Okay, let's read it. Have you read it? [...] Have you read it, Renee? Did you read it? I read it. Did you read it, Patrick? Well, let's read it then. Have you read it, Leanne? Yes. What did you think of it? Okay, ready? Whatever, indeed, is the variety of ideas of sultanate elements that pertails, it occurs in the transformation of consciousness. Such transformation is free-form, namely, the resultant, what is called mentation, as well as the concept of the object. We are in an instance of the life with all the cities we result in.

[01:06]

It is only thought about in terms of concepts of object and location, and is not always possessed of activities such as contact, attention, feeling, perception, and volition. In that context, the uterine field is uninterrupted and is not dependent. The cellular contact is cellular, and it proceeds like the current of a stream. It's the lightness of the patient who curves in our mindship. Associated with this process of depending upon it decurs the consciousness called manas, which is of a nature of meditation. endowed with the four types of defilements, causally concealed and undefiled, while they self-feud, self-inducing, self-esteem, and self-love, in place of the sex of other forms of contact, etc. Attached to feeling, perception, and volition, one resides in self-feud, etc., and hates such self-feud, etc.

[02:11]

It is not found in the worthy one, nor in the state of cessation, nor in the supernative path. Such is the second transformation. The third represents the acquisition of the sixfold object, and this may be good or bad or indeterminate. The adaptation of the sixth goal object is associated with roles and psychological conditions, the inner soul in particular. It's a similar way for the primary as well as the secondary components. That includes the three goal theory. The first, I need to sort this out so I can get back to the subject. You're going to increase the level of memory together with passing nourishment based upon our particulars. Confidently sharing the remarks, the defiant insistence in the absence of the reading itself, an effort to tell us to sit on the lines of the most simple psychological conditions, the primary defilements of lust, aggression, and confusion.

[03:14]

Pride, guilt, and doubt, murder, love, anger, enmity, hypocrisy, malice, envy, avarice, along with deception, rotundness, zealousness, being, violence, shamelessness, remorselessness, being honest, impenitent, lack of confidence, sluggishness, indifference, and investigation. These are the secondary requirements. The last two need to follow the bottom of the topic tile. The arising of the five forms of consciousness together or separately in foundational consciousness is like the waves in the water. The manifestation is the collective sphere of non-perception, in which the attainments of any state of thought are occasioned by the use and disability and absence of thought. Thus, thought involves this transformation of consciousness.

[04:17]

Without reason, willingness does and thought does not exist. Therefore, all this is mere concept. which explicitly deep possesses all seas its transformation occurs in a variety of ways it receives on the basis of usual and demanding senses of exalted which such and such thoughts have worn I make dispositions together with the two dispositions of grasping, because it is under-resultant what the previous resultant has claimed. Whatever thought through it now teaches us that any dis-application is not evident. The independence of nature is a thought and a service, depending upon conditions. However, the absence of one prior to it is always the accomplished. Thus, it, accomplished, should be declared to be irremediable, and like impermanence, a sinner. When that is not received, this too is not received.

[05:23]

The non-substantiality of all elements has increased ever since establishing the three-fold non-substantiality of the three types of substance. The first is non-substantial in terms of characteristics. At the very least, we all seem to be impregnated because of the exhaustive suchness. Since we remain such all the time, our infinity is a mere concept. It is obvious consciousness does not terminate in mere concepts, though so often we look at this situation sort of as if we were pressing our seats. Indeed, one will account that one's grasping were to place something or other such thing, but this is a learned concept, which will not suck at being missed. When the consciousness of the object is not attained, then there being no object, one has established a mistake with mere concept.

[06:26]

There is no grasping for it. It is without a thought and without object. It is also super-mundane knowledge. Through the dispersion of the super-world to gravities, there is diversion of the source-resource to gravities. This in here is the realm freed from influxes. It is not a thing the world wants or something sustainable. It is a serene body of release. This is called the doctrine of the Great Sage. Laurie, Laurie, right? Laurie King. All right. So This is a class in Buddhist psychology, right?

[07:48]

So, in a sense it's a class about how Buddhists see psychology, how the Buddha sees psychology, and in no sense it's the psychology that is taught by a Buddha, or that comes from Buddha. One story about Buddha is that Buddha woke up at some point, and then people asked Buddha to teach. And the way that Buddha taught at first was actually what he said. He didn't start talking about... Well, he started talking in a way that sounded like philosophy. And then the examples he used to teach what his philosophy meant was psychology.

[08:58]

So there's this kind of thing of awakening, philosophy, psychology. So the philosophy can help you study the psychology, and the psychology then can lead you to the philosophy that goes to the awakening, or the study of the psychology with the aid of the philosophy can take you to the awakening, and the awakening can produce the philosophy and the psychology again. And Vasubandhu is an awakened person and also a philosopher and also a psychologist. Most people don't think of themselves as philosophers in a sense, but actually everybody is a philosopher because everybody has some philosophical position. There's certain things, everybody acts on what they think is true.

[10:11]

And... So what you think is true is your philosophical position. Everybody... Well, actually I shouldn't say that. I think a Buddha might not have a philosophy. So almost everyone has some stance on... takes some existential stance on things. But a Buddha doesn't necessarily do that. So I say all living beings take existential stances. kind of a living being can't help but do that. And that's a kind of philosophical position. You think something exists or doesn't exist and so on. And by the way, when we read this, could you please, when you see that thing, that ECT period, instead of saying et cetera, could you read and so on? And also, when you see things in brackets, would you please not read them?

