I looked up the definition of the third aggregate, third skanda in Abhidharmakosha and it did say that sanya was the grasping of characteristics, but the Sanskrit is nimitta, which I think is better translated as science, and also the English translation of sanya in that text was idea, the third aggregate, idea or notion or conception was the English translation

[01:03]

that was chosen, or the French probably, idea also. Chapter 1, chapter 1, card 14-C I think, so third skanda is talking about the grasping of the signs. So it's saying pretty much that what's always going on by skandas is that sanya is present in every moment, so every moment there's some grasping of an image going on.

[02:04]

And also I think I wrote this on the board, I said it was risky and I'm changing it. Like I said, Sita, Manas, and Vijnana, and this is also a laya, I think I said other dependent character here, imputational character here, other dependent character here, I want to put other dependent character here too, so Sita is another dependent character, Manas is another dependent character, Vijnana is another dependent character, of course, they're

[03:25]

other dependent characters, all phenomena are other dependent characters. But Manas in particular is said to be the other dependent character that imagines the imputational character. Imputational character is not another dependent character, the imputational character is supposed to be something that's not an other dependent character. The idea of the imputational character is another dependent character, but what is being imagined is something that's not another dependent character, and Manas is the aspect of mind which is considered to actually think of that. However, Manas, of course, being an other dependent character, what are the things it

[04:26]

depends on? The laya. It depends on the laya. It depends on a laya to come up with this imputational character, and so this idea of something that's not dependent on other things. And a thoroughly established character is the actual absence of this imagined character in this other dependent situation. Can I erase this now?

[05:27]

And then, before I erase them, I want to say that one way to talk about one of the main issues here is to say that we're trying to find a way to talk about a process in which ideas of self-elements arise without making the process by which ideas of self arise into self. How can we imagine and talk about a process that creates a sense of self without making the process into another self? Now some people wouldn't mind, some people don't mind a self, idea of a self, and they

[06:50]

don't mind a process which would explain where the idea of self came from. Some of you might be able to think, well, the process by which this idea of a self arose, could be a self or not a self, I don't care, because a self is not just an idea of self, a self is a reality, whereas the Buddhist tradition is saying self is not a reality, self is never anything more than an idea of self. So if you think there's a self, you don't necessarily need to explain where it comes from, because in fact, selves don't come from some place, if they came from some place they wouldn't be a self. It's a handy thing about selves, not to explain them at all, they just are.

[07:55]

But the problem with that is that that way of thinking is innate to humans, the reason why it's so easy is because it's innate, and if we actually adhere to it being so, we suffer and do unskillful actions according to the Buddha. So if we want to say, okay, there is this tendency among humans to imagine a self and believe in it, maybe if we showed where it came from, that would help us either at least not believe that this self we imagine is so, and maybe even take a break from it occasionally. But again, if our explanation of how a self arises turns into basically another self, then

[09:08]

we're using something that doesn't exist to explain something that doesn't exist. So we're using a non-existent false thing to explain how something is a non-existent false thing, and that's a problem. It violates conventional reality. We want to have an explanation of how conventional reality arises, and how false ideas arise in that world, on the basis of correct ideas, because that's the challenge, and that's part of the accomplishment, supposedly, of this alive vijnana, is it kind of almost made it just about to being an imagination of a process that explains the arising of the self, which crosses itself, being a self. But, you know, some people think, even if they made it, still it's too dangerous to

[10:19]

be circulating in society, so let's try not to use it. And the later Yogacara people found a way to describe, found a way to become free of this idea of self, without explaining this process, which was not supposed to have a self, but was susceptible to be interpreted as a self. So once again, I just wanted to review the story I told you about the evolution of alaya. So the first step was, in some sense, that in a special situation, of a special yogic situation, alaya was imagined as the way consciousness can lay down and hibernate in the sense organs

[11:25]

of the yogi during this very quiescent state, so the being would still be alive even though ordinary mental functioning was not going on, it'd be in a coma, in a sense, even deeper than a coma. The next phase was to extend the function of this consciousness, which can lay down and continue to, in some sense, function quietly in the body of sense organs, even during this deep trance, to extend this, to making it into a vivifying principle, and in that sense I think it's quite similar to the Chinese idea of qi, the life-giving principle that's

[12:31]

involved in activities and mental functioning, breathing, all these things. And then this thing gets associated or extended to, this vivifying principle, gets extended to the moment of death, and to the moment of birth. And the next step is a kind of pivot, which I mentioned before, of the concept from being that which can lie down in the sense organs, and stick to that, to that which can be lied down upon, and stuck to. So, the sutra is appearing after these phases have been achieved, the sutra is talking about

[13:52]

how the sense consciousnesses are appropriated, and then also how you can appropriate the predispositions. So it can lie down on, and it can be lied down upon, and once it's lied down upon, once predispositions are lied down upon, then it also turns into a resource for predispositions a source of predispositions for, as it says in the sutra, conventional designations in association with signs, names, and concepts. So we go from the first, we go from those earlier uses, to now we can use alaya as the basic constituent of the personality. So sense consciousnesses are not, you know, if a color goes on, and impacts all of our

[15:05]

sense organs, and a sense consciousness arises, it's pretty much the same for all of us, there's no personality in that. But the personality, the objective basis of the personality for our different ways of feeling about blue, is that we each have this individual predispositions towards the color. These predispositions were laid down in the sense organs, so that when the sense organs are operating, these predispositions are connected to the simple sense perception, so our own personality, our own personal way of feeling about the color operates. And then alaya also now serves function to be the objective basis for the sense of self,

