I left the topic of the alaya-vijnana gestational time to last. Because it's one of the most subtle and hard to experientially present aspects of Yogacara Buddhism. But I think without the concept and practice of the laya vijnana, Buddhism doesn't really hold together. And I also left it to last because the more we've talked about and been together, the more likely we can be.

[01:03]

find the connectedness which allows us to make sense of this. So let me start out with the bridging of space. And the philosophical and practice aspects that led to the creation of the concept of the Alaya-Vijjana appeared to me too when I tried to work with this initial mind of bodily mind.

[02:20]

The Bosnian mind is a starting point and a grounding in a pluralistic world. So bodily time is a pace rooted in the metabolism of the body. Contextual time is a pace rooted in circumstance, context, contingency and bodily time. Kontextuelle Zeit ist eine Schrittgeschwindigkeit, die im Kontext wurzelt, in den Umständen, in der Kontingenz und aber auch in der weiblichen Zeit.

[03:59]

But there's also phenomena in its complexity. And we can call that phenomena in its complexity perhaps allness. Okay, but what is the pace or rhythm of allness Well, I mean, it's so complex, there's no way to exactly adjust to it. And part of the dynamic of being a yogi is to develop a subtlety to pace so you can tune in to the pace of situations and other persons.

[05:07]

But first of all to tune in to your own faith. And through that tune in to as the basis to the paces of others in the world and situation. So you can try that out. Try out walking in the forest at the pace of one tree or three trees. I try that when I walk in the forest with the...

[06:08]

And if you do that you're going to find out probably that you have to start with stillness. Stillness is sort of pace zero. You could say stillness is the source pace. Another way of talking about a source or an initial mind is to discover the stillness in yourself, immovable mind and so forth, imperturbable mind. It's often likened metaphorically to water, which is always trying to turn to stillness.

[07:39]

Even in the waves you can see it trying to return to stillness. And the concept in Buddhism is, in fact, fundamental mind itself is the mind that is trying to return to stillness and does return to stillness. Stillness becomes a way to enter allness. It's like a zero pace which includes all paces. Okay, so in the

[08:44]

The first five are the physical senses. The sixth is the mind that accompanies each of the five senses and has a presence of its own. We might say it's the first cousin of the percept-only mind. Okay, so then the sixth, I mean the seventh then is Manas, which is the mind of consciousness and editing. And it parallels Freud's idea of consciousness as editing and repressing and so forth. And the eighth vijnana is the so-called alaya vijnana, which is translated as storehouse consciousness.

[10:27]

And trying to make sense of this, you have to distinguish it from Freud's unconscious. Because at least in a simple sense the source of the unconscious is what's repressed or suppressed from the consciousness. But the source of the laya vijnana is allness. It includes, you know, suppressed grains, etc. But it's a concept virtually identical with the Tathagatagarbha as a word for the world.

[11:53]

And Tathagatagarbha, as you know, means coming, going womb embryo. So that the world that we live in is not a universe or multiverse or something. It's an activity of coming and going which is simultaneously a womb and an embryo. Yes, and you are always in the midst of pregnancy. Okay.

[12:57]

So, and this comes about because if you have the five senses and the mind that accompanies the five senses and then you have an editing mind, What do you do with karma? What do you do with all the accumulation of all of your life experience? Almost all of it never reaches consciousness. It doesn't fit into the categories of consciousness. It doesn't fit into any predictable concepts, etc. It just is. It's what is. So the alive jhana is conceptualized as All of the, everything that's happened to you through the senses and mind, particularly things you've brought attention to, but not consciousness.

[14:22]

And this is not a storehouse, it's much better to call it a gestational, gestating space. Because it is also an activity. Not just dead storage. It's interacting with itself and with all of the accumulations and so forth. Now, those who develop this concept based on their experience of meditation ask, well, if the objects of the eye are forms and the objects of the ear, say, are sounds or...

[15:31]

And the object of mind is mental formations of thoughts. What are the objects of this accumulated mind we're calling gestational mind? Okay, now gestational mind is also functioning through self-reflection. Now, when it's functioning through self-reflection, you have what's called an organ body, believe it or not, an organ body, a karmic body, and a vessel body. Still with me? A karmic body.

[17:03]

A body through your accumulated karma. An organ body means your identification with your organs as self. And the vessel body, you know, I'm going to venture today to call it frozen attentional space. And I'm going to define trauma as frozen attentional space. Okay, now the image for the vessel body And we could call it frozen event space too.