[11:17]

That's actually where we're citing the text rather than interpretations. And IE, let's read as that is. We shouldn't actually ever read IE because it's always in brackets. It's always in brackets? Yes. Okay. There's brackets and parentheses. And the IE thing is brackets. Well, I mean, don't read things in brackets or parentheses when we recite. There's an I.E. in number 10 that's not in brackets or parentheses. It's just sitting there all by itself with just a couple little commas on either side of it. Do you have that? No, number 10, doesn't it say first, I.E., the universals? What's in brackets? The universal is in brackets too?

[12:19]

The IE is in brackets? Just as a revised version of that. You must have done it. Okay. That makes sense, Maya. Good work. So you have... So is there any difference in your brackets and your parentheses, Maya? Where do you see parentheses? Well, like there's a... There's a parentheses around... Number five is parentheses, isn't it? Is there any difference between the... I just called it Lubahana. I didn't make that up. I did what he did. Yeah, but you didn't make a difference there.

[13:21]

There is parentheses and brackets. There's both. There's some on each. So anyway, the text doesn't have I.E. Alaya in there. And the text doesn't have... you know, parentheses, attention, feeling, perception, volition. It's good that you know that, that that's what they're talking about, but that isn't what the text says. Okay? All right, so... I wrote something down. I thought it was interesting. I can't remember what it was. But anyway, in a sense, what this text is about, I mean, one of the main messages I want to tell you about this text is that it's basically saying that the way things really are... No, no.

[14:32]

What's that? There's a way that things are that's freedom and bliss, like it says at the end. There's a way of seeing things that's freedom and bliss. It's not exactly that things are that way. you know, sort of like in some fixed way, because sometimes the way things are, or the way people see things, is bondage and misery. So, as it says there at the end, that when the... Well, I'll just read what it says. I'm not going to read the text, I'll just say that when the concept that you're aware of and the thing you know about is separate from your belief in its inherent existence, that separation between those two is freedom.

[16:24]

They actually are already separate like that, so freedom is a state that's already arising. Not arising, but already accomplished. That is the accomplished. But it isn't quite right to say, well, that that exists, and that's really what's happening. Would you say the first part again, please? What we're aware of, what we experience as an object of perception, an object of knowledge, in other words, those concepts, they're separate from the imagination that they have in their own existence. And the fact that they're separate is called the accomplished. And the accomplished is already accomplished. That is the accomplished.

[17:35]

Now, the accomplished, again, I can't exactly tell you that, well, there is an accomplished sort of sitting there right now, because that would be making the accomplished in your mind a concept, and then I would be saying, well, that really is there. Then I would be confusing inherent existence with the concept which I proposed as the accomplished. And then I would just be simply making an example of what I would be implying wasn't existent, namely, bondage and misery. So I'm not saying that truth really exists. I'm saying that the existence of truth is like that, or the existence of freedom has that quality. That's called the accomplished, and that is accomplished right now, but its existential status is also free from our thinking about it.

[18:37]

Even though I'm talking about it, it's free from that. But also right now there can be, you know, the setup where the two are overlapping, and that's called bondage, because then things are existent, and then you're, you know, they're They're prisons which are, you know, indestructible prisons. And no one can take them apart because we believe, the belief that they exist is right on top of them. And then a prison that you can't ever get out of, but that you actually don't accept that you can't get out of, because in fact you have another side which rebels against that, has miseries. So it isn't exactly that it's really true that we're free, because we have a mind which constantly wants to play with what's happening in such a way as to, you know, confuse it.

[19:39]

But the point, what this leads to is in the study, there's nothing to try to fix up. It's more simply a matter of seeing. and not even seeing from the outside, but just realizing that things are a certain way, and when you realize that they're that way, that's release, that's bliss. Realizing that they're another way is starting to understand the problem. And that's part of the study, too. But in no case do you try to change the setup. Because the very nature of the of the bondage is the release. And the very nature of the release is that if you mess with it, it turns into bondage. So there's no messing with the nature of things.

[20:44]

It's just studying how things work is what's implied by this text. Yes? When you explained what the two things were the second time, it sounded different to me from the first time, so I'm confused as to what they are. Is it the way things actually are, the way you think they are, or would you say it differently? Well, I think at first we were going to say the way things actually are, but then I retracted that kind of way of talking, because then if I say the way things actually are, then I make the way things actually are into some kind of substance. It's rather that when things are this way, like when the dependent nature is separated from the fabricated nature, when that separation between them, that's the accomplished. When the concepts, which are empty of inherent nature, are separate from the imagination, that they aren't empty of own nature, when those two are separate, that's the accomplished and that's the release.

[21:53]

That's freedom. However, to say that that's the way things really are, well, that doesn't really say that here. It just says that when they're that way, it's release. It doesn't say that they're really that way because in other situations they seem to not be that way and then it's bondage. To say that they're that way isn't quite right either because because there's a point of view of release where they don't look like that, where you can see actually that these things don't contaminate each other. These processes of mind work in such a way that, or they can be seen as working or understood as working in such a way that you see that they're a door rather than a wall. So it isn't really true to say that the way things actually are is a door. but rather that the way things actually are is that if you understand them in a certain way, they're all doors. And if you understand them in another way, they're all walls.

