In a sense, I feel that we have gone through the text once, and the last five verses are particularly focusing on practice. And we could spend a long time on those last five verses going into how to practice. And basically, those last five verses I think are instructions on upright sitting, or just sitting as we say. So there's a great amount of study to understand what those last five karakas are trying to teach us. But I thought that rather than spend a lot more time on those per se, we might be able to try to apply those to the earlier part of the text.

[01:04]

So go back through the text, and now try to look at the material presented there from the point of view of the teaching of the latter part of the text, or from the point of view of now trying to apply Zazen practice sooner. Perhaps you've learned enough about the earlier part of the text that you can now start to practice with it. So that's the idea. We'll see how it goes. So here it starts out, as you know, whatever indeed is the variety of ideas of self and elements that prevails, it occurs in the transformation of the consciousness. Such transformation is threefold. Now, whatever ideas of self and elements that happen in our lives,

[02:27]

the important thing is what attitude we have under such circumstances. So you could say the same thing about Zazen practice itself. The depth of our Zazen practice, we all are practicing Zazen in our way. We have many ways that we practice Zazen practice. Sometimes the way we practice Zazen practice is we say we're not practicing Zazen. It's one of the ways. But whatever way you practice, the depth of your Zazen practice is basically your attitude with which you practice it. Do you have the right attitude while you're sitting, or while you're standing, or whatever you're doing?

[03:37]

Do you have Samyak Drishti? Do you have the right view or right thought? Do you have the right motivation? Do you have the right livelihood? Do you have the right mindfulness? Do you have the right concentration? Do you have the right speech? Do you have the right deportment? And so on. Do you have all those correct unfoldments of the Buddha way in your Zazen practice? So including your attitude towards Zazen, do you have the right view towards Zazen? And one of the things I've mentioned is that the right view or the right attitude to practice Zazen is that Zazen is not something other than yourself, and it's not something you do. It's not something you can play with. It's not a toy. It's not an object. So that's part of right view in relationship to Zazen practice. That's part of the right attitude, is that those who practice Zazen in the authentic tradition of the ancestors

[04:49]

don't view Zazen as an object. Okay. So now, taking that back to this particular perceptual process where we have a sense of self and others, or self and elements, now in that situation there is a dualistic attitude and a non-dualistic attitude. Dualistic attitude is, again, that this is a self and those are elements, and this self exists outside those elements, and those elements exist outside the self. The self exists in isolation, in independence of all the elements. The elements exist in independence of myself. That's a dualistic way of saying things. That's the way that comes with dispositions, and that's the way that creates dispositions. Now, the text says that the actual perception or the actual ideas of self and elements

[06:03]

occurs through transformations. So if it occurs through transformations, then these ideas in self and element, if they occur through transformations individually, and also if they occur from the same three transformations, then they must not be something that exists isolated by itself. The elements must not be something that exists by itself. And the self must not be, cannot be, something that exists by itself. And since they arise from the same transformation, they probably have something to do with each other, too. But they also both depend on certain processes. They both depend on the threefold process. They are born of the same threefold process. They're brothers and sisters. They're wedded through the same process, and they each depend not only on each other, but on many other things.

[07:07]

Therefore, they don't exist in isolation. They aren't independent self and elements. A thorough understanding of that is called the right view. The right view of the ideas of self and elements. So the text tells how the self and elements appear, and if you can take into account what the text tells you about how self and elements appear, if you can sort of work that into your repertoire of living, then you will more and more develop a non-dual attitude in the midst of the appearance of self and elements. It isn't that self and elements evaporate, it's the isolated, independent self and elements that drop away. And they drop away

[08:13]

by applying the study of how interdependent they are. So, you know, throughout the day we see, particularly we see other human beings, and we see mountains around here anyway, and rivers, and we may see a human being and we may think, you know, well, that person blah, [...] blah. You know, and feel kind of bad about that. That person is friendly, or that person is not friendly. That person is irresponsible. That person takes herself too seriously. That person is uptight. That person is stressed because of attachments.

[09:15]

And, you know, those are examples of what? What I just told you. Huh? Ideas of self and elements. I'm having an idea about him over there. He is a really good Zen student, or he is sort of like a half good Zen student. He's doing pretty well today. He's not doing so well today. I'm sad to see how he's doing today. Or I'm really happy, and I'm really happy to see how he's doing today. These are ideas of elements. Now, when I have these ideas, do I remember that I've got something to do with them? As I generate, as I become involved in these views of people, do I remember that I'm involved in the process? That someone else who just walked into this valley,

[10:23]

who doesn't know this person, might have a totally different take on this person. Like they might come in, this person might be real friendly to the person. Be so friendly. The person would think, Wow, what a friendly person! Gee, this is a great place! And you might think, What a phony! I know they're not really like that. They just put that on. You know? Or they like to be friendly, but they can't be friendly with people they know because they've got all these dispositions towards people they know. So the only reason why they're nice to that person is because they don't have any disposition towards that person anymore. So that's why. But still, who is right? The person who just came in? Who has the correct perception? Well, in fact, it's not a matter of correct perception. It's a matter of... Both perceptions are dependently co-realism. The visitor's impression of the person, your impression of the person, are produced because of who you are and who the guest is. The guest might even think that the person should have been more friendly,

[11:25]

depending on their disposition. They might think that they should have had the whole community come out to meet them or something. But that would have something to do with them and where they're coming from. I guess we all... This is a surprise, but I imagine clear, right? So part of what's going on is that when you pick something up, like Tia gave me a magazine which had an article on one of the previous abbots of Zen Center in it, so then I have certain feelings when I see his name on the front of the magazine there or when she tells me something about the article. I have some feelings arise in me. But those feelings are not exactly... Even though they seem to be about him, they're a lot about me too. But it's easy for me to forget that they're about me and mostly think about how they're about him because in fact they are ideas about him. They're ideas of... They're notions of that element,

[12:27]

of those words on that page, of what I hear her saying. They're ideas about that. They're the words... They're the colors on the page coming to me and being converted into ideas in me and then me having feelings about those ideas. And a lot, it's a lot me. Not all me, but a lot me. Whereas... Is that my take on the experience? No. My take is mostly it's about what's on the page. Mostly it's about what's on the page. Mostly it's about this idea. It seems to be mostly over there rather... But actually it's mostly over here. Mostly. Over here. But anyway, without trying to figure out who's most... Anyway, the point is it's pretty easy for it to be almost all over the page. It must be somewhat over here. But actually it's possible for it to be almost a hundred percent over there.

