If you wouldn't mind closing your eyes and holding your hand out into the air, if you would like to have one or two more small group meetings during this intensive. With your eyes shut, please. Yes is up. Yes is up. And, okay, thank you, now put them down and keep your eyes shut. Now those who don't care, would you raise your hand? And those who do not want to, raise your hand. Okay. One way to do it would be to, can you open your eyes now? There was quite a bit of an interest expression, so one way to do it would be perhaps to excuse those who were not particularly interested in more meetings, and then I could meet with

[01:07]

them. Can we all go to that one? The people who didn't raise their hands are people who definitely want to meet with me. I think they're, you know, that was the problem, I wasn't there. So if it's alright with you, we'll start with the practice leaders. When you talk about having a meeting, and you have to talk with them to lead the group together, because of course their leadership was part of the reason why some people enjoyed it. And I know who doesn't want to come, and I'll talk to them.

[02:12]

I might not be able to find you. You're excused from the meeting. And that also reminds me that I have an abdominal hernia, and I think it seems like probably, although I don't particularly like to have surgery that requires general anesthetic, which such a surgery would require, I think I'm going to go ahead and enter, go under the knife on the 14th. I was going to try to do it later, but it seems to be progressing, not too far. You could try it. My intestines have not hit the ground. So, on the 14th, I'm going.

[03:25]

And the other thing is that there was at least one request, and this has come up other times, that it's hard for some people to follow what's going on when the questions start early. To me, it's kind of like the same, and I'm still in the field of this stuff, so I can kind of follow it, but I can understand that it's going to be hard for some of you to follow. So there's a question I present quite a bit before the questions start. Is that all right? Yeah. I could ask a question. Do you have any questions?

[04:28]

Well, there's quite a bit here to present. I'll represent. So, let's see, we were talking about the development of a laya, and then on Sunday I talked about the three wheels. Perhaps I could say a little bit more about the three wheels. One thing I suggested to you, the three wheels are, like, the first wheel is like Buddha's thesis,

[05:59]

Buddha presents a thesis, and the second wheel is antithesis, and the third wheel is a thesis, and the thesis is based on the antithesis. Yes? Do you have a question? No, just the word synthesis came up in my mind, that's all. Instead of... Oh, I see. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Yeah, it is kind of a synthesis of the thesis and the antithesis. It's a thesis based on the antithesis, which is a kind of a synthesis of the two. Another one is a reputation of all conceptual approaches to reality,

[07:01]

reputation of all conceptual approaches to reality, to dharma, and in that reputation what's being recommended is an immediate encounter with dharma, and then, based on that immediate encounter with dharma, is another conceptual presentation of the relationship between mind, or consciousness, and the conceptual approach to dharma, and the non-conceptual realization, or the non-conceptual meaning. So again, one is a conceptual approach to truth, which was quite effective, but had problems, and then a non-conceptual way of practicing,

[08:09]

and then a conceptual explanation or teaching about how mind is involved in both the conceptual and non-conceptual realizations. Let's see... Another thing which I'll just throw out to you is kind of a little conceptual thing, actually. So I'm just kind of wondering, how do you practice the second wheel? There's many ways, but the Heart Sutras are our standard scripture on the matter.

[09:13]

And the last part of Chapter 5, in a sense, is talking about the second wheel, or the second turning approach to the phenomena of consciousness. So, in the Heart Sutra it says, in the context of emptiness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind. So, if you're alive and conscious, you're seeing colors and so on. So, in the context of emptiness, you wouldn't be seeing these things. You wouldn't be hearing these things. So, to some extent, to have this immediate realization of truth when you're looking at a color,

[10:31]

that's it. It's not there. You're looking not at the absence of the color, but the absence of the appearance of the color. You can't see the appearance of the color, because you're seeing emptiness. You're seeing the absence of the way you designate the color. You're looking at the absence of the way you designate the color.

[11:39]

So, you're looking at the color, and you're making a designation of it, and the designation is possible, because the color has a sign, and you're imputing an essence to the color, and giving it a name. But while you're looking at the color, you're actually looking at the absence of the essence. You're seeing the absence of the essence. So, because you see the absence of the essence, you don't have a basis anymore for seeing any way to make the conventional designation blue.

[12:42]

And all this, of course, you're not doing conceptually. You're just giving up all your conceptual approaches to the blue. Right while you still have, you know, this automatic conceptual response to visual phenomena, such that you can make conventional designations. You're imbued, you're infused. Your mind is infused with predispositions to make conventional designations, so you're infused with the tendency, with the predisposition to cast upon and package what's happening, such that you can make conventional designations. And you're doing that, but you're simultaneously giving it up so thoroughly that you can't actually so that you don't believe anymore the appearances before you.

[13:48]

You give up using your conceptual facilities to comprehend your life. And therein there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, and so on. And because of this you're liberated from the afflictions that arise when we believe that our conceptual approach to color is the color. So in chapter 5 it says, you know, when we adhere to the imputational character of the color as being the color, afflictions arise.

