Last time we read, I think, maybe the first four sections. I'd like to read the fourth section again, where it says that the scriptures, such as the following verse from the scripture, explicating the underlying meaning, Samadhi Nirmachana Sutra, treat the subject. Here's the verse. The appropriating consciousness is deep and subtle, constantly flowing along with all the seeds of things. I have not taught this to common worldlings because they would reify it and cling to it as a self. So this first chapter is talking about the consciousness, which is the support for all knowledge.

[01:49]

And the usual name for it is the storehouse consciousness, the abode consciousness, the alaya-vijñāna, the abode consciousness. But another name for it is the appropriating consciousness, adana-vijñāna. And in this fourth section, it's referred to as adana-vijñāna. It's called that, particularly it's called, the alaya-vijñāna is called appropriating consciousness at the moment of birth. Yes. What does appropriating mean? Appropriating, grasping or taking hold of.

[02:52]

So we take hold of it at the moment of birth? It's the consciousness which takes hold of something at the moment of birth. So this alaya-vijñāna, which is also called the adana-vijñāna, at the moment of birth takes hold of something. What does it take hold of? Two things. It takes hold of the sense organs of a body. It apprehends the sense organs of a body. And it apprehends the predisposition towards conventional designation. It apprehends a predisposition or a propensity towards language.

[03:55]

At birth. Yes. Do you mean a conventional birth or do you mean at each moment? I mean the first moment that the body has a consciousness, which is sometimes called conception. So according to this definition, the moment of conception wouldn't necessarily be at the time of fertilized egg unless we could somehow verify that there were sense organs there. Especially if we could verify that there were six sense organs in a human. But at some point in the embryological process,

[04:59]

there seems to be organs. And at that time, these organs are warm and functioning when this consciousness has apprehended them or has made them its own. And they've made it their own apprehending consciousness. This intimate relationship between the consciousness and the organs, the first moment of it is conception or birth or... And the consciousness there is called apprehending consciousness. However, it continues to apprehend the whole lifetime. But that apprehending of these two things, the sense organs and the predisposition towards language, it's sort of on automatic pilot for the rest of the life. And then we emphasize more that the alaya is now the seeds

[06:07]

for all the active consciousnesses. All the active specific consciousnesses in these consciousnesses are active and specific to the organs which alaya has embraced. So now comes this next paragraph, which is kind of a big, big paragraph. Pardon? What did I say last? It comes a big, big paragraph now. There's that, it seems to find its seed for this connection. During most of our life, the alaya has already hooked into, this consciousness has already hooked into and is animating, is giving warmth

[07:08]

to our sense organs. And they support it, but not in a specific way, but more in an intimate kind of unconscious way. Alaya is a type of consciousness which unconsciously embraces the organs and the organs unconsciously embrace it. It's not the organs functioning to create consciousnesses which are aware of specific sense data like colors and sounds. Those are the active consciousnesses which alaya supports. And the way it supports them and the way it influences them is because it carries the seeds for all their particular, for all their particular special quality at a given moment. And that's usually what we're talking about when we talk about alaya-vijñāna,

[08:10]

but this particular time we're talking about at the beginning, and we'll talk about it at the death too, at the beginning and death of the living being. So here's the paragraph. Yes? This isn't manas, is it? This is not manas, no. Not manas, isn't it a sort of appropriated consciousness that tries to claim part of the alive consciousness? Manas is a type of mind that, there's two types of manas. And they're coming up in the next section. So could you please wait till we get to section six? Because that's another big paragraph.

[09:12]

So in section five, or paragraph five, it says, why does the verse speak of this consciousness as appropriating consciousness? Because it appropriates and upholds the physical sense organs of sentient beings. And because it supports, it is the support for the taking up of all experiences of rebirth. Why is this so? Because all the physical sense organs having been appropriated by this consciousness do not pass away until the end of life. When it continues into new rebirths, it is able to engender and take its own, and make its own, their formation. For this is how physical bodies in the six destinies are appropriated. It is thus that bodies in the six destinies

[10:16]

are made one's own. Now, because this taking up is due to the appropriating of this consciousness, it is called the appropriating consciousness. What does appropriating mean? Hmm? What does it mean, appropriating? It means grasping or taking a hold of. Take a hold of. Yes? What are the six destinies? Six destinies? The six destinies, the human destiny, divine destiny, destiny called fighting spirits, the destiny of hungry ghosts, hungry ghosts, animal destinies, and, what do you call it, infernal destinies. These are the different destinies

[11:19]

that living beings can live in. We human beings can, can visit all these different realms, but some beings are actually born into them, and we are born into the human realm, which is kind of in the middle of these six. The discussion of six destinies is another big topic, but let's just talk about the human destiny tonight, shall we? It was, I think Suki asked about, is the salaya, is there a common aspect to it?

