There's a concern that some of the activities that I've been doing since this operation might be endangering my health. For example, if I fall, then maybe I'll split open the incision in my abdomen to some extent, producing accidental heart killing. And I have no second. I'm doing pretty much everything. He's only got that little thing in his finger, a sword. Maybe he needs what he could do with. When I'm bowing, when I keep the angle of my groin area open, it doesn't create any stress.

[01:03]

So when I go down, I step forward so that I'm not making a real sharp angle in my groin. And also, I do experience pain if I do certain things. So if I experience any pain, I usually stop, put it in the direction I'm moving. So I think I found a way of bowing that's not stressing the wound. And after service, I check to see if anything is wrong. It's pretty scary to see somebody doing those full bows. I was thinking about it. Anyway, so far, there's been a splitting, and he's healing really well. Also, I was studying yesterday afternoon, and I thought afterwards...

[02:04]

I studied all afternoon, and I understood a little tiny bit, in some new way, after studying all afternoon. It's quite, for me to go, you know, to extend the understanding deeper, it's quite difficult. I want to let you know that I moved deeper in the material with considerable difficulty. So, I thought, you may think it's easy for me to understand this. But it's not. It's quite difficult. I often read stuff and just don't know what the point is, what they're driving at when they're talking about certain things. So I just go over it and over it. And then I have experience, oh, yesterday didn't mean anything, today it does. It's that kind of thing. At the beginning of the practice period, I told my wife that I was feeling really happy because

[03:10]

I kind of feel like I've been circling around certain dimensions of this teaching. I felt like during this practice period, I was going to really like it. So that's been my feeling. These are things I've been studying for a long time. When I first started studying Yogacara was more than 20 years ago. I've been going round and round, circling round and round, getting closer and closer to the central. So now I'm thinking, I don't think I've announced the topic for the series of classes that I'm offering here in the spring. I'm offering one section, a short section, three classes.

[04:16]

That's going to be on koans. But there's another section. How many classes? Do you know, Roberta? Well, there's another class series of three in the fall. There's another one in the spring? The one in the spring is only three? Yeah. Okay. And I'd like to start today with a brief period of responding to the questions of the people who had their hands raised at the end of the last class. Who had their hands raised at the end of the class? Bernari? I did, but I asked you. Catherine? Just two? Two questions that you gave at the end? Jamie? Okay, so one of your questions. You asked me, okay.

[05:19]

I was wondering about how the process of imputing works when you're imputing something that you do, like an action or an emotion. How do you impute onto an action? Yeah, like how would you impute an essence of a longing? How would you impute an essence on a physical action? Or onto, like, longing, like a kind of emotion that actually is known. So you had a question about how to know the imputational period. Right. And what's your question? It was kind of around an emotion like nervousness. When the image isn't so clear, there's nothing there as far as an image.

[06:24]

But there's words, there's a concept there for sure, around the sensations, which I call nervousness. But the actual... If I had to describe it, I would probably just know what other sensations are going on. So my question was, is that description sufficient enough to meet your criteria for sign? Okay. Any questions? I was actually interested in having John's question. It was about signs in sort of endless... I don't know, endless... Sign upon sign upon sign, rather than just sign and sensation. Some signs being composites of many, many simpler signs. Okay. I got your questions, and they all seem to be about signs.

[07:26]

Right? Years and years of signs in relationship to imputation. The way we know imputation. Imputation is an activity of imputing an own being or imputing an independent existence upon the only kind of phenomena there are, which are interdependent phenomena. So we impute that, and we impute it by names which are connected to signs. So there's a big question about what are signs. And... I think I would go back to Andreas' comment about signs yesterday. Where is he? Here. So he said he looks at a chair, and he thinks of it as something he can sit on. And then he talked about it having a shape.

[08:30]

I guess a shape might be a way to withhold a body. And... I think now, looking back on that, I thought that the... Looking at the chair as something that can hold a body in a sitting position... But that actually is more like what we call the... It's the lakshana of the chair. It's the characteristic of the chair. It's not the sign of the chair. And... And actually... And then I would say that the actual thing about a chair being able to be something that somebody can sit in

[09:36]

is actually more like what Al brought up. I think it's more like the general characteristic of a chair. The samanya lakshana. The specific characteristic of a chair would be the way... When a particular chair, at a particular moment, with a particular body, the way that particular chair supported that sitting activity. And that would be unique, moment by moment. It would be unique in the moment of first sitting in the chair, and then it would be unique in each moment of continuing to sit. In each one of those moments of the chair functioning as a point of support for a sitting person, that would be a different, unique experience. And those would be called the... The word is sphalakshana.

[10:41]

The own characteristic or the specific characteristic of this phenomenal chair. Pardon? S-V-A, and then lakshana is L-A-K-S with a dot under it, I think. A-N-A. The own character. And that's the big word at the beginning of chapter 7 of the sutra. The Buddha has taught the sphalakshana, the own character of the skandhas. The general character is samanya. S-A-M-A-N-Y-A. S-A-M-A-N-Y-A. S-A-M-A-N-Y-A-L-A-K-S-H-A-N-A. S-A-M-A-N-Y-A-L-A-K-S-H-A-N-A, yeah. It's the general characteristic.

[11:42]

S-A-M-A-N-Y-A-L-A-K-S-H-A-N-A is a conceptual version of the characteristic. The conceptual version of the chair is that it holds a person up. And that characteristic of a chair is known to conceptual consciousness indirectly. And the sphalakshana, the particular unique characteristic of a chair, is known directly. But the sign is like the image that you would use to cognize a chair. And the image of a chair wouldn't necessarily be that you could sit in a chair.

