This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Someone told me recently in the middle of a retreat that she had been asking herself What am I doing here? When I heard that, I thought, this is a question which has been asked in this tradition for thousands of years. What am I doing here? What am I doing in this retreat? What am I doing in this meditation hall?

[01:04]

What am I doing in this life? I've heard many stories from the ancient times of students asking themselves this question. And also students asking their teacher and their teacher asking them, what are you doing here? What are you here for in this life? I have a response, which isn't an answer.

[02:11]

It's just a response. And the response is that if I ask myself, what am I doing here? I'm here to offer some teachings on the great vehicle. of realizing Buddhahood of learning and fully engaging verifying and realizing our deluded mind and thereby transforming it is sometimes called the great vehicle said in this tradition that Buddhas are those who are greatly enlightened in and about enlightenment.

[03:35]

Excuse me, in and about delusion. Buddhas are those who are greatly enlightened in and about delusion. of studying delusion and realizing great enlightenment in and about delusion is called Buddha's Bodhisattvas are also involved in this process of engaging and learning about what delusion is and enlightening it or being enlightened with it.

[04:40]

And their path is called the great vehicle. So... I have committed this year to offer and study teachings which aid living beings, bodhisattvas and non-bodhisattvas, in this process of enlightening delusion, of enlightening, confused, giddy karmic. Bodhisattvas are ordinary living beings, just as ordinary as other living beings. But they have great vows. They're ordinary living beings who have great vows.

[05:47]

They vow to live for the welfare of all beings and They vow to study the deluded mind and karmic consciousness and realize Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings. And again, the path by which they realize this is a path which is for the sake of all beings and includes all beings. So it's called the great vehicle. the Mahayana in Sanskrit. So about a month ago, I brought up a particular teaching about the path of liberating all beings

[06:51]

And this teaching apparently was composed about 16 or 1700 years ago in India by the great ancestor Asanga. And it's called Mahayana Samgraha, which could be translated as a summary of the Mahayana. or summation of the Mahayana. When it was translated into Chinese, they used a character which can be translated as a summary or a collection, but also means to embrace and sustain and nourish. but it also means to be embraced and sustained and nourished.

[08:02]

It means to guide and be guided. So that Chinese translation would allow a variety of understandings. For example, this is a text for embracing and sustaining the great vehicle. This is a text for nurturing the great vehicle. This is a text for being embraced and sustained and nourished by the great vehicle of the bodhisattva. And in this text, the ancestor Asanga offers a model of mind, a Mahayana model of mind. And the purpose of, again, the model of mind Is it something to study, learn about, inquire about, contemplate?

[09:10]

And this process of studying this model of mind has the potential to completely transform our deluded mind into what's called the mind of Buddha. to transform the mind, to allow the mind to understand the mind. the ancestor starts out by offering teachings on the support of all that is noble the support of all the ways we know and he says that the support

[10:36]

for the noble, the support for everything we know is called Alaya Vijnana in Sanskrit, which is often translated as a container consciousness or storehouse consciousness. Alaya is like in the word Hema or Himalaya, Himalaya. Hima is snow, and Alaya is storehouse. The Himalayas are the storehouse of snow. So this is the storehouse consciousness. And it's said that from beginningless time,

[11:37]

This realm of the storehouse consciousness is the support of all things. Only if it exists do all the different forms of cyclic suffering exist. And only if it exists is there access to nirvana, to peace and freedom. Beings live in suffering. And so it's being said here that this consciousness is the basis for all our suffering. But if it weren't for this consciousness being the way it is, we would never be able to attain freedom from suffering. But the very nature of this type of consciousness is such that there is access to suffering,

[12:44]

in the very mind, which is the basis of suffering. This is what this text on the Mahayana is going to try to teach us. So to summarize the summary, I can say... If we have the mind of delusion, which is the source and the basis for all our suffering, if we can fully engage it, in that full engagement, there is access to peace and liberation from the suffering which this mind supports. He goes on to say, the hidden ground upon which all things depend is the consciousness with all its seeds.

[13:58]

Thus I call it the container consciousness. And I have taught this for superior persons. So please, without putting yourself above anyone, please be a superior person right now. so that this teaching can be for you. Without putting ourselves above anybody, let's be superior by being ordinary. I propose to you that the great bodhisattvas, like the one sitting in the center of this room, who we call Manjushri Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva of transcendent wisdom, that this Bodhisattva tells us, I am the most ordinary of all beings.