[12:19]

Did you ask something like that last time? I talked about collective unconscious, so I don't know what Jung means by collective unconscious, but at the end of this chapter, I believe it's in the verse 60, or section 60, they talk about three kinds of storehouse consciousness, and they talk about four kinds of storehouse consciousness, and, or three aspects of storehouse consciousness, and four aspects of storehouse consciousness, and when speaking of the four, the fourth aspect of the storehouse consciousness is called the characteristics of the storehouse consciousness, and the characteristics are called common characteristics, and specific or individual characteristics. So this consciousness, which is the support of all active, defiled states of mind, this consciousness has a common part,

[13:20]

a part which, for example, people in a particular destiny, like in the human destiny, we share in common a world. And the way we live in the same world, or the world we live in together, is the common characteristic of this consciousness. And the specific, or the individual characteristic of this consciousness is how individual beings are connected to individual sense organs. So this consciousness is not, yeah, this consciousness is, it embraces and is aware of a world,

[14:24]

and the common world it's aware of. Is its common characteristic. And it also connects to individual physical sense organs, and that's its specific characteristic. And that connection gives rise to individual active sense consciousnesses, which mean that in a given moment, like right now, there's quite a few individual active consciousnesses which are specifically aware of sights and sounds and smells and so on in the world we share. Each of us is having a different active sense consciousness arising right now, which depends on individual special sense organs, which we do not share. But the world we share is actually

[15:29]

the common characteristic. It's the part of alaya, the aspect of consciousness which we share. The consciousness which supports individual active consciousnesses is due to the fact that it's due specifically to the past karma of alaya relating, the past karma of an alaya that's connected to a particular set of sense organs. And the group karma is not the group, all the past karma of the group, that's the world that we share. So the world is produced by the activity of all living beings, of all destinies, and then there's like sub-worlds

[16:31]

within the world created by all beings, beings that have similar karma share. Now, how is it that at birth, or I don't know, let's go to death, shall we? At death, it has been observed by many living beings that at death there seems to be a pretty clear sense that consciousness or warmth is withdrawing from the sense organs. In this teaching, we're saying that the withdrawing up from the sense organs is a similar thing to withdrawing of warmth from the sense organs,

[17:33]

or withdrawing of life. So a lot of people as they're dying, you can see that their sense of touch is withdrawing. The warmth of the body seems to be withdrawing from the extremities into the center. The physical sensation of touch seems to be withdrawing into the center. The vision seems to be dimming and withdrawing into the center. The hearing seems to be dimming and withdrawing into the center. As we age, this alaya in some sense, gradually and sometimes suddenly, withdraws from the sense organs into finally like a point. And then at a certain point in time, it actually seems to dissociate entirely from the organs. When people are in shock, even young people, when they go into shock,

[18:36]

I think what happens, interpreting what happens through this teaching, is that suddenly the alaya, the storehouse consciousness, releases its apprehending of the sense organs and withdraws suddenly into the center. So that a person, a young person, a young healthy person who goes into shock can die of shock. And my interpretation at this point would be that dying of shock means that their consciousness withdraws from the sense organs into a center and then leaves the body. So that shock can happen to people at various ages. But oftentimes it happens very slowly. Sometimes over decades. Withdrawing from the senses, the senses get turned off. Like my dog, her senses are getting turned off. Her hearing and seeing are getting turned off.

[19:41]

Her sense of touch is getting turned off. It's withdrawing. It's still there and it pulses in and out. Sometimes it goes back out and fills, it goes back out into the organs for a little while and then it withdraws. The smell and the taste seem to be still out there and pretty much into the organs. But the other things are withdrawing. But there can be a withdrawal and then a re-inhabiting. Withdrawal and re-inhabiting. So at death there is this thing. Then, now what do we have after death? Now we have a body which is uninhabited by consciousness. That's not warmed by consciousness. And if it continues like this for a while, the body seems to be pretty much irreversibly dead. As you may know, there's many examples of people who seem to be dead, but they're not really dead

[20:43]

because there's still some consciousness in the body. The consciousness has not exited. So again, even though the heart stops and the brain evens off, the consciousness can re-inhabit and re-activate the body. Back and forth several times. Certain yogis show off with doing that kind of tricks. But at a certain point, according to this school, long after sometimes Western medicine has said the person's dead, the person dies. The person's dead. And now we have a dead body which has nothing to do with any consciousness. So what do we have in terms of alaya? Well, we still have the world, the sense of a world. There's still a world. It's pretty much the same world that was there before this person died. And that world is not something outside of us. It's actually our consciousness.

[21:44]

And that consciousness goes on after somebody dies. But when they were alive, it was their consciousness too. It was their alaya vijnana. So they don't lose their alaya vijnana. They lose their active consciousnesses because active consciousnesses are related to sense organs and their support is alaya which has apprehended the sense organs. So the consciousness which is our experienced world doesn't stop when somebody dies. And before I answer these questions, I just want to say the question is what happens to the individual part of the alaya vijnana after it withdraws from individual sense involvement? I'm proposing that the world, the experienced world goes on when somebody dies.

