I also wanted to mention that we had a rather festive week last Saturday. We had a wonderful Seder meal, and lots of people went to a lot of time and did some lovely table settings, and we had the Seder plates, and I don't know, maybe 50 people or so that were sitting together and doing the Haggadah, and it was just a really lovely day. Lovely event. And then today, which is Easter, Easter Sunday, some of us had dyed some Easter eggs and we hid those around in the lobby this morning and announced that there would be a little bit of an egg hunt for anybody who wanted to come. And we had little baskets of chocolate. So I think we're trying to find our way as a community for all of these different... traditions, these strains that are meeting here and big crossroads of spiritual traditions that have gathered here.

[01:12]

And so it's very touching. And each time we've done one of these, we think, oh, well, next year, why don't we do this? And why don't we add that? Or why don't we? So I think we're really learning how to share, how to share the space in a way that's respectful and inclusive and kind of like When my daughter was in preschool, they had these rules for the playground. And one of the rules was everybody can play. You know, that was a rule. So I think that's a good rule for us too. Like everybody can play and everybody's welcome. And so it's been lovely. Just one little note. One of the ladies here told us she was going to read this story about a bunny, a little girl bunny who ends up getting to deliver eggs. I think it's called the... Bunny in the Golden Shoes or something. Some of you may know it. It's Country Bunny in the Little Red Shoes. Yes, that's it. Country Bunny in the Little Red Shoes. And so we went up to what's called the Sanga Room here, and quite a few people came.

[02:17]

And she had a full-on bunny suit that her mother had made for her when she was young. And so she was dressed as a bunny, and she told this lovely story. There were a couple of kids came, and most of us were the big kids who came. And so it's just been kind of an amazingly spring-like and uplifting week to be together here. So I hope you've all had some enjoyment during this week with family and celebrations and so on. So, Yogachara. Change the tone a little bit. A couple of people have mentioned to me how complicated this material is, and I really appreciate that. It's not something you can understand at first hearing or first reading. It does take time to come to some appreciation of what they're up to. What was the point of this? It had a very big impact on the Buddhist tradition, and it was kind of medicine for what we talked about earlier, which was the Prajnaparamita teachings, the

[03:21]

For all of you who know the Heart Sutra, which is a kind of very terse and very to the point of know this and know that and none of that and none of that. It's kind of like Manjushri's sword cutting through any concepts or any notions you have about just about anything, including the Dharma. you know, suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, you know, so on and on and on. No, no, no, that's the Heart Sutra. And the Heart Sutra, which had a huge impact on the Buddhist tradition when it was first exposed to the cultures, the Buddhist cultures, Yogacara was a little bit of a band-aid or a cure for the negative outcomes of that kind of, you know, kind of slicing through beliefs and concepts and what a treasured you know as i mentioned to you the heart heart attack sutra there was a uh there was a writing in one of the mahayana sutras that when this heart sutra was introduced to the monks who'd been practicing so hard and diligently with the four noble truths and learning all of the practices of the buddha and then he teaches this you know no path

[04:32]

And according to this one text, a number of these old monks had heart attacks when they heard this no path and so on, having trod the path for 50 years or something. Anyway, so within the culture, the Buddhist culture, this is the conversation that's been going on for 2,500 years. Among the monastics, mostly. You know, the lay people are there, but they're not the ones who are sitting in the libraries and studying the texts. You know, the lay people are working and raising their children and offering alms to the monks to give them a chance to do this kind of internal work, a lot of meditation and study and so on. So we're the inheritors of this long tradition, and this Yogacara teaching is a really big, important piece of what happened in response to the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita, the know this and know that. So what Vasubhanda is doing in these mere 30 verses is incorporating these two strains, the very early teachings of you work with the dynamics of your mind, you treat them as...

[05:39]

real afflictions and real problems and you sort through the negative energies and you cultivate the positive energies and you're very diligent by being mindful of how you are and how you behave and so on. So that approach to being a good person and having a good behavior and so on, the heart citric made troubles for that. It's like, well, if there's no You know, if there is no self and then there's no things and I don't have to worry about grabbing a hold of things and, you know, I'm kind of free, but not in a way that kind of helps support the ethical standards that were expected within the tradition. So the yoga chart comes along and saying, well, we need that early understanding. We need to be able to still approach ourselves as, you know... As humans who have these afflictions and we need to aspire to better behavior, we need to really keep focusing on avoiding evil, doing good, and understanding our minds, purifying our minds.

[06:45]

We don't want to do away with that. At the same time, we have to deal with the fundamental nature of reality, which as Nagarjuna and the other great philosophers of Buddhist history have said, Those things are all empty of inherent existence. We're back to the Heart Sutra. So these teachings are complements. They work together. And right now, in looking at the Yogacara, we're looking at the medicine for the emptiness teachings. So as I said, this is not easy. This is not an easy entry. And I'm happy to try to answer whatever concerns or questions you have. I'm going to just take one verse at a time, so there's 30 verses, and we've already looked at one, and so two weeks ago we looked at the first verse, and today I'm going to look at the second verse, and so each time we go through another verse, we'll have a chance to talk about that and how it connects to what's gone before. So these first 15 verses of the 30 are basically the old wisdom teachings.

[07:51]

but like the Abhidharma, studying dharma, studying afflictions and so on, as if they're real, as if they really are the things that are causing our suffering and so on. So as I mentioned last week, and this is going to get a little bit into technical language again, but, you know, it's... I can't help it. I'm not going to be able to talk about Yogacara without some technical language. So you have the books, I hope. I hope you have the verses. I just, by the way, I put in the chat two things for you. I figured out how to do that. The sixth sense consciousness is map that I showed you before. And I'm going to talk about that map again and show it again. And I also put in the 30 verses with some... colored notations. They're mine. When I went through this study some years back, I made my own copy of the 30 verses, and then I kind of highlighted things that I needed to try to understand, some of it in red, some in green, and then I also made some little notes along the way.

