Last time we read, I think, maybe the first four sections. I'd like to read the fourth section again, where it says that the scriptures, such as the following verse from the scripture, explicating the underlying meaning, Sambhinamacchana Sutra, treat the subject, Here's the verse. The appropriating consciousness is deep and subtle, constantly flowing along with all the seeds of things. I have not taught this to common worldlings because they would reify it and cling to it as a self. So... This first chapter is talking about the consciousness which is the support for all knowledge.

[01:03]

And the usual name for it is the storehouse consciousness, the alaya-vijnana, the abode, the abode consciousness. But another name for it is the appropriating consciousness, adana-vijnana. And in this fourth section, it's referred to as Adana Vijnana. It's called that, particularly it's called, the Alaya Vijnana is called appropriating consciousness at the moment of birth. Yes. appropriating, grasping or taking hold of.

[02:06]

It's the consciousness which takes hold of something at the moment of birth. So this alaya-vijnana, which is also called the dana-vijnana, at the moment of birth takes hold of something. What does it take hold of? Two things. It takes hold of the sense organs of a body. It apprehends the sense organs of a body. And it apprehends the predisposition towards conventional designation. It apprehends a predisposition or a propensity towards language. At birth.

[03:14]

Yes. Do you mean conventional, but do you mean at each moment? I mean the first moment that the body has a consciousness, which is sometimes called conception. So according to this definition, the moment of conception wouldn't necessarily be at the time of a fertilized egg, unless we could somehow verify that there were sense organs there. Especially if we could verify that there were sixth sense organs in a human. But at some point in the embryological process, there seems to be organs. And at that time, these organs are warm and functioning when this consciousness has apprehended them or has

[04:27]

made them its own. And they've made it their own apprehending consciousness. This intimate relationship between the consciousness and the organs, the first moment of it is conception or birth or... And the consciousness there is called... apprehending consciousness. However, it continues to apprehend the whole lifetime. But that apprehending of these two things, the tense organs and the predisposition towards language, it's sort of on automatic pilot for the rest of the life. And then we emphasize more that the ally is now the seeds for all the active consciousnesses. All the active specific consciousnesses in these consciousnesses are active and specific to the organs which Alaya has embraced.

[05:35]

So now comes this next paragraph, which is kind of a big, big paragraph. Pardon? What did I say last? It comes a big, big paragraph now. During most of our life, the alaya has already hooked into, this consciousness has already hooked into and is animating, is giving warmth, to our sense organs and they support it, but not in a specific way, but more in an intimate an intimate kind of unconscious way. Alaya is a type of consciousness which unconsciously embraces the organs and the organs unconsciously embrace it.

[06:47]

It's not the organs functioning to create consciousnesses which are aware of specific sense data like colors and sounds. Those are the active consciousnesses which Alaya supports. And the way it supports them and the way it influences them is because it carries the seeds for all their particular special quality at a given moment. And that's usually what we're talking about when we talk about a live jnana. But this particular time we're talking about at the beginning, And we'll talk about at the death, too, at the beginning and death of the living being. So here's the paragraph. Yes? This isn't monist. This is not monist, no.

[07:49]

It's not monist. Isn't it a sort of created consciousness that has to claim part of the life? Manas is a type of mind that there's two types of manas. And they're coming up in the next section. So could you please wait till we get to section six? Because that's another big paragraph. So in Section 5, or Paragraph 5, it says, Why does the verse speak of this consciousness as appropriating consciousness? Because it appropriates and upholds the physical sense organs of sentient beings, and because it is the support for the taking up of all experiences of rebirth.

[08:55]

Why is this so? Because all the physical sense organs, having been appropriated by this consciousness, do not pass away until the end of life. When it continues into new rebirths, it is able to engender and make its own, their formation. For this is how physical bodies in the six destinies are appropriated. It is thus that bodies in the six destinies are made one's own. Because this taking up is due to the appropriating of this consciousness, it is called the appropriating consciousness. It means grasping or taking a hold of. Yes?

[10:01]

What are the six destinies? Six destinies? The six destinies, the human destiny, divine destiny, a destiny called fighting spirits, the destiny of hungry ghosts, hungry ghosts, animal destinies, and I would call it infernal destinies. These are the different destinies that living beings can live in. We human beings can visit all these different realms, but some beings are actually born into them. And we are born into the human realm, which is kind of in the middle of these six. The discussion of six destinies is another big topic.