[22:47]

But I don't say that the individual special aspect of alaya goes on after they die. I don't say that yet. This is the big thing to meditate on tonight together. Yes? How would you say something about the word apprehension? Apprehension? Well apprehension, I think the word apprehension has two meanings. One is to apprehend something and the other is you have what you sort of like, it's almost like you have a precognition of something, right? Or you have a fear of something. I have a vague apprehension means I have a vague sense that something's going to happen. Right? That's one meaning of apprehension. The other would be that the noun of apprehending, you apprehended something. Grasping is maybe a simple word,

[23:54]

the grasping consciousness. Yes? I'm going to save my question for later. You're going to save your question, okay. So now what could happen is that this specific involvement of the unconscious mind which supports all conscious activity, it could be that that withdraws from one body and immediately apprehends another. That would make life simpler in a way. But part of what I'm suggesting is if it's going to apprehend another body that means apprehend another set of sense organs. But there might not be a suitable set of sense organs for this particular lineage of specific unconscious storehouse consciousness

[24:59]

to connect to. Now this consciousness can't be too picky otherwise. I mean, there seems to be a time limit. It can't wait around indefinitely for the proper destiny. Why not? I've just heard that it doesn't. That it doesn't float indefinitely. And I don't know why. I've heard that the maximum is 49 days. Maybe that's a metaphor. But the thing is that they're saying that there isn't an indefinite period after it withdraws from one set of sense organs before it reconnects to another set of sense organs. If it were immediate, again, that would be simpler. Because in a way, that happens every moment. Because the sense organs are changing all the time. So it connects to a set of sense organs,

[26:02]

they change and it connects to another set of sense organs. The sense organs are changing, alaya is changing, but every moment alaya grasps the body, apprehends the body, appropriates the body, appropriating, appropriate, appropriating, appropriating. It does that all the time. Now, it disappropriated. And that specific quality of it is not functioning now. And it doesn't support active specific consciousnesses either. But if there's gonna be another, if it's gonna be a birth, it's gonna have to appropriate another set of sense organs. How does that work? That this appropriating consciousness after it withdraws from a certain set of organs, how does it connect to another set of organs? Yes.

[27:02]

And you're suggesting that when the individual lack consciousness that withdraws, is it somehow imprinted with what it's withdrawn from or conditioned by that situation so that when it re-imprints, it's selective? Did you hear his question? No, he said something like, is this appropriating consciousness, when it withdraws from the organs that it's appropriated, is it somehow imprinted by the organs or by something? Assuming that it's going to be reinvested somehow, is that reinvestment conditioned by... If it's gonna be reinvested, is the investing process conditioned by something before? He didn't say what it is. I'll tell you what the conditioning is.

[28:05]

The conditioning is that this consciousness is basically just the results of the way active consciousnesses, which are related to specific sense organs, the way, the kind of karma they did is basically what makes this consciousness. So the way this consciousness connected to a body and the kinds of the karmic consciousnesses that it supported, those made it what it is. And those conditioned how it will apprehend another body. So if, for example, a human being who has active human consciousness, that conditions this consciousness,

[29:08]

which is now withdrawing from the body and continues in the communal or common way, but the specific part is waiting or is not yet able to connect with any specific situation. But when it connects, when it reinvests in a body, that reinvestment will be conditioned by the karma that made it. And if it's a human being that dies now, the way the type of karma in that human being has been conditioning this alaya all along. So it is possible that if the way the human being was karmically active, that the results of that karma will make an alaya which will reinvest in a human body. And some people, most Asian Buddhists

[30:12]

consider having a human body a really great opportunity because the human body doesn't just come with six sense organs like a dog, it also comes with this predisposition towards conventional designation, so that we can receive teachings from the Buddhas through language. So that's one of the great advantages of being a human being, is that you can get Dharma teachings. And other animals could get Dharma teachings, but it's not so clear that they do have a Buddha or how the Buddhas are teaching them. So the human situation anyway seems to be a really good one. So there is some sense of, wouldn't it be good if we got to be human again? After we die, so we can continue the practice.

[31:15]

And continuing the practice means working with active consciousness in a way that develops wisdom and compassion. Being compassionate towards these defiled states, being compassionate towards these deluded states which are supported by alaya, receive teachings of how to work with these deluded states, receive teachings about these deluded states, and receiving these teachings and practicing with these teachings in these active states, transforms the alaya in the direction of Buddha's wisdom. And it doesn't mean that the whole process goes flat if we don't get a human body. It's just a human body is, it's really a great opportunity because there's all these great teachings in language for us and all these great teachings about how to do physical practices which help us work with our active consciousness

[32:18]

in a beneficial way. Yes. I'm troubled by what sounds like dualistic terminology for this appropriating consciousness, that there's it and these sense organs and that there's the body and what sounds like a soul or something that's being described here that then leaves the body and inhabits another body. And I'm wondering what evidence supports this idea that it goes somewhere for 49 days or less and then goes somewhere else. What evidence is there that it doesn't just cease? And this? I think this doesn't say that it will always be reborn. I'm not saying it always will be reborn. There's evidence that it ever is reborn. Yeah, but if it's ever reborn, how does that go on? That's what we're looking at. And we don't want to make this into a soul,

