We will now start studying the 30 verses on making Aptima Tratha Siddhi. I pay homage to the beings. who are either completely or partially purified by vijñapti-matrata. For the welfare and happiness of all sentient beings, I will now explain what Vasubandhas has said in his treatise on the 30 verses on vijñapti-matrata. This homage was written in India by an Indian monk named Dharmapala. And he composed a big book, this book, which is called Vidyanapti Matrapta Siddhi.

[01:12]

It's a commentary on the 30 verses. The 30 verses are called vijñapti-matrata-siddhi-trimshika-karga. The 30 verses on the accomplishment or the mastery of mirror consciousness. Does that mean anything that it fits? Mere consciousness. There's a pen up here if anybody wants it. Right.

[02:16]

Right here. So I don't know where to start, but in this treatise here, this Vijnapti Mataratha Siddhi, in this treatise, This treatise, it's also in the front of the book, it says, , which means the treatise on the accomplishment of mere consciousness. Actually, here it says mere consciousness. That's not correct, that's not right. That's not proper translation, even though the character here doesn't mean consciousness. It's not mere consciousness, it's mere concept. This treatise is in English, and on facing pages, this book is in English, and on facing pages, it has Chinese.

[03:18]

This English translation, however, for your information, is made from French. The French translation was made by Dida Vallée-Poussin, who also translated the Aridama Kosha, one of the great Buddhist scholars of this century. This person who did this translation is a Chinese person who translated from French into English, but I think he must have got some funding from some Chinese people, so he put Chinese on the opposite page. But it's not a translation from Chinese, it's a translation from French. I have the French translation, so if anybody speaks French, can read French, we could maybe use an interesting study together. At the beginning of this commentary, they ask, you know, why did Vasubandhi write this 30 verses?

[04:26]

And according to the Yogacara, scholar, Indian Yogacara scholar Sthirmati Vasubandhu wrote the 30 verses for those who misunderstood or who made nothing of the doctrine of the two śūnyatā, the two emptinesses, in order that they might acquire the correct understanding of it. The two emptinesses are the emptiness of inherent existence of the personal self, and the emptiness of phenomena, of elements. Pudgala nairatmya and dharma nairatmya. So he wrote it in order to clarify these two kinds of emptiness for people who misunderstood them. And then there's other, according to other Buddhist scholars, they explain why, they give their reason for why Vasubandha wrote this treatise.

[05:31]

You can read about that in here if you want to. So... This is speculation on the part of that man. I mean, he didn't translate something Vasubandha said about motivation. Yeah, well, it might have been oral transmission. Srimati didn't have that. It was long after Vasubandha. It might have been the rumor in the Sangha that that's why he did it. Certainly, Vassalbandha was trying to make these things clear, whether that was the main motivation or not. I don't know. I like that explanation because it ties us into a previous part of the study here of this practice period. Okay, so whatever indeed... are the ideas of self and elements that prevail.

[06:34]

They are due to the transformations of consciousness. These transformations are threefold, namely what is called the resultant, what is called mentation, and the concept of the object. This transformation, oh, no, that's it. Is that the first stanza or the two stanzas? Those are the first two stanzas, okay? So in this treatise here, the name of the first section of the treatise is Atmagraha and Dharmagraha. Does that show up well, that blue? You like it?

[07:34]

Not so good? Better? Is that better? Why? You have controversy? Atma. Brahma. And Dhamma. that's the name of the first that's the name of the first section of commentary on these which is on these first two verses okay atma means or atman you know means self graha means the graha the grasp dharma what any comments from sanskrit scholars Dhanagraha means grasping dharmas.

[08:37]

So whatever ideas of self, atma, or elements, dharma, that prevail, ideas that prevail mean ideas that people grasp to or don't grasp to. Dependent co-arising of birth and death is dependent co-arising of ideas of atman and ideas of dharmis. If you grasp them, it's dependently co-arising birth and death. If you don't grasp them, it's dependently co-arising suchness. So Vasubandhu is now going to explain how how these ideas of self and ideas or notions of dharmas, how they are codependently produced. And he says, whatever they are, they are produced by consciousness transforming itself.

[09:42]

And there's basically three ways it transforms itself. Okay? So this dharma, Atma-graha, goes with well I guess it goes with believing in the self or believing in dharmas and the antidote to these two are to realize phutkala nairat viya, and dharma, naya, raya, niya.

[10:48]

The realization of the lack of self of dharmas is the antidote to this grasping in the realization The lack of self, of personality, is the antidote to this grasping. OK? And also, people are kind of going like this. Is it because you can't? Is it not clear? Oh. You can sit up here if you want to. Just a little space right here. Isn't that a tautology? The first thing is that it says that suffering due to grasping at self. I didn't say suffering, I just said grasping at self, the antidote to grasping at self, is a realization of the selflessness of the personality.

[11:50]

And the antidote to grasping at dharmas is to realize that dharmas don't have a self. The grasping at self and grasping at dharmas causes suffering. So if you realize the lack of self of personality and the lack of self of the elements of personality, then you no longer grasp at the self or at the self of the personality or the self of dharmas. Therefore, the suffering is no longer functioning. Okay? Another pair of common terms are klesha-avarana and nyaya-avarana. Leisha, Avarana, and Nyaya.

