So I was thinking maybe to study the 30 verses tonight, is that okay? I was thinking of studying the 30 verses tonight. Is that okay? So where do you want to start? Do you want to start on 16, or 17, or 18, or 17? Okay, let's start on 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,

[01:26]

31. I think it's pretty straight forward, but you might have some questions. Any questions about the text? Pardon? Okay. Do you have any questions on Karka 16? Yes? What are the two attainments? Two attainments are what is called asamnika-samapati and niroda-samapati. Samapati means an attainment or an absorption, and they're basically the same state from two different points of view. They're a state where basically the judgment, all judgment is, we call it the vijnanaskandha, which is feeling, any kind of positive-negative evaluation is suppressed, and also a conception.

[02:37]

Conception is suppressed. So there's no way to have objects of knowledge under such circumstances or any judgment even without objects of knowledge. So it's almost like unconsciousness, except the yogi is actually sitting up and breathing and so on. This state is what, if you construe this state as an attainment of some truth, if you camp out in this attainment, that's what's called the asamnika-samapati, the attainment of unconsciousness. And some people can even say that this is ... I think, does he say that it's like the state of certain kind of deities, certain kind of high-level deities, does he say that?

[03:41]

In other words, if a being gets in this state and camps out there, they're in a kind of a heaven, one of the highest possible heavens, and they're just completely calm and total relief from any kind of suffering at that time. If the person who attains this, if the yogi who attains this state realizes that this doesn't take us as a final state and realizes that this is a conditioned event, like arhats can enter this state and not be led into construing it as a final state or as liberation, that's called the nirodha-samapati or the attainment of ... When he came back from those states, or that state, he said this was not what he was looking

[05:24]

for, this was not liberation. However, the mind that makes objects is suppressed. It's different than the early state of evolution where the mind yet does not yet have the ability to create objects. This is a mind that can create objects, can create the concept of object, but suppresses the function by yogic compulsions and obsessions, by eschewing and rejecting that process of grasping objects, by meditating on the vastness of space and the infinity of consciousness and rejecting any limited graspable events, you actually work yourself into this state where you actually don't have objects anymore, but it's a suppression, and they say at a

[06:25]

maximum of seven days you revert to a lower trance and finally you go back down to normal subject-object world. If you go in those states and take them as final, you can get in big trouble when you come back down because you'd be quite shocked during re-entry. If you take them as conditioned events, with some awareness of how they arose, and don't take them as final, then your descent won't be so shocking because you'll watch the causes and conditions of the descent happen and you won't resist the descent process so much. Our founder happened to, just by coincidence, happened to have checked out all these states and in those high states there's not the functioning of the third transformation of consciousness. Insensibility and absence of thought also kind of sounds like sleep.

[07:33]

But it's very, very, very, very deep sleep, like in a coma. Dreamless sleep. Dreamless sleep. These trances are deeper than that and they can last for seven days. The dreamless sleep perhaps might be able to last longer, I don't know. Or comas can last longer than that. Okay? Any other questions on this situation here? Now you have a question indirectly related to the commentary? It is on the text, but it was raised by the commentary. My assumption was that the text here is referring to the third transformation of consciousness, but the commentary is suggesting an identity between mental consciousness and the foundational consciousness mentioned in the previous text, which makes a fairly convincing argument.

[08:40]

It's associated with alaya. It seems reasonable since what's said is that the five forms of sense consciousness arise within foundational consciousness like waves in the water, and we have a previous water image for alaya. And by the meaning of the interpretation of alaya, it seems reasonable to say, okay, that's the foundational consciousness. But in the commentary to 16, Kulupa Hanna is arguing that mental consciousness, mano vijnana, also is identical to alaya, and that seems most peculiar to me. And I sort of stop understanding it that way. Yeah, he's suggesting that these three transformations of consciousness, how many people are following this? Not too many. Not too many. That means the rest of the people are having trouble? It's okay to have trouble.

[09:43]

This is part of the fluency with this material. I think I agree with Kulupa Hanna that the three transformations of consciousness that Vasubandhu is presenting is another way of studying the six kinds of consciousness. The Buddha taught these six kinds of consciousnesses, which means the 18 elements, right? He taught that, and that accounts for all experience. The presentation of these three transformations of consciousness is another way to deal with the same material. Okay, so how is that? Looking at the sixth consciousness presentation of experience,

[10:48]

the sixth consciousness embraces the five. The sixth consciousness, you know, the mano vijnana datu, the mind consciousness embraces the five sense consciousnesses. In a functioning, walking around human, if you have any of the sense consciousnesses operating at a given moment activated, then you also have mind consciousness functioning too. There's always mind consciousness with the sense consciousness for us. And then the next moment, if another sense consciousness is activated, and another one will usually be activated, I guess, then there will be another moment, simultaneously there will be mind consciousness with that.

[11:50]

Now the way this is said to work is that since data is coming in, we're being affected, our sense organs are responding moment by moment. As a matter of fact, the definition of a moment is a response of the organ and the arising of the consciousness to a sense data. That's a moment of experience. It's direct experience. It's not known, objectively, but it's happening all the time. The duration of that event is the duration of an experience, of a moment. Simultaneous with that, and of the same duration, is a mental experience. The mental experience is not of this currently happening sensory experience. The mental experience is of some previously experienced sense consciousness.

