So I just want to say again that in terms of text, you know, a written text that's written in the world, usually we say that the emergence of the Mahayama in India, once your life has started to see it and talk about it, happened quite a while after the Buddha pine of bones. texts that were the Prajnaparamita texts following many other Mahayana texts. For hundreds of years the Mahayana texts came. But the first ones that really say Mahayana texts are the Prajnaparamita. And the Lotus entry came not too long after the Prajnaparamita appeared. But without the Prajnaparamita you might not know what the Lotus Sikha was talking about, because the Lotus Sikha doesn't talk about emptiness very much.

[01:06]

So the first wave of Mayan teachings here in written form are teachings which, as I said before, they kind of reject Although they reject the, you might say, the theoretical or conceptual of the avidharma. They reject theoretical, conceptual templates that the avidharma offers as a way to study experience and realize the truth. of selflessness, the truth of no-self. The first kinds of teachings that really are well-developed and published are teachings which are offered conceptual frameworks, theoretical frameworks to realize the truth of selflessness.

[02:24]

The Prophet Karamita comes by and says, rejects the conceptual frameworks as a way to realize selflessness and suggests that we just immediately realize emptiness. Knowing in the early phases of teaching us that emptiness is simple and in distance from us, it's selflessness, the selflessness of beings is right here. So the Prajna-Paramita literature is rejecting the conceptual approach and just trying to say, let's just meditate on the immediacy of emptiness. And we know, most of you are familiar with the Heart Sutra, I guess, where it says Abhilokhi Tashvara was practicing Prajna-Paramita the perfection of wisdom.

[03:29]

He's looking at these templates and he sees that all these templates, all these conceptual frameworks are the five aggregates, they're all empty. And they're empty of, actually, any conception of them. It doesn't say there's no form aggregate. It doesn't say there's no feelings. He just says they're empty of any conception of what they are. Feeling is empty of any idea of feeling. Colors are empty of any idea of color. Which is no way to say form. Of course the self of color says color. So form is empty of the self of color. The idea of color. And then in this emptiness of everything, in everything's emptiness of any idea of itself, then in that emptiness, when you're actually looking at that emptiness, realizing that emptiness, then they're actually, in that context, there are no feelings or impulses or consciousness or forms or anything.

[04:50]

So in that sutra and those types of sutras, they're just saying, can you look at things and just see them? their emptiness of any conceptuality about themselves. You just look at that, because it's actually right there, coexists with the ideas of them. But rather than giving you a way to look at that, you just tell you that, and you just go right at it. And how that happens, and I'm not even going to tell you how it happens. So the path is also, is also like a theoretical path is rejected. The Eightfold Path as a conceptual approach to the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path isn't rejected. The conceptual approach to the Eightfold Path is conceptual. So practice the Eightfold Path. We're not going to tell you how to do it. We're going to just tell you that in the way to practice the Eightfold Path is just to immediately realize emptiness. And...

[05:51]

This is a wonderful teaching and worked really well for Alpha Loca Teshvara. But after several hundred years of this type of teaching really thriving in certain circles, while the earlier teaching is still going on, okay, so this new movement is growing, but the old movement is also thriving, where people are using conceptual approaches And it may be the case that in the same monastery, some people were doing this immediate non-conceptual approach to practice, and other people were doing the conceptual approach to practice, getting along very nicely as possible. But still, some of the people who actually received this teaching, this Mahayana teaching, and practiced it, they felt actually that that it was time to bring up another possibility, another way to practice the Mahayana, which was not to reject the conceptual approach, but to use the conceptual approach in the context of emptiness.

[07:08]

To use the Abhidharma, the Abhidharma's conceptual approach, in the context of Abhidharma, I mean, the context of emptiness. So, this sutra, that we're going to recite tonight, called the Sambhir Mojcana, or the elucidating the... Is there room next to Elizabeth, or is she going to lie down? Maybe you can get this... Are there more chairs anyplace? For Grace? So this sutra, the elucidation of the intention of the Buddha sutra, the revealing or the disclosing or the unraveling of the deep intention of the Buddha, what he was teaching in various ways, in this sutra we now have the construction, a reconstruction or a new construction, actually a slightly different construction, a slightly different conceptual approach,

[08:17]

which shows the type of consciousness which underlies the understanding of emptiness and underlies the conceptual approach. So both the conceptual approach and the immediate non-conceptual non-approach, they're both grounded in consciousness. There's a consciousness which knows emptiness, there's a consciousness which knows conceptual categories and uses them to realize emptiness. So in both directions, both immediately going to emptiness to realize the way and going through conceptual constructions to realize emptiness to realize the way, in both cases there's a conscious being that's doing the practice and of course some bodhisattvas do both. So they're not trying to give you a In the Yogacara, they're trying to give you a picture of consciousness which underlies the conceptual and the non-conceptual access to emptiness.

[09:30]

And they're going to give you a conceptual approach to and a conceptual understanding of the consciousness which realizes emptiness. Okay? So now we can... Is there enough for everybody here? No, that's the one. Are these the texts? So here's the text. It's kind of Mahayana Abhidharma text. What's Yogicara? Yogicara is like It literally means the type of yoga that applies to all Buddhist rules. It means, you can use to refer to a type of Mayan practice by a teaching, a conceptual teaching about the nature of consciousness, which on earth internalizes all types of understanding, and uses that, also uses that teaching of consciousness to realize emptiness.

[10:45]

And so one way to look at it was just that the Indian culture evolved in the first introduction of Mahayana to such a point that another type of Mahayana was able to be produced and this other type of Mahayana in some ways was more suited to lay people. Yogacara in some ways was better suited for lay people. And also, some of the people who led the Yogacara movement, particularly Asanga, felt that the Prajnaparamita literature, as it was being understood, or this way, Prajnaparamita literature that said give up all theoretical, conceptual approaches to practice, it easily could be understood nihilistically.

