I think this is the last scheduled class for this series, is that right? It's like a little bow tie. In summary, we've been studying the mind of delusion. And in a way, we've been studying the minds of delusion. Because there's two basic kinds of minds of delusion.

[01:14]

There's the unconscious mind of delusion and conscious mind of delusion. There's an unconscious awareness, an awareness that's unconscious, that's vaguely, barely conscious, subliminal. And there's an active consciousness, which is aware of specific objects. We've been studying how these co-arise. We've been studying their causation. Some people would say that the basic teaching of the Enlightened Ones is the teaching of causation. And as we study the teaching of causation, we realize the teaching of the ultimate truth.

[02:21]

We become ready for the teaching of ultimate truth. We become ready to realize ultimate truth. There's a teaching about how the deluded mind arises, and there's a teaching of how the deluded mind is transformed, and how we can be free of the mind of delusion. We're studying the source of unwholesome, harmful states of mind. And we're studying also those unwholesome, destructive states of mind, and how the source for harmful states of mind, for states of suffering, for states of active awareness of suffering, that the source of this is the results of these active states.

[03:26]

And the source which supports these active states of suffering is constantly being transformed by these active states of suffering, and the way we practice with them. And teachings have been given to these active states of suffering, to these active afflictive processes. Teachings come into the world which is created by the mind of delusion. Teachings enter the world of the mind of delusion, the world created by the mind of delusion. And these teachings come from the realization, from the understanding and transformation of the mind of delusion. The teachings are not outside or inside the world created by delusion.

[04:28]

Somehow, the understanding of the mind of delusion, and the liberation from it, have the ability to enter and awaken deluded beings to the teaching which encourages them to study the mind of affliction, the mind of destructiveness. Last week I was emphasizing, and at the beginning too, some exercises, some exercises for entering into the process of creation of the mind, the. And proposing that entering into this game of creation is where understanding is living, and where transformation and freedom,

[05:38]

where liberating transformations are living. They're living in the creative process. Tonight I just want to briefly mention a translation of Nietzsche, which goes something like, To play the game of creation, a sacred yes is necessary. To play the game of creation, a sacred yes is necessary. I don't know what the original German was. He said this in Oslo Sprach Darthusstra. Moment by moment, according to this teaching, we need to say yes.

[06:47]

When Sukershi was, sometimes I heard him talk about receiving the teachings for bodhisattvas, receiving the bodhisattva teachings, receiving the bodhisattva precepts, I think he said something like, It's necessary to say yes. He's not like saying, I'm forcing you to receive these precepts. It's just that when the teacher says, Will you receive these precepts? Will you receive these teachings? It's necessary to say yes. You don't have to say, Well, maybe I will, or I would, but I'm not sure I can practice them. I don't want to say yes, I'll receive something that I can't follow through on, and so on. That's okay to say those things, but they're not necessary. You don't have to say them. You have to say yes, though. It's necessary to say yes. And I think, I kind of remember him saying,

[08:03]

You've got to be like a child. Like, you want to go to the park? Yes. Want to walk the Buddha Way? Yes. Want to save all sentient beings? Yes. This is not a cynical response to the moment. This is kind of a childlike response. Not childish. The moments that we experience, generally speaking, they're childish moments. They're childish, they're foolish, deluded moments. But we need to say yes, we need to say yes to them. In order to what? In order to enter into the dependent co-arising of them. We need to say yes to the teachings about them.

[09:06]

You want to hear some teachings about dependent co-arising? And then, when you hear them, you want to practice them? Yes. Do you want to enter the realm where they're actually living? Maybe. I think Nietzsche also says something like, The child's innocence is forgetting, is starting right now, for the first time. I remember when I first came to Zen Center, there was, I think, a neurologist or a neuroscience man over at UC Medical Center in San Francisco.

[10:11]

And he came to Zen Center and he did some tests on some meditators. And I heard, as a result of these tests, one of the tests is they put the wires up to see what kind of response is in the mind of the meditator when they ring a bell. And then they also do the same tests with non-meditators, or not very good meditators. So, one of the results I heard was that when you ring a bell in a person who's not meditating, you get a response, maybe measured in ten units of response. And you ring it again, and you get nine, maybe. You ring it again, and you get eight. And you keep ringing it, and pretty soon the bell goes off. There's almost no response, you know, neurologically.

[11:13]

But the meditator, you ring it, you get a ten. You ring it, you get a ten. You ring it, you get a ten. You ring it, you get a ten. In other words, they don't just say, oh, well, I heard that before. I mean, they, being their nervous system, doesn't say, well, yeah, that's that again. And yet they're calm. The other person might be calm, too, but the meditator is calm, but also alert and responsive, like a child, who can do things over and [...] over. There was, on YouTube recently, one of the things was a child laughing hysterically to paper being torn.