[15:02]

I am foremost in ordinariness. Because of my vows to live for the welfare of all beings, I do not resist being ordinary. And in the absolute non-resistance to ordinariness, there is liberation from suffering. There is perfect wisdom. So it says, and I've taught this for success. persons and I would say this is taught for ordinary people this is taught for ordinary people who wish their ordinary life to be the for the welfare of all living beings that's who it's for so in a sense

[16:17]

If I'm studying these teachings, I want to be mindful as I'm studying them. Am I studying them for the welfare of all beings? Because it's for someone who lives for the welfare of all beings that these teachings are intended. If I'm not clear about that, perhaps I should continue to... to look inward and see, am I willing for this study at least? Maybe when I stop studying, I'll leave my study area and go out and live for my own welfare and forget about other people. But right now, while I'm studying these teachings, at least now, could I be doing this for the welfare of all beings? again I ask what are we doing here we were having a meditation retreat a while ago

[17:49]

I believe it was February 1971 in San Francisco. And I think we started sitting at five in the morning and there was a wake-up bell rung up and down the halls. about a half an hour before sitting. That's when the wake-up bell was usually rung, about 4.30. But one day, the person who rang the wake-up bell rung it at 3.30. And then, somehow, she realized that it was 3.30 and stopped ringing the bell. and then went around the halls telling the people who were getting up from meditation I rang the bell too early go back to bed myself was happy to do so however

[19:19]

My door was open to my room, and my room was right next to Suzuki Roshi's room, the founder of Zen Center. And as I was sort of, I don't know, getting ready to go back to sleep, I saw him trotting by my door with his robes on, heading to the meditation hall. I don't know if the wake-up belt person told him to go back to bed or not. But anyway, he went to the meditation hall with his attendant. His attendant didn't say, I'm going back to bed, see you later, Roshi. No, the attendant went with him, and they went into the Zen Do and sat But nobody came besides him and one other person who wasn't me.

[20:23]

After some time, it appeared to him, I guess, that his dear students were not going to come and sit with him for whatever reason. So he left the zendo. He didn't go back to bed. He just went back to his room. And then about an hour later, or... whatever, the wake-up bell was rung again. Everybody got up and went to the hall and sat. And after the period started, he got up and took his stick, his oak stick, no, maple stick. I don't know if he made that stick, but anyway, it was a very nice stick made of maple. I remember when I first saw him with it, he said, this stick is made from Belmont maple.

[21:32]

Not to make fun of him, but by Belmont, he meant Vermont. He took his Belmont maple And he went over to me and hit me with all his might. And with all his love. And then he hit the next person. And the next person. And when he hit me, he went... By the time he finished, the last few people got very soft hits. He was all tired out. And he sat down and said something or other, and then he said, what are we doing here? Then the text says, why did the Buddha teach that this consciousness should be called the container consciousness?

[23:00]

And the Sangha's answer is, because the results of defiled states of all living beings lie concealed and stored up in this consciousness as results. And because this consciousness lies concealed and stored up in all defiled states as cause. It's the container of the results of all our past karma. And it stores all of our past action. And also, it is stored in all of our present action. It is stored and hidden in our present action.

[24:07]

Our past action, our past karma is stored in our present karma and hidden in our present karma. We can't see our past karma in our present karma. We can see our present karma, but we can't see our past karma in our present karma. It's hidden in our present karma as the cause of our present karma. And it is also hidden because it's unconscious and it stores the results of our present karma. So it's a consciousness... which is unconscious. It's a cognitive life. It's a living cognition which receives and carries and conveys all of our past action and supports all of our present action.

[25:12]

And our present action, right now, our present action is... being laid down in our past. Right now, our present action is transforming our past. Our past can be completely transformed by the way our present action is cared for. by the way we let teachings come into our present consciousness, the way our present consciousness is affected by teachings. And the teachings can come from our past, and the teaching can come from someplace other than our past.

[26:15]

from other consciousnesses than our own. And when our consciousness inter-subjectively receives teachings from other consciousnesses, what other consciousnesses? The consciousnesses of those who had studied their mind and whose mind has been transformed so that they can offer teachings to our consciousness so it can be transformed. So by studying our own active consciousness, our past is transformed in a different way than if we don't study our present active consciousness. so a key factor here is what are we doing are we studying our own present active consciousness by for example asking what am i doing what am i doing and when i say what am i doing and you hear me the teaching up what am i doing is transmitted to you to your active consciousness

[27:56]

And if your active consciousness receives the teaching from the ancestors and also from people who live right now who ask that question, when you ask that question, what am I doing, and I hear you, and I receive that, my consciousness, my active consciousness is receiving the Dharma from you. You can ask question of yourself and tell me and thereby transmit to me the teachings of the ancestors because you are telling me the same question that they asked. I might forget to ask myself, what am I doing? So you say to me that you're wondering what you're doing or that you're wondering what I'm doing. If I received that, And I'm aware of that.