[14:53]

Why doesn't it say that in chapter 5? It says it in chapter 7. Strictly adhering. Strictly adhering. Is it strictly adhering? It's strongly adhering. What it says in chapter 6 is that if you study the imputational character, you'll see that it's that you'll see, you'll learn about afflicted character, afflicted phenomena. In other words, you'll be able to see that, for example, colors are afflicted. Colors, like all things, are dependent co-arising. But dependent co-arisings are afflicted. They're afflicted because of our tendency to project upon them a packaging and adhere to that packaging. And adhering to that packaging as being what the thing is, afflictions arise. So you will learn about

[16:01]

what afflicted phenomena are as you study phenomena. You will learn that our minds do something to the world such that affliction arises. The second turning of the wheel is to help us stop adhering to our projections and superimpositions upon reality, upon phenomena. I shouldn't say upon phenomena, but upon the world, to stop from adhering to it and enter the realm of no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue. But once again, the second turning is based on the first turning. The scriptures on the second turning don't usually say this teaching depends on what we're refuting. They might say, well, isn't it obvious?

[17:05]

But it doesn't say very often in the perfect wisdom scriptures. This whole reputation of the conceptual approach to practice is based on the conceptual approach to practice. This whole reputation to the conceptual approach to existence is based on the conceptual approach to existence. Not only based on it, but based on a pretty good understanding of it. It doesn't say that very often. It says it once in a while, and then goes to town. It's for people that are pretty well grounded, the texts are supposed to be for people that are pretty well grounded in conventional truth. So once again, I could say to you, the first turning of the wheel is conventional truth. It's supposed to be conventional truth. The second is ultimate truth. And the third is you could say a synthesis of the two.

[18:10]

Or, once again, the conventional truth being reconstructed or redeemed to test and facilitate the full realization of the conventional truth, or conventional truths, or conventionalities. So chapter 5 is a nice example because chapter 5 actually shows the conventional truth about how consciousness, mind, consciousness and thought work, the mechanics of it, the way they appear to a mind that still is somewhat obscured, or to a vision that's still somewhat obscured by the imputational

[19:15]

being the way of knowing the Other Dependent. So in chapter 7 explains to you that the Other Dependent is not the ultimate. The Other Dependent is actually conventional truth. So when you look at the Other Dependent, you're looking at conventional truth, which is actually overlaid with, when you know it, by something that's not even a conventional truth, namely the imputational character is not conventional truth. So again, chapter 6 tells you that the Other Dependent is that dependent co-arising, the way things are actually happening, all things are dependent co-arisings, and all things exist conventionally only,

[20:18]

plus the way you know them usually is by superimpositioning an essence upon them. The essence is not a conventional truth, it's just an illusion superimposed on conventional truth. So the first part of chapter 5 teaches you about the conventional truth, and the second part teaches you about the ultimate truth, the last part. So this is presenting a teaching which is actually the except for the alaya-vijnana teaching in chapter 5, the way that the sutra's teaching of the workings of the mind is quite similar to the first turning type of teachings. Is it hot in here? You're okay? Watch out for the heat.

[21:21]

So the first part is first turning, the second part is second turning, and Bodhisattva's don't just know the first part, they know the second part, and this sutra's also pointing out both parts. So in that sense the sutra is making a discrimination between the two, which is part of the third wheel, is making these subtle discriminations between first and second turnings, or between conventional and ultimate truth, conventional and ultimate meaning. In the ultimate meaning there's no distinction between conventional and ultimate. So when we're getting ultimate meditating on the second turning, the second turning doesn't feel responsible to help us conceptually understand anything. It's trying to give us relief from our conceptions. It's trying to help us return to a place where conceptions don't reach,

[22:28]

or discover that place. Okay. And in the third turning, another discrimination in the third turning is to now look again at mind, but with the aid of what's been done in the second turning. Look at the mind and speak of the mind in a way that avoids the little bit of taint, the little bit of substance that is in the presentation of mind in the first turning. So in the first turning this conceptual thesis was proposed by the Buddha to help people become free of believing in a substance

[23:31]

of a person or of rocks, or of dogs. So they said, okay, you've got a person whatever's happening for that person can be accounted for by analyzing whatever this person experiences, whatever this person knows, by analyzing it into the five aggregates. And if you learn to see these five aggregates you can account for whatever is happening as being one of these five types of elements. And it says in chapter 7, which we'll get to pretty soon,

[24:35]

Bodhisattva Paramarthasamuccatha says to the Buddha you have taught, or you have spoken of, the own characteristic of the five aggregates. So the Buddha taught the five aggregates but he also said they have own characteristic or sphalakshana. And sphalakshana could be translated as own characteristic or specific characteristic. And somebody might even go as far as to say as inherent characteristic. Sphalakshana. And the Buddha did seem

[25:40]

to say that about these, for example, the aggregates. He also taught, another analysis he taught was the twelve ayatanas. The five skandhas, the five aggregates, same thing. And the twelve ayatanas, the twelve sense bases. And he also taught the eighteen elements. And that's discussed in the beginning of chapter 7. He said you spoke of the own characteristic of these things. And again, own characteristic, it means and characteristic in this case, sphalakshana means that the, I think one good way to speak of it is that the Dharma has a causal efficiency. This Dharma has causal efficiency.

[26:42]

When it arises, it has consequences, it has effects. Its arising has effects. Specific effects related to this Dharma. And you could also say its own effects. Or it has inherent effects. And also I'll say this probably over and over, but this term lakshana, which is usually translated as characteristic, is different from another important word nimita nimita n-i-m-i-t-t-a which I think is good to translate as sign. So an example of fire is often used.