[33:20]

so how can we do this without making it into a soul? I mean, you're on the verge of making it into a soul and I'm not going to try to stop you, but I don't want to make it into a soul even though you see it heading in that direction. So if you don't make it into a soul and I don't make it into a soul, who's going to make it into a soul? What makes you think it goes somewhere after a body dies? I don't know what makes me think that. As a matter of fact, I don't think that. I'm not asking you what makes you think that I thought that. The Buddha has said a number of times that how you're made to think that I thought that it was going to go somewhere, how that karma works, how that karmic thought came up in you, this is like inconceivable to non-Buddhas, how that works. We can have wonderful spiritual attainments

[34:21]

long before we understand that kind of stuff. So I'm not trying to say how we come to think the way we do. I'm more talking about the teaching about how to care for the way we think we do and a teaching for how the way we think is supported and how the way we think has consequence which support further ways of thinking. This process in a general way, if understood, encourages us to take care of the way we're thinking in a way that causes a transformation of this consciousness and the complete transformation of consciousness is Buddhahood. Whereupon one will understand how people wind up thinking the way they do. I feel like you just changed the subject. Could you connect that to... I didn't really change the subject, I just took the subject back to the point of the whole study.

[35:22]

You're talking about a specific question and I just went to point out the reason for this study. It's not really changing the subject, it's making clear what the subject's about. It's to make Buddhas, this whole teaching is to make Buddhas. So the thing is, which I said earlier, is what happens to this specific aspect of the alaya and how does that specific aspect reconnect or reinvest? That's the question. I'm not saying it goes anyplace. How about does it reconnect or reinvest? Rather, before we get into how, where does the idea come from that it does reconnect and reinvest at all? Well, if it doesn't reconnect, then the virtues of our practice, how do they get transmitted to work in another body? I've understood that it's not apart from the sense organs and that it already is connected.

[36:25]

It's not separate, so it doesn't need to reconnect. That it's... What when you say it's connected to the sense organs, what do you mean by it? I don't usually call it an it. I just think of this process of sensing. I know, but you just said it's connected to the sense organs. I was trying to use the terms that you're using. But you just said you were told this, that it's connected. No, I don't think I meant that I was told that. I think of it as the act of sensing. You think of it as what? The act of sensing. Okay, so you got the act of sensing. So sensing is here. Yeah. I don't think of the sense organ and then... I mean, you're just... This is new to me. I'm hearing about this appropriating consciousness, this extra thing now, and I'm curious what evidence we have that there is this extra thing aside from sensing itself. So now we're talking... It's okay, but now we're talking about sensing. And so in this presentation is saying

[37:29]

that sensing is something that... It's not just an organ responding to a stimulation. It's a consciousness. So this is talking... There may be some other kind of sensing that you know about or that you're concerned about, but this is specifically concerned about sense consciousnesses, because sense consciousnesses suffer and conjure karma, et cetera. If there's some kind of sensing that's not consciousness, I mean, I'm happy to hear about that, but this teaching is about sense consciousnesses, because sense consciousnesses are generally defiled and deluded. Sense consciousnesses usually... The consciousness sees something or is aware of something, and it thinks that the thing is out there

[38:30]

separate from itself. So there may be some sensing there that's nothing to do with consciousness, like, I don't know what. There may be, but as I start to reason about it, I don't think there is, because if you just touch the skin and the skin is dented or something, unless there's consciousness there, I don't think it's sensing. I think of consciousness as, like you were describing the container consciousness. It's not something more than what it contains. I agree. And I don't know if I said that before, but the container consciousness is just all the seeds for all the active consciousnesses. So the sense consciousness to me is just all the senses that are there. It's just the senses. All the sensing and all the... If there's sensing going on,

[39:30]

I don't picture a consciousness and then the sensing. I picture that consciousness is sensing. The sense consciousness is not anything in addition to what? But is sensing an awareness of an object? Is sensing an awareness of a color? Is that a sensing? Well, there's, we got like the six senses, right? Yeah. And one of those is ideas, right? Yeah. And so I don't think it's anything apart from all six of those. It's more than just the five. No, there's six, and the sixth one is aware of mental objects. There's a mind consciousness, a mind sense. Okay, and you're saying, you can say, do you want to take mind or do you want to take eye consciousness? Which one do you want to talk about? I think if you separate them,

[40:32]

then you don't have the whole thing, but I think... If you separate them? The eye consciousness in addition to the mind consciousness allows you to come up with an object. Yeah, okay, so what are you saying? That's it, that there's not something in addition to that. Well, part of what this teaching is saying is that there is something in addition to that, and the thing in addition to it is an unconscious, which supports this consciousness. So there's the active sense consciousness, which you're talking about, and we're also saying in this teaching, there is an unconscious at the same time, simultaneous with it, and it's called the alaya-vijñāna. And the unconscious is the results of all the past consciousnesses you were just talking about. So right now we have a, you could say, you have a mind consciousness and an eye consciousness together, two of them, you have two consciousnesses, and they both have karma.