[13:28]

In other words, there's an element which is existing by itself outside of the self. And then if you want to think about yourself in that process you can look back at yourself and you say what a doll! You know? Which is fine. But this doll is not just, you know, a doll because of the way you thought about that thing. Again, then it's completely, all completely just a doll. It's not a doll kind of like a doll, ha ha ha, sure. Yeah, that was cute that you thought that up. No, it's again, this is isolated, that's isolated, that's isolated and this is isolated. And that's the way we sometimes think. So part of developing the right attitude in the midst of these self and elements is to go to the later part of the text.

[14:31]

Okay? And when something arises, when an element arises, looking, some people think you might look at it and say well now this is, okay, I'm supposed to remember that whatever is arising there is a dependently co-arisen face. A dependently co-arisen face. A dependently co-arisen face, okay. But that means, you know, I'm doing something here. I have certain, I have certain things, there are certain dispositions with regard to this face. When I see this face, I generally expect this person to be, you know, kind of that way. And sure enough, they play right into that, don't they? But they play right into it because you expect them to be that way. And then they see you expecting them to be that way so that they kind of like go along with it. So this is right off in the beginning of the text

[15:41]

how you can start applying meditation on using these, what do you call it, looking for the paratantra in the beginning of the text. And also watch how you put this project, this erroneous imagination, you put this erroneous imagination on the people you meet. And again, probably we do it quite a bit and one of the ways of spotting it is energy disturbances. That happen when we see somebody and of course you might have already been disturbed but if you're at Tassajara

[16:42]

and you walk around looking at leaves, it might be that you don't have such heavy heavy dispositions coming down on the leaves. Now if the leaves are, if the ground's real muddy and slippery then that might evoke dispositions of, you know, associated with falling down in the past in the mud and hurting yourself. So you already might be upset so you might already notice that there's all kinds of energy disturbances arising in you looking at the leaves. Or if the ground is frozen there might be a bunch of dispositions coming up in relationship to the frozen ground. But sometimes, as you know, you can look at the ground and another set of dispositions come up if you don't have to walk on it. Or like the road can be beautiful if you're walking and horrible if you're in a car. Different sets of dispositions. And you can notice how different things are being brought up and causing different energetics to happen.

[17:46]

So the energetics both show you something about the dispositions that are coming up and also tip you off to that they're activated as they're coming up. So as we proceed now through the text part of what I'd like you to keep your eye on is how the text is giving you more information to to help yourself realize that this self and element thing is interdependent. The more you can turn into the causation of this process of illusion the better chance you have of not viewing self and other as isolated self outside of other. In other words, the more you can be free yourself from the erroneous imagination of our independence and guide yourself into the world of interdependence.

[18:53]

Now you don't need to read this text to do that but the text may be helpful. Hopefully it will be helpful to give you more inroads to the process of interdependence. Okay. Okay, now outside the text I present to you again what I did before the early Buddhist teaching of perception. And I'll tell you also that I'm finding myself in a codependently arisen situation of feeling if I'm not careful I can feel codependently

[19:57]

arisen as an isolated person who has his own view of this teaching and his own view is unique. Okay. But then again if I can remember that there's reasons for this it's not just some trip I'm on I feel more comfortable but in fact I notice that my understanding of of this text is different from some well like from some schools of Buddhism. As far as I can tell I actually disagree with a lot of Buddhist scholars on the actual mind that this is referring to. And in a way I'm sorry for you that I'm that way because it's going to be harder for you to

[20:59]

grab on to some isolated independently existing understanding of this text. So I'm being ironic actually because I think actually the way I actually am I think is good because I think it would encourage you to actually enter into the the subtlety and the great subtlety of this teaching which is ungraspable but understandable. And I think a lot of us including me would just like to understand it and get it over with. But it's not something you it's not so easy to understand and it won't be understood I should say your final understanding will not be able to be something that will grasp something. Still I'm I'm working with this material as you can see as you will see.

[22:07]

And so tonight you may see something quite different than you saw before. So hang on to your body and mind. Yes. I'm wondering if you're suggesting also that you disagree in some measure with Professor Kuhn about his interpretation. I'm a little bit different from him but I'm closer to him than I am to the the school which proposes that I'm I'm not with the school that says that there's actually eight vijnanas. I'm with I'm with the early teaching of Buddhism which says six and I see the eight vijnana system as a way of explaining the six. I no longer think that alaya is another thing and manas is another thing on top of the six consciousness system. So I feel somewhat comfortable basically being in line with early Buddhist teaching on this matter

[23:13]

but I feel kind of scared standing up against the Yogacara school in its popular interpretation because it's popular interpretation has a lot of books published under its popularity. But that's where I am and I also have Sankappa to help too. He helped me. He's sort of standing in the same place but the way he stands there is very complex and subtle too which it's a very subtle kind of support something I can't hold on to. It's more of an encouragement to continue to study. Yes. Aren't the views that will be formed of these words as numerous as the minds that come into contact with the words? Yes. But still there is an edifice that's been put up of the eight consciousness systems and I'll tell you that the eight consciousness system says

[24:15]

that there's six consciousnesses, the six consciousnesses of early Buddhism the five gross sense consciousnesses and mind consciousness. Those are the six sense consciousnesses and then there's a seventh consciousness and an eighth consciousness which are not the same as the six. So that sounds like they're actually talking about something in addition to these but actually they aren't in addition to these, I don't think. Aren't they turning the concept into ananda for dharma? Performing any system? Again, when you do that you have to watch carefully what you just did. Which one? Yes. So one of the things that this teaching is about is about not talking about what other people are doing but rather given what they're doing, where do you stand? How do you see it?