[16:12]

the feeling of identity and self-love. The actual thinking about it, the actual thinking about these feelings, and these senses, and these images, is pinned on manas, the thought or the thinking, that's the defiled mind. But alaya is in some sense the predisposition to be able to do that, is the basis for the actual doing of it. And then the next phase, I'm not saying these phases don't overlap in terms of history,

[17:16]

but in some sense, the next step, which is in some sense, the Buddhists have up until this point been struggling to explain how karma works, the mechanics of karma, to explain the mechanics of karma without a permanent continuing self. So basically, alaya can function as a self, without actually being a self, it can serve the function that a permanent self would serve in explaining the transmission of karma, the mechanics of karma, without being a self, because we show how it's not a self, at the same time how it can play this role of a self. Kind of like an actor on stage, pretending to be something, but not really being that.

[18:25]

Because even in early Buddhism, as many of you may have read, the teaching is, there's action, but no actor. And then people go, huh? So now we've got this potential thing, which is not an actor, but considered like an actor for us. That's the idea. Now I'm going to expand on this, this is the fourth point I'm making, the fifth point I'm going to wait on for a while, I'm going to expand on this fourth point a little bit, maybe I'll do the fifth point and come back to the fourth point. The fifth point, which is, this point is, this is kind of a new point. The Buddhists had been, up until alaya was developed, the point I just mentioned of serving

[19:28]

as the basis for the personality in the process of consciousness, and also to serve as the reference to the sense of self. Where does the sense of self come from? It's not coming from nowhere, it's not totally made up, on nothing. There's some conditions from thinking that there's a self. Alaya is the condition for thinking there's a self. There isn't one, but it's the condition for thinking of something that there isn't. The thinking of it is not alaya. Alaya is the condition necessary to think of a self. The next, but this is all, this is sort of about, you know, the, okay, now we, the next, the fifth point is to imagine we have now established a consciousness which carries

[20:35]

the seeds or the impressions for a maturation of a new life. A new life in the moment, or actually a new life in the sense of a new being. The next, it switches then to be now alaya carries the seeds for everything, both mental and physical. In other words, alaya becomes the source for all experience. And then this big, this jump is the basis for the teaching in the sutra

[21:37]

that the object you're aware of, the object of awareness and the consciousness are not two, they're not different. And that teaching didn't really appear very clearly at all until the sutra. Can you repeat that? That we have, we now developed alaya to be the point of a consciousness that carries the seeds for a new life, but also the seeds for the personality as you go through the life. Now the next step, which is a big step, is to have alaya have the seeds for all mental and physical phenomena. Alaya has the seeds for the mountains and the rivers and the great earth. So everything we see is not different from the consciousness that sees them.

[22:46]

Over by the window, the hands can't stop jumping up in the air. And one of the hands that arose was a hand of someone who said, I really appreciate you not having questions at the beginning. But this same hand that goes with a mouth that said that, also is a hand that wants to grasp things. He told me that, he said, I can't quite grasp this alaya thing. Somehow we want to have this idea of a consciousness that you can't grasp. You have to use it without grasping it, because if you can grasp it, then it's just another self. But I want to, that's right, that's it, that's what we're working here. So alaya carries then at the final stage the seeds for all things.

[24:02]

And so everything that happens is the maturation of consciousness. And of course this can turn into idealism, but one just short thing I would say before getting into that, up to our eyeballs, is that what the world may actually, what the world may be, is always an infinity of possibilities where nothing is happening, but anything has a probability to happen. And a zero probability is still a probability. And a hundred percent probability is still a probability, and everywhere in between.

[25:12]

The actual world of the ultimate truth, the world of ultimate truth, is a place where nothing has any own being, all things lack own being, all things are unproduced and unceasing, are quiescent from the start, and naturally in a state of nirvana. That's the ultimate teaching, that's the third turn, second turning. But because of that, anything's possible. Because things are that way, anything's possible. In other words, infinite, unlimited possibility, but nothing actually happening. However, things can happen, and the way they happen is through imagination, according to this sutra. And because of consciousness, the world of ultimate truth, where things don't have own being,

[26:24]

and things are unproduced and unceasing, there can be the arising of phenomena, there can be the production of phenomena, and the ceasing of phenomena, and the appearance of own being, and the appearance of things not being in a state of nirvana. I'm sorry if that slips into idealism, but some people seem to be okay with that, some people are not, and we can talk about that sometime, but I don't really think we're saying there isn't a universe, it's just it's a universe where nothing's happening. Actually, ultimately, it's an universe, where dhammas are not being produced. That's not a reason why we have to practice patience. With the world where things are being produced, that's hard enough, right? We have enough trouble being patient with the productions.

[27:26]

But by developing patience with the productions, and the ceasings of the productions, with the arisings and ceasings, we get warmed up to the patience which is much greater, and can tolerate things not being produced in the first place. Then we can look at the world, and see that in this context, nothing's arising, nothing's happening. And did you want to ask a question? I can ask questions, right? But you can't. So that's the five-part story, a brief summary of the evolution of alaya, and something about the point of it for the sutra. I just want to expand a little bit on point four, in terms of the early teaching, which many of you have heard about,

[28:30]

the early teaching of the Pinnacle Arising, and it's the most famous version of it is a twelve-fold link of causation. And in that story, the first link is what? Ignorance. Second link is? Third link is? Fourth link is? Name and form. Yeah, so ignorance, common formations, consciousness, and name and form. Ignorance, what's that? It's ignoring the Pinnacle Arising, it's ignoring the process that we're just describing, and it's seeing what? Seeing a self. Seeing a self and? Believing. And believing a self. Seeing and believing a self. Seeing is believing.

