Amen. We have been studying, or beginning to study, an ancient teaching. A teaching which was offered probably in the 5th century or late 4th century of the Common Era in India. And the name of this teaching is

[01:33]

Embracing the Great Vehicle. And the Great Vehicle is a a universal process of liberating beings who are suffering due to their afflicted or afflictive and diluted consciousness. So it's a teaching to embrace this vehicle to liberate beings who are suffering from delusion.

[02:48]

And it is a teaching to embrace these very minds. It is a teaching to help beings embrace the mind of delusion. For the sake of realizing liberation for all living beings. It's a teaching offered in language, so it's primarily for human beings. And part of the teaching is actually the teaching of how language and mind co-evolve. How the human mind and human language co-evolve. How language is actually part of the afflictive system and how language can be incorporated into the system of delusion

[03:56]

in order to awaken the system of delusion to the truth of the mind. And this process of receiving these teachings and paying attention to our own diluted mind with the aid of these teachings transforms our minds completely if we practice very thoroughly with these teachings and with our minds. The end result of this complete transformation is called the true body of Buddha. So at the end of this teaching on embracing the great vehicle

[05:01]

is the final chapter, is a chapter about what's the fruit of thorough study of the diluted mind together with the teachings about the diluted mind. And the fruit is the Buddha, the true body of Buddha. And that's discussed at the end of this teaching. But the teaching starts with how are diluted states, how do diluted states arise? What's their support? How do they keep going? And so on. The first chapter is called the support of the knowable or the support for all that is known.

[06:13]

And the author of this book, his name is Asanga, one of the great bodhisattvas, one of the great compassionate beings in the tradition of the Buddhist disciples. He starts off by saying in this English translation, it is first explained that the support of the knowable is termed the container consciousness. In Sanskrit this is called alaya-vijnana, container consciousness or storehouse consciousness. There is apparently an ancient text called the Avidharma Sutra or the scripture on the highest teaching

[07:33]

that quotes the Buddha as saying, from the beginningless time, this realm is a support for all things. Only if it exists do all the destinies exist. And is there access to liberation. The destinies refer to all the different modes, all the different basic modes of bondage and suffering. They all are supported by this storehouse consciousness. It supports all forms of cyclic existence, all forms of bondage and suffering.

[08:41]

However, it is also our access to liberation. The mind which supports all defiled, afflicted, deluded states, that mind is also the way we come to freedom. And the second verse, it is said that the Buddha said, the hidden ground upon which all things depend is consciousness with all its seeds. Thus I call it the container and have taught this to superior persons. Asanga then comments that these two scriptural verses express the basic structure and name of this consciousness.

[09:55]

So this consciousness is a support of all defiled states and this consciousness is also the place to enter liberation. It supports all bondage and it is also the place where the work of liberation is, you could say, centered. The state of consciousness is unconscious. So it is an unconscious state of mind that supports all defiled states and it is the place of transformation to become free of these defiled states

[11:07]

and to realize a Buddha. So, it is our past. Not our past in the sense that it is the things that have gone away. Not our past in the sense of all of our experiences that have passed. It is our past in terms of the consequences of our past. It is the results of our past. It is our past presented to us as a consciousness. And whenever we are aware, the consciousness, which is the result of all of our past awarenesses,

[12:21]

is supporting our present awareness. And this past, which is the result of all of our past knowing, is the support of our present knowing and we do not know it. However, by paying attention to our present knowing, especially with instructions about how to pay attention to our present knowing, our past is transformed. Our past is constantly transformed even if we don't pay attention to our present consciousness. If we do not pay attention to what we are thinking now, what we are experiencing now, if we don't pay attention to it, this present unattended state of consciousness

[13:23]

immediately, simultaneously supports the past, which supports it. However, if we pay attention to our deluded mind, with the aid of teachings about the deluded mind, the past is transformed in a different way. The past is the seeds for all of our present consciousness. This past, unconscious, this results of the past, this consciousness, which is the result of the past, supports our present mental functioning that we are aware of. And our present mental functioning is right now transforming the results of our past. If we pay attention to our present functioning and receive teachings about our present functioning,

[14:25]

the way our present functioning transforms our past is that it makes new impressions, right now, new impressions on the vast reservoir of results of past action. It plants seeds of Buddha in this ocean of seeds for defiled, deluded, afflictive consciousnesses. In this way, this text is proposing that by attending to our conscious mind we could eventually completely transform our unconscious mind and the completely transformed unconscious mind is called the true body of Buddha, or the teaching body of Buddha. So now, I'm conveying this teaching to you from 1600 years ago.