[12:16]

So this child's there with an adult man who rips some paper in front of the child, and the child starts laughing. And he rips some more, and the child laughs more, and he rips some more, and the child laughs more, and he's laughing, too. He just keeps ripping the paper. The child keeps being surprised. It's like every time the paper gets ripped, the child's just totally amazed that the world can be pulled apart like that, and just thinks it's very funny, and just keeps laughing and laughing, and doesn't stop laughing. But for some reason or other, they stop the camera. The child is observing the pentacle rising and being surprised by it. There's also probably pictures of ripping paper and the child crying. That can happen, too, of course.

[13:20]

Yes. Because this is the last class, for those of you who are going to be reading the English translation of the Mahayana Sangraha, the English translation of Embracing the Great Vehicle. I just wanted to mention to you that there's,

[14:22]

in the first chapter, there's quite a bit of, in a sense, apologetic type of discussion, where the bodhisattva who wrote this is justifying the teaching, because it's a new teaching. Both trying to point out that the Buddha did teach this, and also trying to point out the necessity for the teaching of the storehouse unconscious mind. Trying to point out that without this unconscious mind, the actual process of delusion and the actual process of getting into situations of suffering would be impossible. But also how worldly progress

[15:28]

and worldly degeneration would be impossible, but also how liberation from the process would be impossible without this storehouse consciousness. He also points out that it is possible to become free of this process of delusion without receiving the teaching of the storehouse consciousness. In other words, this storehouse consciousness can be transformed even if you don't get the teaching about the storehouse consciousness. But even though you haven't received the teaching and you become free of the process by other teachings, in fact, the way you become free would not happen if there weren't the storehouse consciousness. You might have some other story about how you became free or how freedom was attained,

[16:30]

but he's suggesting that any story you tell about how you become free as a sentient being without this teaching is actually not correct. But you can become free without hearing this teaching. But in order to make a Buddha, in order to become most helpful in this world, he's suggesting we need this teaching of the unconscious resultant mind, the unconscious mind which is the result of all past karma, of all of us. We need that mind in order to realize Buddhahood and also in order to do the work of realizing Buddhahood because it's possible to attain a lesser liberation and think that that's enough.

[17:31]

A lesser, amazing, wonderful state of freedom and think it's enough unless you've heard this teaching and then you realize that this teaching was actually being enacted in your liberation and that your liberation is not yet complete. That in fact, this mind has not been completely transformed and until it's completely transformed, you're not done. You haven't done your job. So he talks about the people who attain liberation without this teaching and he says that they still fulfill their basic commitment and their basic commitment is to become personally liberated. And once personally liberated, they are very helpful, beneficent beings in the world, but they think they're done and they're not Buddhas. For those who wish to be bodhisattvas and live for the welfare of all beings, this teaching shows them why and how,

[18:34]

why they must become Buddha and how they can become Buddha. Yes? I'm wondering if I can take some metaphors here. I thought that I remembered something in His Holiness's translation of the Bodhicaryavatara about how that conflict is actually incorrect. The idea that the Arhat is incompletely liberated is incorrect according to His Holiness. And I'm just curious if there are other teachers who have... For the sake of the recording, she read somewhere that the idea that the Arhat is incompletely liberated is incorrect. So I'm not saying that the Arhat is incompletely liberated.

[19:38]

The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra upon which this text is based, it says that the liberation bodies of the Arhats and the liberation bodies of the Buddha are the same. Okay? So it says in that Mahāyāna Sūtra that the Arhats and the Pratyekabuddhas have the same liberation body as the Buddhas and the Buddhas do not have incomplete liberation bodies. But the Buddhas have another body which is called the Dharmakaya or Dharma body, or body of truth. And that body of truth is not the same body as their liberation body. They have liberation bodies and this Buddha body, the true Buddha body, they have that body too. And that body is not the same body as this liberation body. But it says that the liberation body of the hearers,

[20:40]

the Śrāvakas, is the same as the liberation body of the Buddhas. They are completely liberated, but they're not Buddhas. And Bodhisattvas wish to become Buddhas because the Arhats all got to be Arhats because of a Buddha or because of Buddhas. So Bodhisattvas wish to make more Arhats just like Buddhas do. But Bodhisattvas also wish to help people who are not interested in being Arhats, who want to be Buddhas. And that's a different process. And that process requires this teaching according to a Sangha. It doesn't say, I don't remember it saying in the sutra, you must have the teaching of Ālaya-Vijñāna in order to become a Buddha. I don't remember saying that, but it is the sutra that first most clearly introduces this teaching.

