With the aid of The Thirty Verses, let me again tune in to the teaching of mere concept. Vasubandhu says that the manifestation of mental consciousness takes place always, except . . . . He tells you the exceptions. For all practical purposes, this mental consciousness takes place all the time. Thus, thought involves this transformation of mental consciousness. For that reason—in other words, it’s a kind of thought that comes to us through transformation—what has been thought of does not exist. All this is mere concept. Consciousness indeed possesses all seeds. Transformation occurs in a variety of ways. It proceeds on the basis of mutual dependence as a result of which such and such thoughts are born. All these thoughts, these mere concepts, are born by mutual dependence. Whatever thought through which an object is thought of as a substance—whatever kind of thought we use to think of these dependently co-arisen concepts as having substance—that indeed is a fabrication. That kind of thought which imputes substance to these dependently co-arisen concepts is fabrication and is not evident; there’s no evidence for it, because as Vasubandhu says later, it’s empty of characteristics. There are no characteristics for you to bring up as evidence for it—no evidence except its effect, which is misery. So it does function, but it’s insubstantial in itself. The process of attributing substance to the concept we’re aware of is itself insubstantial. The concepts that are arising are insubstantial, but they’re evident; there’s evidence for them, very clear evidence, which we can discuss. The evidence is their characteristics. Each one can be specifically identified through the evidence, through the characteristics it has. Because it has characteristics—the very way it’s evident—is precisely why it’s insubstantial. Verse 20 says the kind of thought through which the concept of this object is made into a self—that kind of thought is itself mere fabrication and it is insubstantial.
For me the meditational pivot of the text is verse 21, which says this dependent self-nature, this concept that dependently co-arises, is a thought, a concept that has arisen by conditions. However, the absence of the one prior to it—the absence of this attribution of self—is what we mean by the accomplished. One way to understand the accomplished is this: this thought that arises by causes and conditions is just a concept, which we call vijñaptimatra (vijñapti—concept, matra—just). Vijñaptimatra arises moment by moment. Whatever you’re aware of, whatever you know about, whatever the self knows, it’s just concept—vijñaptimatra. When no substance is attributed to vijñaptimatra, that’s called vijñaptimatrata. That’s the accomplishment of the state of mere concept. In other words, a dependently co-arisen event is just a dependently co-arisen event—vijñaptimatrata. It seems to me that many or all of you have had moments like that when there was vijñaptimatra. You’re working with that all the time. I think there are also moments when there is vijñaptimatra without anything being attributed to it, and that’s vijñaptimatrata. That’s the accomplishment of mere concept. That’s the state of mere concept.
By studying things that are empty, watching empty things, things that are sunya, we accomplish sunyata—we realize emptiness. By studying things that are impermanent, anitya, we realize anityata, impermanence. By studying things themselves, all the elements of our experience, the dharmas, we realize dharmata—we penetrate and understand dharma. All these different attainments are conditioned by what we’re studying and arise in co-dependence on something else that’s arising in co-dependence, too. So they aren’t final realities, just mere concepts.
Again for me the pivot is verse 21, where I come back to the concept—consider and meditate on the concept being all by itself; watch if that concept gets infected or if anything gets attached and messes with it; see how the concept works with some self, some transcendental apprehension; watch how that happens, how that gets mucky and unclear and sucks me down or throws me around; watch that and then watch for those moments when the parikalpita svabhava, the abhuta parikalpita, the imagination of what has never happened, drops away and there’s just a concept—simple, ordinary, plain old concept; watch what happens in such a moment—a moment of vijñaptimatrata, a moment of mere concept—observing further how that in turn may be taken, made into a concept, and then grasped. This is how substance is then attributed to the attainment of mere concept; how then the accomplished becomes an object itself and self is re-invited to inhabit the accomplished. The pivot is those three verses—20, 21 and 22. Verses 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29 are all additional instructions around the earlier three. Verse 21 is the center of my meditation. Verses 20 and 22 round it out and the others are guardians to 21, which is just a dependently co-arisen concept. The eye of the koan of experience is verse 21. It’s the dharma eye of this text. I’m not saying this is the only eye of the text. Maybe for you the eye would be someplace else. If so, I would be interested in hearing where it would be.
I was discussing this meditation with someone, and he had some questions about how to work with this process—how to work with this thing which presents itself to us moment by moment. While we were talking, a poem by Rilke came to mind. The center of the poem is the ancient tower:

I live my life in growing rings, ever growing orbits
Which pull themselves over things.
