Good morning. When we do that chant, in general, we tend to hold on to some of the syllables a little too long, but I'm not going to go into that. You do? That's not good. I'm sorry. Can you hear anything from watching this? No. [...] Are you okay? Bye. Excuse me. Kathy? Yeah? Would you put the little on the transmission? There's an Number. You should go back in. 5-3-2-5-7-5.

[01:06]

I have a question. You mentioned last time, you mentioned last time that the Kecheliakou is part of the transmission document. And it's also part of Ley Ordination, I think. And you were also talking about the Northern versus Southern and Soto versus Rinzai. In the Ley Ordination Kecheliakou that I have, it shows the Soto and it also shows the Rinzai on the other side. And there's a little thing at the bottom that says, this shows that the two are actually one. Is that related to that? Yes. The teacher went to China together.

[03:30]

So, the Kecheliakou is considered a lynch, a total lynching, but also lynching. Yeah, it spit. Yeah, it did it. But who knows if it's going to continue. So, he says that the Rinzai line and the Soto line are two lines. Soto and Rinzai are two, I'm trying to remember, two lines. I write this down all the time. Mutually congruent with each other. Because the Rinzai, all the schools in China were just the ancestors.

[04:35]

But anyway, so on one side of the Kecheliakou is Rinzai lineage and the other side is Soto lineage. Yeah, so it's not one versus the other. So, what I've handed out here in this table of 5, 8, 4, 3, whatever that means. It means nothing here. Is what you see on the blackboard. What I wrote out last time. And you can see that on the left are the five positions called ranks. And next to that are the eight levels of consciousness, which correspond to these ranks.

[05:43]

And next to that are the four wisdoms, which correspond to both of those. And on the right are the bodies. Dharmakaya, Samogakaya and Nirmanakaya, which correspond to the other three. So all of these are corresponding to each other. So you see how the various ways of looking at reality fit together. What? Well, the first rank and the fifth rank correspond to each other. In enlightenment, those two correspond to each other.

[06:50]

They become the same thing. The Platform Sutra has a, the one I was, the Longmulam version translation has a footnote about that. I didn't bring that with me. So if we look at. Hakuin's Commentary. Where it begins, I can't tell you what page this is, but it's not where it actually begins. It's where he talks about, where he's talking about the main principle.

[07:56]

Shouju Rojin has said. Bottom of 89. Okay. We read this once, but I'm going to read it over because this is what introduces us to this, what we're doing. Shouju Rojin, his teacher, has said, In order to provide a means whereby students might directly experience the Four Wisdoms. Right? Wisdoms. Four Wisdoms. That seems to be the whole purpose of, the main purpose of the five ranks, is to realize the Four Wisdoms. Even though it doesn't say so in the Hokyo Zamai. He said, this is the reason for all of this. He says, in order to provide a means whereby students might directly experience the Four Wisdoms,

[09:00]

the ancestors in their compassion and with their skill in devising expedience, which means all the teachings, all the teachings are simply expedience, first instituted the five ranks. You get that? What are the so-called Four Wisdoms? They are the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom, the Universal Nature Wisdom, the Marvelous Observing Wisdom, and the Perfecting of Action Wisdom. And then, he talks about, far to the right, blah, [...] which is very important, but I want to skip that. We go back to that. I want to go back to, go on to, do you know why? See that down there? Do you know why? I'm talking about Hakuin's talk. Do you know... In Hakuin's talk, he says, do you know why?

[10:05]

I'm skipping all the stuff that went before that. Do you see where he says, do you know why? Pure gold that has gone through a thousand smeltings does not become ore a second time, which means that this is the essence, right? All the rest of the stuff is, it's gone through the smelting, and only the essence remains. My only fear is that a little gain will suffice you. How priceless is the merit gained through the step-by-step practice of the Five Ranks of the Apparent and Real? Okay. By this practice, you not only attain the Four Wisdoms, but you personally prove that the Three Bodies also are holy and based within your own body. Okay? Have you not read in the Daijo Shogungyo-ron? I'm not sure what that is, but it doesn't matter. When the Eight Consciousnesses are inverted, the Four Wisdoms are produced. So, he's introducing the Eight Consciousnesses.