[27:45]

The sphalakshana of fire is sometimes said to be burning. Or that it can burn. But the nimita of fire is the image of fire. So if you see a fire you see the image of the fire. You may or may not feel the burning of the fire. But the actual characteristic of the fire is that it burns. The characteristic of fire is not that it's an image of fire. Fire is not actually an image of fire. You are not an image of yourself. However, you and fire part of your nature is that you offer yourself in such a way that you can be imaged. But that's not your main characteristic because all things offer the potential

[28:53]

to be imaged. All phenomena can be imaged. But the image is not in the phenomena. The image is what is necessary for what? What? Communication, what else? It's necessary for invitation, yeah. Invitation is necessary for conventional designation. And invitation can be known in connection with sign, in connection with independence on signs that are connected to names. That's how we find invitations going on. And phenomena do offer signs which are not them, which are not their characteristic. They offer ways to be imaged so that they can be designated. And we're interdependent with all phenomena.

[30:00]

We're cooperating with them and they're cooperating with us. We want to make conventional designations and they say, OK, here's how you can do it. But their characteristic varies. Their characteristic of fire is different than the characteristic of Simon. But both fire and Simon have signs by which we can make conventional designations about them. But for now, anyway, I'm just mentioning that the Buddha taught that all these elements of analysis, all these elements of analysis of what's going on, he said they have, each of them have their own causal efficacy. Like the causal efficacy of feeling is the sense or the evaluation of positive, negative and neutral sensation. That's the svalokshana of feeling. The svalokshana of attachment is like the grass to the queen.

[31:03]

The svalokshana of hatred is to like to eliminate or avoid or get away from or destroy. And so on. All the different dharmas, all the different elements of our experience have these svalokshanas. In chapter 7 it says, but then you said all dharmas lack own being. Then you say all dharmas lack own characteristics, which is part of the complicated... but basically he's raising that because there is a potential contradiction between own characteristic and lacking own being. But it's the same problem between using the own characteristic and or the sign of the elements of your experience to analyze your experience is a conceptual approach to your experience. But it's a

[32:06]

conceptual approach, which when you can do that leaves you actually seeing the world in terms of colors, smells, tastes, tangibles, feelings, emotions, ideas, cognitions. You're seeing these things and you notice that that's what the world's made up of for you. And if you talk to people you'll find out nobody's going to come up with anything more than that. And if anybody thinks they heck can come up with anything besides that, they're invited to bring it forth and then we have confidence, the tradition has confidence that whatever they bring forth you say, well that's the third skandha, that's the second skandha. And if you talk to a person, most people agree, yeah, there's not a sixth skandha, there's no more category of elements than the ones that you proposed, and whatever comes up can be accounted for that. However, we feel to a great extent because of our

[33:10]

infusion with the tendency towards conventional designation, we feel that there's something else, which means we feel like we need something else. We need something which contains all that, or organizes that, or controls all that, or owns all that, or something that metaphysically includes all that. Something meta-psychophysically. And we have an idea for that, but the idea for that is of course one of the skandhas. It's not actually that, it's an idea of that. That has no existence other than being an idea, or a feeling, or an emotion, or a consciousness, or a color, or something. But we think it's something in addition, we think there's something in addition to the five aggregates. But we never find it. And we never see it, it can't be detected, there's no evidence

[34:16]

for it, this self, this independent person. And sometimes, again, people use the word soul for this, but I think that soul maybe is not a good word for that. Because I don't think soul has to be associated with the idea of that which controls the psychophysical organism, or that which is independent of other souls. As I look at the way a lot of people in the Western tradition use the word soul, it seems like soul is more like dependent co-arising, the animating principle of a being. An animating principle of a human being is not the self, but is the interdependence of the elements of their currently existing

[35:17]

of the currently existing person. So I think we don't have to say there's no soul, because we can say that the dependent co-arising of the five aggregates is not something in addition to the five aggregates, it's not something on top of the five aggregates, it's just a principle of, like somebody asked me, I think it was Andreas asked me, what's love? And I said, interdependence. So in some sense ... the law of the universe is just the inter-dependence of all the different elements. And it isn't just that the elements that make up you are in love with the elements that make up you, the elements that make up you are also in love with the elements that make up everybody else, because everybody else's elements are dependent co-arising with your elements, which are dependent co-arising with you, which are dependent co-arising with them. So this soul is what animates each of us, Our soul is what animates each of us, but our soul is not independent of other souls.

[36:18]

It's the same principle of interdependence. But self, or ego, the idea of an independent self, cannot be found except as an idea, or as a smell, or as a taste, or as a touch, or as an emotion. That's the only thing we can detect. Everything else is imaginary. So, in the first turning, the people applied this teaching and were able to see that there's not a self here to worry about. And, this level of understanding of the emptiness of the self, and self ... Sometimes we say the emptiness of the person. The word for person is purgala. So, there's an expression, purgala nairatmiya, which means nairatmiya, is no atma, no atma,

[37:27]

no self. Purgala nai atma. So, by this first level of teaching you can see, you can understand that the person does not have a self. The person is just a momentary blossoming in the universe, a momentary flower in the universe. A wonderful thing, actually, a really wonderful thing, a thing to adore and love and care for. And, if it's suffering, to feel compassion for. But, this thing is, of course, because it's the dependent co-arising, it's unstable, constantly changing, permanent, and not worthy of confidence. No person is worthy of confidence. You say, what about the Buddha?

