Good evening. So the first thing I wanted to share with you is some concern I have right now. I heard this afternoon when I came back to Encel Village that Baker Roshi, who some of you know, some of you have heard of, was Suzuki Roshi's heir and one of the major founders of the San Francisco Zen Center. He was my teacher for many years. He's in the hospital, he had a stroke yesterday, or this morning actually, and it's such a kind of confluence of events that seem really unlikely but amazing. Yesterday he gave the talk at the city center and an old friend of mine and I went to the talk and afterward We had lunch with him and his Dharma heir from Germany, whose name is Nicole, who was going to be giving the talk at Green Gulch this morning.

[01:05]

And he gave a really nice talk, but the highlight was his expression of gratitude and for feeling that he'd actually come home, that he was able to feel the welcome and the sense of being kind of reborn at Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, where he'd spent so many years and had been such an important member or leader, teacher of that community. And then there were these long years, almost 40 years of separation. And that he felt home. He felt like he'd come back. He spent 10 days at the city center with the students there. So his talk felt very intimate, like he actually knew the people in the room. He spent time with them and some of us old timers as well who were there out of respect. And anyway, it was very heartwarming. And the lunch we had was just delightful talking over old times and old friends and so on.

[02:09]

And then we walked back to the city center and said goodbye. And he and Nicole, his successor, went to Green Gulch for the day, for the night. And then apparently after morning zazen, he went back to his quarters and he's staying at Green Gulch in the home where he had lived for many years with his family. So that was poignant as well. and while he was showering he had apparently some event that was clearly startling to everyone else. He kind of lost speech and he went and got Nicole and then they got the ambulance and apparently he is still in the hospital. I haven't heard any current news but it sounds a little bit like it might be fairly good news in that He was still alert, he was still functioning, apparently recognizing people and smiling. He smiled at Reb when he came in the room this morning, but he couldn't talk. So it may be this stroke affected his speech, and apparently that can sometimes clear up for people who've had that kind of stroke.

[03:12]

So we're hoping for that, that he will regain his good health. He was certainly healthy yesterday when we had lunch. We took a pretty long walk down to the restaurant and back. you know, he's 89 years old. So of course, it's that time of life for all of us. But anyway, I just wanted to send heartfelt wishes for his recovery. And also to share with you the the deep gratitude that that he was able to express and that we all felt and this idea of healing, which is, you know, for Buddhists, seems like what else should we be doing, but healing, old suffering old pain old wounds you know and and starting over i liked that he said he had been reborn i feel that's maybe a a really uh accurate kind of feeling of yeah you're back and you're welcome and as he also said you know if i he apologized for his past behavior that it caused so much suffering for the community and for himself and he said you know if i were that young man that young teacher

[04:21]

The one I'm now, if I was this person then, I would never have done those things. But I can't go back. I can't undo what I did. But he deeply apologized, and I think everyone in the room was quite moved. So wishing him well and letting you know that this is very current. Hopefully next week I'll have better news. So anyway, for Baker Roshi. So, mind only. So after I finished the class last week, I was aware of the fact that this material is very tricky. It's not only tricky, I think, for all of you to listen to, but it's really tricky for me to teach as well. So I've been thinking about some better way to stay in touch with you as I go through these teachings. you know, in Ben's book. So the idea I had was that maybe I will stop along the way and I'm going to get to a verse.

[05:23]

I'll just stop and give you a chance to ask any clarifying questions you have or whatever you want to say. I'll just give you a chance all the way through my comments to make sure we're all on the same page, so to speak, literally the same page in Ben's book. I'm going to try and stay closer to his chapters and the ideas that he shares and also with the verses. as they unroll. So I wanted to read those first four verses, which is as far as we've gotten so far, of the 30. We've read through four, and I've talked a little bit about those four, and of course you can read those four in Ben's books. Each one of his chapters is named for one of the verses, Vasubanda's verses. So, the first four verses, the first one, this is Vasubanda's teaching. everything conceived as self or other occurs in the transformation of consciousness everything conceived as self or other occurs in the transformation of consciousness this is kind of like the yogachara presentation you know it's your mind it's your mind you know um second verse this transformation has three aspects

[06:44]

the ripening of karma, the consciousness of a self, and the imagery of sense objects. That's verse two. So he's starting to break down this transformation of consciousness. He's starting to tell us what consciousness is made of. Kind of like I've been using the image of clockwork. So our consciousness is, if you could open up the back of my head and look in there, the map of consciousness is what Vasubandhu is presenting to us. This is how it works. There's three aspects. So verse number three, the first of these aspects is called, is also called alaya, alaya, the store consciousness, which contains all karmic seeds, seeds. It's like the farmer's plant, like out there at Green Gulch Farm, we plant a lot of seeds. So the consciousness, the alaya, contains all karmic seeds.

[07:46]

Karma means something intended, actions you intended to do. And so the actions you intended to do have become seeds that are hanging out, are stored in your unconscious. So these seeds, this is the theory. Continuing with verse three, what it holds, what the aliyah holds and its perception of location are unknown. It's unconscious. don't really know what's in there, right? We can't really open up that bag of seeds and check it out. We do know by the products that pop into our awareness. That's how we know what's being stored there and it's stuff that we put there. So it's pretty familiar, things that pop up and like, well, that's not a big surprise. I remember where that came from, you know? So this is how each of us has been made by our former actions, okay? So verse number four, it, Aliyah, is always associated with sense contact.