[11:08]

So the Four Wisdoms are tied up with the Eight Levels of Consciousness, which you have in front of you, in the sheet. When the Four Wisdoms are bound together, I don't know what bound together means, but the Three Bodies are perfected. Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Manakaya. Therefore, Soke Daishi, who is Daikon Eno, composed this verse. Your own nature is provided with the Three Bodies. When its boundness is manifested, the Four Wisdoms are attained. He also said, the pure Dharmakaya is your nature, the perfect Sambhogakaya is your wisdom, and the Manakayas are your activities. So it's not just something written on paper. Okay. But all I can hear is myself now. That's better. Anyway, whatever. You know better than I do what you hear.

[12:11]

So, in order to explicate this, I want to talk about the Eight Levels of Consciousness, which is a big study, big study, that we're going to talk about in a short amount of time. But I will give you the gist of the Eight Levels of Consciousness. Now, if we look at this, where it says Consciousness, it says, Eight Alaya Storehouse, in your piece of paper. It says, Eight Alaya Consciousness, and then it says, Seventh Manas, Ego, Sixth Mano Visnana, Individuating, and Fifth, One to Five Senses. So, according to Mahayana Buddhist understanding,

[13:13]

the Mahayana Buddhists, especially the Yogacara school, developed this model of consciousness. It's a model of consciousness. All the schools of Buddhism, Buddhism has always been very interested in what the levels and meaning of consciousness are, because consciousness is so important in understanding Buddhadharma. So, the development of a model, of this model, this is the latest model. There are many models of consciousness in Buddhism, but this is the latest model, which came out around the 2nd century, or something like that. It talks about not just six levels of consciousness,

[14:14]

which is usual. In psychology, you have eye consciousness, ear consciousness, sight consciousness, sound consciousness, taste consciousness, touch consciousness, nose consciousness, smelling consciousness, and mind consciousness. So, starting from the bottom, we have the first five sense consciousnesses, which the senses are perceptors. They perceive, but they don't think, as we know. They simply are the doorways of consciousness, the doorways to mind consciousness. And mind consciousness takes the information and assimilates it. So, the first five consciousnesses are simply doorways.

[15:15]

And in order for consciousness to arise, there has to be an object, an organ, and a subject, the subject being consciousness, subjective. So, we say object is objective, consciousness is subjective, and in between is the connector. The connector is the eye, the ear, the nose, and so forth. And mind consciousness is called mano-vijnana. That's the sixth, what's here is the sixth consciousness, just above one to five. I'm starting from the bottom, going up. Mind consciousness, mano-vijnana, discriminates, it's a discriminating consciousness, which discriminates between the sensual input.

[16:18]

In other words, I see, I hear. This is what mano-vijnana, the function of mano-vijnana is to discriminate between the various, the five consciousnesses, in order to adapt to the so-called objective world, and recognizes what is objective. That's when things get labeled. And labels things. Well, I think so, yeah, labels and recognizes. So, discriminates. So, consciousness is not necessarily discriminative, but there are levels of consciousness

[17:21]

which discriminate. So, discrimination takes one whole thing and divides it into parts. So, mind consciousness discriminates one thing into various parts, and says, this is you, and this is you. But, you and you are really one thing. But, mind consciousness discriminates the various forms, and compares one to another, and we create, through mind consciousness, a world. So, that's why we say, ah, Yogacara school is called the consciousness-only school, or mind-only.

[18:22]

Everything is simply, all the outer world is simply a discriminated, a discriminated world, which, is created by mind, by consciousness, in various ways. It's a very complex study. Peter. So, does that mean that seeing, and smelling, and hearing, and tasting, and touching, are all one thing also? That the mind... No, they're all different. Everything is the same and different. So, that they are one thing, the mind? Well, what is perceived is one thing, which is perceived in different ways. I hear you, and I see you, and I smell you, and I taste you, and I touch you, but you're just the one thing. Well, my question is about the hearing, the tasting, the touching, and the smelling.