[12:55]

The previous experience gets made into kind of like a concept of itself, and then is known to mind consciousness. So mind consciousness is always with sense consciousness, but mind consciousness is knowing something different from what's happening in the sense realm at that same moment. And what's happening in the sense realm is direct experience, unmediated by conception, but direct experience. Simultaneous with indirect mediated experience. There's always mental consciousness. There's sometimes one of the other five are happening in a given moment. They come up together and go down together. The way, the quality of the mind consciousness is influenced by the presence of other skandhas. So far I've just been talking about the consciousness skandha,

[14:04]

and for example, the rupa skandha, at the level of sense consciousness, there's consciousness skandha and rupa skandha. But also, there are other skandhas, namely feeling, which is suppressed in that high state of consciousness, and conception. But also, there's the fourth skandha, which is called, we translate it now as formations, right? Some people translate it as mental formations, but literally it's just formations. All mental formations are there too. So the quality of the experience of mind consciousness is influenced, or basically greatly influenced by whatever dispositions or formations come up at the same time with it. In any experience, except in those high trances, when you have an experience, five skandhas come up.

[15:08]

Are you following this? So the mind consciousness comes up, it has some object, so the third skandha, perception, skandha comes up there using this concept. There's a feeling too, which is also a disposition, but it's such an important disposition, it gets to be a skandha all by itself, and a whole bunch of other dispositions arise at that time. And that's always going on, as we're walking around, as I said here, it's always going on. And the sense consciousnesses take turns, according to the intensity of the sense environment. If there's a really loud sound, you know, and it lasts for a while, we almost don't see anything for a while. A really bright light for a while, we almost don't hear anything. So really intense sensory input can dominate for a little while. Otherwise, under normal circumstances, there's a high level of competition between the senses,

[16:17]

and for human beings there's a lot of seeing, a lot of hearing, and for some people not so much smelling and tasting. You know what I mean? I mean, some people go walking along for a few minutes and they don't really have a strong sense of taste. Whereas, of course, dogs are probably really into smelling stuff. We may or may not be into smelling unless some really strong smell comes. Well, I'll refrain from getting into all that, but just say that that's happening. These are changing all the time. Vision and hearing are really powerful for us, really dominant for us, and also get converted a lot into mental images a lot. Okay? Again, that's just a review of the sixth consciousness presentation. Now, alaya can be called equivalent, to play the equivalent role of the mind consciousness.

[17:20]

If you forget about the sixth, just leave them there, and now we're talking about a different way of describing the same process. Now alaya can play the same role. Alaya also apprehends, you know, it apprehends the six sense consciousnesses. Well, actually, it apprehends the six sense organs at birth. That's part of the proposition. That alaya is born at the moment of conception, and then as things develop, it apprehends to itself the sense organs of the being. So then it also pulls in the sense consciousnesses, so they get hooked into alaya too. So in that sense, alaya plays this foundational consciousness the same way mind consciousness does. So in this level, it's the same. All right? And alaya is receiving the dispositions all the time,

[18:24]

and also alaya is taking in the results of mental formations into itself, but that's the same thing that mono-vijnana doctor does, that mind consciousness does. It takes results of dispositions into itself, and then when the dispositions come up, it is in them too, because they come from it, they're taken into it and come up from it. Alaya emphasizes this process, whereas the mind consciousness element or the mind consciousness presentation, there's not so much description of this process of receiving and being the result of these dispositions and then being the cause of states which are the fruit or the maturation of these dispositions as they come up again to influence a moment of mind consciousness. Alaya is a way to sort of use this imagery of storehouse resultant and also seed consciousness.

[19:27]

It's a resultant consciousness, but it has all the seeds. So by emphasizing a consciousness that has all the seeds, it emphasizes that mind consciousness when it comes up, comes up with all these seeds as they mature, as it's activated. The mind consciousness is not emphasizing so much the storage capacity which alaya is supposed to emphasize. The third transformation of consciousness is not the same as mind consciousness. It is the ability to make objects, the concept of the object, which alaya uses and also mind consciousness needs to have too in order to know things. So how are you doing? I'm doing pretty well, I'm still with my question. Yes, what's your question? If we identify alaya with mano vijnana,

[20:28]

then it seems like it forces us to describe these other two transformations as other forms of consciousness. If we're saying there are six consciousnesses, five of them are sense consciousness and the sixth consciousness is mano vijnana, then mano vijnana must be identified with all three transformations and no one of them can be the entire transformation, it can be entirely mano vijnana. You could, if you like, instead of identifying the other two transformations as consciousnesses, which the eighth consciousness system seems to do, which I actually have trouble with, but I'm willing to struggle with that. In terms of converting the three transformations back into the sixth consciousness system, you can consider the second transformation as the mind organ, not as a consciousness. In the sixth consciousness system, there's mind consciousness and then sense consciousnesses.

[21:34]

So if you're looking for another consciousness besides mind consciousness, you're going to have trouble because mind consciousness is the only mind consciousness. So if you want to look for a place for manas, for the reflecting capacity or the effects of thinking, let thinking be the organ of mind consciousness. And in fact, that's the proposal, is that just like sense consciousnesses are born between the interaction between the organ and the field, mind consciousness and alaya, alaya is said to be generated by thinking, by reflecting. Reflecting generates alaya. So in the presentation Vasubandhu makes, he talks about these three transformations of consciousness, but alaya arises in dependence on manas. But of course, manas arises in dependence on alaya.