[11:07]

But let's just talk about the human destiny tonight, shall we? It was, I think Suki asked about, is a salaya, is there a common aspect to it? Did you ask something like that last time? I talked about collective unconscious. So I don't know what Jung means by collective unconscious, but at the end of this chapter, I believe it's in the verse 60, or section 60, They talk about three kinds of storehouse consciousness, and they talk about four kinds of storehouse consciousness, or three aspects of storehouse consciousness and four aspects of storehouse consciousness. And when speaking of the four, the fourth aspect of the storehouse consciousness is called the characteristics of the storehouse consciousness, and the characteristics

[12:14]

are called common characteristics and specific or individual characteristics. So this consciousness, which is the support of all active, defiled states of mind, this consciousness has a common part, a part which, for example, people in a particular destiny, like in the human destiny, we share in common a world. And the way we live in the same world, or the world we live in together, is the common characteristic of this consciousness. And the specific or the individual characteristic of this consciousness is how individual beings are connected to individual sense organs.

[13:27]

So this consciousness is not, yeah, this consciousness is, it embraces and is aware of a world, and the common world it's aware of is its common characteristic. And it also connects to individual physical sense organs, and that's its specific characteristic. And that connection gives rise to individual active sense consciousnesses, which mean that in a given moment, like right now, there's quite a few individual active consciousnesses which are specifically aware of sights and sounds and smells and so on, in the world we share. Each of us is having a different active sense consciousness arising right now, which depends on individual special sense organs, which we do not share.

[14:37]

But the world we share is actually the common characteristic It's the part of alaya, the aspect of consciousness which we share. The consciousness which supports individual active consciousnesses is due specifically to the past karma of alaya relating of the past karma of an ally that's connected to a particular set of sense organs. And the group karma is not the group, all the past karma of the group. That's the world that we share. So the world is produced by the activity of all living beings, of all destinies, and then there's like sub-worlds within the world created by all beings, beings that have similar karma share.

[15:52]

How is it that at birth, I don't know, let's go to death, shall we? At death, it has been observed by many living beings that at death, there seems to be a pretty clear sense that consciousness or warmth is withdrawing from the sense organs. In this teaching, we're saying that the withdrawing up from the sense organs is a similar thing to withdrawing of warmth from the sense organs or withdrawing of life. So a lot of people, as they're dying, you can see that their sense of touch is withdrawing. The warmth of the body seems to be withdrawing from the extremities into the center.

[17:07]

The physical sensation of touch seems to be withdrawing into the center. The vision seems to be dimming and withdrawing into the center. The hearing seems to be dimming and withdrawing into the center. As we age, this alia in some sense gradually and sometimes suddenly withdraws from the sense organs into finally like a point. And then at a certain point in time, it actually seems to dissociate entirely from the organs. When people are in shock, even young people, when they go into shock, I think what happens, interpreting what happens through this teaching, is that suddenly the alaya, the storehouse consciousness, releases its apprehending of the sense organs and withdraws suddenly into the center so that a young person, a young healthy person who goes into shock can die of shock.

[18:14]

And my interpretation at this point would be The dying of shock means that their consciousness withdraws from the sense organs into a center and then leaves the body. So that shock can happen to people at various ages. But oftentimes it happens very slowly, sometimes over decades, withdrawing from the senses. The senses get turned off. like my dog, her senses are getting turned off. Her hearing and seeing are getting turned off. Her sense of touch is getting turned off. It's withdrawing. It's still there and it pulses in and out. Sometimes it goes back out and fills, it goes back out into the organs for a little while and then it withdraws. The smell and the taste seem to be still out there and quite much, pretty much into the

[19:17]

organs, but the other things are withdrawing. But it's not, you know, there can be a withdrawal and then a re-inhabiting, withdrawal and re-inhabiting. So this, at death, there is this thing. Then, now what do we have after death? Now we have a body which is uninhabited by consciousness. that's not warmed by consciousness. And if it continues like this for a while, the body seems to be pretty much irreversibly dead. As you may know, there's many examples of people who seem to be dead, but they're not really dead because there's still some consciousness in the body. The consciousness has not exited. So again, even though the heart stops and the brain even is off, the consciousness can re-inhabit and re-activate the body. You know, back and forth several times. Certain yogis show off with doing that kind of tricks. But at a certain point, according to this school, long after sometimes Western medicine has said the person's dead, the person dies.

[20:30]

The person's dead. And now we have a dead body which has nothing to do with any consciousness. So what do we have in terms of alaya? Well, we still have the world, the sense of a world. There's still a world. It's pretty much the same world that was there before this person died. And that world is not something outside of us, it's actually our consciousness. And that consciousness goes on after somebody dies. But when they were alive, it was their consciousness too. It was their alaya-vijnana. So they don't lose their alaya-vijnana, they lose their active consciousnesses. Because active consciousnesses are related to sense organs and their support is a liar which has apprehended the sense organs. So the consciousness which is our experienced world doesn't stop when somebody dies. And before I answer these questions, I just want to say, the question is, what happens to the individual part of the alive jnana after it withdraws from individual sense involvement?