[18:11]

Some event that's frozen in time. And the image of it, it's like being born as a bird. But you're in a cage. If the requital, what you deserve, the requital body is the cage. The koito means you received it and you deserve to receive it. Okay, so it's interesting if we do play with this image in relationship to trauma. Because the first step is to get out of the cage.

[19:13]

And it says, by studying your behavior, you can get out of the cage. But unfortunately you're still a bird. In a sense, if the bird is also the trauma as well as the cage. And there's a couple boulders in this cage, too. All right. So then the question is, can this bird walk, fly, and molt? Molt is you get rid of the feathers and change. Can this bird fly? Can it learn to fly again? Can it mold and become another kind of bird or a sentient being?

[20:16]

Yeah, mousen. I'm completely challenged by how to bring Buddhist concepts which took centuries for them to figure out. In my practice. And then in the English. And then deliver it to poor Christian who has written in German. Anyway, here we are. Okay. Now. Self is a construct within consciousness.

[21:30]

So consciousness is not going to be the way you can... fully actuate, fully live the alaya vijnana, the gestational space. Now let me give you an example of what I mean by gestational state. The dynamic of gestational space is intentional practice space. Now, to hold all these distinctions in mind, they're not difficult, but it takes a while to get them located.

[22:34]

But Sophia is 13 now, my daughter, my youngest. And I have lots of, you know, I use photographs as bookmarks, so... Ich habe viele Fotografien, die ich als Lesezeichen verwende. And I have the cutest pictures of her sleeping as an infant and doing something else, you know, when she's a little older, etc. They appear in my books. Wunderschöne Bilder von ihr als Säugling, wie sie da so liegt und dann später, als sie ein bisschen älter ist und... And I look at them and I realize I created an intentional conceptual space when she was tiny.

[23:45]

that I've held and nourished for 13 years. It's like a space I hoped she would grow into through her own freedom. Because I'm trying to give this an example of practice. Because I'm a practitioner of the laya vijnana and gestational space, it's almost like if I believe I have put an intentional space, a depth of intentional space, into the continuum, which you could call gestational time,

[25:02]

I have a crazy trust, faith, that this will continue to ripen and develop. And it will ripen and develop in relationship to my interaction with my daughter. So I don't feel I have to do much. I can let her be because this gestational space is going to take care of her. Now if I imagined this gestational spaceship, she's going to be a scientist or an architect and never marry and always love me. I would think I should be charged with abuse and a traumatic incitement.

[26:35]

So you have to create an intentional domain or space that gives the person the freedom to choose it or make use of it. And I would say so far she's turned into my conception, or our conception, as a 13-year-old. Or something close to that. Whether that will be true at 14 or 18, I have no idea. But I'm just saying that the idea is, if you put an intention in this gestational continuum, it can have

[27:58]

incredible formative power. Now, how do you act in this allness? And I would say it goes back to what I said earlier, that sila, prajna and samadhi are practiced through non-arising consciousness. Okay, so what is non-arising consciousness? It's to not let consciousness arise, and you're sort of on the edge of consciousness arising, but it's an act of knowing, but not by pronoun thinking about.

[29:11]

And since you two have to leave in a few minutes, I'll continue after you leave because it wouldn't be fair. but since what I read from the book of koans earlier in the seminar I've heard struck a number of people So let me read one other thing to you and then we'll stop, or just stop for a moment so you can depart. A very famous koan for Dogen was Yao Shan, was sitting zazen,

[30:17]

And this monk said to him, what do you think about when you're in such steadfast city? He said, I think not thinking. And the monk said, what the heck is to think not thinking? And Yashav said, non-thinking. So Dogen says to directly enter the mountain is to think, not thinking. Dogen sagt dann, in die Berge unmittelbar eintreten, das ist das Denken des Nichtdenkens.

[31:31]

To leave the world behind or beyond is non-thinking. Die Welt zurückzulassen ist ohne Denken. Then he says, I think it's a great statement. Then he says, those who've rolled up this matter, those who've rolled up this matter, into wide open eyeballs, are two or three bushels. Yeah. Is bushels in German too? Anyway, my wide and wide open eyeballs bushels is a measurement like of apples, a bushel of apples. A basket. A basket. And wide open eyeballs mean eyes that see and know without the editing of consciousness.

[32:39]

So those who've rolled up this matter into wide open eyeballs are two or three baskets, bushels. So, those who have rolled this matter into the Heide, these are only two or three cubes. Then he said, those who have tampered with this, tampered with this, interfered with this, are using karmic consciousness, are thousands and millions of people. He actually says peace is not persons because he's representing the acts of knowing.

