Whatever indeed is the variety of ideas of self and elements that prevails, it occurs in the transformations of consciousness. Such transformation is threefold, namely, the resultant, what is called mentation, as well as the concept of the object. Herein the consciousness, called alaya, with all its seeds, is the resultant. It is unidentified in terms of concepts, of object and location, and is always possessed of contact, feeling, attention, perception, and volition. In that context, the neutral feeling is uninterrupted and is not defined. So are contact, and so on. And it proceeds like the current of a stream. Its dissipation occurs in arhatship associated with this process, and depending upon it occurs the consciousness called manas, which is of the nature of mentation, endowed with the four types of defilement, constantly concealed and undefined, involving self-use, self-confusion, self-esteem, and self-love.

[01:25]

It also possesses other forms of contact and so on. Born of such, made of such, is not found in the worthy one, nor in the state of cessation, nor in the super-mundane path. Such is the second transformation. The third transformation, the acquisition of the sixfold object, and it is either good, bad, or indeterminate. That is associated with wholesome psychological conditions, both universal and particular, and similarly with primary as well as secondary defilements. That includes the three-fold feeling. Okay, that's enough for me right now. So I thought of what, particularly this part of the text, is like the roots.

[02:40]

It's like the story of the roots of the world where we live in terms of self and other things. And I thought of like, you know, a few years ago there was this book and a TV show called Roots. And so there's this general concept that it helps, it helped, it's helpful for peoples, especially people who are in slavery or who live in oppression, it's good for them to learn about their roots. And the reason for this is that, I don't know, it seems to be helpful to people to know where they come from, to have an accurate sense of where they come from. And this helps people who aren't living under too much oppression, too. But the thing about people who are living in slavery or oppression is that if you know about your roots...

[03:52]

it might interfere with the slavery program. Unless all you know about your roots is that you used to be in slavery. That would be maybe okay to know. That wouldn't disturb the overlord's dominance for you to think, well, I'm in slavery and my dad was in slavery and so, yes, so then, so I'm in slavery, so what? I mean, what else is new? No problem. But if you find out that your king used to be a, that your father used to, that your grandfather was a king back in Africa, or that your grandfather was a, uh, you know, like a super fast runner and used to, you know, catch, uh, panthers in the forest and, you know, swing from limb to limb with the greatest ease, um, and that your grandmother used to weave beautiful tapestries for the queen of Sheba or something like that. If you think of that, then you think, well, hey mom, how come my grandma used to be so cool and I'm a slave?

[04:57]

Right? So the overlord doesn't want you to know about that kind of background, so the overlord says, let's not have any stories about you know the good old days okay just shut up and also change your name to George Washington and if you need a background you can just kind of pretend like you have the same background as I do like you can pretend like your grandfather is George Washington because he's my grandfather sort of so a little bit pretend like you have white ancestors in a way even though of course you don't but let's not have any stories about Africa here Let's not have stories about when you used to be, when your family used to be like have gold jewelry on their wrists and used to dance and sing freely in the jungle and wear beautiful clothes that they made themselves rather than wear clothes that were made in a boss's factory.

[06:01]

Anyway, when the people start finding out their history, then they aren't so happy being slaves, because at some point way back, people weren't slaves. You know, a long time ago, people weren't slaves. They didn't have a slave thing worked out, you know. They didn't have civilization. Just everybody was like hunting and farming and Well, even before farming, right? There was some division of labor, and maybe the men were kind of like oppressing the women, and then the women couldn't tell stories about the older women or something. But anyway, there was a time way back when, before oppression, before slavery, and then gradually they got the idea, and then they eliminated the old stories. But still, some good people realized that if you want to help these people in oppression, one of the ways to help them is to tell them their old stories. Once they learn who they are, they won't be satisfied living under slavery and oppression. However, when you first tell people who have been in slavery that they had great warriors and really intelligent, creative people in their background, when you first tell them, they're shocked.

[07:21]

They think you're nuts. And the masters say, yeah, see, It doesn't make sense, does it? I mean, how would you be in this situation if you had that kind of background? But anyway, the slaves are surprised when they hear about how great they were. And now they're upset, a little bit upset. They kind of feel kind of good, but also they're kind of upset because now they can't just be slaves. Now they have to like, well, now they have to start a revolution. This is going to be risky. So let's just forget we found out about the roots and go back to work. And studying this text is like that too. When you hear about, you know, the evolution of consciousness, it's kind of shocking actually to hear about your mind before or while it was going into bondage. It's kind of shocking because this has been suppressed, this story. It's been suppressed by the master, by the

[08:23]

the master of delusion, by the dualistic mind. And it doesn't want us to find out about the mind before these transformations happened. So that's part of the reason why this class has had a very high level of dropout. Most of the people that are left in it are people who live at Green Gulch. And if they don't come here, they have to go to Zazen or go to bed. There's a few exceptions, you know, like Laurie and Elmer and Cynthia, Jeanette. I don't know, why did you guys stay? You have to go to bed too if you leave here? Maybe you don't want to be in slavery, that's why you're here. And you're willing to be shocked if necessary.

[09:32]

But that's kind of what this is about. It's about our roots, going back to our roots. And it's a little shocking to see the process of how to go over the story. One of the stories you go over is a story of how they captured you and brought you over in those ships and put the chains on you. That's one of the stories. You know, that's not a very happy story. So this is a story about how a gift can change, this part of the story. So, can anybody tell me the story of the three transformations of consciousness, your own way of saying it? How does it happen? Well, you can remember what I told you the last few weeks.

[10:42]

I can remember what I said. That just happens, because you have nothing to compare it to. It's kind of like, at some point, very war. That's right. You have nothing to compare it to, but you can still tell the story, like I've been telling it. So I'm wondering, have you, and I also told you this thing about fiction, right? I told you a story, and I wondered if you've learned it yet. And when I tell that story, you know, although you can say, well, I can't really know what happened, but still when I tell it, I believe it. I know it's a fiction, but I decided to believe it. Somebody else has got a better fiction. Let's hear it. Yeah, that was your homework, right. So that's your homework, and if you did it, good. But still, those four types of defilement are something that happens at the stage of development of the second transformation of consciousness.