[22:37]

That's what it says, right? Arising in dependence on alaya. There's a second transformation, right? So of course the thinking has to arise in dependence on the consciousness, but what is mentioned by Vasubandhu is that the consciousness, alaya, is generated in dependence on thinking or reflecting. Just like the sense consciousnesses are generated in relationship to the function of their organs, but their organs aren't thinking, their organs are these receptive capacities, these physical receptive capacities. The mental receptive capacity is thinking. So thinking generates alaya, but also thinking cannot function except in dependence on alaya because what's being reflected are the contents of alaya. So all these things are mutually dependent and that's how the mind consciousness arises, but that's how alaya arises too.

[23:40]

Alaya arises by dependence, so does the mind consciousness. He doesn't mention that when he talks about the mind consciousness. In fact, he's switching back now to talk about the Buddha's ordinary presentation, but he actually calls it the foundational consciousness. The mind consciousness is foundational consciousness, alaya is foundational consciousness, but alaya has more explanatory power, but the trouble with alaya by having more explanatory power is it gets to be more substantiated and turns into more of a thing, whereas people didn't have so much trouble with making the mind consciousness into a thing, partly because it wasn't carrying so many functions. They didn't call it a storehouse, for example. It didn't get to be this place which was apprehending and pulling the sense consciousnesses into being. So it was freer of that substantiation, and it also didn't become so dominant as the huge all-encompassing mental function,

[24:47]

which after a while started to over-emphasize mental life and too much de-emphasize material reality. And that's part of the criticism of this system. The more work alaya was able to do, the less it really existed. Any other questions on 16? I have a follow-up. I understand this presentation in terms of alaya, the first transformation being having the position then of mental consciousness, the second transformation of being mind organ. What role does that lead for the third transformation, which in some respects does seem more closely allied to the function of thought

[25:48]

or manifestation of thought and conceptualization, which seems to be in the discussion where we've gotten to. So if we're going to identify alaya with mental consciousness, then I don't see what the home of the third transformation is, the concept of the object described as a transformation of consciousness. Did you understand his question, sort of? He's worried about the third transformation of consciousness and he doesn't see what happened to it or something? That's right. If we're saying that Mano Vijnana is identical with alaya, and this is the realm of thought, then what has happened to the concept of the object, to the manifestation of the thinking function of manas,

[26:53]

or the reflective function of manas? It seems that alaya is, in some respects, the material. Well, I think that verse 17 is talking about what happens to the third transformation, namely that thus thought involves this transformation of consciousness. Being the third? No. We've just finished discussing the third. What? We've just finished discussing the third? We've just finished discussing mind consciousness. Okay? Mind consciousness has the ability to discriminate. Discrimination is a little bit different from thinking. Thinking is more like reflecting.

[27:56]

Discrimination operates on the thinking, on the reflection. Okay? So I would say that 17 is talking about mind consciousness, the ability to think, so that the thought, thus thought involves this transformation of consciousness. For that reason, what has thus been thought does not exist, therefore is all mere concept. This is a way to see the third transformation of consciousness, why the third transformation of consciousness is in fact a concept of the object. It's not some object. It's a concept of the object. So the third transformation is a concept of object, but also it is the cornerstone of the system, that everything you're working with is mere concept. So, I don't know, that's probably... 17 is pretty subtle. So there's 17. How are you doing 17? And that's the third transformation there.

[29:00]

That because... Because of when a thought comes in, it is converted into concepts and also it is influenced, it is also transformed by the dispositions that accompany it. And it has also been transformed by dispositions before as it's brought up to be a concept. This whole process of drawing on what has been disposed of by previous experience and now choosing from the results of previous experience to use as the basis for what we guess is happening now, this is the process that the monovisionary uses to come up with this objects of knowledge. And the whole process, because it's going in this way, the whole thing, everything we know is mere concept. So, that's not the third transformation, the third transformation is implied by what I've just said.

[30:04]

It's in that process. The third transformation leads us to say the third transformation plus what goes on to create the experience of mind, awareness, all that together makes it not just that there's a third transformation, but that everything we are aware of, everything that mind consciousness is aware of is just concept. That's all we're working with is what they're saying here. And that consciousness is going on all the time except in those states. Robin? Is there a difference between thought and concept? Yeah. Okay. The thought is this awareness and it is also is awareness of something. What is it aware of? It is aware of concepts. Thought is aware of concepts. Okay?

[31:05]

Thought also only deals with concepts and not only that, but the concepts it deals with are not concepts that are coming in the front door from, you know, external world. The mind consciousness resorts to concepts which are which have been created by past experience. So you can't with your mind consciousness think of Abraham Lincoln without using your, you know, grade school and junior high school experience. You also can't think of yourself without involving all those past experiences and you always use some concept summarizing your past experience as the candidate which you're going to be aware of as the candidate for your object of awareness. So that's thought. Thinking is a little different from this.