The last perhaps I won’t complete,
But I will be attempting it.
I circle around the ancient tower
and I circle for a thousand years.
And I don’t know yet
Am I a falcon?
Am I a storm?
Or a great song?

Somebody asked, “Is it possible to have consciousness without cognition?” The answer is yes, if you mean by cognition, cognizing a concept. However, when you have consciousness without cognition of an object, which is a concept, you don’t know it. Everything I know on the level where there is an “I” is just concept. So then the person said, “I’m really confused about this.” When there is cognition of a concept, if there is any attribution of self, any attribution of substance to this concept; if you are walking around the tower and there is any attribution to the tower; if you know for sure you’re not a falcon; if you know for sure you’re not a storm, you’re not a song; if you know what you are—you’re attributing substance to yourself and to whatever you’re looking at. And so you get confused because you know something for sure. Knowing something doesn’t confuse you, but being sure that what you know is something substantial does confuse you. The confusion will show you that you must be attached to something—you can’t get confused unless you’re attached. If you just sit there and look at the concept and don’t attach to it, you won’t get confused. You will just be amazed at the wonder of conception, the wonder of birth, the wonder of death. That’s all. You’ll just be in awe. You’ll cry, you’ll laugh, whatever—you’re a free agent in awe of what you’re aware of. There’s no attachment because you didn’t attribute substance to the awesome concept. If you don’t attribute substance to it, you can’t get hold of it. Some people worry that if they stop attributing substance to concepts, they won’t be able to get hold of them anymore. “I like holding on to these people. I like having my babies, my wife, my money. If I don’t attribute substance to it, I might not be able to hold on to this stuff anymore. What’s going to happen to my lawnmower?”
So then he said that he was afraid that any form of volition, any motivation that you have in your practice, might be substantial. Volition is not substantial. Don’t worry about it; nothing is. You don’t have to worry about your volition or motivation being substantial; it’s not. However, the volition you’re thinking about—whatever motivation you think you have for practice—that’s not volition, that’s a concept of volition. What you’re aware of as your motivation isn’t your motivation; it’s related to your motivation. You do have motivation or volition, but what you think it is, as soon as you think of it, is converted into something which is merely a concept. If you’re suspicious of that having substance, you can just convict yourself immediately—not of its having substance, but of your attributing substance to it. It doesn’t have substance. Fortunately or unfortunately your motivation for practice, whatever it is, is free of your interference. Its dharma functioning is going along very nicely, and you can’t get to it because it’s beyond your conception. Your actual volition is inconceivable and therefore protected from everybody. The concept of your motivation, however, you can play with. And you can be aware of playing with this concept of your motivation for practice. And it’s possible to observe yourself attributing substance to it; you will be observing a concept of attributing substance to it. You don’t have to attribute substance to that. You can just note it and let it be.
Sometimes it helps people to have stages, so I’m going to give you some stages to play with—the training process of studying mere concept. There are some people who are not in the training program. Those people you might call the unenlightened individualists. They are unenlightened, and they are proud of it. They think Buddhism is weird, and they think they’re not, and they do not want to have anything to do with opening up to the idea that what they’re aware of, what they care about in life, is just a bunch of concepts. They cognize concepts just like us, and immediately they develop a sense of self about whatever they’re aware of and attribute substance to it, and because of that they consider themselves to be made of it and to be made by it. They consider it to be their own and take delight in it. This is not really training; this is developing experience, which may lead one to ask for help. But the person is not really engaging in study at this time.
Then there are those who are training, who are attempting to comprehend what a concept is. They are trying to understand what a dependently co-arisen object of awareness is.
Eventually, you’re able to stop believing in it and identifying with it, and being manipulated and tossed around by these things. There are many ways of how to do this. You walk around the concept for a thousand years.
Somebody asked, “Is this practice of studying mere concept related to the passage in The Book of Serenity where it says ‘catch the thief by riding the thief’s horse’?” Yes, it is. One way to think about it is that the thief is running away and you jump on the thief’s horse and chase after the thief. The way I would suggest is that the thief is on the horse and you jump on the horse with the thief and give it a hug. Who’s the thief? The thief is verse 20. The thief is a thought which attributes substance to things. Get on the thief’s horse. What’s a thief’s horse? The horse is concept. Jump on the concept. Is there a thief on this horse? If so, give it a hug and it will fall right through your hands. Pretty soon you’ll just be on the horse without the thief. The one that’s attributing substance won’t be there. That’s how you catch and get rid of the thief. Get closer to it and you’ll find out that there isn’t one anyway. And there isn’t really even a horse. The thief is the one who says, “My horse! I’m on this horse and I love it!” This is the kind of thing the trainee does.