[12:52]

Do you like that? E-Y. E-Y. E-Y. The klesha avarana, the coverings due to kleshas, and kleshas is this gross kind of grasping of the personality. The nyaya avarana is the covering or hindrance due to just knowing things and knowing them as objective phenomena. So all these terms are the basic things that are trying to be addressed here at this first section. Okay? Ecclesia covering. There's these three main kinds of coverings.

[14:00]

Karmic avarana, which are the karmic hindrances which make it hard for you to meditate, which make it hard for you to concentrate and follow the schedule and stuff. That's kind of stuff like eating too much on day off and stuff like that. Sleeping too much or too little, getting in arguments. That kind of thing. Those are karmic activities which interfere with your following the schedule or concentrating. Then once you can concentrate, after you remove those obstacles due to karma, then you have the obstacles due to the belief in self, the person. The next level of obstruction or covering is due to just the things you know, just the objects of knowledge. or just seeing the objects of your awareness as objects existent in himself, that's the third kinds of covering. When you remove these coverings in this Heart Sutra, this is what the Heart Sutra is saying. Without any hindrance, no fears exist.

[15:02]

It's taught. It literally says in the Heart Sutra, these two avaranas. It says nyeya avarana and klesha avarana, but that's not translated that way. It's translated as just hindrances. OK? Okay, so, let's see. And you got the title of the thing, right? The title of the word means concept or notion or idea. Matrata, matra means only or just. And siti means accomplished. So in the homage here at the beginning of this commentary, it says, I pay homage to beings who are either completely or partially purified by Visnyapti-matrata.

[16:02]

Completely purified would mean Visnyapti-matrata city. I pay homage to those who have accomplished, who actually have arrived at and are living in the accomplishment of mere concept. But I also pay homage to those who are partially doing it. In other words, us, who are training, just training at this, trying to learn what this is, is also worthy of homage. We should align ourselves not only with those who have accomplished this, but those who are trying to accomplish this. And as you know from reciting this, The jnapti-matrapta-siddhi is what is that? The serene body of release. The jnapti-matrapta-siddhi is the supreme body of release. It's also the supreme body of release.

[17:06]

It's also the dharma gate of repose and bliss. So, the jnapti-matrapta-siddhi is the Zen, right? So this is a explanation of zazen from the point of view of consciousness. This is an elucidation of what it means to think of not thinking. This is an elucidation of non-thinking. That's why I want to study this, which is very apropos of understanding our very difficult-to-understand practice of just sitting. Chinese for the comments there? I don't think this is quite right. John, you mean accomplishment, way, mirror, or just?

[18:30]

This is, like I said, this character's for consciousness. It should be the character for concept, but I need to have a character for consciousness here. And this one's a commentary. That's the name of this. Vijnapti Mantraptasiddhi would take away the one, the commentary. That would just be accomplishment. This is like Genjo Koan. This is the Joe of Genjo. To manifest or accomplish or realize the state of just concept. What else is just... So, vidnyapti-matrata-siddhi is the serene body of release. What's vidnyapti-matrata? What's that? It's the serene body? No. The serene body is the serene body of release. It's the serene release without the body.

[19:38]

Now, what is it? It says, suchness is what? I mean, I told you the answer. The mere concept is suchness, right? Isn't that what it says? And because it's suchness all the time, it's mere concept. So mere concept is suchness. So what we want to accomplish is suchness or mere concept. Because mere concept is actually the way the stuff is. It's just concept. And it's empty, too. OK. So I think maybe, unless there's something else you have a question about, we can dive right into the parking lot and deal with Elia, right? Ready? OK, Elia. Hi. I invited Karen Yording to come down here.

[20:43]

I'm very sorry she couldn't make it, because she owns Alaia's Ditchery. I'm sure she would have loved to have, you know, involved in a study of the name of her store, and be able to talk to her customers about it, but she couldn't come. So Alaia... So the resultant... It also could be called the fruit. It also could be called retribution. The Sanskrit word here is vipaka. Three transformations of consciousness.

[21:47]

The first one's called the resultant. And... I thought this was... I think this is very clever that the first time he talks about a lie, he calls it a resultant. Something that's been produced, dependently co-produced. So right away, he tips us off before he tells us even what he's talking about. He says, the first one, the thing I'm telling you about, it is something that's dependently co-produced. It's not a thing in itself. I think it's very good of him to start that way. Also, another reason why I think it's good to call it the result before he even tells you what you might think it's going to be, namely, a liar, Because the resultant, that also means it's just given to you. It doesn't mean it's an action. It's not something you do.

[22:48]

It's a consciousness that you just get. It's retribution for past actions, for past thoughts, for past sensations, for past impressions. You think of retribution as having . Yeah, that's right. But also, retribution can be sweet and lovely. Retribution's sweet and lovely. Yeah. It's just that in your neighborhood that's the way they used it, you know. But definitely alaya is retribution, wholesome and unwholesome, fortunate and unfortunate. It is sometimes unfortunate. Alaya sometimes, this consciousness comes along with unfortunate retribution and fortunate retribution.

[23:53]

Whatever the retribution for the sentient being is, alaya comes right along with it. But it can be definitely positive. It can even be wonderful you know super wonderful at the point it just comes along whatever it is okay now i thought i'd give you a little background on um elia yeah before i sing we sing old man river i'll give you the background um I'll give you a historical background first, OK, kind of. The oldest extant text in which you can find reference to a laya is in a sutra called the Samdhinirmocana Sutra.