[32:06]

Thinking has to do with the patterning and reflecting activity that's going on in the process of this thought process. The thinking is the pattern by which the dispositions are constellated and transmitted. The thinking is the way the impressions you know, are formed and then become an experience and then the effect of thinking then becomes generates a laya and also influences what the mind consciousness uses to have its experience. So the thinking and thought or thinking and reflecting are different. And again in mind consciousness thinking plays the role of like an organ and mind consciousness

[33:07]

arises based on thinking but also thinking of course arises in conjunction with mind consciousness. They're interdependent. How are you doing? Yes? He's saying he's saying it does not exist he means that thought doesn't exist separate from the process of thinking. Thought does not thought does not exist independently independent from thinking that's correct. And conception does not conception is is dependently co-arisen too with thinking and consciousness and past experience and dispositions all that that overall pattern the pattern is thinking. So thinking is dependently co-arisen Yes? Isn't discrimination prerequisite for thinking?

[34:08]

I thought I heard you say the opposite. The mind that can discriminate the discriminating mind is the basis the thinking arises dependent on discriminating mind. Alaya if you want to just think of it as mind consciousness okay mind consciousness is the basis and alaya is the basis for manas. The organ the organ capacity of mind arises is a capacity of mind and it arises based on mind. The reflective capacity arises in dependence on alaya. Thinking arises in dependence on alaya. Thinking arises in dependence on mind consciousness. Mind consciousness arises in dependence on its organ on the thinking. You can't have mind consciousness without thinking. So they're mutually

[35:11]

they're mutually co-producing each other. They're dependently co-produced both of them. Okay? Yeah, yeah just the role of discrimination specifically in there it seems to be something that has been previous to the actual discrimination is prior to thinking discrimination is present in sense consciousnesses. They're called sense vijnana vijnana means knowing difference means discrimination. So there is discrimination in the sense consciousness realm. They're born of difference I mean you have if if the if the if it's light if it's electromagnetic radiation it's stimulating really freaking out some sense organ then then the dominant thing for that organism is visual consciousness.

[36:12]

It knows the difference consciousness knows the difference between light and sound at that level. It's responding it's because of the difference that this thing this kind of thing. So and also although it doesn't have the concept yet for feeling separate from the light it is knowing something different from itself. Then this different kind of this kind of different thing then evolves into mind consciousness and mind consciousness now it does the same thing it is aware of something different from itself but what it does is it resorts to not the new experience but it results to old experiences which are concepts which are produced also dependently by all kinds of causes and conditions so what's resorted to is a dependently co-arisen concept now that's brought out as what's being aware what we're aware of. So then again there's the discrimination of the concept and which concept is it but the discrimination doesn't make the consciousness

[37:14]

doesn't make the concept. Concept is conjured up by lots of things including thinking which is another reason why consciousness is generated the discriminating consciousness is generated by thinking but of course thinking you can't have an organ the function of the organ only starts happening when there's a consciousness if there were if there were thinking floating around without generating consciousness it wouldn't be thinking you don't have thinking coming up by itself you always have thinking coming up with consciousness you don't have consciousness coming up you always have it coming up with thinking you don't have one skanda coming up you always have at least four, and usually you have five. So when consciousness comes up, mental consciousness comes up, you have thinking. When it's sensory consciousness, sense consciousness, you have the rupa. But you still have perception, but perception now is not of concepts, perception is of

[38:17]

sense data, because it's a sense consciousness. However, there isn't the concept of object yet in the sense consciousness, so it isn't known. And there isn't the referring back to past experience in sense consciousness to see what's happening. What's happening is actually a direct experience of something new coming in, there's new material coming in, so we are in relationship to something other than ourself. But in the mind realm, we're always consulting our past experience, our past mental experiences. Our past mental experiences are modeled on sensory experience, but we don't consult the sensory experience, we consult past mental experience. Yes? I have two questions. One was just to ask you to repeat the definition of thought. Second was just in the last sentence that you said, which is that our sense experience doesn't ... Repeat the definition of thought?

[39:20]

Yes, would you? Well, I'm calling thought vijnana, right? Which is knowledge of difference. Oh, so discrimination is thought? Discrimination is thought. Okay. That's what he's using here. Just check the Sanskrit, just a second here. Hopefully the Sanskrit won't cause any problems. Nope, it doesn't. Okay. Vijnana. What's happening when we respond to stuff before there's any obvious thought about it? That is, touch something, it's hot, and we pull away. I mean, there's some consultation, there's some knowing something in there. Some knowing on some level that seems to precede conceptualization.

[40:21]

Yeah, and you said it before, there's thought. The data comes in, the organism is aware of it, and that awareness stimulates a response in the organism. Right, but the response is based on previous information. I don't think so, not that example. I mean, it seems to me that somewhere we learned that ... Okay, well, let me give you a different one. If it's based on previous experience, then it is known. And then, based on previous experience, then we're up in the realm of mental experience. But there is direct ... when you touch something hot or cold, there isn't always, but there can be sense experience arising from that. Let me vary it just a little. Yes. Say you're completely allergic to cats, and a cat jumps in your lap and, quote, without thinking, you toss it out.