[21:41]

Now I'd like to tell you some really difficult thing in the last class. And what the thing is, is that there's two levels of dependent co-arising within the storehouse consciousness. So this text is saying that in the great vehicle there is a teaching about dependent co-arising. And in the earlier teachings there was also a teaching of dependent co-arising. Teaching of dependent co-arising again seems to have been the central teaching along with, perhaps you could say, along with selflessness, seemed to be the central constructive or positive teaching of the Buddha. One teaching is about the way things aren't. The other teaching is about the way things appear to be or how they come to appear and disappear.

[22:46]

So there is a teaching of dependent co-arising in the early Buddhism and then in the great vehicle. Now there is another teaching of dependent co-arising and that is the teaching of dependent co-arising within or about or including the teaching of dependent co-arising. It's talking about dependent co-arising within the storehouse consciousness. And Asanga, the author of this text, says that the most profound and subtle teaching of dependent co-arising is the one within the storehouse consciousness, is the one that includes a clear articulation of an unconscious as part of dependent co-arising. And then he says there are two levels of this dependent co-arising. Two levels of the dependent co-arising within the storehouse consciousness.

[23:48]

One kind is called the dependent co-arising which distinguishes essences. Or you could say, yeah, the dependent co-arising in which essences are being distinguished. The other kind of dependent co-arising, the second kind which is kind of like the first kind in the sense of historically it's the one that people are most aware of, but it's called the second kind in this book. The second kind of dependent co-arising is a dependent co-arising in terms of discriminating pleasant and unpleasant. So one kind of dependent co-arising in the storehouse consciousness is about distinguishing or apportioning or distributing essences to things,

[24:57]

self-natures to things. The other kind of dependent co-arising is dependent co-arising which distinguishes pleasant and unpleasant or which apportions pleasant and unpleasant. Just let me say a little bit more and I'll give you examples. Okay, so I've told you these two types. Now, dependent co-arising that distinguishes essences means that the arising of all things

[26:07]

is supported upon the container consciousness. For it, the container consciousness is the cause of distinguishing essences. All things, that's the first type. The second type is that which distinguishes pleasant and unpleasant is the 12-fold dependent co-arising, for it distinguishes various different causes for pleasant and unpleasant in the good and evil destinies. So the example for the second type, starting with the second one, which is the traditional one, is that there's a 12-fold chain of causation and it starts with affliction,

[27:09]

the basic affliction of ignorance, and based on the basic affliction of ignorance, beings act. They're living in ignorance, they're living in believing in a self and because of that they suffer and then that leads to action and action then has a result of consciousness and then follows and that consciousness that results from the action based on ignorance is the storehouse consciousness. And then based on the storehouse consciousness all these active states of consciousness arise and then several more phases are spoken of in this process of dependent co-arising now of the active states. The next one's called name and form,

[28:10]

which is the psychophysical active consciousnesses. And the next one comes, is the six basic sense bases and the next one that comes is contact and the next one that comes is feeling. So these are the four-part articulation of the process by which the active consciousnesses arise from consciousness. Arise from what consciousness? In this text now we say it's arising from alaya because alaya is a resultant consciousness. What does it result from? It results from karma. What kind of karma? Karma which is coming from ignorance. So it goes ignorance or affliction, karma to do something about it and the result in that karma is again active consciousness but the first time it's mentioned it's not articulated into the four different parts. It's just saying action, which means active consciousness. It has a result which is called consciousness.

[29:11]

Based on that consciousness now we have a more articulated version of the active consciousnesses and following them, culminating in feeling. What kind of feeling? Pleasant and unpleasant and indeterminate. So that's the story of the arising of pleasant and unpleasant feelings and then following these pleasant and unpleasant feelings comes more affliction. What kind of affliction? Craving, clinging and as a result of this karma of craving and clinging, this afflictive process now, we have becoming, karma, more karma. As a result of this karma, we have birth and then we have aging, old age, sickness and death

[30:14]

and all other kinds of suffering which are based on the results of karma which are based on afflictive ignorance, which are based on active karmic consciousness, which is based on this unconscious alaya, which is a result of previous karma, which arise from ignorance. So this twelvefold chain, it starts out with an abbreviated version of the whole cycle. Affliction, action, result. Affliction, action, result. Ignorance, karma, consciousness. What consciousness? Alaya. The active consciousnesses are not the result of active consciousnesses. The active consciousnesses in this model are the result of the active consciousnesses.