[25:16]

And I don't see it that there's eight consciousnesses and I'll try to tell you what I do see. So I see six, right? Six consciousnesses and two pieces of chalk and one eraser. All right. So I'm just going to talk about the sixth consciousness tonight not tonight, just at this moment. The sixth consciousness is called where is the best place to write? Mono-Vijnana. What's funny about that? Did I miss something? No, I just, it seems like we went, there was a lot of emotional context around that a couple of classes back. Okay. Okay. All right.

[26:17]

So there's this and this has an organ. Like sense consciousnesses have organs. Its organ is called, sometimes called mono but it also can be called manas. And its object is called dharma. Dhatu. Okay? So that's its object or that's all the possible objects? Its objects, oh, yeah. Well, its objects, its object is in the dharma dhatu. And the dharma dhatu, if you see a list of all the possible things in dharma dhatu those will be all the possible objects of this consciousness. Okay? This process of sense consciousness

[27:21]

this part of, this aspect of sense consciousness we do know about. There is intellectual processes going on here. This is ordinary, these are ordinary conscious experiences and when these are known, when things in dharma dhatu are known to this consciousness they have been converted into concepts. Yes? You said this we know about. We know about the mana vijnana. No, we know about objects of mana vijnana. We know about objects of mana vijnana. Mana vijnana knows things, but it knows things as objects. Like it doesn't know anger, it's hardened. The dharma dhatu is known as objects of the mana vijnana. Yes, all the objects of mana vijnana dhatu are in the dharma dhatu. And these are things which we are part of ordinary conscious experience.

[28:25]

I'm sorry, so when things are known, concepts are concepts. When things are known, when the mind knows things, it doesn't know the thing it knows a concept of the thing. So when the mind knows blue, it doesn't know blue, it knows a concept of blue. When the mind knows carol, it doesn't know carol, it knows a concept of carol. From your point of view there kind of is something somewhat, there's something like carol to you, you know. But when I look at you and know about you, I see concept of you which you may or may not assign as a legitimate concept. But even if you sign it, you may feel like you're, what do you call it, excuse the expression, prostituting yourself, by agreeing that you're a nice girl or something. Because you know it's more complicated than that, that you're much more than that, you've got a headache and so on, which I'm not into at that moment. Anyway, this is a ...

[29:31]

And then the sense consciousness level below this, the other sense consciousnesses, they are not known. Those consciousnesses are directly in contact with these fields of physicality, but they have no intellectual functioning about those things. Now, this doesn't paint the whole picture of our psychic life. And that's why they made up a liar. And again, there's various, what do you call it, etiologies or histories of human development. But at some point in history, in conjunction, I would say, with this organ function of the mind, there arose the idea of a self, of something existing by itself, of an identity.

[30:32]

And that notion, that concept, one of the things over here, one of the possible things you can be aware of, is concept or a person. Concept or a person. And so there became ... A new concept arose at one point called a self, called an independently existing something. Something, a deer or a woman or a rib or a banana that existed by itself. Forget about the banana tree. Forget about Chiquita. Forget about refrigerators. Just banana. So this idea of something by itself originated, and that thought had an effect. But that effect was not one of these objects you can know consciously. It was something very subtle.

[31:36]

It was like a perfume left over from smelting iron. And where did it go? Well, the place it went, sort of, it went into the darkness of the mind. Some place in the mind where the effects of the way it thinks somehow could manifest some result. But that realm was not some realm that you could ... that could be an object of consciousness. Not when it was being stored. Not in its effect stage. It got laid down. It became ... it was a resultant. And now we start building up this resultant side of the mind.

[32:38]

And this resultant side of this mind also could serve as a support or a place from which these resultants could then turn into seeds. And this resultant could then become a cause. A cause of what? A cause of dispositions. And the main disposition, the big type of dispositions that we're concerned about, is that little by little, by the perception of self having an effect and leaving a trace of itself, perception of self leaving a trace, then there developed an amassing, there developed within mind an amassing of the effects of perception of independence. So that gradually this amassed sense of self

[33:41]

became the seed and the cause of a disposition, of a set of dispositions around this self-perception. So that finally, whenever this process of perception arose and whenever this process of reflecting arose, these dispositions came up with it. These dispositions of self-clean, these dispositions of self-view, these dispositions of self-confusion came up with this thinking function, this reflecting function. And then, of course, it happened again and got laid down again. And it got laid down in this area that you can't perceive, Kaliya, where you can't perceive location and identity. You don't know where the identity, where the traces of identity are.

[34:44]

You don't know where they're located and which ones are which. So all around this little triad of perceptual process which we're conscious of, all around this and underneath it is the effects of this process and the seeds or dispositions which affect this process. And little by little they developed the idea that they called that the storehouse or alaya. But I think that it's not something separate from the sixth consciousness. I choose to see it that way. That it actually is part and parcel of the functioning of the sixth consciousness in conjunction with Manas and his objects. It's not another thing. It doesn't have an independent existence, of course.