[08:54]

So hopefully that would be of help to you as well. So those two things are there now, and if you want to pull them out for yourself, for your own use, please do that. I don't see them. You don't see them? I don't see them either. No, don't tell me. Okay, I won't. No, you can tell me. The truth will set me free. So why not? That is so weird. No, I don't see it either, Fu. Sorry. It's unanimous. It's unanimous. The only people who can see it are the ones who are logged in at the time that you post it. Oh, well, that was a long... I did that earlier. Okay. Okay. All right. Karina's going to try sending them again. So if I put them in now, those of you online should be able to get them. Is that the idea? And then my question is, how do we download them from there? I think you can slide them onto your desktop. Maybe. Does anybody know? Is there a better way? No?

[09:57]

All right. There should be a way to just click the download option. Or copy and paste probably will work. Copy and paste. Copy and paste. I have not succeeded yet in the past, but I'm happy to try it again. Well, this is really frustrating. I'm so sorry. So, all right, Karina's going to work on it. And hopefully we'll get it by the end of our time. And if not, I... As I promised last time, I will have it for you next time. Just keep working forward until it happens. Patience only. Patience only. Thank you. That's a good reminder. All right. So as I mentioned a few weeks back when we met the last time, these 30 verses are focusing, are utilizing these two models, two different models, each of which is kind of simple.

[10:57]

in terms of the diagrams themselves. And it's a little complicated when you try to figure out what the models represent. So one of the models, the one we're looking at first, is about practice. What is the clockwork of the mind? How do we practice with the way our mind works? So this first model, which is called the very awkward name of the eight consciousnesses model, is basically sort of like a... a map of the mind. It's like your clockwork. If you turned your clock the other way around and opened the back, this would be the clockwork of the mind. I will admit. Karina thinks she got it to you, and if she did, that's great. Okay. Got it. You got it? Oh, they got it. Oh. Yeah. And if you hover over it, a little blue arrow will appear, and that's what you can click to download. It'll say click here to download if you hover over the icons.

[12:02]

Oh, yeah. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. So, okay, there's two models. The model of the eight consciousnesses is sort of like a map of your mind. You could sort of say, okay, well, this is my mind in a diagram, diagrammatic form. And the other clockwork, the other diagram is of how our mind behaves in relationship to objects. So that's not the one we're looking at now. That comes in the second half of the 30 verses. The first half is all about the mind and how it works. So the clockwork is basically a clockwork for our practice and our relationship to our experience. what we experience when we walk around the world. What's going on there? We tend not to think about that too much or notice too much. This is self-reflection. Turn the light around. Do you notice that you are thinking?

[13:04]

Do you notice that you're pointing out various things and giving them names? This is really kind of a really detailed look at your own experience throughout life. some period of time. Very hard to do it throughout the day, but you can pick a period of time, like a half an hour. In fact, we're going to do it for a few minutes, have this experiment again. I'm just noticing, what are you experiencing? What is it you're experiencing with your five senses, with your sixth sense, which is thinking? Just what is it that you notice? And as I said, we'll do this for a few minutes, but I wanted to mention a little bit more about these models first. So the one model is for practicing with the functioning of the mind, the clockwork of the mind. And then the other one is for understanding the nature of phenomena. You know, what are these things that are appearing in my mind? So here's my mind and how it works. And here's what's appearing in my mind. And what are they? What are those images that appear in my mind?

[14:06]

How are they made and what are they made from? So that's going to get us back to the Heart Sutra, but not yet. And the most simply said, it's how we think and what it is that we think about. So how we think and what do we think about. So in the first half, there's this eight consciousness model and has all the patterns of our thinking. And the point of this is to help liberate ourselves from these afflictions that we have, what the Dalai Lama calls the pathological emotions. I mean, that gives it some gravitas. We have these pathological emotions of greed, hate, and delusion, and they drive us all through the day. The more you notice yourself and your behavior and how your mind automatically responds to objects, you can begin to catch yourself wanting things. I mean, really wanting them or really not wanting them. Greed, hate, and then not being sure at all what you're doing or what's happening.

[15:09]

So greed, hate, and delusion are the big movers of our lives, and we're... wanting to really understand them very well so we cannot be trapped by them, by our impulses. So that's the whole point of this, you know. So here again, I want to pull up the eight consciousness model, just put it on the screen so we can talk about it a little more. Let me get to my share, screen share. Okay, you can see that, yeah? Yes. Oh, good. Okay. So there we are. So once again, this is not just my mind, it's your mind. It's our mind. This is the human mind. As the meditators, you know, over a thousand years, this is what they saw and what they experienced. They didn't have x-rays. They didn't have, you know, CAT scans.

[16:12]

They couldn't really get in there and, you know, get the wiring... down like we're doing nowadays but this isn't bad this is pretty much our experiential reality you know the one we all know and familiar with so in terms of consciousness what we're conscious of the meditators said you're only conscious of these six things that's it you're conscious of smell taste sound sight and touch and you're conscious of concepts of ideas so that's these are six of the classic divisions in Buddhism of human consciousness. So the old Buddhist tradition, the Abhidharma, you know, the early Pali Canon, they had these six and that was it. They didn't go any further, but they couldn't really explain how we were carrying things along with us from the past. How is it we have memories? How is it that we have these afflictions? Where are they coming from? Are they just being produced right now in the moment? Doesn't seem like that makes a lot of sense.

[17:13]

So one of the kind of brilliant, additions that the yoga chart tradition adds to the formula of the mind are these two unconscious I think this is something that resonates with modern psychology and you know the unconscious like that explains how it is we remember you know when we're asked French words or German words or can play the piano or we can talk about our when we went to high school and all of those things that normally we don't have to be thinking about We don't have to think about all that in order to be able to access it because it's in the unconscious, in this big bag, kind of bag, it's not really a bag, but this big assortment of experiences from our past. So that's called the alaya. This is number eight, the storehouse. So it's the storehouse of everything you've ever done, everything your parents have done and their parents and the covered wagons and all of that and coming out of Africa. All of that is being carried as us.