[31:17]

That's part of what this teaching is about. If you say that the active consciousnesses are the result of the active consciousnesses, it doesn't make sense. Because the active consciousnesses, when they go away, do not make a very good cause for the arising of active consciousness. But the alaya, which is the result of active consciousness, will be the result of active consciousness, which is alaya, will be in the next moment. Not only the result of the last moment, but the result of all the moments, because it isn't just what you did in the last moment that gives rise to the present moment, as you may have noticed. If you think, I'm going to be nice to so-and-so in the next moment, you aren't necessarily going to be nice, especially if you were mean to so-and-so millions of times before. And then you thought, I'm going to be nice from now on to so-and-so. And then, bam, you're not. That's because your wish to be nice, although it does have effects and does transform this consciousness,

[32:20]

it transforms it just a little. And all the other times when you didn't think about being kind, they're also there, along with this one or more times when you thought of being kind. So that's the dependent co-arising in terms of distinguishing wholesome and unwholesome, in terms of pleasant and unpleasant, or agreeable and disagreeable, and that goes along with these active karmic states. The other kind, and so now I'm presenting to you to look at that twelvefold chain of causation, which many of you have seen before, but now look at it in terms of first there's the basic affliction of ignorance and the basic affliction of ignorance is not according, again, I'm talking about the second type of dependent co-arising

[33:23]

which is really similar to the ancient, early Buddhist teaching of dependent co-arising, but this time it's different because we're saying this consciousness which is called basic affliction of ignorance, it's a type of consciousness which carries the ignorance, but that basic affliction of ignorance is not the storehouse consciousness. It's not the storehouse consciousness. As came up last week or the week before, the storehouse consciousness is karmically indeterminate and the storehouse consciousness is undefiled. However, it carries the results of all defiled states, but it itself is undefiled. Now we're starting, number one, defilement.

[34:25]

What defilement? The defilement of ignorance, the fundamental defilement, ignorance. There's secondary defilements. There's greed, hate, and delusion. Greed and hate are also defilements. Envy and jealousy and violence, they're also defilements. But the fundamental affliction is ignorance and that's not a liar. And based on that fundamental affliction, action arises. And based on that, the results of that are based on that, the results of that is the alaya. And then based on that is the active consciousnesses. And then the active consciousnesses lead to results which, again, lead to more affliction,

[35:28]

which lead to more karma, which lead to more results and so on. That's the one type of dependent co-arising. The other type, however, is different. The other type is the process by which, based on past discriminations of self, there's now a present attribution of self to some object of active awareness. And so the second type is not so much about these destinies, these situations in which we're experiencing positive and negative sensation and where we're doing wholesome and unwholesome karma. It's more talking about how the states arise from alaya and how the states transform alaya and how alaya supports the arising of states

[36:31]

and how in this process there is an attribution of essences to things in this process. But the dependent co-arising is more spoken of in terms of how these two types of consciousness are co-evolving and co-creating each other. Now, as we said before, there's another type of consciousness which is called manas. There are two types of manas. One is serving as the organ for the arising of mind consciousness. And also it serves as the immediate antecedent condition for all the sense consciousnesses. But there's a second kind of manas which carries the ignorance. And that second kind of manas coexists with both these types of dependent co-arising.

[37:31]

So in one case, in a sense, the defiling manas is the first link in the twelvefold chain. And that first link in the twelvefold chain isn't just there in the first link. It's just in the first link. All we're talking about is a consciousness which is defiled by ignorance, that's all. And the consciousness that's defiled by ignorance is, the consciousness which really carries the ignorance is manas. So in a sense, in the twelvefold chain of causation, in this teaching here, the first step is this defiled mind called manas. The second step is active consciousness. The third step is the result of active consciousness, which will now be the support for the arising of more active consciousness. In the first type of dependent co-arising, going back to the first one, this process by which these two types of consciousness,

[38:33]

the unconscious cognition and the conscious cognition, the way they work together, the manas is there too. The manas is there too. And it is defiling the active states. But also, the alaya is supporting its life, but the alaya is not defiled by it. So the alaya can support an undefiled state. And if we study the creative process by which the unconscious gives rise to the conscious and the conscious in the present, or the unconscious, or our past gives rise to our present active consciousness, if we study this process by which that happens and by which active consciousness transforms our past consciousness, our past, which is the consciousness, which is the result of all action, this defiling mind will be abandoned.

