I got a note from one of the leaders of the small group who said that there was an expression of appreciation for the meeting of this group and so there was some question about whether there should be a follow-up to small groups and so on I guess there could be one or two more such meetings on the 15th and the 19th so if you wouldn't mind closing your eyes and holding your hand out

[01:14]

into the air if you would like to have one or two more small group meetings during this intensive. Would you eyes shut please? Yes is up. Yes is up. And thank you. Those who don't care, would you raise your hand? 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 interesting expression so one way to do it would be perhaps to excuse those who were not particularly interested in more meetings and I could meet with them. It just turns out that a lot of the people who didn't really want to meet with me, I think that was a problem.

[02:29]

Alright, we could start with the practice leaders. We can talk about having them on the 15th. And we have to start with them to lead the groups again because of course their leadership was part of the reason why some people enjoyed it. And I know who doesn't want to come. I might not be able to find you. You're excused at 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 just such a surgery would require, I think I'm going to go ahead and

[03:53]

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. My intestines have not hit the ground. So, on the 14th, we're going. 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. I'm just in the field of this stuff so I can kind of follow it but I can understand that it's hard for some of you to follow. So the request that I present quite a bit before the questions start. Is that all right?

[04:59]

Yeah. Do you have any questions? No questions. So, let's see. We were talking about the development of a lyre and then on Sunday I talked about the three wheels.

[06:07]

And perhaps I could say a little bit more about the three wheels. So, I suggested to you the three wheels are like the first wheels like Buddha's pieces. Buddha presents a thesis. In the second wheel there's antithesis. In the third wheel there's a thesis. And the thesis is based on the antithesis. Yes? You have a question? Just the word synthesis came up in my mind, that's all. Oh, I see. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

[07:24]

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. Reputation of all conceptual approaches to reality, to dharma. And in that reputation is what's been 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.

[08:33]

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. And then a conceptual explanation or teaching about how mind is involved in both the conceptual and non-conceptual realizations. Another thing which I would just throw out to you is kind of a little conceptual thing actually.

[09:41]

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. 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.

[11:07]

So, to some extent, to have this immediate realization of truth when you're looking at a color, 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.

[12:18]

You're looking at the absence of the way you designate the color. 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're seeing the absence of the essence, you don't have a basis anymore for seeing any way to make the conventional designation blue.

[13:24]

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 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 of 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 don't believe anymore the appearances before you. You give up using your conceptual facilities to comprehend your life.

[14:39]

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, when we adhere to the imputational character of the color as being the color, afflictions arise. It doesn't say that in chapter 5. It says it in chapter 7. Strictly adhering.

[15:43]

Is it strictly adhering? Strongly adhering. What it says in chapter 6 is that if you study the imputational character, you'll learn about afflictive phenomena. In other words, you'll be able to see that, for example, colors are afflictive. Colors, like all things, are dependent co-arising. But dependent co-arisings are afflictive. They're afflictive 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 what afflictive phenomena are as you study phenomena. You will learn that our minds do something to the world such that affliction arises.

[16:50]

The second turning of the wheel is to help us stop adhering to our projections and superimpositions upon reality, upon phenomena. Not necessarily upon phenomena, but upon the world. To stop strongly 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 of the second turning don't usually say, this teaching depends on what we're refuting. They might say, well isn't it obvious? But it doesn't say very often in the perfect wisdom scriptures. The whole reputation of the conceptual approach to practice is based on the conceptual approach to practice.

[17:55]

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 can 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. 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.

[19:00]

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 being the way of knowing the other dependent. So in chapter 7, it explains to you that the other dependent is not the ultimate. The other dependent is actually conventional truth. When you look at the other dependent, you're looking at conventional truth.