[11:44]

Okay? So that's part of the story. Part of the story will be that these four types of affliction will arise in conjunction with the function of mind, which is the reflecting function of mind. But can you tell the whole story? That's one major part of it. Yes? The first thing that happens is that there's a split, and one part, in order for there to be consciousness, there has to be two parts, and one part reflects back. Okay. So I think if it's okay with you I'll sort of edit while you're talking. It's not that in order to have consciousness you have to have a split. There is consciousness at starting out, our root is there's consciousness that's not split.

[12:45]

You can't enslave a consciousness that's not split. Okay? But to have To have knowledge, to have ideas of self and others, to have any kind of objective knowledge, to have knowledge of the other. In other words, to have knowledge of the other means to have knowledge of self. To have self and other, to have subject and object, in order to have that, the mind has to be split. The consciousness has to be split. There is consciousness, but now We want to talk about the story of how do we get in a situation where we become indentured to the self-other kind of system. And so one of the things that has to happen is a split. Now you said first, but strictly speaking, they're all at the same time, but still the first one mentioned, although it's not really first in terms of time, the first one is not the one you mentioned.

[13:48]

That's the second one, the one you mentioned, the split. The split... is the second transformation, although it doesn't happen later, really. Evolutionarily-wise, it happened later, but in terms of presentation, it's called the second one, the splitting. Yes? Well, might I say that inherent to alaya is the idea of the idea or the concept. So, those are the seeds, The seeds of all concepts are there, yes? So that precedes the split. Because before you can have a split, you have to have a concept of an other. No, I'll edit your notes for you. Okay? All the possible concepts, the content of all the concepts are in alaya.

[14:49]

Okay? But But the main thing about alaya is that alaya provides something to hook onto. It provides all the possible things that you could hook onto. It's a way to transform something which is ungraspable Now you transform it into that you can grasp it. Okay? And you can grasp it in terms of that there's something in a certain place that you can get a hold of. That's the function of alaya. And the next thing that happens is that this material that you can hook onto, that you can connect with, this material gets, in order for there to be knowledge, this material has to be reflected, or something has to be split off from the rest.

[15:57]

Or coordinated. Coordinated means same arrangement. So there's this field that you can connect to, and then in order to know something, you have to coordinate something in the field. In other words, you have to make something there the same arrangement, or reflect it. Reflect means to bend back, or to flex back. You take something and you bend it back. You bend something back out of the field. And then, because of that, you can conceptualize it. And you can say that this thing, which has been coordinated or made in a similar arrangement to what was there before, this thing is external to the field it was drawn from. So you have something to connect to, some way to reflect it, and then a concept that this is external.

[17:03]

Those are the three things you do in order to make self and elements. And in relationship to this reflecting or this coordinating, a sense of self arises. The sense of self arises in relationship to the reflection or the coordination. The sense of self arises in relationship to reflection. In order for there to be a self there has to be some kind of reflection. Like a face in a mirror. There's the face and then there's a reflection. There's an image and there's a thing being imaged. There's an identity and a reflection. Or there's a coordination. There's something like this. That gives rise to the sense of self, to the idea, the notion of self is born from the second transformation.

[18:10]

Because self is born from splitting. Like there's death and there's life. then there's self. If there's death that's not split off, that's not reflected, then there's no self. If there's something and it's other, then that makes a self, that makes an identity which is not one of those others. So this splitting, this reflecting, this coordinating gives rise to the sense of self. Yes? It's hard to imagine what happens before the sense of self, because when you asked how this process happened, I was kind of thinking there's just kind of this, you know, like you can't really imagine it because that process hasn't started yet, but it's kind of like a stream or an ocean or something, and it's kind of undifferentiated. Exactly.

[19:11]

And then something, something... starts grasping somehow or hooking or something but there's no self yet what's doing that you know like what's the process right that would be there isn't any self yet there's grasping okay but there's grasping but there's no identification it's just grasping this it's like it's like groping for each other in the dark you're touching something you know but you don't have any way to reflect what you're touching it just There's no reflection. There's no coordination. As soon as there's reflection, the sense of self is born. But in this dark, there is touching. Kalaya provides the opportunity to touch, to grasp, to be born into some place. But you can't identify the place. Because you can't really say that this is different from this. You have no way to reflect this position from that position.

[20:13]

That would be like volition. There's some kind of volition. There is volition. There's no self. Right. Like an amoeba. Like an amoeba going, it goes... Is there volition? Yeah. It says. It says there's volition. You see? There's volition. There's contact. Volition. It tells you. It tells you these functions are there. You see, there's contact, attention, feeling. Imagine an amoeba. It goes... Volition, contact, feeling. What else? Perception, attention, all that stuff. Attention, perception. Amoeba can do all that stuff. But what can it do? What can it do? Huh? It can't do conception.

[21:14]

It can't split off. It can't reflect. It can't reflect this thing is touching. Therefore, sense of self isn't there. Yes? I don't understand, you know, the use of the term volition, because... What word? Volition, because it doesn't seem to apply. To me, it means, like, you reach a point where you could make a decision, either or. I just can't imagine in the media making either or decisions. It does. It goes like this. It goes... It goes this, and then... It does what it does, but does it get to one point and go, well, I can do this or I can... No, it doesn't say, I can do this. It doesn't do that, you're right. It does not say, I can do this and I can do that. It goes, it touches the hot thing and it moves away. It touches the thing... It's just instinctual. You can say instinctual, but instinctual means, in this case, it's volitional. Volitional means the vector of the organism. If you look at an organism, the vector, the way it seems to be going, that's its volition.

[22:17]

So the amoeba seems to be sort of like forming or oozing over in this direction. It touched something a little too hot, okay, then the volition changes and the vector goes back this other way. There's a decision and the vector goes... There's a decision and there's a tension. There's a tension to... It touches it, there's a tension there. There's contact there. The feeling is too hot. The volition then gets reversed. And the thing moves back inside of itself. It doesn't think. It doesn't reflect that thing is touching. There's no reflection. There's no splitting. There's no coordinating. There's no coordination like, I'm here, it's there. But if there's coordination like, okay, I'm here, Lori's there, Pat's there, lunch is there. That's coordination. If there's that kind of thing, Reb, Lori, Pat, lunch, then there's a self. So is this volition more kind of like desire, only desire is a pretty sophisticated concept, but it's more like a volitional kind of something that's kind of like underneath desire or closely related to it, so that when it comes up in us humans much later, we have this big desire nature.

