I thought today I'd talk to you a little bit more about this chapter 5 on the questions of Vishalamati. Let's see. So the bodhisattva asked the Buddha, how are bodhisattvas wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought and consciousness? So these three terms, mind, thought, and consciousness.

[01:19]

I guess I can do that. Mind, thought and consciousness. These English words can be put in correspondence with Sanskrit for the original. Mind is called siddhat. Thought, manas and consciousness, vijnana. Chinese like this pronounce it Chit Chit Chit is written like this pronounce the Chinese Shin in Japanese Shin Chinese for Manas is written like this

[02:33]

pronounced ee. Japanese is pronounced ee. And the Chinese way of writing the consciousness is like this. And pronounced shir. And Japanese is pronounced This chapter, citta, or mind, means, I was referring to the... the basis consciousness, or alaya vijnana.

[03:53]

It's also called the appropriating consciousness, or adana vijnana. Storehouse consciousness, basis consciousness, sometimes it's called basis of all. They say mind consciousness and intellect in this chapter. In this chapter, in this sutra, mind means, citta means, a laya-vijnana. Now, before this sutra, you don't really see a laya-vijnana too much in the Buddhist tradition. This is sort of the origin of this teaching, of this storehouse consciousness. So in this, I don't know if it says specifically in the chapter, mind,

[05:02]

is this basis consciousness. Does it say that? Does it? Anyway, you can understand that. Yes? Doesn't Shin also need heart? This character also is translated as heart. In Chinese it means heart or mind. Kind of looks like a heart. It's got the different chambers there and stuff. So that's the basic structure of the language for the chapter. So I'm not recommending that you read this, but this sutra is a basis for lots of other teachings. And in particular, the teachings of Vasubandhu and Asanga are very much based on this sutra. And back in 1994, at Tassajara, we spent practice periods studying the Thirty Verses of Vasubandhu.

[06:12]

And also other times we studied the Thirty Verses of Vasubandhu. And then there's a commentary on the Thirty Verses of Vasubandhu. So... Hi Doris. Congratulations. It's hard for her to get back in the country because Germany didn't support the attack of Iraq. So the immigration is punishing German people. There's no French people here, right? They'll never be able to get in the country. There was one last practice pair, Jacques. Anyway, at the beginning of this 30 verses, the first verse, it says basically whatever occurs in terms of whatever ideas of self and element that prevail, they occur in the transformations of the consciousness, and the transformations of consciousness is threefold, namely the resultant,

[07:27]

what is called mentation, and the concept of object. Whatever occurs in terms of ideas of self and other arise in the transformations of consciousness, which are threefold. The threefold transformations are the resultant, mentation, and the concept of object. The resultant is mind, is alive as nirvana. Mentation, which means... It's hard to find in English in the American dictionary, but mentation means thinking or cognitive activity. Sorry, what are the three things? Mentation? The three are the resultant, mentation, what is called mentation, and the concept of object. Those are the three transformations of consciousness, as expressed in the second verse of the 30 verses.

[08:35]

So the resultant is mind. The resultant is mind in this teaching. In other words, mind is a resultant. Also a storehouse? Yeah. It's a cumulative, yeah. It's a storehouse, it's a resultant, that's mind, that citta. So mind is a resultant, sort of like in a given moment of life, of consciousness, you have one transformation of consciousness is just as given. It's a result of this huge accumulation of past life. Okay? This is called also, that's called mind, but it starts out by saying that this first transformation of consciousness, or first aspect of consciousness,

[09:40]

is that it's resultant. And this resultant is the basis of all other, of all mental activity. But it's a resultant. It's the storehouse. It's the storehouse of all the seeds. That's citta, or alaya-vijnana. Okay? Next is mentation, or thinking. That's manas. That's thought in this chapter. Meditation? Meditation means sleeping or reflecting or cognitive activity. Thought is thought. The word thought means cognitive activity or something that's thought of, an object. So there's mind, which is a resultant and is the storehouse of the seeds of all thoughts. And then there is the actual activation, of all the potential thoughts in the actual active, evolving moment.