[08:49]

One of my senses making contact with some kind of apparently an object, like a sound. So let's just use the example of my ear as a sense. Ear, sound. So a lie is associated with sense contact, with attention. I turn my attention to the sound. A sensation. around that sound, like I liked it, I didn't like it, or I'm not sure, that's sensation. A perception, so now I'm starting to name the sound. I think that's a bird, okay? So I'm gonna put a label, a concept on that sound. Before that, there was no words, no, there was just sensations and attention. So those two things, and then, and a feeling. So we had a sensory experience, attention to that sensory experience, a feeling about it. I like it. I like birds. And then a concept. That's a bird.

[09:51]

So, okay. And then the last one of these five is volition. Okay. So that's taking action, intentional action, the place the seeds come from. So this is the clockwork as, as it's moving. You know, when the hands are going around, they're going around in this pattern, sense contact, attention, sensation, perception, and volition, action. Then it goes on to say in verse 4, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, this is a lie they're talking about, it is unobstructed, doesn't get blocked, just kind of moves freely, and karmically neutral. A lie itself doesn't have an opinion. about what's in there. It doesn't have an opinion about anything. It doesn't like or dislike. It's not wholesome or unwholesome. It's just a bag of seeds. The seeds, on the other hand, can be wholesome or unwholesome and so on and so forth. But a lie itself is just a neutral.

[10:52]

It's just a storehouse where our karma is being held until it arises into consciousness. And then the last line of verse 4, like a river flowing, like a river flowing, our awareness is like a river flowing in enlightenment it is overturned at its root very interesting point so we'll learn more about that as we go along so those are the first four verses that we've looked at so far and I'm going to be going over these again a little just a little bit more until we go then we'll go to verse five and then six until we get through this this this text so Tonight I want to be looking at these three aspects of the mind that work together in creating both the world that we see and the one who's doing the scene. I call that me. So just as Vasu Bandhu teaches in Chapter 1 of Ben's book, everything conceived of as self and other, you know, of the world and me, is occurring in the transformation of consciousness.

[11:57]

So this is the first teaching we've got. So this seemingly simple statement, Ben says, means that we divide everything in this moment of experience, the one you're having right now, I'm having right now. We divide everything. in this moment of experience into things that we conceive to be ourselves and things that we conceive to be other. Pretty familiar. So familiar, we don't even notice. So here I am, and there's my wooden duck over there, and my stack of books over there, the lamp over there, and so on. Outside. I'm inside, and that's outside. Self and other. We divide everything in this moment of experience into things that we conceive, mind only, to be ourselves and things that we conceive to be other than ourselves, with ourselves unconsciously placed in the center. You know, we call this normal. That's normal.

[12:57]

And although it is normal, the Buddha said, it is not true. So whether we know it or not, this division and this self-centering is constantly occurring and is the primary cause of great suffering in our own lives and in the world. And it's for that reason that Vasubandhu, who was inspired by the Buddha's own enlightened vision of non-dual nature of reality, the non-dual aspect of consciousness, there's nothing outside, nothing inside. It's dependently co-arising. Object, subject, together. non-dual, even though we don't see that. So, Vasubhanda teaches the possibility of transcending that division through intimacy with it, by being really intimate with how the mind works and how this trick is being played on us. Even though we won't be able to undo the trick in our lifetime, we can catch it. You know, we can get onto the trick.

[14:01]

We can know how the magician is doing the trick. And therefore, we don't need to be so moved around by what's happening, or what we imagine is happening, and so on. So just by paying attention to it, by intimacy with the trick, this is the principal objective of the 30 verses, to healing the split and saving the world, person by person, each one of us, one by one, healing the split and saving the world. So in entering into the work of healing ourselves and healing the world, we will need to become intimate, as Ben says, and as Vasubhanda teaches, with the two barriers to our liberation. So there's two reasons that we're stuck in split. The first barrier is the barrier of our primary afflictions. You know, when we have this experience of, like, the bird sound, I have a sensory experience, my attention goes to it, I have a feeling about it, if I like it, then I might want to go get that bird.

[15:10]

I might want to have that bird. Or I might want to record the bird sound so I can have it, you know, I can own it, I can possess it. So that's greed. And the other one, if, you know, if it's a turkey vulture or something, I'm worried about it. I might want to get rid of it. I don't like that bird. So these two primary, I like it, I don't like it, are the primary afflictions that are a result of the split, that something is outside, and I need to protect myself from something that's coming in from outside, or I need to get that for myself, one or the other, either add it to myself or keep it away from myself. Greed and hate. That's the first barrier to our healing. The second barrier is the barrier of delusions about ourself and about the world. That's the harder one. That's where the emptiness teachings come in. That's when a major insight into the reality that the Buddha had under the Bodhi tree, that's when that kind of aha, you know, when you really experientially know there's no split.