[25:05]

This sutra is a Mahayana sutra. We don't know exactly when it appeared, but Nagarjuna and Aryadeva didn't mention it. So it either wasn't composed during their lifetime, or it wasn't popular during their lifetime. And they lived between 150 and 250 AD. And it was mentioned. People do see it by around the year 300. So somewhere between 250 AD and 300 or 350, somewhere in there, it either was composed or became popular. So around the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century, the Mahayana Sutra was out in the world. This is the most important sutra or the Yogacara teaching.

[26:33]

More important than Lankavatara, for example. Lankavatara is later and has a whole bunch of other stuff in it. This is the first and major Yogacara text. After this text appears, then you have this big flow of Yogacara teachings by Maitreya, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Sthiramati, Dignaga, all these people, Dhammapala, Nanda, Ashpapada, all these famous Buddhist scholars start producing the Yogicara treatises after this appears. And the first place that you find alaya referred to in Buddhist literature is in this sutra. So when this sutra appears, it's the first time you see the term alaya vidyana, the resultant. Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra has not been translated into English, except in little parts.

[27:41]

However, it has been translated into French. So if anybody here wants to translate it, I will get you a copy. Samdhi Nirmacana means the elucidation of the underlying meaning. or the elucidation of the deep, mysterious meaning." This sutra not only gives the Yogacara teaching and the teaching of the laya-vijjana, but it also presents this... I think maybe one of the first places it presents is two kinds of truth, what he called the interpretable and the definitive truth kind of thing about Buddhist texts. This comes from here. So in the first place in this sutra where the teaching of alaya appears is in chapter 3. And in chapter 3, it says, and I'm just going to read this to you.

[28:48]

When a sentient being in one of the six worlds falls into rebirth. In other words, appears as dependently co-arisen birth and death. Among sentient beings, her rebirth will be from an egg, from a womb, from moisture, or she will be self-produced. In one of these, her consciousness, in one of In one of these, her consciousness, which holds all the seeds, all the beeches, will begin to mature, develop, combine, grow and expand. The consciousness which holds all the seeds will begin to mature, develop, combine, grow and expand.

[29:53]

This process depends upon two upadi, two graspings, the first of which is grasping at material organs, and the second is grasping at the perfumings, or the seeds, which are hell. You're not going to get this the first time, don't worry. This consciousness is also called Adana vijnana, Adana consciousness, because it follows the physical body and is a holder. Adana means follower and a holder. Another name for this consciousness is alaya vijnana because of its relation to the body it holds and receives.

[30:54]

It is stored and concealed and possesses and passes through the cycle of favorable and unfavorable rebirth together with the body. Another name for this consciousness is citta because the impressions of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, and so on, are accumulated and nurtured therein. This is the first appearance, the first appearance of the term alaya. This is the first mention in Buddhist literature, as far as we know, of a, what you might call, subtle consciousness. Now, I say subtle because before this alaya-vijnana, or this Adhanavijnana, or this citta is mentioned, before that, Buddhism only spoke of six kinds of consciousness.

[32:00]

The six kinds of consciousness were sight consciousness, seeing consciousness, vision consciousness of sight, consciousness of sound, consciousness of smell, consciousness of taste, consciousness of touch, and consciousness of mental objects. So six consciousnesses. Before this, those were the only kinds that Buddhists talked about. OK? Yes? So is this saying that the problem arises in the sense of the grasping of the parts rather than grasping the parts? Is what saying what? What I just read? The inference you drew is going to take me a while to catch up to. You might be right. I would think that that that inference would be more related... I could understand that your inference would be more related to what I was implying before I even started talking about this, namely saying this business about grasping and stuff.

[33:21]

But maybe what you're saying is also true here. I mean, what you're saying is true. I just didn't sort of... I didn't see that in what I just said. Could you just read again the point about the two types of grasping? One type of grasping is grasping actually to the physical body. The other kind of grasping is grasping to these seeds, these impressions from past, the impressions of past actions, past forms, past names, past mental discriminations. Yes. Actually, I think if I go farther, some of your questions... I just want to repeat something. Okay. You said originally there were six consciousnesses.

[34:24]

Buddhism spoke of six consciousnesses. Yes. Would you say again how you phrase the consciousness of mental... Consciousness of mental objects? Yes, a lot. These consciousnesses are also sometimes named for the organ. Like eye consciousness, ear consciousness, no consciousness, mind consciousness, they're named by the organ. They can also be named by the object, what they're aware of. All right? Now, these consciousnesses... Well, of course these consciousnesses are what? You tell me, what are some characteristics of consciousnesses? They're empty. Our early Buddhism didn't mention that so much, but it's true they are. What did early Buddhism say about these consciousnesses?

[35:25]

What she said is a hint. What? That's right. They're dependently co-arisen, therefore they're empty. And what else did early Buddhism say about these consciousnesses? It stopped at a certain point, that they were considered to be co-arisen. Well, they're considered to be co-arisen events. Consisting of darkness. I guess at that point. Right. That's right. But aside from what... Not talking about how far they didn't get, how far did they get? So what did they say about these consciousnesses? And I'll give you a hint. What did they say about everything else?

[36:26]

Impermanent. What else did they say? No self. What else did they say? Huh? Heal, suffering, frustrating. Okay? That's what they said about these consciousnesses. Right? They said about the consciousnesses, they said it about the objects of consciousness, they said it about the organs, they said it about all the mental objects. All dharmas were marked by these three qualities. Right? These are the three marks of all phenomenal events. All right? Any questions about that? Okay. Now, it's not that Mahayana Buddhism says anything different than that. That's also true for Mahayana Buddhism. But the dependent co-arising of these consciousnesses was... What's the short version of the dependent co-arising of a consciousness? How do consciousnesses arise? Object in the sense of...