[38:34]

Well, the person, the Buddha person is not worthy of confidence. But, Buddha, in the sense of the way everything is helping everything, and the way everything is enlightening everything, you can have confidence in that. That's not a dependent co-arising in the sense of, well, it is a dependent co-arising too, but it's a dependent co-arising that always dependently co-arises, every moment. Now, what happened in the first turning was that this level of teachings did not reveal the most profound aspect of emptiness or selflessness, which is that these elements, which you can actually have evidence for, and see how they make up this thing, a person, which is evidence

[39:37]

for the person, it's not to say that there's no evidence for the person, it's just that by analyzing the person you can see there's no self. If you look at persons without analyzing them, it's pretty hard to not fall for the sense that it's independent. But when you look at it in an analyzed form, you can see there's no evidence for the independence. In the actual state of meditation, on the analyzed person, then if you look for a self, you don't find it. But when you look at the unanalyzed person, they look like a self. So we get relieved from that, and relief from that is sufficient for personal liberation. And the people who achieve personal liberation in this way are highly respected yogis. As a matter of fact, in the chant we did yesterday, we spoke of these yogis, these arhats, and

[40:39]

we wish for them to support us, because they are, their spiritual strength is a great asset in this world. But to have people walking around who have... So I'm at a slightly higher altitude than you. It's getting hot up here. How are you guys doing? So, I want to point out that to be an arhat is a very high attainment. It is a Buddhist, it is a great Buddhist. It is somebody who has applied the Buddha's teaching, who has accepted this theory of meditation, this meditation theory, and applied it and meditated on it in such a way as to achieve a wisdom which sees that people do not have self. And having people in the world like that is a great spiritual asset, and we call upon them to help us. Even Bodhisattvas have great respect and appreciate that some people have achieved the level

[41:41]

of understanding sufficient for personal liberation. It's just that we vow not to stop there. So what the second turning does is it looks at the first turning, which says that these elements of analysis do not actually have an own being. They don't really have a causal efficacy. You can't actually find it. But they themselves specifically or isolatedly have. Their causal efficacy is also interdependent. So some of the Buddhists actually started to say that these elements of analysis of this meditation tradition had some substance. And that creates certain problems. Not to mention that it interferes with the realization of the next level of wisdom, which

[42:57]

is in some sense a problem that you don't attain the deepest level of wisdom. I might mention that there was what we call Abhidharma teaching, which taught, systematized this analysis so people could understand it, could actually learn the Svaha Lakshana of things, because without learning about the Svaha Lakshana of fire, it's kind of hard to work with fire. So you've learned the Svaha Lakshana of the five aggregates, the Svaha Lakshana of the path, the Svaha Lakshana of the pralayatanas, the Svaha Lakshana of the eighteen dhatus, the eighteen elements, which in the Heart Sutra represent eye, [...] eye color and eye consciousness. That's the first three. And ear, sound and ear consciousness. So there's six of those times three. And then mind, mind objects and mind consciousness.

[44:01]

So there's eighteen. So it taught these things and then yogis would learn these things and apply these things and realize by various methods of analysis. No evidence for a personal self, self to a person. In early Abhidharma. Then in the next major phase of Abhidharma is characterized by what we call the Abhidharma Kosha, which Vasubandhu wrote. And in there Vasubandhu starts to criticize the earlier school for saying that these dharmas actually have substantial existence. Called it Dravya Sat, substantial existence. He criticized that. He says they're just setups, these elements. And he argues, he sets up a little argument in the commentary, he sets up a little argument

[45:09]

between himself and his earlier school, which taught an analysis which was sufficient for personal liberation, but he's criticizing it because you're sort of saying that something that's really kind of a setup for the sake of helping people become free of self, a setup to help people become free of self, that the setup has some kind of substance. Criticize that. That yes, there is this setup, but he called it Prajnapati, which is similar to Vijnapti, just a setup. And he argues with them and in the end he backs them into the car and they say, OK, [...] OK. These elements of existence, they don't really exist, but we need to say that they do, otherwise our system will collapse. You can tell people, these elements of existence are really just setups.

[46:13]

Some people will not meditate on them. They want you to say, this is fire, this is a dog, this is a feeling, and this is not a feeling, and that is a feeling, and it's true that this is a feeling and that's not a feeling, but we don't think they really have the essence of what we say they are. They don't, but we don't know how to make conventional designations about that, so to say. We tend to slip back into, when we have a conventional approach to understanding something, which means making conventional designations, we tend to slip back into projecting substance on things, because we feel funny calling somebody Bernard, that we don't think has any substance of Bernard, and because then I might as well call him Monica, right? Because, you know, if there's no Bernard substance there, why not Monica? Right? We kind of feel that way. Rather than those just causes and conditions that, in order to make conventional designations,

[47:20]

I have to put this on this person in order to be able to say Bernard. So they do the same thing with the skandhas. However, even the Svatantika, which is the school of the Vasudandhu is said to represent, they still said, in a sense, that there was this thing called this flow of events, you know, of consciousness. There wasn't really this individual substantial event, just a flow and transformation of consciousness. But that still had the tone, gradually, of having some sense of substance. And when studying that Upadhyana approach with Zen students, they often want to dismantle this presentation before we can even get it out.