[16:21]

There's no need to go after things or to push things away. You know, we can kind of welcome our experience in a different way. So that's what this is all up to. These two barriers, the barrier of greed and hate, of afflictions, and the barrier of delusions. First half of the book, of the verses, is talking about the barrier of afflictions. And the second half of the 30 verses is talking about the barrier of delusion. So in chapter 2, verse 2, so each of his chapters is one of the verses of Vasubandhu's teaching, we hear that this transformation has three aspects. So with this verse, Vasubandhu's beginning to explain the eight consciousnesses model of the mind, which I've shown to you each time and I'm going to show you again this week. So the eight consciousnesses model of the mind helps us to understand how it is we think and what it is we think about.

[17:23]

So I'm going to bring that up again. Oh, maybe I'll pause right now. I'll bring it onto the screen and then I'm going to take a pause as I promised to do and have you ask any questions you have so far about what I have said or perhaps what you've read. Okay. So here it is. Illustration of the eight consciousnesses model of the mind. Vasubandha's 30 verses. So there's these two. You think of this line down the center as kind of like the horizon line or the water line. And above the water line is what we're conscious of. So these are the first six of the eight forms of consciousness that we have that make up our mind. So there's the ones, the sensory imagery, smell, taste, sound, sight, and touch, very common, our five senses. And here's the one that surprises us, which is number six, is the consciousness called awareness of concepts.

[18:31]

So just like the ear is aware of sound, number six is aware of ideas, of concepts. And below the waterline is where the alaya lives. We're not conscious of it. We can't access it. We can only access the little sprouts. When the seeds sprout and they come up into awareness, we know those. So if you have a thought about something happened last year when you were a child, those are little seeds that somehow are sprouting. You don't really know why. Why is that seed sprouting right now? Sometimes we can figure it out. We got triggered by a memory or somebody looked like our third grade teacher, whatever it is. That might be a cause for a seed sprouting, but we really don't know. And when we dream, a lot of little sprouts come up. What's that all about? It's kind of fun to try to figure it out. But mostly we can't access the source of these impressions. We can at least have trust or faith in the fact that we did it.

[19:32]

These are our seeds. These are our seeds that got planted here. So then, there's alaya, that's the eighth consciousness. And then over here, number seven, we'll be talking about later, is manas, the lover, the sense of a self. And manas is also the one that is thinking, and thinking just normal thinking, neutral thinking, thinking about going shopping later today, and defiled thinking. Greed, hate, and delusion are defiled thinking. Thinking that leads to the split, are splitting off from the world around us and from people around us and these afflictions of hatred and greed. So just the last part of this diagram is that the impulses from the past are what are being carried by the aliyah. Aliyah is like a big bag of seeds, as I said. And what's being carried in there is from our past. And in the present, we have access through these little seeds that pop up in the moment.

[20:35]

So just little moments of experience in the present. We don't have an experience of the whole Alaya or our whole lifetime. We just get little slide shows now and then. Here comes a slide, here comes another slide, here comes another, right? So there's a bit random, as you may have noticed, as meditators, what pops up, kind of random. So, but that's in the present. What's popping up, it pops up in the present. How we respond to what pops up in the present creates the future. So what we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday. Our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is a creation of our mind. That's what the Buddha and the Dhammapada taught. Okay, let's see. Maybe I'll stop the share for now. Okay, so any questions so far? that you would like to bring up? Jerry, yeah, please.

[21:37]

Thank you, Fu. And thank you for doing it. And there's Drew. That's actually not Jerry, but Jerry's talking and Drew's laughing. That's pretty good. Who's on first? Who's on first? Okay. Drew, why don't you hang in there for a second? Go ahead, Jerry. Thanks, Drew. I started to say I really appreciate what you're doing. As a teacher myself, I see you shifting from teaching to learning. Big difference. And I may even send you some notes about that. Oh, would you please? Would you please? Oh, I will. Thank you for that. Because I was hesitant. But I'm also doing this with someone else as well. It's very critical. I really appreciate what you're doing. So here's a question. I love the fact that you called this like a hat trick, what we do with this non-duality business.

[22:41]

And you also said it could take a lifetime to really, I don't know how to fill in the rest of that sentence. And I think that's probably true. Here's my question. I wonder if the issue is more how I buy into the duality rather than the duality appearing. Because I think the appearing in my life, the duality is going to always be appearing in some form or another. I don't have an ambition to get rid of that. I really don't. But what I do have an ambition around is to notice it and notice my relationship to that, to it, which I think we could say is greed or aggression or whatever. Is that? Yeah, no, that's good.

[23:44]

I mean, Ben says, you know, I don't have, I'm not, non-dual thinker i mean he admits i mean we all say that i'm really into duality it's how i make my living you know i'm basically dualistic thinker and i walk through the world very rarely do i reflect on this teaching but i believe it you know i've actually been convinced by the reading and study that the non-conceptual wisdom non-imaginary wisdom is is you know is the is the insight that the Buddha had that freed him from attachment to the, to the external world or the internal world to himself. So it's rather, I think like you're saying, it's like so much, I'm not getting fooled by it. It's happening, but the, you know, in, um, in this text that we, we've read the Sunday Nirmacana Sutra, one of the stories that's told in there is about the magician at the crossroads. I don't know if you know that story, but there's a magician at the crossroads of a town. And he conjures, he takes some sticks and rocks and he conjures giraffes and elephants and tigers.