[12:45]

Like, you'd see a chair, and it's like you'd see a corner, just a tad, a little bit of fabric out of the corner of your eye and say, chair. Just an image of the chair would be enough for you to say, chair. And then you could go sit in the chair, sit in what you thought was a chair, to experience, to see if it satisfies the sphalakshana of a chair, namely can you sit in it. But you could have a correct or incorrect perception of a chair, but the perception wouldn't necessarily need to be based on actually trying it out as a chair. Or even see thoroughly whether it actually satisfies the structural requirements of a chair for you or anybody else. So it doesn't say in the Abhidharmakosha or other places that you use the characteristic of things to perceive them.

[13:47]

It says the perception is to grasp the sign, the image of the thing. It's enough to say, oh, it's a chair. You don't have to sit in it to perceive it. But if you can't sit in it, it's either a broken chair or not a chair at all. In other words, it doesn't have the characteristics of a chair if you can't sit in it, or if nobody can sit in it. But it still might have an image which led you to perceive it. So that image that we use is a sign. Now, did you want to say something, Andreas? Yes, that's what I meant originally. It wasn't about holding the body. I was just saying that I look at these chairs with the red stuff on it and see, I recognize it as a chair, but my sign of a chair is more like...

[14:52]

No, not your sign of a chair. Your characteristic of a chair. My sign is more like these yellow chairs here with the board on it. That's the typical chair that I have in mind. That's the more typical image that you have of a chair. Now, that's sign. The next step would be to ask some questions about these signs. And so, Jamie asked a question, for example, with a chair or an action or an emotion, so what's a sign? How does the imputational process work with longing? So, let's say you have some feeling, and there's something about the feeling that you feel connects with the word longing.

[15:59]

So far, this isn't imputation. This is just a sense of a word connects with some image you have of this feeling. So, if you have a feeling and you can't get an image about this feeling, and we do have experience like this, but we have a feeling and we don't have an image of it. This is part of what we're talking about here, is that you can have feelings without images of them, and when you don't have images of them, then, in a way, you can't perceive them clearly. So, you can decide whatever image would be sufficient for you, or what types of images would be sufficient for you to connect, so you'd be able to connect that image to the word longing. However, to actually then not just connect the word to longing,

[17:03]

but then to say, this is longing, then we need to impute upon this feeling an essence, an independent existence. And you can watch sometimes and catch yourself at sensing maybe the sense of self has not been projected, and therefore I do not feel comfortable actually saying, this is that word. And then you can sense when you put it on there, and then you can sense if you would take it away, you wouldn't feel comfortable with the word being on it, or even if you took the word away, you would feel uncomfortable because the essence was on it. So you can get to know the imputational character that way. And one of the exercises that I like is to say that this is the same as to say to identify the feeling.

[18:08]

In other words, we have to identify the feeling in order to name it. But then to say that the identity of this feeling, which we have identified, is nothing in addition, I should say, that the identity of the feeling is nothing in addition to the name, to the verbal designation, is the emptiness of that feeling, of the essence. Once you are able to name something, and by that naming identify it, or identify and name it, then I would say to you that one of the ways to work with the imputational character is to say that the absence of the imputational character in the phenomena of the feeling

[19:15]

is the fact that the identity which you've come up with is nothing more than the word, than a word. And when you hear that, then you notice you recoil against that, and your recoiling is because the imputational character is operating. If you don't recoil, and you accept that, then you let go of the imputational character. But there is a sense in this that when we look at something, and someone tells us that the identity of this person, or this thing, is nothing more than the word, the recoiling is because of the imputational character. Resisting. Feeling, no. This person is more than just a word. The identity of this person is more than just the word, grab. Isn't there a difference between a feeling and a sense object? Yeah, I'm just talking about feeling.

[20:17]

He's using the example of feeling. This would apply to all phenomena. Any phenomena. That's just the example that he used. That Jamie used. So with the feeling, that means there actually really isn't an imputational character. Pardon? There actually isn't an imputational character. There isn't an imputational character? Right. The imputational character is just the word. No, the imputational character is not just the word. The imputational character is basically that which you put on things, that which you falsely, inaccurately put on things, so that you can name them. And what we put on things so that we can name them is an appearance of independent existence. So if I don't really feel like you're independent of the wall, I would feel funny calling you Jamie. Because the wall isn't Jamie. And if I don't see you as independent of Walker,

[21:23]

then it seems funny to call you Jamie. I have to make you separate from Walker to call you Jamie and him Walker. So verbal designation doesn't make sense in the realm where there's no essences. So in the realm of emptiness, there's no verbal designation. So, let's see. I want to go to the example before I go too long of John saying, take the example of a sign that's a complex of many signs. There can be a sign, of a complex of many signs. Some image of an extremely complex, or a great complex of many simple signs,

[22:29]

or many complex signs. There can be a sign of all that. A single sign? A single sign, yeah. Or even just a little squiggle, just a little beep, is enough to say, oh yeah, that's an extremely complicated problem that we've been working on. So the glimpse of a complex object like the Wheelwright Center, if you just saw a corner of the roof or something and were immediately able to identify it, that's what you're calling a sign? Just that little piece that you saw? Well, it might be just that you saw a little piece, but it might be that you saw the whole Wheelwright Center, but you just made an image about the whole Wheelwright Center that you saw. In other words, the whole thing might have impressed you, but you came up with just a little snippet of it, which was enough for you to say Wheelwright Center. Because the sign of whatever it is, is not the thing. You never can make an image of something that encompasses. For example, you can't make an image of a person that includes the back of the person,