[37:29]

Object and sense organ? And what about them? In contact. In contact. When object and organ contact, then you get a consciousness. When gross and subtle form, matter, touch each other, this magical thing happens called consciousness. Isn't that fantastic? You get two material things and touch them and consciousness comes out of that? Well, wait. Well, consciousness doesn't come out of that. You know, three arrive at the same time. Right. Consciousness comes out of it too, though. What? If the consciousness didn't arise, we wouldn't know that that was happening. Right, you wouldn't know that. And that's sort of how they pat themselves on the back and say, our consciousness is how the universe knows that it's happening. Without that event, the universe doesn't know about itself. So what happens when the organ and the object, the organ and the sense field don't interact?

[38:38]

What happens then? Huh? They remain in their own states. They remain in their own states. Right. Which is what? It's nonexistence. It's nonexistence. There's no existence. There's no life. there's no consciousness, there's no function. Okay? Now, so it happens that, and it says in here too, that talking about these... And by the way, the sixth consciousness is the third transformation in this story here, right? The mind consciousness, which is the sixth of the consciousnesses in early Buddhism, Number six in early Buddhism is the third transformation here. All right? We have one, two, three, four, five, six.

[39:47]

This is called mind consciousness. All right? In Sanskrit, it's called mano. vijnana, tapu, mind-consciousness element, or just mano-vijnana. That's a sixth. When mind-organ meet mind-object, you get mind-consciousness. The same for these other ones. When mind-organ and mind-object don't meet, you don't have this. And in deep sleep, where there's no dreams, mind-organ does not meet mind-object.

[40:58]

You don't have . You don't have mind consciousness. Also, there are certain Buddhist trances that you can get into, if you want to, and in those trances there is no mind consciousness. And in the... it says in there that mind consciousness is the... you know, the third transformation is always happening except in these five cases that they mention, right? Now, if it's not happening... I can just tell you, if it's not happening, These five aren't happening either. You never have these five without this one. Whenever you have one of these five, you have the sixth. So if this isn't happening, these aren't happening. If none of these six are happening, nothing's happening. So that would mean that when you went into this deep sleep,

[42:06]

the mind consciousness would stop, would cease, and when you came out of the deep sleep, you get a new mind consciousness. Which is actually what happens. You get a new one. The old one ceased and you got the new one. But there was a continuing life there. Right? What kind of life was that? What kind of life is there? What kind of functioning is there? What kind of consciousness is there in deep, dreamless sleep? What kind of consciousness is there in a trance where there's no mental functioning? The person's still warm, breathing, alive. What kind of consciousness is there in a person who's in a coma? They're still existing. They're still functioning. What is that?

[43:10]

It's this one. So why didn't they notice this before? Why did they spot this before? They knew all about these trances and stuff and deep sleep. They got elaborate stuff in Abhidharma about going into these trances and coming out and the fact that what it was like to speak before was... They'd went into all this, but they didn't come up with this thing. At the end of this chapter, Buddha says... He sang this song. Profound and subtle is this Adana Vidyananda. The beeches are like a waterfall. I do not reveal this doctrine of ādana-vijñāna to the unenlightened or ignorant person, for I fear that he might mistake the ādana for an ātman. So the ādana-vijñāna, alaya-vijñāna,

[44:18]

Same as another word for Hawaii. So the Samadhi Nirmacana Sutra is saying the reason why Buddha didn't mention this before, he did actually mention it before, the reason why he was afraid to mention it in early Buddhism was because he went to all this trouble to get people to forget this Atma thing, and if he tells them about the subtle consciousness, they're going to start getting kind of confused again. So he didn't mention it. Now that Buddhism is well established, and as a matter of fact, now that Nagarjuna has gone to all this trouble, he feels safe. So he lets these people start coughing up these Mahayana scriptures that tell about this subtle consciousness, which seems very much like something that's not impermanent. And it says that it develops like a stream, right?

[45:21]

And the functioning of the sense consciousnesses, the five sense consciousnesses and this mind consciousness, are like waves on top of this foundational consciousness, right? Foundational consciousness is always happening. And these come and go according to circumstances. But so does it come and go according to circumstances. But it just turns out that the nature of circumstances of a living being are such that there's always the cause for a liar. As long as you're a liar, you've got a liar. It's not, however, an atman because alaya is totally determined by this waterfall of seeds, which are the impressions from past experience. So it says that alaya is not the same or different from the seeds. And the seeds are not the same or different from alaya. And also what alaya and the seeds produce in terms of all kinds of mental phenomena, which then these other kinds of consciousness can become aware of,

[46:28]

That too is not different from alias. So alias is kind of like ever-flowing, molting, changing consciousness, which is not anything of itself aside from these seeds. It's not a thing. But if anything in Buddhism sounds like a self, this is about as close as you can get, it's very subtly different from a self. Yes. But is it all the seeds sound separately, or is it an emergent entity that comes out of all the seeds? You know what I mean? In other words, a lie is nothing else but the seed. But the seeds, let's say the seeds are a series of elements. There's often emergent entities out of elements that is, you know, you see a collective dot and you make a circle out of it. So is the laya more... I mean, is there an emergent entity in the laya? Is there... Is it more than just seeds, or are the relationships between the seeds involved, or are they also... Well, you tell me.