[39:38]

And the process of attributing essences will cease. If we study the process by which the unconscious and the conscious are mutually causing each other, study that process, not really studying how they are being defiled by this other consciousness, just study the process by which they co-create each other, the mind which carries the idea of independent self will be abandoned. That mind which carries the independent self will not be able to live. In fact, the mind which carries the fundamental ignorance and which defiles minds

[40:40]

does not live in the creative process by which active consciousnesses arise and influence the storehouse consciousness. And the storehouse consciousness supports the active consciousness and is influenced by them. The actual causal relationship between these two types of consciousness, the actual causality of it, the actual creativity of it, there's no place for a self there. But the thing that holds the self and suffers with the self gets abandoned as we get more and more into the process of this creative process. It gets, you could say, burned up. But that's not the end of the creative process. And when it gets burned up, shortly after getting burned up, relatively shortly after getting burned up, like in the story of the Buddha, in the first teaching that he gave,

[41:42]

one of the people, he was teaching five people, and one of the people in that conversation that he was having, listening to him, one of the people, just listening to him talk about causation, in the first talk, which is just, you know, if you write the talk down, it's only like two pages in English. So by the time he finished that talk, one of them had already abandoned this defiled manas. He talked this guy, these four people, through the process enough for one of them to enter it and find a place where there's no defiling mind, where there's no ignorance, where there's no belief in self. And then within a short time, the other four also entered that place of creativity, that teaching of causation, and became liberated. And within about a month or so, all of them had not only entered the place and become liberated from this defilement,

[42:44]

but had exercised it all the way to the point of arhatship. There's four stages, and one of them entered the first stage of liberation in one talk. All of them entered all five, four stages within a month or so, according to the tradition. Now, this is an example where they heard this other teaching and they did not hear the teaching of the laya, apparently, in that story. So the teaching of the laya would go beyond this liberation state and work in the form of transforming the entire laya, which means working to transform the entire world, the entire enclosure world that people live in. The entire world that non-enlightened people live in,

[43:48]

that the bodhisattva keeps working on that world, even if they themselves are free of this defiled manas. And they would study these two types of dependent co-arising in this enclosure. Within the laya, the bodhisattvas are studying both types of dependent co-arising. They're studying the one by which you get into these states of pleasant and unpleasant, wholesome and unwholesome, and they're studying the process by which the undefiled, neutral unconscious gives rise to wholesome and unwholesome states. But the emphasis here is not, in the first type of dependent co-arising, is not on the wholesomeness and unwholesomeness. It's not on the destinies that you get into by this process. It's on the process of attributing the essence and to find the place in the process where there isn't any. And there isn't any, really, in the fullness of the process. But the other one's important, too,

[44:51]

because that's where people are really into and stuck in their suffering. So they also work in that realm. So that's a big teaching I offer you, and that's section 19, 20, 21, and 22 in chapter one. But I decided to give that to you, because if you read it without this, it wouldn't be so clear as it is now. Was there a hand raised? Yes? The way I understand it is, can I just maybe put it in my own words? Yes, definitely. That process with the 12 links is sort of like a logical, cognitive, logical way of explaining dependent co-arising.

[45:52]

Yes. And the other one is more of like emotional, of looking at your own emotional state and that actually there's nothing in it. See through the emotional state as empty. That's how I understand the difference between the two. And it's the same, essentially, but it's just, in a nutshell, the one about the essence is to see that there is no essence. Is that correct? The one about the essence is what? The essence is to see through there is no essence. There isn't any. Right. But again, here I'm emphasizing that the way of seeing that is by to actually enter into the creative process by which our active consciousness is arising, which again at the beginning I say,

[46:53]

in order to do that we have to say, we have to give, in Nietzsche's word, a sacred yes to these active states, these active afflictive states of mind and body. We have to say, yes, I'm going to study this. Yes, I'm going to practice with this. Yes, I'm going to practice with this. And yes, I'm going to practice with this. And yes, I'm going to practice with this. And if you say maybe, yes, I'm going to practice with maybe. And if you say I'm not going to, yes, I'm going to practice with I'm not going to. No matter what comes, we need to sort of say, okay, I'm going to start over with this and do the practice. Yes, Elena? Yes, Elena? Pardon? Are they part of the process of delusion? Of evolution.

[47:55]

Yes, they are. But apparently, they do not understand language, so this instruction, apparently they cannot receive it directly. They can only receive it indirectly through the people who can hear it. So, if we hear it and we practice with it, and we practice with it, then our practice affects them. But the teaching is primarily geared for these linguistic beings, which are humans. And hopefully, as we get better at this practice, we will be able to prepare them to someday be able to receive teachings. Are there other things you'd like to bring up?