[18:17]

Now, this is the product of all of that time and all of those conditionings. That's each of us. We all have a little different pathway that we come here today. You know, we've all traveled kind of different ways. But here we are. We've arrived and each of us carries these influences from the past as our storehouse consciousness called the alaya, number eight. So you have the six awarenesses in the present. You have this unconscious bag of ancient conditioning and lifelong conditioning. And then number seven is the really interesting one because this is trouble. Number seven is the heart. That sounds nice. And the lover, the lover is self-love. The lover is in love with itself. So the lover or manas is the name of this function within our consciousness. Number seven, it's also called thinking and defiled thinking. Because thinking doesn't have to be defiled.

[19:19]

But when it falls into greed, hate, and delusion, when it gets involved in these pathological emotions, then it's defiled thinking. It's believing things that aren't true. you know, fake news, all of that is defiled thinking. So these are the eight consciousnesses. You know, this is the totality of what's going on with us. And then you also see down here, if you might remember that famous verse from the old Dhammapada, which is from the third century, meaning the footprints of the Buddha's teaching, Dhammapada, Pada's foot, Dhamma's truth. So in the Dhammapada, the first verse is what we are today, So the present, what we are today, comes from our thoughts of yesterday. And our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is a creation of our mind. And here it is. Our life is a creation of this process of having had thoughts and taken actions in the past, being affected by those actions in the present,

[20:24]

our karmic conditioning, and then passing that conditioning on to the future. So the reason this is important is because the one place that we can make any changes in our defiled thinking, that we can kind of clean up our act, is in the present. It's the only time we have. So how we behave in the present, how we relate to the present, our intentions, our intentions to be thoughtful and to do right speech and right livelihood and all of these aspects of the path that we hear about and we wish to bring into our own lives, the bodhisattva vow, the wish to live for the benefit of others, all of that is going to have to happen in the present. And thereby changing what's next. So that's basically the plan. That's the model. And that's what this... These 15 verses are basically addressing. Okay, I'm going to stop the share. Okay.

[21:35]

So basically these two models, this one and then the one you'll learn about later, are models for understanding the mind, as I said, and they also are models for treating what they consider to be the two primary barriers to ending suffering. There's two reasons we can't just automatically, you know, snap out of it. And one of them is the barrier of these afflictive emotions. You know, and the afflictive emotions, greed, hate, and delusion, are products of relative truths, you know, that we have come to believe. about ourselves and the world. Language, the horse we're riding. We've been taught things using language. We are creatures of language, human language. It's an invention of ours, not that old, but it's very powerful. And so because of storytelling and languaging, we have these afflictive emotions of how we understand the world. We make up stories, and we make up stories that are often to our benefit and not so favorable to others, right?

[22:43]

So this is the truths we've come to believe about ourself and about the world. Those are the afflictive emotions, and that's one of the barriers to our liberation. The other barrier, so again, this is what the first 15 verses is talking about is this first barrier, the afflictive emotion. The second barrier, which is the big one, is the barrier of delusions about ourselves as isolated individuals. And the only way that barrier is overcome is by a realization of the ultimate truth. So here we have the two truths. First barrier is the relative truth, how we think. Second barrier is the ultimate truth, that we really do think we're separate. We do not see what the Buddha saw the evening of his enlightenment, that he and the world were not separate. That was his realization. That was his awakening. So without that awakening or that realization, which starts with believing that's true, you know, right now we're just hearing it, but we need to kind of think about that and study it and then maybe one day we have an experience of that's not outside.

[23:54]

That world is not outside anymore. You know, there's no outside of me. You know, so these are the kind of declarations that the Zen monks made at those moments when they saw something and they went, oh, my goodness. You know, all of a sudden they realized they weren't separate. And all that pain and all that suffering in some ways kind of evaporated, you know. call it an awakening experience. And those things are really somewhat rare in people's lives, but they're also not that rare. I think we all have them as children. I think children are very good at it. But as we've gotten older, these barriers become walls. They're very thick. And they're kind of like our ego. You know, we're threatened. When these two barriers are challenged, we kind of get defensive. You know, we start thickening the walls instead of looking at them. Like, we got to take these walls down. That's the whole idea. And that's what this teaching is about. So last time we met, we looked at chapter one, which is called, of Ben Connolly's book, which is called Self and Other, Self and Other.

[24:57]

And he discusses the first of Vasubhanda's 30 verses, which is, it sounds simple, everything conceived as a self or as an other occurs in the transformation of consciousness. Everything conceived as self or other occurs in the transformation of consciousness. So this is the mind-only school. So what they're saying is, it's all happening in your mind. I mean, this whole thing is a product of your imagination, right? So that's kind of a big declaration, but that's what started this whole thing. These 30 verses start with that proposition. Everything that's self or other, conceived as self or other. So conceived, concept. occurs in the transformation of consciousness. So, as I said, last time we were together, I took the exercise from Ben's book, which I want to try with you again, just for a few minutes, which is to simply investigate what you're experiencing right now.

[26:04]

You just take a few minutes to pay attention to your sensory experiences. The only experiences you have, and check that out. Is it true that I only have six... sense consciousnesses available to me, you know? So this is an opportunity to check that out. Check out your hearing, your seeing, your odor, sense of odor, your taste, if there's anything, textures, perhaps, and the chair you're sitting on, your clothing. And then how are you feeling? You know, what are your feelings? You can have three basic choices in Buddhism, positive, negative, neutral. You're kind of happy, kind of sad, or you're not sure. And then are these feelings and sensations stable? Are they reliable? Or can you kind of sit with them and feel like, yeah, I've got them. I've got a feeling or I've got an experience of a sense. Can you hold on to them as they appear in your conscious awareness? I mean, that's an interesting thing to explore.

[27:06]

And so as you do this exercise for a few minutes... Pay as little attention as possible to what you're thinking about all of that. Kind of tone that down a little, if you can. I mean, I think that's pretty hard to do. So mostly what I'm inviting you to do is to really let your senses dominate. So I'm going to give us two minutes to do that, and then afterwards I'd like to ask a few of you if you wouldn't mind sharing what you saw and what you felt. Okay? So I'll put... put the audio off, and I'll come back in two minutes. So would a couple of you mind sharing what you noticed?