[28:56]

My active consciousness, which is supported by my past action, by the results of my past action, is transformed, and that transforms my past action. So that even if you're not asking me, or some teacher's not asking me, what are you doing? Or you're not telling me that you're asking yourself. Because you asked me, and I received it, and that transformed my past, now my past can support the question to come up in me, and I can think it, and I can say it to you, and you can receive it, and you can be transformed. And in this way, we intrapsychically, we inwardly are transformed, and we are interpersonally, interpsychically transformed. This text teaches an intrapsychic evolution, transformation, together with an interpersonal, intersubjective evolution.

[30:10]

In Zen, sometimes we say Zen has two aspects. One aspect is called just sitting. And the other one is called going to the teacher and listening to the teaching or asking about the teaching. One is the intrapsychic contemplation and the other is the intersubjective, interpersonal contemplation where you go to the teacher and you can ask the teacher, what's the intrapsychic evolution? You're interpersonally asking, what's going on with you, teacher? Are you meeting with me right now for the welfare of all beings, teacher? And the teacher can say the same to us. This summary of Mahayana, this embracing and sustaining of Mahayana, teaches this consciousness.

[31:43]

And then it also teaches that this consciousness has... It's of three types. There's three differentiations of this consciousness. One is the... propensity for language. The other is the propensity for the view or belief in an independent self. And the third is the propensity in terms of the factors of existence as portrayed in the twelve-fold process of dependent co-arising. This is taught in the first chapter of this text. And after teaching these three types of storehouse consciousness in terms of these three types of propensities, then he says it's also four types.

[32:58]

And I'm just going to tell you the fourth type right now. And the fourth type is the storehouse consciousness in terms of its characteristics. And its characteristics are twofold. Common characteristic and uncommon characteristic. The common characteristic of this storehouse consciousness is the physical world. also called the receptacle world the uncommon characteristic of the storehouse consciousness is the sense fields of living beings those are the two characteristics of this consciousness in another text actually a text written by a song as brother younger brother

[34:07]

whose name is Vasubandhu. They had the same mother, but different fathers. And they were both able to write wonderful teachings for us. And one of Vasubandhu's most important writings is called The Treasure... It's also called Storehouse. called the Abhidharma Kosha. Kosha means like storehouse or treasure house. So it's the treasure house of the higher teaching. This is one of his works. And in the third chapter, the third chapter of that book called The World or Worlds, and he describes the various worlds that living beings live in. And these The world he's describing are the worlds as experienced or the world of phenomena as we experience them.

[35:19]

And there's basically six kinds of worlds. But these are six different ways that living beings experience life. And they're actually thus... Their body and mind is the world that they live in. And the individual take on the world is one of the characteristics of this storehouse consciousness. The other characteristic of storehouse consciousness is the actual physicality of the world. as experienced. And then in the next chapter, Babsuk Bhanda says, where do these worlds come from? And his answer is, they come from the collective action, the collective karma of all beings.

[36:21]

And that's what the storehouse consciousness is. It is the results of the past karma of all beings. And each of us is right now making a contribution to this storehouse consciousness. And this storehouse, our storehouse consciousness or the storehouse consciousness has the common characteristic. It has the characteristic of the physical world where we live together. And the way the physical world appears to be similar for us the way it's similar for us and different for flies, for example, or cockroaches or snakes or rats or tigers, the way they live in the physical world with us, they seem to sense that they live in the physical world with us.

[37:29]

They see us and they think we're in the same world as them. They have their world and they think we're getting too close or too far. We have our world and we think they're getting too close or too far. We think they live in our world, they think we live in their world. So we do share a physical world with all these different beings. But there's a difference in the way we see the world and that's the uncommon characteristic. That our own physical sense of it is another characteristic of this storehouse consciousness. But there can be similarity in our individual take on this physical world, depending on whether our karma is similar. And a key factor for us human beings, which seems to be different from other living beings, is we have language.

[38:41]

And our language is one of the most important... of action we do it's that proclivity or predisposition or propensity to speak for language for for language to speak that propensity to speak that way is because we have a we're settled into a consciousness which which is settled into a body that has the propensity for conventional designation and because of that we live in the same physical world as other human beings but we live in this and we see the physical world in similar ways like most a lot of human beings would say this is a building whereas I have a feeling that flies don't think this is a building Most of us think that what I'm touching here is my cheek, whereas most flies don't think this is a cheek.

[39:53]

They think it's a shopping center. Or a pleasure palace. Or a candy store. And the other flies agree with them because they have similar karma. And we don't agree with them because we have different karma from them. So we pretty much agree. It's a cheek on a human. What we think, what we say... the words we use are based on our past verbal karma.