[19:26]

Are those one thing also? No, they're different. They're different faculties. But, you know, Tozan, when he became enlightened, he said something like, only when you can see through the ear and hear through the eye, will you get it. Steve? Steven? You've got comments about What? Kinesthesia. People who hear, hear sights, smell sounds, there's a condition where they've been, they've actually been able to test it. People who hear music and see colors, they'll see a color and have a distinct smell,

[20:27]

and they'll experience things that way. Maybe related. Maybe related, but I can't say actually what that is. Because imagination, this is all in the realm of imagination, actually. Without getting too complicated, I don't want to get stopped, because there's a lot to talk about here. There's a lot that can be said about every little thing, you know, and investigated about everything. So, we have to continue. So, this is the sixth level, Mano Vijnana. But Mano Vijnana also is a thinking consciousness, thought consciousness, but it's discriminating without being self-centered. So, what I'm teaching you is my understanding. There are lots of different ways of understanding this, and there are big controversies about it,

[21:29]

about the fine points. So, I don't want to get into the fine points, but this is my understanding, is that basically Mano Vijnana, mind consciousness, is a discriminating consciousness, but it's not discriminating. It's not an ego consciousness. It's not making judgments based on desire. It's simply making discriminations based on information, because it has no desire to do anything with the information. Speak up. Well, depends on what kind of feeling you mean. There's touch, which is feeling, and then there's sensations and emotions, which are feeling. So, you have to describe what feeling you mean.

[22:29]

No. It's not, it doesn't make distinctions between good and bad, and so forth. It simply records information, as far as my understanding goes. This is the consciousness which identifies information, but it's not making judgments. I see and I hear. I didn't say that. No, I said there's hearing, but that's a good point. I didn't say I hear. I said there is hearing, there is smelling, there is tasting, there is touching. It hasn't reached the level of I yet. When we get to the next consciousness, seventh, that's I hear, I see, I smell, I taste, I touch. The seventh consciousness is imagination and volition, and all of the

[23:32]

trouble that we get into is manas. All of the ideas that we have are manas. Our thinking mind, our discriminating mind based on self is manas. Manas is ego. That's the big one. Yeah. There's no subject yet. The subject is manas. The reason why manas is also a vijnana, but vijnana means consciousness. That's all. They don't say manas-vijnana because it's too confusing to say manas-vijnana and mano-vijnana. So manas is just, you know, in order to make it easier to distinguish, say manas. And the sixth consciousness is

[24:34]

mano-vijnana. So manas is the appropriating consciousness. And manas is based on, it gets all of its information. Manas is the step between the first six consciousnesses and the eighth consciousness. The eighth consciousness is called alaya, which is the seed repository of memory. It is many other things, but alaya is called storehouse consciousness. All the seeds of our actions are registered. You have a registration, unfortunately. You cannot escape. Even if you blank it out, there's a registration,

[25:36]

a registrar. This is going down on your permanent record. This goes down on your permanent record. Laughter Laughter There's a recorder who plants a seed every time you have a thought or an action. And it's planted in the ground of alaya. And when the seeds are watered, they sprout. And it's called habit energy or I remember or karma, karma, karmic actions. All the karmic actions, all the volitional actions are recorded in the alaya vijnana and as seeds for future rebirth. So, rebirth, you know, is two terms. One is reincarnation and the other is rebirth. Reincarnation

[26:37]

is a little far-fetched but rebirth is obvious because it doesn't mean that something is reborn but the action influence of whatever we do creates another action. It's like this. And this is called rebirthing. You had your hand up first. a seed gets planted into alaya when a thought that has some volition behind it. So, any thought that is a seventh consciousness manas related thought? Well, not necessarily. I think that everything gets recorded. So, if something is still at the level of just sense consciousness or maybe even just a mind consciousness it's still planting seeds.