[15:42]

It could be called a Mahayana, a great vehicle, model of mind. It's a model of mind to help us study our mind, have it be transformed into the great vehicle. By using these teachings to embrace our mind, we also come to eventually embrace the great vehicle, realize the great vehicle, and then offer it to others to help them embrace their mind, realize their mind, realize the Buddha, and help others. Lately, for a while, I've been asking people who come to see me, I've been asking them, Do you want to be an artist? Most people have said yes.

[16:45]

I ask you today, do you want to be an artist? Some people have said to me, I am an artist. But still, I ask, do you want to be an artist? Some people say, do you want to be a man? And some of you might say, I am a man. But then I still say, do you want to be? Do you want to work at that? Do you want to be a woman? I am a woman. Fine, do you want to be a woman? I didn't ask anybody, do you want to be deluded? If I did, someone might say, I am deluded. And I might say, yes, but do you want to be deluded?

[17:53]

It's hard to want to be deluded, for some of us. Even though we are. Even though we say, yes, I am. Are you deluded? Yes, I am. Do you want to be? I don't know if I want to be. Do you want to be the way you are? I don't know if I want to be the way I am. I'm not telling you that you have to want to be deluded. But, I might say, well, if you are deluded, would you like to embrace this delusion? And if you say, no, I don't want to embrace this delusion, then I might say, oh, so, let me ask you, do you want to embrace the great vehicle? And then you say, what's the great vehicle? It's the path of liberation of all beings. It's the path of Buddhahood. Now, do you want to embrace the great vehicle?

[18:58]

And you say, yes. I say, okay, one of the requirements of embracing the great vehicle is to embrace the mind of delusion. If I'm not willing to embrace the mind of delusion, I won't be able to embrace the great vehicle. What's the question about artists have to do with this? Well, what it has to do with this is that if you are willing to embrace and sustain, if you're willing to fully engage the mind of delusion, then you would be able to gradually, more and more fully engage the great unconscious mind which supports this mind of delusion.

[19:59]

You would, in other words, become an artist. Because you would, by taking care of what you can see, you would start to work with what you can't see. And what you can't see is the creative process by which the mind arises. But you would, in that way, be entering into this process which is going on anyway. It's a creative process where a mind is arising moment by moment and ceasing moment by moment, but it's not arising by itself. It's arising with another mind in this model. In this Mahayana model of the mind, there's at least two. There's a conscious one, and the conscious one can actually be of six types, or seven. And the unconscious is of one type.

[21:05]

But the one type is all the seeds for all possible defiled mental states. If we are unwilling to embrace the defiled mental states, then we're unable to embrace this causal process where the unconscious is right there. And the unconscious is actually working with... excuse me, the conscious is actually working with the unconscious. The unconscious is supporting the conscious, and the conscious is transforming the unconscious. Every moment. If we don't fully engage the unconscious, we don't engage the process of transforming... Did I say if we don't fully engage the conscious? If we don't fully engage our conscious, deluded mind, which is not that easy to engage sometimes, because it's so painful and deluded. It even sometimes thinks it's not deluded.

[22:07]

Now, some of you might think, when it thinks it's not deluded, I have an easier time embracing it. When it thinks it's enlightenment, I'm willing to embrace it. Well, that's good. At least you're willing to embrace a delusion of grandeur. That's good. Delusions of grandeur need to be embraced. If you embrace a delusion of grandeur, you're embracing something that is transforming its support. It's impacting, it's perfuming, it's impregnating the great unconscious which supports all states, all things. All things that we experience are supported by this seed reservoir, this container consciousness. We're constantly in a creative process with it. It is giving rise to our conscious life. We are it, actually.

[23:11]

And our conscious life is supported by it, and our conscious life is transforming it all the time. This teaching is saying, one, two, three, let's get ready to embrace this deluded mind completely with the aid of all kinds of practices of compassion. And if we can fully engage it, we enter into the process of making a Buddha. And we do this together. There's an intra-psychic part of it, and there's an inter-subjective. Interpersonal part of it. There's a way I work on it by myself, myself, and there's a way I work on it myself, with yourself. Or my consciousness with your consciousness.

[24:13]

We need both. That's why we have this talk here, so that the teachings of the ancestors can come out in the room and interact with all of our active consciousnesses. And when your active consciousnesses are thinking of these teachings, your active consciousnesses are more ready to be fully engaged, fully embraced, and therefore more ready to plunge into the process by which this past becomes our present and future. And as we enter this process, we can speak about what's most vital and important in living beings. What's most important? What's most important is cruelty and kindness.

[25:16]

What's most important is delusion and enlightenment. What's most important is birth and death. That's the stuff of living beings. And we can speak and act upon these important things with authority if we enter into this creative process, which is going on anyway. So the question is, do you want to be an artist? Do you want to plunge into and be immersed in this process which you are plunged into and immersed in right now? We're in it anyway, but do you want to get into it? And do you need any help? And the ancestors said, yes I do, and I do need help. And the ancestors were helped by the ancestors. These are teachings to help us become artists, to become beings who are in this creative process and therefore can speak to what's most important in life for living beings.