[11:51]

And if you live in a monastery, in some ways, it's not so dangerous to hear the Prajnaparamita because you live in an environment where everybody's, the primary commitment that they share, even if they have different things they're studying, their primary commitment is to the precepts and to help each other practice the precepts. Whereas in lay life, it's easier for some people to have a nihilistic interpretation of the prajna parametha and think the precepts aren't important. And people don't necessarily think that all laypeople are committed to the precepts, but they naturally expect monks to be committed to precepts, and they even know what the precepts of the monk is by the monastery, because they can find out usually what the precepts of that monastery are. So they not only know that they're committed to ethical precepts, but they even know, can find out what the ethical precepts of the place the person lives is.

[12:59]

Like Zen Center, years ago, had to publish those statements just to make sure that people knew what to expect at Zen Center. So that, yeah, so that they would, if something happened, that wasn't according to those principles, then people would say, oh, well, I thought you did this at Zen Center, or you didn't do this at Zen Center, but this seems to be happening. It says in this document that you don't do this here. Zen Center is not exactly a monastery in all its aspects, but it is a place where we have a community that has to put out clear precepts. When you're in a community that has clear precepts, you're less likely to slip into nihilists people in society at large who are kind of on their own, maybe their practice needs precepts, but then they read the Prajnaparamita and they think, precepts are empty, so I guess I can do what I want. That's a nihilistic misunderstanding of the Prajnaparamita. So this teaching is trying to protect the practice of emptiness from becoming nihilistic,

[14:10]

All right, so would you please open your text to page one, or whatever the page is, first page, and we shall, if you don't mind, we'll chant this, this chapter five, which are the questions of Vishalamati. One, two, three. Then the Bodhisattva... Bodhisattva... Bodhisattva... from I, [...] from I.

[15:40]

. [...] of every decision, so it's appropriate, and that's all dedicated to the faith, and the concept of the mind, which I can see, and bright, and to develop, increases and expands, and operates, and so what we've got is appropriate images in the form of appropriation of God, people in the form of strong, divine, God, the understanding of God, the appropriating consciousness, because

[16:49]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[18:19]

. [...] Amen.

[19:32]

Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

[20:39]

Thank you. Receive a song, Lord, today. Receive a change, Lord, today. Receive a song. Consciousness. Faith, God. Receive a body. Lord, today. Receive a central object. Lord, today. Receive a modeling consciousness. Faith, God. [...] .

[21:55]

. [...] We have copies of this chapter if you'd like to pick it up right here. You have to class it right here. I just wanted to point out something kind of simple, and that is that the Buddha says that the Shalamati is involved in asking this question in order to benefit many beings, to bring happiness to many beings, out of sympathy for the world, and for the sake of the welfare, benefit, and happiness of many beings. The Chinese translation says, You ask this question because you want aid and comfort innumerable beings, because you have compassion for the world and want to foster welfare and happiness.

[23:02]

This phrase, of course, wouldn't be surprised if Bodhisattva would ask a question with this motivation. Does that make sense? But I just want to point out this phrase is found in early scriptures, too. So the Buddha says to the monks in the first turning also that they ask this question and that also the Buddha teaches for this reason. So the Buddha has this motivation and his developed disciples ask questions with this motivation and practice with this motivation. So this motivation is not just appearing at the Mahayana. It was from the beginning of the scriptures this way of talking was pointed out as motivation. And so again, this first part of the chapter presents a conceptual theoretical framework.

[24:09]

At the end, it says that if you understand this, bodhisattvas who understand this are wise with respect to the secrets of mind, thought, and consciousness. And he said, that's not the whole story. They also understand the emptiness of mind, thought, and consciousness. Then they're, that's what they completely are clearly wise. So he puts the emptiness context at the end. after building this conceptual framework is said they also understand that all these elements in the conceptual framework are empty. Understanding the emptiness, they don't perceive any of this stuff. Because all these things actually, all these things that we're talking about are actually conceptual frameworks.

[25:12]

So they don't actually perceive them. But they're there. They're just not perceptible in emptiness. And mind, thought, and consciousness. Mind, in this text, mind is shifta, thought, is manas, and consciousness is jnana. And citta, in this text, is also understood to be alaya, jnana, or adana, jnana.

[26:15]

And in early Buddhism they had this citta, and citta is like the support for all forms of mental life. And the laya now serves the same function, it really is the same as citta. Mind, so mind is of course the basis or the overall embracing of all mental phenomena. And then monas means thought or it also means reflection or thinking. And there's two types of monas in a way. One type is just the simple function of mind being able to be aware of itself or be aware of its own mental associates, and that function of mind having like an organ by which it can be aware of mental phenomena.

[27:29]

Mind is the basis of all mental phenomena, the source of all mental phenomena. They arise with it, it arises with them, but it has the power, it has the power for the faculty to be able to be aware of its own associated contents. And that reflective power is thought, in this case, manas. And the reflective power, what it actually is, it is the previous moment of cognition, which is a very tricky idea, but the idea is that the ability of mind to have an organ power is that there was a previous moment of cognition. And that previous moment of cognition also serves a reflective activity. But there's also another aspect of this mental organ, which is that it's also, it isn't specifically said in this text, but when Asanga reads this text,

[28:44]