[27:38]

But they're not karmic seeds, are they? Well, karmic or not, alaya is neutral. Alaya has no designs on anything. It's simply the bed. So, everything is imprinted on the seed bed of alaya, as far as my understanding goes. Everything. Some people say only the bad seeds. Some people say, well, good and bad are both planted. Right? So, maybe for practical purposes, to narrow things down to what's important for us, we can say that karmic seeds, both good and bad, so to speak, wholesome and unwholesome, are both implanted in alaya and seeds. I think that's more realistic.

[28:38]

But you had your hand up first. I was just wondering how this relates to the 12-link karmic foundations. Well, you can figure that out later. I mean, it's a good question. But if I go into that, we'll never get through this. I was just reading Transformation at the Base, and Thich Nhat Hanh, in the chapter Transmission, talks a lot about how seeds are transmitted from our ancestors and pretty much all of them is transmitted down through us. there are two categories of seeds. One is the seeds that have been planted in the human race from the first, from the beginning of time, which we all carry. So these are kind of,

[29:46]

as far as permanence can be used, the seeds that everyone carries are the seeds that described the evolution of our psychophysical being. Well, I don't want to get into DNA, and I don't want to get into genes. But just leaving it on this level, we are the end product of the whole human race since the beginning of time. We represent the peak of the evolution of human development. sorry to say, so all of that

[30:50]

development is within our alaya vision. All the information and seeds are within that alaya consciousness. And then there are the personal seeds, which are due to our actions right now, from the beginning. But this brings in the idea of, well, when did we start? You know, when I was born. I was born in 1929. Is that when my alaya began? Well, the idea of birth and death is just an idea. Because we observe how people come into the world, and then how they leave. We call that birth and death. But according to Buddha Dharma, birth and death are continuous.

[31:52]

And they don't, birth doesn't begin with some place beginning in the womb and then ending with the dissolution of the body, the psychophysical entity called me. And life itself is continuous. Because the only problem we have with birth and death is self. Right? When there's no self, there's no problem with birth and death. That's really so. The only problem with birth and death is the idea of self. I'm going to lose self. And what is self? Manas. So manas is the big stumbling block. I have a question about the two types of seeds.

[32:54]

Please speak. Don't speak to your book. It seems like with the two types of seeds, there would be some things that you can change and some things that you can't change. Yes. You know, in Buddha's time, there were many philosophers. And many of the philosophers held the idea that life was fate. Fate means predetermined. So in philosophy, there's the determined and the undetermined. Determined means that you're born into this world with certain destiny, not destiny, but fate, and you're simply working out your fate which is preordained. Sometimes it seems like that. But actually, this is called determined.

[33:55]

Already determined. But Buddha held very strongly that life is not determined and that you can change your karma anytime. Karma is not fixed. So this is salvation in Buddhism. It means that karma is not fixed and that we are self-creating. Human being is self-creating. Within the limits of our environment and our situation and our conditions, we can do whatever we want. And we can create ourself in any way that we want. Karma is not fixed. Karma is volitional action. And the result of karma is phala. It's fruit, fallout. Phala means fallout.

[34:56]

It's the result of our actions. But we can change our actions. We don't have to continue to follow habit energy slavishly. Because even though it seems like we can't, we can change. It's possible to change. And people do it all the time. So you can change the direction of your volitional actions in any direction you want. Even though we may feel enslaved by our feelings, emotional emotions and mental dispositions. We're not. We're not enslaved by those. We are enslaved by those, but we don't have to be. Say that again?

[36:01]

Good side of ego. Well, I'll talk about the good side of ego later. Well, volition, you know, ego is tied in with volition. But volition is not necessarily ego. But we do talk about, ego when it's the way I talk about ego, desire, right? Ego is desire, based on desire. So when desire is turned toward practice, which you would call good, then it's called way-seeking mind. It's no longer called desire. The difference is that desire

[37:05]

is the same impulse, but desire is, we call desire the attribute of ego, or the energy of ego. Whereas way-seeking mind is the energy of its desire driven by way-seeking mind, rather than driven by ego. When it's driven by ego, it's called desire. And when it's driven by way-seeking mind, by practice, it's called way-seeking mind. They're different, yeah. One is to build the ego, and the other is to put it in the right perspective. So that's what you'd call right, or good ego. Right? You could call that good, the good side of ego

[38:05]

would be practice, or the desire to bring ego down, bring the puffed up ego down to where it actually works for the benefit of all beings, instead of just for itself. Be wise, but not puffed up. That's right. Exactly. I thought of that when I was saying that. Yeah. I couldn't hear what you said. Oh. I don't know. I don't know. I can't tell you that. The prize-fighting champion of the world. Is that one of your seeds? Is that one of the seeds that you wanted to be?