[24:49]

So when the people come to the town, they get to the crossroads, they see tigers and elephants and giraffes. And the question in the book is, what does the magician see? Exactly. And do you know, do you remember the answer? Yes. He sees the twigs and stones? No. He sees the giraffes and the tigers and the elephants, but he knows that they're twigs and stones. To your point. You're on the right track. We're the magicians and we see the magic trick that we're doing, but we know it's a trick. And we also know how we're doing it. This teaching is about how are you doing your trick? Yeah, the how eludes me, but I'm learning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, verse number seven. We're getting there. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Jerry. Drew, did you want to come back on? Sure.

[25:50]

Great. Ready to, oh, hi. Hi. Just a few things, wondering, I understand sense, senses, hearing ear, smelling nose, but concepts, aware of concepts, what is that associated with the brain? Seems like it. But your whole body really is a sense, is your, you know, just your brain, like the brain in the jar is not so useful. So your whole body is able to, you know, connect with concepts. I don't know exactly where concepts coming from. You know, if I got stub my toe, I have a concept that is in my toe, but it's really in my brain. know, the senses. So it's sort of like, I would think your whole body is involved in creation of concepts. But there's certain part like poor Richard Baker, I think the part of his brain that got hurt was the one that makes concepts, makes language.

[26:51]

So we know that there's a kind of a particular part of your brain. Yeah, yeah. So I would say, practically, it's probably that part of your brain, that's picking up on words. And translating this external world into language. Just to throw out, I did a workshop on this a few years with Mo Song and Andy Alinsky, and this may be further down the line, but the lover part of it, they referred to it, they talked about how we're enamored with ourself. And that I related to more than in love with, if anything, I'm not in love with myself. But the whole idea that I'm enamored with aspects of myself. My mind this, my mind that, it's just so intriguing. So the word enamored fits better for me. That's good. Captivated. Captivated.

[27:53]

Yeah, that's true. But even not liking yourself is kind of hooked on yourself. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I really am the worst. Well, that's self-centered too. So whether you love yourself or you don't, you're still all about you. It's about me, yes. Right. Yeah. But I like, I think, did you say enamored? Yeah. I think enamored sounds good. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thanks. Thank you. Is that Carmina? Carmina and Marianne, a twofer. Great. Marianne disappeared. Hi, Carmina. Hi there. Hello, Sangha. Nice to see all these bright, intelligent faces. And yours. Well, that all share greed and delusion. Yes, that's right. Particularly delusion. As we were starting to talk about...

[28:59]

Well, the aggregates and the mental factors and six consciousness, it just right away it started. It just came together for me as dreams and our dream cycle and how all this stuff is coming out of the the store, right? And how we come and, you know, we can do some of that dream work by ourselves, but it's so much better to be able to share it with someone who really knows you and knows what goes on in your head and knows all those karmic seeds, so to speak, that you built up, you know, that are already in your unconscious.

[30:06]

So anyway, I just wondered whether anybody else, you know, I know you mentioned dream right now, but I wonder if anybody else hinged dream onto what we've been discussing. I don't know. Well, that's pretty much what we're doing all the time. I don't think you're just talking about sleeping dreams. I am, actually. Not just about those. That is my primary question. It has to do with what our unconscious sense of that has been affected by all our experiences, but generally, those closes in time to us and that's why it's great to have a close friend who knows you you know like for years and what you can't quite see about this is actually what somebody else can see about your past and the stuff the unconscious stuff that goes on that we can't quite get a hold of

[31:24]

well a lot of psychotherapy is involved in that like dream work and interpreting dreams and you know young was into that and so that's a whole school many schools around dreams and dream work and stuff but i think the buddhist thing is more like you're dreaming right now you know this is the dream you need to wake up from is is the one that you're doing all the time you know i think i told you i went to see when mel weitzman was teaching at Tassahara, I was a fairly new student there in my first practice period, and we each went up to ask him a question, and I thought I was being kind of clever, and I said, which is true, dreams are sweet, I love to sleep. What do you have to offer? And he said, go wash your face. So I think it's really a kindness. I felt, actually, once I got over being embarrassed, I felt the kindness of that. Yeah, I told him that. I went to see him shortly before he passed away. And I said, I loved that.

[32:25]

You really helped me to say, yes, you can dream if you like, but how about waking up? How about waking up from the dreaming and see what it is that you are actually here for. What is it that you're here for? with your senses, with your intelligence. You know, what can you do with this? That's not fantasies. It's not, oh, if I was only in Chicago, if I was only in Bali, if I was only, you know, back with my family. I mean, we love to drift to the past and we love to drift to the future. So what about right here, right where you are? You know, that's not turning it into a story of some kind. So I think dreams are fascinating. I did that kind of stuff for a long time, very interested in my own imagery and stuff. But it's really the one you're doing right now when you're so-called awake that we're talking about with this text. All right. Now, should I go wash my face now? Yes, please. Thank you, Mary.