[35:46]

But I think it is an important thing to keep in mind so that we live in a world of our perceptions which are fed, our world of conscious perception is fed all the time by direct sensory experience. Very important, very lively, very organic. And it's also fed by a great darkness all around it which are the effects of past actions. Yes? Earlier you said that something about this is not being accepted. This triad here? The sixth scheme. The sixth consciousness. Yes. Well, I'll just tell you that my main problem with this teaching as I've been experiencing it is that I sense that it's not accounting

[36:52]

for everything that's going on. We're talking about the consciousness of the human being but I'm sensing that there's a larger consciousness going on in the world. Not only... One could say, in part, the world consciousness itself. A larger dynamic that's most frustrating for me. I'm not seeing that accounted for. And then that's one part of my concern. The other part is, where does intuition or imagination... Something like that. For example, in the past two weeks I had three premonitions before they happened. Two of which involved things that you said. One was the vapor erosion that you actually termed a tricep. I had a premonition that that happened. And I just wonder, where do those things fit in

[37:55]

into this schematic of this presentation? The wider consciousness fits in partly in the sense consciousness realm because it's there that we are directly connecting with the physical world. And the physical world is where we actually are all connected. That doesn't resonate with me because I'm not thinking of what I'm saying as being physical. It's more like psychic. Well, but the consciousness, the physical consciousness, the direct physical impact on me and you right now that's happening, although it's affecting you one way and me another, the physical basis of it is something you and I and all beings together co-create. We co-create the colors that make the mountains

[38:55]

and the tangibility of the earth is something we co-create. So that's one way that physical entities are born individually at a certain place because sense organs are located there. But those sense organs are born of interaction with a non-personal physicality. That's called the pajama loca or the container world. We're all in the same physical container. And the bigger consciousness, alaya, is not personal. Even though you put your personal stuff in there, it's also not just personal. So that's another... alaya is bigger than personal even though you lay all your stuff down there. So you're saying alaya contains part of the being? I mean, that's my sense. There is...

[39:59]

I have a problem with this being so slowly. It sounds like it's located in the mind. But alaya doesn't have location in it, see? It's... alaya contains us, we contain alaya. Also the physical world contains us. It's called the container world. Electromagnetic radiation of a certain length, physical waves, chemical reactions, gaseous things like that and tangible things, those are containers for the world of being. But we create the world that contains us. The physical world is created by living beings, according to Buddha's teaching. The physical world, electromagnetic radiation and so on, are created by living beings. And living beings are contained in the physical world

[41:01]

and contained and supported by it. It's a mutual, simultaneous inclusion. Alaya includes this process. This process generated alaya. There was a time when alaya wasn't at all like it is now, like, for example, a second ago. Alaya is constantly evolving and it is evolved from living beings. So alaya is a non-physical result of living beings and the physical world is a physical result of living beings. It is a physical result of the mind of living beings and the mind of living beings are born from the body of living beings which is born of the physical world. The physical world was born of the mind of living beings. So it's all mutually, you know, co-creating. It's not one before the other. Just one more thing about this. So we're saying the mind of living beings in the physical world.

[42:03]

But, you know, there's some thinking that the world itself is conscious. So that division is not clear to me. In fact, that's the case. The pattern or what's happening in relationships, the world itself. I just see this stuff always being referred back to human consciousness. And so it's like putting us in this... Like, is that the only consciousness? There is a kind of like a rhythm. Again, according to Buddhist teaching, there is a rhythm of consciousness. For example, there is... Living beings have consciousness and then inside the living beings, there's a level of existence which doesn't... which isn't proposed to have consciousness. And inside that level of non-conscious structures which are part of a living being that has consciousness,

[43:07]

there are inside that beings that have consciousness. And inside them they have structures which are non-conscious and inside those structures of non-consciousness is consciousness. So, for example, you know, literally, inside of our body there are organs which are not said to be conscious beings, but inside those organs are conscious beings. And inside those conscious beings are organs which are not conscious beings and inside those organs are conscious beings. In the same way, out from us, we are contained in a world which is not a world of being, the pajama loka, the container world. It's not a conscious being, but that's like an organ in a larger being that is conscious. Yeah, it's... Yeah. The meditation on self and elements opens you up to the world of dependent co-arising. In the world of dependent co-arising, it isn't that everything...

[44:07]

it isn't that everything is a conscious being. There are conscious and non-conscious beings, but they work together in layers and alternate in certain rhythms such that there's multiple nesting and... infinite nesting and being nested of beings in this causation process. So the Avatamsaka Sutra would come out of the meditation of self and elements, where you have, within every atom of the body, you have many Buddha lands, but the Buddha land is not a sentient being, according to that teaching. But inside the Buddha land are Buddhas and sentient beings practicing and inside the sentient beings are organs which are not sentient beings which have sentient beings inside of them. And inside those beings are organs which have sentient beings inside those organs and inside those organs of those tiniest living beings there maybe aren't living beings but atoms

[45:08]

and inside the atoms are whole other world systems and in those world systems are worlds where there are Buddhas teaching and they have organs and so on and so forth. This goes infinitely inward and outward. This is what the Buddha, you know, croaked out there apparently right off and it wasn't very useful to people so he did this teaching. It's more like this kind of stuff. To use the human psyche as the portal to this infinitely small world of alternating being and non-being and infinitely big alternation between being and non-being or, you know, inanimate and animate where the animate creates the inanimate the inanimate supports the animate and so on and so forth, alternating that way. But this is just, this teaching is just for us who have a tendency to be stuck in stuff like, you know, Kozan and Robert. We're into that kind of stuff because we're so heavily into that kind of stuff we use that kind of stuff of self