[39:07]

No. The evolutionary kind of seeds that we can't change. Yeah, the evolutionary seeds, I think, are not seeds that we would change, that we can change, although we can modify them by, because we are the directors of evolution. To a certain extent. Yeah. I don't know. It's just too much for me to get into at this point. So, okay. So there's... I just want to kind of explicate what the eight consciousnesses

[40:09]

are doing, without going into it too much. So we have the first five sense consciousnesses, and we have a mano vijnana, which is thinking consciousness, which discriminates between the fields of sense, but is not a self-centered consciousness. And then we have manas, which is self-centered consciousness. This is the consciousness that says, I and me, which appropriates to itself, it's a substitute for being Buddha-centric. It's self-centric, but it's not Buddha-centric. It sees itself as the center, instead of Buddha as the center. So,

[41:13]

the seventh consciousness, manas, thinks that the alaya is itself. In other words, we think that all the stuff in our memory, in our ideas, and all this, the torrent of thoughts, which is manas. I mean, alaya is sometimes described as like a rushing torrent of seeds, which are continually sprouting, and habit energy, and delusion, basically. It's like it holds all the seeds of delusion. And manas delights in that. It's called,

[42:14]

it's called defiled consciousness, actually, because it's based on delusion. This is the consciousness that's based on delusion, thinking of itself as the person, as the person. and because people are unconscious of this, they're unconscious of it, so that makes it even more delusional. What was that word? Krista? Krista. It means defiled, like the kleshas are the defilements. How do you know? There's something I'm confused about. You said stumbling before, and also these things make up for ignorance. How is it that

[43:15]

these things come to us like anything else? What about these things? The stored consciousness and the separate consciousness. You described separate consciousness as something that we stumble over. Is that just our association with this? I don't remember saying we stumble over it. The ego being the stumbling block. Oh, it's a stumbling block, yeah. Isn't that something else that just comes to us like anything else? Is it our association? Is it inherently something that we stumble over? It seems to be because we've been doing it for so long. You make one mistake and when you make one mistake you kind of think, well I'll try that again. And you do it again, and you say, well this feels pretty good. And then you try it again. The third time becomes a habit. But regardless of whether or not I made something a habit is it not throwing out the baby with the bathwater

[44:15]

and then trying to put another head on top of my own saying, oh no, this is something that's not in the realm of mind field or mood field. It's separate. And if I can get past this maybe do it in proper context? No, we're not trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We're trying to put the baby where it belongs. Trying to put the baby where it belongs. So the baby jumps out of the tub and starts taking over. This is the problem with the baby. It jumps out of the tub and starts taking over. When Buddha was a baby he put one hand in the air but this baby jumps out of the tub and takes over. You know, I describe this as the office boy because the manas has a function and the function is to send messages

[45:16]

between takes out the boss's cigar and lights it up and starts ordering everybody around. But he doesn't know what the hell he's doing and he makes a mess out of everything. And his name is George Bush. I said, George Bush. Anyway. So we have to get to this site cutting the ego down to size so it can do its proper function without thinking that it's the boss. But all the consciousnesses are Buddha nature. Yes, all the consciousnesses are Buddha nature. That's right. They're all aspects of Buddha nature. So there's a ninth consciousness