[41:32]

They both have an activity. They both have intentions. They both have delusions, okay? That current active activity of those two consciousnesses, the eye consciousness and the mind consciousness, that is simultaneously now transforming the results of the past karma which supported its arising. If you just have the active consciousnesses, there's no transmission of the karma. Because they arise and cease. But because of this teaching, before they cease, they transform the results of all past karma. And so they arise supported by the results of past action, and the current action transforms the past action, and they both cease together, and now a new past action comes up which has been changed by the previous past action and supports a new present action

[42:35]

which could be mind consciousness, eye consciousness, ear consciousness, all this could be happening, or just mind consciousness and ear consciousness, or whatever. Okay? Thank you. We still have this issue of a death to deal with. Yes? I think that you answered my question in the dialogue, but I just want to check my understanding. And so in this transformation process, then it's not that the individual consciously, because according to this teaching, in the 49 day window that you discussed, it's going from literally from one place to another, there's a transformation of the past karma which transforms the present karma, and from that action then, there's the collective conscious and the individual characteristics. Is that what you're saying? I couldn't follow all that. Maybe you could do it again more slowly. Well, I was confused earlier that there was

[43:39]

a complete separation of death between the individual consciousness and the collective consciousness. Okay, so just stop there. So she thought I was saying that there's a complete separation of death between the individual consciousness and the collective consciousness? Yes. Okay. Okay, so it's not really an individual consciousness and a collective consciousness. It's the storehouse consciousness, which has two aspects, okay? The two aspects are not separate from each other, okay? However, the specific aspect, the uncommon aspect, which is not separate from the common, when it doesn't have an actual set of organs it's connected with, the question is, what is it doing? What kind of a life does it have when it's not connected to a body?

[44:40]

And did you just say that it transforms the alive vijnana? No, I didn't. No, when I said it transforms the alive vijnana, I was referring to the sense consciousnesses. The sense consciousnesses transform the alive vijnana at death? Do they transform it at death? No, the sense consciousnesses are going along up until death, okay? They're getting kind of downtrodden because the support of them is withdrawing from the organs. So as people approach death, sometimes they don't really have any more eye consciousness or ear consciousness going on. But they still have some sense consciousnesses going on. As long as they've got alaya, they can have some sense consciousness because alaya supports the active sense cognitions right up till death, except that maybe not as much as it usually, as it did most of the life before.

[45:42]

If a person lost their sight, they could still have alaya. Well, like Helen Keller, right? No sight, no hearing. She had alaya, though. These yogis who go into these states, they don't have sight, hearing, sound, smell, touch, or taste. They don't even have mental cognition. All their active consciousnesses are turned off, more or less. But they still are warm. Their sense organs don't die. And they're conscious. And when they come out, alaya supports the reactivation of active consciousness. So at death, it's not that the sense organs stop exactly, but their support stops. Alaya, which lives in the body, withdraws from the body so that all the active consciousnesses don't have a support anymore. Right, and that's what I was talking about. And I don't want to use the term now, but when the alaya withdraws, it's not that it goes into another suitable

[46:45]

organ situation, five, six sense organ situation, within the 49 days, laterally. It goes into the storehouse consciousness and then is transformed through the independence of the collective consciousness. You're saying it goes into the storehouse consciousness, but it is the storehouse consciousness. Okay. So, the alaya, this individual, the individual, the special, non-common aspect of alaya doesn't go anyplace. Okay. It's still the alaya. Right. That's what I'm saying, but where does the special quality, what happens to the special quality when it doesn't have a body to connect to? Right. Right, and that's what I'm trying to understand. Yeah. So. You're trying to understand it. Good. Right. Did you understand anything yet? No. I didn't. Did anybody ask you anything yet? No. I haven't told you.

[47:49]

Yeah, right. Yes. I might not tell you, you might have to find it yourself. Because I don't want to make us into a soul or a self. Okay. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. And yet, pardon? I'm afraid that ship has sailed. No. You may be sending that ship out. You may have christened that ship, but I would like to call it back to port and dismantle it. I would like to talk about this, because we're supposed to find a way to talk about this without making a lie into a self that floats off in its little capsule and waits for the opportunity to get another body. How can we understand this in a way that supports our understanding that there is transmission of cause and effect

[48:50]

through birth and death, without setting up a self? This is a big challenge to the teaching. And this teaching is getting more into the details of the transmission than some earlier teachings were doing, which said there were just active consciousnesses, but if you have just active consciousnesses, you cannot explain how they transmit to each other because they don't coexist. One dies and then the other one comes up. And also, you can't explain how a positive one stops and a negative one comes up. But Alaia explains this very nicely. But this next part, though, I think this is really good for us to understand now that part about we've got now the death, we're saying that the special quality of Alaia, the individual apprehension, doesn't seem to have any individual that it's apprehending.