[46:09]

and, you know, Charlie since we're so much into that, you know, and Zori and Sanchi and, you know, dog food and cat food and separate the two and we're into that kind of stuff because we're so into that, you know. We use that stuff to try to meditate on the causation of that stuff but as the Buddha did that the Buddha studied the causation of these kinds of things and opened up into this infinite scale of mind and object and the same principles of causation apply there, he said. So it's not just this thing but this is the place, this is the wall we have to sort of like knock on to free ourselves. Is that like... Because we think, most people think this is all there is, right? So if you knew what I knew you'd be good kids and you'd be real nice to each other and be very generous and if you don't get it, in the meantime try it out even before you know and later you'll be happy

[47:09]

that you did it before you understood. So that's kind of like what sitting still is like but I, you know, if you understood like Dogen did you'd be happy to sit still for quite, you know even though you have other things to do in this world like, you know, feeding dogs and stuff. So, again this alaya I think is very... it's a way to try to picture the fact that surrounding the world we see is a world, a huge dark world of dispositions that are lying in seed form and that... I was reading, what was I reading? Anyway, it talked about the seething the seething the seething ferocity of... What was I reading?

[48:10]

Oh! Oh, I think I was reading about Freud and the unconscious, you know how he discovered this unconscious thing which was full of these seething and fierce, you know, emotions that, you know, people had previously sort of like, kind of said especially during the Victorian era kind of like, dung boy and I was telling in some ways in my meditation last week I experienced a kind of seething, you know stuff was seeping into this into my consciousness, you know, like like I was in this cave, you know and, you know, emotions were oozing out of the ceiling and up out of the floor and on the walls, you know just stuff was seething into my mind, you know very thickly, like thick pea soup it was kind of green, I think This is coming from darkness all around like, what is it, D.H. Lawrence said this is what I know, you know the world of my ego

[49:26]

is like this little clearing in the middle of a dark forest and, you know, deities come out of the forest to visit now and then, and then they go back so in a way, you know the visitations from alaya are dispositions but they're also deities in the sense that they're indicating to you they're showing you traces of the working of the mind they're pushy, you know, and very influential they're almost like demons and devils, but but they're showing you that, you know there's more than this little world we're living in and again, the process to to clean things up is to sit upright in the middle in the world you do know about and that's also what he said he said, what I want to do Lawrence said, was basically have the courage to let them come and let them go back

[50:27]

and if you can sit upright in this field that you know about that stillness is the antidote to greed, hate and delusion which are the prototypes of the of the dispositions so so then he said so now going on the transformation is threefold the second verse the resultant, that which is called mentation as well as the concept of the object there's three resultant mentation concept of object so again, I I agree with the point of view that these three transformations are three ways to look at the working of the six consciousnesses

[51:30]

okay so looking at the working of these six consciousnesses which the consciousness has an organ which helps the consciousness reflect upon or separate itself from its objects and therefore be aware of the objects now then we have here another way of looking at this is that this doesn't account for the fact that in association in association with this functioning of thinking and in association with this you always have this ego this self-view, this erroneous imagination coming up with this with this organic this organ function of the mind on the face of it you don't see so by mentioning that there's a transformation of this of this consciousness here called alaya you now have a source

[52:33]

from which to draw every moment to draw this erroneous imagination from and also a place where the results of that erroneous imagination are then stored or impacted and you also have mentioning manas putting a lot of energy here on manas because this is the place this is like the locus of defilement because it is this kind of thinking which is always egocentric and always afflicted by self-confusion and self-view and always whenever it looks at an element it always it always projects self onto it and this is one point I'm not too clear about but what I'm picturing now is manas is like

[53:35]

has two eyes one eye every moment it comes up and with one eye it looks back at alaya and the other eye it looks at something in the dharmadhatu no no dharmadhatu is just the information dharmadhatu is whatever the mind consciousness is aware of as its object like and it's known things in alaya are not known they're in the dark ok so what manas does is it looks it says here you know the translation here by Kalipahana it says speaking of manas

[54:35]

it says it says it says alaya dissipation occurs in arhatship associated with this process, the process of alaya associated with what process? associated with the process of, alaya is a process associated with the process of if there's an effect from egotistical thinking there's a process, right? the process is there's an effect of egotistical thinking and also that that effect can then be a cause for disposition of arising later ok, that's the process of alaya things are, erroneous imaginations have effect and then erroneous imaginations, the effect of erroneous imaginations enter our seed for further erroneous imaginations being done by the thinking process, alright? associated with that process of course is the thinking which draws the effects

[55:37]

of past thinking which draws these up as seeds and uses them then for present thinking alright, so it says associated with this process, namely alaya and depending upon it occurs manas so this darkness all around this conscious process the darkness all around there manas is associated with that darkness and depends on it but another translation is depending on this process and having that process as its object not just associating but having alaya as its object so manas has alaya as its object and also reflects the dharma datu for the mind consciousness element so it mirrors something for the mind consciousness to

[56:37]

see and it mirrors something or brings something up from alaya it brings something up out of the dark and it always brings up self pride self love, self confusion and self view but it's in the dark and it influences then what it presents so it looks over in alaya and brings up all this crap and goes over here and reflects something like whatever and shows it to the mind and the mind sees whatever this thing is ensconced in all this erroneous imagination, namely substance, namely self so that's why this second transformation is so important in creating the sense of self so you see it helps make the sense of self

[57:38]

but it also brings the sense of self it delivers it with this whatever you want to call it toxin limitation, rigidity individuality and substance and then the third transformation is also not exactly on the face of this presentation it is called the acquisition of the concept of the object isn't that what it's called? the first time it says it though doesn't it say acquisition of the six-fold object no the first time it just says the concept of the object the first time then later it calls the acquisition of the six-fold object so the concept of the object when you're first talking about the concept of the object