[33:29]

Your face looks pretty clean to me. Thank you. You're welcome. Millicent. Good morning, Fu. Good morning, Melissa. The three poisons, Fu, greed, hate, and delusion. Oh. You're big. Where does that fit into this schema? Are they bigger than the individual me? Are they sort of chronic to the experience of being a human? Chronic. Beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. all my ancient twisted karma as we say you know when we acknowledge our karma first thing in the morning all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed hate and delusion born through body speech and mind i now fully avow i admit it i confess i am i am a product of my ancient twisted karma you know that's what i am

[34:29]

And it's the ancient twisted karma of my parents and my species and life itself. So I'm not ashamed of it, but I acknowledge it. That there's a lot of confusion in there in how we got to be dominant species on the planet. A little bit of cheating, a little bit of aggression, a little bit of greed, and definitely a lot of delusion. So it's basically inborn. Does Vasubandhu consider it, I'm just thinking of the schema, does that arise from alaya or do I create it from manas? Well, manas is in love with alaya. Manas believes that alaya is the one, is the lover, right?

[35:31]

I love myself or I hate myself either way, but I love myself. So that's a delusion. It's a splitting already between me and myself. How do you feel about yourself? I love myself. That's already you split. So it's basically a trick. It's a trick that's being played by these components, these parts. And there's really no stable set piece. You're not a thing, you're a process. So your process of how you move through the world is always moving, always changing, never repeating, non-repeating universe, as Baker Rush used to say. So here we are with a fresh moment. The good news is you get to start over every moment by how you respond to the impulse that's coming up from your alaya. And a lot of what's coming up are your old habits. So that's the tricky part. because they're familiar and it's like well that didn't work last time but maybe it'll work this time you know that's why the wheel of birth and death keeps going around and around because we ignore non-duality we ignore non-separation and therefore we make a separate self and the separate self is greedy and hateful and delusional and they try to make contact with another separate self and then you know they they glue on to each other and

[36:57]

You know, they make a kind of love affair with ignorance. And then it doesn't work. It doesn't work. There's no permanent thing. I love you forever. You know, we can say those things. But basically, disillusion and change and impermanence is the law. And that's not what we want. We want permanence and, you know, lifelong, I mean, eternal life and so on. So we have to really come to terms with the facts of life. and that's kind of big boy girl stuff you know it's like oh impermanent no self suffering and then there's lots to be said in there of how like i read this really good line that humans are born from imagination and buddhas are born from compassion You like that?

[37:58]

It looks like you do. Will you please say that again, please? Humans are born from imagination. This is what we're talking about, the mind only. We're born from our imagination. Buddhas are born from compassion. Primarily for humans. Anyway, I thought that was a really nice quote. The Chuang. I'll chew, Fu. I don't like it much because the whole idea of compassion in a funny sort of way has a me and a you or a me and an out there, me compassion out there being compassionate to you, whereas it seems to me I mean, in the normal scheme of things, I wouldn't deliberately cut my arm in the normal scheme of things.

[39:09]

Am I being compassionate to my arm because I don't cut it? Yeah. Yeah. We'll stop you if you do stuff like that. So, I mean... I just take care of my arm naturally because it's not separate from me. And you eat healthy food and you exercise and you do all those things. Yeah, right, exactly. So we do all those things to take care of ourselves. But this is our mental health. This is taking care of our mental health. And I think I hear your point about compassion being for others. But you know, Buddhas come, they arrive because of suffering beings. They wouldn't be any. We wouldn't need any Buddha if there weren't suffering beings. So, you know, they're basically born from the sentient beings who are suffering. Chakyamuni Buddha was a prince, and he woke up to the true nature of reality.

[40:12]

He could have just sat there and said, that's nice, and I'll just end my life right here, because I figured it out. But out of compassion, he knew there were other beings, delusional beings and illusional beings, who were suffering because they didn't get it. They didn't get the trick. So he said, I think I'll go tell them about the trick that I just figured out. And so he did. And we're still talking about that, right? Yes. Yes, Fu. I like your sentence now. Oh, thank you. You are hard one. Thank you. It just seems that... The greed, hate, and delusion just seems to be part of the human animal. Other animals seem to have it. Yeah. Well, they've got their own version, but they're not calculating quite the way we're doing. Well, they do set traps, that's not true. They have all kinds of tricks that we've learned and perfected, you know.

[41:13]

But, yeah, I think the ancestry is pretty clear. I'm watching these little monkeys on YouTube and they're like, oh yeah, that's my nephew. I can recognize the behavior. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Okay. Shall we do a little bit more of our dear verses? Anyone else? Ready to go back? Okay. So we looked at the A Consciousness Model. And we heard in verse 2 that the model of the mind, that there are these three parts, the ripening of karma, consciousness of self, imagery of sense, object. So we just looked at those. That's all that's on that map, that diagram. And then we also know that the names that are referred to in that second verse, starting with verse 3, were introduced to this storehouse consciousness. And that's what is called in verse two, the ripening of karma.

[42:15]

So verse three says, the first of these is also called the laya, the storehouse consciousness, which contains all the karmic seeds. So this model of consciousness explains both why we do what we do, but more importantly, how we can transform or let go of those afflictive emotions, the ones I mentioned, greed, hate, and delusion. How do we stop this inborn tendency to be at the center of things and to demand things or exclude things and to be so confused? I mean, how do we deal with that? Is it hopeless? No, Buddha said it's not hopeless, but it takes work. And it takes using this, not just for selfish purposes, but for... to bring our intelligence to bear on these wisdom teachings. So in order to understand how our imagination makes us human, the Yogacara describes the influences from the past that are making us the people that we are today. And one of these key elements is the one I mentioned, which are called seeds.