[29:32]

So that's the first step. Then, there's this believing, the seeing and believing of a self has an effect, leaves an impression. Seeing a self, you not only see a self, but you think something's happening. You don't only see a self, but you think it's a self that happened. So you see the arising of things. You're not looking at the Pinnacle Arising clearly, so you see the arising of things, and you see a self, and the effect of this way of seeing is, the effects are called samskaras, or productions, they leave impressions on the imagining mind. They create impressions, they create consequences, which are the common formations. And then those common formations leave impressions on the consciousness. So the consciousness then

[30:40]

is this consciousness, which has, similar to the Sutra, it has these predispositions. Predispositions for conventional designations, and so on. And then, this consciousness then goes to the next phase, which is the name and form. Name means mind, form means the sense consciousnesses. So the name and form is the new birth, the new life. So the 12-fold chain of causation is what we just talked about. I just want to mention that in early Buddhism, that consciousness that created, that happened just before the name and form, which is the new life, that consciousness, even in early Buddhism, was called Sarvabhijaka. Sarvabhijaka, having all the seeds.

[31:53]

I don't think there's been, I don't think the expression Sarvabhijaka vijnana appeared in the text, but the Buddha just said, having all seeds. But I think we maybe can understand, he meant the mind that has all seeds. So again, there's some, there's a basis there for this, making this up. Um, so, um, maybe, I don't know, we'll have to move on back for now. It's 9.30. People are like, you know, having trouble, like, keeping their little paws down. It's wonderful, it's like, these little arms go up in the air, you know, ha! It's a good sign of something. So, should I open up to questions now, or should I go further?

[32:58]

People want to ask questions, should I go further? How many people want me to take the questions now? I suggest you take a limited number. You do? What do you think of taking a limited number? How many people don't want to take a limited number? Don't or do? Do want to take a limited number? I think it's almost the same people that have the hands up. This is like a, what do you call it, a demonstration. This is a morality play. So, again, as I said at the beginning, I want to find a way to talk about a process wherein

[34:25]

this illusion of something arising appears, where we have the experience of an appearance of something that's a self, because this is, we have this empirical experience of something like a self appearing. How can we say how that can happen when there isn't a self? So that'd be like, you know, if someone in the room thought that someone was being unkind to them, you know, after we say, okay, okay, we've seen it, we've seen that, and actually I can see how you see that that person's being unkind to you. But let's look at it another way so that we can actually see that the person's not being unkind. And you might say, I don't want to see it that way. I want to see it that they are being kind

[35:30]

to me, aren't being kind to me. Okay, you're a success. You've already done that. Now, would you like to see another world, another way of seeing this world, so that this person will now be being kind to you? Would you like to see that? Just check it out. You can come back to the world where they're being cruel to you later if you want, but would you like to see how they're being actually kind to you? Like someone was telling me about one of his parents who wasn't a certain way that we might call unconditionally loving, and the person said, I need this parent to be unconditionally loving, and they're not alive anymore. Well, this is a perfect candidate for a new understanding. And I said to the person that your parent was unconditionally loving you,

[36:34]

but you don't see it yet. So we already know what it looks like for a parent to not be unconditionally loving, so we got that down. Would you like to see how they actually are unconditionally loving? Without me using the fact that they're not unconditionally loving as a basis to show that they are unconditionally loving, because that would be a contradiction. So I want to show that this person has been and is unconditionally loving you, without violating your impression that they weren't, without destroying the conventional appearance of them being cruel. We don't want to override that, right? We don't want to override what looks like that person's being cruel. We want to see how that is cruelty, but how it actually is also something else. Without using cruelty as the reason for it, but just honoring the appearance.

[37:39]

So we honor the appearance of self because it's very powerful. We honor the appearance of own being because it's so powerful, we're so drawn to it, and also it is the source, when we believe it, of our suffering. So we honor it, be careful of it, we're in awe of it, but now we're going to try to show how it really is totally not there, and really be convinced without using another self to do it. Because we'd be happy using our self because we like that way of approach to things so much. So how can we have a new approach to refuting our old approach, without using our old approach to refute our new, our old approach? It won't work. Using a self to refute a self doesn't work. Maybe at the beginning stages it does, just to get people into it, because they would probably want to join without a self. It will give you a better self in this process. So that's another way to talk about this, what I'm trying to do here.

[38:42]

But what Vasubandhu is trying to do, what the sutra is trying to do, so he says, so this transformation of consciousness, the transformation of consciousness involving alaya and manas in vijnana, working together. See, working together, that's why none of them are a self. They have this three-fold working, and you could have said, well why, he could have had a two-fold working, a nine-fold working, but he chose three. He saw three. Just like Charles Peirce saw three. He saw three. Three is enough to make none of them a self. It's a three-fold process of consciousness, so this process of consciousness is not an entity. So we want to use something that's not an entity to show us, so we can see how

[39:43]

how the entities that appear arise out of a process that's not an entity, and see how the entity is not an entity. Alaya is a process that can get laid down, however, and anchored, and hooked onto, and stuck in, and moored in the sense faculties, and then you can have this phenomena arising from that attachment, and then it becomes a resultant. And it's not only a resultant, but because it is a resultant that is involved in human life, it is a cause or a condition. It's a resultant and a cause. It's not just a cause, you see, it's not just the primordial thing there, it's an effect, but it's a cause. It's not just an effect,

[40:47]

it's a cause, it's not just a cause, it's an effect. It's a result, and a cause, and a result, and a cause. It's a cause and a seed. And then I wanted to say one more thing at this time, at this place, and that is that it looks to me like this teaching, this sutra, and Vasubandhu, and the sangha, and in some ways at this point Vasubandhu seems to bring this up for me more than even the sangha does, and that is that the immediate experience disappears as soon as you recognize it. It seems to be part of the process of the self.