[48:21]

Because they hear the heartbeat all the time. And they can kind of sense it, because even the criticism of the earlier setup, as being substantial, was somewhat substantial. And whether the Vasudandhu who wrote the criticism of the early presentation of analysis leading to personal liberation, whether he was the same person who was the brother of Vasudandhu is not completely clear. So say, a sangha, it's not completely clear whether he was a different person. And there may have been a bunch of other Vasudandhus too. But, so one possibility is a different person who, looks like, got to read the Sangha-Nirmachana Sutra, and worked with his brother to put out this new teaching, the third wheel. Because in between, somewhat in between writing the, in between the appearance of the Upadhyana

[49:29]

kosha, which criticizes the earlier Upadhyana, and the third wheel of the Sangha-Nirmachana Sutra, and the summary of Mahayana, and the thirty verses, we have this teaching which is no conceptual approach, the Prajnaparamita. And so, how that all could happen in one person's life, is, I think, a secret. And he would write the Upadhyana kosha, be exposed to the teachings of the Prajnaparamita, be exposed to the teachings of the Sangha-Nirmachana, and come up with this Yogacara school. Maybe somebody could be like that, within, you know, less than 500 years of life. Okay. So, that's that. And, another thing I wanted to do, to just kind of get you, help you to get a conceptual

[50:31]

approach, a conceptual grasp here. I think you can, I think you can put chapter 5 and 6, and relate them in somewhat in this way. So, I'm going to erase now, a little bit of this. I'm going to erase Yimitha, which means what? And I'm going to erase Upadhyaya, which means what? Grasp? Appropriating? Appropriating. And Svalakshana, which means? Character. And character. And I'm going to erase some of these Chinese characters. And then I'm going to write some of the terms for chapter 6 in here. So, again, this citta here in chapter 5, in early Buddhism we have the same citta-manas

[51:38]

and vijnana. In the Abhidharmakosha you have citta-manas and vijnana, but you don't have in the Abhidharmakosha alaya-vijnana. But in this chapter we understand that this citta is alaya. So, in a sense, what we have here in this chapter is the precursor to calling this the 8th consciousness, calling manas the 7th consciousness, and calling those other vijnanas the first

[52:41]

6th. So, they're all called vijnanas. Alaya-vijnana, in a sense, manas-vijnana, and then all the sense-vijnanas, including mind-vijnana. So, those are implied there. So, in terms of chapter 6, I think I would suggest that you could put down here, next to mind, the other dependent character. Put down under alaya, the other dependent character. Put down under manas, the imputational character. And then I think I would also, at least tentatively, say you could put down under the 6th vijnanas,

[53:57]

also other dependent characters. Because those 6 consciousnesses arise in dependence on alaya. Right? Is that what it says? Now, what's a thoroughly established character? The thoroughly established character is the absence of the imputational character in the other dependent character. So, that would be the absence of the imputational character in the alaya, and in the 6 sense-consciousnesses. But you could also say it's the absence of manas in the 6 sense-consciousnesses.

[55:09]

But actually, I'm going to change this slightly and say that it's not really ... I wouldn't actually say the imputational character is the manas, but that it is Krishna. Krishna manas. It's the defiled manas. It's the aspect of mind that imagines and projects a sense of self. But that's the imputational character. Because the other manas, the basic manas which serve as the mind organ, that's part of the way all the sense-consciousnesses operate. So that part of manas is part of the other dependent character. Are we starting questions now?

[56:15]

No, this is just a clarification. Just a clarification. You're going to clarify something? Go ahead. It's a problem for myself. I hope I don't confuse the class. But is manas? Are you using manas? You said is? I thought you were going to clarify something. Okay. Manas, are you using manas? I'm asking you a question now. Are you going to clarify something? For myself. Go ahead and clarify. I'm going to ask you a question. Okay. Manas being used interchangeably as a vijnana, thought, and mind? Did that clarify things for you? Not at all. I think you're going to have to wait until we have questions. Okay. Can you write that down? Yeah. Okay. Now, you got that? This is a proposal to you, which I've never seen before, so it's probably... This is a little risque.

[57:17]

So this is mixing the psychological presentation of Chapter 7 with, I would say, the epistemological presentation of... excuse me, the psychological consciousness presentation of Chapter 5 with the epistemological of Chapter 6. Okay, now I'm going to... Can I raise this? Please. Okay. Now, this is an Abhidharma teaching, which I think you can find definitely in the Abhidharmakocha by Vasubandhu and also, I think, in earlier Abhidharma, and it is the idea of... well, basically, that there are...

[58:21]

whatever happens is four and only four conditions for what happens. And they are... So, there's four Pragyas. Pragya means condition. The first one, one is called... Karana. Oh, he called Hetu, right? Hetu. Next one is called... Adhipati Pragya. The next one is called... Samantabhra Pragya. Samantabhra Pragya. The next one is called...

[59:25]

Alambana. Translation, Hetu means cause, so there will be cause of condition. That's the first one. Next one, Adhipati means predominant or dominant condition. Samanantara means immediately antecedent condition and Alambana means object condition. These are the four conditions for the arising of... The first one is called the causal condition. Next one is called the dominant condition. Next one is called the immediately antecedent condition. And the next one is called the object condition. Could you translate or explain antecedent?

[60:30]

Antecedent? Immediately preceding. Immediately preceding. Antecedent is the same as preceding, pretty much. Object condition. Pardon? Object condition, is that so clear? Yeah, now I'll just talk about it. And can I erase this now? Not all dependent-core risings involve all four, but there's not a fifth one according to this teaching. So their perusal of the causal situation led them to feel like, well, I don't see any others around here. All of them seem to be of the following four categories.