[10:43]

And then there is consciousness of the object, which is consciousness, where you're actually the awareness of the seeds that have been brought into activity. That's three. That's vijnana. That's vijnana, you're right. So the 30 verses starts out by, in a sense, expressing something about this chapter 5, and then it moves on. later and expresses chapter six, and then moves on and expresses chapter seven. So particularly chapters five, six, and seven of this sutra, you'll see versified in these very concentrated verses of the 30 verses.

[11:49]

And then so if you want to read about, this is a background text, which is not on the reading list, but we have, you know, you can read, there's copies of this around, right? There are copies in there, copies that can be made and purchased. Yes, so there's copies of this, if you want to study this background material. So that's the structure. Studying that material is part of what the bodhisattvas do. They study the mechanics of how these transformations work together. And, yes? Can you just repeat the last one again? From the 30 verses? The 30 verses is... Mind meditation and what's the third? The 30 verses is called resultant, mentation and concept of the object. Concept of the object, the actual concept of the object is another way to say consciousness.

[12:51]

So another way to say this is, there's this basic, the basic impression of all experience, and then there's the discursive reflection on it, And then there's the awareness of the discursive activity. So jnana is the actual awareness of the discursive activity of manas, which is the activation of the seeds of consciousness. Yes? A mechanical question. Is anything being freshly made or is everything just being noticed from alaya?

[13:57]

Like you said, accumulation, like storehouse, but where's the import, imported from where? Alaya is the result of past activities. So alaya is the result of past cognitive activity, past activities of manas. And so manas is fresh, but it arises in dependence on the material available from alaya and also the sense consciousnesses, the six sense consciousnesses. they are also fresh, and the karmic activity which arises is fresh, and then as a result of this fresh thinking and acting, the effect of that is then registered in terms of the next moment, which now we have the resultant, which is the accumulation including the previous moment.

[15:04]

So a lie isn't something personal to me, it's the availability of all impressions that everyone has access to from birth. Yeah, sometimes people think that a lie is what's called collective unconscious, that Jung talks about. And I... It's collective in the sense that... Is she in the room? She shouldn't really come in the room anymore because she bites people. So don't bring her in. Barazi bites people if they laugh or clap or anything. She gets scared. So anyway, back to...

[16:08]

The problem of thinking of it as collective unconscious, I think, is that it isn't really the same for everybody. But the part that is the same is that it is infused, it has all the seeds for conventional designations, and those things we do share. We do make language together, which is an extremely important ingredient. So that part is collective. And we'll go, I hope, into some detail about how this infusion of... Actually, it does in this chapter. It talks about how the laya is called appropriating or storehouse. It appropriates and stores our predispositions towards conventional designation. So we have the seeds within us. within our resultant consciousness. Each moment we have a consciousness that arises, which has all these seeds, which predispose us to conventionally designate things, and also predispose us to what we'll see in the next chapter, which predisposes us to imagination of essences.

[17:36]

in things. So the seeds for conventional designation are tied together with the seeds for the imagination of various things, one of them being the imagination that things exist independently. And so in that sense we have that collective unconscious that we always share. We all have this tendency to imagine essences in things. And we also have this tendency for conventional designation. So humans are born, as you know, with this language gene, right? So the language gene, in a sense, is part of our alliah. So that, in a sense, is collective. But each of us has that, rather than it's like we're all tapping into some kind of, like, cosmic mind, because alaya really isn't cosmic mind.

[18:38]

Alaya is, well, I shouldn't say it's not cosmic mind because it's not separate from cosmic mind, but it's not actually the cosmic mind. It maybe can be transformed into the cosmic mind because it's not separate from the cosmic mind, but alaya really is the storehouse of trouble. And it needs to be converted into the Buddha mind, it needs to be transformed. And it can be transformed because it's not dual with the Buddha mind. I didn't hear that last part. It can be transformed... It can be transformed, in a sense, into the Buddha mind because it's not separate from the Buddha mind, not dual with the Buddha mind. But laya, strictly speaking, is not the Buddha mind. A laya is something that has to be converted, has to be reversed. And that's part of what is in the latter part of the chapter, which is the second part of what makes bodhisattvas wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought, and consciousness, that they don't perceive.

