In the third section of chapter 3, there's the question, at what point in their development do these bodhisattvas gain insight into conscious construction only? Conscious construction only is a verbal expression, which is pointing at the teaching that the mind, the active consciousness is generated in such a way that it appears

[01:48]

to itself, that all that appears to itself is itself, however, it looks to itself as though what was appearing to itself was other than itself. Now I've said this to you, and then the question is, at what point do bodhisattvas gain insight into this teaching and into the reality of how our experience is circumscribed by our conscious construction? How is it that we have insight into whatever we're aware of is just conscious construction? In response to the question, Asanga says, in virtue of a discrimination of the image,

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images, and mental words accompanied by insight that appear as doctrines and its meanings, and in virtue of the arising of insight into the doctrine of the great vehicle, they enter into a state of practicing earnest commitment based on firmly believing what they have heard. They enter the path of insight upon intelligently understanding what they have heard. They enter the path of meditation upon countering all obstacles to that insight. And they enter the final path upon going beyond obstructing defilements to the utmost purification.

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The reality of all things exists only as a conscious construction, as just explained. In virtue of an earnest commitment to what is heard, of an intelligent understanding of a countering of all obstacles and of a going beyond obstructing defilements to the utmost purification. Going back over it now. At what point, or at what points in their development do these Bodhisattvas gain insight

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into conscious construction only? In virtue of a discrimination of the images and mental words accompanied by insight that appear as doctrines and their meaning. So the first thing that's, the first aspect of the point at which they gain insight into this teaching of conscious construction only, or mind only, happens in virtue of their discriminating images and mental words that are accompanied by insight that appear as teachings and their meanings, or teachings and commentaries on the teachings.

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So these Bodhisattvas are discriminating images through which the teachings are coming to them. And these images that are coming to them that they're discriminating are accompanied by insight. And the insight that accompanies these images is the doctrines and their meaning. Could you give an example of the image and the doctrine, how they work together?

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The image and the doctrine, how they work together? When the image is accompanied by insight, the image is the doctrine. And when the image is accompanied by insight, there is also meaning accompanying the doctrine. Strange, huh? When images are accompanied by insight, the images appear to be teachings, and the meaning of those teachings. This is particularly talking about an insight into conscious construction only. This particular teaching. And when you understand this teaching, you understand that the images that are appearing to you are...

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You understand, you have insight that the images that are appearing to you are teachings and their meanings. And part of the reason you understand that is because in virtue of the arising of insight into this teaching of the great vehicle, you have great faith. Firmly... Faith upon firmly believing what you've heard. And when you enter into this insight, you also enter into what's called the path of insight. Which in some sense is repetitive, because it says in the path of insight you intelligently understand what you've heard.

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The path of insight is where you understand that there is no separation between your awareness of things and the things. That the things you're aware of are yourself. Or the things you're aware of are your awareness. This teaching is saying that to you, and when you actually see that, and see that the apparent separation is insubstantial, you have entered the path of insight. The path of understanding that there's no self separate from other. Then it says, they enter the path of meditation upon countering the obstacles to that insight.

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So the next path after the path of insight is the path of meditation which follows the path of insight. Now there was a path of meditation that's not being mentioned here, which led up to the path of insight. You've been meditating for a long time. You've been practicing tranquility and receiving these teachings and meditating on them for a long time. However, you have not had insight into them. And part of the reason you haven't had insight into them is because some images that appear to you, you do not understand that they are teaching you this teaching. Maybe when you read the sentence in the book you think, oh that's the teaching. But it's like you're reading the words in the book and suddenly you understand that the words in the book are actually the teaching.

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They're not just words in the book. They're appearing to you as images. And you see other images like a person. And you don't think the person's words in the book, but you see that the person is the teaching. Or your feelings, all your experiences you see as images and you understand and they're accompanied by insight which understands that everything that's appearing to you is the teaching. What's the teaching? That what's appearing to you is your mind. And you meditated a long time before that. You actually saw that, understood that, and believed in that and practiced with that. And then you enter into the next path of meditation which is the meditation that follows the path of insight. There's a path of meditation before the path of insight and a path of meditation after insight.

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And on that path, after you see, for example, that there's nothing to cling to, you notice that there's clinging. After you see that there's nothing to attach to, you see some attachment. That's the path of meditation upon where you counter obstacles to the insight. So on the path of meditation you see obstacles to the insight, you see things which contradict the insight, but because of the insight you counter the obstacles. You see that things that used to look like contradictions to what you understand are still appearing. However, with this new understanding they are dropped. And then the next stage is you enter into the final path.

[14:12]

So this is a short description of the point at which bodhisattvas enter into or attain insight into this teaching of conscious construction only. And now comes another paragraph which sets up quite a bit more work. I'm just going to give you this next paragraph which is kind of simple. We may not be able to follow up on it, but I just want to tell you beforehand. The next paragraph says, in one transition, why did they come to enter? How did they come to enter this way? So the previous paragraph, the previous section said, at what point do they enter into and gain insight?