[30:46]

Anybody want to do that? I'm going to get us on. Hi, Lisa. Hi, Steve. Hey there. Hi. So the first thing I noticed, which I found interesting because it was what's here and what isn't here, was the afterimage of having been staring at the screen for a while. So the screen, my background was mostly dark, so I had this orangish rectangle that persisted for a while. So you closed your eyes? I closed my eyes. Yeah. Because I was listening, feeling the body. But that was very... It was striking to me, because yes, I thought about it, was that the sensation was not there.

[31:52]

It was a sensation of something that was not in the external physical environment, but was actually a secondary reaction to what had been there. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Any feelings? Did you notice some feelings around any of the imagery that showed up or sensory events? Oh, there was a, oh, this is cool. How do I integrate this into the model of? Oh, I think I'll write that down. You know, here we have, you know. Is this contact? Is this sensation? Where is this? Excellent, excellent. You're truly human. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Drew, hi. Have you heard of a guy named Shinzen?

[32:54]

He's a Vermonter. Shinzen. I think you've mentioned him before. I don't think we've met. He talks about hearing. It's kind of a noting exercise. Hearing out the cars, then hearing in where we're kind of actually seems like we're hearing our own thoughts or I'm listening to my own thoughts and saying what sight out and sight in, the colors, the stuff that goes on in the mind. And sometimes you kind of like see mind images, I guess. But I was wondering about where does awareness fit into the six senses? Because, you know, I'm aware that I'm smelling. I'm aware of sensing. Yeah. Where does awareness fit in the model? Well, this model, each one of those has its own awareness. We tend not to be aware of what we're hearing when we're smelling. There's some theories that you jump around. Some schools say you can have more than one experience at a time, and others say, no, you jump.

[34:01]

Your attention jumps from hearing to seeing to tasting to thinking. That's why thinking tends to dominate, because we're we kind of get caught up in that one. And then I don't, I didn't hear that. I didn't smell anything. You know, as a kid, I don't know if you did that, but I'd be reading. I didn't hear my mom say it's time for dinner. I was like, I was in the book, you know? I still do that. You still do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that, did you have some particular noticing that you did while you were? Oh, I just was noticing that I was aware of, and then there's a sense of being aware that I'm aware of. I don't know if that's getting a little complicated in the issue. And, yeah, it just keeps moving around. Yeah, a lot of jumping around. Yeah. Nothing too stable. What's that? Nothing too stable. Nothing too stable. Sometimes things are stabler than I would like.

[35:04]

Wish that would go away. Yeah. Like me pain or thoughts that just, I know they go away and they're temporary, but it's hanging out a little bit too long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good. Well, thank you. Okay, so maybe we go back. I know, I think I want to not, I mean, we can do this, go back to it, but I want to keep on the train of thought around what the point of this is. And then I'll ask you all if you still want to share what you saw. So this very brief investigation is intended to lead us to this usual common sense conclusion that consciousness is myself, kind of like Drew was asking. That's me that's conscious. I'm aware of my experiences. And I have this world around me that's other. Those sounds and those visions and those images and so on are objects.

[36:08]

of my awareness. So I'm aware, I'm awareness, and the objects are the objects of my awareness. This is the usual way of seeing the world. Now, in the Mahayana way of understanding reality, which Yogacara is part of this Mahayana tradition, as in the Heart Sutra, where the verse says, you know, beyond all inverted views, one dwells in Nirvana. Well, inverted views, are also called upside-down views. And these are the ones I just said, well, my awareness of objects is an upside-down view. So the right-side-up views that result in our liberation are that, first of all, there is no separate self, number one, no self. That's a right-side-up view. The second one is there are no permanent objects that we can get that will make us really happy. The self would like to get a hold of stuff, but there... There are no things like that that we can get a hold of and keep like any of the thoughts you were having or any of the feelings you were having.

[37:14]

They pass along. They don't stay. They're just passing through. And as a result of that, this self that would like to be able to keep things that it likes and get rid of things it doesn't like suffers because it fails at doing that. It fails at holding on to the things that it likes and it fails to push away the things that it doesn't like. There's no agent of control. The self is the agent of control, and we are not in control, as I think you've all noticed by this time in your lives. We are not in control. So these are upside-down views, that there's a self, that there are permanent objects, or at least ones that will last a long time, and that getting those things is going to make me happy. And then the last one is that I really think those first three things are true. And I call this the shopping model. I'm going to get stuff, and it's going to make me happy, and I really believe that. Our society is kind of based on that upside-down view, right?

[38:14]

But in fact, there is no self. There are no permanent objects that the self can get a hold of. Acquiring those objects do not bring us... happiness maybe a little bit short term but then you put this you know get the stuff out of the bag and put it around it's yours and so you don't want it anymore right and then the fourth one is that they're empty of inherent existence the whole thing the whole nine yards has no has no substance you know we're just we're just in a trance we're in a kind of trance of our own of our own making and we're trying to wake up from that So what the Buddha actually saw, which is actually true, as I said, no abiding self, nothing permanent, there is suffering, and only nirvana brings true peace. In other words, these are the actual facts of life. The Buddha ran away from home when he heard the facts of life. It's unbearable. We don't like the facts of life as factual as they are. So the point of view of Vasumanda's teaching is to point out an alternative view

[39:16]

based on the Buddha's awakened vision, which is a very radical view called mind only, as it says in the first verse of the 30 verses that we just looked at, in which the Buddha says that everything we think of as a self or as an other is taking place in the transformation of our consciousness. So in this view of self and other, consciousness is experienced as a continuous flow, continuous and mysterious flow. just as you all may have been noticing, with no fixed elements or identities. It's simply an ever-changing process that Vasubhanda is using this word, translated word, of transformation. Constant flow, transforming. Everything is constantly changing. So in other words, consciousness is neither ourself or the other. Both are mere conceptions within a process of continuous change, like a river. So we're much more like a river than a road, in which this image of a self and of another are merely the way that consciousness flows.