[20:15]

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 dependent co-arising, the way things are actually happening, all things are dependent co-arising. And all things exist conventionally only. 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, except for the alaya-vijnana teaching in chapter 5,

[21:28]

the way that this teaching of the workers of the mind is quite similar to the first turning type of teachings. Is it hot in here? You're OK? Getting there. Watch out for the heat. So the first part is first turning, second part is second turning. And bodhisattvas don't just know the first part, they know the second part. And this sutra is 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. It's 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 distinctions 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.

[22:40]

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, or discover that place. OK. 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... Well, 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...

[23:48]

...believing in a substance of a person, or of rocks, or of dogs. So they said, OK, you've got a person, whatever's happening to 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,

[24:53]

Paramahamsa got this message 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... Svalokshana. Svalokshana. Svalokshana. And Svalokshana could be translated as own characteristic, or specific characteristic. And somebody might even go as far as to say as inherent characteristic. Svalokshana. And the Buddha did seem to say that about these, for example, the aggregates.

[25:58]

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. Eight. 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 the... And characteristic in this case, Svalokshana, means that the... I think one good way to speak of it is that the Dharma has a causal efficiency. This Dharma, this Dharma has causal efficiency. This Dharma, when it arises, it has consequences, it has effects.

[27:02]

Its arising has effects. It has... 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, nimitta, nimitta, N-I-M-I-T-T-A, which I think is good to translate as sign. So an example, fire is often used. The Svalokshana of fire is sometimes said to be burning. Or that it can burn.

[28:08]

But the nimitta of fire is the image of fire. So if you see a fire, you see an 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 to be imaged. All phenomena can be imaged. But the image is not in a phenomenon.

[29:13]

The image is what is necessary for what? What? Communication, what else? Invitational reality. Invitational reality. It's necessary for invitation, yeah. Invitation is necessary for conventional designation. And invitation can be known in connection with sign, in connection to dependence on signs that are connected to names. That's how we find that invitation is going on. And phenomena do offer signs, signs which are not them, which are not their characteristics. They offer ways to be imaged so that they can be designated. And we're interdependent with all phenomena. We're cooperating with them and they're cooperating with us. We need, we want to make connections with those nations and they say, OK, here's how you can do it.

[30:16]

But their characteristic varies. Their characteristic of fire is different than the characteristic of Simon. 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 each of them had 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 to let the grasp of the clean. The svalokshana of hatred is to like to eliminate it, avoid it, get away from it, destroy it. And so on. All the different dharmas, all the different elements of our experience

[31:24]

are the svalokshanas. In Chapter 7 it says, but then you said all dharmas lack own being. It doesn't say, then you say all dharmas lack own characteristics, which is part of the complication. 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 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.

[32:25]

And 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 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 skanda, that's the second skanda. And if you talk to a person, most people agree, yeah, there's not a sixth skanda. There's no more categories of elements than the ones that you propose. Whatever comes up can be accounted for that. However we feel, to a great extent because of our 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.

[33:28]

Something meta-psychophysically. And we have an idea for that, but the idea for that is of course one of the skandas. 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 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 for it. It's 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,

[34:39]

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. And the animating principle of a human being is not the self, but is the interdependence of the elements 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. Somebody asked me, I think it was Andreas, what's love? And I said it's interdependence. So in some sense, the love of the universe is just the interdependence of all the different elements.

[35:44]

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 the soul is what animates each of us. Our soul is what animates each of us. But our soul is not independent of other souls. 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

[36:47]

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, 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.

[37:49]

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 a dependent co-arising, it's unstable, constantly changing, impermanent and not worthy of confidence. No person is worthy of confidence. You say, what about the Buddha? 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. But 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. Every moment. Now, what happened in the first turning was that

[38:57]

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 for the person. It's not to say that the person, there's no evidence for the person, it's just that by analysing the person, you can see there's no self. If you look at persons without analysing them, it's pretty hard to not fall for the sense that it's independent. But when you look at it in an analysed form, you can see there's no evidence for the independence. In the actual state of meditation, on the analysed person, then if you look for a self, you don't find it. But when you look at the unanalysed person, they look like a self. So we get relieved from that,