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It described the point at which they do, and then the next question is, well how did they get to that point? Which is sort of referring back to the path of meditation before the path of insight. Are you following this? Wow. So this is what leads up to the path of insight. They do so because they are supported by the forces of good roots. In other words, they're practicing, they're watching their karma, they're watching their active consciousness and attending to the wholesome form of karma and abandoning unwholesome karma. And next, because they have sharpened their minds in three aspects. Or you could say, because they have aroused courage in three aspects. And the next one is, because they have abandoned the four barriers, the four basic barriers.

[16:25]

And finally, because with uninterrupted and reverent meditation on the doctrine and its meaning, in tranquility and insight, they have not been distracted. So this meditation on the doctrine and its meaning, which is coming to them, they quietly meditate on this and contemplate these teachings. Together with doing wholesome karma while they're meditating on these teachings and developing these, arousing these three kinds of courage and removing and abandoning these four obstacles, which I'll get into later. But before I do, any questions on this last paragraph,

[17:26]

describing the point at which they have insight into the teaching, which is that the reality of our experience is that our experience is unreality. The reality of our experience just being conscious construction. The reality of our experience being a dream. And then describing what it's like when you actually understand that, which is brought up again a little bit later, which I talked about last time we were here. Any questions? Was there a question? David, did you have a question before? It was about the use of the word image. That is all sense, any and all sensory experience, but organized.

[18:34]

It's not just visual, obviously. There is, for example, what's called sense experience. But even in sense experience, this teaching is saying, there is conscious construction going on. So that we construct the sense data and we say that it's out there, separate from the consciousness which knows it. Like the blue is out there. The blue I'm seeing is not my mind. It's something out there on its own, separate from my mind. Whereas actually the experience of blue is a state of consciousness. But the consciousness is constructed in such a way that it looks like the thing it knows about is not it. The consciousness is a trickster.

[19:44]

And this is even in direct sense consciousness, sense perception. Now this is even when you're not even saying it's blue. Now if you say it's blue, then that too looks like you think the blue thing, which you're conceptually calling blue, there's another construction which is that the blue thing is out there, separate from the knowing of the blue thing. But the knowing of the blue thing is a state of consciousness. It's not a state of consciousness that knows something that's not a consciousness. It's a consciousness that depends on something that's not a consciousness. This doesn't deny the physical world. It just says our experience of it is our experience of our mind of it. Our experience of the physical world is the experience of our conscious construction of it. And that mediating screen is called image. The mediating...

[20:52]

Well, let's do... In direct sense experience, the image we have of the sense data, like the color, is an image of the color being out there, separate from us. There's not actually a mediating image. We're looking at an image of the color. Then there's another kind of mediating image, which is a mediating image which we look at the image of the color through an image of the color, like it's blue. We look at the blue through it's blue. Then the image is mediating between us and what we're looking at. But the awareness of the color, of it being out there, is an image of it being out there.

[21:52]

So in direct perception we don't mediate our awareness of the data. We just see an image of the data being out there. But the image is not an image of the data, it's an image of the data out there. It's the image or the idea that what we know is not the knowing. That's the kind of knowing we have. Yes. The same words on the experience of the mind. So if the mind transforms to love and kindness, then everything that sees and feels and touches is felt through that love and kindness. So the mind is... The mind actually defines the experience, the experience itself. The experience is the mind in this teaching.

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It's not that there's an experience and a mind. The mind's always transforming whether you're receiving teachings or not. And one of the teachings you can receive is the teaching of love and kindness. That's an example of virtues that you can practice. And by practicing those virtues, that aids us in receiving the teachings. Receiving the teachings of love and kindness help us receive the teachings of conscious construction only. Help us... So the basis, loving kindness and compassion are the basis of us receiving the teaching. Loving kindness is not really telling us that the loving kindness that we're dealing with

[24:02]

is just a conscious construction of loving kindness. Most people think, yeah, I'm practicing loving kindness, I actually am practicing loving kindness, rather than I'm practicing a conscious construction of loving kindness. Great. You got confused, and I'm not saying you didn't, it's just that this teaching says that what you're looking at is a conscious construction of your confusion. At the point that you see that you're wondering about how you got confused, when you see how you're wondering about how you got confused, or if you see confusion, and you see that those images you have of the confusion or the images you have of wondering about,

[25:05]

that you see that that's the teaching and the meaning of the teaching, then you've understood the teaching. You've entered into the teaching. But it takes quite a bit of warm-up to that. Did you have something, a question? Yeah, I was wondering if you think that there's a differentiation between the first, the entering through the images of insight, and if then intellectual or intelligent understanding is another level. I'm just wondering if that is all one. And I'm asking that because when I remember reading the Samjhanamacana Sutra, certain images really turned understanding, as I remember. Certain images turned the understanding? Yeah. Images that were supposed to be. Supposed to be? Showing the teaching, not in one dimension, but in the image dimension,

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which I think is another way of getting to know something. That's why I'm just interested if this differentiation is in these paragraphs there or not. Well, I feel like your question takes us back again to what we kind of skipped over, which was chapter two, but it's okay because we can say that whatever you're looking at has these three characteristics. So one of the characteristics of everything is that it's interdependent. It arises in dependence on other things. Another characteristic is that there's an image kind of like superimposed over it. So now you're saying are there certain images that are particularly helpful? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Well, one of the images that might be helpful is the image,