[22:56]

So all dharmas can be frustrating and pain or bliss, the same event, two different ways of looking at it. And it's not exactly like the things that were overlapping jump apart from each other, or somebody pulls them apart. But rather, as you study the overlapping, you realize that it's really separation. But still, if you study the separation, you really realize that it allows overlapping, because the way reality is, or even the way the blissful releasing reality is, is that it's always possible to see it slip into and become a world of miseries. So even one who sees can look at it the other way, kind of like blink your eyes and go back into the world by looking at it slightly differently. But it is different once you see and have release and then look at it again and re-enter than it is if you can't remember seeing it. So it's the kind of hopeful point of this text is that there is freedom lurking right in the middle of the misery

[24:10]

And it's also a kind of encouragement to say that there's misery lurking right in the middle of freedom. In other words, don't rest and get lazy when you start to see. And the other thing is that this text is not encouraging any kind of manipulation of the material. It's just direct study. It's putting your trust in studying rather than manipulating It's putting your effort into meditation rather than karma. Although, that's not to say, when you put your emphasis into meditation instead of karma, it doesn't mean you try to stop your karma, because that would be putting your energy into karma. For example, if you stopped karma, then you wouldn't be able to look at the book anymore. And you wouldn't be able to sit up, and you wouldn't be able to breathe. So you'd be kind of in a fix if you tried to stop all action in order to do the study.

[25:18]

That's not what it says. Karma will, the world of karma will keep apparently happening. That's not the study. The study is to study what's happening. Okay. I can't always, you know, every other sentence remind you of the practical side of this text. But I'll do it every so often anyway. So that you realize that, so that you can maybe try to remember that while we're studying this, we're thinking about something. moment by moment, the text, the teaching, we're thinking about something and these things we're thinking about are just popping up moment after moment in great profusion.

[26:19]

And simultaneously we are or are not attributing existence to what we're thinking about. When you hear me say that, and you think about that, and you make what I just said into something you're thinking about, and then you do attribute existence to that or not, you think it's something real or not. So the process I'm just describing happens all the while we're studying this. But it's going to be a while again. I mean, if we start going through the text, this kind of like result of the text won't be seen for a while, except maybe like reminding you about now and then. Because now we're going to talk, the beginning of the text is to talk about the evolution of this setup. This is kind of a foreshortening of the process. And also, once again, another aspect of this is that the state of release and bliss is not at all separate from the state of involvement and confusion.

[27:34]

So the confusion you experience in studying this material or in your daily life, you're actually looking at exactly the same situation where release occurs. If you're not looking at confusion, you're probably really confused. Because if you're not looking at confusion, what are you looking at? Clarity? And if you're looking at clarity, do you think you're really looking at clarity? And if you really think you're looking at clarity, then you think what you're looking at is really clarity. Right? In other words, you think there really is something there called clarity. That's confusion. But if you understand that you're looking at confusion, you're sitting on the edge of clarity or insight, because you're seeing

[28:37]

the mind attributes existence to something, what you're thinking. And so you're really close to the work if you feel confusion. And if you can start to kind of feel or sense in some way or be aware of how the confusion comes, not from what's happening itself, you can start to possibly see that what's happening is something that's not just, that comes to you by various means and appearance forms, and that's not confusion. A flower is not confusion. But if you say that the flower exists, you feel confused. Why would you have to say it exists?

[29:40]

Because are you too insecure for it just to appear? In fact, our nature is that we don't just let it sit there unless we're released. When you're released and at peace, You don't have to attribute existence to the flower anymore. I shouldn't say you don't have to. This is kind of like a conventional way of talking. There is no need anymore to confuse substantial existence with the flower. When one is at peace, one doesn't any longer have to say, it exists. One can just let the ability of mind to say things exist, to be there, still have that capacity to say at any time, any place, it exists, or it does not exist.

[30:43]

You always have that power of imagination to say something exists. There it is, but you don't need to use it anymore. You can live without that. And living without that is called happiness. But living without it doesn't mean, when I say living without it, it doesn't mean you don't have it. It means you don't use it. As a matter of fact, this is one way to say what a great person is. It's a great person who has the power, the power, the power to harm, and doesn't use it. And the greatest power which we all have to harm is to say something exists. Or doesn't, which is the opposite. But the same power to imagine that Leanne doesn't exist or does.

[31:43]

That's my most powerful tool. And I have it all the time available to not use it is to really be great. Could you explain how you do the word exist? Exist? Yeah, I'm kind of thinking you could use independent existence. Fine. Exist independently of everything else. Yes, that's right. That works. To say that something exists, what I mean by that is that you have some partial, some limited story about how it exists. Like you think it exists right here, and it exists here, and it doesn't exist there. Okay?

[32:46]

My hand exists here, now, and not over here, than... Okay? In other words, it's a limited existence, and even though it's limited, it does manage to exist all by itself without any help of anything else. Or you can say, well, a few things help it, but then, you know, if not, if you limit it, then you say, well, that's, those are all it needs. So even if you expand the causal net a little bit and say that's enough to make it happen, and you still say, that's enough, now that's an independent thing, that's an independent unit, that's an independent group. That's enough to account for it. You draw a line and say, now that is by itself. America is independent. Maybe you say, well, California isn't, but America is, or Texas is, or whatever. Or maybe Heather isn't independent, but Heather and Jeremy and a few other relatives, that's an independent unit.

[33:48]

Or humans are independent. Or, you know, whatever. You have something in mind which you say, that is enough, and that exists without saying it depends on something else. Or, or it doesn't exist. In other words, it doesn't exist means also that it has some characteristics such that I can say it exists now. and therefore I can say it doesn't. You'd have to be able to stop independent existence to eliminate it. Or you can make something, other fancy renditions of too, like it both does and doesn't. So, to say something, you know, this one thing I sometimes say is to say that something exists is slander of the thing by exaggeration. To say it doesn't exist is slander by underestimation. To say it both exists and does not exist is slander by contradiction.