[40:02]

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 harhats, and we wish for them to support us, because they are, their spiritual strength is a great asset in this world. To have people walking around who have, I'm at a slightly higher altitude than you, it's getting hot up here, how are you guys doing? It's fine, I'm fine. So, I want to point out that to be a harhat is a very high attainment, it is a Buddhist, it is a great Buddhist, it is somebody who has applied the Buddhist teaching, who has accepted this theory of meditation, this meditation theory,

[41:04]

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 on the world like that is a great spiritual asset, and we call upon them to help us. Even Bodhisattvas, in many respects, appreciate that some people have achieved a level 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 things, 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

[42:09]

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 is in some sense a problem if 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 about 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 learn the Svaha Lakshana of the five aggregates, the Svaha Lakshana of the Eightfold Path, the Svaha Lakshana of the Pralayatanas,

[43:11]

the Svaha Lakshana of the Eighteen Dhatus, the eighteen elements, which in the Heart Sutra represent eye, [...] eye color and eye consciousness. That's verse three. And ear, sound and ear consciousness. So there's six of those times three. And then mind, mind objects and mind consciousness. So it's eighteen. So it taught these things and the 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 later, in the next major phase of Abhidharma is characterized by what we call the Abhidharmakosha, which Vasubandhu wrote. And in there Vasubandhu

[44:14]

starts to criticize the earlier school for saying that these dharmas actually have substantial existence. Called it Drabhyasat, substantial existence. He criticized that. He says they're just setups, these elements. And he argues, in the commentary he sets up a little argument between himself and the earlier school which taught an analysis which was sufficient for personal liberation. But he's criticizing it because you're sort of saying it's 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. But the setup has some kind of substance. He criticized that. He said that yes, there is this setup. But he called it Prajnapati,

[45:17]

which is similar to Vijnapti. Just a setup. And he argues with him and in the end he backs him into the corner 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. If you tell people these elements of existence are really just setups, 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 is true that this is a feeling and that is not a feeling. ...about things that 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 them, so to say. We tend to slip back into

[46:19]

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 because then we might as well call him Monica. Right? Because, you know, if there is no Bernard substance then why not Monica? Right? We kind of feel that way. Rather than those just causes and conditions that in order to make conventional designations I have to put this on this person in order to be able to say Bernard. So we are not saying they did the same thing with the skandhas. However, even the Satrantika which is the school of Vasubandhu is said to represent they still said in a sense that there was this there was this thing called this flow of events

[47:20]

you know flow of consciousness there wasn't really this individual substantial events it was just a flow and transformation of consciousness but that still had a tone gradually of having some sense of substance. And when when studying that that up and down approach of the Zen students they often want to like dismantle this presentation because they hear the heart secret all the time. And they can kind of sense it because even even the criticism of the earlier setup as being substantial was somewhat substantial. And whether the Vasubandhu 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 Vasubandhu is not completely clear. Some people say Vasanga It's not completely clear

[48:23]

whether he was a different person and there may have been a bunch of other Vasubandhus 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 reel because in between somewhat in between writing the in between the appearance of the Abhidharmakosha which criticizes the earlier Abhidharma and the third reel of the Sangha Nirmachana Sutra and the summary of Mahayana and the 30 verses we have this teaching which is no conceptual approach the Prajnaparamita and so how that all could happen in one person's life I think you'll see that he would write the Abhidharmakosha

[49:25]

be exposed to the teachings of the Prajnaparamita be exposed to the teachings of the Sangha Nirmachana and come up with this Yogachara school maybe somebody could be like that within less than 500 years of life okay so that's that and another thing I wanted to do just trying to get you help you to get a conceptual approach a conceptual grasp here I think you can I think you can put chapter 5 and 6 and relate them somewhat in this way so I'm going to erase now a little bit of this I'm going to erase nimitta which means what I'm going to erase upadaya which means what

[50:27]

grasping grasping appropriating appropriating and phalakshina which means 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 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

[51:37]

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 6 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 by under alaya

[52:37]

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 6 vijnanas also other dependent characters because those 6 those 6 consciousnesses arise in dependence on alaya right? is that what it says? now what's a thoroughly established character?