[23:38]

Well, if you can use desire for desire to hold on to pleasant things and desire to move away from negative things, in other words, attachment and aversion or lust and hate, if you want to call those both desires, then yes, then volition is like... If you're trying to tell what direction, what the volition of an organism is, what direction it's moving, if there's greed or hate there, that will help you be able to tell what direction it's moving. If those aren't there, if greed or hate aren't there, and they're not always there, and the main one that's there is confusion, which is also present with greed and or hate, If confusion is the main thing, it's hard to determine the vector. It's hard to determine the volition because it's kind of like it's not clear. It's not clearly going... It's not clearly going... It's not clearly going... So it's indeterminate. Okay? And that's what it says here for alaya.

[24:42]

It's indeterminate. It's kind of confusing what the vector there is. It's fluctuating. It's fluctuating very rapidly. Yeah, right. It doesn't, like amoebas, you know, they don't get on a big trip. They don't, like, you know, go on a crusade or something. They munch on this thing, and when they're done, they back off. If it's too hot, they just pull away a little bit, but then they go right back and try it again, you know. Because they don't have memory and stuff to the extent that we do, and they don't have language and policies and stuff. I don't know who that is. Is that Heather? Yes, OK. Maybe using the example of an amoeba, could a plant also qualify as participating in the line? Yeah. at this level. But they won't get, the plants seem to somehow, the plants, as far as we know, do never switch over to develop to a point where they start this splitting off thing.

[25:54]

Whereas the animal kingdom starts to evolve in that direction of this splitting off thing. Yes? Can you talk about the third transformation of consciousness? I don't understand how. the concept of object, which seems like the third transformation of consciousness, is different than the, or why that would come after the arising of self, the second transformation, even though it's not strictly afterwards? Well, it's just like, so the reflection happens, right? And something gets reflected. or coordinated, okay? So there's like this, right? And then suddenly there's a coordination of her and me. Okay? That's enough for the sense of self to arise. Okay? Then I say, which is, you know, very closely related to self, I say, she's external to me.

[27:01]

But I have an idea of that. And then I have an idea of self. Before that, there's a sense of self, or the notion of self is born from this sense of coordination. But there's a new thing that happens now. It's called the concept, the concept of object. Before that, the concept hadn't been realized. The concept of externality hadn't been realized. But you need the separation, otherwise you wouldn't have the scenario of subject-object or self-other or internal-external to be manifested. But that's the main concept. That's the fundamental concept. Then, once you've got that set up, this concept of the object becomes this like, I mean it becomes this, you know, I was gonna say a fan, but it's like it becomes this huge umbrella. And immediately it just sort of like, it forms this panoply over, which is the same as the cosmos.

[28:05]

You know, and all the stars are across it. And all this, all this stuff that they list, that long list of obnoxious stuff gets splattered across this surface. It's a very thin surface. It's a surface, the thickness of, it's a concept thick. And it's swirling and churning all the time, like a bubble, a soap bubble. because it's changing constantly, and there's this huge possibility of this entire field here that you connect into, this entire field can be projected up onto it. And everything that human beings have ever related to or ever been touched by is in this field, so all the stars that have ever been seen by beings are up on the ceiling there, you know. and we can sit and we can start talking and have astronomy and discuss all that stuff. And all psychological phenomena, all biological phenomena, they're all up in that surface which surrounds us and is constantly churning and changing.

[29:07]

But the original thing out there was the concept of the object and then it just got spread all around. And there's a self and that's other. You can also put the self out on it if you want to and have the other inside. You can flip back and forth all the time. It's very easy. So the main difference between the two is second transformation is more like just a kind of sense of self that's not really just sort of a sense. The second transformation is not the sense of self. The sense of self is born of the second transformation. The second transformation is this coordinating activity. Coordinating, same arrangement. Got the alaya, something, got something to work with, something to hook on to. You don't know where it is, you can't say, you can't identify anything, it's all in the dark, you know, but there is movement. There is this kind of like flux, experiential flux, okay?

[30:12]

And it has, there's contact there, there's volition there, this way, that way, there's feeling, You know, there's attention, all that stuff's there. There is conscious life there, okay? But it's in the dark. There's no way to identify anything because you can't identify unless you go, that's it. So how do you say, that's it? In the first transformation, in a lie, there's no way to say, that's it. or that isn't it, or it's over there, or it's over here. There's no way to say here and there, because there's no reflection. You have to have a reflection in order to say here, or there, or not here, or not there, or that, or this. As soon as you say that, there's reflection going on. There's arrangement going on. There's coordination going on. There's no way to line things up or screw them up in that field. It's just everything's churning, everything's changing and flowing there too, right?

[31:15]

That's why when you can have the concept of object, this churning world of mucky, transformational, biological wonder gets then projected out by the reflecting thing and called outside by the concept of externality. It's the same stuff, except that it's no longer the direct sensual, mucky, living consciousness, it's now then the concept of all of it, which is related, just like your reflection in a mirror is related to your face. But it feels different, right? It feels different, it's different. But it's related, very closely related. And it's external, it's over there. And because it's over there, this is over here. Before there's a reflection, there isn't any over here. There's just a nice little face. You're happy with it, no problem, but you can't know it. You can't know it unless you put it out in the mirror.

[32:18]

Or unless you reach over, you know, I'm reaching over to this. You can reach back and feel yourself, right? But that's because you have a reflection process right here. And when you can do this, you can say, me. Babies do that, right? Me. Me. They go, me? Me. Right? Asian people go, me. That's because you can make a reflection back to yourself. But if you go something out there, that also makes a self. There's millions of ways to do this. The sense of self is not the second transformation. The sense of self is born of the second transformation. It's born of the coordinating, reflecting capacity, which is the second transformation. Yes. I can really envision the first transformation and the first, second, and third transformation together.