[34:51]

And to say that neither one is slander by mere mental fabrication. Any position you take on existence slanders the thing. In other words, what it does is this thing appearing, which does not exist by itself because it depends on other things, And then, first of all, not understanding that, then you apply this other idea, which is that it exists by itself, and that's the slander. And it does help to restrain yourself from applying that imagination of inherent existence. It helps to restrain that or see that that isn't happening if you study the thing itself and find out that it doesn't have inherent existence. that will help yourself see or that will help the understanding develop that the imagination of existence should not be applied to things which don't have existence.

[35:55]

But it also is possible to catch the mind in its impulse to do this harm and hold it back, in a sense, or to notice that it is being held back. And then by noticing that it is being held back, then you can see things in their pristine insubstantiality. So there's different approaches. One would be to study something and see how it's built, and finally find out that it has no independent existence, and that way you could see that every time that you try to apply inherent existence to it, it would fall through it. The other way is understand how you're always applying inherent existence, and notice that it never really gets applied, and then suddenly things in their full radiance would appear to you, or a combination of the two. Another way to do it is what we call just sitting.

[37:06]

Just don't move. That will also do this. Because when you don't move, the only reason why you do such a practice is because on some level you understand what I'm talking about. And if you celebrate by this ritual enough, this accomplishment will just appear. So Buddhist psychology and philosophy are in some sense just to help you understand what it means to be still. Because it's hard to practice wholeheartedly at just sitting unless you understand or have incredible faith. So let's look at the text some more, let's look at the evolution of this mind.

[38:07]

Whatever indeed is the variety of ideas of self and elements that prevails, it occurs in the transformation of consciousness. This consciousness transformation is threefold. In verse 15 it talks about foundational consciousness, and in that verse it also mentions five forms of consciousness. And I think for a while I was kind of thinking of the three transformations of consciousness as a form of consciousness. But now from reading this, I think I need to maybe hear how you see the transformation of consciousness

[39:39]

foundational consciousness and forms of consciousness as? Can you kind of differentiate those for me? The what? The transformation of consciousness? The three transformations of consciousness, foundational consciousness and the five forms of consciousness. And I don't know what the five forms of consciousness are. Five forms of consciousness are the sense consciousnesses. Oh, okay. Eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness... body consciousness. Those are the five. Okay. And it says the arising of those five... I just look way ahead, you know, but you can't. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to understand forms of consciousness that are different from transformation and different from foundational. Yeah, we're all trying to do that. If we jump ahead, if you jump ahead, probably... It won't work.

[40:41]

You can ask that question, and I'll answer a question like that, but then we have to come back here. We can't jump out there and talk about the way he's talking about that point. That's a development. If I can answer the question just briefly like that, I will. Otherwise, we have to stay back at the beginning for a while and understand what this transformation thing means. So we've got this thing called consciousness, right? And this gets transformed. And in one sense, people may think, well, first there's the thing called the resultant. First there's the resultant, then there's the reflection, then there's the concept of the object. Did you say first there was the resultant? Yeah, I mean, people might think that. It kind of seems like that, okay? But... It's like first in one moment, right? It's first because we mentioned it first.

[41:44]

Now, you could also say that in some sense, in the birth process, maybe the resultant is first. But in a moment-by-moment thing, all three are happening. So you can't be one, two, three, okay? So you have consciousness happening, and we don't know what that is, and then this thing, which we don't know what it is, gets transformed in three ways. Because of this threefold transformation, something is possible. What is possible? Ideas. What kind of ideas? Ideas of self and elements, or other, or environment. What consciousness is, is not being discussed at this point.

[42:57]

It's saying, but it's proposing that our life in terms of self, of walking around self, you know, this is kind of a thing we're into, right? A self and another. That's whatever indeed are the varieties of ideas of self. Now, there might be some other self besides ideas of self. You might imagine that. But we're not talking about that. As a matter of fact, there might not be such a thing anyway. But there does seem to be ideas of self. And these ideas of self, or concepts of self, or metaphors of self, these things are things we work with quite a bit. And these are important Vasubandha is concerned about this because this idea of self, this concept of self, it really is important.

[44:06]

It's kind of, again, very closely related to misery. And then the ideas of elements, things that aren't the self, those are also closely related to misery because they're not self. This pivot of self and other is very important for us. So he's saying, this very important stuff, which is very closely related to the fundamental human problems, the things that cause war, the things that cause all kinds of abuse and stupidity, these ideas are very important in that. And they come up by the transformation of something which we haven't said anything about yet. But we're going to say something about what the transformations are because the transformations of this thing are where these ideas come from.

[45:08]

These ideas which early on become afflictions and later on become indistinguishable from liberation. But first of all, we have to sort of see what they are. And one of the ways to help see what they are is to see how they occur. So not saying what consciousness is, it can be transformed. And one of the ways it can be transformed is into an aspect of consciousness, or kind of like an aspect of consciousness, which is called alaya, which means like a storehouse or an abode. and it is a resultant. It is a maturation, it is a fruit. So consciousness can be transformed into a fruit.

[46:15]

And that fruit can be used as a kind of point of support, as a place to kind of like tie up your boat, as a point of reference, as a resource, as something to use to get born. Consciousness, in other words, doesn't necessarily get involved with birth unless it transforms itself with the aid of these three transformations. But the first one that's mentioned is this one called the storehouse consciousness. That's one that seems to be very important in like hooking the consciousness into a birth.