[47:42]

Is the relationship between the seeds something more than the seeds? Well, if you call those seeds themselves relationships, then they wouldn't be. Okay. Do you want to call those seeds? Yes. These seeds are also, they're called, the Sanskrit word for these seeds is bija. The word, this bija thing came up in the Abhidharma Kosha. Vasubandhu somehow came up with it there. The word bija... Well, actually, but the Samadhi Nirmalacharya Sutra was published before Vasubandhu's time. So, you know, abhijas appears. It means seed, literally, but it is basically a synonym for another Sanskrit word, vasana, which means perfuming.

[48:46]

So what you have is you have a moment of this kind of subtle consciousness. Okay. And then this subtle consciousness evolves together with these other two transformations of consciousness, the manas and the concept of the object, okay? And then you have the eruption of all these mental… which are accompanied by these feelings and all these other dharmas that are mentioned in the text, you know what I mean? It's always accompanied by feeling, contact, feeling, all that, those things, right? The mind consciousness is always accompanied by them, and the lie is always accompanied by them, right? That's what it says, right? All this stuff's happening, right? That stuff is happening, comes from these seeds. When this stuff happens, then there's an effect of all this stuff happening. And the effect of all that stuff happening is like a perfuming, which goes back, it's like you have this ocean, which in conjunction with these other transformations of consciousness, the ocean's not all of consciousness,

[49:50]

It's just the foundational consciousness, right? Then you have these waves happening, and the result of these waves happening is what we call a kind of perfuming that goes back into the ocean. And this perfuming, once it goes back into the ocean, becomes seeds then for further waves. Does that picture make sense? So you have consciousness, which has these dimensions of the first six The seventh consciousness is this mind organ, or what we call mentation, reflection. And the eighth consciousness is this alaya ocean, this ever-flowing subtle consciousness. When it, together with the reflections, or the thinking, and the mind consciousness which can make objects, See, mind consciousness is the ability for all of these consciousnesses, including itself, to make things into objects.

[50:56]

Okay? By making them into concepts of objects. These consciousnesses can't... That's why this one always accompanies these. These sense consciousnesses do happen without mind consciousness, but when they happen without mind consciousness, they are not known. In other words, they're not conscious. There is direct sensory experience, but it's not known. When direct sensory experience is known, it must be in conjunction with the sixth consciousness, which provides the concept of object. But the sixth consciousness cannot provide the concept of object without actually the mind organ. And the mind organ in the system of Yogacara is called the seventh consciousness. The mind organ is what makes it possible for mind to split itself into two parts and make one part of itself the object and the other part the consciousness.

[52:00]

So the seventh consciousness is the splitting or the bifurcating function of the mind. that it can act for itself like an organ, like the eye organ acts for the eye consciousness. The eye organ just splits the consciousness from its field. And then alaya is the field which the… which is… which the… is the field which is split And then one part of the field is the object. A small part at every moment is the object. Another part is the awareness of the object. And that event causes, in effect, a perfuming, which then goes back into the pot and becomes a seed for future events. Probably not the next one. It probably won't be that one again. If the illusion that happened at that moment will then be a seed for future illusion. Okay?

[53:05]

Yes? I have two questions. The first, the basic bifurcation. Without that, there'd be no life, is that right? If required for life, we call life, or living being. That's right. The second one is the seeds. Are these... I want to say one thing. In early Buddhism, when they had six consciousnesses, what in this Yogacara Buddhism is called eight consciousnesses, the seventh consciousness was not called a consciousness in the first six. It was the mind organ. You have six consciousnesses here, but in conjunction with these six consciousnesses are six organs and six fields, right? What functioned as the organ? See, mind functions as an organ for itself. So what functioned as manas in early Buddhism was just mind organ. And then in Yogacara, mind organ is manas.

[54:07]

And then the field of all possible images, of all possible vijnaptis, is alive. Yes, you mentioned a second question. The seeds, are these like individual past experiences? Are they individual past experiences? They're not past experiences. They're past images. Okay, past images. What I wanted to get at, is there a collective nature to this, or is it... Is there a collective nature? Well, collective... I've read... Some books will refer to this or make allusion to this being sort of analogous to the unconscious and psychological. This is very, very close to what you call the unconscious. Yes. So that in that... If you get into that realm of psychology, they talk about the collective unconscious. Yeah. So I'm wondering if these seeds are of individual nature, these... You know, these... What would you call it? Seeds or perfumes? Perfumes. Bijas or vasanas?

[55:11]

What could it be of a collective nature, human experience? There's two kinds of, what do you call it, there's two kinds of, not, there's not two kinds of karma, but there's two kinds of, well, sorry, two kinds of karma, but there's definitely two kinds of retribution. One kind of retribution is from personal karma, one kind of retribution is from collective karma. Okay? So there's a collective unconscious and there's also individual unconsciousness. And, yes, the relationship between the individual unconscious and the collective unconscious is the collective unconscious is bigger than the individual unconscious. But the individual unconscious is really big. Really, really big. It's got a tremendous amount of material in it, yes? Well, I have a similar question. Is there any further breakdown done with Alaya? Because it sounds like, from what you've said, that alaya is something like the unconscious, but also conditioned responses. It's also like motor maintenance control of the body can come up.