[23:30]

even if you have a mirror behind them. So, the image is always not the thing that's being imagined. I mean, it's imaginary. So the image, the sign is like an image of what's going on, but it's an image that's connected to the physical basis. So it's partly physical, and partly imaginary. So, something about the Wheelwright Center directly impresses you, and also you have an image of this direct impression. And it can be a very complex thing that impacts you, and different parts of the complex thing could impact you. But no matter what, you can make up an image of it. And the image of it, together with the complexity of it, is the sign. And the Other Dependent Character

[24:31]

is the sign of the compound phenomena. Part of what the Other Dependent Character is, is that it provides a direct impact of itself upon what it's connected to. It arises with... The Other Dependent Character arises with something that it can impress as a sign. And the Other Dependent Character is to work with that sign, connected to words, using essences. But also, before I go any further, I just wanted to say one more kind of major thing, and that is going back again to Chapter 5, where it talks about these mechanics of alaya and manas, and mano-vijnana, and caksa-vijnana,

[25:33]

and shabda-vijnana, and so on, all these different sense-consciousnesses, together with the mind-consciousness, and the mind-consciousness, sense-consciousness, and the mind-organ, which is manas, and the defiled mind-organ, or the defiled mind-consciousness, which is manas, but it's not because of understanding this alone that the bodhisattvas wise with respect to the functionings of mind-consciousness and intellect. It's also that they do not perceive all those things. So, not perceiving happens when you remove the signs. So, if you're looking at a phenomenon, or watching how the mind functions, and if you learn to see, and learn what the imputational character is, and learn to find that it actually is not present in the other dependent character, then the signs are removed.

[26:37]

So, again, the imputational character is known through signs that are connected to names, and then it's also, and then it's known, and it functions by the signs and names and you learn to find that this process is not present in what's happening, you see it's absent, then that removes the signs in the process. When you remove the signs, the images of the process, then you can't perceive these things. So, that's how you come to actually not do it, that in emptiness, or in the absence of the imputational character, in the situation being empty of the imputational character, you don't see eyes, ears, nose, tongue,

[27:39]

body, mind, color, sound, smell, touch, taste, because in order to see these things, in order to cognize them, in order to perceive them, in an identifiable way, so that you can say these things, to connect to the names. But in order to connect the signs to the names, you have to impute something that's imaginary. When you realize that the imaginary is absent, the whole conventional designation system collapses, just like they said it would, and then there aren't any of these things. So that's a short course on sort of the most difficult part of the text, is to actually learn how to remove signs. And then, in order to remove signs, you have to learn how to see suchness. In order to learn how to see suchness, you need to focus on the other dependent character, and then learn what the

[28:39]

invitational character is, and then verify that the invitational character is absent in everything. However, even though it's absent in everything, it can be superimposed on anything. And it's always available to be superimposed in a normally functioning, unenlightened person. And an enlightened person can also project it, but they do it not because of predispositions towards conventional designations, they just do it out of the kindness of their heart. So I'll go over this point about how to remove signs more, but I just wanted to put it out there for now, since somebody asked me about it this morning. The other thing I want to do is review... I'm just going to do questions for a while. I want to review sort of also

[29:40]

because someone asked me about this. Someone said something about that she was mindful of the immediate sense experience. She told me about the immediate sense experience of... Do you remember what you said, Sylvia? The immediacy of the sound. The sound. The immediacy of the color. The color, yeah. The immediacy of the sound. So like the deer sound, she was trying to be mindful of the immediacy of the sound or the color. But I felt my feeling was, when she was talking, my feeling in general for us is that when we have what we feel is an immediate experience of the sound, because we're talking about it that way so reasonably and clearly, that this is not the immediate experience of the sound.

[30:41]

Could you repeat the point about removing... In order to perceive, you need to remove sound? No. In order to... The definition of perception, said the third scholar, is that you grasp the sound. Right. So perception depends on grasping sound. So, if you meditate on suchness, if you see the absence of the invitation, you kind of undermine the process of perception of sound. So you remove the sound. So within the context of removing the sound, which happens when you meditate on a fairly established character, you also remove the sound. So then, in some sense, you don't really perceive things in the normal way of perceiving things, where you can identify things and designate them. Because you've removed... You've seen the absence

[31:46]

of what you use to identify things. Like words you use to identify things. But you can't put words on things without the invitational character being slapped on. So when Sylvia actually perceived the sound of a color, she really perceived it, but in order to articulate it to you, she came out of that immediately. Correct? Exactly. And that's why I said to her, I said, you do have immediate experiences of sounds and colors. You do. The immediate experience is happening all day. Right. But, without interpreting it as a sign, it's basically literally, excuse the pun, insignificant. And that's what the thirty

[32:48]

verses articulates. It says, whatever appears, whatever indeed is the variety of ideas of self and elements, or you could say persons and elements, that prevail, it occurs in the transformation of consciousness. Such transformation is threefold. The resultant, what is called mentation, or we call manas, as well as the concept of the object. Herein, the consciousness called alaya, with all its seeds, is the resultant. The resultant is unidentified in terms of concept of object and location, and is always possessed of activities such as contact, attention, feeling,

[33:48]

and perception. Alaya has within itself representations of consciousness of a not clearly imagined object in places. So, alaya, you know, so this karaka tree, you know, sometimes I really, these words, I kind of like, they kind of induce me, induct me into this space of where it's kind of like, there's contact, there's feeling, and there's all these representations of the universe, and this ocean of representations which consciousness is making of the universe. And all these feelings and everything, everything's in there, right? But no,