[49:53]

The apprehending of the sense organs doesn't seem to have any sense organs. So how do we go from withdrawing association with one body into establishing or investing association with another body? How do we go between those two to carry this Alaia, which means how does the results of all past karma get transmitted to another body? Who says that it does? Who says it does? Yeah. Well, the Buddha says it in the Samadhi Nirmarchana Sutra. And is there any evidence for that? Is there any evidence that karma gets transmitted from this moment to the next moment? Is there any evidence? I'm okay with moments. I'm not so okay with bodies. What's the evidence that karma gets transmitted from this moment to the next moment? It's the best explanation I've seen. What's the evidence? There's no evidence.

[50:57]

Okay. Yes? Yes? I'm confused enough to ask a question that brings in something else in hopes that I don't want to leave something else out. What about the common consciousness or the common unconscious that's part of the Alaia or the storehouse? Can you say something about that? Because we seem to be focused on the individual aspects of it. So I'm kind of curious, before I worry too much about how the individual aspects, that karma gets transmitted, I want to know a little bit about what the common aspect is. Is it empty? Is it empty of inherent existence? I think that's the way to put it. All phenomena are empty of inherent existence. Including all phenomena. And the evidence for that is

[51:59]

if you would examine any phenomena thoroughly, you would verify that it doesn't, that you would not just be able to say, I haven't been able to find a self. You would be able to prove that it cannot be found. I just want to say that I just don't want to draw a distinction between them. It seems like we're talking about two aspects of the storehouse, and I don't want to draw a big distinction between them. You don't have to draw a big distinction. Draw a little one. So we have a little distinction. We have two aspects of Alaia. The common, and you want to talk about the common more. Fine, let's talk about the common more. So somebody dies. For that person, the world has just... What happened to the world for them?

[53:02]

Well, this person no longer has any active consciousness. So what kind of a person is that? Dead. That's a dead person. A dead person doesn't have active consciousness. But they do have Alaia. The dead person has Alaia. They don't know they have Alaia because they're not conscious. And now their body's being burned up. So what's left of their consciousness is just the world. The experienced world is their consciousness. And we have that consciousness too right now. We have a world. Is that the world of like, I got a little confused there. Does that, I want to say it has something to do with that propensity for conventional designations. Yeah, it does. For us, the world has to do, the price of admission to the human world

[54:04]

is to have the propensity for conventional designation and to use it. You can't just have the propensity, you have to also like exercise it and do verbal karma. If you do, you get to be in the human world. And we have flies and dogs in our world, but they don't get to be in our world because they don't have language. They're living in the same world, yes, but they're living in another world because they have different karma from us. They live in, and the sub-world they live in, in our world, the circle they live within our circle is the circle of dog karma, or fly karma, or whatever. So we have this, when we no longer have active consciousness which is, you could say, the person has died, alaya is not associated with the sense organs

[55:05]

of that person who has just died. And where does the practice of that particular person go? How does the practice of that particular person invest in a new body and a new opportunity to practice with a new body, which means new active karmic consciousness? How does that happen? This text is saying that when it withdraws from, as long as the body's there, this consciousness is alive and well, as long as the body's alive, this consciousness is there. When this consciousness withdraws or stops, the body also stops functioning. And then how does it start a new rebirth? It's going to apprehend or appropriate, it's going to appropriate a new set of sense organs. And as King brought up, the way it appropriates them has something to do with the karma that is stored in it. It is the storage of all the past karma.

[56:05]

So that past karma will, in a sense, determine the type of appropriation that occurs. Yes? Well, this is sort of a weird thought, but... You're having a weird thought? I'm having a weird thought. Yeah? When the Dalai Lama dies, or is nearing dying, and they look for a young child to be the next Dalai Lama, this may not happen next time. A lot of it has to do, I guess, with the Chinese. But is some of this process happening that you're talking about? Well, I saw a program. Yes, yes, that's right, that's what that's about. But how do we want to envision this?

[57:13]

How do you want to imagine this transmission? Yes? I was thinking that I read that Buddha could think of, could recall dozens if not hundreds of lives. Yeah. And so this implies the continuity of individuality, so to speak. But it seems to me that from what you're saying, that they end up getting well, of course none of them are getting well, but it is extremely rare for this to happen. Yeah, it's rare for people to be able to have knowledge of past lives. But it's not necessary to have knowledge of past lives in order to understand this teaching. I didn't say you did.

[58:18]

I'm just mentioning that. So you don't have to have knowledge of your past lives in order to understand this teaching. Yeah. What I meant was that it seems that the coincidences or the law of the evolution of Buddha's lives are very rare, that maybe most of us, within the 47 days, will just maybe just absorb in the general consciousness of individuality. I can't think of a place specifically where the Buddha said, not everybody will be reborn. No, I don't know of a place where Buddha said, not everybody will be reborn.