[21:54]

I'm proposing that the world, the experienced world, goes on when somebody dies. But I don't say that the individual special aspect of alaya goes on after they die. I don't say that yet. This is the big thing to meditate on tonight together. Yes. Can you say something about the word apprehension? Apprehension? Well, apprehension, I think the word apprehension has two meanings. One is to apprehend something, and the other is you have what you sort of like, it's almost like you have a precognition of something, right? Or you have a fear of something. I have a vague apprehension means I have a vague sense that something's going to happen, right? That's one meaning of apprehension. The other would be that the noun of apprehended, you apprehended something.

[23:02]

Grasping is maybe a simple word, the grasping consciousness. Yes? I'm going to save my question for later. Save your question, okay. So, now what could happen is that this specific involvement of the unconscious mind, which supports all conscious activity, it could be that that withdraws from one body and immediately apprehends another. That would make life simpler in a way. But part of what I'm suggesting is if it's going to apprehend another body, that means apprehend another set of sense organs. But there might not be a suitable set of sense organs for this particular lineage of specific unconscious storehouse consciousness to connect to.

[24:16]

Now, this consciousness can't be too picky. Otherwise, I mean, there seems to be a time limit. It can't wait around indefinitely for the proper destiny. I've just heard that it doesn't, that it doesn't float indefinitely. And I don't know why. I've heard that the maximum is 49 days. Maybe that's a metaphor. But the thing is that they're saying that there isn't an indefinite period after it withdraws from one set of sense organs before it reconnects to another set of sense organs. If it were immediate, again, that would be simpler. Because in a way, that happens every moment. Because the sense organs are changing all the time, so it connects to a set of sense organs. They change and it connects to another sense of sense organs.

[25:19]

The sense organs are changing, alaya is changing, but every moment alaya grasps the body, apprehends the body, appropriates the body, appropriating, appropriate, appropriating, appropriating. It does that all the time. Now, it disappropriated, and that specific quality of it is not functioning now. And it doesn't support active specific consciousnesses either. But if it's going to be a birth, it's going to have to appropriate another set of sense organs. How does that work? That this appropriating consciousness, after it withdraws from a certain set of organs, how does it connect to another set of organs? Yes. Did you hear his question?

[26:27]

No? He said something like, is this appropriating consciousness, when it withdraws from the organs that it's appropriated, is it somehow imprinted by the organs or by something? Assuming that it's going to be reinvested somehow. It's a reinvestment condition. Well, if it's going to be reinvested, is the investing process conditioned by something before? He didn't say what it is. I'll tell you what the conditioning is. The conditioning is that this consciousness is basically just the results of the way active consciousnesses, which are related to specific sense organs, the kind of karma they did is basically what makes this consciousness.

[27:43]

So the way this consciousness connected to a body and the kinds of the karmic consciousnesses that it supported those made it what it is. And those conditioned how it will apprehend another body. So if, for example, a human being who has active human consciousness, that conditions this consciousness, which is now withdrawing from the body, and continues in the communal or common way, but the specific part is waiting or is not yet able to connect with any specific situation. But when it connects, when it reinvests in a body, that reinvestment will be conditioned by the karma that made it.

[28:50]

And if it's a human being that dies now, the type of karma of that human being has been conditioning this alaya all along. So it is possible that if the way the human being was karmically active, that the results of that karma will make an alaya which will reinvest in a human body. And some people, most Asian Buddhists consider having a human body a really great opportunity because the human body doesn't just come with six sense organs like a dog. It also comes with this predisposition towards conventional designations. so that we can receive teachings from the Buddhas through language.

[29:52]

So that's one of the great advantages of being a human being, is that you can get Dharma teachings. And other animals could get Dharma teachings, but it's not so clear that they do have a Buddha who is, or how the Buddhas are teaching them. So the human situation, anyway, seems to be a really good one. So there is some sense of, wouldn't it be good if we got to be human again after we die, so we could continue the practice? And continuing the practice means working with active consciousness in a way that develops wisdom and compassion. being compassionate towards these defiled states, being compassionate towards these deluded states, which are supported by alaya, receive teachings of how to work with these deluded states, receive teachings about these deluded states, and receiving these teachings and practicing with these teachings in these active states transforms the alaya in the direction of Buddha's wisdom.