[46:17]

which is not on here because ninth consciousness is not a discriminating consciousness. It's on the other side of the paper. That's right. It's on the other side of the paper. Thank you for that one. And that's what Suzuki Roshi said, when you study or hear something in Buddha Dharma, you should read the other side of the page. We say read between the lines. But they say read the other side of the page. But that's right. There's the ninth consciousness. But I'll get to that. So this is kind of like the gist of how consciousness works. So then there's

[47:21]

the purification of consciousness. How does consciousness become purified? Because when consciousness is purified, it's called wisdom. It's no longer called vijnana. It's called wisdom. It's called prajna. So these are the four prajnas. Prajna. We say prajna. But it's P-R-A-G-N-A. It's usually in India it's pronounced prajna. Prajna. Transformation. Transforming, purifying, yeah. The other thing is inverting. Inverting, yeah. Inverting, purifying, transforming. It's called pratityasamutpada. Which means turning at the base.

[48:24]

In other words, the whole base turns around. This is called, sometimes like thinking in a way of sudden enlightenment. It's like when the base turns, everything becomes clear. When one thing turns, everything is turned. So when ego or manas is turned around, so to speak, then alaya becomes purified, and the six senses become purified, and they have names. So when alaya is purified, it's called the great perfect mirror wisdom. The jewel mirror, the mirror wisdom, which sees everything as it is, and it becomes the ninth consciousness, which is called

[49:31]

amala, a-m-a-l-a, amala consciousness. The seventh consciousness, ego, becomes the wisdom of great equality. In other words, instead of seeing itself as a separate entity, it sees the inner connection of all things. And this is called horizontal. Horizontal means leveling. Everything is on the level. In other words, no one thing is any greater than anything else. But everything is totally one piece before discrimination. So manas is the great discriminating consciousness. And when it's purified, it sees the non-discrimination. It sees

[50:33]

things in the non-discriminating with non-discriminating wisdom. It becomes a good boy. Yeah? I'm sorry, I'm still on this a little bit. So, can we abide in the ninth consciousness? Can we abide? Yes. So, can you possibly explain the difference between abiding there and trying to make the seventh consciousness look like and act like the ninth consciousness? We don't try to make it act like anything. We're not trying to whip anybody into shape. Can you maybe explain that? You just let go. When you let go, it fills your hand. You're not trying to get anything because everything is there. Why do you let go? Let go. That's why it's not non-gaining practice. Let go of gaining mind. Period. Can you say a little bit more about the proper function of the ego?

[51:38]

Well, I'm getting there. The proper function of the ego is to see everything completely as one. See everything as equal. You have to speak up so everybody can hear you, not just me. Amala, I said, was the ninth. When the eighth consciousness is purified, it's Amala. That's simplistic. We're always discriminating. Every moment you're discriminating. There's discrimination taking place. Every moment, discrimination taking place. But when discrimination is either egotistical discrimination or non-egotistical discrimination, when we talk about discriminating mind, we're not talking about the difference

[52:42]

between the book and the microphone. You have to discriminate. We're talking about discriminating on the basis of delusive ego. That's what I mean by discrimination. Discriminating on the sense of the delusion of self. So, what's the difference between the first two wisdoms? What do you mean by first two? Great mirror and then great equality. Well, mirror sees everything as it is without discrimination on the basis of self. The mirror sees when you pass by a mirror, the mirror reflects you. It reflects what it sees that reflect you. It reflects what it sees. When you look into the mirror, you see yourself.

[53:42]

But the mirror doesn't see yourself. The mirror just sees things as it is. So, when you pass the mirror the first time, when you're walking down the street and you see yourself reflected in the store window, it takes you by surprise and you really see yourself. But then the next moment, you see yourself as you want to see yourself. That's the difference. So, to see things really as they are is very hard because discriminating consciousness called ego is always making up a picture of what is instead of seeing things as they are. This is the problem. So, it's very hard to see reality because all we see is our partiality, our picture, discriminating picture based on partiality. I like this. I don't like that.