[47:26]

about coming into incarnation, about giving it something to work with. What does it give it to work? Well, you will see. Basically, it gives it the stuff that you will make concepts out of. It gives it the stuff that you will make concepts of locations out of. the concepts of body and mind out of. That's alaya. It's called always reflecting. That's another transformation of consciousness. You're saying that alaya is one of the threefold and that meditation is the second of the threefold? Yes, number two.

[48:29]

But, you know, not exactly later. And the third one is called the concept of the object. Or you could say the concept of externality, the imagination, the idea that something's outside. So, by transforming consciousness in these three ways, you can build a world of self and other. You can build a world which has ideas of self and other. Yes? Those three ways don't seem like they're independent.

[49:36]

It seems like they're all happening at the same time. I'm not sure I even understand why they're called three ways. It seems like one transformation has perhaps three aspects, but it seems like they all need to be present or they all participate in each other. That's right. But if you don't mention them as 1-2-3 or as 3-2-1 or as 2-3-1 or as 3-1-2, if you don't mention them in some order like that, how are you going to talk about and draw a picture of the consciousness getting transformed? Yeah. Okay. So it's like, it's like your consciousness, right? Like a loaf, like a big huge, like a, I don't know, it's not even, you don't even know what size it is. You have a loaf of bread, and you go... But when I do it with my hands like that, it looks like I did this one first, and this one second, this one third.

[50:43]

But you could start with number three, and we could mention number three first, or we could call number three number one. We can say the first is always reflecting. The second is that which is called the resultant. And the third is always reflecting. You can do it that way too. But still, they do happen simultaneously in a moment. But there's an evolutionary side which you have to recognize too, and that is at a certain stage of evolution of a living being, the manas, the always reflecting and the concept of the object have not arisen yet. That's one of the reasons why I'm mentioning alaya first, because in the birth process, alaya is there for a while before the other two are. Although they're implied, because part of what alaya has in its availability is the idea of the other two transformations.

[51:50]

So part of the momentum of life is that once you get hooked into a life form by the aid of this first transformation of consciousness, It doesn't take too long before by the momentum of the process the other two are activated and then you have the makings for self and other. But there's a certain period of time in evolution of an organism, of human organism, when you have a laya functioning but not the other two. I'm sorry, did you say that was a point in human evolution? Human evolution, like, of an individual human, like, in each generation of the last few thousand years, this happens in every healthy human being, this evolution. Also, in the evolution of the human race, there was a time when we only had Alaya, the Alaya transformation.

[52:53]

There was a time in the evolution of the human race where we did not have always reflecting or mentation, and we didn't have the concept of the object, and we didn't have a self, and we didn't have others. We could, you know, touch gorillas and, you know, pat our kids on the head, but we didn't think our kids weren't us. You know, something like people walking around shaking hands and saying hello and stuff, but they weren't thinking that the other person was outside themselves. But they are able to distinguish between people. Yeah, they were. Between people and trees and things like that. Yeah. Because they have this storehouse of reference information. Yeah. And, you know, as far as we know, as far as I know anyway, when amoebas bump into a piece of food, they don't say that that's external to them. We look at him and we say, hey, Mr. Amoeba, you should know that that banana is outside you. But the amoeba doesn't think like that. The amoeba doesn't have a sense of, this is me, that's a banana, and I want the banana.

[53:59]

How would you ever survive if you didn't think a tiger was outside yourself? How does a baby tiger survive without thinking that a tiger is outside itself? Instinct. Mm-hmm. We have instincts, too, but we don't use them because we have this other way, which is much cooler. We have put aside that level, pretty much. Like when you take your hand off a hot stove, you know, that's an example of where you don't have to say, that fire is outside myself, it's going to burn me, therefore I'm going to remove my hand. you don't have to, when a kid, when a little baby comes to the, you know, edge of a cliff, you don't have to, it doesn't have to say to itself that's external to sort of like go, but the point is, again, I'm not talking about manipulation here and like you should like turn the clock back and stop doing that, okay? For us, anyway, we do do that.

[55:04]

We do things that are outside of ourselves. But there's a level of our life where we don't think that. And the evolution that I'm talking about that happens to us every generation and happened to us as a race, the whole story has happened right now, too. So the earlier stages of evolution are operating right now. Yes? It seems to me the way you're describing it that alaya isn't so much a transformation of consciousness. The way I'm thinking about it, alaya is kind of the fundamental union of self and object without any awareness of it, and then that's transformed into this always reflecting self-awareness and objects. I don't quite see how a lie is also a transformation of consciousness. Well, let's see.

[56:11]

I guess part of what they're saying is that consciousness cannot be Apprehended. Consciousness cannot be apprehended. Consciousness is ungraspable, unattainable, inconceivable. That's the nature of consciousness. So even to apprehend it as this ground where object and self are not living, it is already transferred. Yes, and also I would pick on that in alaya, object and self are, you know, to say that in alaya, object and self are not different, you wouldn't be going around saying that they weren't different. It wouldn't be an issue. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense? You wouldn't be going around saying they weren't different unless you already had sort of had an issue that said they were different.

[57:30]

or you say they weren't different. There isn't any kind of differentiation there. However, there is the idea of differentiation, but there's no way to apply it. We can't build up, we can't have any experiences without resorting to this material that Allah provides. But in that field, there's no difference, even though things are not the same either. Because, you know, to say they're the same would be based on difference. But the idea, the potential for the idea of sameness and difference is in there. But consciousness has to get transformed into the material that we call alaya in order for there to be any kind of graspability of it. And it does transform. And therefore, consciousness provides a means for birth. apprehension of itself.