[34:50]

but this part kind of like, nobody's saying, do you know these people? I mean, some people are saying, do you know any of these people? And you continue to say, oh no, do you? Do you know me? No. Do I know you? No. Haven't I seen you somewhere before? Yes, but I'm not going to tell you where. Is there anybody here who could, you know, tell us who else is here? I don't know. And actually, there is, no, we're not there anymore, now we're up above, you know, and we're saying, but we know there is a transformation of consciousness which can tell those guys who's there with them. There is a transformation of consciousness which can identify all these objects which are floating around, sliding over

[35:50]

and around each other, bumping into each other. Right in that group, there is an idea. One of the people in the room can be used to identify any of them. One of the ideas, one of the representations of consciousness between the room is the representation of something that exists on its own. There's also the idea of things that exist independently. It's in there too. Totally useless under most circumstances, so nobody wants to play with it, but it's in there too. But one of them is the one that these guys who don't know what's going on want to meet. Because if they can find that one, they can put it up and that one can say, the sign of this one is connected to a word and if you separate this guy from the rest of the situation,

[36:50]

you'll clearly know who this is. But there is consciousness, there is cognition, this alaya is cognition, but it's unidentified cognition, in terms of concepts of objects. So the objects are there, it's cognizing the objects. So, in this aspect of alaya, is what might be called, kind of described there in Karka 3 of the 30 verses, this aspect of alaya is alaya as resultant and alaya as basis. And this is alaya

[37:51]

which cognizes objects and cognizes beings and cognizes residual impressions. Residual impressions from past actions, in particular the residual impressions of past moments where there was settling into the imputational character of things as being them. And settling into them is pretty much the same as the residual impressions of conventional designation, which can be also said residual impressions of past yieldings to the predisposition towards conventional designation. Part of the residual impressions is that

[38:51]

we have another feeling of impulse towards and compulsion towards conventional designation. That's part of what alaya cognizes. Could you repeat the list of what different things it cognizes? It cognizes objects, it cognizes beings, living beings, and it cognizes residual impressions of past actions, of past mental and physical and verbal actions. And very important among these residual impressions is this strong compulsion towards conventional designation. And that arrives from past moments of conventional designation, which means past moments of settling into the imputational character as being what happened. So this is another, I'm expanding

[39:52]

now on the third verse of the thirty verses. So this cognition is without any particular individuation. It's a cognition without any particular individuation. So it's not like a cognition of the sort. This is toga. And that is toga. It's not that kind. It's a different kind of cognition. It's without particular individuation. Which cognition? The cognition of alive. This is alive, right? This is the resultant basis kind of alive. So this is the mind that's looking at the mind? And this is the mind that's like this cognition? Is the mind watching the mind? Is the mind watching the mind? I think

[40:52]

it's more like the mind watching its contents. But not identifying. But not identifying. So that is the mind. The mind is its contents. The mind is its contents? Unidentified. Well I don't know if it's knowing is a content. When the list was not the simple act of knowing was not on the list. The simple act of cognition was not one of the objects. So the objects are the five sense objects and those are what they mean by objects. And then the sentient beings what's meant by that is the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, the mind cognizes those. So those in

[41:53]

alaya it's like alaya right down there in the organic situation and the physical situation in the inorganic and the organic situation and it's cognizing this stuff but not in a particular way. And it also cognizes the residual impressions of settling into the imputation of character of selves and dharmas. It's cognizing the residual effect of settling into the imputation of character of selves and dharmas but not in a particular way and therefore it's right in there with all this stuff, this rich soup

[42:53]

so this is the basis of it all but not knowing it in a particular way. It's not knowing it the way we usually know it like this is that and that is that this is x and that is y not like that different kind of knowing but it is knowing that's why it's called a consciousness but it's a consciousness and what does a consciousness know is it knows directly immediately the sense organs and the sense objects but it's not a sense consciousness yet. Pre-verbal? It's pre-verbal it's even pre-sense consciousness sense consciousness is not verbal necessarily sense consciousness is pre-verbal this is pre-verbal too but it's also pre-sense consciousness and how do we get sense consciousness? What's the story of the rising of

[43:53]

sense consciousness? Just pop that out there now Monovisionana? Monovisionana where does that come that what It's not it's contact between sensory stimulus and organ It's contact between sensory stimulus and organ but in this system what makes that happen? Alaya Yeah Alaya supports that because because the you can have moments of sense consciousness one sense consciousness but you have to have monovisionana doctor mind consciousness with it so mind consciousness has to arise so it says here in the what does it say when you get to the fifth karika it says associated

[44:54]

with the process of alaya and depending upon it there occurs a consciousness called manas which has the nature of meditation so from alaya this manas arises and with it arises monovisionana doctor and then from monovisionana doctor now you can have sense consciousness and then you have the arrival of the sense organ and the sense consciousness and now you have now you can actively know the images of alaya so I'm just that's just a parenthetical thing I want to go back now to alaya soup and you just sort of have you just think about this the situation where where there's cognition but where it's not you're not yet able to make conventional designations and that that is

[45:54]

immediate and that's going on that immediacy is going on all the time when people are asking questions and it's not like I'm stupid I can't see you so I told you keep raising your hand it doesn't really like mean that I didn't see you before does it you don't think that the first time you raised your hand I didn't see you did you no you don't good and one other thing I want to say is that I want to say again is that the initial meditation practice criterion for our sitting practice being the true path of enlightenment is that we sit in the awareness which is called the self-fulfilling