[40:22]

That's just how the river goes. The river moves like that. And as they float along, these elements float along, the self tries to get a hold of the other, tries to swim over there and get some of that other. But due to impermanence, the other drifts away from our grasp. leading to this inherent dissatisfaction that arises from the effort that the imagined self makes to grasp after impermanent imagined objects. No, it's just a story. It's a story we all know and that we've been doing for a very long time. So as I said earlier, the Yogacara is endeavoring to reconcile the two primary currents of Buddhist thought. One, The early layers of this Abhidharma theory, which I've talked about in the past, but maybe some of you know a little bit about it or a lot about it, but Abhidharma theory had these tiny little elements of existence called dharmas with a small d that make up everything. And they could sort them out and you get the bad ones and put them over there and the good ones and cultivate them, plant those and they'll grow into a good person.

[41:31]

and so on. So that theory of dharmas, which was refuted by the emptiness teachings, big time, that was the target of the emptiness teachings, was that there were any such elements at all. These dharmas had an existence that went on through time, that you could actually get a hold of those little bad dharmas. You could get a hold of them. Well, not in the river of consciousness you can't. There's no little things sticking out there as permanent entities. So that theory was challenging. for the later philosophical teachings of Buddhism. However, it was useful as a practice base. So Yogacara is taking this old Abhidharma theory and combining it with the emptiness teachings, realizations of the Mayana. And so within the Yogacara teachings that place our attention on this transformation of consciousness itself, one can both realize that the dharmas are not the self, By means of this Abhidharma emphasis, we'll talk more about that, but one of the realizations we have is there is no self.

[42:39]

There is no entity like some singularity. There's just parts. There's just swarms. There's just these six consciousnesses. There's nothing there other than this movement, this change. So that would be using Abhidharma theory to realize no self. And then by means of this Emptiness teachings that the dharmas in turn have no self. Dharmas have no own being either. So nothing has any own being. We're kind of getting to the kind of crux of the Buddha's awakened vision. And this Yogacara teaching is trying to help us to reconcile these two systems, which have been a little bit at odds in Buddhist history, and say they're both good. They're both useful. We use one as a pragmatic approach to what we need to do to end our belief in our self-clinging, to release ourselves from self-adoration and self-interest, self-centeredness. And then we use the other ones to release ourselves from delusions.

[43:42]

There was never a self in the first place. There's no self. There are no objects. There's no ground. Just this is it. Just this is it. What is it? We can't really say. But this is the Buddha's awakened insight. You know, just this is it, and it includes everything. So in chapter 2 of Ben's book, he talks about the second of the 30 verses in which Vasubandha is introducing these three primary aspects or elements that make up this Yogacara map of consciousness, the map I just showed you. So those three aspects, as it says in verse 2, It doesn't name them as yet, but verse 2, which I'll read right now, says this transformation has three aspects. The ripening of karma. Ripening of karma is the alaya, number 8, consciousness number 8. That's where all of your karma is hanging out and ripening and then coming up into consciousness by means of language.

[44:49]

So we got all this stuff going on and every now and then something shoots up from our unconscious into our conscious and we go like, whoa, you know, I forgot I don't like asparagus. Where'd that come from? I don't know because there was some asparagus there. And all of a sudden, I don't like asparagus pops up. You know, where'd that come from? Well, it was a seed that ripened in the moment. It connected to some old feeling you had about that particular vegetable. And now there it is as if it's true. Maybe it is. But anyway, maybe it isn't. Maybe you can look at it again. So this process, the ripening of the karma, which happens in the present. So that's alaya. That's the first aspect. The consciousness of a self, that's manas, the lover. That's what that's referring to. And then the third, the imagery of sense objects, are these six sense consciousnesses. So basically, verse 2 is just... introducing the idea of these three aspects that make up the total of eight consciousnesses.

[45:58]

We just looked at that model and I could pull up again, but you've got your own, so if you want to, you could open it and look at it for yourselves. So along with this map of the mind, the Yoga Chara School encourages us to have experiential learning, like that little exercise we did. They want us to keep experimenting with the story that they're telling to see if we can validate it for ourselves. Is that right? Is that true for me? Are these models of any use to me in my experience? So without applying them to your own experience, they're useless. It's just like put it in a drawer. You know, it's a map of a territory that you don't really want to deal with. And that's okay. Most of our lives we haven't dealt with this map. So this is a chance to decide if you want to deal with this map of consciousness. It's a choice that we can make. So if we choose to apply the map to the territory, then it calls on us to pay attention to our day-to-day experience through, as best we can, a nonjudgmental moment-to-moment awareness.

[47:03]

That's kind of athletic, mental athletic. You know, to really be willing to pay attention to what you're experiencing. Personally, I would suggest you take little breaks during the day to do that. You know, maybe sit down, you know, in a park or sit down where you are, sit down in your home and just give yourself half an hour or 20 minutes or during meditation if you're a regular meditator to call attention to the ongoing experience that you're having while you're being quiet, while you're sitting there. and as best you can, in a non-judgmental, moment-to-moment awareness. Just this is it. Just this is it. What is it? So in this way, we notice our sensory experience, we notice our thoughts and our sensations as they come and go, just like we did a few minutes ago, as mere transformations of consciousness, mere processes of endless change, the flowing river of the mind. And in Buddhism, we call paying attention in this way the practice of mindfulness.

[48:09]

It's a mindfulness practice. So this ripening of karma that I just mentioned, which is the alaya, as we're going to see in the verses up ahead, is talking all about the alaya, the storehouse consciousness, which together with the lover, manas, those two, the bag of conditioning and manas, are particularly unique contributions from the Yogacara school. As I said, the earlier school of Buddhism, which also was mapping the mind, only had the six sense consciousnesses. They had the conscious level, but they couldn't account for the unconscious, and they had no model to account for. So what's really exciting and new about Yogacara is the unconscious descriptions of this alaya and of manas, those two. So one reason Vasubandhu is calling the sixth sense consciousnesses the imagery of sense objects is because we're dealing with images.