He comes to say to us that this manas, this thought, also serves as the locus of defilement because when this organ capacity arises with mind, it's associated with the belief in a self, the esteeming of a self, the confusion of a self, and the love of a self. So there's a functional aspect of the organ of mind, and there's a defiling aspect of it. This chapter does not point out the defiling aspect, I'm just telling you that now. And then the third aspect of minds, which is called consciousness here, are the six sense consciousnesses. the sixth consciousness which operate in direct perception the five sense consciousnesses and mind consciousness mind consciousness which directly perceives things and sense consciousness directly perceive things so these are the these are the actually eight consciousnesses

[30:10]

seven, eight. Seven, the lie is eight, and then you have this five, sense plus the mind consciousness, plus six. So the eight consciousnesses, it doesn't say eight consciousnesses in here, but you can see them. Okay, so that's the basic structure of the, that's the basic conceptual structure here, the basic conceptual template for studying mind which is the basis for understanding the next part of the chapter, which is that these things, which are the conscious spaces by which we're going to understand everything, including themselves, these consciousnesses are the basis for understanding that these consciousnesses are empty. And in that understanding, we won't perceive these consciousnesses. but to say they don't exist, just to be able to find them once we can't find any conceptual apprehension of them.

[31:20]

Yes. I was talking to a Jehovah witness about two weeks ago. Yes. And he was discussing Adam and Eve and the first sin was when they took the bite of an apple, the apple tree that they were told not to take a bite into from God, and she said that sin started from becoming aware. It's this mental faculty that you're talking about where the self becomes aware of the self, So consciousness becomes aware of itself. How else would you denote that? I think that one would say would be that consciousness was aware, but in some sense I would say maybe that consciousness was aware at the level of direct sense consciousness.

[32:33]

in the garden, they were receiving colors and stuff like that, but they had no conceptual mediation in their awareness. And in direct perception, in the realm of direct perception, we're barely aware. You know, we can, like, negotiate a garden very nicely. We can learn, you know, that... This fruit is poisonous, and this one's not. But we're barely aware of the objects that we're aware of, but we are aware, and we do relate to them. But when we have conceptual mediation, our awareness becomes much more premonious, clearer, and not, I would say, and not ambiguous. In direct perception, awareness is somewhat ambiguous because you're actually dealing with um the actual richness of sensory life in which when you look at something you're looking at it does something to it and of course it does something to you so in direct perception actually you can feel you're actually in touch with the richness of of our life and it's not so clear whether that it's separate from you

[34:00]

So in order to be clearer about that, they had to separate themselves from the apple and separate themselves from each other and separate themselves from sex. Actually, that's not correct. According to Jehovah's Witnesses. Right. According to them, it was the awareness that was spent by taking a fight to the apple. I agree that it's awareness, but I think there was another awareness before that which is sort of what we say, it wasn't... Direct reception? It was direct reception, yeah. But it was, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to find the apple. It would be no issue. They wouldn't have been able to bite it. And if they were told not to bite the apple, they wouldn't have known. But they sort of knew the apple was there. But if they bit it, they would be actually more separate from it. And then they have what's called usually objective knowledge. So when we say objective knowledge, That usually means conceptual knowledge, where we actually know that that object's out there separate from us.

[35:07]

But before that, the separation is, it's not that clear, and really there is no separation. But in direct perception, you don't really understand that there's no separation, but you can't really, you don't really clearly understand that there is separation. So your knowledge isn't really that firm. Or as you say, the image, you don't have a sharp image of the apple. When you bite the apple, then you have more, I agree with that thing, it's knowledge, but there is some awareness before that, it's just that it's not clear. And we kind of want it to be clear. So there's also the story of Amor and Psyche in Greek myth, right? Greek mythology. Of Psyche getting together with love, and they get together, but they get together in the dark, so they're actually having contact and knowing that they're together. But she doesn't know, she's not clearly aware of who he is. She knows something about him. But it's kind of ambiguous because she's in the dark. She doesn't know that he's a god. She doesn't know that he can fly.

[36:09]

She doesn't know that she's Aphrodite's son. She doesn't know that he's really good looking. She doesn't know that stuff. She just knows that this is really important, this relationship. And she's very, you know, it's a big thing. She could tell him from other people, but she doesn't really know. So if she puts a light on, then she'd be more sure. when she puts the light on them, then that disturbs their relationship. So if she gets thrown out of the garden, she gets thrown out of her own little nice garden, which is Eros' palace. You know, she gets thrown out of the palace and she loses him. So it's a similar story, but there is awareness before, otherwise there would be no light. So in some sense, you could say that the Bible is actually telling something about human evolution at that point. It's a metaphor. It's poetry for the evolution of consciousness from direct sense perception to I would say conceptual cognition where we have clear images of things.

[37:13]

But the problem is that when you have a clear image of something it gets confused with the thing. And you think that the image is the thing. That's wrong. It's not. But it's nice that you have a nice clear image now. but then you kick out of... The Garden of Eden is the garden of direct sense perception in a way, which is very rich. Then all the apples are different taste and different color and different smell. And now they have different taste and different smell, but they're like talking to you and you're talking to them. There's this kind of very intimate thing, which of course, that's the way things are. And everybody you meet's that way too. the way they smell, the way they look, the way they talk. Of course, they can't talk yet because we need conceptual mediation and already talk. So all the people you're not talking with but that you're just interacting with, it's very rich, very interactive, very ambiguous about who is who and what's what.

[38:16]

They call it biological bliss. It's life. It's actually the way life is, is that it's very interactive, and the world gives us life, and we give the world life. All the plants in the garden are born because of mental apprehension, and we're born of all the plants, and it's very ambiguous and kind of wonderful. And it's all kinds of possibilities, rather than just the one possibility of it being an apple that's bitten into. So basically it's the same thread. I see a common ground here. Between what and what? Between the stories that you were talking about and the Buddhist theory, which is this awareness is the cause of the suffering. Yeah, exactly. They're very close. And here we just have a conceptual analysis, a theoretical picture.