[33:20]

One thing I have a hard time envisioning is the first and second transformation without the third transformation. Or you'd have a sense of self, but no sense of external logic. Or as you say, set up the circumstance, have reflection without having that sense of something else? How would you be reflecting if you didn't have a sense of reflecting something? You do, but you don't have a concept that the something, you don't have a concept of the something yet. But you do, but you, in that second transformation then... In the second transformation you do have a sense of this and that. You do. Yes, and without that you couldn't identify, you couldn't identify, you couldn't have identity if there wasn't reflection. But that's not the same as to say that the thing you're using to reflect and create the sense of identity, it's not to say that you have a concept for that.

[34:26]

Would that be like a cat? Like, my cats know themselves and each other by name and stuff, but I don't think they really have concepts. They might not have a concept of the object. It's hard to know, you know, what goes on in a cat's head, but, you know, they might not have a concept of the object, but they'd have the first two transformations, maybe. Because they know... They do have, I think they do have the first two transformations. But anyway, it's very subtle. This third transformation is very subtle. You wouldn't think that a cat princess would have a third transformation, a sense of the next kind of object? Well, you can think about that, but I think they do have a second one. It seems like the difference is between the sense, having a sense of self and the concept. Yes. Sense of self and concept of self. And the sense of self gets transmitted into the concept of self by the concept of an object.

[35:29]

Then the self gets made into a concept. I guess that was the hardest thing for me to imagine, is having a concept of self without a concept of object. That's right. I'm saying you don't have a concept of self without a concept of object. But you're saying there is a sense of the object without a concept. There is a sense of identity, which is a separate arising I don't know if this helps, but when I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about how I feel when I wake up in the morning. And I have some memory of just before I'm completely conscious of having some kind of sense that I'm an individual, but it's before I really have a concept of who I am. I don't know if that is connected to this. It's just a kind of sense of myself, just sort of a sense without really any sort of particular ideas.

[36:41]

Maybe in some sense you're sensing that more sensual sense of identity prior to the conceptual sense of identity. Also, what about in dreams? Because you don't have the separation of a dream and a dream state. that objects are separated in the same way. This is something which I think it would be good if we actually investigate. See if you can feel this. Tell this story to yourself over and over until you get more. I've been telling this story a lot. Not just a hundred times have I told this story.

[37:43]

Maybe more than a thousand times have I told this story. Every time it shifts a little. I've always felt, you know, I've been studying Abhidharma for, you know, About 25 years I've been studying Abhidharma and one of the most elusive of all topics in Abhidharma for me is the idea, is this concept or this teaching of manas or this reflecting thing. I remember I used to study and I used to select, you know, have the concept of it, make it into a concept, you know, and say, oh, and then it would slip and slide. It's so, it's, because again, you know, it's like groping the dark from my brooch, you know, and then finding it and then it slips. Another definition of manas, by the way, just to sort of make it all the more fun, or this reflecting thing, in the Abhidharma as Manas, this second transformation, is the just deceased sense consciousness.

[38:47]

What's a just deceased sense consciousness? It's a sense consciousness that's not about there anymore, and it's the one that just went away. Is that related to retrospective hesitation? It seems like when you're in hesitation you're always a little bit behind yourself when you're thinking that way. It's related to retrospective hesitation, yes. When a sense consciousness happens, when it goes away, it doesn't just go away and get totally annihilated, and it also doesn't last. But there's some effect of it. The ghost of a sense consciousness is not another consciousness. It is one of the transformations of consciousness. And another way to look at manas is that manas is the organ of the mind.

[39:58]

And what does the organ do in the sense realm? An organ is that which splits consciousness from its object. An organ is what intervenes or mediates between consciousness and its object, right? Like there's eye consciousness and there's the field of light, and what intervenes between eye consciousness or awareness of light and the light? The eye organ. What intervenes between mind consciousness and mind objects? The mind organ. What's the mind organ? It's that which splits the consciousness into awareness and object. That's the splitting, reflecting. function called Manas. And what is that? That Manas is the organ. That Manas, and what is that Manas?

[41:02]

It is the just deceased sense consciousness. The just deceased sense consciousness, the ghost of a sense consciousness, becomes an organ for the mind consciousness. Because the ghost of a sense consciousness is the model, is a model, is a ghostly model of sense process. And the model of sense process is that the consciousness is separated from the object by the organ. That's the sense consciousness, is those three. The ghost of that is then transmitted to the mind and shows the mind the model of how sense the world works. And that model is a coordinating model, you see. It's the coordinator. It shows how to split consciousness from its object, how to reflect the consciousness back on itself and separate itself.

[42:03]

So, isn't that neat? And that's part of the elusiveness of this very subtle mental process which serves this reflecting, thinking, splitting, coordinating, modeling organ function of the mind. And in conjunction with all this, a sense of identity arises. I'll sometimes say a sense of somebody's did this. I did it. A sense of who pulled this off? Somebody pulled this off. And it's kind of a ghostly thing because it actually is like a ghost. It's a ghost of the world of direct sensation or direct experience. And so in a sense the self is like a ghost.

[43:04]

of an actual world of direct organic sensation. And in that way it's good and, you know, directly it's connected to direct experience and in another way it's disconnected because it's a whisper, it's a shadow, it's a ghost. But in the realm of mind consciousness it serves this very powerful function of coordinating and arranging the whole thing around the pivot of perception. Yes? How does language fit in with this? There's no reality except through language. The concept of the object is basically language. Basically that. That's language. So language, so the third transformation in the sense is words. It's the beginning of words.

[44:08]

This is . So it just seems like all these different states are inside of us. They're at all these different levels and shades of . Well, I had an experience during one of the first sittings since I've been here where across my mind's eye or projected on the wall were these two basically formless things that when I brought my consciousness to shine on them with when I had the sense of volition they went in a direction and it seems that as far as me understanding what they were, they were not connected to that.

[45:15]

It was like seeing a little bit of my consciousness at the level of maybe at stage one or two. Stage two. Stage two. Stage two. And stage two has... Stage two has... stage two is also possessed of other forms of contact, attention, feeling, perception, and volition. So we can say that what you're observing there on the wall was the second transformation doing the same things that would happen in ordinary life or in an earlier stage of development at a level that you couldn't identify. The same thing you were observing there at the first transformation of consciousness would be going on, but she wouldn't be able to identify it. But it got projected out on the wall as a second transformation.