[58:39]

but then later it says the acquisition of the six-fold object in Kalupahan's book the brackets around the acquisition of the six-fold object I think suggests that that's his interpolation but not in number eight the brackets are just in the ninth part you're right in the in the is it the eighth or ninth? it's in the eighth acquisition acquisition third sentence of the page one oh up above though

[59:44]

in number eight it's literally in there it's the it's the Vishaya Vishaya Upalabdhi Vishaya Upalabdhi the acquisition of the Vishaya, of the object all right so and that is and that is acquisition or acquired by Alaya Alaya acquires the objects which is not made clear in this presentation here which is part of the reason why they did that is they wanted to use this whole system this whole system is now being able to explain the actual acquisition of the sense organs and the sense consciousness to the body yes so this actually is the center

[60:47]

of the problem of having destroyed the relationship between the terminology of the of the Buddhist description of perceptual consciousness of the six consciousnesses and this threefold which is that the acquisition of the sixfold object sounds to me like a description of the what I understand the function of the Mr. Nair what am I going to do about you're asking me if I agree or what what yes I'm asking you if you agree and if not please clarify if you have time if this bests your upper class plan please feel free to pass it by it might be better to

[61:51]

to wait a little while you won't forget it you won't forget it since 1988 ok now just a second here so I kind of like want to make sure we're back on our feet here I have a basic question yeah the sixfold consciousnesses are what? sixfold consciousnesses sixfold objects are what? colors, smells, touches, tangibles and mind objects just one second just a second I got to think now I want to I want to keep you tuned in to this as a meditation practice keep me tuned in to this meditation practice ok

[63:17]

so just to do this again before more questions come in you at the beginning I talked about just you know watching this very common thing that happens of you know somebody is walking around which you sometimes call me or whatever I mean call yourself you meet things and you're aware of self and elements self and elements is something self and elements self and door to the zendo self and walkway self and cold self and hot self and faces faces are big things for us and I said something about how to meditate on that and think about how what do you have to do with what you're seeing out there ok now to help hopefully to help this process to think about be aware of the teaching which you are in this class that

[64:18]

in this realm where you can see things where you see self and elements you're aware of that you're aware that you're thinking like that you're aware that there's these ideas happening there's an idea of self, there's an idea of elements idea of self, idea of element, element, element all these ideas of elements, this is happening and there's ways to tell that you're attributing that there's some erroneous imagination going around in this process which could be kind of like when you're looking at this level it could be kind of clean it could just be awareness some reflection of that and awareness of that by this reflection, that could be all there is to it life would be very simple I'm not saying it would be better or anything or even if I do say it's better you could just say it's better and let it go at that without like saying attributing some erroneous imagination to that value, like that's true or something again if you hear about this world this very simple mechanical psyche process here

[65:22]

where life is very simple and very basic where there's no belief in the substance of the things over here that are known there's no belief that they exist independently and the reason why there isn't is because Manas has ceased to be Manas it's just reflecting it's no longer looking back into a laya the reason why it's not looking back into a laya is because actually it is looking back into a laya but it doesn't see anything in the dark anymore because the dark is no longer dark the reason why the dark is no longer dark is because the dark has been turned into light because every time anything came out of the dark it was seen as a visitor from the dark the visitor from the dark forest somebody was sitting

[66:23]

in the clearing and said oh look who's coming now you started to spot that because of many spending quite a bit of time sitting in the clearing and noticing that you felt a little funny noticing that you're starting to hate your friends or do all kinds of weird things in the clearing and little by little you notice that the weird things you were doing had something to do with these visitors and you started to notice the visitors and after a while you noticed every one of them and you noticed when they came and when they went back and after a while they didn't go back anymore they just came and they came and they came and they came and you sort of did this thing with them and that was it you didn't send anybody back pretty soon there was nobody out in the forest anymore not pretty soon but but anyway

[67:24]

after a while there was no visitors they were just sitting in the clearing and that's all that was going on the unconscious now Freud had this idea of like pushing out into the unconscious building these little jetties or these little piers out into the ocean that that would be good the idea here is that somehow actually you can clean up the whole thing appease the whole field by witnessing how these things come and what effect they have and when that happens thoroughly that happens to arhats and it happens on the super mundane path that this manas is the dark area is is released released the dark area is released or dissipated or it's transformed because you become so

[68:27]

skillful at noticing the functioning of this idea of self and objects of self and again the proposal here is that upright sitting is what makes this transformation occur and it might seem like gee it's such a big job but there's so many experiences that happen and if you sit still with them you actually can learn on many many many many occasions so it is possible to get quite a bit of work done if you work really thoroughly and intensely and sit in the middle of this process and handle all these cause and effects just by noticing them so then alaya gets transformed or released from playing that dirty role manas gets cleaned up and the situation gets quite simple okay now let me see do you have a sense again of how to meditate here?

[69:27]

okay now that's the case and there was questions and I think the questions were Mark was one Carol who else? John and Robin okay I think Carol was first were you? I didn't say beings they weren't emancipating consciousness so like grass trees and walls all engage in Buddha activity non sentient beings teach they teach how they function as non sentient beings like livers teach you know gallbladders teach they have a dharma is safely residing in the gallbladder but gallbladders don't reproduce as far as I know

[70:30]

you know they don't they themselves don't have greed, hate and delusion but inside of gallbladders there are lots of beings who do have greed, hate and delusion and inside those beings there are other like little gallets and bladderettes and those too do not have greed, hate and delusion but they function to support the beings that live in the gallbladder and inside of those gallets are other living beings and so on so there's smaller and smaller living beings the living beings have motivation you know they have consciousness whereas their organs don't but the organs make support and make possible the living beings so the organs are part of the our heart our heart and the mountains and rivers are part of the physical world which makes possible our life ok other than the question but just let me say once more our heart and liver and the mountains are still the buddha