[58:33]

So again, you know, it's kind of like I drew this picture. And again, what I'm talking about, this is, remember this, ladies and gentlemen, this is all fiction. Okay? Just a question of, you're going to go for this fiction, or you're going to keep the one you've already got, or you're going to make up a counter-fiction, which I may join. We'll make a new school. And we'll say, had just been outdated. But the guy actually, he's so great that after all these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, I'm willing to try this fiction on. And the more I try it on, the more I think, hey, it's really good. It's a good fiction. Of course, this is also my interpretation of this fiction. Maybe find some other person who'll come along and say, I've got another fiction about what Vasubandhu's talking about. But Vasubandhu would say, I'm pretty sure he'd say, what you have here, this text, is just an idea. There's nothing to this. But he wrote it with a lot of energy.

[59:41]

And if you see how carefully he built this story, it's incredible. how well he did this. I mean, he was incredibly inspired and enlightened to write this. That's my view. I've been studying it over and over. The more I study it, the more I see there's a great radiant intelligence here and careful work. And the implication of this is there's really nothing to it by the very carefulness of the way it was built. So, that's very good what you said. We keep wanting to make a lie into something And in fact, that's exactly what it's supposed to kind of tempt us into doing with it. Because if we can't imagine there's something there to hold on to, we can't build an idea of self and other. We've got to get something there that we can get a hold of. So a lie is that consciousness transforms into something that we think we can get a hold of

[60:46]

And not only get a hold of it just any old way, but guess what kind of get a hold of it? Get a hold of it with feelings and impulses and emotions and forms. In other words, you can get a hold of it all the ways you need to make a word. Without that, a consciousness can't be apprehended. So consciousness transforms in order to be apprehended. And again, going back to the evolution, I said that as part of something, In some sense, there's some relationship between the physical world and consciousness. I'm not saying exactly that consciousness is the same... I'm not saying that consciousness is totally bound to materiality, but if you can see that, at some point anyway, materiality found a way to get some kind of thing going with consciousness.

[61:52]

then in a sense consciousness in relationship to that materiality is born through that materiality. But then once consciousness is born, it actually is ungraspable. And then turning it around again in order for consciousness to come back and get associated with some materiality, it needs something within itself to grasp. Because like I said last week, When it arises, it arises in conjunction with a place and a time and some discriminations among materiality, but consciousness itself has no location. There's no place to grab it or not grab it. It is immaterial. So in order for it to be apprehended and therefore for it to then come back into the process from which it arose and re-inhabit and give life back to in some sense, or turn the light on to what gave rise to it, it needs to transform itself into something graspable.

[62:54]

And particularly, if we want to ever come up with a sense of self, we're going to have to be able to grasp something. Again, this is a fiction, and the point of this fiction is to tune you in to a story about how a self is born and how another is born, because this is our problem. If you can think of some other dream about how it's born, fine. There are other stories, like I told before the story of Amor and Psyche, the Greek myth. There's another story about how self and other are born. There's another story about consciousness getting transformed into something graspable, but not yet being able to be discriminated into self and other. So in terms of evolution, there can be this graspable sense prior to a sense of self and other, prior to the sense of an external element.

[63:59]

So you want to go a little bit more into this alaya now that you're reading this text? So we just talked about these three transformations briefly, and then it says, herein the consciousness called alaya, with all its seeds, is the resultant. It is unidentified in terms of concept of object and location. So in alaya, there's no way to like, in alaya, to identify it with concepts of objects and location. And it has within it various activities like contact, attention, feeling, perception, and volition.

[65:11]

But all this is going on, like in an amoeba. Amoebas have activities like contact. It backs away. It's got contact. It's got feeling. It likes it. It doesn't like it. It says, salty, too much salty. It's a feeling. Negative. It moves away by the feeling. It gets when it gets close to something. Perception. It has perceptions. And volition. It seems to want to go someplace. That's present in an amoeba. But it doesn't, it probably doesn't have an idea of location or concept of object. Also in a lie itself, in that context, the feelings are neutral. However, there is the potential there for negative and positive feelings.

[66:19]

And it is uninterrupted and not defined. Neutral feeling, is that referring then again back to alaya? Yeah, this is all about alaya. We're studying the resultant now. Would you use the word neutral feeling as a replacement for alaya, or is that a different... No, no. It's that in the context of alaya, the feeling that's there is neutral. Is the feeling in verse 3 the same as the feeling in verse 4? What is it? One kind of tactile feeling? No, it's not the same feeling. I mean, yeah, it's the same feeling. It's, what is it? Let's see. It's the same feeling, but it's just saying that in a laya, the feeling doesn't have the range that it has.

[67:31]

You'll see it when we get to mind consciousness, or in the realm of the concept of the object, that has feeling too, but there they see the feelings can be positive, negative, or neutral. Here they're neutral. And the karmic situation here is indeterminate. Yes? Could you say a laya is like living on an instinctual level, that prior to going to consciousness you're actually living on an instinctual level where there is no judgment of the action? A laya is not living on an instinctual level, but living on the instinctual level will use a laya. Living on the instinctual level would mean that... Let's see. Goliath does not account for action yet. You know?