[41:30]

You haven't had even the thought, this is a cat. It's just an immediate reaction. This seems to me to precede the transformation of consciousness that we've been studying. It seems to be happening on a level below that. And yet, it depends on some data you've assembled in the past. Well, I guess what I would say is that if it is based on past experience, and you're consulting the past experience, the past experience is gone, so the past experience, in terms of consulting it, is something you know about,

[42:35]

okay? And that's mental consciousness. That's what we call mental consciousness. If it's based on past experience, just the way your body is based on past experience, and you don't look to the past experience to see what's going on now, then it's direct sense experience. I don't know if that made sense, what I just said. It probably did, but I still don't understand. Well, I guess what I'm saying is that your example, I guess I'm responding to it to tell you that I don't know what to make out of your example unless we did an experiment. But depending on what you say is happening in your example, then I'll put it in one of these two levels. But I don't know, actually, what the actual data we're dealing with in your example is.

[43:41]

I'd have to do the experiment with you to see which it was. You'd have to tell me what was going on, and then I could analyze it with you in terms of this teaching. But I still don't really know exactly what the experience you're talking about is. This thing about if you're completely allergic to something, it's pretty complicated, because I don't know if when you're allergic to something, when that something comes near you, you know that you're allergic to it, except by your allergy. I don't know if your muscles know to push the thing away, except by conceptualization. But maybe they do. I know your system knows what to do, namely flare up. And that, I think, may be an example of sense consciousness. You don't necessarily know while you're flaring up. It seems like the process of conceptualization conditions our bodies

[44:47]

to just respond in a certain way without further conceptualization. The process of conceptualization does that? Yes. Without further conceptualization? Right, so that we know about being allergic. And then the next time it comes up, we respond exactly the way we do to heat or cold or anything else that we never had to think about. Maybe so, I don't know. I'm not sure about this. And even if you're right, are you saying that you would respond without consulting with the concept in that example? Are you saying that? That you wouldn't consult with the concept to push the cat off your lap? Is that your proposal? That can be... I was asking. I wasn't making a proposal. But, yeah, I can... I guess what I would suggest is why don't you check it out? Some example that you have accessible to you and see what you find out in terms of your example.

[45:55]

Try to do an experiment of the kind you're talking about and then tell me or us what you find out. Because I'm not sure exactly what you're saying and also what you experience around this thing. Because I'd like to know the actual experience. I'd like to deal with it in terms of experience. This is actually... that's the best way to do it. So that's a kind of like wonderful little experiment you can do if you want. Well, I was just thinking about this whole question and just wondering whether it was outside the way of this bit of psychology to think of this sense consciousness becoming conditioned by past experience and becoming linked to some response of the organism. The sense consciousnesses also arise by dependent co-arising. They also arise by dependent co-arising. So, the history of the human species is involved in our having sense consciousnesses.

[47:01]

Okay. So, if... So that's... I just don't understand what being said here in terms of the use or not use of concepts in this example. I don't think that it is a sense consciousness that leads to... I don't think that it's a sense consciousness that leads to voluntary muscular activity. I don't think so. Well, then what about the example of hot and cold? You touch something hot and you're cold. I mean, that is a voluntary... If it's voluntary, I'm suggesting to work with this. That if it's a voluntary action, that you check out to see if there's not a concept involved in voluntary action. In involuntary action, like the allergy itself is an involuntary action. So, the allergy or allergic reaction is since there's consciousness there. If there wasn't consciousness, you know, your hand would be cold or whatever.

[48:05]

I don't know what, but you wouldn't be responding the same way. There is consciousness throughout your body. Not necessarily evenly distributed, but there is consciousness throughout your body if you're alive. And mind consciousness is there with it all the way around. And I'm just saying that if it's a voluntary action of you, then you're in the mental consciousness field, and so on. Sounds like involuntary action. Involuntary actions, that's not the realm of karma. The realm of karma is up in here in the realm of mind consciousness, where there's a sense of self arising with the thinking and all that. And that's where karma is, and that's where these overlays on our life start getting accumulated, and where fear and anxiety are generated in our life. At the other level, we're just a prancing, dancing animal. And we respond with allergies and various kinds of tropisms in relationship to our sense experience.

[49:13]

And we are having sense experience along with all these tropes, with all these emotions and responses we have that is sense experience. However, it's not known until it's converted into something which we've experienced mentally before. And the thought through which we... Because there's a transformation involved in converting this thing into something we know as an object of thought, what's thought of is just a concept. That's the point of this teaching. But dealing with our concepts about how these other realms work is also part of understanding how our mind works and how the conceptual process is going. Because we have concepts which we have just discussed. You see, now we're developing a concept about what we just talked about, and this is something which I didn't develop on myself and neither did they. There's characteristics of what we're talking about.

[50:16]

And because of those characteristics, there's another reason why these concepts are dependently co-arisen and lack inherent existence. So this is it. What do you call it? Foreshadowing? Foreshortening? Of? Karaka. One. One. Yes? I have two questions. One is... Can I ask you a question? Did I give you... You said I would always have at least four stanzas in my mind, usually five. I would just like to get an example of that. Example of what? There's always at least four stanzas you write in your mind. You want an example of four? Yeah. Those trances, which is four. Not those. In those, actually, there's like... Two of them are being suppressed. But they're still there. They're just being suppressed.

[51:17]

They don't disappear. There's suppression. And also, some of the other trances, these formless trances where the body actually... You're not dealing with sense data. It's actually suppressed. And that's how you get yourself in this strange state. Just in those special yoga trances, there's only four stanzas. Otherwise, there's five. And Buddha was, as far as we know, awakened in the midst of five stanzas, not four. Although he later went to visit the realm of four. And he'd already been there before. And then the other question is... You just a few minutes ago said you're using thought as vijnana, as knowledge of difference. And earlier in class, you said vijnana was knowledge of difference. And you said you were using this as a name for consciousness. And you said... We use vijnana for consciousness, for thought, and for discriminating thought, or discriminating consciousness. I use those words for vijnana.