[39:22]

it would give you more information to make a little temple around the biting into the apple and getting ticked out of Eden's story. This gives you some more psychological information about that process. But it's the same story, really. I mean, it's talking about the same event. It's when we get exiled from what it's like in the realm of direct perception. And then we It's hard to get back to it, but you can get back to it through a process of meditation. Yeah. Yes. Say it again. Yes. They had meaning. Yeah.

[40:23]

Yeah, and actually, does anybody know, did he say, don't bite him, or did he say, if you bite him, you can talk? He said, don't bite him. Don't bite him. So, I guess God didn't want people to evolve into spiritual beings, according to that. How intelligent is that? Pardon? How intelligent is that? Well, maybe he wanted to be the only one who knew anything. Huh? Yeah, this picture of God is maybe a picture of God who's the only one who knows anything. It's an omniscient one who's not going to have any successors. Remember to the top to see if you believe it or not. Hmm? Remember to the top to see if you believe it or not. Yeah. Well, I'm not saying they didn't believe him, but just they... God told him not to, but the universe forced him to do it.

[41:29]

If you look at the story of Amor and Satan, there are various forces that pushed her below the Nicene. I think the nature of evolution is that it pushed beings to take this step. And if God told them not to, That's kind of an interesting little twist. I don't know if it's God who told him not to. She wouldn't know the story. The story, the story. God wrote the story. Well, they were going to be, you know, either the tree of knowledge would be evil next. It wasn't true. [...] That's until that point that he spoke pretty well. I read some of the articles that he actually... Or it's for them to actually go ahead and take a bite.

[42:35]

Because he knew there was some man of human nature to actually... I can't remember if he was scared for this. I think another perspective on this is that before this happened living beings were already serving the function of the universe being aware of itself but again it wasn't There wasn't a clear objective knowledge in the universe before this step. So this special variety of knowledge called objective knowledge, where the object seems out there separate from the subject, doesn't arise before this point. There's still a possibility of this type of knowledge, but it's not clear because

[43:40]

because in direct perception you're actually in the realm of where things are really like still kind of mushy and soupy and alchemical. So the universe gained something when you evolved to this level. Gained a new type of knowledge which you didn't have before in this neighborhood anymore. What's the object of the direct perception of mindfulness? when mind consciousness has direct perception of someone? Mind consciousness can have direct perception of the same things that sense consciousness are aware of. And mind consciousness can also have direct perception of mental. In both cases without any conceptual mediation. Because mind consciousness, the organ for mind consciousness, is the same as this manas, is this thought. So the organ for citta is manas, and among these six sense consciousnesses, one of the sense consciousnesses is the mind consciousness.

[44:57]

The conditions for the mind consciousness are not the same as the conditions for the sense consciousness. The conditions for sense consciousness are, the three main conditions are, the organ, the physical organ, the physical data, and the previous moment of consciousness. The previous moment of consciousness is the immediate condition for the arising of the mind consciousness, or for the arising of the sense consciousness. If you have a consciousness, and also the consciousness, the sense consciousness, are named after the organ, not after the object. The sense consciousness, for example, the first sense consciousness that's usually listed is the eye consciousness, but rather than the color consciousness. The conditions for the eye consciousness are the eye organ, the physical, the subtle physical organ. The gross physical data, which is perceptible, electromagnetic radiation.

[46:05]

and the previous moment of consciousness. Those are the three conditions for the arising of sense consciousness. Mind consciousness, the conditions for the arising of death, the immediate condition is the same. It's the previous moment of consciousness. The object, however, is not the sense, it's not the object. Even if the mind consciousness is aware of the object, the object's not the dominant condition. It's not the object consciousness. It doesn't have object consciousness. Because it determines, from its inside, it determines what the object will be. And it has, excuse me, it does have an object consciousness, I think about it. It does have it. But its organ is not a physical organ. Its organ is this mind organ. So its organ is the mind organ, the same as the other one, but the mind organ is the previous moment of consciousness.

[47:09]

So its organ is the previous moment of consciousness, and its immediate condition is the previous moment of consciousness, and its object can see the object which the previous consciousness had. So if the sense has received it, that would bring that information, but also the concurrent sense consciousnesses which it arises with, it could also be aware of those. But it could also be aware of other mind consciousnesses, and it also could be aware of mental data that arises with it. Okay? That's a little bit about the basic structure in this chapter. The next big chunk is to talk about Aliyah. And for your information, last winter I spent quite a few sessions talking about the evolution of where Aliyah came from, probably, sort of the history of this concept.

[48:12]

Again, this is a conceptual concept about where the concept of Aliyah came from. So if you want to hear about that story, you can hear about it by listening to those tapes. There's also... Does anybody have a reading list here? There's also a text on this reading list called Ocean of Eloquence. It's listed under O. And The Ocean of Eloquence has a discussion. It's basically, the whole book's about, the main topic of the book is Alaya Vijnana. As the history of how the concept arose and Tanka was, because that's the future Tanka was, understandings.

[49:16]

So if you want to learn more about Alaya, if you want to learn a lot about Alaya, that's a good book to start with. Is that Jeff Hopkins? Well, the guy, the author's name is... The author's name is... Gareth Sharpe. No, Sharpe. Sharpe. Gareth Sharpe. It's listed on this on the radio. So, I mean, I don't mind going over it again, but I spent several classes on it last year. We wouldn't, you know. I think it may be better for you just to do something. Pardon? I think it's S-H-A-R-H-A-M. S-P-A-R-H-A-M. It's on the reading list under O for OSHA. So anyway, it's a good book on Aliyah.