[68:34]

But... human beings... we have... I don't know if I should get into this. I think I'd better wait and talk about karma for a while. I already did a little bit, but I think I should wait a little while before. I think we should kind of concentrate on getting a feeling for what this first transformation is. Yes? I was wondering if you could say, use the analogy of a lie being kind of like what we think about, like a computer doing that we don't usually think of as feeling, having a feeling, but yeah, it's like Rearranging information in some sense. Like consciousness. It's like changing things around. I'm not quite following what you're saying about changing things around.

[69:39]

Things are moving. It's like processing information that it's not without. I have the feeling. What contact? Okay, again, now, got to tune into the Buddhist world, okay? Buddhist world is, we're talking about the present, okay? Present. We're not talking about a whole string of alayas yet. We're talking about alaya. It's not moving. It's not processing. It's still. It's not doing anything. That's what happened in the present. There is no movement in Buddhism. Movement is an illusion. Processing things is an illusion. Okay? However, there is always change. So alaya is here and then alaya changes.

[70:43]

And it doesn't change a little bit. It just changes, changes completely. It's different. And it isn't that this changes into that. This thing changes. But somehow another lie appears. We call it the same thing again. Because it's another transformation of consciousness, which has also changed, which offers lots of opportunities. And in that situation, there is volition. But volition, volition is the definition of action. Volition is not doing anything. Volition is the... inherent structure of the moment of alaya that looks like it could do something. But it's not actually doing anything. But all the things that you could imagine being done are here, present. All the different volitions are there. And there's a particular volition

[71:47]

You know, that could be used as a basis for comic action. Some people look like they're sort of like losing, is that right? I understand. Or is it everybody? Jim, I understand. Yeah, the distinction you make between change and movement. Yes? It doesn't move, but it changes. What's the difference between? Between change and movement? Change and movement, yeah. Well, like I sometimes use that Mickey Mouse thing, you know, something you get in one of those little decks. You have a picture of Mickey Mouse, you know, going like this. And then you take that one away and you come up with another picture of Mickey Mouse going like this.

[72:50]

Another picture of Mickey Mouse going like this. You look at all three of them, one after another, and you think Mickey Mouse went like this. You infer movement, but actually it's three different pictures of Mickey Mouse, and you thought you saw something that moved. But really, just one Mickey Mouse came up after another and took away one, put up another one. You say, what about the movement of the cards? It's the same thing. But you didn't feel like, you're not emphasizing the cards moving, you're emphasizing Mickey moving. But Mickey didn't move, he just had three different pictures. And we have a mind that can remember the effects. A mind that can remember means a mind that embodies the effects of past pictures. And then you can string together in a laya a sense of movement, which is another moment of a laya which establishes movement. Well, then do it with the... What? How does that work?

[73:55]

There's another one. You can do it with the cards in too, but it's just harder to see, harder to show the example. Same thing would apply with everything you think moves. Look at the ocean and watch a wave coming in. You think there's a wave coming in. It's not a wave coming in, but that's the way we think. We think there's a wave up there and then the wave walks in towards us. That's the way we think. But actually what happens is that a wave came up and went down, and then another one came up and went down, another one came up and went down, another one came up and went down, and we imagine that that wave out there came in. We think there was a thing called the wave that moved in, but actually the waters went up and came down, and then next to it the water went up and came down, and the water came up and came down. We translate that into a wave that came towards us. That's the way we think. And that's part of how this thing works, this mind works.

[74:57]

We do the same thing with our self. That's how the self thing works. We imagine the self as this thing that's moving forward. Whereas actually, something is born and changes and goes away. And something is born, it changes and goes away, and we put them one after another and imagine somebody walking forward. And we think that is real. And that is a source of karma and bondage and misery, is that we have the philosophical position that the cards did move. Now, when you watch Mickey, you say, you know, it's just a trick. You don't really think that some little guy's jumping around in there. But it looks just like, you look on the screen and you go, huh, you know? And then you walk out of the movie theater and you see somebody on the street and you go, huh. It's the same thing. You see these things are coming up, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's perception, which we think is real.

[75:59]

Now, if you slow the movie way down, Somehow you go off into other movies between the splashes of the movie, which you think those are real. Like you're arguing with somebody between flashes on the theater, and you think that movie's real because it's happening faster. So you don't notice the fact that it's not really somebody that's moving. It's that one thing's coming up and going away, and the other thing's coming and going away. whatever the fastest level of illusion is, that's the one that will take over. The ones that are really slow, you say, oh, this is an illusion coming up there. Oh, there it goes. It's not going to fool me. You know, you go out there and you watch the wave go, and then you start going, and you see it wasn't the wave moving. That one went up and one came down. That's it. It's the end of the wave. And suddenly you feel yourself being lifted up. You realize what's happening is you're being lifted up. It's not that that thing came over you.

[77:01]

That's gone. If you stay long enough, you can forget it was there. And suddenly what you experience is you're being lifted and being set down. And that's it. Why this thing? And thinking that things have set for itself makes us miserable. I don't answer a lot of questions. Does someone else want to do one? It just seems like him. There's this sort of blanket fate that comes up a lot that this certain way of thinking makes us miserable and this makes us free, and I'm not seeing why... So what's your question? My question is, why is this our... What's the question?

[78:03]

What's the question? How or why does seeing things exist independently make us miserable? Maybe your homework would be to... I'll answer the how question, and you can meditate on the difference between how I might have answered why. Okay. Do you feel any problem between yourself and others? Can you answer in a general way, and then I'll say from you. Jeremy, do you notice any problem between yourself and others? Thank you. What are some of the problems that happen when you believe that you're separate from others?