[41:49]

Well, no, I just said if you just, if you recognize it, the self will probably get in there pretty soon, but I'm just saying that when you have immediate experience, as soon as you recognize it, the immediacy disappears. And this is because identification or recognition involves a reflection, or manas, and then the so-called immediacy is lost. Identification and recognition involve a reflective activity, and the process culminates in the conceptualization of the external object. So you have the laya,

[42:55]

which is immediate experience. Every moment it's this immediate experience, physically based, immediate experience of the ocean of predispositions, and you have a reflection of that. But when you have a reflection of it, it's a reflection of it, it's not the immediate experience itself. You have a reflection which identifies. A laya is not identified. You look at the third and fourth verse from the 30 verses, a laya is unidentified. It's immediate experience, but unidentified. As soon as you identify it, you lose the immediacy. And the way you identify it is to reflect it. So manas reflects it, like putting a mirror over this ocean of possum, ocean of images, and now you have a reflection of it. But the reflection is not the immediate experience. The immediate experience is this body-mind

[44:00]

event, which is everything the organs are doing together with all the predispositions from past karma, boom, that's it, that's the immediacy, the immediate physically based experience. And then there's also, there's a reflection of it. The reflection of it then, it's re-cognized. The first time it's cognized, it's cognized immediately, but not known, not recognized. Simultaneously, but not next, but simultaneously in the realm of recognition, it's recognized and known and identified, but it's not the immediate. And that's easily perceived. Excuse me. And then, the next step is the third phase, the sense vision manas, all six of them, you know, two or more, one or more of them, either the mind consciousness plus the sense consciousness or just the mind consciousness, then that comes up with the concept that this image, this reflected image of the immediate experience, this reflected and recognized image,

[45:06]

is then seen in terms of the concept that it's external. So, the third phase is called the concept of the external object. Could you back up just to the second here? Yeah, now maybe we're ready for questions. Could you just go over the last part again? Because the question cut off the second. The question cut something off? Yes. That's part of it, see? There's this thing going, it's going, and the question stops and the thing goes. That's what's part of what makes it hard to follow it, right? It doesn't bother me because I know. It looks to you like they're going, you know. I see these little things going like this. I see this nice flower, you see this little cactus.

[46:08]

So, let's see, so the Sanskrit is alaya vivchaya vijnapti. And it's nice to notice that it's vivchaya vijnapti, not vishaya vijnana. So, the three transformations of consciousness are not exactly mind, in a sense they're not really mind, consciousness, or mind, thought, and consciousness. In a sense they're more like mind, thought, and the concept of externality. But the concept of externality impacts the consciousnesses.

[47:20]

So, vijnapti means like concept or idea of what? Of a vishaya, of a field, of an object, which is actually a field. Or another translation of it could be support. The first section of a sangha's commentary on the sutra, in a way, is called vishaya jnaya, or jnaya vishaya, which means the support of knowledge or support of knowing. So, what arises on the basis of direct impact, direct experience alaya, direct experience alaya, which is direct experience, but not recognized, not known in the usual sense, not identified. Alaya is originally unidentified, that's what 30 verses say, unidentified, unknown, unlocated, but immediate experience.

[48:24]

It's a consciousness that's an immediate experience, immediate experience of all these predispositions towards human existence. Then, or then and with it, with this transformation is the reflection of it, the thinking about it. And the thinking about it is based on it, of course, and makes possible a recognition. And now we know something, now it's recognized, but we lose the immediacy. Now it's derivative, but recognized. And then the next phase is that this impacts the sense consciousnesses, including mind consciousness, to give rise to a concept of a field or a concept of a support, a concept that this knowledge is supported by something. By what? An object. So there's a concept of an external object, a concept of an object out

[49:34]

there. And so now this is the explanation of how the sense of self and elements arises. Right at the beginning of the 30 verses, these first few verses do a great deal, actually. It's kind of wonderful, these first few verses. And then we move into another phase, details are worked out, and actually bringing in lots of earlier Abhidharma. And then later in the text, you get the teachings of chapter 6 and chapter 7 are brought in to the 30 verses. I think now, if people still have questions, we can do questions. You think so? You're okay to have questions now? Because you can have questions about the things that I said, too, you know? So maybe we could have questions now, is that all right? Maya, what do you think? Ready? Here we go. Watch this.

[50:37]

The first person to raise their hand was Athar. Way back there. That was way back. That just needed a repetition of the statement that you had on. I still am not sure if that's accurate, what I wrote. Alaya can function as a self without a self. Is that correct? Alaya, I would say, can function as a self without actually being a self. Without being a self. We hope so. That's what the Yogacara focus is. And then you kind of explain that further, so it's not okay with it now. You know, maybe one thing you can do, instead of asking questions, you can say, repetition! That probably wouldn't make it harder to follow, right? No, it would be easier to follow. Repetition. You can just say repetition, right? And then I'll repeat. How do you say it? How do you say it? Once again. Just say that.