[71:32]

are actually the buddha way being manifested right now it's just that the buddha way is not just manifested by living beings it's also manifested by non-living beings non-living beings in some ways teach more consistently than living beings even though living beings teach too in their stupidity you know it's it's not quite, it seems to be changing pace excuse me and then everything goes back to something you said at the beginning of the class and this derails the class again we can talk about this later but you talked about in dharma dhatu the percepts and concepts and so I wonder if you wanted to discuss the difference between percepts and concepts is there a difference in my mind there's like a difference in what I perceive is the self just a concept you know without any perceptual quality or are concepts the perceptions

[72:36]

of the mental you know where you can see something but then in the sixth consciousness what you have is percepts of the objects instead of physical data physical data are percepts right but so what about concepts concepts are not physical data that's a short answer to your question percepts are direct physical data and concepts aren't concepts are not physical but percepts can be physical so is the self a concept the idea of self is it a concept as opposed to a person I don't know of any percept of self but I do know of concepts of self I haven't heard about a percept of self people think there is a percept of self but when they look they usually go and find a concept is that a concept like a triangle like an abstract concept like a triangle

[73:36]

is self like a concept is it a concept like a triangle like an abstract concept of triangularity it's like that yes it's something you can imagine but which you can't actually establish I think Mark was next I'm not sure I'll try to ask my question it started out by presenting that the old buddhist teaching of the six consciousnesses and you focused on the six consciousnesses and then you brought in and I'm not confused I'm not confused the ok let me say I'm not presenting the eight consciousness system I'm trying to present

[74:39]

what Vasubandhu said I don't think he's presenting the eight consciousness system I think he's presenting a story of how the sense of self and elements arises ok how that happens and he's using these three transformations of consciousness to explain how the sense of self and elements arise the three transformations of consciousness are another way to explain the six consciousness system but by explaining it using these three transformations I'll say it again I understand these three transformations of consciousness as another way to explain the functioning of the six consciousnesses the six consciousnesses, ok, particularly the sixth right and the advantage of this three-fold presentation is that it particularly shows

[75:41]

how this six consciousnesses will produce the sense of self and other but you can also you can also I can also talk about how the six consciousnesses produce self and other without talking about alaya ok, however the advantage of alaya is is it shows how the effects of doing it once how the effects of once having a self and element or a self projected onto an element how you do that once it accounts, it tells a story of how that effect is then becomes a cause to do it again and how the situation gets more and more entrenched in self centeredness and self projection and erroneous imagination that's why the three transformation system is nice because it accounts for the birth of this illness and the more you can diagnose the illness, more specifically, the easier it is usually to meditate on it and therefore

[76:42]

to cure it so that's the advantage of bringing the threefold transformation system on top of this one, but I think it's helpful to not make it a different system but make it the same described in a slightly different way to get more of us to get in on the illness of this system this system aside from that is the mind of a Buddha Buddha's mind does this but it doesn't do this defiled manas, it doesn't have this defiled manas anymore because the person has sat and watched so many times this process of defilement, has watched so many times the mind bringing up the effects of past self clinging from some place from it's past self clinging it's watched the mind convulse it's past errors into present erroneous imagination so many times that no longer caught by it and the situation is cleared up and dullness and distraction are struck aside

[77:42]

and then you still have this functioning though, but now it's pure the next person was Robin huh what he was, next person was John ok, I'm wondering about this character, next person after Robin is Albert this two eyed characterization of modern Vijnana, yes and I have another understanding and I just wanted to say it and see what you think about it which is that it's a little confusing to talk about it looking back onto a laya or because it seems like it's looking into something that's by it's nature not cognizable but instead maybe it makes sense to think of three classes of elements in Dharmadattu which are the kind of so that things are being influenced by a laya but not

[78:47]

cognized from and then their defiled elements of Dharmadattu and then their perceptions or concepts of the karmic patterning ok, I can see it, let me see if I get this picture, you have Dharmadattu you have some elements in Dharmadattu alright, and somehow now you can overlay Dharmadattu with these things which aren't strictly speaking things you'll find in Dharmadattu I thought Dharmadattu was all the potentialities right all the potential objects right, so when you pull, so you have one particular object that's being pulled up right ok, but you have all these dispositions around it which aren't being pulled up right ok, so the ones that are in the dark ok, around the one you pull up, you call that a laya instead of having a laya out there someplace you could let it seep right

[79:48]

into the Dharmadattu, so whenever you pull an element out of Dharmadattu to be aware of you pull all this other goo up around with it right, so when you have a visitor it's in Dharmadattu right, the visitor appears within Dharmadattu no, the visitor is in the clearing the visitor is the campfire or something, or your banana, or the person you're talking to, or a cup of coffee or your hut, that's something in the Dharmadattu which you're now aware of it's in the light, ok there's things there's something in there's things in the clearing that you're aware of what I'm saying is that you don't know of anything in a laya until it's in the light and then you can talk about it as Dharmadattu well you could say that if you want to but the thing is that still there's things from a laya that are affecting the situation which aren't in the light

[80:49]

and those are what are important because people do not usually notice that these four afflictions are standing around everything they're aware of that's the part of a laya that's important so that's precognized I mean a laya I thought kind of definitionally was precognized, that as soon as you're aware of something and say well that was in the laya, then in a sense it's it's moving out of a laya yeah, as soon as as soon as something's you're aware of, it's not in a laya anymore, right then it's just Dharmadattu and it's an object of Mano Vijnanadattu okay however when you're looking at something here like a frog or pain or something like that the seed for that could have been in a laya but now it's just something that you're aware of, okay

