image to grasp the phenomena is that after we do that, we confuse the image with what we're seeing. We can't separate the image by which we grasp the thing from the thing. So again, I like this example. If you look at the hillside, and if it's kind of blurry, you put it on glasses, and then some of it becomes clear.

[78:08]

When you have the glasses on, you can't tell the difference between the way the hill looks and the glasses. Or another way to put it is you can't any longer remember what it looks like when it was unclear when you see it clearly. The unclear, ambiguous picture, you kind of remember that it was there, but you can't see it anymore when you had the clear image. If you take the clear image away, you can see the ambiguous one, the blurry one. When you put it on, you can't tell the difference between the clear one and the blurry one. And actually, all you see is the clear one. That's a mistake. The hills aren't really like that. And again, the optometrist or ophthalmologist says, Actually, the hills are really the way things look when you have glasses on. That's the way they really are. That's the way they talk. But really the way the hills are are the way you experience them with no conceptual mediation. Really the way they are means the way they are in their uniqueness.

[79:12]

When you put the glasses on, things become generalized. And they're generalized according to the lens. The lens will make them a certain level of clarity, depending on the lens. And they'll all be that clear. Take them away. These aren't general anymore. And then also this confusion of the image with the phenomena, it brings with it also these four defilements of self-view, self-love, self-pride, and self-confusion. And that's partly because this function here is also a maturing of these seeds. So it's the maturing of the seeds that are from the depositing of past karma based on belief in self. So now because of belief in self is deposited into the latent consciousness, has an effect.

[80:15]

Belief in self has an effect, and part of the effect is that when we perform the function of conceptualizing, we also have the concept of self, too. So it brings with it the confusion of image and object, and it brings with it the confusion of self. So alaya comes to term as this function. And then the actions we do based on this confusion and this pride in self plus the confusion of image and object, the actions based on that have the effect of planting more seeds would give rise to more of the same. So this is a frame on the basic fundamental misconception of our situation, which is our main problem in life. This situation, according to this school, the main problem is this aspect of consciousness. This is the generating, this is the generator of the misconception and the actions based on it.

[81:25]

A lie is also a problem because it keeps feeding us more seeds, or it has all these seeds which are defiled, are the results of defilement, and then they mature as more defiled thinking. But we... For the time being, we need this defiled thinking because it's essential for the function of any kind of cognition. But this is teaching that this defiled thinking can be terminated. And once it's terminated, then aliyah can actually be completely transformed so it doesn't supply any more seeds for delusion. And we can also start transforming aliyah even before this major reversal occurs, by lots of wholesome activity. Wholesome activity still can be defiled by self-view, self-love, self-pride, and self-confusion.

[82:29]

Wholesome activity can still be mistaken by mistaking your image of wholesome activity for the wholesome activity. So there is wholesome activity, according to the Buddha, but the image of the wholesome activity is not the wholesome activity. It's a nice image, because it's an image of wholesome activity, but the image of wholesome activity is not wholesome activity. The appearance of wholesome activity is not wholesome activity. Wholesome activity is not an appearance, it's an actual activity. Just like you're not an appearance, basically, you're an activity. People can make you into an appearance, and you can see yourself as an appearance, but you're not basically an appearance. You're, first of all, primarily a dependent core rising, not an appearance of dependent core rising.

[83:35]

And everybody else is that way, too. But we make our stories about ourselves and others based on on appearances or conceptions. We don't know how to tell a story about something that's preconceptual. I mean, except to sort of have an image of preconception to make a story about that. Well, I'm not sure exactly when or where this Abhidharma study will continue Besides in my own practice, because I'm going to continue studying it. I have no choice in the matter, apparently. There will be another class here at Green Gulch in the spring on this. I'm not sure exactly whether we'll be studying it in the intensive or not. But I will continue to...

[84:37]

offer these teachings. So I just would point you to Chapter 5 that we're studying now, and Chapter 1 of the Summary of Mahayana. Study those too. And if you have questions, discuss them with each other, and if you want to include me in your discussions. But that would be dangerous to have these discussions, because somebody might think you're really smart. are really stupid. And the other people might be afraid of you because they might think that you'll think they're stupid or smart. So it's kind of a dangerous kind of study. People can get pretty riled up about this stuff. It's almost like politics. If you don't want to take care of this Chapter 5, Please pass it back.

[85:40]

Please put it up in this chair here. If you want to take care of it, please do so. You can have it. But I just don't want you to throw it away. Thank you for your attention and opening to this obnoxious material. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true head of God's way.

[86:34]

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