[48:58]

I'd like to bring up... Also, I recommend, if you have any suggestions on where to go from here, I plan to continue studying this text, but if you don't want me to do it in the yoga room and you want me to do some other kinds of things in the yoga room, I'm happy to do that, because I have other venues to do this teaching, but I'm going to keep going forward in this text. I'm very enthusiastic about it. I'm like a little kid about this text. I just think it's... I'm really impressed. It really is offering some wonderful new perspectives, wonderful subtleties on the Buddhist teaching. This person, Asanga, who wrote it, is... especially in this first chapter, he's quite logical in explaining

[49:58]

why it doesn't make sense that things are going the way they're going if you don't have this storehouse consciousness involved in your explanation. If you just see the way the world works, and the way people suffer, and the way they get in trouble, and the way some people get freed, you would not be able to understand how they get in trouble. You would not be able to correctly understand your explanation of how they get in trouble and how they become free would not hold water without this teaching, he says. And he's quite logical about it. Somebody may disagree with him and think his reasoning is not too good, but he's definitely reasoning in a very intense way. But this person whose reasoning is a bodhisattva, is a person who just happened to be very enthusiastic about studying the Buddha's teaching, and he did study the Buddha's teaching,

[50:59]

but he felt some lack in his understanding, some lack in his practice. And he felt, he somehow had a vision or something that in order to really enter the deepest possible meaning of the Buddha's teaching, he had to meet the future Buddha, the next Buddha. So this is a person who's living in India or Southeast Asia around the 3rd century, or the 4th century I should say, in the Common Era. Really into Buddhist studies, really enthusiastic, and he gets this idea he has to meet the future Buddha. he was not, I don't think he was yet, I don't know if he was yet a practitioner of the Mahayana, but whether it's Mahayana or not, in the Buddha's teaching the Buddha said the next Buddha

[52:01]

is going to be called Maitreya, which means it's related to the word Maitri or Metta, it means loving kindness. The next Buddha is going to be called loving kindness. After I die, Shakyamuni Buddha said, the next time there's a Buddha around here, after this whole situation falls apart and we start a whole new cycle, the next Buddha is going to be called Maitreya. And Sangha, the author of this text, heard about that, believed in that, and felt like he needed to meet this Bodhisattva. This Bodhisattva who's kind of in the wings, waiting for his turn to be Buddha. And he went, he gave up his studies and his teaching, he was already a noted teacher of Buddhist doctrine, and went into a cave where he basically prayed and invited this Bodhisattva to come and meet him. And he did so for three years. And after three years the Bodhisattva had not come

[53:03]

and he said, okay, I give up. And he was leaving his meditation area, but something happened, something amazing, auspicious thing happened, which made him feel like, okay, three more years. And he did. He practiced various types of visualizations and invitations, tried to imagine all possible ways to make this Bodhisattva willing to come and be with him and help him understand the teaching. I think maybe like the teachings, there were Mahayana teachings at this time, like the Prajnaparamita and the Lotus Sutra. He didn't understand them well enough, according to his own humble opinion. So he spent three more years and again he gave up. And again he was leaving his retreat and again something happened that made him feel like he should go back into the cave. And he did

[54:05]

for three more years. And then after nine years he also decided to give up and he left. And then again something happened and he went back for three more. Then after twelve he again decided to quit. And he left. And this time he ran into a dog lying on the road. And the dog was really in ill health and it had sores all over it. And maggots had moved into the sores. And I guess he didn't know. Back in those days they weren't as smart as we are. He didn't know that maggots clean the wounds. They do. He thought the maggots were not doing very well. They weren't helping the dog out. So he decided he was going to clean the maggots out of the dog's wounds. But then as he started to do it he realized

[55:07]

he would hurt the maggots. And he didn't want to hurt the maggots. So he removed them with his tongue. And as he was removing them with the tongue I believe something like the dog started to change. And the dog changed into this celestial bodhisattva, the next Buddha. And Maitreya said, Why didn't you come earlier? And Maitreya said, I was always with you the whole time. As soon as you started to go to the cave I was with you. But your compassion was not sufficient for you to see me. And Maitreya was happy to meet Asanga. And Asanga was happy to meet Maitreya. But Asanga couldn't believe that Maitreya had been there the whole time with him. So

[56:09]

he's going to test, he's going to bring Maitreya into a town and show people Maitreya to see if those people could see him. So he took Maitreya with him into the town and said, Look folks, look at Maitreya, the future Buddha is here. And everybody in town thought he was crazy because all they saw was this very sick dog over his shoulder. And Maitreya said, See? So then anyway, this amazing creature hung out with this amazing creature. This dependently co-arisen bodhisattva named Asanga spent quite a bit of time with this dependently co-arisen bodhisattva called Maitreya. They went to a study place which is called Tushita Heaven. And there Maitreya gave Asanga various teachings. And then Asanga came back

[57:11]

from that heavenly realm and wrote them down on the land of India. And we have those texts that he wrote. Basically he was the future Buddha's amanuensis. So he wrote them down and we have them and these are something we can study in the future. For example, the Abhisamaya Alankara is one of them. And then Asanga started writing some texts on his own. And when he had difficulty, like when he was writing this text, this is not written by the future Buddha, this is written by the bodhisattva Asanga. When he got to difficult parts in here, he would invite Maitreya to come and help him. So this is actually written by Asanga with Maitreya's help. So it's really quite a nice opportunity

[58:12]

for us here. So anyway, I'm intending to keep studying this. Not just to sort of, what do you call it, be bullheaded about it. Because I want to. I actually want to and if you study it with me in some venue or other, that will encourage me. And your questions and comments and your experiences shared with me encourage me to keep going. So with your help I will continue to go through this text. And we've just done the first, so far in this class, we've just done the first five sections. Although I just did jump to section 19, 20, 21 and 22. Although I just covered section 19 and I just did section 19 tonight. And I also went to the end last week and the week before.