[81:49]

right that's not a problem that part of the effects of past actions is not a problem okay, we've had pain before now we're having pain again, we had pleasure before now we're having pleasure again, that's also part of the cause and effect, right but simultaneously with that pain is a whole bunch of dispositions, those you do not know about, those are not in the light, and they're happening right now around that pain, namely your body is cringing, you're angry whatever, you know because you're attributing erroneous imaginations to this event in some kind of like dark way those are a laya also coming to fruit those are a laya also coming to fruit but they're not known and as you can somehow become aware of those, those things coming out of the dark as we become more aware of those we become more aware of the results of self

[82:49]

clinging, and now the cause of self clinging and now also the cause of future seeds for doing it again, and becoming aware of that by being upright in the middle of that process dissipates this process spontaneously matter of fact if you try to mess around with it at all you're hooked because you trying to mess around with it is exactly the process that is now unfolding right under your nose but to let it unfold without messing around, this is something new and this is something which the system might say hey wait a minute, stop this this is no good, this is a waste of time call this off because nobody gets paid for this there's no exploitation of this is a totally you know, what do you call it time to stop, but Robin yeah, I have two quick questions, the first one is very

[83:52]

quickly I really related to the visitors from the dark story can you give me a few examples of those visitors they keep getting it and then losing it getting it, would that be like anger or who are those visitors that you're watching come and go back and eventually well, if you saw a picture or something or you see somebody's face and if you notice you're angry at them then when you notice you're angry that's not a visitor then it's anger you're aware of it's something clearing now but when you see somebody's face and you don't just take it as a face you know like just just take it in for the concept of face but you have all kinds of associations with that face it is right, in fact it's possible to see a face that's really, that you don't have as much associations with as another face

[84:55]

or that you know, it takes you a while to sort of like decide what that face is before you know which to know which which dispositions to bring into bear or you might say unknown faces bring a certain set of dispositions and known faces bring another set of dispositions okay but as soon as the dispositions of the visitors the dispositions of the visitors because you don't notice when, sometimes you see a face and you don't know why you feel a certain way, you see somebody and you just start to relax or you start to feel uptight and you just met the person, right or because the dispositions are there and you don't know what they are yet then as you spend time with the person you might not, still might not know what they are you just might sort of like develop more and more dispositions and get more and more intense relationship with the person but never notice from the very moment you met them that the dispositions were working and you start to say now, why am I feeling so bored with this person, I just met I mean I've only been talking to this person for like three seconds

[85:59]

and I'm already feeling really hot you know or I'm really feeling really bored I'm really thinking this person is a real jerk, I want to punch this person what is going on here could this person have done that much to me already you could say, yeah this person is probably raping me look at the way he's doing it a lot's going on there and you could say what really is that person some people might say, this person really is a jerk I mean this person has really done terrible things in the last ten seconds that I've known this person just by the way he looked at me you know, well you could get a whole bunch of people to say yes that's true or something like that but some other people might say you know, I just don't know what you're talking about Robin including that person who might not know so it's not a matter to prove this person really is a terrible creature and really did look at me in these horrible ways that's not going to really be much good that line of reasoning, people do that quite a bit already as you may know what's being proposed here

[87:00]

by me tonight is that you notice in those situations how much you do or how much I do and mostly if you just met somebody and they didn't say much of anything why are you so bored how could they get you that bored you don't get that bored with a tree you know you don't get bored with a tree and like in 13 seconds feel like I can't breathe you know but maybe you do you know some people really have these tremendous karmic background with trees maybe they meet a tree and they just feel but again it's because of their background with trees right if they just killed a bunch of trees and put them in a room with a tree they might really freak out but basically the thing that makes these intense reactions on short term meetings is mostly because of past actions of the person who's having the feeling but you don't know what they are you know what I mean you don't know why you like this person so much right away and sometimes you do

[88:02]

sometimes you say oh I see there they are there's a disposition I know exactly why I like this person because they look just like so and so and I did such and such with so and so and that's why I like this person some people are really angry at you because you look like their uncle some people are really angry at you because you look like their father and they can't they don't even know it sometimes after some years they say oh now I got it you look like my father and I've been hating you all these years you know you can uncover what these dispositions are but mostly they come in unnoticed from the dark and they come fast they come right at the beginning of the moment it's like the moment happens goes away and they come later they come at that moment or they don't come at all they come fast and they have their effect and you can notice them or not and the best way to notice them

[89:03]

is just to be still and upright moment after moment and watch because this stuff is coming and it's very educational if you can see what's going on that's what they say and if you study it thoroughly you can actually turn the process around and clean it up in the meantime it makes some difference I think even to start studying you still feel funny and you don't know why but you're not you're some kind of sense of well you know I don't know if I should act on this feeling I mean I don't know if I should tell this person you know that they're really boring that I just met, I don't know if I should tell this person this thing, maybe I should work on myself this person probably had a lot of other people tell him that already so he probably doesn't need it or just walk away and try to figure out what happened you know take the opportunity to try to figure out what happened to you where did that come from and this kind of thing so it's getting a little late

[90:05]

but since you had your hand raised before is there a difference between alaya and what we call the unconscious I think that what seems to me like I said I was just reading Freud and when he was talking about that seething fierce blah blah blah it sounded a lot like alaya to me however I don't know if the western understanding of the unconscious includes all the functions of alaya Jung from his studies of yoga chara teaching he thought that alaya was the collective unconscious okay that's what he thought but I'm sort of like I haven't been studying Jung and Freud much lately so I'm not going to equate the two but there's certainly like I just said the thing I read today I felt like ah it sounds like alaya it sounds like my experience recently as a matter of fact but maybe my experience wasn't alaya

[91:07]

maybe my experience was Freud's unconscious you

[91:35]

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