[56:17]

So it's a whole series of... I think it's not that. And also it's long-term memory, it sounds like. It's long-term memory, yeah. But it's not all that physical stuff, because alaya goes with the body. It's not the body. It is, it is somehow, alaya is, follows the body. That's the original use of it in the Samadhi-Malachana Sutra, is that it holds, it holds to the vijas and it goes with the body. So it doesn't have... It's not just holding, it's not just a consciousness which follows the vijas around, it also hangs around the body. So it doesn't have anything to do with maintaining breathing rhythms and so forth and... You mentioned being in a coma at one point. It does, because if it wasn't there, then you personally would die. Okay. So it does have... It is in part this... It's related to it, but it's not the same as the body. Yeah, okay. The body has another... In a sense, the ally is not...

[57:23]

the physical organs of the body. But do they make any further distinctions in the nature of aliyah? Or is it sort of lumping all this together and talking about the deceit? Do they make any further distinction of aliyah? Within the aliyah, within aliyah. Or is it just characterized by all these different activities that are subconscious? What is the 30 verses? It is unidentified in terms of object and location. Therefore, it is not possible to do what you just said. But... Contemporary neurology does it. Yeah, but in a liar, it's not done. In a liar, this does not happen that he's asking about. However, it has all its seeds. It's got all the seeds, but there's no identification of object and location.

[58:27]

Therefore, you can't say where any of these functions are, and you can't say the names of them. But all names are in alaya. The seeds of all names and the effect of the use of all names and all forms and all mental discriminations, the effects of them are all registered in alaya. And they are not only registered there, but they are nurtured and they grow there. But nobody can go into a laya and find out what it's like there, because as soon as you go into a laya to find out what it's like there, what you get is a transformation of consciousness, because going into a laya means you put the mirror of the mind organ over a laya, you get a reflection of something, and then you make an object of it, and then, as soon as that happens, you're not in a laya anymore, you have just created a vijnapti. You're now out in the realm of conceptual existence. You're no longer down in a lie. You cannot go into a lie and find anything out.

[59:29]

So you're back in six and seven? Well, no, you're not back in six and seven. You're in what is produced by six and seven and eight working together. You're in the realm not of six, not of seven, and not of eight, not of one and not of two. You're in the realm of mere concept. And if you can realize this, this is the good stuff. Yes? It's bifurcated, but it's not bifurcated, like equally bifurcated. It's like one, it's one little, it's like a mirror. You stick up and you shine it on the one little seed. How is that different from the field of the first five unconsciousnesses?

[60:33]

How is it different? Because that's what the mind always is doing with those too, right? It's bifurcating them and taking them as an object. Right, right. When the mind organ operates on those, it's the same. The function of the mind organ, the way it's working with these things, will be the same as with these. Okay? But in fact the mind organ does not work with these. What the mind organ does is the sense organ and the sense field, which we do not say, we do not say that the sense organ and the sense field do not exist. We do not deny physics. Okay? Matter of fact, when you say there is a realm of direct physical experience, the realm of direct physical experience for a living being is always accompanied by mind, consciousness, except in deep sleep, and so on.

[61:35]

Right? When you're in deep sleep, this physical thing is still going on. Direct immediate experience is happening all through this deep sleep, this deep dreamless sleep. You're still having the nervous system still going, cuckoo, just as usual. As a matter of fact, in some ways you're more vital and more energetic and warmer when you're asleep, right? Your chakras are getting realigned while you're sleeping. That's why you're sleeping. Because you've got to do that, okay? So at that time in deep sleep, mind consciousness is not functioning. What's functioning then? a lie is functioning, but then there's no reflection going on, there's no reflection going on, there's no objects being identified, there's no location of anything, there's just this physical thing going on, and a continuity consciousness is molting away there with the body molting away, okay? When we come up into the functioning of the mind organ again, then what happens is there still is direct experience, immediate experience, okay?

[62:36]

And now we're saying that the mind organ is functioning too, so the mind organ is functioning, but what does it do in relationship to this direct experience? Does it turn to the direct experience? No. The direct experience, however, is happening, and it has an effect, and what it does is it causes the mind organ to turn over to a laya to see what's happening outside. So the mind turns back to itself for some reasonable excuse or some reasonable facsimile of what is going on in the external world. And it does its best and sometimes it's way off. And sometimes it's, you know, reasonably close. But it doesn't, the mind organ does not turn, cannot turn out to the external field and see those actual sights. What it does is it turns back inside to all the possible versions of sight that it ever had. And in fact, nobody as far as I know has as many versions of sight, has as many seeds of sight as there are actual sights out there.

[63:48]

Physics tells us that just for us, you know, with our range, our angstrom unit range of wavelengths that we can be sensitive to, we can have seven million possible different colors that we could react to. Seven million. But nobody has that many color seeds in their consciousness. Not even all the collective consciousness has that many. Okay? And different individuals will have different seeds of colors that they refer back to, to come up with what's going on out there. Right? Like Eskimos have 30 words for snow. Okay? So when they look back to see what the color of snow is, they look back at a different thing than when somebody in Guatemala sees, even if the people in Guatemala are up in the Arctic. But still, the fact that it's snowing causes you to start looking for some facsimile of snow or the color of snow.

[64:53]

And you do your best based on what you've already dreamed up before. And also in past lives, fortunately. Sure. You said past lives. What do you mean? Is that there's not that kind of continuity necessarily that I have in past lives so that I have a different consciousness from the past life? Well, probably not. Whatever you just thought probably is not true, yes. No, I mean, without trying to go into exactly what you meant, I'm sure it's not. I'm sure what you think could happen isn't happening. That's right. It's not that. But this past life thing, that's what he said. Buddha said this, right? This is Buddha talking about it. He said, whenever a sentient being falls into a rebirth, okay, So sentient beings die and then they are reborn. Now there never was a self anywhere along the way, so all the more there's not going to be a self in between rebirths either.