[43:18]

I want to say a little bit about seeds. So seeds are the name that's given in this tradition. to those tendencies that are stored up in our unconscious, in our alaya, that are, as you saw in the diagram, a result of past actions. And those seeds, when they manifest in the present, are called fruit. So there's karmic seeds, and then there's karmic fruit. So the ripening of the seeds is what we experience in the present. So you can imagine this alaya as a big bag of seeds that are just waiting for the right conditions to sprout. You know, it's kind of like a little truck farm in which our lives are being seeded, cultivated, grown, and harvested year after year, season after season. So the kinds of seeds that we carry in our unconscious vary wildly person to person, depending on what we have been up to in the past. Good actions leading to wholesome seeds and tasty fruit. And not so good actions leading to unwholesome seeds and not so tasty fruit, right?

[44:20]

So habits, we all know about habits, we all have habits, some good habits, some not so good habits. But they're made from how we repeat certain actions over and over and over again. And then that leads to a future outcome that's pretty established. I was thinking of an example, which is Simone Biles. of a habit. She cultivated a habit that blows us away. I was trying to find her on the balance beam. Unbelievable that a human being could practice and repeat and drill and perfect a habit that is so hard to imagine ever doing yourself. But here's this person, this extraordinary athlete, who has perfected this amazing sport. And she's the GOAT, the greatest of all times. So then on the other side, so that's a good habit. On the other side, somebody has their... What's the apple? What's that?

[45:21]

The who? Someone spoke to me? No. So heroin and alcohol addictions are examples of the kinds of seeds that we do not want to plant, right? Obviously. I remember there was a book back in the 60s about heroin and the title of the book, I didn't read the book, but I read the title and that was enough for me. It said, it's so good, don't even try it once. I think that's what's happening with oxycodone and some of these other chemicals that make you feel so good and take the pain away for a while. And then when it comes back, it roars back and then you want it again. We all know the stories, it's tragic, it's tragic. And so those are bad seeds. cause great harm. So according to the Buddha's teaching, it's possible to change our reactions to events through repeated receding. So just like someone Biles made a great habit of her gymnastics, we can make great habits too and plant those in the alaya by acting generously, kindly, patiently, and compassionately.

[46:31]

response to things that are coming at us or seem to be coming at us from this amazing world this wonderful world so in other words by planting new habits of thought that result in new habits of behavior and as i said said last sunday how you recede depends on the choices that you make right now during this very event. So whatever you're doing right now is reseeding your time on earth for tomorrow. And tomorrow will reseed for the next day and so on till the end of the year and till the end of our lives and so on. So there is a pattern and we can get involved in that pattern. We can become intimate with that pattern. So once again, we get to choose between selflessness and selfishness, between more suffering and more kindness. between careless speech and careful speech, and so on. So in terms of what you can do with your life, your choice in this moment is what truly matters.

[47:34]

And this understanding about the transformational power of our actions that we make in the present is the endless point of return for Buddhist practice. You can change your behavior, you can do it, but you have to pay attention to what's happening, and you have to have an intention to take actions that are positive and are full of, you know, kind regard and compassion and patience. You know, all the paramitas, which I think many of you have studied, generosity and ethics and patience and energy, concentration, you know, practicing meditation and wisdom. These are the kind of behaviors that will recede our alaya. and turn us into Buddhist practitioners and enthusiasts. I was talking this morning, I had this wonderful opportunity to go to Terralinda High School here in Marin County. I was invited by the community mental health group there

[48:38]

They're these teenagers from all over the high schools in Marin who work together to address teen mental health. So it was a mental health event, and I turned out to be the keynote speaker, which I wasn't really aware that's what they asked me to do. But they had a picture of me up on this slide, and they talked about who I was. And it was so sweet to be talking to these teenagers about Dharma, in language I hoped would be accessible to them, as you were saying, Jerry, to try and make it something they could actually understand and perhaps even use. So that's the kind of seeding that we want to encourage in our young ones too, see if we can help them to understand that they're in such a tough situation. And I heard some about that while I was there, how hard it is to be a teenager. I remember that. We all remember that. But I think the ante has gone way up on how hard it is and how much is expected of them and who they think they're supposed to be and all the influencers.

[49:44]

I mean, who do you model yourself after? It's pretty tough. So I was happy to be there, and I hope more people show up for Mental Health Week year after year. They do this really wonderful thing for themselves. So the storehouse operates unconsciously. It's the aspect of the mind that appropriates and animates our body. So you can think of yourself as kind of a wooden puppet like Pinocchio, and then your aliyah comes in, and now you're a living, you're a real girl, a real boy. You have this animation that comes from this storehouse as well. You know, without a mind, the body doesn't function. And yet... How the storehouse regulates our body in support of our life is not known, as it says in the verse. It's not available to our conscious awareness. However, the state of our unconscious storehouse, which is a result of our past karmic conditioning, in our present awareness will either produce a bright, clear light and image of the world around us, you know, like, oh, what a lovely day, or a smoky, distorted image of the world.