[26:24]

I just want to read one more little section, if I may. May I? So, Asanga asks, why did the Buddha teach that this consciousness is called a container? And I just want to say that for me, it's called a container consciousness, but it's not a container in addition to what it contains. It is also called all the seeds. It's the consciousness which is all the seeds. So it's all the seeds. It's kind of like, what do you call it, a bee swarm. Have you ever seen a bee swarm? It's like this ball of bees floating through the air. You know, it's a swarm. It's all the bees. But there's not a hive around the bees. It's not a flying hive. It's the inhabitants of a hive, congealed and moving through space together. And then they sometimes land in a tree.

[27:32]

That swarm is actually, I think it would have been better if the Buddha had said swarm consciousness. The swarm of all seeds. But no matter how the Buddha puts it, we have a tendency to make a container of all the seeds. It's called a container because all the seeds are gathered together. All the seeds are embraced. But it's not like there's a consciousness that comes along without the seeds and embraces the seeds. The consciousness is just the gathering and the embracing of all the seeds. And the seeds are the seeds of all states, and the seeds are also the results of all states. So they're permeations or perfumings as results, and they're seeds as cause.

[28:34]

It's the same thing. They're results and they're causes. And they're gathered together very nicely, and none of them slip away from the swarm. They're all together. They're all associated. So how come the Buddha called this consciousness the great swarm? Because the results of defiled states of all sentient beings lie concealed and stored up in those mental states as their cause. All of our mental states, all of our past mental states, the results of all of our past mental states are in our present mental states. The results of all of our past karma

[29:41]

is in our present mental states. But it's hidden and concealed. We can't see our whole history of all of our actions in our present mental states, but they're here. And the way they're here as a cause, that's the container consciousness. It's here, hidden in our present mental states, as a cause. And what is it? It's the result of all of our past mental states. Furthermore, so it's both cause and result. It's called the resultant, and the resultant is the support of our present consciousness. So it's the result of our past active consciousness and it's the support of our present active consciousness, but it's hidden in our present consciousness. It's right here, but we can't see it. And what we're thinking now, which depends on it, transforms it.

[30:44]

It supports us thinking this way, and the way we think transforms it. So it's totally in us, and also in us as active conscious beings, and it's also not our active consciousness. They're not part of each other. They're two different types of consciousness. And furthermore, it is called the container consciousness inasmuch as all sentient beings, clinging to an image of selfhood, are themselves contained within this consciousness, or within the confines of this consciousness. And can I read one more?

[31:55]

Yeah, question. Yes? It's interesting, at the beginning of this chapter, quite a few people ask that question, which is dealt with at the end of this chapter. However, hey, so what? The answer is at the end of the chapter. Or one answer. The answer is that this consciousness can be spoken of in terms of, well, of having three kinds. There's three kinds of this consciousness, and also it can be spoken of as having four kinds. So you might be interested in what the three kinds are, but because she didn't ask about what the three kinds are,

[32:59]

I'm not going to tell you right now what the three kinds are. I'm just going to go on to the four kinds. But since she didn't ask about the four kinds, I'm just going to talk about the fourth kind. And the fourth kind of this consciousness is this consciousness in terms of its characteristics. And the characteristics of this consciousness in this text are spoken of as two. There's two characteristics. One characteristic is called the common characteristic. The other is called the uncommon characteristic, or the specific characteristic. The common characteristic of this consciousness is our experience of the physical world. So our experience of this room, and of California, or the planet Earth, the solar system, our experience of the physical world is the common characteristic of this consciousness. All sentient beings working together

[34:03]

have created the common characteristic of this consciousness, which is the physical world in which we live. And we live in that physical world with non-humans too, and they live in it with us. They also have past karma. But their past karma is different from our past karma because our past karma has language in it. And so our world is a language-constructed world, and theirs is not. But they kind of live in the same world. They think we're in their world, and we think they're in our world. But the world they see is constructed by different karma than ours,

[35:06]

so it looks different to them. But ours, because our karma is quite similar in terms of that we're language beings, our world has a similarity for us. That's the common characteristic. The individual characteristic is our individual sense organs, our individual sense organs and our individual sense fields. So in the vast possibilities of sensory experience, I'm looking at some things right now that you're not looking at, and vice versa. And my sense organs are specifically focused on things that your sense organs are specifically not focused on. You're specifically sensing other things. That is the uncommon characteristic of this consciousness. So it both supports, it's connected to our sense organs and supports our specific sense experience, which is not common among us. And it also supports a common experience like language

[36:13]

and supports a world wherein the people who get to be in this world that we're talking about here, they are admitted to this world by language. Language karma. Not just language, but language which they act out. That's the common aspect of this consciousness. I'll just read a little bit more. Scriptures such as the scripture which we call Explaining the Profound Meaning or Explaining the Profound Intimacy, the Samya Nirmachana Sutra, which I've just been given the manuscript of a book about the Samya Nirmachana Sutra.

