As I've said many times, our meditation practice is totally culminated enlightenment. It is immediate realization. It's not something we do and then later we're enlightened. The practice is enlightenment. its immediate enlightenment. At the same time, there can be immediate enlightenment, there can be an immediate practice of enlightenment right now, and there can be a huge reservoir, a huge container consciousness of the results of past karma which supports the arising of defiled states of consciousness simultaneous with immediate realization or following in the next moment after immediate realization.

[01:19]

So a defiled state of consciousness can arise, and there can be the practice of enlightenment in that defiled state, and that practice of enlightenment is enlightenment in that defiled state, which is supported by the results of the past karma of an individual lineage and a common human lineage. So there are stories in Zen and there are stories in the ancient record of the historical Buddha of people waking up quite quickly. So the Buddha, in the first discourse, in the first turning of the wheel scripture, which just takes, perhaps it only took a minute or two to say, but maybe he spoke really slowly, so maybe it took

[02:23]

five minutes or half an hour for him to say it. Maybe there was big pauses between each word or something. But still, it's only two pages when you write it out in English. After finishing this discourse, two concentrated people, one of them has some new and authentic understanding of the teaching. The Buddha is giving the talk, and this Buddha giving the talk is Buddha practicing enlightenment. And Buddha is practicing enlightenment with these students, and these students are practicing enlightenment with the Buddha. And one of them has a major change in his view of the world at the end of the talk. He no longer believes in things he used to believe in. at the end of the talk. He no longer believes in an independently existing self by the end of the talk.

[03:28]

And this giving up the belief in an independently existing self is a characterization of entering into the path of the Aryans, the actual practice which is supported by an understanding of the illusion of independent existence. We will talk later about actually just two paragraphs later about a state of mind that carries this belief, carries this view of an independent self, carries this ignorance. And so it is possible that sentient beings who have this mind which carries a belief in self, interacting with the Dharma, give it up and no longer believe in independent existence of anything, or of the person at least.

[04:36]

However, the result of their past action, their storehouse consciousness, which is transformed at that moment, by this insight, it's not completely transformed. So in the next moment another defiled state can arise post this giving up the belief in self. Dropping of a mind which carries ignorance But still, the results of past karma will continue to support the arising of more defiled states. So one story that comes to mind from the early days, again, once again, the thoroughly transformed storehouse consciousness or swarm consciousness.

[05:44]

How are you feeling, Jeff? You okay? Yeah. You got bit by bees, huh? Oh, it wasn't a swarm, no. I'm trying to find a metaphor. Yeah. Swarms don't usually bite. They're actually quite benign. It's when bees get away from, it's small groups of thugs. But when they're in a swarm, they usually don't attack. They feel more secure. I don't know how true that is, but I've seen people holding a swarm in their hands and carrying it, you know. They have no hide to defend. Yeah, there's no hide to defend anymore. No, queen to defend. She's in the center. So anyway, this guy comes to see the Buddha who's got defiled states of consciousness.

[06:49]

He's quite an evolved meditator. And he's also got this storehouse consciousness which has not been totally transformed. In other words, he's not a Buddha. He's coming to see the one who has a totally transformed storehouse consciousness, the Buddha. And he says to the Buddha something like, Sir, I have a question for you. I'd like to receive some teachings. And the Buddha Well, let me tell you a little bit more about the story. He goes to see the Buddha, and he's looking for the Buddha, and he goes to where the Buddha is teaching, and there's some monks there, and he says, where is the Buddha? And they say, the Buddha has gone to town to get lunch. to beg for lunch. So you'll find him in town begging. So this yogi goes to, this rather advanced yogi goes to town to find the Buddha.

[07:51]

His name is Bahiya. And he sees the Buddha and he goes up to the Buddha and says, Sir or Lord, Master, would you please give me the teaching? And the Buddha says, Now is not a good time, monk. I'm begging for lunch. And the guy says, Sir, life is uncertain. We may not be alive this afternoon. I may not be able to get the teaching from you later. Please give me the teaching. And the Buddhist says, Monk, this is not a good time. And then he says a third time, Sir, life is uncertain. I may not have another chance. Please give me the teaching. And the Buddha says, if you ask the Buddha three times, he gives up his lunch for you.

[08:53]

Or she gives you lunch, and the lunch is Bahiya, train yourself thus. In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, there will be just the heard. And the actual text says, in the reflected there will be just the reflected, but that's an abbreviation for in the smelled there will be just the smelled, in the tasted there will be just the tasted, in the touched there will be just the touched, and then in the imagined there will be just the imagined. So the objects of these five active consciousnesses, okay, he's saying In seeing something, there will be just seeing. In other words, he's teaching just be present and still with what's happening.