[50:59]

And as Ben says in chapter two, the alaya is a way of describing the process by which our past karmic conditioning ripens in the present. You know, understanding how it is that each of us has different reactions to the conditions that we share here on planet Earth. You know, for example, standing outside in the rain together, Ben uses this example, where one of us is miserable and complaining and the other one is splashing around and singing can't be explained by anything else than our karmic conditioning. So karma, Ben says, doesn't make rain. Karma doesn't make rain. Karma makes smiles and frowns. It makes hugs and fists. I thought that was pretty helpful. So I'm going to stop there. It's almost six. And next time we'll begin again. We're going to get toward, we finish up verse four, the beginning of next Sunday, and then go on to verse five where manas, shows up, the lover.

[52:00]

Okay, any other questions or comments or anything else you'd like to bring up? And let me say hi to everybody first before we start talking again. Hello Griffin, you can see your hand there. Hello Helene, Jifu, welcome. Lisa and Steve, Carmina and Marianne, Kathy, Jerry, Paul and Kate, and Carol, moving around a little bit. And Drew, hello Dean, Millicent, Jack Cohen, welcome. Amer, nice to see you again. Shozan, Senko. Meredith, hello Meredith. Kosan, hello, hello, nice to see you. Michael, hello Michael. Kirimera, we haven't met, but welcome Kirimera. And Chris Enders, Adrian Benner. There's someone with a KK, Tom, John, Tara, Peter, remember Peter from last week, Peter Pan, and Justin.

[53:05]

Okay, so please, anything you'd like to bring up? Griffin, I see your hand, please. Hi. I'd like to try and maybe tie together what the study of Yoga Chara is bringing up in me and what... Baker Roshi touched me so deeply with in his talk yesterday. Baker Roshi spoke about the space of connection and the space of separation. So the space of connection to me is perhaps an intuition since childhood. The space of separation is what I study in my practice. And as I get older, you know, I'm sort of seeing the Seamlessness between these two spaces. And I guess what eludes me is, you know, where is the rest, the ease, and the mind only, projection only?

[54:09]

You know, what moves me to a moment of intention? Is it seeing the delusion of the separation? Yeah. you know, into a self that creates a reality and resting from the uselessness of grasping at that? Or is it seeing the connectedness, which, you know, just is already the interbeing? No duality. And, you know, there's no grasping for that because it's already there. So that's sort of... Do you remember that story about the whisk in the face? Yeah. So what happens when that happens? So the very smart, the very smart Dharma student like you goes to the teacher with all this wonderful understanding. And then the teacher takes their whisk and goes boop like that. What's that all about?

[55:09]

Do you remember? You're asking about rest. You're asking about rest. Just being in the moment. Yeah, just drop it. Drop body and mind. Dogen, drop it. Stop. Because the pain of our life is this twirling mind. Our mind is so restless. We don't allow ourselves to rest. I mean, hopefully, I know you're in the Zendo every day. Hopefully, that's time we find a way to rest, to find a peaceful abiding right there. The noise can go on, but we're not paying any attention to it. It doesn't have our, we're not giving it our attention. It's just a little babbling brook, you know. So I would say resting on the brook as it babbles along. Get your little paddle boat out there and just let yourself rise and fall with these images. They come and go, you know. Or if you find yourself in a conundrum and you're really trying to figure something out, you know, pull the plug.

[56:12]

I'm just going to take a break. So I think that one of the most brilliant parts of the transmission of light was how many times the teachers just put the little whisk gently in the face of these brilliant students who'd figured it out. And they wanted validation for that, but instead they got this wonderful opportunity to stop. Just stop. You're already fine. You're already perfect, as you said. it's already a non-dual world yeah so try to soak it up when you can you know and then you'll go back we'll get back on the treadmill we always do but then remember to turn it off what do you think i mean don't think thanks mike sure thank you you're welcome

[57:16]

Peter. Peter. There's Peter. Hello, Peter. Welcome back. What's up? What's up? I've got a question. Uh-huh. And I'm going to try to ask this, I guess. I was actually multitasking here. And I thought I'd add this first off, I guess. It's an analogy of the seeds in the garden, I guess. Yeah. And it says right here that the mind equals the garden soil, which is a lie. Yeah. equals the planting seeds the actions yeah habits equal plants that grow yeah and mindfulness and practice equals uh gardening tools the what oh that's nice that's nice so and it's saying right here wisdom is realizing the garden itself is empty or fixed self of fixed self sorry which allows for full liberation yeah and i guess my question is because it also says right here liberation which be nirvana, I guess, is the cessation of this cycle by transforming or emptying the storehouse of this karmic burden.

[58:27]

So how do you actually transform or empty that storehouse of that karmic burden? I mean, in another way, that's like saying, let's say a monk went to the Buddha and he said, hey, man, you said suffering is cause of desire is because of desire. So I should stop desiring. And so the monk says – or sorry, the Buddha says, okay, go stop trying to desire. The monk comes back after a while and says, hey, man, now I'm desiring not to desire. So the monk I guess then tells him, well, now you're getting the point, so just let go. So the monk goes and tries to let go, comes back after a while, and I guess he says, hey, man, I'm trying to let go, but I can't let go. I don't understand. And so the Buddha then tells him, well, I think you're now getting the point. You just got to let it be. You just got to let go, let it be. And if you try to cling to these ideas of trying to let go, well, you're not really letting go.