[37:15]

Called The Third Turning of the Wheel. That scripture says, the appropriating consciousness, which is another name for the container consciousness, is deep and subtle. Constantly flowing along with all the seeds of things. It's the seeds for all of our active consciousness and it's the seed for the world we live in. It's the seeds for linguistic karma and therefore the seeds for the world that the speakers of karma, of speakers of language are living in together. It's the seed for all of our mental states and it's the seed for the world we live in. It's the seeds for all things. It's the seeds for our sense of the universe, for our experience of totality.

[38:17]

And then he says, I have not taught this to common worldlings because they would reify it and cling to it as a self. So, I'm telling you about what Vasubandhu said, what the Buddha said, and this teaching is for the enlightened person that you can be. This is for you who will not reify these teachings, who will not make this storehouse consciousness into a self and cling to it. That's who this teaching is for, so please be such a person. However, I know there's a tendency, when you say container, to make a container something in addition to the contained. That's why I start out by saying there's not something in addition to the contained. There's no self in addition to the things that the self is made of. This consciousness is not something in addition to all the seeds. It's not something in addition to all of our, the results of all of our past action.

[39:24]

You have to be careful now, if you see any reifying going on, to be very kind to it. The reifying will occur in your active consciousness, if it does, you need to be really kind to it, and put it in a little envelope and send it to me. Yes? Where did all the ingredients come from, for the container? What is the origin of the origin? The origin of the origin? Yeah, when did, I guess you could say, well, the Big Bang, would be one answer. Yeah, but what, what were, what was the origin of the ingredients that created the Big Bang? I guess the origins of the Big Bang were the Big Not Bang, or the Medium Size Not Bang, or the Not Big Not Bang.

[40:26]

The Not Big Not Bang. The Not Big Not Bang is the origin of the Big Bang. Yeah, or you could just say, Not Big Bang is the origin of the Big Bang. I think that's what they say, isn't it? That there was a Not Big Bang, and then there was a Big Bang. And the Not Big Bang was like, you know, like it was a point, right? In total darkness, wasn't it? It was a singularity. Not a Not Big Bang. But, you know, then there was a Bang. And the source of the Bang was the Not Big Bang. That's the question. Hm? That's the question. That's the question. But now that we've had the Big Bang, there's been the arising of ignorance. There's been the arising, in this cosmic situation, there's been the arising of living beings that could imagine

[41:32]

that they're separate from the universe. Like I often draw the picture, if I have a blackboard to draw on, I draw a circle, and I say this circle is the universe, and it has a little bump on the top. It's the universe, and there's something, there's a little bump in addition to the universe. And guess what that bump is? What is the thing that's in addition to the universe? Me. Yeah. So she's kindly pretending to be a sentient being. Sentient beings think that they're in addition to the universe. They don't think other people are in addition to the universe. They know everybody's included in the universe, and then there's me. So there's all the seeds for all the states, plus me. There's always plus me, and then I can, since I'm in addition to all the seeds, I can grab the seeds. I can collect them. I can open a store and sell seeds. So this ignorance has arisen among living beings,

[42:37]

and when did it start? I don't know. Did it have a start? Does it have an origin? And are starts and origins something that living beings make up? Well, this text says, yeah, the starts and origins we're concerned about are the starts and origins that are supported by our past karma. So our present active consciousness can think about starts and origins, but our ability to think that way is supported by past thoughts that way. And you say, well, was there an original thought of origin? Was there an origin of the thought of origin? Or was that put together by some other things? And where was the start of them? And so on. And understanding this will actually come to you in a little while. But first of all, before you're omniscient, it's required that you engage your non-omniscient mind.

[43:43]

All of us have non-omniscient minds, which are defiled by a sense of separation from other beings. Or we think we're separate from the universe, or in addition to the universe. Or we think containers are in addition. Like this cup seems to be a container in addition to the water or to the tea inside. This cup seems to be in addition to the space it contains. But is it really in addition? No, it's not really. But we can think that way. And our ability to think that way, or our thinking that way, is supported by the results of our past karma, which is present right now, supporting us to be able to have this diluted consciousness. And it's going to keep supporting us

[44:43]

until it's totally transformed by the teachings and practices of the great vehicle, of the model, the great vehicle's model of mind. And the great vehicle's model of mind has this storehouse consciousness in it. Early Buddhism had this storehouse consciousness, but it was barely noticeable. Early Buddhism seemed to just be talking about the conscious mind. And it taught people how to be present with the conscious mind. And if you're present with the conscious mind, beneficial things start happening. Actually, when you're present with the conscious mind, you start transforming the unconscious mind. Whether you know or heard about it or not, you still transform it by presence and mindfulness. The Mahayana model of mind, the great vehicle model of mind, is now tipping people off to the whole creative process in a more articulated and explicit way. Yes? Yes? Charlie?