[49:16]

It was really good that you used that example, Lisa, of an image, because these are images we have of our sensory experience. We have an image of it that's coming to us, that we're connecting to it, but basically it's through the limitations of our human experience. the way our organs actually work. Now, using this word imagery in the second verse, Vasubhanda's teaching that what we're doing with our six types of sensory experience, you know, our seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and thinking, is creating stories. Okay, so that's familiar. We love stories. You know, I just heard a nice story about a bunny with golden slippers. And we love to make up stories. And stories connect our thoughts and our feelings that we're having right now to the many other stories that were made up in the past. So I have stories from my past that I'm not so aware of.

[50:19]

But in the present, my responses to things in the present are connected to those old stories I've been carrying around, my baggage. We use terms like that. So what this teaching is telling us is that we are continuously painting a picture. or an image of what we think is happening right now. You know, an image that is greatly influenced by our past. An image or a story that is a product of our imagination. You know, I like to call this sphere that I carry around with me throughout the day, my Imaginarium. It's like an aquarium only, it's an Imaginarium. And all through the day, I am very actively engaged with my Imaginarium, imagining what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, and what's happening. So if we truly want to be well, the Buddha taught, we need to learn to see and take care of these mental images, our stories, by choosing to cultivate those that are beneficial to us, ones that are more affirming of ourselves and of the things that we do, and then by seeing through the imaginary nature of those that are not.

[51:32]

that are not so helpful. And yet, good or bad, they all just come and go. It's best not to be fooled by anything that we think. So the method centers on simply being aware and attentive to who we are and how we feel in the present moment, right here and right now. That's the entry gate to this practice. At the same time, we tend to think, but somewhere else might be better than here and now. Very common to think that. It might be better to do something else right now. And yet, without fail, somewhere else, as soon as we get there, becomes here and now. Have you noticed that? Somewhere else is now where I am. So you're never going to get to someone else or somewhere else, so we might as well stay here where we are, which is exactly what Dogen says in his verse, Here is the place, here the way unfolds. Here is the place, here the way unfolds.

[52:35]

Manifesting awareness of mind without trying to control it is an excellent way to practice. This is Suzuki Roshi. Manifesting awareness of mind without trying to control it is an excellent way to practice. He said, give your cow a big pasture and watch her. Don't let her get hurt, don't let her hurt others, and don't let her wander off. So Ben says that realizing that our thoughts are just something that is coming and going and are not actually ourself is often the most striking and liberating experience that people have when they begin practicing with these teachings. So next week I'm going to look at verse number 3, which is about the aliyah. the big storehouse of memories and conditioning that is being carried over as if from our past life. And I'll just read that verse. Verse number three, the first of these, these three transformations of consciousness, the first of these is called alaya, the store consciousness, which contains all the karmic seeds, what it holds and its perception of location,

[53:44]

are unknown it's unconscious we can't we don't know where it is we can't find it you can't do surgery and get the alaya we can just intuit that it must be there because i'm functioning as if it's so so we can't locate it but we do have an experience of that being true all right so that's what i have for this evening and i'm sorry it took a little longer than i was wanting to do, but I'd love to have more of your thoughts, and particularly those of you who wanted to share your experiences, you're welcome to do that. Now, Karina, could you, yeah, thank you. First of all, I want to just say hi to everybody and just go around the room. Lisa and Steve, hello, welcome, welcome again, and Chris and Helene, Meredith, Jifu, Drew, Kakawan, I need to talk to you. I want to find out how the baby is in particular. Jerry, Anzenko, Jack, Kathy, Helen, Millicent, Jacqueline, Peggy, Amr, Griffin, Shozan, Dean, Carmina and Maryam, Senko, Paul and Kate, Jackie, I love Jackie, Kagan, Tom, Kosan, and Michelle.

[55:06]

Excellent. Okay. Who's up? Who would like to be up? Just raise your hand. Hello, Chris. Hi, Phoebe. Good evening, and thanks for being here, for doing this. So I have two questions, two practical questions on here. So one of earlier with the practice that we were doing of just observing. You know, I notice feeling unsettled in some ways. Feeling, I guess there's, for emotions you've mentioned, positive, negative, and neutral. For me, sometimes inside I feel either at ease or dis-ease, unsettled, and it's not related to a feeling. And I'm not sure what to label that. And I'm wondering what you would label that as.

[56:08]

And I have one other question after that. Okay. Well, the Buddhist teachings give us just those three flavors of feelings. They don't go into emotions or into complex feelings. They just really say, well, you're feeling positive? Is it kind of an uplift there? Or is it kind of a downward draw? Or you kind of don't really know what you're feeling exactly. Kind of hard to pin it down. So you get one of those three choices. And they're kind of... You know, big categories, but it sounds like maybe perhaps you were having a little bit of a negative feeling. Sounds like it. And then the last question that I have, you had mentioned the Imaginarium. I think in many ways I have been angry and tried to obliterate the Imaginarium at times, understanding what it means, or at least my experience of it. And I'm wondering... through these practices, I realize it's not healthy to do, but there's a certain anger that is in not being able to be aware of that.

[57:15]

And I'm wondering, is that both my imaginarium and others, and also the disillusion of that, is that it seems like this practice is really about being aware of that imaginarium. And it's not about finding release from the Imaginarium. Is that correct? Does that make sense? When you said that about getting rid of it, I thought about the Imaginarium kind of like an aquarium in which I live. And if you get rid of the Imaginarium, a fish is going to die. So we're not really trying to destroy anything. We're trying to befriend everything. So whatever it is you're thinking, because it's simply thinking, it's not yours. It just arrives. like a fish swimming up to you. There you are in your imaginarium and these little fish swim up to you and maybe they nibble on your cheek or something, but basically they can't hurt you because it's your imagination. So we learn not to be afraid of our own imagination, not to hate when we're thinking about ourselves, but to understand it.