[31:07]

It doesn't mean that the whole process goes flat if we don't get a human body. It's just a human body is, you know, it's really a great opportunity because there's all these great teachings in language for us, and all these great teachings about how to do physical practices, which help us work with our active consciousness in a beneficial way. Yes? I'm troubled by what sounds like dualistic terminology for this appropriated consciousness that there's it and these sense organs and that there's the body and what sounds like a soul or something that's being described here that then leaves the body and inhabits another body. And I'm wondering what evidence supports this idea that it goes somewhere for 49 days or less and then goes somewhere else, what evidence is there that it doesn't just cease?

[32:14]

I think this doesn't say that it will always be reborn. I'm not saying it always will be reborn. There's evidence that it ever is reborn. Yeah. But if it's ever reborn, how does that go on? That's what we're looking at. And we don't want to make this into a soul, so how can we do this without making it into a soul? I mean, you're on the verge of making it into a soul, and I'm not going to try to stop you, but I don't want to make it into a soul, even though you see it heading in that direction. So if you don't make it into a soul and I don't make it into a soul, who's going to make it into a soul? What makes you think it goes somewhere after a body dies? I don't know what makes me think that. As a matter of fact, I don't think that. I'm not asking you what makes you think that I thought that. The Buddha has said a number of times that

[33:16]

how you're made to think that I thought that it was going to go somewhere, how that karma works, how that karmic thought came up in you, this is like inconceivable to non-Buddhas, how that works. We can have wonderful spiritual attainments long before we understand that kind of stuff. So I'm not trying to say how we come to think the way we do. I'm more talking about the teaching about how to care for the way we think we do and the teaching for how the way we think is supported and how the way we think has consequence which support further ways of thinking. This process, in a general way, if understood, encourages us to take care of the way we're thinking in a way that causes a transformation of this consciousness and the complete transformation of consciousness is Buddhahood, whereupon one will understand how people wind up thinking the way they do.

[34:24]

I feel like you just changed the subject. I didn't really change the subject. I just took the subject back to the point of the whole study. You're talking about a specific question, and I just went to point out the reason for this study. It's not really changing the subject. It's making clear what the subject's about. It's to make Buddhas. This whole teaching is to make Buddhas. So the thing is, which I said earlier, is what happens to this specific aspect of the alaya. And how does that specific aspect reconnect or reinvest? That's the question. I'm not saying it goes anyplace. How about does it reconnect or reinvest? Rather, before we get into how, where does the idea come from that it does reconnect and reinvest at all? Well, if it doesn't reconnect, then the virtues of our practice

[35:28]

How do they get transmitted to work in another body? I've understood that it's not apart from the sense organs and that it already is connected. It's not separate, so it doesn't need to reconnect. That it's... When you say it's connected to the sense organs, what do you mean by it? I don't usually call it an it. I just think of this process of sensing. I know, but you just said it's connected to the sense organs. I was trying to use the terms that you're using. But you just said you were told this, that it's connected. No, I don't think I meant that I was told that. Okay. I think of it as the act of sensing. You think of it as what? The act of sensing. Okay, so you got the act of sensing. So sensing is here. Yeah. I don't think of the sense organ and then... I mean, you're just... This is new to me. I'm hearing about this appropriating consciousness, this extra thing now, and I'm... I'm curious what evidence we have that there is this extra thing aside from sensing itself.

[36:33]

So now we're talking, it's okay, but now we're talking about sensing. And so in this presentation it's saying that sensing is something that is not just an organ responding to a stimulation, it's a consciousness. So this is talking, there may be some other kind of sensing that you know about or that you're concerned about, but this is specifically concerned about sense consciousnesses, because sense consciousnesses suffer and conjure karma. and, you know, etc. If there is some kind of sensing that's not consciousness, I'm happy to hear about that. But this teaching is about sense consciousnesses, because sense consciousnesses are generally defiled and diluted. Sense consciousnesses usually

[37:36]

the consciousness sees something or is aware of something and it thinks that the thing is out there separate from itself. So there may be some sensing there that's nothing to do with consciousness, like, I don't know what, There may be, but as I start to reason about it, I don't think there is, because if you just touch the skin and the skin is dented or something, unless there's consciousness there, I don't think it's sensing. I think of consciousness as, like you were describing, the container consciousness. It's not something more than what it contains. I agree. And I don't know if I said that before, but the container consciousness is just all the seeds for all the active consciousnesses. So the sense consciousness to me is just all the senses that are there. It's just the senses.

[38:40]

All the sensing and all the... If there's sensing going on, I don't picture a consciousness and then the sensing. I picture that consciousness is sensing. The sense consciousness is not anything in addition to what? To the... But the sensing and awareness of an object? Is sensing an awareness of a color? Is that a sensing? Well, there's... We got, like, the six senses, right? Yeah. And one of those is... Ideas, right? Yeah. And so the... So I don't think it's anything apart from all six of those. I think it's more than just the five. No, there's six. And the sixth one is aware of mental objects. There's a mind consciousness, a mind sense. And you're saying, you can say you want to take mind or you want to take eye consciousness.