[50:27]

There's lots of other places, but that's one more specialized topic. So we can say a little bit about Aliyah by reading the text. Initially, in dependence upon two types of appropriation, the appropriation of the physical sense powers associated with the support, and the appropriation of predispositions, which proliferate conventional designations with respect to signs, names, and concepts, the mind which has all the seeds develops, increases, and expands its operations. So this is talking about, this is a little story about initially. Initially what? Well, initially, whatever type of sentient beings there may be in cyclic existence, with its six kinds of beings, in early Buddhism they had five, in Mahayana they have six.

[51:34]

Whatever types of beings there may be of these six types, Those sentient beings manifest body and arise within a state of birth, such as egg-borne, womb-borne, moisture-borne, and spontaneous-borne. So this is saying whatever kind of being are born initially, at the beginning, they do so independent upon two types of apprehension, appropriation, and these appropriations happen through this ally epigeniality. Excuse me, but in early Buddhism they just had a type of chitta, a type of consciousness, which they called birth consciousness. They just called it birth consciousness. But they didn't go into much detail about the nature of that birth consciousness. It's just a lie that you know it does. Yes, you see? Yeah. Here it says the appropriation of physical sense powers associated with the support.

[52:37]

Do you... Do you know what is meant by associated with the support? Do you mean like the body that would support the physical living? Did you hear her question? She said, do you mean like a body? It would be like a support. Okay, that's a reasonable question, but my saying no points to the fact that the teaching is that the body is the sixth sense organs. Okay. That's what the body is in Buddhism. So it's actually saying the body. All right. What's the support for that? Support for the body? No, for the sense organs. What's the support? Because they are the body. What's the support? It's mind. It's mind. So it's a lie. So here it says, initially, in a... And initially, there's an appropriation of sense powers associated with support.

[53:41]

Beginning of birth, there's an appropriation of sense powers which are associated with the support. The support is a liar. So initially, at birth, these sense powers arise in dependence on mind. So they're saying the mind is the support for the arising of the actual functioning sense organs. So the mind... That's the first type of appropriation is actually appropriation of sense organs in support by the mind. So in some sense, it's the mind appropriating the sense organs, but then the body gets sense organs too. In other words, the body comes alive in dependence on mind, and mind apprehends the sense organs. So the mind seems to almost be a precondition for the sense organs, is it? Yes, a mind is a condition for sense organs.

[54:46]

It doesn't pre-exist, but there have been minds before. This mind isn't like the mind's floating around waiting for the sense organs. Because there have been minds in the past, now mind and sense organs arise together. And again, if you listen to those, if you read that book or listen to the tapes, originally they came up with a theory about laya to explain how consciousness could go on in certain states of very, very profound meditation or states of coma or states of, I guess coma is a good example, states of deep unconsciousness. How did life go on? how do consciousness continue to exist? And they came up with the idea that consciousness can actually rest in the sense organs, even though it's not operating, it can live in the sense organs. Which is not different, doesn't kind of differ to Buddhism, because consciousness arises out of the sense organs, which are always living in this field.

[55:56]

Sense organs are always living in the field of gross sense material, and they're always resonating with it. They're always interacting with it. And if mind lives in the sense organs, rests in the sensitive part of the body, the life can go on, even though none of these other mental factors are rising. So that's part of why they came up with this. But now they're saying at birth, it's not that they're sleeping in the sense organs because the person's coming alive now. You have this condition of some kind of materiality interacting with the environment. And based on having a lot of support, there's apprehension. You get the sense consciousness activated. You get the activated. The natural power, they're turned off. It's kind of like, you know, when you get a credit card, you call it in, it's activated.

[57:00]

It's like that. Another question. I don't know if this is covered earlier. You can tell me. Most of this stuff has been covered earlier. This has been going on for several years. Well, it's mentioning Aliyah as the appropriating consciousness. Well, actually, It is, but actually in this text they have a different word for appropriating consciousness. At birth, they call it Adana Vijnana. Adana means appropriating. So at birth, in a sense, Alaya is called Adana Vijnana. After birth, it's called Alaya Vijnana. So one of the names for Alaya is appropriating consciousness at the time of birth, because it appropriates... It appropriates the sense consciousness.

[58:02]

It activates, and it turns them on. And then after that, which I really like this part of the text that says, after that it shares the destiny of the sense organs. It shares the risk and the benefits of the sense organs. Sense organs get in trouble, lie gets in trouble, lie gets in trouble, sense organs get in trouble. so that this consciousness and the body are closely allied and they're not. One other little detail is that the body can deteriorate and disperse and there's no causal continuity between this body and and other bodies, this body disperses and doesn't make more bodies any more than the mouths make more bodies. But the mind, which was associated with the body, it has a causal continuity to create further minds.

[59:10]

So the minds you have in this life and the bodies you have in this life, as long as the body's collected and together with the alaya and so on, There's continuity for both. But when the physical situation develops such that the physical elements disperse, that doesn't cause another body. But the mind does cause further minds. So there's a different continuity, different process of continuity for mind and body. That's why the mind is support for the birth of the body. Well, this is what I was going to ask. That was just a side point, yes. What did you say? How does what? How does the mind cause further minds? Well, like I said, the condition for the arising of a consciousness is a previous consciousness. The main conditions for the arising of consciousnesses are in organ power,

[60:14]

which for sense consciousness is physical organs, and for mind consciousness is mind organs. And the mind organ is a previous state of cognition. The just previous state of cognition is the mind organ. So the organ-like power of your mind is that consciousness is just deceased. And the other main condition for the arising of consciousness, which is called the immediate condition, is also the immediately antecedent condition. So a consciousness just before this consciousness is the cause of this consciousness. It's not the same consciousness, it's a different consciousness. But it is caught as a condition for this consciousness. And all the different schools agree on that point. In other words, consciousnesses don't come out of nowhere, they're conditioned by a previous consciousness. And they also need an organ. which is the previous consciousness. In the case of mind consciousness, in the case of sense consciousness, it's the sense consciousness, which has been activated by a previous mind consciousness.