[61:32]

All right. So when we have, in the case of like perception, either sense perception... First of all, I'll say sense perception. So in case of sense perception, for example, what we call visual perception, you can say either visual perception or eye consciousness or eye cognition. Visual perception or eye consciousness. The tradition in the Abhidharma is to, as you see carried over into the Mahayana Abhidharma,

[62:40]

is to say eye consciousness or visual consciousness, to name the consciousness after the sense organ. So the dominant cause, the dominant condition for visual consciousness is the eye organ. The object condition for visual consciousness is visual form. Necromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength. And the immediate antecedent condition immediate antecedent condition

[63:41]

is the immediately a prior moment of cognition. So it could be a sense, it could be a moment of visual consciousness, sound consciousness, I mean ear consciousness or mind consciousness. So you can probably fill out the diagram for the next four sense consciousnesses. Pardon? You have the hetu? Cause?

[64:43]

That's not involved here. I mean, it's involved but we don't, it's like, for example, the hetu pratyaya would be the causes and conditions that give rise to, for example, the composition of the retina and of a person being alive and of electromagnetic radiation coming through the walls or whatever. That kind of thing. But the hetu pratyaya, the causal condition, is not actually spoken of in talking about the process of perception. It doesn't come up much. It's just the background context. The hetu pratyaya corresponds to another system of causation which is called the system of the twelve causes, six causes, which is also in the Agra Dharma. And one of the causes is called

[65:46]

karana hetu. They're all hetu. Six hetus. Six causes. One of the hetus, one of the types of causes, is called karana hetu. And karana hetu in that system is the sort of, you might say, the dominant or the general causal situation which is basically that it's everything that allows what's happening to happen. So in order for something to happen, everything has to allow it to happen. That's clearly the big picture. So all the things, all these sort of innumerable conditions that allow you to be a living being with eyeballs that are operating and so on, that's the hetu pratyaya or the karana hetu. But specifically to this process of cognition, these three are spoken of. OK? And you can see how Phil is hard out for the rest of them, right? But when we come to mind consciousness,

[66:46]

something kind of very interesting happens, I think. So for mental perception, which is actually, you know, possible to have, in a sense, mental sense perception, in this case, the object is going to be a mental object, something in the mind, right? Like a feeling. The organ is going to be, I mean, yeah, the dominant condition is going to be the same as the immediate antecedent condition. So the immediate antecedent condition is the organ for mental perception. Wait, how did you do that?

[67:48]

How did you do that? Hmm? How did I do it? You mean besides reading those books? Well, because we have mental perception now, we have within the transformation of consciousness, we have chitta, and we have this ability of the mind to split itself in two, to, you know, to kind of reflect on itself. So in the 30 verses, it speaks of manas, first of all, in one translation, as mentation, which is a word that you can find in English dictionaries, in the British dictionaries, but not in most American dictionaries. But another word that they use there is reflection. So manas is the ability of mind to function as an organ for itself.

[68:50]

But the organ-like capacity of mind, for mind, is actually the previous sense consciousness. That's the organ. But for sense consciousness, the organ is not the previous moment of cognition. That's the samanantra prajna for the sense consciousness. So sense consciousnesses also depend on not only the previous cognition getting out of the way, which they do, but also setting a template for cognition. But for mind consciousness, the previous cognition is really the thing that really turns it on. The thing that turns on is sense consciousness, which is really powerful in making the sense conscious. That's why it's called dominant, because the thing that makes sense consciousness arise is one or more of the organs are really stimulated.

[69:53]

They're really kind of like going, and that's why it's called dominant condition. So the mind condition, when the mind really feels a lot of impact of cognition, that serves like an organ function, which makes the mind kind of want to know something mental. So that's why it's dominant, it's very influential. And it's the previous example of that type of activity, or that type of function, which has now made room for a new one, but part of the causal consequence of a moment of cognition is that the mind can now say, well, let's do that again here with our stuff. So that's the difference, is that in all perception, the previous cognition, having departed, is a condition for the present one. So sense consciousness also has to have that condition of itself.

[70:56]

Mind consciousness also needs that, but that thing is also the dominant condition for mind consciousness. It's the dominant condition for mind consciousness, but it's not the dominant condition for sense consciousness. It's more important for mind consciousness, you could say, more powerful. And that function of manas is not the same as giving it credit for imagining a self. That's a second dimension of manas. However, I think if we meditate on this, we can see that Asanga, who was the first one to point the finger at manas as being the place in consciousness to look for the original location of this, there's reason to pick it. But also, alaya will also be

[72:01]

something that manas depends on in order to perform this function. So, alaya... This function? No, no. The self function. Yes, this function is like the self function, yes. Manas means that it's alaya. Well... Let's see... Well, I think Catherine asked a question which I think is quite important and relevant here. Alaya. About... What should I do next? Excuse me, but your writing seems kind of low on the board. I can't see that. Yes.