[39:42]

Which one do you want to talk about? I think if you separate them, then you don't have the whole thing. But I think ... If you separate them? The eye consciousness, in addition to the mind consciousness, allows you to come up with an object. Yeah? Okay, so what are you saying? That's it. That there's not something in addition to that. Well, part of what this teaching is saying is that there is something in addition to that, and the thing in addition to it is an unconscious. which supports this consciousness. So there's the active sense consciousness, which you're talking about. And we're also saying in this teaching, there is an unconscious at the same time, simultaneous with it. And it's called the alaya-vijnana. And the unconscious is the results of all the past consciousnesses you were just talking about. So right now we have a, you could say, you have a mind consciousness and an eye consciousness together, two of them, you have two consciousnesses, and they both have karma.

[40:47]

They both have an activity. They both have intentions. They both have delusions. Okay? That current active consciousness activity of those two consciousnesses, the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, that is simultaneously now transforming the results of the past karma which supported its arising. If you just had the active consciousnesses, there's no transmission of karma because they arise and cease. But because of this teaching, Before they cease, they transform the results of all past karma. And so they arise supported by the results of past action, and the current action transforms the past action, and they both cease together, and now a new past action comes up, which has been changed by the previous past action, and supports a new present action, which could be mind consciousness, eye consciousness, ear consciousness, all those could be happening, or just mind consciousness and ear consciousness, or whatever.

[41:57]

Okay? Thank you. Yeah. We still have this issue of, you know, a death to deal with. Yes? I think if you answer my question about the response, which I understand, and so in this transformation process, then it's not that the individual consciousness, according to this teaching, I couldn't follow all that. Maybe you could do it again more slowly. Okay, so just stop there. So she thought I was saying that there's a complete separation at death between the individual consciousness and the collective consciousness?

[43:02]

Okay. Okay, so it's not... It's not really an individual consciousness and a collective consciousness. It's the storehouse consciousness, which has two aspects. The two aspects are not separate from each other. However, the specific aspect, the uncommon aspect, which is not separate from the common, When it doesn't have an actual set of organs it's connected with, the question is, what is it doing? What kind of a life does it have when it's not connected to a body? And did you just say that it transforms the alive as yana?

[44:04]

No, I didn't. No. When I said it transforms the alive as yana, I was referring to the sense consciousnesses. Yes. Do they transform at death? No. At death, the sense consciousness are going along up until death, okay? They're getting kind of downtrodden because the support of them is withdrawing from the organs. So as people approach death, sometimes they don't really have any more eye consciousness or ear consciousness going on. But they still have some sense consciousnesses Going on, as long as they've got Aliyah, they can have some sense consciousness because Aliyah supports the active sense cognitions right up till death, except that maybe not as much as it usually, as it did most of the life before. If a person lost their sight, they could still have Aliyah. Well, like Helen Keller, right?

[45:04]

No sight, no hearing. She had a liar, though. These yogis who go into these states, they don't have sight, hearing, sound, smell, touch, or taste. They don't even have mental cognition. All their active consciences are turned off, more or less. But they still are warm. Their sense organs don't die. And they're conscious. And when they come out, Alaya supports the reactivation of active consciousness. So at death, it's not that the sense organs stop exactly, but their support stops. Alaya, which lives in the body, withdraws from the body so that all the active consciousnesses don't have a support anymore. Right, and that's what I was talking about. Mm-hmm. You're saying it goes into the storehouse consciousness, but it is the storehouse consciousness.

[46:16]

So the alaya, the individual, the special non-common aspect of alaya doesn't go anyplace. It's still the alaya. I'm saying, but where does the special quality, what happens to the special quality when it doesn't have a body to connect to? Hmm? Yeah. You're trying to understand it. Good. Did you understand anything yet? Did anybody understand anything yet? I haven't told you. Yeah, right. Yes. I might not tell you. You might have to find it yourself. Because I don't want to make us into a soul or a self. Okay? I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. And yet... Pardon?

[47:23]

You may be sending that ship out. You may have christened that ship, but I would like to call it back to port and dismantle it. I would like to talk about this because we're supposed to find a way to talk about this without making a lie into a self that floats off in its little capsule and waits for the opportunity to get another body. How can we understand this in a way that supports our understanding that there is transmission of cause and effect? through birth and death, without setting up a self. This is a big challenge to the teaching. And this teaching is getting more into the details of the transmission than some earlier teachings were doing, which said there were just active consciousnesses. But if you have just active consciousnesses, you cannot explain how they transmit to each other because they don't coexist. One dies and then the other one comes up.

