predisposition to name things. But you can jump off the train track without naming, without doing any of that complicated stuff. You can just hear a sound and get off the track real quick. Or you can just be walking the track and feel a vibration on your foot and just step off the track. You don't have to even say train. You can just feel uncomfortable being on the track and get off and avoid getting run over. And if you're calm, I think you'd be more effective. Right? But you can also talk to yourself and say, I think this vibration means a train's coming, a train's coming on this track. If I'm in the same place as the train, it probably wouldn't be good, so maybe I should get off the track. You can do that story too. That'd be fine. It'd take a little longer, but that's okay. Hopefully. But the

[01:06]

point is that if you feel the vibration in the track and you think it's a train and there's no train, then that would be incorrect. There wouldn't be a valid perception, a valid cognition. And you would have got off the track, perhaps unnecessarily. But still, sometimes you're right and it is practical to get off the track. And you want to store it, but you want to store it. You want to keep that information. You can say you want to, but whether you want to or not, you will. Everything that happens will get stored according to this teaching. Nothing doesn't get stored. Everything makes an impression upon the body. Everything makes an impression on the mind, which means everything affects the body, because the body, according to this teaching, the body shares the fate of this storehouse consciousness. So everything that happens to you, all your experiences with tracks and vibrations and trains and stories

[02:09]

has effects on you and gets stored. And most of us who have lived this long, they're doing pretty well. But in terms of survival, the fact that we've survived this long is good. We've survived long enough to hear teachings telling us about the process by which we've survived, and also how to become free of the drawbacks of our survival, namely that we believe in the self of all this stuff that we're experiencing, which is the source of our affliction. So this is a process of how, this is a vision, trying to develop a vision here of what's going on, of where we live, and to see where we live and how we're living in such a way as to be liberated from this world, from our life, through our life, in our life. Can I try one more that maybe, maybe is a better thing? Because I guess what I'm trying to do is figure out whether we let go of mindfulness altogether, or ever, or

[03:10]

not. And so if I'm hungry, and I'm foraging in the forest, and I'm starving, I need to think about what I pick, because some of it, the mushroom might be poisonous, or the berry might be poisonous, so I have to be thinking, I have to go through a process of using that part of me, rather than just hungry and eat. I don't quite understand your question, or statement, or whatever it was. I do understand the statement, I think, is a lot, is Manas ever eliminated? Yeah. Yeah, so that question makes sense to me. Well, if we eliminated it, what would the consequences be? That's what I was asking. I think if you eliminated Manas, that you wouldn't be able to, you wouldn't have any mind consciousness.

[04:11]

So, could I make, is that, I guess what I was understanding from before was that we were, on some level, we were working towards eliminating. Oh, you thought we were trying to eliminate Manas? Yes. No, not necessarily. It says, you know, in the 30 verses, that this mano vijnana dhatu, which we understand is accompanied by Manas, is present in all states, except certain, there are certain states of concentration where it's virtually turned off, or anyway, subdued. So, if that's subdued, then a function of Manas is subdued. So, there are certain states where it's turned way down, but it also says, not in the 30 verses, well, I know about 30 verses, but Sangha says that Manas is in all states, even in the subdued ones, it's still there, but it's not in a state where you don't believe

[05:15]

anymore what Manas is doing. So, when you actually don't fall for it, this sense of projection of self and this belief in self, the organ function of Manas must exist, otherwise, but does the defiling aspect of Manas stop? And I think that, in the short run, let's say it doesn't, and let's say the first big step is you don't believe the defiling function of Manas anymore. Even while it's projecting, that's in itself something you don't agree to do anymore, and you learn to be able to live with that. Usually, it's easier to do it when you're not doing anything complicated, like looking at a floor or listening to a bird. You maybe dare, at that moment, to not believe the essence you're projecting on the bird, so that you can conventionally designate. Then you may notice that if you don't believe that anymore, that that might be connected to actually experiencing not

[06:26]

being able to find the view that Manas projects. So, Manas may still be functioning, projecting a view of essence, but you're convinced that this essence is really totally non-existent. So, then you don't believe in this projection, and then even when you see it, you don't believe it. But you have to sort of like actually be convinced that it's really non-existent before, when it appears, you don't believe it, and it needs to appear in order for you to talk with people. I have just a small question. The five Vijnanas at the top, are they coming five together, for example, or is it just one at a time? The sutra says it can be one at a time, or two, or three, or four, or all five. So, there can be one, but the one is accompanied by Mano, or it can be five accompanied by Mano,