[33:41]

One more sentence, don't worry. He says pieces because if you say persons you have another problem but pieces is units of perception units of interference. Then he says just wholeheartedly accept and trust that to study the way with mind. This mind that can study the way is the mountains, rivers, and earth mind itself. The mind of allness itself engaged in studying the way.

[34:58]

And Dogen wasn't so bad. Okay, I'm sorry you have to leave. It's been a pleasure, both of you, Mayurita. Let's see how I did. Ah, one minute late, I'm sorry. You have to push on the gas pedals. Bye-bye. Oh, wow. Gotcha. Thanks, bye. Travel safely. Travel safely. Okay, I obviously abbreviated this to some extent because they were here and they told me just at the beginning they were reading it.

[36:10]

Probably you see the problems, which is if you've accumulated all this experience. And if you relate to it through consciousness, You inevitably relate to it through self-reflection. And you end up identifying with the organ body. Fearing death, fearing sickness and so forth.

[37:16]

Or you identify with the karmic body as something you have to live through and so forth. Or you have to live in the body trapped through the traumatic events of your life. So if consciousness leads to these three, I mean consciousness is great, but if to the extent that it leads to these three identifications, then it continues, sustains mental self. So if consciousness is the problem, How are you going to know the world without the self-carrying consciousness?

[38:39]

Not the practical, functional aspects of self. but the self-identification of me rather than or better than others. Then Bursam keeps trying to find a way to develop this mind of awareness which isn't I-pronoun thinking. So we have phrases throughout Zen tradition of not thinking, non-thinking, non-arising consciousness. And this is all about discovering the knowing, the knowing process of a mind that doesn't discursively conceptualize.

[39:57]

In the earlier Buddhism they would talk about it as a mind of non-duality. And two truths. meaning the conventional mind functions through the subject-object distinction. Necessarily. But knowing that, you can also then experience the shift into the mind which functions through without a subject-object or much less of a subject-object distinction. And that mind functions through the knowing in the present without comparisons. I say, yeah, go ahead.

[41:46]

Knowing in the present, in the immediacy of the present. Without... What word did I use? Comparisons. Comparisons. and of course I don't mean absolutely not without comparison this is a much more dynamic picture than you can just take one aspect of it and say oh it's always like this So some comparisons occur, but it doesn't locate itself in, it's not a mind defined through comparisons. It's a mind defined through accepting things as they are, called thusness, and not needing to make comparisons.

[42:58]

So another way to talk about non-dual mind is to say a mind of thusness, a mind of Open-eyed acceptance. Open-eyed acceptance. Okay, so in a sense we could say that this gestational mind is spatially present in immediacy and functions temporally in darkness or out of sight. And Zen Buddhism, in contrast, some contrast to Tibetan Buddhism, which emphasizes the clear light that's there so much, and Zen does too, but Zen also emphasizes

[44:09]

being able to function within darkness. The black lacquer bowl. But again, the concept of this gestational alaya-vijnana mind, that it functions through accumulation, It functions through intention and it functions through the interactivity of being alive. And what gives it its formative power is the depth of intention.

[45:41]

Now you see why the precepts are so important. Or vows or any deep intention you have which can be destructive sometimes or transformative in the simultaneity of past, present and future. They can be destructive or... in the continuum of the gestational continuum. In the simultaneity of past, present and future. So your intentions draw the future into you. Okay? The end. Oh... That's as much justice as I can do to the topic now, unless you have some piercing question.

[47:16]

Ejo heard Dogen say, A single hair pierces myriad holes. And, of course, just the words, they have some kind of poetic power. But the real power was Dogen saying this as if this is the way it is. And so Eijo just, okay, decided I'm going to stay with this Dogen. And I think it was 12 years later, during a meal, he had an enlightenment experience.

[48:33]

And he went to see Dogen and he said, presuming Dogen remembered the earlier statement, So he went into Dogen's room and said, I don't ask about a single hair. But what about myriad holes? Ten thousand things. And Dogen said, pierced. And then Dogen said, even though you're older than I am, You're going to continue our lineage and bring the Dharma to many people.

[49:45]

Okay. Any thing you want to... at, say, sing. We can go to lunch early. Oh, we can even pretend we're Buddhists and sit for a few minutes. I'm always pretending. I'm an atheist. A single intention pierces myriad holes.

[51:28]

What is that single intention? This is the only intention. A completely still mind of mountains, rivers and earth.

[52:46]

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