[58:24]

That's one reason therapy is so helpful. You kind of get a chance to turn toward... how you've been feeling or thinking, and you've been hiding certain ideas you've been having about yourself. And then, you know, a kind friend can help you to start to open up to that. You were just a child when you thought that, you know? No one helped you with that. And now you can look at it as an adult and provide your own comfort, your own accompany that child as best you can. So it's really more about an embrace. You know, and providing a soft landing place for things that are challenging for us. Okay? Thank you very much. You're welcome. Hi, Helene. You're muted. It's not one thing, it's another. That's exactly right. In observing...

[59:25]

our senses. I focused on sound, and the first sound that came to me, I was really curious where it was coming from, because it was this consistent sound, and it sounded like a machine. And then I realized that this sound is coming from a block away on 19th Avenue. It's the cars going by. And then my cat started scratching, and then all of a sudden... sound had texture so it seems to me that that the senses are connected and not separate even though they're listed separately and then the um the question that i have is is there Is there a way of thinking about the present that influences the past?

[60:29]

Well, my mind just said no. But, you know, I'm a little too steeped in science, I'm afraid. I don't see how we can go back and transform. I think by transforming... how you think about things now that that will be your present in the future will be the present way you think, you know, some way you're, you're preparing the ground for a better outcome. The one you've been having from the last round of behaviors, right? So we're just basically working with the material that we've already inherited from our past behavior and making some, some, you know, some accommodations. some kindness, some generosity, some friendliness toward those behaviors, and then hopefully that begins to transform. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Kosan, good evening.

[61:32]

Good evening, Sensei. Good evening, Sangha. My question very succinctly, I suppose, is is how does fear fit into all of this? I find that when I am silent, mostly it's my fear governing my awareness and my thinking, and therefore the senses don't have much opportunity to arise and to experience their own awareness because I'm so wrapped up on the treadmill of fear. And the thinking that goes from that. And to me, that's the afflictive emotion. Greed, hate, and delusion. Okay, cool. I'll get to those later fears right now. And I'm wondering just if you have any words about how that fits in here to this model. Well, it's negative.

[62:34]

It's aversion. You're afraid of something, you're not going toward it. Unless you're conflict averse. I mean, yeah. No, the other one. Conflict seeking. No, the other way, yeah. Conflict seeking. Seeking, yeah. So, right, but that's not such a cool thing either. It's probably not a positive thing that you're going toward what you're afraid of, you know. So basically it's another form of negative feeling. And it's powerful. You know that image on the wheel? The guy holding the wheel? The Lord of Death? Well, we all got that one. We don't want to look at it, but there it is holding the wheel, the wheel of birth and death. And we don't even want to hear that word, let alone take a look at that possibility of something that's going to harm us or take something from us or whatever the fear might be. I do remember reading one time that fear is about the future. I think I may have mentioned I had a pretty bad car accident once when I was in college.

[63:41]

Now, on the freeway, in the rain, I was going way too fast, and my car, my little Volkswagen, started spinning around on the freeway, and all these cars were going around me. I was not afraid. I was holding onto the wheel and trying my best to stop spinning, and then I hit the side, and then I hit the center, and then I sat there holding onto the wheel, and then I was okay through all of that until the policeman knocked on my window, and he said... lady, are you okay? And I said, no, I'm not okay. And then I started crying. And then I was afraid of what could have happened, like some future idea of what could have happened that didn't happen. So I think part of it is this imaginarium running a little bit out of control and around these things that might happen to us. But the present is the safest place we can ever be. That's why Zazen is kind of an interesting experience because when I'm sitting in the Zendo, I feel pretty safe, even when stuff's going on.

[64:47]

I feel like at least when I'm seated quietly with other people, I do feel like some feeling of safety is at work because I'm there. I'm right there. And I find that to be extremely helpful for my own fear, my own tendencies toward fear. I like what the Lama said when he came to this wonderful Lama, Tibetan Lama came to Green Gulch and gave a wonderful lecture and someone afterwards said to him, and he talked about Chinese invading Tibet and all that. Somebody said, well, what do you do when you're afraid? And he said, run. Anyway, sometimes it's a practical matter, you know? Run. Hi, Jerry. Hi, Fu, and good evening and good morning to all of you.

[65:53]

I just wanted to say that I am very, very excited and very touched to be sharing this book, this text, and your lives. I've been doing this kind of thing for quite a few years. It's all been kind of fun and interesting and helpful. But this is really going much deeper for me and I think perhaps for many of us. It's really a privilege to be doing this. And I want to thank you all for that. Good, good. Yeah, it certainly is for me too. It has been to have teachers and friends to work with this material. It's very helpful stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Hello, Griffin. Happy Easter. Happy Easter. I had an experience last week that I thought fit well with Chapter 2. Still is an inquiry about, you know, we study the self and body and mind fall away.

[67:02]

So we watch our senses. We watch our mind. And they... become less me and then sometimes we have a deeper experience usually for me after some sort of shock that even that one experiencing all this that meanness disappears and that can be a moment of unknown that can be pretty frightening. Yeah. But, and it's only the very last sentence of chapter two where he says something about the joy of the moment or of harmonious, and that is my experience, that if, you know, you can sort of tolerate almost that feeling of, ooh, even, you know, my awareness of my awareness is,

[68:10]

not relevant, and everything I know about myself is not, that there is, you know, help or joy or, but then in a way that's like my thinking that there's these, you know, ultimate dharmas out there who, you know. Yeah. Yeah, but you can have that. You know, you can, not have it, but you can, it perfumes. There's a... understanding in this teaching of the perfuming, like these experiences of no self, let's say, or of awe, of being in awe of something beautiful. Beauty is often a great access to, you know, just freedom from the self, just something so beautiful. It just moves us to tears. You know, it's not, it just takes me away. It takes me out of that sense of my self-centeredness and stuff. You know, those experiences don't last, but there's a perfuming. They go into the alaya.