Then there are those who have attained vijñapimatrata siddhi, in other words, so-called enlightened people. The vijñaptimatra is happening to them the same as to us, and the sense of self is not happening. It’s gone—permanently separated. That’s the difference. You get so trained at it that it never catches on anymore.
Buddha, in the Udana (1.10) enumerated various kinds of concepts—earth, fire, water . . . the seen, the heard, the sensed,1 and the cognized. Then there’s unity and diversity, and there’s “everything.” Then there’s the concept of freedom, liberation, enlightenment, supreme bliss. Using the set of seen, heard, sensed, and cognized, Buddha said, “Please train yourself in vijñaptimatra, thus. In the seen there will be just the seen. In the heard there will be just the heard. In the sensed there will be just the sensed. In the cognized there will be just the cognized. When for you in the seen there is just the seen and in the heard there is just the heard and in the sensed there is just the sensed and in the cognized there is just the cognized, then you will not identify with these concepts. When you don’t identify with them, there will be no here or there or in between and this will mean the end of suffering.” This is training in vijñaptimatrata. This is how to work with these things—the seen, the heard, and so on.
If you do work with those things and you get to the end of suffering, then what happens? Then you have these other verses. Then you have mere concept. You have attained it, if you just focus in on something and don’t focus too much or too little. In other words, if you are memorizing a text, you can’t overlearn it or underlearn it. You’re learning just the amount of words that are there. You’re being upright with the text in an intimate way. Memorizing a text can be an example. “The word is heard and that’s the word.” Memorize that one. I’ll memorize, “In the heard there will be just the heard.” When you focus in on things like that, you get tuned in to this state. And then you may get up from this state and you may walk out the door of your room and everything is kind of dazzling, luminous. All these trees and grasses and walls and tiles and pebbles and people—they’re all coming up, dazzling you with their docility and their firmness and their vitality! And then you put that in front of yourself, and you make that into a super-duper concept. And that’s fine, unless you attribute substance to it. If you do, then it’s a 90-mile-an-hour train. Almost no one can help you with this one; it’s really going to throw you for a loop, so be careful.
You’re all working really well, so as a result you’re getting little attainments, little dazzlings. You’re getting aligned with what’s happening. You’re being upright, so then you get the attainment of mere concept, which is great. Someone said he was sitting in lecture and suddenly felt he was in a rain of comfort and couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Then wham! Something smacked him. What was that? He was thinking, “You aren’t supposed to be so happy in lecture. The other people aren’t smiling and they might ostracize you for being happier than they are.” But there’s another wham which is before the social wham. It’s the wham which happens to you when you make that rain of comfort into a substance. And if you are being rained on by comfort, who wouldn’t want to make that into a substance? It’s very tempting, especially if your body gets into it, your face starts changing shape, and you start getting warm. These are concepts worthy of substantiation. But your life, which has just been allowed some space, some comfort to be itself, that same life says, “Don’t now make this into something! That’s what you just got released from!” Wham!
If you’re not comfortable and then you hold onto something, you may not notice what that does when you hold on to it. If you’re miserable and then something goes by and you hold on to that concept, you won’t notice that holding on to it makes you miserable. There isn’t any difference. It just perpetuates the process. What’s helpful is when you take a break from it. When you feel relaxed and warm and comfortable, you can see that it’s true that if you hold “so much as the letter A in your mind, you go to hell as fast as an arrow shot.” Just like that! Just the letter A, not to mention a big fat word like comfort! If you’re already in hell, you don’t notice it. What sends you there is holding. But of course what really sends you there is your attributing substance to that comfort.
Your body and life does it to itself. Your life says, “OK! Hell, you do this one more time . . . hell!” “I’m willing to stop. How can I stop?” “We’re not going to tell you. Just stop that!” It’s bio-feedback. Your life does not want you to hold on to its happiness, it’s fulfillment. The proof of that comes to you when it’s fulfilled for a second. Then you can see.