[46:21]

Now, if you said it was external, if you then made a concept of it as external, then it would either be something that was actually happening to the wall, or you ought to be identifying it as your own processes. But in some ways what you may have spotted there inadvertently was actually seeing the second transformation operating without the third. Now I think would be a good time to do our homework, to have a report on the homework. Because it also says here that as soon as we have this sense of self, even before the third transformation, You already, even before the third transformation, in the second transformation, you have these afflictions arising of self-view, self-love, self-ignorance, and self-pride. Can you get into that?

[47:22]

Yes. Yeah, I call this homework. I may not be met with all I think about. Good. Good. I did all of it before I almost got to my car. My self-view was like, oh, yeah, I can do this homework now. What's my view? What do I think about? Let's see. No, self-view is not so much. Well, that's self-pride that I thought more. Okay. So I did that. I can do the homework. And then I was like, then. And I was like, but self-love is important. I mean, what is he talking about? Self-love. Maybe it's not self-love. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Then I got confused. And then I got back into pride again. Oh, I'm stupid. No, I'm not stupid. I can get this. And then I got into... Suffering, self-suffering.

[48:25]

Everybody's going, no, these Buddhists, they're not doing it right. They're all miserable. I don't want to come to class anymore. Smile, everybody. You don't want to lose anybody else. I don't know if I was self-love or not, but then I think I got back into pride. I said, oh, I'm going to go home and have some buttermilk pancakes because I don't want to do it. Breathe. That's self-esteem. Huh? Yeah, self-esteem. Yeah. You deserve those, but I don't know. They're teaching self-esteem, you know, in high school. Now, this is a big thing, you know, to try to develop self-esteem. That's what I find so ironic about this. Yeah, it's very ironic, or just a little ironic. Anyway, it's ironic because everybody's got self-love and self-pride. It's just our society beats it out of us. And we finally realized that you get less punishment if you pretend like you don't have it. And after you pretend you don't have it long enough, you believe it.

[49:26]

And after you believe it, you're really out of touch. So I think self-esteem training is good because you're getting you back in relationship to your deluded nature. It's getting you in touch with your afflictions rather than, you know, because you're being afflicted from the outside, you pretend like you're not being afflicted inside. I had another one of those dreams, which were pretty good, because I was confused about the love concept, self-loving, love in general. So I asked that question, where should I direct my love? The answer came back to that my love should be directed like the rays of the sun. So I got really thinking about it. That's a very hard thing to do because there's really no, there's self-involvement, self gets it as well as everybody else, but to do that would be a real challenge. I loved everywhere. But then my conceptual mind immediately kicked in and I went

[50:31]

Yeah, but what about under the ocean? What about in a really dark place? I mean, don't they deserve love too? Especially. Well, he got the self-love right, or self-esteem. And again, with the aid of the concept of the object, then you get to project it out all over the place. However, because it's self-love, there's some kind of rigidity or limitation on how you can project it. Because you project it according to identities rather than just globally. Because it's a self-love. It's a love of what? It's a love of coordination, of reflection. of modeling. You know, it's a love of the trip that's going on here, at this wonderful, magical, imagination trip that we're going on.

[51:33]

That's what it's love of. It's love of this thing which arose in relationship to this mental process. That's why there's some kind of pattern in which it gets projected out, rather than just being all over the place. However, once you understand this process and the affliction of this process, the love doesn't get limited anymore. But to try to make it like the rays of the sun would be another trip. And it would fall into the pattern of that attempt, of that volition. And at all three of these transformations, there's a volition. But the volition's different at all three levels. The... the development of affliction and defilement happens at the second transformation. The second transformation gets called the bad guy. However, it's a third transformation that projects it all over everything. That's why it's under the third transformation that they have that big long list of obnoxious material. But it's the second transformation that sets up all this stuff.

[52:36]

Because it's the second transformation that has self-love, which loves the one or loves the function by which this wonderful thing happened this wonderful reflecting thing happened which caused the sense of somebody wonderful did this and then there's a sense of identity or responsibility or somebody getting credit for this And also remember that this story says this is inevitable. It's not like, you know, some people are good and some people are bad. It's like if you've got a sense of self and other, if you can have a sense of self and other, if you can even be aware of that, you're involved in this process, you have these poor afflictions. If you don't have this, if you can't pull off the idea of self and others, if you don't have those in your life, you're just a person who's in, you know, what do you call it, irreparable, not irreparable, you're in a situation where you have, you cannot, you can't get out of that trap.

[53:46]

There's no Buddhist teaching for you in that situation. Buddhist teaching is for those people who have developed a sense of self and elements. I know of no teaching to help those people accept the teaching to help those people get the sense of self and other. You've got to get the sense of self and other in order to be liberated. So rather you can't go backwards to the alaya stage, that won't work. You can't stay there because there's no teaching of liberation for people who don't have a sense of self and other. You have to go forward into the third transformation, into developing a sense of self and sense of object. It's not something wrong. It's just the normal state of affairs. It's the normal table setting of the Buddha mind. All Buddha minds arise in the context of varieties of concepts of self and other.

[54:52]

That's where the Buddha mind is born. It doesn't live someplace else. No other situation that has any relevance to the human situation, to the world situation, no other situation brings Buddhas into the world. This is the situation that makes, this is the cause of Buddhas, these three transformations, which make the sense of self and other. This is the cause and condition for Buddhas to appear in the world, because this is the cause of the afflictions. And another meaning of, tell me some other meanings of this that you might have found out about this self-confusion, which is also called self-ignorance. Tell me some other stuff about this. I was thinking that when you, it really seems like there's a self that you're trying to analyze it or look for it, or find it down, it's not really there, you still kind of think it is there.

[55:58]

Maybe your attempt wasn't good enough. You still kind of believe in it even though you can't really identify it. Right. Well, believing in it is a self-view. But the not being able to find it is a self-ignorance. In other words, you pretend like you're looking for it, but you really don't work very hard you just sort of a little bit look for it. And mostly you don't look for it, mostly you do... mostly you can't find it and you assume it's there. Assuming it's there without looking is called confusion. Assuming it was there. Assuming the Self is there and not looking to see if you're right, that's confusion. It's also ignorance. You ignore it, you don't look at it. You say it's over there, but you don't look to check. Or you kind of let me say, well, actually it moved, or maybe it moved, or I can't see it, but it's probably someplace else.