[48:34]

And also you can't explain how a positive one stops and a negative one comes up. But Alaya explains this very nicely. But this next part, though, I think this is really good for us to understand now that part about we've got now the death. We're saying that the Alaya, the special quality of Alaya, the individual apprehension, doesn't seem to have any individual that it's apprehending. The apprehending of the sense organs doesn't seem to have any sense organs. So how do we go from withdrawing association with one body into establishing or investing association with another body? How do we go between those two to carry this alaya, which just means how does the results of all past karma gets transmitted to another body? Who says that it does? Who says it does? Yeah. Well, the Buddha says it in the Samadhi Nirmacana Sutra.

[49:39]

And is there any evidence for that? Is there any evidence that karma gets transmitted from this moment to the next moment? Is there any evidence? What's the evidence that karma gets transmitted from this moment to the next moment? It's the best explanation I've seen. What's the evidence? There's no evidence. Okay. Yes? I'm confused enough to ask a question that brings in something else in hopes that I don't want to leave something else out. What about the common consciousness or the common unconscious that's part of the alaya or historic house? Can you say something about that? Because we seem to be focused on the individual. Yeah, fine. So I'm kind of curious, before I work too much on the individual aspects, that part gets transmitted.

[50:48]

I want to know a little bit about what the common aspect is. Is it empty? Is it empty in existence? all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, including all phenomena. And the evidence for that is, if you would examine any phenomena thoroughly, you would verify that it You would not just be able to say, I haven't been able to find a self. You would be able to prove that it cannot be found. Just one more. You know, it seems like we're talking about two aspects of the storehouse, and I don't want to draw, like, a big distinction between them, unless... Well, you don't have to draw a big distinction.

[51:53]

Draw a little one. So we have a little distinction. We have two aspects of a lie. The common, and you want to talk about the common more. Fine, let's talk about the common more. Okay, so somebody dies. For that person, the world has just... What happened to the world for them? Well, this person no longer has any active consciousness, right? So what kind of a person is that? That's a dead person. Yeah. A dead person doesn't have active consciousness. But they do have a laya. The dead person has a laya. They don't know they have a life because they don't have any, they're not conscious. And now their body's being burned up. So what's left of their consciousness is just the world. The experienced world is their consciousness. Which is, and we have that consciousness too right now.

[52:58]

We have the world. Is that the world of like, I got a little confused there, is that I want to say it has something to do with that propensity for conventional designations. Yeah, it does. For us, the world has to do... The price of admission to the human world is to have the propensity for conventional designation and to use it. You can't just have the propensity. You have to also exercise it and do verbal karma. If you do, you get to be in the human world. And we have flies and dogs in our world But they don't get to be in our world because they don't have language. They're living in the same world, yes, but they're living in another world because they have different karma from us. And the sub-world they live in, in our world, the circle they live within our circle, is the circle of dog karma.

[53:59]

or fly karma or whatever. So we have this, when we no longer have active consciousness, which is, you could say, the person has died, alaya is not associated with the sense organs of that person who has just died. Where does the practice of that particular person go How does the practice of a particular person invest in a new body and a new opportunity to practice with a new body, which means new active karmic consciousness? How does that happen? This text is saying that as long as the body's there, this consciousness is alive and well, as long as the body's alive, this consciousness is there. When this consciousness withdraws or stops, the body also stops functioning. And then how does it start a new rebirth? It's going to appropriate a new set of sense organs.

[55:04]

And as King brought up, the way it appropriates them has something to do with the karma that is stored in it. It is the storage of all the past karma. So that past karma will, in a sense, determine the type of appropriation that occurs. Yes. This is a weird thought. You having a weird thought? Yeah? When the Dalai Lama dies or is near dying, And they look for a young child to be the next Dalai Lama. This may not happen next time. A lot of it has to do, I guess, with the Chinese. But is some of this process happening that you're talking about? Well, I saw a program.

[56:12]

Yes. Yes. That's right. That's what that's about. But how does that work? How do we want to envision this? How do you want to imagine this transmission? Yes? I was thinking that I read that Buddha could think of, could recall diamonds Yeah? And so this implies the continuity of individuality, so to speak. But it seems to me that from what you're saying, and if you're not hearing well, or of course not understanding well, but this is extremely rare for this to happen, for this to happen.

[57:14]

Yeah, it's rare for people to be able to have knowledge of past lives. But it's not necessary to have knowledge of past lives in order to understand this teaching. I didn't say you did, I'm just mentioning that. So you don't have to have knowledge of your past lives in order to understand this teaching. Yeah. that it seems that the coincidences or the lawfulnesses of the evolution of Buddha's lives are very rare that maybe most of us within that 47 days will just maybe just absorb in the general I can't think of a place specifically where the Buddha said not everybody will be reborn.