[19:53]

mind, thought, and consciousness. They don't perceive these things, and in not perceiving these things, this inversion of alaya and the conversion of manas and the conversion of the sense consciousnesses occurs. These become flipped over into different forms of wisdom. So this is the mechanics, and And when we get to mechanics, lots of questions arise, right? Yes? You say that the story house of our stories, all our stories... This is the story house of our stories? Yes. Right. And so you may think, well, then we can't have any new stories. Well, you can have a new story because each moment you can have a new story because it's the last moment. So the stories you had available in the last moment were given to you. You can only have the stories that you have seeds for. And each moment you have a large number of seeds.

[20:58]

But basically, that's all you're going to make stories. You're not going to make stories out of any other material. But there's some new ingredients in each moment, because at the last moment you did something. You had some activity which never happened before. based on old material, and now you have some new material. So there is a possibility of new stories all the time. Even though you're given your script each moment, the script is evolving. And also the understanding of mind, consciousness and intellect is evolving, too. It's evolving in you. Like this morning, all of you now, as a result of the last few minutes, have a different understanding of mind, consciousness and intellect, and so do I. And as a group, as a practice group, our understanding of mind, consciousness and intellect is evolving. If you look at the history of Buddhism, there's a story about what people at different phases in history in different countries thought about mind, thought and consciousness.

[22:01]

And it evolves. Buddhist understanding of mind is constantly evolving, and generally speaking, however, the Buddhist understanding of mind is that the mind is evolving and the understanding of mind is evolving, because understanding is a mental thing. Okay? So, yes? Berndt said one time that he thought that our habit patterns, he was talking about grasping in particular, were on a cellular level, and that really struck me at the time. But this way of looking at it is that if a laya is where the habit patterns actually live, that the transformation is not necessary on a cellular level, but more on a... It somehow seems more accessible. to think about transformation of the habit patterns in alaya than that somehow each cell in our body is grasping and therefore this is such a strong motion that it's really hard to imagine transforming.

[23:13]

I just saw some light, that's all. I think that light you saw was a false light. I think that the source of misconception is cellular, and it's not because it's not cellular that transformation can occur. Transformation can occur even though these basic misconceptions. And correct conceptions and misconceptions are both based on our body. And alaya is talking, it's actually how the body gets connected to mind. So alaya, it just says here, alaya is the way the body gets hooked into a womb.

[24:25]

It's, you know, Part of the reason for this teaching is to explain how there's rebirth and so on and so forth. Who's next? Victor, are you next? No? Michael. Where does awareness fit into that? Awareness? Consciousness. Where is the awareness? Well, in a sense, all three are, in a sense, awareness. Alaya is consciousness. However, as it says here in the 30 verses, Alaya is consciousness. Herein consciousness, you could say awareness, is called alaya, with all its seeds, is the resultant.

[25:35]

It is unidentified in terms of concepts of object and location, and it is always possessed of activities such as contact, feeling, attention, perception, and volition. So alaya is actually a consciousness, but it's unidentified in terms of objects, concept of object and location. So there's awareness, but not awareness like of location and concept of object. That's alaya. Okay? However, vijnana, the third transformation of consciousness, or the third aspect of consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, that is the concept of object, that is the awareness of the concept of object, that is aware of location. Okay? And then cognitive activity, manas, is thinking up concepts of objects, and locations and things like that.

[26:36]

So it provides the material, the discursive material, which the third one becomes fully aware of. But a lie is an awareness, just a kind of latent, unidentified awareness, which we generally don't consider that awareness, but it is, the basic awareness is not identifying things or locating things. So all three These are three dimensions of consciousness. They're inseparable. They don't have one floating by itself. Did you mean chasing after things or waiting for things to arise, the basic awareness? Basic awareness. You said they don't… I forget what you said, but it was kind of like you… it seemed you implied the mind is chasing… the awareness, it doesn't chase after things, but it allows things to, let's say, arise. It doesn't chase after things and it allows things to arise. It's the basis of all. And the manas is more like the chasing after things.