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or the idea that whatever you're looking at, although it's actually an interdependent thing, it has an image superimposed over it so you can get a hold of it. Because without putting an image over the vast causal processes, without putting an image over it, we can't know it. Our knowing cannot directly grasp, we somehow miss all the time the actual causal process right in front of us. We miss it in the sense of we can't get a hold of it. We can't know it. The way we know it is by putting an image on it. And there's an image which tells us that we do that. But the same applies to that. But that doesn't mean it's not a useful teaching. When you look at a phenomenon

[28:15]

and you realize that it's just a conscious construction, because you've heard the teaching of conscious construction, you're starting to develop insight into the teaching. So in that sense, some of these teachings, some of these images that these teachings are appearing to you in, are very useful. That's why it's recommended that you listen to them and think about them and learn them, because they will transform your container consciousness, which will support the possibility of having insight into what's happening, namely insight into the way we dream about something that's actually going on, rather than just deal with what's going on in a way that we can't get a hold of it. But if we dream about it or project some kind of substance or essence on it, then we can talk about it and, you know, get hired at some business,

[29:20]

because we can talk about it. Yes. So, when this insight occurs in the images that transmit the teachings and meanings... When the insight occurs in what? The images that transmit the teachings and meanings come with it, and we see conscious construction for what it is. That understanding, then, it's not in conscious construction anymore. It's an understanding that these are only images. The understanding that these are images, or the understanding that the images are conscious construction only?

[30:24]

The latter. The understanding that the images are conscious construction only. But that knowledge, that understanding, is not in constructed consciousness anymore. That's what you're wondering about, is it? Or have we gone to a thoroughly established state? And the answer is, it still is. However, it is also not, because there's a thoroughly established character of this event, too. So, as I talked... Actually, I went ahead a few weeks ago and pointed out another place where the question is arising in Section 8. What state is entered in understanding conscious construction only? What is it like? And the answer is, one enters into cognition only, comma, a state of duality of image and insight, comma,

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and a state of multiplicity, comma. But another translation is, one enters into a state of unity, comma, a state of duality of image and insight, comma, and a state of multiplicity, comma. Remember that from last time? Probably not. Excuse me for jumping ahead to the last week, but now we're coming back to the nest where we can roost. So, in the insight, there's still a sense that what you're looking at is out there. There's the image and the appearance of the thing you're having insight about. That's the duality. There's also a unity. But in the unity, which is conscious construction only, it's still conscious construction only, it's just that now, in that unity, it doesn't look like the insight's one thing and what you're having insight about are another.

[32:31]

That's the unity. But there's another part where the insight seems to appear in duality with what it has insight about, namely conscious construction only. So, right with the thing of where there's just conscious construction only and there's only unity and there isn't anything but conscious construction only, there's insight of conscious construction only, which appears to be in duality with the insight of the teaching. And then there's multiplicity too at the same time. All the stuff's going on just like before, except now there's insight. And you understand that there's unity, duality, and multiplicity. And you understand that in a unity way, where there's absence of any construction, and you understand that there's a construction about the absence of any construction. So the absence of construction, the ultimate, is not made into something substantial either. So the purpose of that stage in the evolution, then,

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is to move on to the next stage of meditation, of dealing with the obstacles, like the obstacle... Say it again slower. The purpose of that stage in the evolutionary development... Of entering? Of entering. Yes. To move on to the next stage of meditation, of dealing with the obstacles, such as the obstacle you just mentioned... Correct. Correct. After you enter, you've entered the stage of insight, or the path of insight. Then you move on to the path of meditation, where you encounter things which seem to contradict what you just learned. And you counter those contradictory phenomena, those obstacles, which seem to disagree with what you just understood. But now you have established confidence in this new thing you've learned, and with that confidence you can actually change all these things, which again seem to be contradicting the teaching you just learned, into more proof of reality.

[34:41]

So are there further insights that accelerate that development at those stages, as you meet those obstacles, or are you simply dealing with them? Well, there's no further insights at the level of conscious construction only. That is the insight. And then it's just a matter of applying it to everything in your storehouse conscious, everything in your unconscious, which is supporting the appearance of these contradictions. And every time you meet one of these contradictions without being fooled, a laya is turned towards wisdom. And then there's a final stage of the complete purification. The fourth stage, after the path of meditation, is the final purification, which we call Buddhahood, and the Dharma body of the Buddha.

[35:42]

And then that Dharma body of the Buddha can then transmit this teaching again, is now a transmitter of this teaching to other consciousnesses, which can receive it and enter this process of transformation towards or of Buddhahood. Well, I'm amazed how well you've understood, how well you've understood, how well you've understood. Very good. Thank you so much for understanding so well. And so next time probably here at No Abode, I will talk about the three sharpenings and removing the four obstacles, and then, you know, what happens after that, which is pretty neat, as you might imagine. So thank you very much for taking care of the practice.

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