[59:16]

There's a lot more material in this text, the first chapter. But it's basically, it's encouragement to study the process, the dependent co-arising of the afflictive consciousnesses together with this storehouse consciousness which itself is not really afflicted. It's not really defiled. It's undefiled. The results, the results of defiled activity are undefiled. When you go to these destinies, I was surprised to hear this when I was studying teachings on these destinies. When you go to the human realm, this is one a lot of us are familiar with, when you go to heaven, when you go to the animal realm, when you go to hungry ghost realm, when you go to hell, the state of hell is

[60:18]

undefiled neutral. Hell is undefiled. It's suffering, non-stop, no pleasure, not even any neutral sensation. It's non-stop pain. It's non-stop alienation. It's non-stop torment. It's non-stop destruction of life. Life. It's a kind of life that's just really it's the worst. Sort of. It's not really the worst. I'll tell you about the worst later. But it's the result. Hell is a resultant state. And that resultant state of hell is supported by the storehouse consciousness. But the resultant state of hell, the destiny itself, is not an active state. The destiny is not an active state.

[61:22]

It is a world. And the world is undefiled neutral. And then in the world, alaya supports the arising of defiled active consciousness. And defiled active consciousness can be wholesome or unwholesome. But the result of wholesome defiled action is undefiled and neutral. And the results of wholesome action, defiled wholesome action, is undefiled neutral. And the results of indeterminate defiled action is undefiled neutral. And undefiled neutral results support the arising of more defiled states, which can be wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral. Wholesome states, defiled wholesome states, have the results of undefiled neutral container consciousness. Defiled unwholesome states

[62:24]

have the results of undefiled neutral container consciousness. And that undefiled neutral state, container consciousness, gives rise to more defiled states. And then, once again, if you're in this process, at the center of this process, at the middle of that process, defilement gets burned away. So we need to say yes, [...] yes to what's going on so we can enter into the process of purification. In this dependent co-arising of storehouse consciousness and active consciousness. Storehouse consciousness, active consciousness, storehouse consciousness. Round and round. So the first chapter is about this process, encouraging us to enter it. The second chapter is distinguishing the different characters of the things that arise

[63:24]

from this creative process. The third chapter is about how to enter into the character of the things that arise from this creative process, and so on. But this first chapter in some sense, we always have to take care of this first chapter in the practice. We always have to be... In other words, for the practice to really work, we have to be involved in creation. We have to be artists. And then in that process, we can bring in these other teachings, gradually fold the other teachings into the process. But what's going on, what we've been talking about so far, doesn't stop when you move into the next chapter. Yes? Is the underlying neutral? Is there a world created by results? It's not created by results. The results of karma. Karma is wholesome, unwholesome,

[64:26]

and indeterminate, or neutral. Three kinds of karma. Until we have entered into and understand the creative process of dependent co-arising, our states are defiled by a belief in self. Until we understand this process, our consciousnesses are more or less defiled. Even though we might not be greedy or angry, we're still defiled if we don't really understand the insubstantiality of all things. And these things arose, in the first type of dependent co-arising, these things arose by attributing essences to them. That's how everything arises. Now we've got the situation where things have arisen by apportioning essences. Now we need to enter into the creative process and abandon the essence attributing part of the process. And the results are

[65:27]

undefiled, neutral. Results aren't really wholesome karma. Results of wholesome karma aren't wholesome karma. They're the results of wholesome karma. So pain is not itself karmically negative or positive. It tends to be the results of unwholesome karma. But it itself is not unwholesome karma. And it's not defiled in itself as a result. But our actions are received as defiling influence of belief in the self. Pardon? Well, again, defile, there's two kinds of defile. There's three kinds

[66:37]

of defilement. Or there's three kinds of affliction. Just a second. Yeah. There's three kinds of defilement. I think I've been I'll do some research on this, but there's three kinds of defilement. There's defilement of There's defilement of ignorance, there's defilement of karma, and there's defilement of maybe I should say Yeah. Let's say there's three kinds of defilement. Defilement of

[67:37]

ignorance, defilement of action, and defilement of result. Another way to say it would be Let's say it that way. There's three kinds of defilement. So defilement means affliction. The word for defilement is klesha. And there's a slightly different word which is called samklesha, which we could translate as affliction. I thought you said pain is a defile. Pain is a feeling.