[58:27]

No, I don't know of a place where Buddha said not everybody will be reborn. But I also never heard of a place where he said everybody will be reborn. But the bodhisattva path has to do with actually getting reborn so you can continue to practice, to continue to help people. Jeff? I think it's interesting. It seems like the shared image of Star Trek fallback, that our consciousness creates this thing that we share. And And yet we have private consciousness that we can't share. So I think that firewall between those two things is interesting. I don't know how that works. Well, this teaching says there's not a firewall. There's not a firewall between the active consciousnesses which are associated with a particular set of sense organs and

[59:32]

other active consciousnesses. So active consciousnesses, subjects, can communicate with each other and can affect each other. You may not, but even if you don't know what another person's thinking, you could say something to another person which could be helpful to them. even though they're living in an active consciousness which creates their own sense of the world, which is different from yours, you can communicate with them and the world you live in is the results of your past karma and their past karma. I guess it's just like, for instance, the right kind of mountain, you put a flag on top of the hill and someone else can see that flag. Yeah. Somehow our consciousnesses are... Yes. Other parts of our consciousness that's not true, in the sense that I'm seeing something that someone else is seeing. Right, right.

[60:37]

And that you're talking, I hear you talking about active consciousness, okay? He's talking about active consciousness, that he sees a flag on a hill and he thinks somebody else put it there. That's your active consciousness, okay? The fact that you see it is your active consciousness. And you can share that with somebody else. Right. That's an example of shared active consciousness. Alaya is shared unconscious. It's not shared active consciousness. Alaya is not like looking and saying, oh, there's a flag. Look, Jeff, there's a flag. That's not a lie. A lie is a result... Our active consciousness, okay, like active consciousness is like, hey, there's a flag.

[61:38]

Come here, look at the flag. Oh, wow, there's a flag. Thanks for telling me. That's active consciousness, where you see things and then I see them and we see them differently, but we're both seeing things and we're talking about it and we're sharing and we're friends or we're enemies. That's active consciousness. And this teaching is saying all, and those active consciousnesses are somewhat diluted For example, most active consciousnesses think that the flag is separate from them or that their friends are out there separate from them. Okay? Did I lose you? Excuse me. Before you go to your related question, did you understand what I'm saying so far? That your examples are from... What we see in the world, is that the result of our... Is that the result of our unconscious?

[62:39]

It's not exactly the result of our... It's sort of the result of our consciousness, unconscious. But our unconsciousness is definitely the result of the way we see the world. The way you see the world is your active karmic consciousness. Your unconsciousness does not see the world. Your active consciousness is the world that you experience. The seeing of the world is supported by the mind, the unconscious mind, which is the world, supports active consciousness, which sees a world. Active consciousness sees a world, sees colors and shapes and people and flags. That's active consciousness. And that's, for most people that aren't enlightened, that's a deluded consciousness, and that's where we suffer. We don't really suffer in alaya, and we don't do any karma there. Alaya is, we have an unconscious mind here that we're talking about, and this unconscious mind supports our conscious mind.

[63:42]

And our conscious mind is where we're active and do karma. And the effects of our karma are simultaneous with the karma, because our karma simultaneously transforms our past karma, right at the same moment. And then they both cease together. Next moment our past karma arises and supports the next active consciousness. And active consciousness can communicate, but also the active consciousnesses that communicate with each other, they're also influencing each other's unconscious because our unconscious is the result of all of our past karma. Our unconscious mind is the result of all of our past karma. That aspect of our unconscious is the world. And then another part of our unconscious is not the result of everybody's past karma. It's the result of a particular, special, uncommon lineage of active karma.

[64:47]

So there's a specific part and there's a general part. The general part is the world and it's unconscious. And that unconscious, which is the world, supports a conscious life which sees a world. The laya doesn't see a world exactly. It's sort of aware that there is a world, but it doesn't see a world. The conscious life colors in the world with sounds and smells and tastes and touch and identities and people. Enrika? What happens when we talk to, let's say, we've been working on ourselves to influence our karma and change our karma? Yeah. And let's say the work's being done and do we ever, I guess we were done with that work? Yeah. We're done at Buddhahood. No karma.

[65:52]

No alaya anymore. No unconscious. It's been completely transformed into this thing called the true body of Buddha. We're done. Now we're done with that, but now we start this career of being unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. And then that goes out to all the people who aren't done and influences them to study their conscious and unconscious life. Yeah, Buddhas are not reborn. So not everybody's reborn, and some people who aren't Buddhas might not be reborn either. But some people who are not sages might not be reborn either. The thing is, some people are reborn and don't particularly want to be, and especially after they get reborn, they're sorry that they did. So a lot of people do get reborn, that's what the Buddha taught, and some people want to get reborn for the welfare of others.