[59:19]

But I also never heard of a place where he said, everybody will be reborn. But the bodhisattva path has to do with actually getting reborn so you can continue to practice, to continue to help people. Jeff? I think it's interesting, it seems like the shared, I got this image of Star Trek holodeck, that our consciousness creates this thing that we share. And yet, we have private consciousness of people that we can't share. So I think I don't have that firewall between those two things, it's just interesting. I don't know how that works. Well, this teaching says there's not a firewall. There's not a firewall between the active consciousnesses which are associated with a particular set of sense organs and other active consciousnesses.

[60:21]

So active consciousnesses, subjects, can communicate with each other and can affect each other. Like, I don't know what another person's thinking. You may not, but even if you don't know what another person's thinking, you could say something to another person which could be helpful to them. Even though they're living in a active consciousness which creates their own sense of the world, which is different from yours, you can communicate with them, and the world you live in is the result of your past karma and their past karma. I guess it's just like, for instance, if I come out and put a flag on the top of the hill and someone else can see that flag, somehow our consciousnesses are in an equilibrium. Yes, mm-hmm. But other parts of our consciousnesses, it's not true, in the sense that I'm seeing something and that someone else is seeing something. Right, right. And that, you're talking,

[61:24]

I hear you talking about active consciousness, okay? He's talking about active consciousness, that he sees a flag on a hill and he thinks somebody else put it there. That's your active consciousness. Okay? But the fact that I see it, I mean, there's some paradigm. The fact that you see it is your active consciousness. And somehow I'm sharing it with somebody else. And you can share that with somebody else. That's the shared, that's the example of the shared... That's an example of shared active consciousness. Alaya is shared unconscious. It's not shared active consciousness. Alaya is not like looking and saying, oh, there's a flag. Look, Jeff, there's a flag. That's not Alaya. Alaya is a result... The idea that our consciousness creates the world is like, I heard that. Our active consciousness, okay? Like active consciousness is like, hey, there's a flag. Come here, look at the flag.

[62:25]

Oh, wow, there's a flag. Thanks for telling me. That's active consciousness. Well, you see things and then I see them and we see them differently, but we're both seeing things and we're talking about it and we're sharing and we're friends or we're enemies. That's active consciousness. And this teaching is saying, and those active consciousnesses are somewhat diluted. For example, most active consciousnesses think that the flag is separate from them or that their friends are out there separate from them. Okay? Did I lose you? Well, I'm just, I'm trying to... Okay. I just... Well, then there's a... You hit me a little bit, but I don't know the related question. Excuse me. Before you go to your related question, did you understand what I'm saying so far? Well... That your examples are... Well, I guess it has to do with this view. What we see in the world, is that the result of our... Is that the result of our unconsciousness? It's not exactly the result of our... It's sort of the result of our consciousness, unconscious,

[63:28]

but our unconsciousness is definitely the result of the way we see the world. The way you see the world is your active karmic consciousness. Your unconsciousness does not see the world. Your active consciousness is the world that you experience. The seeing of the world is supported by the mind, the unconscious mind, which is the world, supports active consciousness, which sees the world. Active consciousness sees the world, sees colors and shapes and people and flags. That's active consciousness. And that's, for most people that aren't enlightened, that's the deluded consciousness, and that's where we suffer. We don't really suffer in alaya. And we don't do any karma there. Alaya is, we have an unconscious mind here that we're talking about, and this unconscious mind supports our conscious mind. And our conscious mind is where we're active and do karma.

[64:30]

And the effects of our karma are simultaneous with the karma, because our karma simultaneously transforms our past karma, right at the same moment. And then they both cease together. Next moment, our past karma arises and supports the next active consciousness. And active consciousness can communicate, but also the active consciousnesses that communicate with each other, they're also influencing each other's unconscious because our unconscious is the result of all of our past karma. Our unconscious mind is the result of all of our past karma. That aspect of our unconscious is the world. And then another part of our unconscious is not the result of everybody's past karma. It's the result of a particular special, uncommon lineage of active karma.

[65:32]

So there's a specific part, and there's a general part. The general part is the world, and it's unconscious. And that unconscious, which is the world, supports a conscious life which sees a world. The alaya doesn't see a world exactly. It's sort of aware that there is a world, but it doesn't see a world. The conscious life colors in the world with sounds, and smells, and tastes, and touch, and identities, and people. Enrique? What happens when we have to, let's say, we've been working on ourselves to influence our karma and change our karma? Yeah. And let's say, the work's been done, but do we ever, are we ever done with that work? Yeah. We're done at Buddhahood. So no karma?

[66:35]

No karma. No alaya anymore. No unconscious. It's been completely transformed into this thing called the true body of Buddha. We're done. Now we're done with that, but now we start this career of being unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. And then that goes out to all the people who aren't done, and it influences them to study their conscious and unconscious life. So we're not reborn. If we're done, we're not reborn, right? Pardon? If we are done with our karma, we are not getting reborn. Yeah, Buddhas are not reborn. So not everybody's reborn. And some people who aren't Buddhas might not be reborn either. But some people who are not sages might not be reborn either. The thing is, some people are reborn and don't particularly want to be, and especially after they get reborn, they're sorry that they did.