[68:39]

Feelings in themselves are not defile. Defilement would be a constriction of the pain. It would be a suffering in addition to the pain. And the suffering in addition to pain would be similar to the suffering in addition to pleasure. So when there's pleasure, there's one kind of pain, one kind of suffering. When there's pain, there's also suffering. And when there's neutral sensation, there's also suffering. But the suffering in the case of positive, negative, and neutral sensation, the suffering is basically the same suffering. When you're in pain, you have the suffering of pain. When you're in pleasure, you have the suffering of pleasure. When you're in pain, you have the suffering of maybe wishing that it would go away or wishing that it wouldn't last.

[69:41]

When you have pleasure, you have the suffering of wishing it would last or being afraid it would go away. Or when it does go away, you suffer. In neutral sensation, you have the pain of being a conditioned being but believing that you're not conditioned. You're basically believing yourself as being insulted by conditionality. So that's painful. So the discomfort that goes with any feeling comes from a defilement that goes with any feeling. So because we believe in a self, all of our different feelings are painful. But the pain itself is not the defilement. As a matter of fact, the pain is an indication of the defilement. The pain is an indication that we do not really understand pain, pleasure, or neutral sensation. And the way to understand

[70:45]

the nature of pain, pleasure, and neutral sensation is by saying yes to pain, pleasure, and neutral sensation and entering into the creative process by which these results, these feelings arise. Pardon? The basic defilement is a belief in a self. I can't use the word defilement in what definition? The definition of defilement. Oh, the definition of defilement is ignorance. The basic type of defilement is ignorance. And then there's other kinds

[71:51]

of defilement, like hatred is a defilement, and greed is a defilement, and laziness is a defilement, and lack of faith is a defilement. Selfishness is a defilement. Envy is a defilement. Jealousy is a defilement. Lying is a defilement. Violence is a defilement. These are defilements. The basic one is ignorance or delusion. And those ways of being defile the living being. They constrict and distort and confine. In that sense, they're also afflictions. They're the source of pain. Does that make sense now?

[72:54]

All of our active states are afflicted as long as there's a belief in self coexisting with them. The fact that we have in the past had these afflicted, defiled states of mind are supporting us the arising of more now. Yes. Yes. Sure. Now and later. Yes. [...]

[74:11]

I was thinking about that also. You asked what I'd like to teach. I think I'd like to hear more of your interpretation of the teachings. Even those five sections we haven't gone through line by line. But I understand that it doesn't work to go line by line in a situation like this. I don't want you all to have your books in front of you. The books I tell you about just so you know where I'm coming from. Because I am going through this line by line over and over, line by line, over and over, line by line.

[75:26]

I'm doing that. And this leads me to then be able to talk to you without going through line by line, because I've almost memorized the text, so that I don't have to read it line by line in order to speak the text to you. So, I'm not going to go through line by line. In any situation, there's one group where there's two groups where I'm going through line by line, but those are really small groups and everybody's got the book. So I am trying to not go through line by line. But occasionally I tell you a little quote here or there, like I did tonight, I told you about those two types of the pinnacle arising. So I went through line by line, but I just did four sentences. So if you don't want to hear any, if you'd like to hear none, let me know. Because I gave you a little bit of the actual text, but most of what I said was my interpretation, my understanding. A lot of what I said is not in the text.

[76:28]

A lot of what I said about the text is not in the text. Just like a sangha is telling us things which are not in any sutra. He is saying things based on wide study, he's saying things that he feels make sense that aren't anywhere else. And based on my study of this and other texts, I'm telling you things which aren't in this text. But I hear what you're saying, and I actually am trying to do that. So like at Green Gulch, I gave a talk, too, and people walked in who first-timed Green Gulch, and I talked about this text. But, you know, it doesn't work to go through line by line. I understand. Thank you. It doesn't work to go through line by line unless everybody's got the book, basically. Or unless we just do one line and we say it over and over again until everybody's memorized it. And then we study that one line. That would probably work also.

[77:29]

Well, thank you for this night. Many of you have come back after vacations and so on. But this final class is well attended, and I appreciate you hanging in there to the end. And if you have any further requests or instructions on what you'd like me to teach here in Berkeley, I'm welcome. I don't have to do this text. I will be doing it other places, but I could do more of this. I could do more teachings coming from this text. And if you'd like to have less on the text and more on me, who happens to be reading it, we could go that way. The latest kid named Rab who happens to study this stuff. Thank you very much.

[78:28]

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