[66:02]

It's not like we don't have a self when we're alive and then suddenly we're dead and we get a self. Just like we don't have a self now, we don't have a self then. So that doesn't happen, that's right. And a lie is not a self either. However, Alaya is explaining how, like, well, like this, okay, now here's this, do this again. Imagine we're going along like this, okay, now we're all going into dreamless sleep, right? Imagine dreamless sleep. No mind consciousness, okay? What kind of a consciousness is that? That's for a living being, right? That's for a living being. Very subtle, right? There's no self there. However, there are the effects of all the imaginings of self are there. Okay? And those effects of all the imaginings of self then happen, die, and produce new

[67:06]

Subtle consciousness with a new overt set of all past imaginings, the effects of all past imaginings of self are in there too, plus all this other stuff, right? This subtle consciousness is going on. Then the person becomes maybe activated again. Mind consciousness is functioning. We're back to sort of our normal thing again. We're producing images of self and elements and all that stuff's happening. Self is up there measuring all that stuff, right? Then the person dies, okay? Now what happens to the laya? A laya is shot. so is mind consciousness and all the other consciousnesses, they're shot. There's no more functioning, there's no more consciousness, right? But there's an effect of all that, just like there was an effect that caused mind consciousness and all this stuff to happen and an alaya to happen and an alaya to be reactivated with the other ones and cosmos and all this, there's an effect. And what is the effect? Rebirth. The rebirth is conditioned by all those, what the alayas were before. The person then comes back, and at the time of rebirth, what happens?

[68:11]

The first thing mentioned is there is this consciousness which has all the seeds. As soon as there's rebirth, there's alaya, which matures, grows, develops, da-na-na-na. So the effects of past lives are transmitted in that way, even though there's no self anywhere in the whole process, really. And that's why he didn't mention this Alaya, because it's almost like that's the self, isn't it? It's very close to being something that goes on there. And even when Alaya's shot, still it's kind of like the effects of all that are flying through space. Sort of there's a self, a nebulous self flying through space looking for a rebirth. Where is that self? There's not a self, but we keep... If you can start to see sort of one in Alaya, then you can kind of see one in midair too, right? Yes? Yes? Are you saying that that same aggregation, you were talking about an individual, are you saying that Satan, you said there's an individual liar, a collective liar?

[69:24]

No, I didn't say there's a collective liar. I said there's a collective, what, there's a collective consciousness. The collective consciousness is, you know, that's Buddha. Are you saying, well, okay, but there is an individual consciousness. There's an individual liar, right. There's an individual liar. Are you saying that that same aggregation of effects then is, after the individual bearing it dies, then shows up in another individual in the same, in exactly the same constellation? No, that doesn't happen even in life. Even in life, it's not, it doesn't... It keeps changing. Even in life, it doesn't stay the same. Plus, even every moment, not only isn't it the same this moment as the next moment, that's not even so. But even in one moment, there's not something you can grasp even. That aggregation can't be grasped because alaya is not the seeds, and the seeds are not alaya.

[70:29]

They're not the same or different. You can't get a hold of the seeds without getting alaya. You can't get alaya without the seeds. Even in the moment, you can't grasp anything. Not to mention, even that's changing. An ungraspable thing that's changing is what life's like. So it's not going to be any more concrete when you're dead than it is when you're alive. But there is cause and effect. Cause and effect doesn't stop as soon as you die. And one life causes a later life, another life. That's part of the teaching. But there is a constant, there's a birth and death, birth and death all the time. Just like... within an ordinary lifespan of 70 years or whatever, one moment causes another moment. But there actually is an end of that moment and an end of that constellation, that ungraspable thing. There's an end of it. It changes. But it's not destroyed completely because it has effects. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it affects everything, as opposed to, you know, it causes another life?

[71:32]

It does affect everything else, but there is both a kind of a continuity or individual life stream, and then it's also mutual effects. For example, the physical environment is an example of how we affect everything. The physical world we live in, which is the source... of the objects of these five sense consciousnesses, the realm of direct experience that we all live in, okay, that field is the part that we all affect. Everything I do affects that, everything you do affects that, okay, but you don't affect My individual life stream. The way you think, the objects you have, the passions you have, don't jump over and get into my seeds. That's what we're saying. My actions. Your actions don't get into my seeds. Your actions get into my environment. And your response to that environment... Is my trouble, not yours.

[72:37]

Right. And that gets into your... seeds. My response to your throwing the banana on the ground gets into my seeds. Okay? And your throwing the banana gets into your seeds, not into mine. My seeing you throw the banana gets into mine. My getting angry at you for throwing the banana gets into mine. And you throwing the banana gets into all of our worlds, all of our sense worlds. Okay? But the way we respond to you throwing the banana, not to say you would, but picking up a banana, the way each of us respond to that gets into this personal life stream. There is a personal life stream, it's just that there's not a self to a person. It isn't that there isn't a person, it's just that there's not anything to the person. But there is a personal life stream and that's That's part of the deal. Did you have another question? Or do you want to stay on this for longer?