[54:44]

That's why in Zazen, you let go of I like this and I like that. I want this. I want that. You just let go of all that so you can see reality as it is. You may not. Also. But you have the opportunity. One of the things you might see in the Great Perfect Mirror is you might see like, Oh look, there's ego again. Oh look, there's ego again. The mirror will if you see accurately without discrimination, you will see ego arising and you recognize it. Whatever is there will be seen as it is. So, the Great Mirror sees everything just as it is without because there's no self in it. Pure consciousness. Bare awareness. It's called bare awareness. So, Zazen

[55:47]

is bare awareness. I don't want to say just right because then we start judging right Zazen, wrong Zazen. But when Zazen is Zazen, then there is no one who sees. There is simply seeing and seeing sees. Hearing hears. And there's no one there. Because it's not my practice. It's Buddha's practice. So, Zazen is the mirror wisdom when discrimination is no longer present. So, you wouldn't really see ego then because you would, if you see ego, you see ego. You don't see ego. That's right. Because there's nothing to be seen. That's ego. But, ego does arise. But then ego is simply

[56:49]

just one of the other sensations or arisings that pass through. It does arise. But you don't say, this is ego. It's just, instead of saying ego, you say, I want or I don't want. That's recognizing ego. So, you don't see ego as a figure of some kind or an apparition. It's just, as soon as you say, I don't like this, that's ego. I don't want this, that's ego. Oh, I love this. That's ego. Appropriating. Ego arises through clinging and aversion. Clinging and aversion. Wanting and aversion. So, we become attached to wanting and we become attached to aversion. And,

[57:50]

when I first started sitting Zazen, Suzuki Goshi used to say, you're attached to the pain in your legs. And I thought, I'm not attached to the pain in my legs. I don't want it. What do you mean I'm attached to it? But then I found out what he meant. We are attached to it. We're attached to pain and we're attached to pleasure. Oh, this is the way Zazen should be. And then, uh-oh. So, then when nana-vijnana, the sixth consciousness, which is discriminating but not, not egotistical, is called

[58:52]

the marvelous observing wisdom. Subtle observation. Meaning that it's just the opposite of equality. Equality sees everything on a horizontal level without hierarchy. Mana-vijnana sees everything in its hierarchical sense, as distinct. In other words, everything is distinct and on a different plane. Hierarchy means one thing is here and another thing is here. And one thing is here and another thing is here. And you see the relationship between all things. Rather than the oneness, you see the differences. As they are. So, if you only see oneness, that's

[59:53]

not it yet. It has to be oneness and diversity. How is that a transformation or anything? If the sixth level of consciousness is simply discriminative consciousness, then how is the transformation any different from what it was prior to that? Well, that's a good point. It's simply, you know, you could say that observing wisdom is in, it's simply no longer called vijnana. It's called wisdom because it's, as Hakuin says, if I can get back to him here, oh yeah, he says,

[60:58]

he says, when the four wisdoms are bound together, right? So, when they're bound together, even though sixth consciousness may not need to turn, it's bound up with the other four, and therefore it's called marvelous observing because it's still the observing wisdom. But, although it's the observing wisdom, it also thinks. So it's a little bit unclear as to how much, it also has some taintedness to it, because it's associated with the seventh consciousness. In itself, it's not, you know, it's like your buddy, the buddy of the crook, you know, it's kind of tainted by association, right? So...

[62:11]

A what? Yeah. Yeah, you could say that, I think, yeah. There are eight aspects of one consciousness. As a matter of fact, they're all, they're eight aspects of Amala. Because Amala is undivided. And Amala divides itself into eight levels of consciousness in order to, when we're born, so to speak, Amala is like our pure aspect, and then as we enter the world, it's divided into, divides itself into eight levels of consciousness.

[63:17]

This is not only Buddhist. This is, several other religious thinkers have the same, similar kind of understanding. Not the same, but similar. And I'll comment before I ask the question. Also, modern biology, neurobiology is kind of really bearing it out. We're getting great books on this. My question is, you said that the first and fifth rank were the same? Not the same, no. But in the end, the first, like, the alaya and the first five or six have the same aspect. I'll do that next time. I'll bring my explanation next time.