[46:55]

awareness and the self-fulfilling awareness is basically we sit in the awareness of the teaching of how we are how our existence is totally arising through the assistance of things other than our self and how we are part of the assistance network for all other things and that all Buddhas are sitting with each of us and all beings are sitting with each of us and we are sitting with all Buddhas and all beings and so when we sit we invoke that awareness which means we invoke the presence of all beings and all Buddhas which means we invoke the teaching of dependent co-arising so that's the basic faith practice of Soto Zen is that we we don't just go sit in Zendo as though

[47:55]

and just what do you call it settle into the imputational character of our sitting which is our sitting is this thing which has an own being called sitting we don't just go do that we do that but that's not the practice that's just a human trip we go on like everybody else of I'm doing my sitting with those people who aren't helping me and some of whom I'm helping and I feel like it no that's we may feel like that sometimes but that's not the self-fulfilling awareness the self-fulfilling awareness is the invocation of the presence of all Buddhas all Bodhisattvas all our hearts and all beings to realize the awareness that we're practicing together that's the basic and that's that's the same as to meditate to invoke the teaching of dependent co-arising and to think about it

[48:57]

while you're sitting so that's Dogen's I think basic faith and as I said he said there are millions of things I haven't understood that took this practice period the millions of things he didn't understand and the trillions of things I don't understand is what we've been talking about millions of things the millions of teachings the millions of subtleties the extreme subtlety and profundity of this dependent co-arising and again the Sangha is saying that to study dependent co-arising in the context of Alaya Vijnana is part is part of the path to understand the most deep and subtle understanding of the self-fulfilling Samadhi as you could say or of dependent co-arising in Mahayana this is a kind of like I'm saying this to encourage you in one sense

[49:57]

that this is a very difficult and subtle study but that it I feel is directly connected kind of wonderfully and coincidentally to to the central point of Soto Zen meditation this self-fulfilling Samadhi is very much meditating on the teachings of dependent co-arising in connection with Alaya Vijnana the mountains and the rivers of the immediate present are the manifestation of the path of the ancient bliss binding together in a normative state these mountains and rivers culminate the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness this is the teaching about dependent co-arising in the context of Alaya I feel so I think I I covered most of what I wanted to say

[50:58]

but one more point big point which I don't know how much more you're going to see at this point before it's all said and done but I I'm impressed by the value of looking at Alaya from another point of view which is not separate from the previous point of view so the previous point of view is the one that's clearly expressed in Karika 3 of 30 verses which I've just been talking to you about this this this resultant soup which is the basis for the arising of all active consciousness in all appearance clearly appearing objects in our world of persons

[51:58]

and souls and things that's the resultant basis consciousness Alaya and we'll talk about that more but there's another way to look at Alaya and that is to look at Alaya as seed or as seed or as dependent dependent seed Alaya so one way is the basis of things and where things get laid down and the other thing is the things that get laid down are also another way to look at Alaya to look at Alaya as the seeds or sometimes to say the perfumes the residual impressions are sometimes called perfumes which are laid back

[53:00]

down in Alaya by what? by the perfumer so that's the perfumer the perfumer is not Alaya the perfume is Alaya so the effects of our actions they get laid back down in the basis and change the basis and make the basis into a new resultant basis that's another aspect of Alaya which I want to tell you about now and I'll try to unfold that later and one more thing I wanted to say about Alaya which is in chapter 4 no, not chapter 4 verse 4 karaka 4 of the 30 verses after it says that it's you know it's unidentified in terms of

[54:00]

concepts of objects and location and it has all these feelings in there too and it has samya it has samya but the samya is having trouble working in its usual way because the signs aren't being connected to the names very well because no essences are being projected and it has it has and there's an organization in the system which is the will of the situation the volition and it has attention there's attention in various ways all these normal basic mental factors are in Alaya too and then the fourth karaka says that in this context the feeling is neutral it's uninterrupted and not defined and so are these mental factors and it proceeds like a current of a stream and I want to point out

[55:00]

that it's undefined I recently ran across somebody who's trying to say not defined as not subject to moralizing I'm not defined that the word that they're using there is the word which means morally neutral so when we're classifying experience like in the early early teaching of the Buddha one of the ways to analyze our experience is in terms of wholesome unwholesome and neutral or wholesome unwholesome and you can't tell whether it's wholesome or unwholesome or skillful unskillful and you can't tell which so you can analyze your experience in that way you can learn to analyze your experience in that way Alaya is morally indeterminate it's the situation

[56:04]

which all the seeds for all unwholesomeness are in there the seeds for all wholesomeness are in there the seeds for all indeterminate states are in there the seeds for states for images of states that are in all states are in there but the overall situation is not it's not subject to moralizing you can't really say that Alaya is good or bad there's no way to get at it and part of the reason for this is that Alaya needs to be the basis for both wholesome and unwholesome activities so it wouldn't work for Alaya to be wholesome because then unwholesome things couldn't arise from it and you might say well if unwholesome things can arise from Alaya then I say Alaya is unwholesome but then I would say well but wholesome things

[57:05]

can arise from Alaya too and you might say oh maybe it's not so unwholesome then but I think it's kind of unwholesome that it can do both anyway both wholesome and unwholesome and neutral can arise from it therefore it's not really wholesome unwholesome it's indeterminate and the feeling in Alaya is neutral there is a feeling in Alaya which is not clearly identified but there is a feeling and it's a big feeling feeling in Alaya or of Alaya in Alaya in Alaya so Alaya has has a feeling but feeling like all other objects in Alaya are not clearly known are not identified so it has a feeling which is not identified but I would have a feeling