[53:39]

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 alaya and in the 6 sense consciousnesses but you could also say it's the absence of manas in the 6 sense consciousnesses but actually I'm going to change this slightly and say that that it's not really I wouldn't actually say the imputational character is the manas but that it is krishna krishna manas

[54:46]

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 serves as a as the mind organ that's part of that's part of the way all the sense consciousnesses operate so that part that part of manas is part of the other dependent character are we starting questions now? just a clarification just a clarification you going to clarify something? go ahead I'll keep it to myself I hope I don't confuse the class but is manas? are you using manas?

[55:46]

you said is? I thought you were going to clarify something ok manas are you using? I'm asking you a question now are you going to clarify something? for myself go ahead clarify we're not asking you a question ok 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 ok can you write that down? yeah ok now you got that? this is a proposal to you which I've never seen before so it's probably well this this is a little risque so this is mixing the psychological presentation of chapter 7 with I would say the epistemological presentation of chapter excuse me psychological consciousness presentation of chapter 5 with the epistemological of chapter 6

[56:46]

ok now I'm going to can I raise this? please yes now this is this is an abhidharma teaching which I think you can find definitely in the Abhidharmakosha by Vasubandhu and also I think in earlier abhidharma and it is the idea of well basically that there are whatever happens is four and only four conditions for what happens and they are so there's four pragyas pragya means condition

[57:56]

the first one one is called karana called hetu right hetu next one is called adhipati pragya the next one is called samanantra pragya the next one is called alambana translation hetu means cause so there will be cause and condition that's the first one next one adhipati adhipati means predominant or dominant condition samanantra means

[58:58]

immediately antecedent condition and alambana means object condition first one is called the causal condition next one is called the dominant condition next one is called the immediately antecedent condition and next one is called the object condition antecedent immediately preceding immediately preceding antecedent is same as preceding pretty much yeah now I'll talk about it and

[60:02]

can I erase this now? not every not all dependent co-arising involve all four but there's not there's not a fifth one according to this teaching so their their perusal of the causal situation led them to feel like we don't see any others around here all of them seem to be of all these four categories alright so hate to so when we have in the case of like perception either sense perception first I'll say sense perception so

[61:03]

in case of sense perception for example 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 you see carried over into the Mahayana Abhidharma is eye consciousness or visual consciousness to name the consciousness after the sense organ so the dominant cause the dominant cause the dominant condition for visual consciousness is the eye organ the

[62:04]

object condition for visual consciousness is visual form electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength and and the immediate antecedent condition immediate antecedent condition is the immediately prior moment of cognition so it could be

[63:06]

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 consciousness same that's not involved here I mean it's involved but we don't it's like for example the hetu the hetu pragyaya would be the causes and conditions that give rise to for example the composition of the of the retina and of a person being alive and of electromagnetic radiation you know being you know coming through the walls or whatever that kind of thing but it's the hetu pragyaya the causal condition is not actually

[64:07]

spoken of in talking about the process of perception doesn't come up much it's just background context the the hetu pragyaya corresponds to another system of causation this which is called the system of the twelve six causes which is also in the yagra dharma and one of the causes is called karana hetu they're all hetu six hetu's six causes one of the one of the hetu's 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 really the big picture so all the things

[65:08]

all the sort of innumerable conditions that allow you to be a living being with eyeballs that are operating and so on that's the hetu that's the hetu or the karana hetu but specifically to this process of cognition these three are spoken of okay and you can see how I'll fill this chart out for the rest of them right but when but when we come to mind consciousness 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 the object is going to be a mental object something in the mind like a feeling the organ is going to be I mean yeah the dominant condition