[51:48]

And then also, what's that? Have to practice. Practice more. One of the nice expressions. So the next question was from the grass broom, yes? Well, I found that by further listening, the question was answered. Okay. That's why I brought my hand down real fast. But it went up. We've got two here. Dr. Strangelove. Liz, Liz with them. The undefeatable one. Yes, Liz. When you just mentioned the four links of the twelvefold link of causation.

[52:59]

The first four, yeah. And how names are born. Is that how all dependent co-arisings are born, or how the sense of self is born? Would you say all dependent co-arisings arise also from seeing yourself, an impression, a predisposition, and then? I would, yeah. So that twelvefold chain of causation is sometimes interpreted as how the sort of what we call the conception in the womb occurred. In other words, how the so-called new baby. So that the first three are actually from previous lives. That's one way to understand the twelvefold chain. I think it also operates within this life. That every moment, because of ignorance that we have available to us right now, the karmic consequences of that ignorance.

[54:02]

We have this ancient ignorance which has generated all these karmic formations. So we have a consciousness that embodies the impact of those karmic formations. Right now we have such a consciousness. So that consciousness is there at birth, but it also continues to come with us. It's alaya, right? Like it says, that's sarvabhidhika, brackets, vijnana. So throughout our life that happens. And then name and form means then this consciousness, this alaya, because it gets connected to our body, then we have the story I just wrote. So first of all we have this consciousness which carries and lays down in the body and brings with and is these previous positions, which are these karmic impressions from past action. And then we have the rest of this process.

[55:05]

But the first part of the nama, the nama rupa, the mind and body is this alaya according to the story. So that's going on throughout our life. So all dependent co-arises would follow that same story, yes. And we tell that story without making that story into a self. Yes. In the working of the mind there's the recognition which separates us from immediacy and creates the sense of external... Where is mindfulness in that explanation? Is mindfulness an additional recognition of recognition? What we usually call mindfulness. Mindfulness has two meanings, two big meanings.

[56:26]

One is remembering, and that means remembering past experiences, but also it means remembering what meditation practice you're doing. Another meaning of mindfulness has to do with attention. And so actually I think that to talk about it, to do justice to it, I think maybe if you could remind me a little later, I would then maybe almost give a whole class on that, on what mindfulness is and how it plays a role in this practice. Rather than just sort of like saying it right now in the middle of all these questions about what I just said. If you just keep reminding me, I'll do a mindfulness presentation. Okay, rather than just say parenthetically what it is,

[57:32]

in this context with people asking questions about this. But it is important, thank you. And then who else was an all-time question? Weren't there some other ones? Okay, well, let's see where they are. I'm kidding. Jamie? It seems clear that anything that we know about the world would be some kind of structure. Structured knowing, some kind of picture or story that wouldn't be the immediate experience. But I'm wondering if there's discussion in the Buddhist tradition of how, even though there's no self in those structured ways of knowing, that the pattern of that knowing, the pattern of language, the pattern of ideas, the patterns of numbering things, somehow corresponds to patterns in the world. Because, you know, I was just thinking of,

[58:36]

Wittgenstein says that you wouldn't be able to have a word for anything where there's not some correspondence between there's some pattern in it and the actual thing in itself that you're looking at. And I, obviously there's a great emphasis, you know, because we always make a self when we do that. But then, you know, the way that you talked about, you know, alaya getting purified also. Isn't there a way where you could, you know, allow for language to be there? Because you're also seeing that the structure somehow, you know, is related or actually not different. Well, that all sounds reasonable. So, did you want to ask a question there? I basically think that what you're hoping for is, generally speaking, possible. Is that okay for now? Sure. And you can watch to see how that plays out as we study.

[59:40]

See if, keep checking back on that. But one thing I did say that earlier, though, that was in the cycle of the three wheels, is that in the realm of ultimate truth, there's really no words. You know, because what you're looking at is you're trying to verify the absence of self. These things aren't arising. There's no discussion. We're just facing the way they ultimately are, is that they cannot be found. They cannot be found as existent or non-existent. And we can go on there for hundreds of thousands of slokas. But basically, that's the ultimate meaning of events, is that they don't happen. And they don't not happen. They're really unassailable by concepts and words. However, the people who realize this are, to a great extent, the people who actually

[60:47]

realize this are people who actually care about people. Or beings that care about beings are the ones who realize this truth. Otherwise, you wouldn't make the effort to find out that nothing's happening. You wouldn't love enough yourself or others to get to that place, because prior to knowing that, you're pretty much of a mess. You have to be really nice to yourself and get yourself all kind of kind of like coordinated to make this wisdom plunge into this realm. So when you make that realm, when you realize this realm, leaving behind your consciousness as you enter it, and letting it eliminate your consciousness which you left behind, then because of your interest in benefiting beings, you re-enter the world of words. And you start using them again on the basis of having seen the place where they aren't in.

[61:49]

So you integrate the world beyond words with the world of words. And sometimes you realize by the way you're using words that you haven't really thoroughly understood the world of no words, so you go back and visit again. Just like this, one of the early Zen stories I read was about this monk. He trained, I guess he was in training in the mountains around Kyoto, and he finished his training. His teacher was happy with him. He was happy with himself, and he was grateful to have been a well-trained monk. He's ready to leave school now. He went down into the capital, saw the beautiful people, and realized he needed more training. He would be sitting there when he was talking to some of those people. They went back and studied six more years. And then he was ready to go again and try to like talk. Basically it's like see if you can talk without getting hooked again.