[10:05]

This is the practice of enlightenment. Train yourself thus. And then he says, when for you It's like what I taught you. When for you in the seen there's just the seen and in the heard there's just the heard and in the imagined there's just the imagined then there will be no identification with the seen. There won't be like you identifying with the seen or you identifying with the heard. There will be no identification. There will just be the seen. in the sea. There will be no locating yourself in the scene, or in the heard, or in the imagined. He didn't say it, but there will be also no dislocating yourself. You won't be located someplace else from the scene.

[11:07]

And you won't be disidentified from the scene. They'll just be the scene. They'll just be the color. That's it. and you won't be in it or out of it. You'll just be the color. So when it's like that for you, as I instructed you, when you actually become like the instruction, then there will be no here or there or in between, and this will be the end of suffering. And Bahiya understood. He woke up. In other words, he no longer believed that there was a self and another, or a self and the colors, and the self and the herd. He awoke. And then he said, I wish to join your Sangha, I wish to join your community and study with you. Now I'm commenting here that he wanted to join the Buddha's community and practice with the Buddha and cultivate this insight and apply it to the transformation of his unconscious which was still... it had been changed by this insight but it was still a huge reservoir generating potentially virtually innumerable

[12:35]

afflicted states. However, all these states would be met with an understanding which would bring itself with them back into the alaya and gradually transform it. So he wanted to enter into, you could say, not exactly post-graduate training, but post-enlightenment training. Post-enlightenment training or enlightenment training to make a Buddha. And the Buddha said, do you have the requisites? So when the Buddha ordained people into the monk community, they had to bring a robe and a bowl. So the Buddha just wanted to know, do you have the robe and bowl? If you don't, you've got to go get them and come back. And then I'm sure he would have been happy to ordain this enlightened disciple.

[13:40]

Enlightened? Yes. Unconscious, totally transformed? What's the answer? No. Unconscious, quite transformed? Yes. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get the Buddha to give him that teaching. And he wouldn't have been able to listen that intently And so he had already been transforming his unconscious for a long time, but he wanted to continue the transformation to make a Buddha. Not to make himself into a Buddha, to make a Buddha, because himself wasn't a Buddha. But there is a Buddha, which is a completely transformed consciousness, unconsciousness. So he wanted to do that with the Buddha. The Buddha would welcome him, but he had to go get the robe and the bowl. And he went to get the robe and the bowl, Amazingly, he got between a water buffalo and her calf. And he did not use his martial arts to protect himself.

[14:50]

And the female water buffalo killed him. So he never got to join the community. However, he did get this major insight, this major experience of the truth of selflessness, and he got it very quickly. The Buddha nicknamed him, Most Rapid in Insight. And the monks asked, well, what happened to him? And the Buddha said, he's fine. He's in such and such a realm and he will continue his practice. at the appointed time. He will continue his evolution but he is in fine shape but he did have to leave this body due to corporeal damage making it difficult for him to go on begging tours with us.

[15:57]

So he checked out and he will come back though and continue his practice. So this is immediate realization, yes. In that simple practice of being still and open, yes. But then there's a long process of becoming a Buddha after authentic awakening. That's an old story that occurred before the Zen school developed in China. I heard this this morning from one of these Zen people. This is a quote from a text by the Zen teacher, or the Buddhist teacher, Eihei Dogen. And the chapter is called something like

[16:59]

Avoiding all evil. Sho aku makusa. Well, I apologize to you.

[18:27]

I don't seem to be able to find this example of immediate realization. Just somehow I can't find it. Why did I come in the room? The next section I ask your permission to skip because it's about your favorite topic and your favorite topic is out of scale at this time in the afternoon.

[19:41]

So I'm going to skip it. if that's okay, and go up to something that's not your favorite topic, but that isn't so interesting so it won't take so long. So I'm going to skip that section and go to the next section where it says, it is also called mind as when the world-honored one has spoken of mind, thought, and perception. So the World Honored One, the historical Buddha spoke of citta, which is often translated as mind, manas, which is here translated as thought, but can also be translated as mentation or reflection or thinking.