[64:20]

So, now, the first five sense consciousnesses become the perfection of action wisdom, which means that this is like their function. The function of, that's why it's called nirmanakaya, right? So if you look at the bodies, the dharmakaya is the essence body, which is the reality body. And alaya is, it's a little unclear exactly, but alaya is associated with the ninth consciousness in particular, and when it's purified, it's like the dharmakaya. Dharmakaya is a, amala is another name for dharmakaya. These various names

[65:26]

are somewhat the same, but they're different ways of looking at it. So it's the reality body, the essence body, and that is Buddha, the mirror, and sambhogakaya is wisdom body, which is manas, right? Manas becomes, instead of becoming ego, becomes wisdom, the wisdom of universal nature, and which is called the enjoyment body, because then true joy arises. It's also called the reward body, because it's when one is enlightened, which means giving up, basically, letting go, then it's the reward body. And so that's wisdom, and that's sambhogakaya. So that's your

[66:26]

sambhogakaya. Sambhogakaya is not something out there, it's you. The three bodies are your own bodies, your Buddha body, your wisdom body, and your nirmanakaya body, which means your functioning body, which is your sensory life. Our life is totally sensory. So in that sensory life, your life is motivated through wisdom rather than through desire, so to speak. It is the desire of wisdom, which is called way-seeking mind. So this is the purification of consciousness. The various levels of consciousness become purified and become wisdom bodies. So all of your actions are

[67:28]

all of our actions are actions which are activated or channeled into action. So our actions become motivated by or informed and motivated by the other three wisdoms. So that's the basis. And then they relate to the five ranks, which we'll go into later. We have more classes. I have some other handouts, but I'll give them to you next time. No, I'll give them to you now. Now, I have to say that

[68:30]

Zen does not have any particular teachings. Sorry. But we teach Buddhist understanding according to the Zen way of doing things. It's more like hinting. So we appropriate from other traditions. Now the Shingon tradition or the Vajrayana Shingon is Japanese. Vajrayana is Indian, but they're the same school. It's the esoteric school, the kind of mystery school, the school of the two mandalas, the Vajra Mandala and the Womb Mandala, the Tathagatagarbha, which I don't want to get into.

[69:34]

But actually, all of this comes from that. Now, Roshi used to like to call it the experiential and experiential and intrinsic. I like those terms. Intrinsic is like the dark. And experiential is like the light. The light side is our life we think of as experiential. But the other side is always there. What I'm going to hand out to you is a kind of Vajrayana

[70:37]

example. This is from one of the mandalas. And it's about the eight consciousnesses. It gives you an outline of the eight consciousnesses and where Vairocana fits into this. Because Vairocana is like the ninth consciousness, Amala. Pure Dharmakaya. Vairocana Buddha, pure Dharmakaya. Same thing. Same thing as saying Amala consciousness. Vairocana is like the center of the universe. A way of anthropomorphizing this figure as the center of the universe. And emanates. Everything is emanated from. So this is as close as Buddhism

[71:41]

gets to a deity. But Vairocana is denied as a deity. Anyway, this might be of interest to you because the mandala of the four Buddhas, of the four directions and the four bodhisattvas and the nomenclature may be a little off, that I wrote in there, but pretty much the same. So you can take this and ponder it. And if you have any leftovers, I would like some. From either one of these. If you have any leftovers of this. Maybe not. Okay. I got one for Leslie. That's okay. Okay. So next time

[73:04]

we'll talk more about the five ranks. And go on with Hakuin's commentary. But in order to understand what he's talking about, we have to understand this. And this is called Transformation at the Base. This is a book that was put together, Thich Nhat Hanh talks about all of this. And it should be required reading for all Zen students who have any education at all. You don't have to have a lot of education. You can start reading it. It's called Transformation at the Base. Fifty verses on the nature of consciousness. And the commentary. And the more I read it,

[74:08]

the more you will want to read it. Do you know who Lo Chana Buddha is? Who Buddha? Lo Chana Buddha. Yeah. Lo Chana Buddha is Amitabha. Amida Buddha is Lo Chana Buddha. Ok. Ok.

[74:50]

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