[45:49]

When you ask the question, do you want to be an artist, do you mean now or in the future? I mean now and in the future. I mean, have you been wanting to be and are you going to continue to want to be in the present? And do you want to continue in the future? Would you like this to have a beginning and no end? What help is it to want that or not in the present moment? It might help you engage in the present moment. And not only engaging in the present moment, but to realize that engaging in the present moment involves, involves or, yeah, involves or entails, entails engaging in the support for the arising of the present moment. In other words, that you're involved, that the creative process involves the unconscious.

[46:53]

That it's not just manipulation of your conscious mind, it's working with your conscious mind in order to interact with and transform the unconscious. Which is why when we think of doing good things, we try, but then because of the influence of past unkind karma, we are unsuccessful of just constantly thinking of kindness. So it kind of, it encourages us to keep trying working even though it's quite difficult, because it explains why it would be really difficult. This teaching explains that it's going to be really difficult for us to actually be artists 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Because of this teaching says that it's going to be hard. When you ask, when I contemplate, do I want to be deluded? My answer is, yes and no. Or yes, I want to be deluded.

[47:56]

And yes, I want to be enlightened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's allowed. Totally allowed. Yes, I want to be deluded for the welfare of all beings. Because in order to help all beings, I need to embrace the way I am. I have to willingly plunge into the world of delusion where I'm living. So again, sometimes the image of the enlightening being is that they're in this ocean of delusion with all the other deluded beings, but they are there because there's something really good about being there, which is helping other beings. So they aren't just like, oh, this is really terrible. This is really terrible and I want to be here. And I want to stay here until everybody catches on to how wonderful it is to be in this terrible situation with all the other suffering beings.

[48:57]

And so I want to be here. I want to embrace this. I don't like it. It's painful, but I want to be here. And I'm saying that because saying that is verbal karma which takes me into a new world. I'm transforming the world when I say I want to. I'm getting closer to creating the world of Buddha every time I say I want to live in this world for the welfare of all beings. Buddha says in the Lotus Sutra, I'm always thinking that. Buddha's always doing the mental karma of thinking. Buddha's thinking, I'm always thinking. I'm always thinking of what? How to help beings enter the great way and quickly realize Buddhahood. Buddha's always planting that seed, kindly dealing with her active consciousness, and being able to actually constantly make her active consciousness this thought

[50:03]

along with lots of other good thoughts. But this one, the Buddha says, I'm always thinking of this one. I'm always transforming the consciousness in this way and I'm always showing other people it might be a boring world if we were all thinking this, but anyway, this would transform the entire world into Buddha if we would all constantly think of helping others enter this way, of constantly thinking of how to help others enter this way. Which is saying, if you want enlightenment, then you should want, if you want to embrace and sustain enlightenment, then you should want to embrace and sustain delusion, which is the same as saying, I want to embrace and sustain living beings because they are deluded. Since they're deluded, I want to embrace their delusion, but I want to embrace them for their welfare. And I do sometimes get queasy,

[51:05]

and then I want to embrace that queasiness, because that queasiness is another variety of delusion. Jacques? Yeah, I was going to say, we were talking about earlier, the question about the beginning of the origin of delusion. Yeah. And one thing that I was thinking while I was sitting upstairs was that my legs were hurting. Yeah. That I was just a guest. Because every position that I choose to sit, my heart will tend to do its own thing, and I'll feel my body bounce. And it came to me that I was a guest in my own body, that everything had its own will, my body has its own will, but it's like, boring, what happened. And so my question to you now is that, is the origin of all things, as we're saying, depending on it, is it enlightenment in itself? Coming to that realization that even being a guest in itself

[52:06]

is to acknowledge all these things that are going, and that maybe you want to start acknowledging things, that's when things begin for you. Well, again, not being a fully realized Buddha, I don't know what the best answer to that question is, but I would say that the Dharma is there before the Big Bang. Not even before, the Dharma is there with the Big Bang. Enlightenment, I don't know if we need enlightenment unless we have suffering beings. If everybody's cool with no Big Bang and Big Bang, I don't know if we need enlightenment. Then we just have reality. It's when people get separate from reality that we have to have special reality courses and reality TV. But if nobody's separate from reality, if there's no Big Bang and people aren't being blown away from reality,