[40:58]

My now speaking English is based on past attempts to speak English. And those past attempts to speak English transformed the mind which which contains the results of all attempts, all action of speaking. Everything I speak transforms my past. My past then supports my ability to speak. But I can't see how my past speech, how my past English karma makes it possible for me to speak English. I can't see that. but it's proposed that it is because I have spoken English in the past or attempted to. All those attempts and all those successes in speaking English are now here.

[42:02]

My past is now here supporting my present ability to speak English. But I can't see how. And I can't see how my present speaking is transforming my past right now and will be the source upon which I may be able to speak English in a minute or so. Now we think, because many of us think, that speaking English will result in the ability to speak English in the future. But we can't see how. The way it actually works is that right now, unconsciously, we have this vast, or storehouse full of seeds which support the ability to speak English. And this same storehouse which supports the ability to speak English creates the physical world.

[43:08]

Being aware that my speaking English transforms my past right now is also to be aware of the possibility that the way I speak English and the way I take care of my activity of speaking English transforms the physical world. So we're all responsible for the world we live in and how we care for our past karma has created this world. Mine and yours and all beings, all of our karma makes this world. We're all responsible. And there's a teaching which tells us that. And if we receive that teaching, it changes our past and supports us to remember that every action transforms the world. And that action that remembers that every action transforms the world, transforms the world in the direction of understanding our deluded mind, of awakening to our deluded mind.

[44:31]

I cannot control whether or not I cannot control what words I say. I seem to be able to speak English, but I'm actually not in control of what I'm saying. When I say I, my conscious mind is not in control of what the conscious mind is doing. The conscious mind is not in control of the conscious mind. You, all of you, together with past karma of this mind, controls what the active conscious mind is doing. There's no me here who's controlling what he's saying. What is being said here is supported by a vast unconscious reservoir of seeds which are the results of inconceivably great number of past actions and your presence right now influencing this consciousness.

[45:36]

So I'm not in control. However... I'm also not in control of remembering the teaching that what I do think and what I do say is the pivot through which the world turns towards awakening or towards more and more unattended, uncared for delusion. So this text that I'm just telling you a little bit about today in which I vow to continue to use in the ongoing enterprise of studying delusion and for the sake of enlightening delusion this text is saying what we think

[46:41]

and how we care for our verbal activity is vitally important even though we cannot control our current karma if I speak to you now while receiving the teaching that what I say transforms the world and how I say it and how I care for it transforms the world that transforms the world in a certain way. If I remember these teachings, and I can't control whether I remember them or not, but if I understand right now that when I do remember them, they transform the world towards the great vehicle, this is the seed which has been transmitted to us by the Buddhas and which is maturing in us. It has the potential for continued evolution and transformation of our wonderful deluded karmic consciousness which is so powerful and so important and can do so much to make the world worse or more peaceful and happy

[48:04]

I cannot control myself into continual mindfulness of what I'm doing, of asking myself, what are you doing? I cannot control my active consciousness into contemplating if the action right now is for the welfare of all beings. I cannot. And yet, here I am talking about it. And here I am contemplating it. Because of you, and because of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, I'm talking about this. And because of you in the past, or people like you in the past, because of your ancestors, in the past I've asked this question. And asking this question is now the support for asking the question again. Suzuki Roshi asked this question in 1971. Master Ma asked the question in 862.

[49:16]

Master Shirtow asked Yao Shan this question in 748. People have been asking this question. This question has been transmitted. What's going on with your active consciousness? Are you caring for it? Do you realize how important it is that you're contemplating and taking care of what you're thinking and what you're saying, do you realize that this is the pivot for peace in this world? Each of us has this thing to take care of. This text is saying, here's how to take care of it and here's what happens if you don't and here's what happens if you do. I don't know the date of this conversation, but I believe it was in the Tang Dynasty.

[50:35]

A monk asked a Zen teacher. Both language and silence are involved in alienation and vagueness. When you speak, when we speak, when there's verbal karma, there's some alienation there. There's some separation involved in speaking. And there's also some, because it's karmic consciousness, there's also some vagueness or some obscurity in speaking. And in silence, you can't avoid the alienation. There's alienation even in silence. And there's plenty of vagueness in silence. So either way, things are unclear or alienating. And the monk says, how can we avoid transgressing?

[51:43]

How can we get through speaking karma or even being silent without veering into alienation or vagueness? And the Zen master said, I always think of Hunan in March. Artridges are chirping in the hundred grasses. Please take care of your karmic consciousness. The welfare of the world depends on how we take care of it. And as Smokey the Bear said, only you, supported by all beings, can enlighten delusion.

[52:53]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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