[62:51]

Because when you talk you have to use your imagination to create a self. Can you create a self with your mind without believing it? Can you make your baby without believing that it's really there in an existing form? Can your baby change without you thinking that your baby doesn't exist anymore? So you keep going round and round. So most bodhisattvas actually realize suchness, re-enter the world of words, and go back and refresh their vision of suchness on a regular basis. Go back in the world. So it's a deepening process. Every time you enter the world to enter more and more without getting fooled by it. And then go back to the place where you get disabused of belief in the world of form. And this is how we also can hopefully, and this is part of the third turning you see,

[63:53]

is to try to transform culture with the teachings of the second wheel. The second wheel doesn't really have a social program. It's just liberating people from social programs. Liberating people from their ideas of social programs. And then the third turning you see, well now how can we bring this profound teaching back into the world of conventional reality? But still, watch how this works throughout the study. This is an ongoing process, right? Let's see. Andreas? Can the vijaya vishnapati be compared to the link contact or salayatana? Can it be linked to the link of contact? Contact is sparsha? Just going to be linked to that one? Yeah, you described it and it sounded very similar to me to that contact when you said

[64:58]

that there suddenly is an object out there which is perceived. And I wasn't sure, isn't that similar to contact? Yeah, it's similar, but I think it's going on prior to that. I think the concept of the object is earlier than, I think it's way back at Nama Rupa. And it's also operating at the level of contact. But it's also operating at the level of feeling. We have a feeling, but we feel it's a feeling about something out there. The feeling is out there, separate from the consciousness of it. We don't have to be that way if we didn't have this thing there. But this is the process here. This isn't the process of ultimate truth. This is the process of the realm of ideas of self and others, which is Nama Rupa, Vijnana,

[66:01]

and so on. So at that level, this is already operating at that earlier stage. And it's operating at the level of where you have the six sense stories and where you have contact, I mean feeling and contact. Is it feeling and contact, or contact and feeling? Contact, feeling, and thirst. So I think it's earlier you have it. But maybe you don't agree. It's pre-country. I just thought maybe, I mean, when you first described it, my first idea was that manas is similar to Nama. Manas is similar to Nama? Well, Nama includes all three of these. The Nama of Nama Rupa includes all three of these, I would say. It's just that the immediate part of it is this part. This is the immediate experience part.

[67:02]

This is the most physical part, because alaya is like bonded to the body. It's really intimately connected to the body. That's why you can turn the body way, you can turn the process way, way down, where it says, you know, also in 30 verses it says that this thing, doesn't it say that the third transformation is operating all the time except in these deep states of trance? Does it say that? I didn't ask you to memorize this, so it's okay. yeah, find it right now.

[68:11]

But anyway, in immediate experience, this is reflection and this is the concept of object. So Nama includes all three of these. This is the immediate part, this is the derivative part, and this is the final sense of an external object part. So they work together, part is part of its immediate experience and part of its not. Indirect experience is based on immediate experience. Next? Yes, Poga? You talked about a student who wanted unconditional love from their parent who had died, and there was something refixed about wanting that, and I wondered how you would work with a student like that. I think wanting unconditional love from anybody is perfectly reasonable, because you do get

[69:17]

unconditional love from everybody. But the student couldn't see it, you said, but how do you help the student to shift so they can see it? Study the sutra. The sutra is about realizing the other dependent character of phenomena. The other dependent character of phenomena is the way everybody is giving you unconditional love, the way no one can not support you with their whole being. This is the realm of the self-referring samadhi, where nobody, everybody is helping you, your enlightenment is resonating off to you, liberating the other person, bouncing back to you, nobody is messing with this at all, nobody can stop this process. This is the world of the dharma, perfect, complete, unhindered harmony, peace, and love. But sometimes our ideas really get in the way of seeing it. Sometimes? Sometimes? Yeah, so we got that down, we got the ideas getting in the way of seeing this.

[70:31]

Immediate experience is getting in the way even. Even immediate experience, it gets in the way of seeing this. Even immediate experience, which we don't even know about, is getting in the way of it. And then if we start converting immediate experience into derived experience, it just makes it worse. However, the idea is that by studying this process, you can remove the dark cloud which obscures dependent co-arising. And we obscure dependent co-arising because we want to grasp it. But after a while we take a break from that, and then we see dependent co-arising as it really is, and then we see that unconditional love is actuality, and therefore wanting it from our parents is perfectly reasonable. And if we don't get it, we feel a little bad, or quite bad, or just really can't hardly go on sometimes.

[71:34]

But it's really from everybody that we want it. But it's reasonable to want it, because in fact, it is the state of affairs. Everybody's practicing with you. All the Buddhas are practicing with everybody in you. That's the actual Dharma world. Though we have a little trouble seeing it, because of this process. This is the process which obscures, and we're talking about a way to reverse it, so it reveals the world of Dharma. The world of Dharma is a happy world, is the true world, is the world of peace, is the world where nothing's happening. And that world can be able to illuminate ordinary consciousness. So we all need to understand how our parents deal with unconditional love, without violating

[72:39]

our impression that they had some problems. Honor the appearance of these illusions. Honor them. And learn the difference between conventional reality, which does have a conventional existence, as much as ultimate truth does. Learn to honor that, and learn to separate conventional truth from the idea of self. James? I'm a sociologist, and I hear what you're talking about in terms of the origins of self, and why and so on. In sociology it's pretty axiomatic that the origins of the self are social, that we develop a self because our parents think we're a self, they give us a name, they treat us like an individual, we're sort of trained by other people to have self. I'm wondering, how does that apply in the Buddhist context, or is there any sense that we develop a self with other people?