[59:32]

But I guess my question to all this is as humans, it's our human nature to kind of cling to things, to kind of see things as dual. And it's like, in my opinion, you can't escape that. It's nature. So in your opinion, how do you let go and transform or empty the storehouse? If in my opinion, it's kind of impossible. Hmm. Well, you know, Buddha had a slightly different opinion. So he thinks you can't. So that's the good news. We think we can't. That's pretty common. That's normal. We don't think we can do it because you can't do it because there's no you for one thing. But the other thing is, you know, when you were telling that story, I thought of another story. which is the one about the little girl who goes off in the woods with her aunt. They're supposedly, these are native people, live out in the woods. They're very familiar with the woods. And the aunt is telling them the story of creation about all the universe and everything was created and that the earth is being carried on the back of a giant turtle.

[60:41]

And the little girl raises her hand. She says, well, auntie, auntie. but what's the turtle riding on? And the auntie says, a bigger turtle. And she goes on talking and the little girl raises her hand again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what's that turtle riding on? And now the auntie's getting a little irritated with the little girl. So she says, an even bigger turtle. And then she goes on talking to find the little girl's hands up in the air again. So the aunt looks at her and said, listen, it's just turtles all the way down. So, you know, We will never get to the bottom of explanations. We will never get to the reason why or to the final resolution of anything. We're just in process together. We're just trying to enjoy the ocean travel that the turtle is doing and that we're doing throughout our space. We're just on a journey together here. And these are some great ideas that we can try on that'll help us to have maybe some less pain or less suffering by less holding. Less grasping.

[61:43]

I think your story was a good one. But what the Buddha was saying to that monk was, you're holding on to the... I'm giving you an idea and you're holding on to it. And you're hitting yourself with it. You know? Open your hand. Like there's this... One of the teachers, open the hand of thought. Just let the thoughts fly away. They just came and they'll go. You don't have to do anything. There's no you to do anything. Just watch the little... vacuum fill up with clouds of thinking and then where'd they go? They went away and some other clouds come in. Where'd they go? They go away. Coming and going is our nature. Tathagata. The Buddha was called the Tathagata. That which comes and goes. So that's us. We just come and go and we can't hold anything. Just try to hold on to something. I promise you I would love to hear if you have any success. so peter next time you come you tell me if you have any luck holding on to anything okay um well i guess my confusion is on nirvana uh the idea that you can escape rebirth yeah well there's another term called in mahayana called the non-abiding no abiding nirvana you don't go live there it's not a home it's not another home where you can move in to escape from samsara it's not it's just another concept

[63:06]

Okay. Okay. Well, that was easy. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Senko. Hi, Fu. I just have a quick question. Just listening to your conversation, I was thinking about, you know, there's really no hope of empty my seeds because a lot of those seeds are even not controlled by myself. It could be a society. It could be, you know, I just don't think there's a free will. in terms how I can have those seeds planted. I mean, they're like a lot of society issues, right? Like I can just unconsciously be implanted in me. I don't know. So like no hope. There's no hope. Yeah. Hope's just another seed. Yeah. Yeah. That's just another thing. Oh, there's some poem about that. Hope would be hope for the wrong things. So, you know, Buddha didn't recommend hope. He didn't recommend much of anything other than study the mind and discern the real. Calm your mind and discern the real.

[64:10]

And the more you calm your mind, the more shamatha, the more relaxed, the more what's real seems just kind of like flowing water. Yeah. Yeah. So far, yeah. From experience, I feel the most helpful is to be able to see how those seeds are working on me, not really controlling how I plan me. how the seeds come about, but just to see how they're working really can be helpful. Yeah, well, that's who you are. You're the outcome of all of that. And celebrate that. And then you're also, you know, we're going to be conscious gardeners now. Before, we didn't do it. We just did it because we had impulses. Remember how many seeds you planted in high school? Yeah. God, I'm looking at those young people going, don't plant any seeds. Don't hurt yourself. Don't make yourselves into something you don't like. I know. You know? I know. And they're very self-conscious, and I just felt so much pain in remembering myself at that age. Yeah. Yeah, I walk through high school every day, and I see them with their phone, like, not even reading, like...

[65:11]

like they don't even look up. I know, I know. They're so fragile, you know, and they're trying to present a little person that they're making, but it doesn't hold very strong. You know, this young woman who was hosting me was so sweet and she was trying to be very professional, you know, and then she'd get scared when I'd talk to her, kind of get all scared and pull back into being like a little girl. And I was trying to be very gentle with her because I knew she was really trying to be, you know, like a grown-up in charge of this thing. And I was so touched by her effort. And then at the same time, I'm going to go, don't do that. Don't do that. I know. I have the same problem. Yeah. Thank you, Fu. Thank you, Fu. Well, thank all of you. It's so good to be with you always. And please take care. And we'll see you next week. And we will plod along with the 30 verses, which somehow it seemed to get very exciting by the time you get to the 15th verse. I think you guys will be all ready for the end of delusion.

[66:14]

So if you'd like to unmute and say goodnight, you're very welcome to do that. Everyone. thank you thank you thank you all thank you thank you everyone thank you everyone thank you food you're welcome you're welcome good night energy out there thank you roshi oh yeah thank you oh yeah thank you jacqueline thank you very much yes please hold him in your hearts thank you yes send our prayers

[66:49]

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