[57:01]

But I'm not going to look any further. Okay, I'll look some more. But the determination to keep looking and to not assume it's there until you find it, that's not self-ignorance. That's self-exploration. that's exploring for the Self, that's looking for it, that's studying something which you can't even find yet. That's not self-ignorance. However, that spirit does not arise with the birth of the Self. That doesn't arise with the second transformation. What's the last of the secondary defilements? No, it's... Well, okay, that's a good point. The actual search, the effective search, arises from awareness of the truth of suffering.

[58:06]

But if you don't apply it in a big-minded way, it turns into that secondary defilement of investigation in a limited way. Kind of lazy investigation, you might say. I always thought there should be something called self-collusion. Because there is this massive collusion. Self-collusion, that's another word for, you could say self-collusion for self-ignorance. That would be, That would be okay. It's a real impediment. Yeah, right. You're turning away from the search. Or even you're like searching a little bit and you're kind of saying, well, I'm searching, but you're not being thorough. You're really ignoring the work. That's self-ignorance. You're ignoring the work and assuming that something's there. I'm also talking about how

[59:12]

how widespread this is, the collusion or the massive imprint that we all have as being kind of the impediment to it. Impediment to? Search. To search, yeah. Yeah. Nobody does this work unless they get their butt kicked, right? I mean, nobody's going to do it if they're fine. It seems like you have to really surrender after you've tried just about everything. Either get your butt kicked and or somehow see something really beautiful or get some great inspiration. And then the inspiration... But maybe then... You get your butt kicked by getting the inspiration, but then sort of like being frustrated because you can't realize it in your life, and then being told that the reason why you can't realize it in your life is because you didn't do the study.

[60:19]

So maybe that's a kind of butt kick, too. I think usually people that... This is my observation, and I'm not using myself, it's usually... People don't do this work because it's really hard unless they almost try every other avenue. Yeah. It's so hard. Yeah. Right. It's hard. How do you know if you're being thorough? When you're being thorough, you don't need to know anymore. Until you're being thorough, you want to have the crutch of knowing whether you're thorough or not. When you're sure you're thorough, even though you don't know it, but you just say so, but you don't have any time to prove it, then you have to prove it. Then you have to validate it. So then you're supposed to go tell your teacher that you've been thorough.

[61:21]

And your teacher will laugh at you. And then see if that shakes you. And if it doesn't, And then maybe you'll feel confirmed in your sense that you've completed your work. That validation thing. Which again, is a reflection. You use the same basic paradigm now to reflect again. But this time, the reflection is, you're again reiterating the whole process of reflection, externality, and all that. The final proof of the pudding of the understanding is to now make a theater out of it. And to see it, you can understand the process now that it's being dramatized. So like your understanding that you've realized now, you can dramatize it and see it still clear. Because the thoroughness in this process, the thoroughness of the study, is what appears in Karaka's like 20, what is it, 22 or 23.

[62:34]

Right here. When you understand Caracas 21, the dependent self-nature is a thought that has arisen depending on conditions. However, the absence of the one prior to it is always the accomplished. So when you see, actually, what's it talking about in that Caraca, when you see that, you've been thorough. And then, actually, even go more thorough in the next couple Caracas. What is sixfold at the object? Pardon? What is sixfold? Eye object, ear object, nose object, tongue object, taste object, mind object.

[63:36]

Sixfold. So do you folks have a sense of these four afflictions in your daily life? Without any kind of self-esteem training? I wanted to ask, you know, when you say, when we use, I don't know if this is just like the conventional use of the word self-conscious, like usually if you say, oh, I'm feeling really self-conscious, it's like you feel kind of defiled. And what is self-consciousness? I mean, that's like the mistake, right? It's the mistake, do you say? Yes. Well, how is it a mistake? I don't know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah, it could be self-conscious.

[64:40]

Yeah. Yeah, it could be self-confusion. It could be self-view. Yeah, it seems like self... Wait, I missed the room. Self-conscious. It's almost like the incomplete process of the projection, of the reflection. It's like a circuit hasn't been completed to dance the avenue. I sometimes perceive it as feedback. Kind of like a reflection, a reflection to a wave. Mm-hmm. Kind of aware of the reflection so that it's obstructing the original projection? Mm-hmm. Well, another way to put it is that when this wonderful event happens of the mind accomplishing this second transformation and this sense of self is born of that, of this reflecting power, this reflecting function,

[65:57]

these afflictions arise as manifestations of an incomplete understanding of this process. They're all partial, they're all manifestations of partial understanding, or they're aspects of partially understanding what's going on here. And in some sense you have to get in more trouble before we study thoroughly enough to understand the whole process. And the way things... And there is a way of seeing this whole thing that's called blissful release. There's another way of seeing this whole thing, or seeing this thing anyway, as birth and death. And it's not even to say, as I said earlier, it's not even to say that it's really the way it is, that it's blissful release. And it's not really true that it's birth and death.

[67:07]

It's just that birth and death cannot be validated except as birth and death. And the release can be validated as release. But it's not exactly like it's better than the other one. It's not like Buddha is better than sentient beings. It's just that Buddha is Buddha and sentient beings are sentient beings. And they have this relationship. And there's this study so that you can understand how birth and death originates and how awakening originates. Both can be understood. And understanding how birth and death originates is understanding how Bodhi originates. And not understanding how birth and death originates is the origination of birth and death. It's not the understanding of birth and death, it is the origination of birth and death.

[68:11]

Understanding of the origination of birth and death is not understanding the origination of bodhi. It is the origination of bodhi. Understanding the origination of bodhi is birth and death, because any understanding of origination of bodhi is a delusion. So living beings have ideas and understandings about the origination of birth and death, I mean of bodhi. It had to be there. And it had to be you. It had to be you. Okay. Where does blissful release come into that? Character 21. Let's skip to that part. Character 21 is his understanding... how birth and death originates.