[66:09]

is going to be the same as the immediate antecedent condition so the immediate antecedent condition is the organ for the mental for mental perception wait how did you do that? hmm? 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 the 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 to kind of reflect on itself so in the in 30 verses it speaks of manas

[67:11]

first of all in one translation of mentation which is a word that you can find in English dictionaries 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 but the organ like capacity of mind for mind is actually the previous sense consciousness that's the organ for the other for the for sense consciousness the organ is not the previous moment of cognition that's that's the samanantra prajnaya for the sense consciousness so sense consciousness also depends on not only the previous cognition getting out of the way which they do but also it's having a template for cognition but for mind consciousness the previous the previous

[68:12]

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 that's why it's called dominant because the thing that makes sense consciousness arise is one or more of the organs are really are really like stimulated they're really kind of like going you know and then that's why it's called dominant condition so the mind condition when the when the mind really feels a lot of like impact of cognition that serves like an organ function which makes the mind kind of like want to want to know something mental so that's why the dominant is 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 with our stuff

[69:14]

so that's the difference is that in all in all perception the previous cognition having departed is a condition for the present one so sense consciousness also have to have that condition obviously 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 mind is not the same as the as giving it the credit for imagining itself that's a separate that's a second dimension of manas however I think if we meditate on this we can see that

[70:16]

Asanga who was the first one to point the finger had manas as being a place in consciousness to look for the original the location of this there's reasons to pick it but also alaya will also be something that manas depends on in order to perform this function so alaya no no yes this function but this self function yeah sorry I'll just move this well I think Catherine asked a question which I think is quite important and relevant here about

[71:17]

what should I do next excuse me but your writing seems kind of low on the board I can't see that yeah so on the bottom line under the dependent under the dominant condition it says immediate and excedent condition so from my conscious the immediate and excedent condition and the dominate condition are the same thing in other words the dominate condition is the immediate and excedent condition so the difference for the mind consciousness and sense The organ, the most powerful ingredient in mental consciousness, is a 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 and so on work with this? Well, part of the question you've clarified by using perception interchangeably with consciousness

[72:28]

in this model, 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, 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 of those skandhas. When it says in the Sandhyamacana 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, which in our, we say perception now?

[73:44]

We say perception. The Sanskrit is samya, and samya, in a way, in a better translation, is conception, and perception. But part of the problem is that what we're conscious of is our perception. When we're conscious of a conception, that's our perception. We're perceiving a concept. Wait a second.

[74:47]

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

[75:52]

You can have a sense experience without that. 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 with concepts, 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, too. When you said this level of operation, you didn't mean conception, did you? I don't remember exactly what... You were talking about what was happening without the conception being activated, right?

[76:54]

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 its blue. That would mean that Samya would be with the conceptual. No. No, because Samya is present basically in almost all of our experiences. So there's still some conception going on. So what kind of conception would be going on there? Is that why we have a recollection? Memory? We can have a perfect recollection of what we've just experienced? That's a really important question.

[77:54]

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 Samya. So what is Samya in that case? Is it just the image? 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, so that it can be called color. However, it is mediated by imputational to the extent that you can sense that it's out there.

[79:01]

So even in direct sense perception, there still is a little bit of delusion. It's just that you can't yet make conventional designations for direct sense perception. In addition to that, you still have the imputational, but it doesn't mean that 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? Alright, I will force you. Make me say I did it. But I believe the definition of Abhidharmakosha is that perception is the sign of the phenomena getting in contact with consciousness. That's Samya.

[80:05]

So that would apply... That's Samya? That's Samya. That's perception. That's the Samya Skanda, 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. Are they in contact with what? Pardon? Consciousness. Okay. So we're starting to have questions now, and I think it's okay. Oh, but there was one other major thing. Well, the other major thing is that 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.