[61:26]

So you have a previous mind consciousness, which is a condition for the sense consciousness, and you have a turned-out sense consciousness, which is dependent on a previous sense consciousness or mind consciousness. So you have these two living things, which are conditions, plus an object And in some cases, the object is not, it's in the case of conceptual cognition, the object is not an external object. It's not really an important condition. The important condition is the predispositions of the mind, conceptual cognition, because it comes up with images from itself according to its own predispositions. Yes? When the physical ailments disperse? Yes. And the conditions of the mind in the next mind, the seeds, or... Say it once again, please. When the physical element is dispersed, yeah. And they're not linked anymore, the mind with the sense organs, because the sense organs are dispersed.

[62:32]

The mind and the sense organs are not linked anymore, right. That's, by the way, why we don't mind cremating people. But we don't burn the mind. Just burn the body. I wanted to know about how the mind that produces, or is conditioned for further minds, how that works exactly? What's the physical elements I just produced? Do you want to know how it works exactly? We all would, yes. I'll start by saying, just to offer this for discussion, that it operates the same way that minds worked before. And some minds, and minds don't need physical sense organs. So if you lose a body, there could still be evolutions of minds. So, the body's been dispersed. The last consciousness at the point before it sort of got dissociated from the mind.

[63:35]

body and mind become dissociated. We're not going to have something permanent here, right? So we have body and mind dissociated. The body's no longer got the sense organs. It's all falling apart. But you have now the last cognition associated with the body. Now that cognition can be, it could be the antecedent condition or the follow-up for another state of consciousness. And that state of consciousness can't be a sense consciousness because, actually it could be a sense consciousness once, maybe, because it could be somewhat, it could be associated with sense because it could be associated, it's associated with the previous moment of cognition, the previous moment of cognition could have been a sense consciousness. So in that sense it could still be connected to a sense a little bit. but more likely, I would say, is that it's going to be a mind consciousness, so its organ's going to be the previous moment of cognition, its antecedent condition's going to be the previous moment of cognition, and its object's going to be something coming from itself, from its own predispositions.

[64:53]

So conceptual cognition would be handy at that time, because conceptual cognitions don't even need any objects, they can just refer to the causal continuity of imagination. So that could be the one right after death. Well, you got that, well, then you can have another one, and another one. And if the repertoire of this consciousness, this last consciousness that was associated with the body, had all these concepts for practice, and these previous positions to choose those concepts of practice to guide the mind, then there would be a causal continuity with that. So the mind could actually then, it doesn't last, but there could be this causal continuity of minds which aren't connected to a body. And then, and a lie is there too, right? So this is the, I just said the causal continuity and the resource of imagination is a lie.

[65:54]

So you have a lie which has all these images, the seeds for all the images, the seeds for all the images, plus previous positions for how the seeds are selected. And if it was a practitioner, there would be previous positions to select those kinds of seeds which would promote this for that body. And I would go on for some period of time. until there's a lie and then apprehends another sense, apprehends the sense consciousness, which before a lie apprehends them, they're not turned on. But when it apprehends them, they become alive, and it becomes, then it gets settled into, joins this set of sense organs, and we have what we call birth of a sentient being. The sentient being could be quite developed, however, in some cases. The sentient being could be 47.

[66:58]

Not Buddha yet, but highly developed. And some of these consciousnesses, when at the moment of conception, they go, okay, here we go. Yes? I wonder if this was a new understanding for you, because it seemed a few years ago, I remember you, maybe incorrectly, emphasizing that the consciousness will only exist with the body. It's sort of been one of the questions Roberta first asked, if this support was actually a body. Between body and body, there was no active human. Does that seem different from before? That seems different from what you just said. It does. I don't know if I exactly said that, but maybe I did. So this just feels new from things you've said before. With this body that you have, you could have experiences where there's only four skandhas, right?

[68:05]

However, you still have a body with sense organs that just as the sense organs are not operating. They're not always operating. You could be happily meditating on the infinity of space or something, and your sense organs would not be turned on. It wouldn't be functioning. However... you could come out of that trance and they would be turned back on. So, there can be just forced gondas. That seems like not what I was asking. That seems separate from what I was asking. So I'm saying if there can be just forced gondas, it's possible that the sense organs are dispersed and there's a causal continuity of forced gondas producing forced gondas producing forced gondas. A causal continuity that way. And that would be that would be a story of the process of rebirth, where there would be a causal continuity of consciousness. And the Buddha did not say that the consciousness gets carried over at one birth to the other. He said that wasn't right.

[69:07]

But he didn't say there wasn't a causal continuity, because he said there was rebirth. And the karma of one life is this the next life. So this is a story about how there could be causal continuity in consciousness. from the death to the birth, without saying the consciousness lasts. Because he doesn't want anything to last, because then it's in itself. And by the way, I just tell you that there's another big wave in this, in this, in a sense, this Yogacara tradition, where they actually, like, stop talking about a lie of Vishnu. Because they feel like it's just too easily... considered to be a self. But this is the first phase of the Yogacara, which we're trying to become familiar with. The next phase we'll get to later. I don't know when. So the first phase, the leaders of the first phase are Asanga and Vasubandhu.