[52:20]

Thought, consciousness. But it means discriminating thought, discriminating consciousness. Put the air in, I think. More air? You want some air? Yes, please. How about the others? Hi. Would you like to have some air, or pipe? That pipe, or this pipe? Is that okay? Open that door. So then, are we ready for... Have we done 17 enough, or do you want more than 17? Hmm? How are you doing on 17? Omar, yes. Is it possible for thought to be directly aware of the sense of data? Sense consciousnesses are direct awareness of the data. Is it possible for thought to be... For us to think directly, or not?

[53:22]

Is it possible for us to have a thought... Is it possible for thought to be directly aware of the data? Yes, that's called... that's sense consciousness. Sense consciousness is direct thought of sense data. And there's no thinking. There's no thinking in that. Is that enlightenment? Is that enlightenment? No, it's not enlightenment. But for us to be in harmony with that realm of our existence is one of the things that happens in enlightenment. In other words, the belief of separation from that realm is seen through in an awakened person, an awakened state. Because you no longer believe in the states where... where you are doing something which you don't do in those realms.

[54:23]

Namely, create an object separate from yourself. In the realm of sense consciousness, you're not thinking. Thinking, the consciousness isn't generating. It isn't generated by thinking. Without thinking, you can't have reflection. Without reflection, you can't have an object separate from yourself. When you see through that process, when you see the dependent co-arising nature of that process, you no longer see it as substantial, when you no longer see it as substantial, then that world, which used to be a substantial world of objects, is an insubstantial world of objects, and then it's not so different from the realm where objects' awareness are not seen as substantially external. So the whole system becomes back into kind of like resonance and harmony. But before that, the realm of direct experience is cut off by our substantiation of the realm of indirect experience. So we feel cut off and bereft of our natural, organic,

[55:27]

biological responsiveness to the environment and to each other. And our sharing, the way we share light, we share sound, we share smell, we're all kind of like googling around in the same material mix all the time. But we're cut off from that because we live in a world which has solid walls of external establishment, and we're stuck in that world. When you see through that world, then this world of direct experience becomes kind of like integrated with this other world, because you no longer are separating yourself from it. While simultaneously being able to generate these concepts of objects and so on. So you don't have to change any of the process, you just have to understand it as dependent on co-arisen. In the realm of direct experience, you don't need to understand that as dependent on co-arisen, because you don't think it's not dependent on co-arisen. And it is dependent on co-arisen very nicely,

[56:31]

and we're enjoying that right now. That's what keeps us warm. It's the fact that we actually are functioning dependently with the entire environment, and also the entire environment is functioning dependent on us. You're heating everything, and everything's heating you. We're cut off from that because we live in a world where separate things are separate only, and we're trying to get them back together. But in that realm, everything's co-creating each other, and there's no sense of isolation. There's no sense of karma, and so on. So, anything more? Are you okay on Tarka 17? Tarka 18? Tarka 17? I don't want to push it. I don't want to talk to everybody. I just wanted to say that I still don't understand my question before I finish.

[57:33]

This is just a comment. I'm not asking you to go back. Okay. Everybody got that? I'm not finished. Did you say satisfied? I'm not clear. I don't understand exactly. You're not clear on what your question was? I'm not clear on what my question was. What is your question? My question was how to understand the role of the third transformation in consciousness in relationship to the sixth consciousness analysis of consciousness. Does everybody else understand that? No. You don't? I understood his question. I heard your response, but I didn't understand yours. I think my mind is a lot like his. Okay. I wonder why.

[58:38]

Does anybody else have some idea of how the third transformation of consciousness functions in the sixth consciousness system of our mind consciousness? How does the third transformation of consciousness live in that world, even though it's not called the third transformation in that presentation? How does the concept of the object operate for the sixth consciousness, for the mind consciousness? How does the concept of object work there? It's the mental field. Hm? It's the mental field. It's the mental field? I'm supposing maybe it is. If the mind is the thinking of the organ, the concept of the field, what consciousness and mind consciousness are going to be in that? It is the mental field? No. It's not the mental field. The mental field is co-existent with the mind consciousness. When mind consciousness comes up, all the other mental factors come up with it.

[59:40]

All right? Anything that... And they influence the nature of that moment of experience. That's the mental field. It accompanies... That's the mental field. That's the texture or quality of this moment of consciousness. But there's one particular thing that this mind consciousness needs in order to know something. It needs something that it's going to become aware of. One of the mental factors that arises with mind consciousness is that it makes a decision to look at something. So the second transformation of consciousness is the reflector, which decides to look at this. And then the mind... Another mental factor or quality of the mind field or the mind consciousness layout is that the mind kind of like bends over towards what's decided. Another quality is that it's focused on that. So one's called... It's called... It's called... Arimokti,

[60:41]

Manaskara, Samadhi. Those things come up with every moment of consciousness. But it makes a decision to pay attention to one of the many concepts available. The many concepts available. It bends towards it. It concentrates on it. And there's another concept which is the third transformation which is that this signature world is external to the awareness. That's the third transformation of consciousness. That's how it works for the sixth consciousness. Do you understand now? Do you understand now? Without checking your hand? I don't usually check with him. We do it sort of by... By ancestry. Do you understand? How many people understand now? Raise your hand. Seven. Maybe we'll talk to you later. Okay? Can I answer? Sure.