[53:08]

we don't need enlightenment. Enlightenment, I don't think, has much point aside from delusion. And we don't really need reality, we've just got it. What we need to do is get in accord with it, if we're not. And if we have delusion, we need enlightenment then, because delusion needs enlightenment. In fact, so the teaching is, yes, we've got delusion and we've got enlightenment that can be brought into intimate contact with it. So enlightenment is willing to embrace delusion. And if we do that, along the way we will just get some omniscience about stuff like origins and stuff like that. But the omniscience may just turn out to be nothing more than what I said. Namely, the origins of things is not the origin of things. That's really the end of the story. But at the beginning of the story you may be looking for something better than that. I didn't want to be, for the last year,

[54:12]

I felt like I didn't want to be an artist anymore. But at the same time, today I kind of come realizing that basically all that entails suffering. Yeah, yeah. And to say, yes, I want to be an artist, and yes, I want to suffer. Yep, yep. I mean, you could say, I want to be an artist, and say, but I don't want to suffer. And I would say, well, fine, but you're not going to be able to be an artist, even if you want to, if you're not willing to embrace suffering. Art, to open to beauty and art, we have to open to suffering. You can't close to suffering and then find another door into art. You can't be in this world, you know, and close to other beings in this world. You have to open to suffering. You have to open to anxiety and fear. We have to do that. And because of our past karma,

[55:14]

which is presented to us by our unconscious mind, it produces, it supports the arising of minds which say, well, I don't know if I really want to be open to all this suffering. Or, I don't know if I want to, but I'm willing to consider possibly learning to be. I can see, yeah, I can see, I can see. It makes sense to me that I have to open to everything in order to open to everything. That I'm not going to be able to see the truth if I'm closed to one single suffering being. But I can open a little bit to the truth if I open a little bit to one being. Yeah. If I embrace a little bit one sense of being, I'm embracing the truth a little, right. Now, do you want to be an artist and do the hard practice of opening to all suffering, which means opening to true beauty and true truth? Well, I'd like to learn that. But I can't really say yes right now. In specific cases, there are some beings who are suffering. I actually do feel some limit in how much I'm willing to open to it.

[56:15]

But I'd like to learn how to completely open to it eventually because I realize it's necessary. That's the word from the ancestors, is we have to completely transform our unconscious mind in order to realize Buddha for the welfare of all beings. But it's a gradual process. And so we should be kind to our present state of openness to suffering, our present state of artistic activity, which is to some extent constricted and limited and tight. So being mean to the fact that we're not open to everybody will just make us closed more. If you see somebody who's not open to somebody and you're mean to them, they'll just say, OK, well, I'm going to close to everything now. I was just opening a little bit, and now you're punishing me for not opening to all. Well, I'm just going to close all the way down then. I don't want to be an artist. If you force me to open up anymore, I'm going to close down all the way.

[57:20]

OK, please, we accept your present level of openness. That's enough. That's great. Thank you. Yes. So when I think about the Mahayana vehicle, it's power and bodhichitta, the whole bodhisattva intention. Yeah. This transformation could be something as straightforward as transforming my karma just to simple karma. Yeah, it could be just that simple. So your karma is arising based on the results of your past karma. My karma is arising, all of our karma is arising every moment based on the results of our past karma. And then if there's teachings that are coming into our present karma, teachings that are saying, be very attentive and kind to your present karma.

[58:21]

That will be good for everybody. And we let those teachings in. Even if somebody else is saying, I don't really want to practice these teachings yet, but I'll let them in for later consideration. The teachings are getting in, the dharma is getting in, and then if it's in our present karma, it becomes part of our past karma and supports the gradual process of filling alaya, filling the storehouse consciousness with all kinds of... filling it, filling it, filling it, filling it with dharma and dharma practices. With dharma and the results of trying to practice dharma. Along with more or less infinite past of ignorance of dharma and practicing in accordance with ignorance. They're all there too. So by depersonalizing our karma... Depersonalizing is one of the things that's recommended to do with your karma. Receive teachings to depersonalize it.

[59:23]

Right along with why you're personalizing it. Depersonalize it. Be kind to the personalizing, that will help you join the depersonalizing. That gives rise to Buddha. That gives rise to Buddha, yes, that's right. Is language required for enlightenment? What would enlightenment be without language? Is language... Is language... For human beings, enlightenment is free of language, but we live in a world that we enter by language, so the Buddhas manifest language and send language to us. Because language can transform the mind, which is created by language, and language can transform the world created by language. So for human beings, we need to receive the dharma, partly anyway, in language. Dharma can be conveyed to other beings in non-linguistic forms

[60:27]

because they live in non-linguistic worlds. So Buddhas can teach beings in other realms without using language. But for us, the world we live in is language-constructed, so it must be language-liberated. So the Buddhas... The Great Silent One, the Buddhas, the Great Silent One, our historical Buddhas, the Great Silent One, Muni, Muni, Mahamuni, Great Silent One, very talkative creature, talking a lot. Not all day long. He was quiet part of the day. Like when he was eating, I don't think he talked. He put the food in his mouth. Actually, we don't know, but he recommended that when you're eating, not to talk. Just concentrate on the experience of chewing the food. So I don't think the Buddha was talking while he was eating. There were breaks in the talk. But he did say a lot.