[70:15]

The leaders of the second phase are disciples of Asanga and Vasubandhu. Dignaga and Dharmakirti. So all these people are historical Indian sages and presented conceptual approaches to realizing emptiness and practicing the Bodhisattva way. They're all part of the Bodhisattva tradition. The latitude proves things which Asanga just says. He does have some debate. He does debate a little bit, but he doesn't really like, he's not really trying to at the same extent as the later people do. So the later tradition bring in, actually, they become... These people are epistemologists. These people are Sangha. There's epistemology in this text, but it's just basically taken on the authority of Buddha. So the first two great teachers in this tradition, Sangha and Vasubandhu, they're called the Yogacara people of the... According to the scriptures, they just tell you what the scriptures read.

[71:18]

in this great way. The second way, they actually follow reason, analyze it, debate, coming from this bit, tell you why so, and then use logic rather than just referring to the sutta to tell you why the other schools are wrong. They prove to you why the other schools are wrong. Yes? Isn't part of why a liar was taught us to explain how there could be this rebirth without objects, Yeah, how there could be rebirth and how there could be transmission of karma. Ghazalaya holds the consequences of past karma as seeds and predispositions. Seeds for images, seeds for all the images of everything that you can imagine, plus the predispositions to access seeds in certain ways. Even though you have a tremendous amount of seeds for images, depending on your practice, you access those seeds for different patterns.

[72:25]

So one of the consequences of practice is accessing the seeds in a wholesome way. So there's a conveying of the consequences of practice from life to life, or the consequences of not practicing very well from lash to lash. which will then, of course, also, even before they had a lie, they still were saying, you know, that different karmic patterns would cause you to choose different births. So, you know, these images, this poetic image of these beings called Gandharvas, which are the name of the type of consciousness that's in this causal continuity between having bodies. And these Gandharvas actually choose their parents, you know, according to their predisposition. Some think humans are really interesting, some think cows are very interesting. If you think cows are interesting, then that might influence who you hang out with.

[73:29]

You might wind up in a cow uterus. Doesn't mean you shouldn't love cows. Yes? How might we help them do this? How do you help them? Well, again, like I said, you don't burn the mind. You don't want to burn the mind up. You want to teach the mind. The basic thing you teach the mind is take refuge in Buddhadharma-sanca. So after somebody dies, you want to keep telling them to take refuge. That's the basic instruction. Now, if you're pretty confident that they got that part down, you might give them other teachings. But actually, just in case you're mistaken, you know, you think, oh, this is a great teacher, you know, so we don't need to tell them about Buddhadharma Sangha. We can just do the Pajna Paramita for this person. Okay, she's really, like, totally into the Pajna Paramita.

[74:34]

We'll just chant the Pajna Paramita for her to remind her to keep meditating on that. Just to make sure that we're not overestimating her understanding. Do Buddhadharma Sangha at a parallel track. So one group of people chanting buddhidharma sangha for the person and the other group of people chanting the person paramita and some other people doing yogicara. They have different teachings. So you have advanced ones so that, you know, what do you call it, they hit the ground running. But just as a safe, just as an insurance policy, make sure that the buddhidharma sangha thing is coming there because that's much simpler. Almost everybody... get oriented by that instruction. So that's going to work for everybody, but if you wanted to give somebody a more advanced teaching, you could do that too. But I guess if you have to choose just to make sure, do Buddha Dhamma Sangha as the person's dying and after they die. And we say, you know, we say this, 49 days. There's something about that.

[75:37]

The Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree for 49 days. And we say 49 days, by that time, if the person's going to be reborn, they have. You might be overdoing it, they might be reborn very, very fast. They may have actually a plan to get born quite soon because they want to study with one of their students before the student dies. or actually, now that before the student dies, they want to study with their student, there's an opportunity to be born somewhere in the neighborhood where their student teaches. So they see the opportunity to get born in this class because they might not get another chance in the same neighborhood as their student. You see what I mean? And then, you know, probably they want to receive the teaching from their student, which they will, but also they want to See, but I understood. Which is similar to receiving the teaching.

[76:41]

When you're watching somebody teach, you know, then you're receiving it too at the same time. So that's one possibility that you'd do it very fast if you had that ability. But apparently nobody goes more than 49 days. And very one of the possibilities of that is that some people don't get reborn. Buddha didn't say everybody gets reborn. He just said there is rebirth. And he also says, and obviously, definitely not everybody gets reborn. Our hearts don't get reborn. The Buddha didn't get reborn. But even people who aren't great sages, some of them don't get reborn, maybe. But some people do get reborn. And that's why it's really good to practice because it will help you get in a good practice situation next time. Yeah. I'm curious about the aliyah in the body. Someone was telling me recently that they know somebody who got a heart transplant.

[77:44]

And before she got a heart, she didn't like margarita at all. Then she got inspired. So it's like, is he aliyah? And I found out the other person, like Marjorie. ... [...] Well, I just want to say that there is a difference between the heart organ and the sense organs. But I don't want to make some statement that the sense organ is a subtle material.

[78:52]

So the sense organ doesn't have to be totally limited to the stuff around our eyeball. It's not really the eyeball. It's just that it's located around there. It's not the eyeball. It's the sensitivity. It's the ability. Like, you know, if you can play catch with somebody, that's more like your capacity. It's not really you, the physical body. It's the ability to catch the ball. But the ability to catch the ball is somewhere around your body. You can extend your body with a mitt, right? But some people have a mid-on that can't catch it. Some people don't have a mid-on that can't catch it. It's the actual ability to catch it that's the capacity we're talking about. So the sense organs don't have to be so strongly associated with some part of the body. But the most fundamental sense organ is the skin, is tactile. So there is skin. In a sense, there is tactility around the heart.