[27:44]

It's the cognitive activity. It's generating the fruition. I see you, Elena. It's generating the fruition. It's the ripening of these seeds, which the resultant provides. And then the full awareness of them is the Vijnana. Jane? Are there feet of virtue also in the life of Vijnana? Mm-hmm. Feet of virtue also. Rob? Where do the sense organs and their feels and object, where do they fall? Sense organs are You know, they're the body. The eye is basically the sense organs. The eye organ, the ear organ, and so on.

[28:46]

So the vijnana arises in dependence on the sense organs, and also the mental sense. By the way, the mental sense organ is monks. So the physical sense consciousnesses, like eye consciousness, arises in dependence on eye organ and the material stimulation of electromagnetic radiation. When all three arise, you can have the consciousness, and that consciousness, however, arises with the other two transformations, okay? And the manas, the mind organ, will coordinate all these sense consciousnesses, which are discussed in this chapter, a little bit there, and also chapter 30 verses. And also the alaya provides seeds for what will be imagined as what's going on to interpret the sense material.

[29:55]

So alaya will be the basis for what the sense consciousness will finally know. And Manas will be coordinating the available ideas of what's going on. And sense organs and sense objects, or sense organs and sense fields, are part of the conditions which allow us to have experience. Because we do actually live in a universe that's not just our individual idea of what things are going on. Jane? You already answered? Judith? Judith? Is your name Judith? Liz. Or Jones, Jones, Liz Jones. I knew there was a J in there. So there was a seed in there from past experience.

[31:00]

Yes? When we're born, do we have, we don't have all the seeds of our whole life. We have the seeds for the moment. At each moment we get new seeds. Yeah, you get new seeds, but each moment you get a whole new ocean of seeds. So is it infinitely expanding for your whole life, or do some of them slip off? I haven't heard of anything slipping off. All the seeds are impermanent, and everything is impermanent, but it's not so much of things slipping off. It's more a matter of transformation. It's not like you sort of, it's more like, I would call it, in the Thirty Verses it talks about alaya being quelled or, what's the word? Anyway, put to rest, rather than like dehydrated.

[32:08]

Yes? Can you say more about alaya not being Buddha-mind, meaning to be transformed into Buddha-mind, and yet is not separate from Buddha-mind? I mean, is it this, that it's like letting go of your stories, it's how you transform alaya into Buddha-mind? Is letting go of your stories how alaya is transformed into Buddha-mind? Yes. So letting go of the stories means that the stories that are manifesting to you are the activated seeds of stories. And then keep in the process of the stories maturing, the activity of the maturing and activated seeds, and then the cognition of them, which in that process we can breathe through these stories, this is the sort of entree into the practice which transforms alaya.

[33:17]

And, but just to be, I think that, that you're going to have, there's going to be no end to the investigation of this, how this works. I just thought I would, I'll come back to you, all your questions, but I just wanted to say something about the practice the practice which is implied in this chapter but not spoken of, by which the Bodhisattvas not only know about how these three dimensions of mind work, but they also come to not perceive them, right? And the way they come to not perceive them is by... what I said yesterday, namely breathing through the stories, which are basically the activity of these three, okay?

[34:21]

The stories are based on the resultant, based on mind, and the activity based on that mind, and the cognition of the activity based on that mind, that's what the stories are. So breathing through these stories one comes to see how these three dimensions are interrelating with each other. And when you see how they're interrelating with each other, you don't perceive them anymore. You see they're empty. You see that these three dimensions, which comprise your experience, individually and interrelationally are ungraspable ungraspable. You can't grasp any part of this process by itself. You realize emptiness of the whole process and every element in the process.

[35:24]

And in that vision, you don't see anymore. You have no perceptions of these things. Now, so I wanted to also introduce to you, which I said yesterday, and I said last night, too. Yesterday I said that Bai Zhang asked Ma Su, what is the essential import of the school, but I think actually, as I mentioned to you, that the word school, which is the way Andy Ferguson translated it, that character school also can be translated as source. It also means source.

[36:09]

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