[79:42]

What are some of the problems? You miss them. You miss them. You miss them. Any other problems you might have? You feel like you're put on the spot. What? You want them to go away? Yes? You feel like you're put on the spot. You feel like you're put on the spot. You might want what they have. You might want what they have. Anxiety. Anxiety. Fear. Hurt. Isolation. Love. Lust. Expectation. Jealousy. Embarrassment. Anger. Dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction.

[80:45]

Longing. Longing. And then just crank it one more time. You have war, murder, theft, prison, legal systems, police, traffic court, lawyers, zen center, zazen, The whole world comes from this. But particularly, huh? Stop it now. That's where it comes from. Also, the idea of karma. Because of your idea of karma, you feel like you can do some things, and you have to do them, and you can't do other things. Because of thinking in terms of karma, you feel impelled and locked into doing certain things, and you think you can't do other things because you believe in karma.

[81:45]

You can't make art. You can't be beautiful. You can't be free. Because you think in terms of action. Because you think in terms of movement. You believe it's real. If you don't believe it's real, you can do anything. Because you don't do anything. You know, everybody's helping you do everything you can ever do do. You completely have the entire empowerment of the cosmos for every moment of your life. But because we think in terms of this way, we think, well, how could you even walk down the stairs without this thing? We can't even imagine opening a door without using this equipment. We certainly can't imagine playing the piano or singing a song or dancing or cooking dinner without it. Or maybe we can almost imagine it, but we can't imagine it. And that's when we do actually do these things. It's by our imagination that we do this stuff. But if you understand that, you realize that your imagination doesn't have to be locked like this because it isn't inherently existing.

[82:57]

It is actually always free. Anything is possible. But it's not randomly anything's possible. It's possible by its very nature. Its very nature is that things always completely transcend themselves. But self is a prison separated from other. However, the very fact that self is a prison separated from other is exactly the reason that self, by which self is liberated from that prison. Because self is identical to being outside of the prison. Without freedom, there could be no bondage. But anyway, we have created the idea of self and elements, therefore we have created the idea that self is stuck inside these boundaries.

[84:10]

Unless self is bounded, you don't have one. And since it's bounded, you're stuck in it. And since you're stuck in it, you're miserable. You have to be this thing, and you don't like it, and you shouldn't like it because it's not true, because there wouldn't be a self unless it was identical and born of what it isn't. So it's natural that we rebel against and feel uncomfortable with our prison, which is the very reason that we're free. If we don't understand that, we feel miserable. Not to mention all these little side shows happen that we just mentioned, which kind of remind us that it's not just that we're not free and that we're not blissful. It's all these negative things, too. It's not just the absence of freedom and bliss. It's all this crap, which is additional aids to the process. And it is self that you use to create the idea of movement.

[85:17]

Once you have the idea of self, there's idea of self before there's an idea of movement. You use the idea of self to make the wave come in. Beings who don't have the idea of self do not see the wave coming in. They're just going up and down the water and they're seeing the stuff go up and down. They don't have the idea of this thing moving in. They see the same thing we do if they have the same perceptual equipment, but without that idea they don't see a wave coming in. However, different animals don't even see the same thing because they have different perceptual equipment. So what's out there is relative, and the idea of it moving is totally imagination. Yes?

[86:19]

Even though each one of those Mickey Mouse cards is separate, that goes here, here, here, and then we imagine its movement like this, the cards are arranged in a certain way, so it's here, here, here, ends up here, not like that, or something. Or Minnie Mouse in between. So even though it's a series of I don't know how to say it. It's a series of discrete events. I understand. Right. So even though it's discrete events, there are a string of discrete events that end up in this kind of a way. Yes. Yes. But if I take the cards and put them in a different order, you know, like they're set up, you know, so that Nicky's going, the first picture is like this, the next picture is like this, the next picture is like this, the next picture is like this, right?

[87:27]

So that, you know, one, two, three, he goes like this. She's saying, but they are in that order. But if you mix them up, then he would just go... Instead of going like this, he would go... You get a pattern no matter how you do it. Some patterns are very unclear, like some patterns of karma you can't think, well, was that good or bad? Other orders you say, well, that was really bad. Other orders you say, no, it was really good. So the sequence doesn't make a difference in our judgment of what happens. But even if you do slip a few Minnie Mouses in there, people say, well, it's not that important. Yeah, it was kind of like, he got kind of weird there for a second, but he thought to himself, you know. We allow for a little, you know, somebody slipping in a few random, you know, tricky cards there. But basically, we pull it off. We kind of feel like, basically, things are going along as usual. And things are under control. I'm going to keep buying into this thing unless it really starts falling apart. And the Mickey Mouse thing I have is not separate cards lined up in a row.

[88:31]

It's a deck. And you keep it in the same place. And he's just standing. He's just on that same place. And he just keeps going like this, all these different positions. He's not really moving. See the circle? There's not a circle there. Can you see it? There isn't a circle. It's an illusion. But you can live on that. You can make that into a reality. And it can be like, you can get paid for that circle. That can be your job, you know, to make circles. But there isn't one. However, the fact that you believe in that circle a little, or in Mickey Mouse a little bit more, or in yourself a little bit more, these various levels of belief are the various levels of your belief in existence or non-existence. You see?

[89:31]

When you start spinning the thing at a certain speed, you start to think more and more it's real. And you watch your mind start calculating higher and higher belief in existence, or lower and lower. But you're always calculating that about whether something exists or not. We're into that. Catch yourself at that and notice how you use that to create your world. And now we're talking about what's behind how you do that. And still, I relate to the clock.

[90:12]

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