[61:28]

And because human beings live in a language-constructed world, so the words come in there to show us a world which is free of these constructions. Yes? So to be free from this unconscious, unconsciousness, unconscious mind, we at some point, I don't know when that point is, not to plant any seeds. When there's no seed. When we plant... No, we actually want to promote the planting of Dharma seeds, of Buddha seeds into this unconscious. We want to do that. We want to keep planting them until there's enough seeds in there so that all the seeds of delusion have been completely antidoted or transformed into wisdom. So there's a lot of Dharma seed planting

[62:35]

that needs to be encouraged. So as you may or may not know, I just told you Buddha says in the Lotus Sutra, I'm always planting karmic seeds. I'm always thinking. But what I'm thinking is to plant this Buddha seed over and over every moment. So you could just spend the rest of your life constantly thinking of how you can help beings enter in the path of freedom and enlightenment. Just constantly think of that, which is constantly going, that karma of thinking that is going to constantly plant these kinds of seeds, and these seeds will mix with the seeds of, well, what about me? That's mine and not yours. Those seeds, the seeds which are the result of that kind of thinking are there too. We want to put Dharma in there too. In whatever form you can put it in. English, German, Chinese, you know,

[63:36]

there's many ways of thinking that are planting Dharma seeds. And we just keep planting them until our whole past is completely transformed. That's the idea of this teaching, of this model. Yes? I didn't quite hear what you said. If that happens in a specific what? Yes, it does. He said, if you, she said if a specific unconscious is transformed, and again, I don't know if there's a specific unconscious, there's two, there's a specific and there's a common. And both specific and common are part of this consciousness, which you'll learn more about.

[64:38]

But anyway, just in terms of those two points, when we care for our, however we care for our active karmic consciousness, however we care for it, it permeates or it influences our unconscious. And it influences our unconscious which has two aspects. One aspect of our unconscious is common. We share it. And that is the physical world we live in. It transforms the physical world when we care for our conscious in a certain way. And it transforms it in another way when we transform it in another way, when we take care of our active conscious in another way. And it also transforms our specific uncommon unconscious. So our unconscious has shared aspect and unshared aspect. And the way we care for our conscious life, the way we practice with karmic consciousness influences the whole thing which has these two characteristics. Yes?

[65:41]

Do you remember in what context you mentioned Vasubandhu a little bit ago? Yeah, Vasubandhu is Asanga's brother, younger brother. Oh. So these two great... How did he write that word? They must have had a great mom. They have the same mom. And she, I don't know, you know, you can say various things, various things, but anyway, she thought, I want to make, I want to have two children or more who will become as much as possible like Buddhas. And I think I've got some really good eggs here. So I want to make two great... And so she had these two sons with two different fathers and she really encouraged them to practice the Dharma and they became these great, these great teachers. Yeah. And what did he write? Who? Vasubandhu that relates to his brother's writing.

[66:42]

Well, one thing that Vasubandhu wrote was a commentary on this text. He wrote commentaries on some of his brother's writing, but he also wrote the Abhidharma Kosha and he wrote a commentary on the Heart Sutra, on the Diamond Sutra. He wrote various independent tracts on various teachings about Karma. Anyway, he did a lot of writing and his brother also did a lot of writing. The stories of them, if you encourage me, there will be many stories about Vasubandhu and Asanga happily recited by the person you're stimulating to recite them. Yes, Gloria? What I was thinking, it's all connected today, is what it feels like, everything connected today. I had been feeling that as a working artist,

[67:43]

my work was taking me further and further away from the world of art. And then it got clear that my work actually plunged me into the heart of art. I saw that today while I was sitting. I have a very tight hip flexor and so it gets uncomfortable. But instead of pushing the pain away, I remember you saying something at some point about moving away from pain. And I just figured, OK, let me be here, deal with this pain and not like being here with this pain and whatever. And the course of that, unexpectedly, these haiku just started bubbling up like a spring. Each haiku got better, it felt to me, more joyful, more alive. So we don't say move towards pain and we don't say move away from it. We say, don't move towards or away. We say, turning away and touching are both wrong,

[68:44]

for it is like a massive fire. If you go away from it, you'll freeze. If you touch it, you'll burn. So we stay close to the suffering or we just stay in the present relationship. We don't go away or towards. We sit upright with it. And if we can sit upright with it, that's one of the ways for caring for your active conscious mind, which will then stimulate this relationship with the creative process, will help you enter the creative process. Because it's entering that that will make our offering in this world most alive. But it means opening to pain. You don't have to go towards the pain and you don't have to go away from it. You just have to honor your present relationship with it and then try to cultivate the teaching of opening to your present pain, your present personhood,