[58:06]

of Alaya Alaya itself would not have a feeling no? you would have a who are you? the you arises from this Alaya right and in the Alaya there's feeling in the Alaya yeah however you know I just again parenthetically I don't want to get into this at this moment parenthetically when the sense consciousnesses or when the evolving consciousnesses eye consciousness ear consciousness no consciousness and so on and mind consciousness when they arise they can have positive negative and neutral feelings the seeds for positive negative and neutral feelings are in Alaya but the only one that's being used in Alaya the one that's always turned on in Alaya is neutral it's always on neutral and states can arise which can be neutral positive or negative those are the states you know the ordinary feelings are in those states

[59:07]

but those states arise in dependence on this huge all embracing basis the feeling there is neutral I think it's helpful to remember the feeling in this place is neutral it's not agreeable or unagreeable or disagreeable and that connects to what I said yesterday about the second type of dependent co-arising which is about distinguishing agreeable from disagreeable just trying to drive make a little net here for your plan ok so that's Alaya the basis the fruition basis and there's Alaya which is the dependent seed the seed which is laid down upon or the seed which is based on Alaya put back into

[60:07]

Alaya it's not the seed that arises out of Alaya the seeds mature into these active consciousnesses and then in those active consciousnesses if we settle into the reputational character influences the laying down of more into Alaya also I wanted to say has anybody not read the 30 verses raise your hands you might want to read it it's not very long just two pages but it says this is I just talked about Karak Kor and then in Karak 16 oh here it is

[61:09]

so then in terms of Manas I just wanted to say that it explains that Manas is not found is not found in the worthy one or in the state of cessation on the super mundane path and that Alaya is turned back or dissipates in the Arhat or in the Bodhisattva at the eighth boon so the Alaya does get turned back or quieted in certain states of understanding and Manas is not found in certain levels of beings certain levels of maturation so I think that's enough for now do you have some questions? yes

[62:12]

we need to speak of moving signs I'm also thinking of elsewhere in the sutra where it cautions the practitioner not to deprecate any of the three types of character actually if you deprecate even the imputational character you deprecate all three types of character which I found kind of interesting because it challenged my idea of a hierarchy I think unconsciously I form a hierarchy that thoroughly establishes like you know the grand prize or something may I say something? yeah this is just a coincidence that Roberta is one of the co-chairmen of the diversity committee do you understand what I said when I said that? no you don't? oh oh oh I see about deprecating if you deprecate one character you deprecate all characters you might think

[63:18]

well I could deprecate that character George Bush can be deprecated without deprecating somebody else but actually according to the sutra you can't deprecate one character without deprecating them all I was going to mention that you might look at this before page 119 talking about these different levels of understanding may I say this for a second? it's probably what Roberta is referring to it talks about some beings who cannot yet overcome conceptuality they can't do it but they're not arrogant so they can actually keep evolving along the path and they will eventually be okay and then it's followed up by

[64:18]

some sentient beings who have not completed all the stages up to great accumulation of merit and wisdom and who are not honest and do not have honest nature who are able to remove conceptuality so these are pretty effective meditators but they have some character flaws and because they are able to move over conceptuality and they're holding to fixed views of their own view to be supreme they actually come upon this teaching as a thoroughly established and take it literally and they can actually understand it in a sense and then based on that they adopt the view that all phenomena do not exist and that character does not exist adopting such a view of the non-existence and the view of the character does not exist they deprecate everything through the deprecation of all characters

[65:18]

so you might look at that section of the sutra because that's the section of the sutra that talks about and shows you the danger of taking a fixed view vis-a-vis a thoroughly established character we need this view of a thoroughly established character to remove signs and we have to be careful in this process otherwise we will deprecate the other characters so then we'll even deprecate the thoroughly established character and this is pointing out the big danger of nihilism in the process of removing signs that's why we need strong ethical basis as we enter into the process of removing signs so my question was how to work with removing signs without deprecating the imputational yeah without deprecating the imputational yeah because removing them seems to imply that you know you can get all sorts

[66:19]

of images about evacuating rejecting rejecting yeah so we have to watch out for that stuff and so when you actually get to the place where you can see the thoroughly established and you're ready to drop those signs let me know I'll check your deprecation level of deprecation to make sure it's not deprecated yes page 119 check that out what Roberta said I think that the signs aren't the same are not the identity of the imputational character the signs aren't the identity yeah you could work with signs without harming the imputational character at all you could remove the signs without harming the imputational character yes but you

[67:50]

don't have to deprecate anything in not strongly adhering to the imputational character however some people if they're not careful and hold to their own view in the process they can start getting deprecation can arise again holding strongly to our view is a kind of deprecation right of other views and it's hard to like it's hard to attain actually the state of not holding to our view you know and to be open to other people's views sort of on par with ours that's quite quite a feat when we're actually trying to train ourselves to be able to open to other people's views almost as not as though they were ours but as equally good to ours that would be that's another way to put the training when you

[68:52]

were going over Alaia in such detail in this class I was reminded of something I had thought before but much more strongly this time that it seems that in 20th century depth psychology what Freud and others were calling it what they were reaching for was Alaia yeah and maybe some people think what Jung was reaching for by collective unconscious maybe is Alaia but that doesn't say that what they say that it is is there