[20:44]

And then he taught vijnana, which is usually translated as consciousness, in particular discriminating consciousness. In particular, these six kinds of consciousness I mentioned are called the six vijnanas. the five sense vijnanas and mind vijnana. Following that? Somewhat? No? You have some questions, John? Well, I'm always slightly confused by mind and consciousness. Well, this is saying consciousness which has these specific objects. Okay? So the word vijjana is used for like eye consciousness that's aware of different colors, mind consciousness which is aware of different specific concepts or objects of mind, and so on. The first one which is called mind, citta, it says it is also called mind.

[21:52]

It is the storehouse consciousness. The Buddha also called it mind. it's called alaya-vijnana, but when he is talking about vijnana, which applies to specific objects, and thought or thinking, which I'll talk more about in a minute, and mind, by mind Asanga is saying, he meant this alaya vijnana. Alaya vijnana is not aware of colors and sounds and smells and concepts. And that's part of how it is. The unconscious is not aware of birds in the trees whispering Louise. It's not aware of that stuff. Those songs and pains and pleasures and colors and smells, those are specific things that the Vijñanas, that the six Vijñanas are aware of.

[23:03]

Alaya is aware too, and I'll tell you in a little while what it's aware of. but it's not aware of the colors and the sounds of active consciousness. It's not aware of the thought good, the thought bad, the thought pain, the thought pleasure. It's not aware of various judgments. Those are the specific objects that active consciousness knows and we know. Like this was a good day, or this was a hot day, or a cold day, This is our active consciousness. Alaya is not aware of that kind of stuff. Alaya is supporting those minds which are thinking of that stuff. They are not existing without the support. And then there's a third one which is called manas, which is called thinking or reflecting or mentation.

[24:08]

And thought, the English word thought means objects of thought and also means thinking. A thought can be an idea, a concept. And it can also mean, thought can be referring to the activity of thinking. So I think actually it's better to say mind, thinking, and consciousness. And I'll just mention here, what is Alaya aware of? Alaya is aware of the body. It's aware of the body that it connects to. Because this doorhouse consciousness, the unconscious, lives in the body. It connects to the body. And part of the reason they came up with this sense that the Buddha was teaching this storehouse consciousness was because of the phenomena where people would enter into deep trances where the active consciousnesses were not operating and they were alive, they didn't die.

[25:29]

And when they came out of these trances they thought that the active consciousness they came out into followed the active consciousness they were in just before they entered the trance. Which is another reason for feeling that there was no active consciousness in between to them. I don't know if you followed that, did you? No? So let's say if I was a great yogi, I think it's Saturday afternoon, and I maybe even look at the clock and say it's 5.20, and I enter this trance, and perhaps several hours or days later I come out, and if you ask me what time it is, I would say it's 5.20 and a few seconds. Because just a moment ago it was 520, so now it's probably 520 and two seconds or something. For me, nothing has happened. The last thing that happened was just a moment before, even though you watched me and I was sitting here and I was alive for hours and hours and hours.

[26:40]

but my active consciousnesses were not arising. Alaya was there potentially supporting them, but because of yogic activity, they were turned off. And they could also be turned off in dreamless sleep. Every night, maybe part of the night we spend where Alaya is there, the unconscious is there, but there's no dreams even. When there's dreams, those are active consciousnesses. And a coma would be the same, right? Coma, brain damage, anesthesia, and very deep yogic trances. Those are the cases where the active consciousnesses are turned off, where the person's not hearing sights, hearing sounds, seeing sights, thinking of concepts. it's basically turned off. But they're alive. However, it's a touch-and-go thing sometimes if you're using chemicals or if it's due to a disease that turned off.

[27:46]

Whereas these yogis usually did not die, but sometimes they did die in those trances, and then they would be reborn in various meditation heavens. Excuse me for mentioning that. That's the topic I skipped over. That's so interesting. Anyway, that's part of the reason I came up with this storehouse consciousness is that it supports life because it actually connects with the body. It lives in the sense organs. It starts its life together with the life of the sense organs. And when the sense organs turn off, it turns off. It shares the benefits and risks of the body. So it's aware of the body. And the other thing it's aware of is the physical world. It has an awareness that there's a world.

[28:49]

And the world it has an awareness of is the world that's common with the other alias. And it also has an awareness, or it's not like it knows, it doesn't know the world like colors and sounds and smells and trees and birds and people, it doesn't know that world. It knows that there is a world, that there is a world, it has that sense that there is a world And then the active consciousness is colored in. We don't just have colors and shapes and smells, they are populating our sense that there's a world, that there's a containment, that there's something in which this stuff's happening. All these specific things are happening not in different worlds, but in one world. Alaya has a sense that there's a world in which all this stuff is happening, in which all these seeds are coming to mature as active consciousness. Alaya has that sense. He doesn't know how the world will be colored in.