[73:42]

Yeah, that's the alaya. Alaya is the social context for the origin of the self. Because alaya is the predisposition toward conventional designation. Conventional designation means talking with other people. And because we want to talk with other people and go to high school, and have a date, etc., we have to talk. You gotta talk to get a date. I mean, you can be a strong silent type, but it only counts if you can talk. So yeah, alaya is the social construction of reality.

[74:44]

That's a social phenomenon. Because of past social interactions and past social karmas, we're now predisposed to social karmas, to social action, but basically to talk, to converse, to use language to designate in a conventional way. Not just designate in any way, but in a conventional way. Which means we have to use concepts, and so on and so forth, and use signs connected to names and words. So Buddhism would say the same thing. It's a social constructed self. The self occurs in the transformations of the predispositions for conventional designation. But those predispositions come with our body, because when we're born, our body gets hooked up with the predispositions for conventional designation. So as soon as the physical thing becomes inhabited with consciousness,

[75:44]

it's inhabited with the seeds for conventional designation, and the sense organs start to develop, in a sense, after the predispositions are there. And then, gradually, this sense of self arises from these predispositions for conventional designation, because we need a self in order to project, we need the idea of self to project on the phenomenon in order to make conventional designations. So Buddhism is saying, and in the cycle of history, it looks, at least in a linear sense, it looks like the semiologists are following a Buddhist teaching, saying that the immediate experiences, the signs of compound phenomena, the immediate experience, those signs are unknown, insignificant, until they're interpreted. When they're interpreted, then they're meaningful.

[76:45]

But the interpretation is not the signs. It's a derivative of the immediate experience. But if we just deal with the immediate experience, we'd have no signification. So we're driven to make conventional designations. For us, making conventional designations is the same as what we ordinarily call meaning. And we need meaning to function, socially. So yes, I would say there's a nice parallel between the social construction of a self, the neurological construction of a self, and this teaching. And I myself feel that Bodhisattvas, part of our vow is to understand psychological, neurological, sociological, biological, and cosmological, and philosophical origins of the self. On all these different levels, and this sutra actually deals with psychological, epistemological, ontological, and yogalogical

[77:50]

origins of understanding this process. So it is social. Because we don't make up these names by ourselves. We have the predisposition for the names, by ourselves in a sense, from past times when we did work with names from people before. We're born with predispositions for a variety of grammar systems. And you watch children, and it seems like for a while there, you can see them trying out different grammar systems, and then gradually find out there's no way to play with those grammar systems, so they drop those, and they use the ones that people are willing to play with them. And if the people in the house are willing to play only one, they play one. If they play three, they play three. If the people in the house play one, and the neighbor kid plays another, they'll play two. But they have the ability to play all of them. All humans can play a wide variety of language games. We have it, you know. We're just, you know, we're wonderful beings in this way, you know.

[78:53]

I don't know who was next, but I think... Was Lenore before you? You defer to your senior? I'm considering it. Can you use the language of Manas, Chitta, and the Vishnanas to describe Dogen's drop-off body and mind, and also what dropping off, dropping off is? Dropping off body and mind is that you... Just like for example, if you're doing this practice called sitting, in order to sit, you need some kind of like... You need to grasp some form. All right? And how are you going to grasp the form?

[79:57]

Well, first of all, you have to have some kind of like body, and have some direct experience of body. Otherwise, you're just thinking and dreaming of sitting. You know, and you're not actually... Your body is not according with that. You don't have any direct experience of it. You know, like right now, you can imagine yourself over in Zendo, sitting. But that's not what we mean by sitting. It's just to think about it. We mean actually that you actually grasp the form of sitting, which means you have some direct experience of sitting. Your senses, your physical senses are involved, and that's connected to a predisposition for a conventional designation, called, for example, sitting. Zazen, or whatever. Oh, right, sitting. Blah, blah, blah. Okay? And then, at this level, you still don't know if you're sitting. So there has to be a reflection of the sitting. Namely, oh, I'm sitting.

[80:59]

And then there's some idea that this sitting is an object of the awareness of sitting. This is our normal sitting that we're doing, okay? But this is not sitting. This is just the idea of the self and elements of sitting. And this is a story about how that occurs, but in order for dropping off body and mind and sitting to occur, you have to do this. You have to grasp the form of sitting, and you have to know you're grasping the form of sitting. Okay? But this is not sitting itself. To sit and know that this is not sitting, and that you have to grasp the form of sitting in order to have sitting, that's dropping off body and mind. Can you repeat that? To grasp the form of sitting in the Buddha's... To grasp the form of sitting in Buddha,

[82:00]

knowing at the same time that you have to grasp it, and that you are grasping it, that this is not reaching the principle of sitting. This is called... The effort... This wholehearted effort of grasping the form of sitting fully and knowing that you're not reaching the sitting itself, that's called dropping off body and mind by Dogen. So I'm saying what Dogen says, literally, is you cannot sit without grasping the form of sitting, but grasping the form of sitting is not the sitting itself, and making a concerted, wholehearted effort in grasping the form of sitting and knowing that the sitting you're grasping is not the sitting, that's dropping off body and mind. And that's what Dogen says, and I'm just putting it in the context of the Sutra, which says the same thing. Except it doesn't say dropping off body and mind, it says not strongly adhering to the imputational character

[83:03]

as being the other dependent. That's the way the Sutra says it. So then if you don't strongly adhere to your image or form of other dependent character as being the other dependent character, then you can open up to the absence of the imputational and the other dependent. Which in the sitting means you can open up to the absence of your ideas of sitting in the sitting so then you can realize the ultimate truth of sitting. While simultaneously you must be grasping the form of sitting otherwise we have nothing to realize the ultimate character of. So that's one way to put it together. So when he tells Rujing says dropping off is dropped off what he's saying is that his awareness of even having done that is also released. Yes. But he had to have Rujing had to compliment him and he had to like grab that compliment in order to not believe it

[84:05]

as really the compliment. And then he was really complimented So let me go back and perform the whole school back in Japan to see if he could not fall for that. My question had to do with the just-deceased sense consciousness in this here. Yes. So would that be the derivative? So there's the direct experience that we don't cognize and then there's the just-deceased We do cognize but it's a cognition where it's insignificant. It's cognition but not recognition. So it's direct experience and then the next moment simultaneous so where is the just-deceased sense? Where is it? Is that being reflected? We twist your nose at this point. It's gone. It's deceased.