[73:41]

I could stay on this. Yeah, this is a good one. This is very subtle. You see, it's a subtle consciousness. It's very subtle because you keep wanting to slip off into making it a cell or making it evaporate. It's kind of like, okay, if there's nothing there at all, fine, but if there's something there, it's going to be, you're going to get it. It's hard to get in between there. The middle way is very difficult. The hard part I have with it is why death isn't an end to the... Yeah, it's a tough part. Okay. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is the formulation of a consciousness. Yes. Because this thing that you kindly provided us with when you called the Hanukkah seems vehemently to denounce... the notion that there are eight consciousnesses. Okay. Well, we can talk about that more. I'm not saying there are eight consciousnesses. I didn't say that. I just said this Yogacara school offered this eight consciousnesses scenario in relationship to the six.

[74:43]

But we can get out of that problem. Don't worry about it. We'll get out of it. Okay? I'm perplexed to hear you say that if one person conceives of their life in a certain way, that that doesn't influence the choosing of another. That doesn't influence what? The choosing of another. The choosing of another what? Another person. You mean if I choose to see the world in a certain way, that doesn't affect the way you choose to see the world in a certain way? I believe I heard you to be saying that one person's thinking or any person's actions do not influence another person's thinking or another person's actions. No, I didn't quite say that. For example, let's say I decide to throw bananas, banana peels, all over the world. That's my trip, okay? That will affect your life. You will then have to live in a world with banana peels all over you. Okay? That will affect your life.

[75:44]

But if you get angry at me putting the banana peels there, it's not that my throwing banana peels in your face don't have any effect on you. They do. It does. It's an effect. It does affect you. However, it does not mean that you get angry at me. Me giving you banana peels is not you getting angry at me. You getting angry at me is your trip. I don't cause you to get angry. And you inherit getting angry at me. I inherit the effects of putting the bananas on you. And you inherit the effects of having the banana peels put on you. But when you get angry at me, that goes back to you. And when I think I'm good at throwing banana peels at you, that goes back to me. So the way I see things... does not get transferred to you. My actions, however, and my speech, you can see and you can relate to in every way you want to. But whatever you think about it and however you see it, it doesn't affect me at all. What about the person? If he hits me? Yeah, I mean, what if he gets angry?

[76:46]

If he gets angry, it doesn't have an effect on you, but maybe it does. Well, angry is different than a physical gesture. If he moves the world around, then that's where the group karma affects. The group karma happens in colors, sounds, smells, tastes and touch. That's where the group karma result happens. So the physical universe is the result of our communal actions. So I put the bananas down and you move them out of the way. So then there's no bananas. because of the two of us. Or I put the banana down and you leave it there. So it's there because of the two of us. Okay? But there is a personal life stream of my responses to things that it isn't that they don't have an effect on you. It's that what I think comes back here and it doesn't go over to what you think. And what you think goes back over there and doesn't come over to what I think. But the actions which we do based on what we think, the verbal and physical things we do based on what we think, those get out into the environment.

[77:48]

Okay? Wherever there is a collective unconscious, there's just not a collective consciousness where you do karma. The unconscious level, you don't do any karma down there. Karma's committed at the level of concept and words. Okay? So what the individual does at the level of... What the individual does at the individual level is karma, and what different individuals do at the individual level of karma, those have some total effect on the environment. There is an unconscious level, however, in which we are connected. But there's no action there by which we affect each other. At that level, we're just all connected. Okay? Maybe not, though. This is kind of getting into it tonight. Just five minutes to go. Did you have a question? I don't really have time.

[78:50]

Five minutes? Do you want to save it? Is it a five-minute question? I don't want to go over. You don't want to go over time? Over time. Okay. Does anybody have a five-minute? Yes? I just thought the early reason with the six, gosh, they didn't have the seven and eight, right, to work with? Right, they didn't. They just talked about six. So the function that Manas does in this system of bifurcating it, that goes on? Yes. They had that function. That function still had to happen in the six. Yes, that's right. And how did they, what was that thing? In the early Buddhism they had, well, they had 18 dhatus, right? So they had six consciousnesses, and then they had one, two, three, six fields, and they had six organs. Okay? So in that system, the field for the mind was called the dharmadhatu, the field of mental objects, and the organ for mind awareness was actually called mano-vijnanadhatu.

[79:58]

I mean, it was called, what was it called? It was called mano-dhatu. Mano-dhatu. Or manas, or mind organ. Man... Man-endria, man-ordinary, mind-ordinary. So that function was there in this earlier system. Yogacara, they just pulled it out. They called a function of consciousness a consciousness. They called it a separate consciousness rather than a function of consciousness. Mind functions as an organ for itself. Mind has, mind functions as its own, mind includes its own objects, its own organ, and its own awareness. So in early Buddhism, they had mind organ, mind organ, mind consciousness, and mind element, all as part of mind. And I think because they wanted to bring in this subtle consciousness for some reason, or they wanted to move the manas out of organ capacity and make it into a separate consciousness, because it's so pivotal, because

[81:08]

alaya, the bifurcating function of the mind and the awareness work together in such a way as to produce this vijnapti, these concepts, which are the basis of all the problems we have, because when this stuff happens, self is born with all these afflictions. I don't think we're going to have a problem with this thing. This whole thing is just all completely empty. What'd you think of the class, Tia? I'm sorry.

[82:20]

Old Man River. This won't take so long. I think this is about as close as we're going to get to a song about this. Okay, ready? Old Man River, that old man river.

[82:42]

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