[69:19]

Is the absence of the one prior to it that ghost? The absence of the one prior to it means that the one prior to it is the one they're talking about in the previous karaka. See, whatever we're aware of is a concept, right? It's just a concept. All right? Then, not only do we have concept, but we believe that concepts have inherent existence. When you have a concept in the absence of believing that it exists, That's called the accomplished. The accomplished isn't another thing, by the way. It's just that you have concepts, like concept to the object, you just have the concept to the object, but you don't then attribute to that inherent existence.

[70:27]

So when you have a concept and the absence of attributing inherent existence to it, that's called the accomplished. or that's called mastery. And what are you accomplishing? You're accomplishing that a concept is just a concept, which isn't that much of an accomplishment, really. It's not like a big deal, you know. It's just actually that a concept's a concept. But usually people don't just let concepts be concepts. They want to do more than that. They want to make concepts be something that exists. So then you have a concept and it's confused or contaminated with self, with an inherently existing something or other. And it's like you have one and then you have the other one there. But when you have one and the other one just like in the neighborhood someplace or way over there, but basically you look at the concept and there's no inherent existence around there, there's no self around there, there's just a concept.

[71:36]

And what is it? It's a concept. That is the accomplished. That's mastery. Of what? Of concept. The concept is just, that's the name of this thing, vijnapti-matrata, city, mastery of the fact of the concept just being that. And that is sublime release. And that's actually, you could, again, I'm tempted to say that's actually what's going on all the time. namely that there's belief in self floating around, and then there's concepts of the object. And actually there's concept of the object all by itself, and there's belief of self over here. That's actually what's going on. But that's only what's actually going on in the old world, the good old world of blissful release. That's what's happening there. But in the world of misery, that's not what's going on.

[72:36]

In the world of misery, got a concept, got a self. either right on top of it or sort of loping over a little bit and kind of just staining it. Just a little bit is enough. But when it doesn't overlap at all and you look at this and it's actually absent, that's the accomplished. So you have to look at, you have to bring concepts into view, which isn't that hard actually, and then you have to look to see, is there any self around those concepts? Is there any belief that these actually exist in the neighborhood or like overlapping or right on top? If there is, do you feel self-conscious? Do you feel affection? Well, that would make sense. Now, how do you move this over to here? So you just have the concept. Well, you don't. It's already that way in the realm of release.

[73:36]

So how do you move from this world over into the world of release? Where they're already... This one's absent in the presence of this one. How do you get over there? It's a Harrisburg deviation. I would suggest you don't move, actually. And if you just don't move, somehow you switch realms and it goes like this. And you see, oh, this really... They weren't overlapping. I just kind of like took two layers of my mind and kind of went like this rather than just letting them go like this. They're actually going like this all the time. If you just sort of catch it like that, whoop, there we go, we're released. Stop again. Or it's like this. Oh, now this is separate from this. This is absent from this. And back here, oh, it's overlapping. So this is misery and this is release.

[74:40]

How can I move around there? Well, again, you don't move. You sit still. You sit still and this thing will start moving or it will start going like this. Whoa! Whoa! If you don't move, this will be revealed to you. But you should also pay attention while you're sitting still. So that when you get shown the thing from the side, or from the top, or from the bottom, all of these things start doing this thing, hey, watch this, woo! So you can see it. Because you're there, you're just sitting still, and they just show you, oh my God. Yes? I can't break into this problem with wanting to study ideas like this and thinking, you know, I'm sitting on my cushion, I've got to search for this idea or search for this image, but I don't feel like that's the right approach. Correct. That's wrong. But on the other hand, I sometimes feel that if I'm just sitting still, that somehow I'm not putting forth

[75:45]

all my effort is in the right direction. There ought to be something more that I should be doing, but somehow sitting still and holding still isn't enough. When you talk about people investigating but not really very hard, or looking for the self, or looking at these other things but not looking very hard, or not approaching very hard, I wonder if I'm not really doing that. And I want to do that, but I know in order to do that I have to do nothing. So you sit still and you see how that is. And maybe you feel like, well, I don't know if I'm really sitting still, for example. I might be just dreaming that I'm sitting still. Okay, well, I'm going to really dream hard that I'm sitting still then, if that's the case. Or maybe I'll just assume I am dreaming and I'm going to dream that I'm really sitting still and I'm going to really dream that way. And I'm going to dream that way so wholeheartedly that I don't overdo it and get ahead of myself or hold back anything and get behind myself.

[76:55]

In other words, completely give yourself to that. And also, like I said this morning, there is this wonderful feeling of what it's like to give yourself completely to something and to just sit. Sometimes you hear about that and it really makes your whole body tingle. And you... You really want to be that way. And you know that that's something more than just a good idea. You know it's something very dear to you. Like when I first started sitting, the only thing I could say about it wasn't that it was nice or I liked it, but I just felt like it was real. And you have a sense of it being real, not real like you're sure it's real, not real like you know you're not dreaming it's real. You just kind of feel like that's what's important to you. Not that this is real, but somehow that's what's good about it. The good thing about your sitting still is that it's real. And also not sort of like a proof of it or something or a mark of it, but in fact sometimes you just do feel like it's calm and peaceful. On some level you feel that way.

[77:55]

But it isn't that you sort of use the calm and peaceful as a mark or as a guide or as a crutch. It isn't like that. It's just that I'm telling you that it is peaceful. Now, I'm not telling you that so you should try to be peaceful. I'm just telling you that in that peacefulness, in that sitting still, in that not running around, in that not trying to, you know, reel in certain kinds of material to study, not doing any of that kind of messing, not bringing the Vishnupi Matra to sitting into the Zendo to study it, but knowing that you should study it, but still, even though you know you should study it, not saying, okay, come on, let's have Karaka 31 now, or 21. You trust that if you sit still, the karaka you need to study will come up to you and it'll sit in front of you and it'll say, okay, number 17, ready for it? Here it is. And you'll see it. And maybe you'll see it in a way you don't understand for a while and then pretty soon it'll stand on its head and then it'll walk around sideways and then it'll jump around and it'll come back later and say, actually, I'm really karaka 18.