People think, “This pain is too much! I can’t stand this pain!” But in terms of this kind of study, it’s not that the pain is too much. If the pain were too much—do you think the universe really made a mistake in delivering this pain to you? Do you think your body is making a mistake in suffering this way? Yes, you do. [Laughter] But it didn’t make a mistake. You or I made a mistake by attributing substance to this pain. It’s not that the pain is too much; it’s that attributing substance to it is too much. The pain’s enough. It doesn’t need any more from you. But anyway, you do give substance to it. A little bit of pain with substance attributed to it is too much. A lot of pain with substance attributed to it is also too much. You might ask, “Well, isn’t a lot of pain with substance attributed to it more too-much than a little pain with substance attributed to it?” Well, what do you think? Check it out and come and tell me. Is there really a big difference? Maybe the difference is that a lot of pain is more useful, because when you have a lot of pain, you realize, “I cannot stand to attribute substance to a lot of pain, but I can stand to attribute substance to a little bit of pain.” So actually maybe a lot of pain is better, because you can’t fool around with a lot of pain. Anyway, the point is—as soon as you attribute substance to it you’re in trouble, you’re in hell. The same applies to pleasure. A little pleasure, if you hold on to it, also sends you reeling. Medium or large size pleasure, if you hold on to it, will also send you reeling . . . I think. If you have different information, let me know. I haven’t heard any other stories yet.
These are examples of study. You asked for examples, did you get some?
Teah Strozer: Thank you for asking, but I need stupid examples. For instance, the other day we had soup for dinner, and it wasn’t enough for me, so I said, “This dinner is not enough.”
Tenshin Anderson: You had a concept “not enough.” Then did you attribute substance to that?
TS: Yes, I did, because I thought that wasn’t enough.
TA: That's what it’s like when you attribute substance. You actually think that not enough is not enough. Attributing substance means you actually think it’s true. Other people in the room might have thought it was enough, but that doesn’t count. You may know that, but you think, “At least for me, it actually wasn’t enough.” Someone else may say, “Yes it was enough for you!” You can say, “You can’t determine how much is enough for me! I get to choose that!” You do get to choose how much is enough for you. And you do say it all the time: “Enough!” “Not enough!” “Enough!” You do that. However, other people can also say that you had enough. (“No, I didn’t!” “Yes, you did!”) They can have their opinion, too. Who’s right? The one who had the concept with substance. If “not enough” is substantial, then that would be right and “enough” would be insubstantial and that wouldn’t be right. So the one who had the substance would be the correct person. [Laughter] That’s what you get into if you want to live in that world. Buddha calls this the two paths, the two ways of relating to your concepts. One is called the path of war, the other is called the path of peace. One is when you actually have a view: that’s “enough” or “not enough” dinner—either one. The tenzo says it’s “enough;” the person eating says “not enough.” They both dogmatically hold those positions, so you can have a war. Even if the tenzo says, “I don’t know if it’s enough,” and the other person says, “It’s not,” and they’re sure, you can still have a war. People can go and attack the tenzo. It’s a dogmatic, rigid belief in the concept “not enough.”
The bowl you’re eating out of is called “just enough.” That’s the name of the bowl. This means whatever you get in that bowl is enough. You have your opinion, but whatever your opinion is, there’s always enough. You’re going to think something else, but don’t believe it. That’s what the bowl is about. What is the meaning of what’s in this bowl? What does it mean that there’s not much soup here? There’s a famous Zen story. The monk comes to see the teacher. Huairang Huihai comes to see the Sixth Ancestor. The Sixth Ancestor says, “What is it that thus comes?” What is it that has just come to be here? Huairang says, “To say it’s this is already missing the mark. To say it’s not this is also missing the mark.” The Ancestor says, “Does that mean there’s no practice or realization?” Huairang says, “I don’t say there’s no practice or realization. I just say that it must not be defiled.”
They come and pour something in your bowl. You look at it. Something has come. What is it that thus comes? Is it this? Is it enough? Is it not enough? To say it’s enough misses the mark, to say it’s not enough misses the mark. To say it’s this misses the mark, to say it’s not this misses the mark. Whatever you say, if you think what you say is it, you miss the mark. What’s important is that this must not be defiled. The amount of soup you get must not be defiled. You will have a thought, like “This is enough!” “This is good!” “This is bad!” Such concepts will arise, of course. But to say, “This is enough,” “This is true,” misses the mark. How do you protect the co-dependently produced delivery that you’ve just gotten? How do you discover it’s purity? This is the Buddha Way. How do you jump on the horse with the thief and catch it? This is uprightness.