[66:59]

They want their study to go beyond this life, like they're 70 years old or 80 years old and they're about to die, and they actually wish to be reborn, and they hope that they're reborn with a good community of practitioners so they can continue to receive the teaching and help people. Some people want to get reborn, Some people don't want to get reborn, but a lot of the people who don't want to get reborn, according to this teaching, do get reborn. And part of the reason they get reborn is because they don't want to get reborn. Karma. Yes? Well, it's related to my follow-up question. In the miraculous case that every consciousness is a Buddha, In the case of everybody's Buddha? Well, there wouldn't be an Elia.

[68:12]

There wouldn't be any conscious or unconscious. And the Buddhas would be out of work. And as soon as Buddhas are out of work, there's no Buddhas. So they would just, all there would be is reality and there'd be no living beings. There would be no suffering. But if there's one person left, one suffering person left, all those Buddhas would have, you know, bear down on that person. And just inundate that person with love and make them into a Buddha. But it still might take them a long time. Those Buddhas might have a long job. But if you're saying that they finished, that the Buddhas have made all living beings into Buddhas, then I would say there's no Buddhas because they have no work. An unemployed Buddha is not a Buddha. And is that a miracle or is that like the universe just got less interesting? I don't know. As it is now, new babies are being born every day and they really need a lot of help.

[69:20]

So it's going to be a while unless people stop having new babies before we're going to stop having beings that need teaching and work for Buddhas and bodhisattvas to do. There still is on the table, which we didn't really ... I don't think we understood how When the individual aspect disassociates from a body, how does it reconnect to another body? This has not been clarified completely tonight. Right? So we can, like, forget it and just let it go and move on to the next section, which Daniel's really interested in. I don't want to know. So we can just set it aside and say we didn't make it. We're not able to answer the question of how does this, the individual part of laya, how does it leave a body and reconnect with another one?

[70:25]

We can just set that aside for a while if you want to. It'll come up again and again. We can just move on to the next section next time and let this go if that's okay with you. Because it, I didn't want to skip that paragraph, but I know it's like, it's a big deal. This rebirth thing is a big deal. It's got a lot of questions and a lot of trouble and a lot of problem about making a self out of the process. So if it's okay with you, I'll just, next week I won't bring this up again. And we'll just move on to the next section about these two types of consciousness called manas. Yes? I've been reminded about this. About three years ago, I went to the class of a doctor who worked in hospitals.

[71:36]

And he began to do hypnosis with people in the hospital to see the strength that someone got. or let's say someone's dying, dies, and there's another body very frail, left to die, and that body that was barely alive would be apprehended in some way by the black widow's guilt. And his work for many of his lifetime was to do hypnosis, to ask that. consciousness to leave the body of the person who was buried alive. There's something about the grasping consciousness, where if it leaves the body, would it grasp onto another body that was nearby and barely alive? And you say barely alive? Barely alive. This happens in this hospital where

[72:37]

These hospitals where someone dies and that grasping consciousness, the apprehending consciousness, would rest onto the organs in a body that was almost dying. I think my understanding of the lie of Jnana is that it's very polite. And it would not inhabit a body of somebody who hadn't left yet. It would wait until the specific, the uncommon aspect of alaya had vacated the sense organs before it went in and took over. It wouldn't go in and push out some other living being from a body, or even from a little baby body, it wouldn't do that. If there's presence of consciousness... It wouldn't have a need to take on other sense organs. The untransformed aspect of our unconscious is going to seek, generally speaking, is going to seek another thing to grasp.

[73:55]

Once it, for whatever reasons, dissociates from a particular set of sense organs, it wants to do it again. Now, I'm not saying it always does, but most un... untransformed consciousnesses will again seek to inhabit another set of sense organs. I think you might even say that's the source of the birth of the You could say that we're talking about the birth of a being, but we're also talking about what's called cyclic existence. That this alaya, the way alaya works, is what keeps cyclic existence going. This is actually a consciousness which is itself cyclic existence. And so we're talking about a consciousness which is actually what we call samsara. This teaching actually is saying actually basically this consciousness is samsaric existence.

[74:56]

And it has a general aspect and has specific aspects within the general. And the specifics are how within the world of samsara, there is the re-inhabiting or reinvestment in bodies over and over, and that this is compulsive in most cases. And in some cases, it's intentional. This is the more advanced practitioners. They intentionally join the process in samsara in order to benefit other beings in samsara, which means they intentionally keep exercising this unconscious mind. I I pray that our intention pervades every being in place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[76:01]

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