[85:06]

Yes? How is it that it's pointed to then? This just-deceased? How is it that it's pointed to? The operation of sense consciousness from early Buddhism there's a condition for the arising of a sense consciousness which is the immediately antecedent cognition. So for some reason or other the Buddhists are saying that one of the conditions for something to happen is what just happened. Always there's always that condition for this for this state of conscious cognition the previous one is worth mentioning. The fact that it just ended we want to mention that that is the condition for this. This cognition, whatever is happening is based on partly what just happened. Whatever it was that's immediately antecedent conditions

[86:08]

that's part of what Manas is that's part of the condition for Manas. But another condition for Manas and it's for sense consciousness another condition is the sense organ and that's called the dominant condition somehow what's really important is whether the sense organ is operating if the sense organ is operating at a level of intensity then the consciousness can arise. That's called the dominant condition. But that's not for sense consciousness it's actually the sense organism physical thing. For the Manas for the mind consciousness that function is called Manas. And that dominant condition for the sense consciousness is the same as the sense organ for the sense consciousness. The dominant condition for the mind consciousness

[87:09]

is the same as the organ for the sense consciousness. So the thing that serves as a organ for mind consciousness is the just-deceased and consciousness. The impact of consciousness is the main thing that makes a mind-consciousness arise. The impact of the justice-consciousness. And that justice-consciousness serves as, it's so powerful and so important for the arising of a mind-sense-consciousness that is called the organ, and is called manas. And that part of manas is absolutely necessary for mind-consciousness, but that's not the defiled part of manas. It's not the klesha part. It's just operating just very nicely like any other organ. Allowing mind-consciousness. And it's not, it's not actually something other than, it's not something other than the consciousness, it's a condition

[88:12]

for the consciousness, an organ-like condition for the consciousness, which is a deceased consciousness, which has a consequence. The consequence of a deceased cognition is that it can serve as a mind organ for the next mental cognition. That's its consequence. Just like the consequence of karmic formations is that they can serve as a predisposition in the next moment of consciousness, or a later moment of consciousness. Let's see, I think Shobo is next. Just my response in listening, and trying to relax, and listening and relax, I was also trying to apply it right away, and what I noticed there is that I immediately get paralyzed actually. I kind of get fearful, and I guess it has to do with, I really think, I mean first of all, there is this experience of teaching, if you put the words onto the experience,

[89:19]

it's happening, it's true, I'm really grateful for that, and yet it seems dangerous because I do put the self in there, I do put the self into vanas and anayas, and it's real, so I'm not coming away, it seems like I'm not coming away from seeing some, it's not so real, you know? It's not so what? I'm just exchanging the experience with the names. So you're telling us that you're having the very thing that I was saying is part of the danger of any explanation, so any conceptual approach has this danger. That's why the second turning is kind of nice, because whatever approach you take, we can say drop it, and that's great, but this third turning is a little bit dangerous, or quite dangerous in that way that, like Emmanuel was saying, he's trying to grasp,

[90:23]

and if he can, he's in some sense luckier than you, you're like almost able to grasp it, and then you can have a self. If you can't grasp it, he's also protected from making it into an entity, so maybe you should change minds with him. This might get into the question that Liz is going to ask, I'm not sure. You know, you talked about the ability for the mind to create subject and object, and also with the ability, right at the point where the actual, right before the point where you have the reflection, right at that moment, and you talked also about the organ, how if it's in tension, or if it's being used,

[91:28]

then there's no more room for him to get in there, so I was thinking when the mind, when you use mind to see mind, it sort of provides this tension, where at that point, right before that point where the reflection comes, this is employed, and it creates the deceased for the next moment, and if you keep that continuity going, this would pretty much take care of it. Does that make sense? One part, I didn't quite follow what you were saying, but this works with the immediate, what was the this that was working with the immediate? Say that again? I thought you said something, you were using your hand, you were saying this is working with the immediate. So the immediate arises, the immediate situation arises, and it's not a problem up until the reflection comes,

[92:36]

and then the reflection is grasped as a characteristic? The reflection is grasped. It's like the invitation is... It says in the thirty verses, the thirty verses in a sense goes into some detail that the sutra doesn't, right? So the sutra is talking about these predispositions to conventional designation, the sutra mentions that, and so does the thirty verses, so you have this immediate experience, every moment, the immediate experience is you are predisposed, you have some predisposition about how to relate to what's happening, you have a predisposition to relate to the world as though it were happening. We're not predisposed to relate to life as though it's not happening. So we have this predisposition to relate to it that way, and that's immediate, every moment that's given to us. Then we reflect on that with manas, so now we have a reflection of this predisposition,

[93:38]

some aspect of this predisposition, and this we know. But the predisposition also comes with, for example, the ability to...

[93:48]

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