[69:12]

And for a while, that's part of what the generative nature of our practice is that these influences then come back as benefit. It's like this... kind of a nice little odor. It just keeps drifting up from the time you've practiced and from the ways in those moments of kindness and those moments of, you know, today was a very kind day here. I felt people were very kind to each other. there was just a lot of a very uplifting feeling, this kind of joy spring, kind of very springy kind of feeling. Easter is a nice, wonderful spring celebration. And, uh, so it's Passover. It was very, had a wonderful feeling of rebirth and spring and liberation, you know, from slavery. And so I feel like those moments are, are to be savored. And then they do have a, you don't kind of, they don't just disappear. They, they bring something along for you. So, you know, so, uh, Yeah, enjoy. Easter, too, is asking us to reflect. You brought up, you know, the wheel of life.

[70:15]

And then there's the point where death and then there's birth. And, you know, Easter is a story about death of something and rebirth of something new. Yeah. And that step where perhaps you have to sit. the unknown or you know that emptiness of the self before in the tomb new seeds or those yeah well it's a very important myth for our culture that myth of of going you know from life to death and then back to life again it's it's kind of the basis of stories something starts and then it culminates and then it it resolves so you know it's it's yeah We're kind of wired for these kinds of stories, true or not, you know, whether they actually happened or it's just part of our wiring and part of our cultural inheritance is to have these mythic elements that we actually now model just about everything on.

[71:24]

You know, Hero, all the, you know, Lord of the Rings and all of this stuff. This is the same model, same pattern. So that's fine. It's good. We like it. But it's also stories. They're stories. And so this is part of what we're studying is the nature of stories. It's just a story. That was something my teacher was saying to us for a long time. We'd go in and tell him a story, and he'd go, that's just a story. And we'd go, really? That's all? That's just a story? That's all you have to say? That's just a story? And yeah, and that was kind of all we got for a while. Yeah, that's just a story. But boy, that was very powerful. Like, wow, it was a good story. Yeah, but it was like just a story. So, just those stories. Shosan. Shosan. Shosan. Yeah, with my sangha. Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to share with you in the sangha a book that I came across again in my Tatnan Han little library.

[72:29]

The other week when we met, you said something that just reminded me. I'm like, oh, I think I've heard Tatnan Han say something about... I don't know if it was seed consciousness. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I went looking through my books and I came across this book by him. It's called Understanding Our Mind. And he wrote this book and it's 50 verses based on Vasubandhu's 30 verses. Oh, great. And he wrote it in 2006. He wrote the first one called Transformation at the Base in 2001. And it was so positive. that he redid it. And the introduction is by Tenshin Reb Anderson. He wrote the introduction. And Ben Connolly said in his introduction that he started memorizing the 30 verses because Thet Nhat Hanh said that he had to memorize them in Chinese. So it's really interesting.

[73:31]

And he makes 50 verses, but he breaks them down. He sets it up like Ben Connolly's book. So each verse is a chapter. And then he makes it into parts in each of the eight consciousness. He goes into manas. He goes into your consciousness. He goes into the five consciousness. And it's really helpful. I find it really helpful. And I... just wanted to share this with you and the sangha that, and it is available. So it might be helpful as we go through this. Cause it, you know, it's just like, would you say stuff? And then I see him say it. And I was like, oh yeah, yeah. Okay. It's just getting in deeper and deeper. And he talks about memorizing the verses slowly, going slowly, don't go too fast and just let it kind of rain over you. And anyway, I think it'll be very helpful for those who are interested. You just stimulated my greed. What was the title? What was the title? I got to have that book. Yes, it's Understanding Our Mind.

[74:33]

Understanding Our Mind. Okay. Yeah, he doesn't call it Yogacara, but as soon as you open the book, he's like, oh, this is Vasubhanda's Yogacara. And he talks about what you said. It's combining the Abhidharma with the Mahayana. And he just verifies everything you've been saying. So I'm like, oh, yeah, this is very helpful. Great. Yeah, I met Thich Nhat Hanh. I have a little Thich Nhat Hanh story. When I was a young monk at Tassahara, I was working in the kitchen, and they asked me to take some food to this visiting monk whose name was Thich Nhat Hanh. And so I went down, and I had my little tray of food, I had my white apron on, and I knocked on the door, and this little guy answered the door, and he said, oh, come on in. And so I came in with the food, and I was going to go back to the kitchen. He said, oh, please sit down. And I said, oh, no, I have to go back to work. He goes, no, no, no, please sit down. So then I sat down, and I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking, I wonder if Thich Nhat Hanh's going to come in here any minute, you know? He's asking me about myself and all this stuff.

[75:34]

Pretty soon he says, oh, I'm Thich Nhat Hanh. I don't think so. It's not possible. He was a wonderful, glowy, small-bodied human. I have a very precious memory of perfuming of time with Thich Nhat Hanh. Thank you for bringing that. I really appreciate that. Yeah, sure. Thank you. All right. Maybe that's good for now. Can I ask a question? Shozan, is the understanding your mind, is it very different than Transformation at the Base? No, it's actually the same book, but Transformation at the Base is no longer in print. So if you were looking, you cannot find it. Well, I've got Transformation at the Base, and I thought, oh, is this a whole new twist on it? It's exactly the same. It's exactly the same. Okay, I have that too. Oh, okay. There you have it. But in Transformations at Base, you don't have the introduction by Tension Anderson.

[76:36]

I can email you and you can send it to me and I'll stick it in my book. Absolutely. There you go. Save ourselves a few shekels. Okay. Well, thank you all so much. As always, very nice to be with you. And we'll see you next week. If you'd like to unmute and say goodbye, you're welcome to do that. Good night. Thank you, Sue. Thank you so much. Thank you, Shozan. Yes, thank you. Kakuen, you get a hold of me. I will. I'm hunting you. You can run, but you can't hide. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. Have a great week. We will. Bye, Senka. Bye, everyone. Thank you. Bye-bye. Have a great week. Bye. Bye, Jifu. Bye, Jifu.

[77:38]

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