[73:01]

The bottom line, under the dominant condition, it says immediate antecedent condition. So, for mind consciousness, the immediate antecedent condition and the dominant condition are the same thing. In other words, the dominant condition is the immediate antecedent condition. So, again, the difference between mind consciousness and sense consciousness is that it's the organ. The most powerful ingredient in mental consciousness is the previous sense consciousness, either mental or physical. Thank you. You're welcome. I can't find your question, Catherine, but you asked a question about how does perception work with this. Well, part of the question you've clarified by meaning perception interchangeably with consciousness in this model,

[74:03]

but in the Heart Sutra and in the last paragraphs of Chapter 5, when it talks about, for example, in the last paragraph of Chapter 5 where it says the bodhisattvas do not perceive, in this monolith, what they do not perceive, is that this perception equal to consciousness in this model or is that, in the Heart Sutra, as we chant it, we use perception for one of the skandhas? And that was the question, the relationship with those skandhas. When it says in the Samyama Chala Sutra that the bodhisattvas do not perceive, I don't know what the Sanskrit is for that. Can I erase this now? The Sanskrit for the third skandha,

[75:17]

which in our, we say perception now? We say perception. The Sanskrit is Samya and Samya, you know, in a way, in a better translation, is conception. And perception. But part of the problem is that what we're conscious of, what we're conscious of is our perception. And we're conscious of, when we're conscious of a conception, that's our perception. That's our perception. We're perceiving a concept.

[76:22]

Wait a second. You say it. When we're conscious of our perception. What we're conscious of is our perception. What we're conscious of is our perception. Are we conscious of pictures of our perception? Are we conscious of pictures of our perception? We're usually conscious of pictures of our perceptions, right? In other words, we're usually conscious of concepts of what's, a concept of the world. In the model that we just erased, the sense consciousness and the mental cognition has conception entered into that yet or not? It is possible to have a direct perception of blue without any conceptual mediation

[77:29]

so that you call it blue. That's possible. You can have a sense experience without the... A sense experience of blue and you know it, but you don't intersperse or mediate it with the concept of blue. And so you don't say it's blue. And you can have also direct sense perceptions of mental phenomena without mediating the concept so that you can tell a word for the mental concept like pain, anger, confidence and so on. That's possible. And this is actually this level of operation. But you can also have conceptual versions of all those things, right? Two. When you said this level of operation, you didn't mean conceptions, did you? I don't remember exactly what...

[78:34]

You were talking about what was happening without the conception being activated, right? Yes. I'm saying that there can be awareness of a color without the conceptual mediation of its blue. And of course it can be with the conceptual mediation of blue. That would be... Sanya would be with the conceptual mediation. No. No, because Sanya is present basically in almost all of our experiences. There's still some conception going on. So what kind of conception would be going on there? Is that why we have recollection? Or memory? We can have perfect recollection of

[79:37]

what we've just experienced. That's a really important question. Actually, bearing on the actual fundamental way of knowing memory is not operating. Memory is about cognitions that have already happened. So at the level of actually talking about the actual fresh real cognition there's still a Sanya. So what is Sanya in that case? Is it just the image? Hm? Is it just the physical image? There's still an imaging or conceiving going on even in sense consciousness. It's just that the impact of the image on the consciousness is not mediated by a concept. But it's actually seeing the concept of the color. But not mediated in such a way with the imputational

[80:39]

so that it can be called color. However, it is mediated by the imputational to the extent that you can sense that it's out there. So even in direct sense perception there still is a little bit of delusion. It's just that you can't yet make you can't yet make conventional designations for direct sense perception. And in addition to that you still have the imputational but it doesn't mean every time you have the imputational it's sufficient to be able to make conventional designations. So I want the process of delusion to go all the way to the bottom of this process. So there would be perception in both cases. And Abhidharmakosha's definition of perception Can somebody please, Roberta, force me to look this up in the Abhidharmakosha? Roberta?

[81:41]

Alright, I will force you. Maybe you'd say I did it. But I believe the definition of Abhidharmakosha is that perception is the sign of the phenomena getting in contact with the consciousness. That's Samya. So that would apply... That's Samya? That's Samya. That's perception. That's the Samyaskanda which is translated as perception. So perception is okay but conception would also be okay. Did you say the sign of the phenomena? Yeah, whatever you're knowing. Getting in contact with what? Consciousness. So we're starting to have questions now. I think it's okay. Oh, there was one other major thing. Well, the other major thing is that if you look at

[82:44]

if you look at the 30 verses I think it's very nice to look at the beginning of the 30 verses where it says, indeed, whatever idea whatever variety of ideas of self and other of self and elements that prevails they occur in the transformation of consciousness. So this text is talking about that the ideas we have about self or about these elements of analysis they occur in the process of consciousness. Yeah, that's the first point. It would occur in Manas, is that right? No, it occurs in the process of the transformation of consciousness which is threefold. One of the folds is Manas. It doesn't occur in Manas. It doesn't occur in alaya. It doesn't occur in the mind consciousness which we were talking about. It occurs in the transformations of these consciousnesses.