[69:48]

your present suffering, your present delusions. Try to cultivate opening to it. And that is how we transform the vast mind of the results of this vast past karma, which is supporting all of our present karmic consciousness. Yes? The funny thing was, by the fourth haiku, the pain scene, it was gone. And I don't know what that's about. Well, yeah, I'm sorry that does happen sometimes. Wait, wait, wait. It's back now. I was missing it, but it was just a glimpse of something. Thank you. That reminds me of the story of... I was sitting in one of my first sessions

[70:51]

at Zen Center when Zen Center was located over in Japantown. And I was having lots of pain in my bodily area. And I went to see Suzuki Roshi and I sat down and we started to have an interview. And I don't know how long we were talking, but for a while, not too long, less than half an hour we were talking. And then he said, excuse me. And he said, just stay here, I'll be back. And then he went out and the room, the interview room was on the first floor of the temple and the Zenda was up above that room. And I heard him going up the stairs and I heard him going down the hall to his office, which is next to the Zenda. And I heard the office door open and close and then I heard

[71:52]

noon service start, chanting noon service, the Heart Sutra, where it says no suffering and so on. And so I heard the chant, then I heard the service end and then I heard the chant for the meal service going on. So there was lunch up there. And he told me to wait here for him, so I was waiting downstairs and lunch was going on upstairs. And then after lunch was over, I heard all the students going down the stairs and then I heard him finally come down the stairs and he came in the room, opened the door and he said, oh, I wasn't sure if he actually had forgotten me or if this was a big setup, because I was sitting there for about almost two hours in full lotus

[72:54]

and there was no pain. And at a certain point I noticed it, I thought, wow, is this some kind of trick he's done on me? To sort of like put me in this trance and then let me see that that there's no pain for two hours. And he came back and then he said, oh, and then he sat down, we continued the interview and then we ended it and that was that. But it was interesting that if I was upstairs, you know, sitting that long was really, really difficult, but somehow it just wasn't there. So then I went back after lunch and sat and pain came right back, pretty much the same. But it was helpful to see this mysterious disappearance of it without anything happening to make it come. Yeah, it's helpful to see that occasionally. And then with that encouragement, okay, now that I've seen the truth, now I can suffer for the rest of my life.

[73:56]

Bring it on. Please. For the welfare of all beings. And if I shrink back from it, if it seems too much, may kindness and compassion come to this suffering and to this hesitation to open to the suffering. Because opening to suffering is the primary act of compassion towards suffering. But sometimes we just feel like, where's the compassion? I just want to get out of here. Well, that's something again to be kind to. I want to have a different body. Okay, we know it. Now I have this strange thing on my elbow, which apparently is a bursitis.

[75:01]

For some reason or other, the bursas above and below the tip of the elbow have swelled up. I don't know. It's kind of annoying. I'm kind of annoyed by it. But I'm being careful not to wish too much that it will go away, even though I kind of would like it to go away. I'm kind of like, okay, this can be my problem. This can be my physical problem now. Rather than wish this one away and then see what its successor is. So I've committed to keep going through this teaching. We've done the first three little sections of the text

[76:06]

and we did something at the end of the text today. With Karen's help, we went to the end of the text to, I believe, like the 60th section. And I told you, one of the four sections and I haven't told you of the three types. So there's all kinds of wonderful opportunities ahead of us if you would wish to continue studying this text. In the meantime, perhaps that's enough for now. And we can... Yes? Would you like to mention the text and the translator? Would I like to mention it? This text has been translated by John Keenan and it's published by the Numata Institute as I mentioned on Thursday night over at the center of the universe, Berkeley. And as a public service

[77:13]

Shokuchi is willing to receive your orders and order the books for you as a Bodhisattic act. Is that correct? It is. Yeah. And the Numata Institute will give us, you know, what do you call it? The Educational Institute discount. So we will make an order and if you'd like to... It's like only $15 or so. So you can get this wonderful little book for $15. There is also an online version of it which is translated... which was translated into French by the great scholar Étienne Lamotte and that's been translated from French into English so that's available online if you want to look at it. It's got lots of footnotes so you can really get into it. But you don't have to study the text. You can just hang out with me

[78:17]

and I'll give it to you. But you can also study it if you like, of course. That's wonderful. That will be an experience for you. You'll be amazed by what you see there. But I don't exactly recommend it. Thank you. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Divisions are indisastable. I vow to end them.

[79:21]

Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Would you please pass this to Johnny? Would you mark that text at the place that you recited this morning? Or just tell me where it is and I'll mark it.

[80:03]

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