[71:00]

in a sense so you said an experience of a lack of individuation that's different from an experience which lacks individuation okay I want to talk about the second one yeah okay because if you experience a lack of individuation that sounds like a clear identification of a lack of individuation okay yeah I mean the second one yeah okay so with that then that's that's a lie as the basis a kind of experience that doesn't have much as hard individuation yeah and that's the basic experience okay so then this might be jumping a little bit but I don't like this word because it has a stigma tied to it that I don't individuation no the word I'm going to say telepathy yeah okay so without the stigma of that but take the stigma away then is telepathy

[72:02]

something that's experienced within the relative so is there imputation and whatnot connected with that or is it more I think from my understanding of telepathy is that it's a relative phenomenon it's a it's a dependent co-arising anything that arises is a dependent co-arising and therefore it's relative that's the first thing what's the next part I answered the relative part is there just one mind is there just one mind yeah just one mind but the alaya is not that one mind I think alaya is

[73:02]

there's many different alayas for individual people because alaya is how alaya is not operating floating out there alaya is when consciousness is laid down apprehends a body that's alaya it's body based and it's not based in everybody's body it's based on individual bodies and has individual history and alaya obscures the one mind and by the way the word this first type of alaya I talked about the basis alaya when it talks about the resultant alaya it says vipaka vipaka alaya is the resultant alaya and the resultant alaya is also a basis alaya and the word for basis is

[74:02]

ashraya where are you alaya? hi ashraya ashraya basis this is also vipaka resultant and the and the the big thing that has to happen in this school is what's called ashraya ashraya pravitti and pravitti is the word for these consciousnesses these are called pravitti vignanas the active sense the active sense consciousnesses are called pravitti vignanas which means evolving or turning or entering consciousnesses evolving

[75:04]

returning rising ceasing and these are the consciousnesses which we ordinarily are aware of as clear identification but the big transformation of alaya is called ashraya pravitti where the basis of gets turned it turns from being obstructing to being a mirror it turns from obscuring to clearly reflecting it changes from obscuring dependent co-arising to showing dependent co-arising is that one mind? that's one mind? is that one mind? no, that reveals the one mind the mirror wisdom? no, the mirror wisdom isn't the one mind, the mirror wisdom is the non-dual awareness of one mind it's the realization of one mind is it

[76:05]

the thoroughly established one mind? no, thoroughly established is the object which purifies the alaya which purifies the obstructions to that knowledge by looking at suchness we remove the signs of the ocean and then it turns into a mirror rather than a cover okay yes that turning of alaya revolution of the basis once it's turned is that is that kind of that it is that it or alaya? yeah that's it or alaya so there isn't a turning then and turning back that's it nope so that's why it says

[77:05]

if it says it's turned back in arhatship or this book was written this text was written before the bodhisattva eight bhumis was you know circulating thoroughly through the community so that for some reason they don't mention bodhisattvas here so arhats and bodhisattvas at the eighth level they turn back alaya and it doesn't flip back again so then they use the imaginative capacities available but not in this way of this semi-conscious predispositions of alaya let's see who else hasn't been called on yet katherine i think it was yesterday maybe the day before you said that there was a sense or one

[78:05]

version of alaya in which it is the object condition for sense consciousness and what i want to know or what i'm wondering is isn't the object condition i said that i said again i said it's just an idea for you to consider that the object condition for a sense consciousness might be alaya rather than the object of condition for the sense consciousness would be outside of the cycle of the consciousness being transformed so the transformation the transformations of consciousness are the inward transformation is sense consciousness mind consciousness alaya mind consciousness sense consciousness mind consciousness alaya the inward process is sense consciousness mind consciousness alaya the outward process is alaya mind consciousness, sense consciousness. That process, that transformation process, usually when

[79:07]

we talk about the sense consciousness, we say the object condition for the sense consciousness is physical forms, and then the dominant condition for the rise of the sense consciousness is the sense organ. But what we just said here is that the forms are actually in alaya. What I said to you earlier is the basis, the objective part of the basis consciousness is the objective condition of the basis consciousness. Kalambana, the object condition of the basis consciousness, alaya, has the colors in the consciousness and has the sense organs in the consciousness. So that would say that you don't have to go outside of the system to get sense data, that the sense data and the sense consciousness are connected to the alaya. So then alaya, in a sense, is the object condition, and it would also be, in a sense, the indistinguishable from,

[80:17]

wait a second, in alaya, the object condition for alaya is the sense organs and the sense data for alaya. I just said to you, in the basis sense consciousness, which is alaya, the basis alaya consciousness, the objective condition for that is the sense data and the sense organs. So in Manas, we've got the basis consciousness of alaya, alaya as a shrine. Its object condition is, its objective support is the five sense objects, the five sense organs, and the residual impressions. Okay? Its objective support, which is, yeah, it's objective support.

[81:28]

It's alaya matra jaya. Can I put my question out? I think I'm in the area of it exactly. So you're saying that the object condition for a sense consciousness, that alaya is the object condition for a sense consciousness. It's the, when you use the example color, it's the capacity to read color, or the concept that you see as color, but not the electromagnetic light. That's the electromagnetic condition that we interpret as color. You're not saying that's in alaya. You know, the other day, I think I sort of did. But I didn't say I really thought that. I just said, you can go that far. But what I'm saying today is that alaya is sitting there in

[82:31]

this soup, intimately, you know, hanging out with images and sense organs at the same time. That's alaya. Sense organs and physical objects, physical sense data, it's all kind of like, they're like together. Okay? And then out of that soup arises mind consciousness. And the mind consciousness, of course, is dependent on alaya. And also arising with the mind consciousness is this mind ordering. Because mind consciousness can't reflect on the material in alaya, unless it's got an organ. And its organ is monus, which is the just-to-see sense consciousness, or just-to-see, last cognition, as a force to activate the arising of this mind consciousness. So now mind consciousness can know images of alaya, influenced by the predispositions of alaya, plus influenced by the infection of its

[83:34]

organ. Its organ, the pal who got it able to identify what's in alaya, also slapped a self-idea of self in there. The fourfold misconceptions of problems of self got connected to the mind consciousness, and the sense consciousness arises from that. Simultaneously, you could say. Because you have alaya, monus, monovision on it, and the sense consciousness. And if the sense consciousness by themselves can't believe the self, the mind consciousness can believe the self. That the mind organ has imposed upon it. And then the believing the self, which means self agreeing with this reputational character, that influences the way we see the world. And that whole pattern then has the effect of going back into mind consciousness, and planting seeds back into alaya.