[61:43]

Yes, you may. Okay. And I'm saying don't put it in the triangle. Don't put... Don't make... Don't make the third transformation of consciousness into the big bad word dharmadhatu.

[62:47]

The third transformation of consciousness is not dharmadhatu. It's not all the potential objects of consciousness. It's not all the objects of consciousness. Like Michel said is it the mind field? Is it all the mental objects? Is it all the mental formations that come up with the mind? No, it's not. That's the fourth skanda or the dharmadhatu in terms of the presentation of the six consciousnesses as mind, organ, and object. Or mind, organ, and field. The field the potential field of objects of the mind is not the third transformation of consciousness. The third transformation of consciousness is the concept that whatever you're aware of is external. Now, with sense consciousnesses we don't need a concept of them being external. Because they are. At some point the dharmadhatu was a concept of the object and made it up

[63:49]

to the individual. At some point that was the understanding? Yes. At some point that was a thing. Some people right now have gotten that. Okay, how are you doing now? Why don't we erase that? Now how many people understand? Okay. Still? Well, who doesn't understand? Are the people with their hands down? How many people do not understand? Okay, so there are about 40 people in between you. I understand what you said but I don't understand how it relates to the six consciousnesses that you asked about. Well, what do you understand? Can I ask you one other way? Is the concept of the object is it or is it not part of mano vijnana? Is it not part of it?

[64:50]

Yes. No, it's not part of it. Not part of it. Not part of it. So the six who did this? It's part of the dharma dhatu. If you want to know where to put it in that system it's part of the dharma dhatu. It's not the whole dharma dhatu but it gets applied to the things in the dharma dhatu. When conscious when mano vijnana dhatu whenever consciousness comes up whenever mind consciousness comes up a whole bunch of other stuff comes up. Dispositions come up. Feelings come up. And perception and concept comes up. Perception comes up. And that happens. Those come up together. Among all the dispositions all the things in the four skandhas one of them is conception. And there's a particular conception that's really helpful in this whole process

[65:51]

of creating a sense of self. And that is the conception of some externality. That what you're aware of which is one of the things you choose in the dharma dhatu which one you're aware of and you can be aware of a lot of different stuff. And in a given moment you choose one thing and that thing is said to be external. And there's a concept of it being external because you need a concept of it being external because it's not external. Because you're the mind's consulting its partners you know the mind's consulting its field for what's happening. But then it says its field's external to itself. And it wants to do that because it wants to have a sense that there's an external world which there is. But the way you deal with it is in terms of your previous experience your previous experience not somebody else's previous experience your rendition of what happened yesterday my rendition of what happened yesterday your memory of what happened you consult that and when you consult it you say that external you say the yesterday you're looking at is not just your mind you think it's actually yesterday outside

[66:51]

over there being in the past or you say these people which actually are your own rendition of them not my rendition of them you say they're external to you you don't say I'm imagining I'm looking at myself to say what you are you don't usually we don't do that we say actually this is what I'm looking at is external and there's a concept that you use and that's the third transformation and that's how you get the self other thing going okay how do you do it now how many people understand now I, I, you know I gotta be patient with this really that's my job I'm not in a hurry okay I don't know I see Robin Janine who else Robin Janine is that it Robin so that

[67:53]

that maybe we were just talking about about that concept of externality is also what allows for that concept of self exactly you can't have well the concept of self arises the three transformations come up together the concept of self comes up with the reflection right but also the third transformation comes up with the reflection so the externality and the sense of self come up together which is you know logically a sealed you know completes the picture very nicely you can almost have a sense of self you can almost have a sense of identity without the concept of object but with the concept of object you not only have the sense of identity or somebody who did this great thing called thinking but you have a limit on it boundary so you need to really solidify but it really

[68:55]

completes the you know the horror show and makes and makes possible a full reflection of the way the world seems to be at a direct sense level namely that there's that there's a separation of awareness from its objects Ginny um oh how is how would you reverse the how would you reverse it um by studying how it co-arises by studying how it arises with thinking and and the dispositions that occur around thinking in the sense of self by watching how this all co-arises processes reverse the process of substantiating this process and substantiating things you're aware of as you know substantiating the self all this substantiation thing gets

[69:55]

um um dropped off by studying the process by which it gets set up so it requires a a change in perspective of life which we call uprightness because when you practice uprightness you naturally in that state start observing dependent co-arising rather than just being involved in more karma the karma keeps rolling along but you're making an effort to have a very good position to watch the process because you're you're you're putting your life energy into studying rather than manipulating although you're still manipulating you're putting your you're trying to put as much of your life energy as you can that's available in studying how things are happening that is

[70:58]

that in itself is a reversal an unselfish approach because if you think about it the self does not see what it's going to get out of this because all of its eggs are thrown into this uprightness rather than keep calculating how you're going to get out of it in fact you will get something out of it but if you think about that you're not being upright so then you don't enter into the study but you will get a lot out of this you'll get this total reversal of your whole life pattern so is there anything more you want to ask that would help you understand this how this thing works can you formulate a question for those of you who don't understand Gloria can you formulate a question can you raise your hand if you have a question I kind of