[81:10]

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. That's the first point. They 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 just talking about. It occurs in the transformations of these consciousnesses. 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 out with the resultant, which is alaya, what is called meditation, which is Manas, as well as the concept of the object, which is the mind consciousness, the vijnana.

[82:17]

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, is a result. So, at the birth, in chapters 5-6, when beings are born, it doesn't say, this result, a result from past action, from past living being, a result, lays down in the sense organs, and we have conception. This result means that this dependent co-arising activates the living being. And the dependent co-arisings can also be causes. So dependent co-arisings are results and can be seen. So, one of the main points here at the beginning that we are trying to do, is trying to set up a basis, a conceptual basis for this conceptual truth, or conceptual approach and non-conceptual approach,

[83:20]

a basis, without making the 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 transformation of consciousness, in which our ideas of elements, which we can use to analyze our experience and become free of the 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.

[84:24]

Thank you. So now we can... Freak out. Oh, I want to say one more thing. There are two schools of Yogacara. The first school... I shouldn't say school. Two kind of emphases. One is represented by, in a sense, the founders, the Sangha 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 the teaching of alaya, is also a way for us to understand how mind really is,

[85:30]

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 and what we know, and 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 them. 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 anyway, he's a disciple of Vasubandhu. 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.

[86:31]

But he and his disciple, Dharmakirti, do not use the alaya. They use, instead, another kind of conceptual approach, another kind of logic. I don't know if we'll have time to get to their teachings, but maybe we will. I just want to tell you that these two types of yogic charting, the first type uses the alaya to help us understand the mind-only doctrine of chapter 8 of this sutra, which is, in some sense, the central teaching of this sutra, the mind-only teaching. The title of the sutra seems to be related to the three wheels. But the sutra has a central teaching, a unique teaching. The first appearance of this mind-only is in the sutra. The sutra also has a detailed analysis of emptiness. There are lots of good things in here. And Vasubandhu and Nandasangha use this sutra a lot.

[87:33]

But there's another branch of yogic chart, which is even more conceptual and sophisticated. And one more thing I want to say, and that is that I've heard the description of the second turning as being a profound aspect of the Buddha's teachings, and the third teaching as being a magnificent revelation of the Buddha's teachings. I was just, when you mentioned the trace of the vial on the left, from direct perception, I was just wondering if that's just the alaya storehouse that still needs to be burned off, or what is that trace? In the chapter, and also on the board, I pointed out that we have these mind consciousness and intellect,

[88:36]

mind, thought, and consciousness. These evolving consciousnesses, the sense consciousness and the mind consciousness, which are arising and ceasing each moment. So it's like, in some sense, they're arising and ceasing out of this undulating, pulsating consciousness, alaya. Alaya is like, they're dependent on alaya for their arising. So you have mind consciousness arising, or sense consciousness arising, excuse me, these six kinds of sense consciousness, one of them being mind, arising in dependence on manas and alaya. But alaya is more their base, and manas is more their organ, and the filing 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,

[89:36]

there's this element of manas sending kind of like a 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, we still have some conceptual mediation in the sense of manas giving its feeling, giving its image of out there-ness.

[90:38]

And manas can do this because the idea of out there-ness, or the appearance or the image of out there-ness is dependent on the resultant, alive, which is dependent on past images of out there-ness. The result of past images of out there-ness is now mixed up with our sense consciousnesses. Hidden in our sense consciousnesses 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 alive in order to get to that point? Alive gets transformed all the time. No, I mean as far as burning off these past ideas of our experience, or in order to designate things or whatever, we need to burn off all those ideas

[91:42]

so that they don't taint the present moment. So how do you do that? But aren't you saying it's inherent? Aren't you saying that it's inherent? Not inherent really, but it's innate. It's not inherent to our life, but it's innate. In other words, we're born with it. I count the jacks. It can be transformed, yes. Which again, the conceptual approach tells you that. The psychotermin doesn't tell you that. It tells you that if you could see that the five aggregates are empty, you'd be relieved.

[92:23]

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