[84:40]

That's a step system. So the sense consciousnesses are in there, intimately connected with alaya. Through the whole process. I think the course of the discomfort of the question that I'm trying to get at is, is there an environment around alaya, or is there an environment only in alaya? According to this teaching. Yeah, I mean, I think there are two ways the teaching goes. I think this teaching, in its early phases, taught by Asanga in Vasubandhu, I think that the sense of the physical world is in alaya. It's not to say that it isn't the physical world, it's just saying the physical world is consciousness.

[85:43]

The way consciousness manifests is as physical, data, sense organs and so on. But we also said alaya connected at birth with the organs. But there wasn't an alaya before that. The actual alaya arises when the beingness arises. So when there's no beings, there's no alaya. But when there's alaya, there's beings and there's organs, and the organs and the objects are in alaya. I think that's what the early yogic people are saying. So there's not a physical world outside of consciousness, different from consciousness. But we're not denying the physical world. Yeah, I understand that. But once you have that, then how do you have a consciousness here, a consciousness here, a consciousness there, and another here, and another there?

[86:51]

How do you have separate consciousnesses? Because of alaya. Because alaya has the imagination of separate consciousnesses. But they're not really separate, and none of the elements in them are separate. So there's just one alaya after all? No, there's not just one alaya. Play this out. There's not just one alaya. Alaya is the source of the imagination that there's one alaya or two alayas, but they're separate entities. That's the idea of separate entities. So according to the idea of separate entities, there's separate alayas. But that's an illusion. That doesn't mean that there's one big alaya, because alaya is the source of separation. You could say all the alayas are interdependent. All the different ideas of separation are interdependent. But the interrelationship between all the alayas imagining interdependence is not another alaya.

[87:58]

That's actually the mirror-like wisdom. So the mirror-like wisdom is... There isn't a mirror-like wisdom which is separate from other mirror-like wisdoms. Alaya is obscuring and confining. It hooks us into a particular place. So we have a birth. But that place and birth in alaya are actually not identified as a separate place and birth. The source of imagining separate places and births are in that situation which is not separate. So my sense organs of my alaya are not separate from your sense organs of your alaya. But my birth comes with a consciousness which imagines itself to be separate from your birth. That's alaya. And I get over that, eventually. But when I get over it, it isn't that now my alaya is connected with your alaya any more than it was before. It's that now I'm obscured to see my true relationship with you and the true relationship in my history with your history.

[89:05]

And there's now just mirror-like wisdom. Unobscured by separation. And there's probably some problem with that. But that's what I'm saying. The subtleties are... We've got some subtleties looming up ahead of us. There's ten million things I have not yet clarified. But this is the basic trajectory of faith. This is teaching in Japan called Aizu. And rarely heard... Yes? I'm wondering about the removing of signs. Because I thought when you were speaking earlier that the arising of the sign was distinct from the projection of essence. Yes. So I'm just wondering why it's necessary to remove the sign and not just stop projecting essence. So, let's see. Well, one thing...

[90:15]

Just for now, this isn't true or anything. We're going to remove... We're going to remove the... We're going to remove alaya. Alaya. We're going to remove the alaya-like aspect of the Other Dependent Character. So to some extent, when we remove the sign from the Other Dependent Character, that's part of the purification of the Other Dependent Character. It's like the gritty part of the purification process of the Other Dependent Character. So we'll still have the Other Dependent Character. It isn't that we eliminate the dependently co-arising universe. It's just we eliminate alaya. In the way we eliminate alaya, which is obscuring the Other Dependent Character.

[91:22]

So alaya is totally... Understanding alaya is totally... It's an extremely important part of the Other Dependent Existence. And it is what is... Our life of alaya is what's obscuring understanding the Other Dependent Character. And one of the pivots for getting alaya to turn around is to remove the signs. We remove the signs by meditating on how the Invitational Character's absence in the Other Dependent... And alaya is implicated in this. That's my response this morning. But we can keep working on this. I'm sure there's subtleties on this point. But we're actually going to... There's actually going to be a dismantling of alaya. Turning it around, and I think the sign removal is key. So when the sutra says that...

[92:28]

That the way we know the Other Dependent Character is through strongly adhering to the Other Dependent Character... The Invitational Character is being the Other Dependent Character. That means the way people ordinarily do. That is the... There's another way of knowing the Other Dependent Character. Which is the way you know it when you remove the signs. That's the way it would be known. And that's the way it's described at the end of Chapter Eight. Actually, with the signs removed. Eight or seven? Eight. At the end of the chapter on yoga, it describes what you know when the signs are removed. In other words, how the Other Dependent Character is when the signs are removed. And there's wonderful little questions that can be asked about, well, what's this person's life? Because it doesn't have an alaya. Yes? How is it...

[93:34]

I mean, where does it happen? How is it that when...

[93:38]

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