[72:07]

wish you did or raise your hand I kind of wish you would but I also am not really wishing that you would because I think the more you understand this process the more you understand these three which I'm trying to get to because understanding this process is understanding how to look for and be alert to dependent co-arising which would be the direct experience of this paratantra this other dependent on being if you can actually enter into this understanding this process of co-arising of mental events I have a question I have no problem with understanding that the laying down of past experience and then it comes back up with every new experience

[73:07]

and kind of mixes in with it and with all these self view and self preservance and everything so my question is is it actually necessary to I don't understand when it goes into from six to eight and to a lion back and forth and my question is it actually necessary to understand the very minute mechanism of that to in those terms that we are talking now or is it just enough to understand the basics of it and then see how do they work I mean I find like I understand what you're talking about but when

[74:07]

I actually listen what we talk for hours about I often don't understand the word and it doesn't really interest me it doesn't catch my interest so I'm wondering whether I you know would have to understand it or to be able to work with it if you um well if you were willing to go on with the level of understanding you have these later karakas then probably we would just go on to the later karakas and then you would you would be involved in those and then you would get to a certain level of understanding that was satisfactory to you or not to go forward you would either say okay I understand well enough now or you'd say I want to understand more and you'd ask me questions you personally there were several other people in the room some other people may wish to understand

[75:08]

something that you may not be so interested in I'm not saying that we shouldn't talk about it I'm actually asking um to practice with it do we do I mean not everybody else but if I feel like I understand what this is saying can I practice with it without understanding it in all those terms that are used in here then I am confused what do you mean the answer is you can and you will definitely practice with it given your current understanding you will do that you can only practice you know as far as your eye of dharma reaches that's the way you're going to practice okay but since there are other beings in the world when they raise something then the question is all right what are you going to do about the question they're raising now if we don't if the class ends in a few seconds then tonight it's

[76:08]

going to end and and you will not hear what it was that may so and so understand something that so and so didn't understand before right I might or I might not or it might happen and you hear oh now he understands and that's what and that's what was said when he understood that would be you understanding more about the process of your mind at that time but you all can start practicing with this given your present understanding because understanding is constantly evolving so you can practice with it right now so I've studied this material over and over again every time I meet new people new you know in some ways it's repeated and in some ways it's new new people are bringing new things out into the world of our interactive life together and so you know in one sense I could say now am I interested in somebody understanding this point

[77:08]

and yes I am interested in some person understanding this point am I interested in that somebody doesn't want to understand it any better than they do right now yes I am interested in that so all of this is basically dependent co-arising that we're observing here and dependent co-arising sometimes is not that interesting and you feel like you might want to go do something else other than studying what's happening dependent co-arising right now now what I'm suggesting to you is that the way for this situation to be continuously not continuously but in a way quite frequently on some periodical basis and up to finally being non-stop interesting the way for it to be is to be upright and then it doesn't matter too much whether nobody understands or everybody understands it doesn't matter whether we zip through this text you know and everybody

[78:11]

keeps raising their hands and saying we understand all the both hands raised and feet because then we just have to go on to another text you know whatever that is I don't know what maybe it's a work day but it's you always are working with your present level of understanding of dependent co-arising there's no limit you must finally according to bodhisattva vows you must finally enter every single dharma door and there are innumerable dharma doors in every text so eventually you need to enter all the minutia of every single living being's mind but not necessarily tonight tonight you have this understanding and it's with this understanding that you're going to practice through the night and through zazen tomorrow morning this is your present understanding of buddhist teaching and vasubandhis teaching this is what you've got to work with and if you teach this class someday then people will ask you

[79:12]

questions and you're going to have to interact with and try to find out what they're talking about and without trying to get a hold of it but watch how it dependently co-arises and how one class has trouble with this and another class doesn't and they have trouble you know it's just you know Gloria? I feel kind of like Christina but I don't feel I feel the whole process is very familiar and it's kind of it's your it's the way it's been diagrammed and the words being in there are not so familiar and it's like all this time this process of how I understand my mind works and how I see it into these categories and that's the difficulty and I just keep listening to these like unidentity categories with these words that's really what it feels like

[80:12]

yeah and part of the reason for choosing these categories of some common language is so we can all get our understanding of our mind out in the middle of the room with each other and help each other understand each other's mind help you understand mine and help me understand yours by using this teaching and clarify and hopefully clarify our understanding of how we're talking and then turn around and apply it to yourself and to see if by practicing uprightness to see if and get feedback on that too to see if that makes watching dependent and categorizing more interesting it's supposed to make it more interesting so it passed my spot yeah I was just wondering I understand that Paul

[81:14]

did his revised version of this and I was wondering if you could look at it and see if we can get a different angle or perspective from the teaching yeah is that correct Paul it's the same stuff well no I know it's the same stuff but I mean like you're talking about categories and words and concepts and things that we're having difficulty understanding I'm hoping that maybe your it's something more weird or easier to understand you know what I'm saying anyway why don't you ask him if he's willing to show you what he's done all right if he's not he's not going to be able to tell you about it can you ask him to see what he's like and if he's

[82:17]

not to what you're doing I'm to save them. Your gems are inexhaustible. I have ... [...]

[82:44]

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