[83:46]

They're actually I said transformations, but really it's transformation of consciousness. Consciousness can take these different forms. And then again it says they are threefold, mainly and it starts off with the resultant which is alaya what is called mentation, which is Manas as well as the concept of the object which is the mind consciousness the vijnana. And then it says herein the consciousness called alaya with all its seeds is the resultant. And I said that to you before that alaya-vijnana is the resultant. So, at the birth in chapters 5, 6 when beings are born it doesn't say the result from past action from past living beings

[84:48]

the result lays down in the sense organs and you have conception. This result means that this dependent co-arising activates the living being. And the dependent co-arising can also be causes so dependent co-arisings are results and can be seeds. So, one of the main points here at the beginning that you're trying to do is trying to set up a basis a conceptual basis for this conceptual truth or conceptual approach and non-conceptual approach a basis without making a basis into a substance. The basis is a dependent co-arising which is something upon which this whole process evolves but it's a dependent co-arising so it's temporary and has no inherent existence in itself. It's empty because it's a dependent co-arising so we have an empty thing which is the basis for this whole

[85:49]

transformation of consciousness in which our ideas and elements which we can use to analyze our experience and become free of a sense of personal self and also which we can use with the understanding of dependent co-arising to empty the elements too to make sure we don't make the elements substantial and also directly deal with ideas of self. These are based on something which is a transformation of consciousness so this third turning is trying to show how mind is the basis actually an empty basis for the imagination of both of the previous modes of teaching of the Buddhist tradition. Thank you. So now we can freak out. Well, I want to say one more thing is that there's two schools of Yogacara the first school, I shouldn't say school

[86:52]

two kind of emphasis, one is represented by in a sense the founders, Asanga and Vasubandhu and they seem to be very cozy and very inspired by the Sangha Yama Chandra Sutra and they introduced this Alaya and try to teach you use Alaya as a way to show that this great teaching of mind only which is this teaching of Alaya is also a way for us to understand how mind really is and how the appearance of separation between ourselves and others is an illusion they want us to get over that illusion of the separation between our consciousness

[87:53]

and what we know our consciousness and every being we meet they want us to get over that and they're using this Alaya teaching to help us understand the non-separation of all beings which is very, you know, kind of thing and they also say that they were blessed by visitation from great Bodhisattvas in order to be able to come up with this teaching then quite a bit later we have a person named Dignaga who is said to be a disciple of Vasubandhu, we don't know if it's THE Vasubandhu or SOME Vasubandhu but he was a disciple of Vasubandhu and he now wants to teach the same teaching basically to help us get over, you know, to actually understand the true way of understanding reality but he and his disciple Dharmakirti do not use the Alaya they use

[88:54]

instead another kind of conceptual approach, another kind of logic I don't know if we have time to get to their teachings but maybe we will but I just want to tell you that these two types of Yogacara the first type uses the Alaya to help us understand the Mind-Only Doctrine of chapter 8 of this sutra in some sense the central teaching of this sutra is the Mind-Only teaching the title of this sutra seems to be related to the three wheels but this sutra has a central teaching a unique teaching the first appearance of this Mind-Only is in this sutra and this sutra also has this detailed analysis of emptiness, so lots of good things in here and Vasubandhu and Nandasangha use this sutra a lot but there is another branch of Yogacara which is even more

[89:56]

conceptual and sophisticated and one more thing I want to say and that is that I heard the description of the second turning as being a profound aspect of the Buddha's teaching and the third teaching as being a magnificent revelation of the Buddha's teaching I was just wondering when you mentioned the trace of the file on its left when you erected it I was just wondering if that's just the Alaya storehouse that still needs to be burned off or is there what is that trace? In the chapter and also on the board I pointed out that we have these mind consciousness and intellect, mind, thought and consciousness these evolving

[91:00]

consciousnesses, the sense consciousness and the mind consciousness which are arising and ceasing each moment so it's like in some sense they are arising and ceasing out of this undulating, pulsating consciousness, Alaya Alaya is like they are dependent on Alaya for their arising they have mind consciousness arising or sense consciousness arising these six kinds of sense consciousness, one of them being mind arising in dependence on Manas and Alaya but Alaya is more Alaya is more their base and Manas is more their organ and defiling locus okay so when they arise in some sense the organ they use to arise carries with them the sense that things are out there on their own, so even in direct sense perception of a child there's this element

[92:01]

of Manas sending kind of like a an implication or a casting of a sense of separation still a view a view, yeah, a view which has this looking at that element in it, so even in sense perception there's a sense or a feeling that what is being known is out there, separate from the knowing of it which you can probably get a feeling for, look at your mind and see how you kind of feel that way but even in your very basic sense perception that's going on too, even at the level where you can't mediate with the concept in such a way as to make conventional designations or where you have not yet made a conceptual mediation such that you can make conventional designations you still have some conceptual mediation in the sense of Manas giving this feeling giving this image of out there-ness

[93:04]

and Manas can do this because the idea of out there-ness or the image of the appearance or the image of out there-ness is dependent on is dependent on the resultant alive, which depends on past images of out there-ness, the resultant past images of out there-ness is now mixed up with our sense consciousness hidden in our sense consciousness is all kinds of ideas about what they might be dealing with like it's blue or it's red or whatever but also all these different varieties also come with this out there-ness So we just have to transform Alaya in order to get to that Alaya gets transformed all the time No, I mean as far as burning burning off these past ideas of our experience in order to designate things or whatever

[94:07]

we need to burn off all those ideas so that they don't taint the present moment So how do you do that? I don't know But aren't you saying it's inherent? Aren't you saying that it's inherent to the Not inherent, maybe, but it's innate It's not inherent to our life, but it's innate In other words, we're born with it It can be transformed, yeah Which again, the conceptual approach tells you that The psychodeterminant doesn't tell you It tells you that if you could see that the five aggregates are empty, you'd be relieved

[94:54]

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