[29:53]

The active consciousnesses know that, but they only know one particular thing at a time. Alaya knows that there's a whole thing that contains it, and the cumulative effect of several moments of active consciousness can occur many moments can occur in a very short period of time on a clock. So the world can be painted in and vividly in a very short time in the sense that there's a world. Laya is aware of that. And the other things that Laya is aware of is a predisposition towards the proliferation of conventional designation. In other words, it's aware of the linguistic world. Okay, I'll go into more detail on that later, but I just wanted to finish this paragraph which talks about the third consciousness which is called Manas. And so it says, so we have mind, thinking, and consciousness.

[30:57]

Thinking here is of two kinds. The immediately disappearing consciousness is thought because it is a condition for subsequent thought. the generation of consciousness to be thinking. So that's the first aspect of this type of thinking, is that it serves the function to support the arising of these other states. So these other states are supported by Alaya, but they also need an immediately antecedent active consciousness And the immediately at a scene and active consciousness together with this storehouse consciousness gives rise to active consciousnesses. And then there's a second kind which is called the defiled thinking.

[32:00]

And the defiled thinking is always yoked with four afflictions or four passions. of belief in self, self-pride, self-love, and primal ignorance. The primal ignorance which says, basically, I am. And is the basis for the sense of separation of self and other. So every moment of active consciousness happens with these two aspects of thinking. One, the immediate and antecedent active consciousness as a support for its arising. And the other, a defiled consciousness which carries basic ignorance and comes with these afflictions. And that consciousness drops away when we have insight.

[33:04]

So in the story of Bahiya, that consciousness dropped away with the four afflictions. No more self-pride, primal ignorance dropped. And the other kind of manas or thinking continued, though, because he still would need an immediate antecedent active consciousness for the arising of his present active consciousness. But the antecedent consciousness is not present with the defiled state. There has to be an antecedent condition, immediately antecedent condition, but the antecedent condition is not present But what is present is the effects of the past. They are present and simultaneous with the active consciousness.

[34:04]

The unconscious is simultaneous with the conscious. The antecedent consciousness is gone. But we need that as a condition for the current one. So a liar currently, immediately, now supports this consciousness we have and the last consciousness we had also supports it, but it's not here anymore. And therefore it cannot transmit, the last consciousness cannot transmit to us whatever it did. So if you had a good thought a moment ago that cannot be transmitted from that good thought to this thought, if you had a great thought, an enlightened or enlightening thought, That's gone. It cannot be transmitted from itself to us now. But it has effects. And its effects are present and supporting our thought now. And then there's this other kind of consciousness which most of us still have, which is a belief in a self, which is primal ignorance being carried by that consciousness.

[35:21]

The primal ignorance of self is not a consciousness exactly, but there's a consciousness which carries that and holds that and transmits that to every active consciousness until it's overthrown or refuted. And one of the ways to refute it is by the practice that the Buddha gave, which is basically very similar to the practice that's very familiar in early Buddhism and in Zen of just being completely present and still with your active consciousness. And it's possible then to not locate yourself in what you're aware of or dislocate yourself from what you're aware of, and then there's no... then the self-other split is temporarily at that moment not functioning and then that can end that kind of thinking. But alaya, which is transformed at the very moment that that insight happens, it's transformed somewhat, but not totally.

[36:30]

There has to be many, many moments now of practice after this insight. The long career of the bodhisattva now has started. Before that, bodhisattvas want to practice for the welfare of all beings, but they still, until this moment, they think other beings are, they're defiled by the, they're afflicted by the thought that other beings are separate from them. Now the person doesn't believe that anymore. However, they have the influence of innumerable past moments when they did, which will produce innumerable active consciousnesses which were sponsored by that delusion. But the person here does not believe it anymore. So it's just one long embarrassment from then on. that you continue to think like you used to when you believed that ignorance was true, when ignorance looked right.

[37:31]

And the appearance of ignorance will still arise in some cases, and you'll hear about it on TV, but you won't believe it. However, the foul states will keep arising and keep testing until Buddhahood. It's now 5.30. Should I call on people or not? Yes? I don't think so. I think I'd rather go home with one long embarrassment for a while. Okay. So let's continue our embarrassed path together. And hopefully you will be encouraged to continue to practice even though you're embarrassed. And I vow to be embarrassed with you. I vow to continue to practice with you even though I'm an embarrassment to you. And... Embarrassed.

[38:39]

It's a mirror. It's a mirror, right. May our intention equally extend to every being and place.

[38:54]

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