[07:31]

but it isn't like five accompanied by five Manos, right? Sutra says that. It's five accompanied by one Mano, or one accompanied, but also it can be zero accompanied by. It can be just Mano. And in the mind consciousness, do they then interact with each other, like if I, for example, have a... Oh, no. That's not the question. You said that there's like this, sometimes there is, with blue there is like, if you don't like this blue or something, that's Veda now, right? Not liking something or... Could be Veda, yeah. Like designation. Veda is not so much not liking, it's more like feeling pain about it. And you can also not like it, you can also hate it, or try to avoid it. That's what we call anger, or aversion. Both things can arise with mind consciousness. And is that a function of like Nama, when like conventional designation sets in? Is it a function of Nama? It is Nama. Nama is mind consciousness, alaya, Manas, and all

[08:40]

the other, you know, mental factors like feeling, attention, aversion, and so on. It's all Nama. Ah, I see. It's all mind. Mind and mental factors. Could you give like an example? This teaching is mostly focusing on how the mind transforms. Like if I have a bad experience with something like someone says to me, and like I can see that part of it might be coming from my past experience and just like overlaying on what the person says without the person even meaning it. But maybe sometimes it might be the other way around, that the person is really saying something bad and then I form a new association or a new feeling with that person. Could you

[09:45]

show how that works in that circle? Well, the story you just told would happen here, in this part here, okay? And this part here where the sense consciousness is operating together with the mind consciousness is operating together with the Manas, and the Manas depends on alaya. So the Manas brings the predispositions to the Mano, and we have this experience, and then that has an effect which goes back and changes alaya. So it's constant, so the whole situation is constantly changing. And for example, a predisposition to have a, to interpret that what the person said in a bad way comes from alaya or from Manas? Or from Mano? It comes from alaya. Alaya is carrying your predisposition to interpret people insulting

[10:48]

you as something unpleasant. Brought to you by Manas. I don't know if brought by Manas. I don't know if Manas brings all the predispositions. I think that the Mano Vijnanadattu works together with alaya. So you have alaya, Mano Vijnanadattu and Manas. We know that Mano Vijnanadattu depends on Manas very closely in its organ, but it also depends on Manas as its immediate unseen condition. So this defiled mind affects the ordinary sort of neutral cognition, mental cognition. But mental cognition also depends on alaya, because alaya carries all the associated mental factors like feelings of pain and pleasure. Manas don't and carries all that. Manas can reflect all that one by one and put essences

[11:51]

on all those factors. But Manas is just looking at usually one thing at a time, it's helping the mind consciousness look at a particular object and affecting it. But the associated mental factors, which aren't objects at that time, so if you're looking at blue or looking at pain, you have a whole bunch of other feelings coming along with that. So those mind elements depend on alaya. So alaya, Mano Vijnanadattu and Manas work together all the time. But alaya is carrying. It says that the resultant is unidentified in terms of concepts of object. Alaya is unidentified in terms of concept of object. Concept of object is Mano Vijnanadattu. So alaya by itself can't identify itself or what's in it as a concept of object, but it always possesses activities such as contact, attention, feeling, perception and motivation. So Manas has, alaya has all these mental factors which end in the mind consciousness

[12:58]

arises in dependence on alaya. Alaya then is supplying all these mental factors to go along with this simple cognition. And Manas is there too. So they're all working together. Excuse me, I don't know how much I should buy into these thoughts that are arising, but can I share them with you? No, you should wait your turn. I should wait my turn? But I'm supposed to leave pretty soon. Thanks, now I don't need to say it because you guessed my thoughts. But it's not because... You're supposed to check in at 11.45, so I just want people asking questions to know that. Thank you, Roberta. You can ask questions when you come back. Can we take a moment to wish you well? Yes. I wish you well.

[14:02]

And a happy new year. I'm hungry. And I'm thirsty. In case I don't see you again, please carry on. Thank you.

[15:22]

I think it's at 1.45. Let's have a Han today. So starting in five minutes, we'll have a 15-minute Han. Zazen at 11.20. And being serviced today will be a well-being ceremony for Tenshin, for Reb, to protect him during his surgery. So everyone can come please.

[15:55]

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