[79:02]

It'll present itself to you. And you don't know when. If you study this material, you know that you have some work to do. But the work is done in the context of sitting still. Sitting still will be the entry into the work. And what will the work be? Then the work will be studying this process of mind. But that's going on all the time, so you don't have to make it happen. You just sit there, and the mind will present to you all these scenarios we've presented to you. And this study simply helps you be sharper when it comes, and so you won't be so shocked when you see the roots come forth. You won't be so shocked when you see your history, your evolution being presented to you because you heard about it in this class or you heard about it from studying this. So when you see it, you won't think, oh, this is really not very important. You say, this is important. Not more important than what's happening before, not more important than the birds, but not less important either. And also, actually, it's going to help me now, because I've heard about this thing about, in the absence of the attribution of self-existence and independent inherent existence, that that could be separate from my idea of concepts.

[80:19]

And I notice I really do think concepts are real, and I really do think I'm real. I really think that person over there, who I think is a turkey, I think they're really a turkey. Not just an idea of a turkey. I really think they're really bad. And then I see that overlap there. So actually, and I see that, and I see how silly that is. Even though I haven't had it completely unveiled yet, I see it's silly. I see it from reading about this text. I know it from my own experience. I don't feel good about it. I know it doesn't make sense. I know I'm deluded. But still, I haven't seen it unveiled. But I'm going to watch now. And he said, still, you'll see it. It'll still be pulled apart right in front of your face. It'll be pulled apart. And you'll see, hey, it ain't that way that I thought it was. That was the way I thought it, and I can still think that way, but it's just completely adventitious associations. But you can't make this happen. So what do you do with a piece of paper? What do we do with a piece of paper?

[81:19]

What piece of paper? The piece of paper that has the very character. Memorize it. Okay. Memorize it. You memorize this, and then you sit still, and you'll become enlightened. Okay. Definitely. But it's hard to do both of those things. And memorize it doesn't mean just memorize it once. It means check every now and then to make sure you memorize it. So every now and then recite it to make sure you haven't slipped. If you do that, this text will be like a raccoon you know, it'll come to you. What? Yeah, it'll... It'll show you, it'll give you just what you need, and you'll be sitting still so you'll be able to see it. So in stillness, the stuff that pops up there really is, you know, presents itself very clearly.

[82:24]

So when you practice zazen, Actually, all the time, even when you're memorizing this, you should try to be sitting still all the time. So you never know when you're going to have revelation, when the truth's going to be shown to you. So you should always be sitting still as much as possible. But still the teachings are helpful. So take in, this is a wonderful, wonderful teaching. So take this teaching and memorize it And memorize other things too. Memorize recipes and addresses and telephone numbers. Memorize lots of stuff. But don't forget to memorize this. And then when you sit, just let go of it. Just let go of it. If you haven't memorized it yet, let go of it and just sit. And then sometime when you're sitting, pick it up and read it and memorize it some more. And then put it down and just sit without it. and the text will reveal itself to you.

[83:26]

And you'll see each one of these karakas will appear to you over and over again from various angles and eventually you'll understand each one. Some of them are easier to understand than others on a kind of superficial level. Some of them are like, they kind of only make sense at a deep level. So there's a different, there's a kind of like, you know, there's a landscape here. It's not, it's not, it's not the same stuff throughout. Is there any other commentary besides this one? Because I found this one in the brick walls. Very scholarly, and it's like, I felt like this person was talking to maybe, you know, 12 people on a planet, maybe. There's another one which is much bigger, it's this big. It's called, what do you have in the library? It's called The Doctrine of Mere Consciousness.

[84:28]

It's this big. There's a commentary on this text. It is bigger print, and also half the book is Chinese, so that makes it longer, too. But it is a much more elaborate commentary, in some ways easier. It's in the reserve, yeah. It hasn't been touched. Is that the only one that you know? No, that's the only other one that I can tell you that comments on the whole 30 verses in English. There are commentaries in Chinese and Tibetan. But in English, there's this one. but I know there's this one. And there's a little commentary in this fascicle called, what is it called?

[85:28]

What's it called? Dr. Vasubandhu. What's it? Oh, Seven Works of Vasubandhu. The Doctor of Psychology. And this text is in that book. There's a little commentary in that book, too. That's what this is from. Yeah. No, no, this translation is from Kalupahana, and there's another translation in that book called Seven Works of Vasubandhu. One of the seven works that's in that book is this one. Okay? As a shorter commentary. And then there's a big, fat one that's a longer commentary. But, you know, to tell you the truth, the best commentary is the American guy, me. I'm the best commentary. Yeah, so you can talk to me about it. Yeah. because I've read all that stuff over and over and over. So, you know, it's better just to talk to me and stay away from the commentaries. Yeah, I came to ask you a question. Yeah, because I'm American. Those guys are foreigners.

[86:31]

Lupa Hanna is an Indian, and the other text is a French text that was translated into Chinese. I mean, that's translated into English by a Chinese guy. Well, you know, the French is better, actually, if you read French. The guy who translated French is very good, better than me, but he's French, so no good for you, right? He's really good. His footnotes, too, lots of footnotes. Yes? When I write into a book, I forget what's translated, and I have to find... Just to add to your list. Not in this text, is it? I don't know if it's that specific. No, it's not this text. I'm not talking about the Abhidharma, that's another story. We do have lots of stuff in Abhidharma translated, but I'm not going into the whole of Abhidharma, I'm just doing this text.

[87:40]

Later on in this text we'll get more into Abhidharma, into the basic Abhidharmas. Which I think, you know, would be helpful. Might be helpful. Possible. I don't know if you have an understanding of what the Abhidharma is, what that category of three verses fits into. Let's see, 20 words or less. I love your question. And I will tell you more about it later. Be our intention to be great and strong, but we need to be in our place.

[88:55]

Let us prepare for this way. We need to be in our place, but we must be strong. to be comforted. Excuse me, but I have to say it one more time. Keep watching for these four afflictions in your daily life. Very useful practice to study them, see if you can spot them. And the most important thing you can do at this point, which only you can do and a commentator can't do for you, is memorize the text.

[90:03]

Those two things will be very helpful to all of us if you would do that.

[90:10]

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