[67:37]

So a lot of people do get reborn. That's what the Buddha taught. And some people want to get reborn for the welfare of others. They want their study to go beyond this life, like they're 70 years old or 80 years old, and they're about to die, and they actually wish to be reborn, and they hope that they're reborn with a good community of practitioners so that they can continue to receive the teaching and help people. Some people want to get reborn. Some people don't want to get reborn. But a lot of people who don't want to get reborn, according to this teaching, do get reborn. And part of the reason they get reborn is because they don't want to get reborn. Karma, yeah. Yes? Well, it's related to my follow-up question, is that in the miraculous case that every consciousness is Buddha, how is this a lie, actually?

[68:40]

What's that about now? In the case of everybody's Buddha? The whole universe, every consciousness is Buddha. How is that, how is it a lie, how would that look? Well, there wouldn't be any lie. There wouldn't be any conscious or unconscious. Yeah, and the Buddhas would be out of work. And as soon as Buddhas are out of work, there's no Buddhas. So just all there would be is reality and there would be no living beings. There would be no suffering. But if there's one person left, one suffering person left, all those Buddhas would have, you know, bared down on that person, and just inundate that person with love and make him into a Buddha. But it still might take them a long time. Those Buddhas might have a long job. But if you're saying that they finished, that the Buddhas have made all living beings into Buddhas, then I would say there's no Buddhas

[69:41]

because they have no work. An unemployed Buddha is not a Buddha. And I wouldn't, is that a miracle or is that like the universe just got less interesting? I don't know. As it is now, new babies are being born every day and they really need a lot of help. So it's gonna be a while unless people stop having new babies before we're gonna stop having beings that need teaching and work for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to do. There still is on the table, which we didn't really, I don't think we understood how when this, when the individual aspect disassociates from a body, how does it reconnect to another body? This has not been clarified completely tonight.

[70:42]

So we can forget it and just let it go and move on to the next section which Daniel's really interested in. So we can just set it aside and say we didn't make it. We're not able to answer the question of how does this, the individual part of laya, how does it leave a body and reconnect with another one? We can just set that aside for a while if you want to. It'll come up again and again. We can just move on to the next section next time and let this go if that's okay with you. Because it, I didn't want to skip that paragraph but I know it's like, it's a big deal. This rebirth thing is a big deal. It's got a lot of questions, a lot of trouble and a lot of problem about making a self out of the process. So if it's okay with you, I'll just for next week

[71:53]

I won't bring this up again. And we'll just move on to the next section about these two types of consciousness called manas. Yes. I've been reminded about this about 30 years ago I was in a class with a doctor who worked in hospitals and he began to do hypnosis for the people in the hospitals who described that someone died or someone, let's say someone's dying, dies and there's another body buried pre-op, not to die and that body that was barely alive would be apprehended in some way by the one who had already died. And his work for maybe his lifetime was to do hypnosis to ask that consciousness

[72:55]

to leave the body, the person who was barely alive. There's something about the grasping consciousness where if it leaves the body, would it grasp onto another body that was nearby and barely alive? And you say barely alive? Barely alive. This happens in this hospital where, these hospitals where someone dies and I'm wondering if that grasping consciousness, the apprehending consciousness, would grasp onto the organs in a body that was almost dying. I think my understanding of a live jnana is that it's very polite and it would not inhabit a body of somebody who hadn't left yet. It would wait until the specific, the uncommon aspect of a laya had vacated the sense organs

[74:00]

before it went in and took over. It wouldn't go in and push out some other living being from a body or even from a body, from a little baby body, it wouldn't do that. If there's presence of consciousness, it wouldn't have the need to take on other sense organs. The grasping. The untransformed aspect of our unconscious is going to seek, generally speaking, it's going to seek another thing to grasp once it, for whatever reasons, dissociates from a particular set of sense organs. It wants to do it again. Now, I'm not saying it always does, but most untransformed consciousnesses will again seek to inhabit another set of sense organs.

[75:03]

I think you might even say that's the source of the birth of a being. You could say, we're talking about the birth of a being, but we're also talking about what's called cyclic existence. That this laya, the way a laya works is what keeps cyclic existence going. This is actually a consciousness which is itself cyclic existence. And so we're talking about a consciousness which is actually what we call samsara. This teaching actually is saying basically this consciousness is samsaric existence. And it has a general aspect and has specific aspects within the general. And the specifics are how within the world of samsara, there is the re-inhabiting or reinvestment in bodies over and over. And that this is compulsive in most cases. And in some cases, it's intentional.

[76:05]

This is the more advanced practitioners. They intentionally join the process of samsara in order to benefit other beings in samsara. Which means they intentionally keep exercising this a lot, this unconscious mind. I pray that our intention pervades every being in place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Peace.

[76:54]

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