[79:57]

The heart does have a sensing surface. I don't know if it has eyes or a nose. I don't know about that. Maybe it does. But if it could respond to light and smell, then that sensitivity at a certain point, if it was strong enough to give rise to a consciousness, then there would be organs in other parts of the body than we're familiar with. It's the ability of the organ to be sensitive enough in relationship to gross material, that a consciousness will arise. So it's possible that this heart has some association with the organ of touch. It's possible. We usually think of certainly this part of it, but there's also internal touch too, right? And the heart may be part of that. We know we have pain in it, lots of organs around pain, right? So it may be that something about sense organs got mixed up there, and that aliyah was somehow in that sense organ and got moved around with the sense organs and got stretched, you know, got stretched from one body over to the other body.

[81:07]

Because it was actually living in that sense organ. It was living in the heart as a sense organ. I mean, the heart was a sense organ, which aliyah was in. So when you moved the physical organ, aliyah came with it, part of aliyah came with it. So part of the person came into the body of the person. So the person maybe has two, somebody else's aliyah in their own body, because he moved the sense organ where the aliyah, the aliyah is actually living in the sense organ, it's located in the body. So if you move the body, the aliyah goes with it. Aliyah isn't just, aliyah although is grounded in the sense organ, it isn't totally there, it's all over the universe too, right? So, consciousnesses are not located, you know, in the sense that they're just there and not all over the place, but they are associated with the body. So if you move the body around, the lie goes with it.

[82:10]

So that's why this thing about, you know, we're careful about moving bodies after they die And again, some people, in some cases, you know, you can move the body because Aliyah is not there anymore. But in some cases it is for a while. It's not a person, though. Well, I don't know, maybe it is a person, but it's not supposed to be a self. So anyway, that is possible. It's possible. that it's also possible if you move the eyes, it's possible you can move the person's alaya. So the alaya is associated with these five organs, right? And when the organ moves over there, alaya can move with it. But if you move one organ over there and another organ over there, alaya can go both ways, right? So you move one organ to Olten, you move another organ to Stalo Alto, alaya wouldn't have any problem going with them to a certain point.

[83:15]

to a certain extent, especially if Aliyah got moved over and connected to another body that was animated and held together by another Aliyah. So it would be able to move into an environment that had enough force to keep another body going. The Aliyah originally couldn't keep, this body couldn't keep associated with this body, but it made me contain a home in another body. So it might be possible to have two people living in one body. Or, you know, really make it complicated, you have somebody who's alive and is receiving multiple donations. You know, they need new eyes, new ears, new none. Yeah. It's possible. It's something like that. Okay. It's like this heart.

[84:20]

Right. Yeah, the karmic predisposition, the alaya, somebody else's alaya could get out into your body in that way, possibly. I'm just thinking about this with you, right? Now, again, you can't transplant usually the whole skin organ to somebody else. You know, somebody needs a new skin. That's not a very popular transplant except for skin grafts, right? Or for, like, Aztecs used to do that, right? So you'd take skins of somebody else. But it wasn't that the new person's skin was their skin organ. It was just like a mask that they put on. But unintentionally moving a heart, you might also bring much sensitivity with it. And so the alaya of the other person, although they're dissociating with the rest of the whole body as a whole, it is possible that alaya would inhabit... I mean, it's not just possible. It does happen.

[85:21]

Alaya does inhabit bodies where some of the sense organs can't be activated, right? We know that's the case sometimes. Somehow it takes up residence or it apprehends sense organs, but it doesn't apprehend all of them. But the one, it almost always... As far as I've heard, I never heard of it apprehending a body where it didn't get the skin organ to touch. So if Helen Keller had touch, but she didn't have vision or hearing, right? I don't know, did she have smell and taste? Yeah. The story's about her eating. But she definitely had touch, right? I've heard some stories about this. So I'm just saying, it's possible that a liar would inhabit a body that only had skin, skin sensation. So if it can do that, then it's possible that it could get moved to another body and stay and find a ground for the scent, the skin thing, but you'd have to have the rest of the conditions for the person to be alive.

[86:27]

So you've got to be careful. What's your mouth? I think there's something to it. You could speculate about this and there's some reasonableness to it according to this theory. This isn't too difficult for you, is it? Much better than doctors. Oh, it's after 9. But you... ...that had to do with the attention of the memory in our muscles. And I'm wondering if I looked at it when... Tell me. The literal teaching is that a lie doesn't exactly go into the muscles.

[87:30]

It goes into the sense organs. But the muscles have sense organs. So it wouldn't really be in the muscles. It would be in the sensitive. It wouldn't be sort of in the muscles' ability to contract. It would be in the muscles' ability to be sensitive to the world. The sense organs are really the body as it relates to the environment. It's the body in relationship. It's not the body by itself doing its own stuff. It's emphasizing that materiality can be insensitive to relationship, to materiality which isn't so sensitive. The gross materiality doesn't demonstrate the sensitivity that the subtle does. And so... So you could say that memories are in tissue, but really memories are more like in the sense organs, because the sense organs is where aliyah lives, and aliyah has memory. It has the residual past action in it, so you have a mind living in the body, and in the part of the muscle that's a sense organ, you would have aliyah living.

[88:37]

Alaya lives. We have a mind that lives, that takes up residence during this teaching in sense organs. But it's not necessarily... The teeth seem to be a place that never really seems... The teeth have nerves, though, right? So anywhere where there's sensitivity, where there's touch sensitivity, Alaya would be there. Okay? And so memory would be there. And so you could touch part of the body, and you'd stimulate alaya, because it lives there. It's not limited to there, but it's associated, it's limited there in the sense that, I mean, it lives there in the sense that it's associated with there. Mind is not located, the mind is associated, and in a sense, lives in the body, in a sense that it shares that which it's associated with. So that is possible.

[89:39]

All that's possible. You can ask me afterwards. I never go to bed. Do you want her to ask you a question? They don't want you to ask them a favor. Thank you.

[90:24]

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