Post by stardustpilgrim on May 1, 2024 13:58:57 GMT -5
....bumped for ZD. alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness, is roughly equivalent to the term Niz used, causal body, from his tradition, what his teacher taught him. It's a "body" which consists of finer vibrations, finer than science can measure. You've heard of chi, qi or prana I'm sure. This is energy of a finer vibration. You've heard of the meridians in Chinese medicine I'm sure, acupuncture, and also Taoist alchemy. The meridians are pathways, kind of like blood vessels, but they are energy pathways in the next subtle body, the etheric double. You've heard of the chakras I'm sure. These are a vortex (or torus) of energy that connect the higher bodies to the glands of the physical body. The crown chakra is the highest at the top of the head, it is called the thousand petaled lotus. But the causal body does not incarnate, directly. The basic goal is for the causal body and the ordinary mind to be directly linked, to be one and the same. This would basically be the end of the journey. Everything we experience and learn in an incarnation is downloaded into the alaya-vjinana-causal body, that's why it's called the storehouse consciousness. Our tiny little ordinary mind does not reincarnate, it basically dies during the (Tibetan Buddhist) Bardo after the death of the physical body. There are levels of energy which scientific instruments cease to be able to measure. This thread explores some of these things, from Buddhist Yogacara standpoint. I cut my teeth on all this starting at age 17 when my second "spiritual" teacher suggested I read the Theosophical (Society) literature. I learned even then the spiritual journey was about filling in the sub-planes of the finer bodies. It (the books) just didn't say how, I had to find the how.
I had kept coming back to this certain book (on Amazon), for years, finally found it at a good price and got-it. It is most exceptional, why did I wait so long? Yogacara is variously translated as Mind-Only or Consciousness-Only. It's basically a very extensive exploration of how the mind-being is structured and that in relation to the world, It basically could be called Buddhist psychology. I'm about 2/3 of the way through, it just keeps getting better. Have been considering some quotes. They are relevant to some of the other posts today, so decided to pull the trigger. It's a 2009 book by the abbot of the Hosso Zen Temple of Kofukuji in Japan, Tagawa Shun'ei, translated by Charles Muller, who teaches at the University of Tokyo.
Basically, there are eight consciousnesses. The first six were known and accepted in Buddhism previous to Yogacara (the six object-discerning consciousnesses). These are the consciousnesses of the five senses, and the sixth is thinking, called mano consciousness, the thinking mind. The developers of Yogacara decided these categories did not explain the full range of human experience so developed the 7th and 8th consciousnesses. The seventh is manas consciousness. "The Yogacarins, deliberating on the composition of our mind and its functions of conscious awareness, came to be convinced that there had to be an additional, deeper layer of the mind, which, while continuously imposing its influence on everyday conscious awareness, also served as its underlying basis. Thus, they posited a subconscious region of the mind, comprised of the two deep layers of consciousness of manas (fundamental mentation consciousness) and alaya-vijnanapg 12 (storehouse consciousness, which I will use from here on). Manas consciousness is ceaselessly exerting great influence on our conscious daily lives". pg 15
What becomes of mano-thinking consciousness when we sleep? The Yogacarins saw the necessity for a 7th manas as a consciousness that maintains a sense of self and information, information which is not constantly on one's mind. When we improve at anything, a craft or a skill, this is maintained in manas, the subconscious mind. IOW, the thinking mind only operates at intervals, not continuously. pg 15 So why is this important? Because in Buddhism there is no permanent soul which can handle these "duties".
So storehouse consciousness, the 8th, is necessary to maintain continuity from past to present to future, "it firmly retains the aftereffects of all that we have done". pg 13 Later in the book we see storehouse consciousness is necessary to hold causes and effects from one life to a next life, the seeds and fruit.
So storehouse consciousness is the base of manas consciousness, which is the base of thinking-mano consciousness. These are called the three subjective transformations.
Now the quotes...from Living Yogacara, An Introduction to Consciousness-Only Buddhism. Yogacara forms the base of Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. Without even finishing I'll put it into my top ten favorite books.
Basically, there are eight consciousnesses. The first six were known and accepted in Buddhism previous to Yogacara (the six object-discerning consciousnesses). These are the consciousnesses of the five senses, and the sixth is thinking, called mano consciousness, the thinking mind. The developers of Yogacara decided these categories did not explain the full range of human experience so developed the 7th and 8th consciousnesses. The seventh is manas consciousness. "The Yogacarins, deliberating on the composition of our mind and its functions of conscious awareness, came to be convinced that there had to be an additional, deeper layer of the mind, which, while continuously imposing its influence on everyday conscious awareness, also served as its underlying basis. Thus, they posited a subconscious region of the mind, comprised of the two deep layers of consciousness of manas (fundamental mentation consciousness) and alaya-vijnanapg 12 (storehouse consciousness, which I will use from here on). Manas consciousness is ceaselessly exerting great influence on our conscious daily lives". pg 15
What becomes of mano-thinking consciousness when we sleep? The Yogacarins saw the necessity for a 7th manas as a consciousness that maintains a sense of self and information, information which is not constantly on one's mind. When we improve at anything, a craft or a skill, this is maintained in manas, the subconscious mind. IOW, the thinking mind only operates at intervals, not continuously. pg 15 So why is this important? Because in Buddhism there is no permanent soul which can handle these "duties".
So storehouse consciousness, the 8th, is necessary to maintain continuity from past to present to future, "it firmly retains the aftereffects of all that we have done". pg 13 Later in the book we see storehouse consciousness is necessary to hold causes and effects from one life to a next life, the seeds and fruit.
So storehouse consciousness is the base of manas consciousness, which is the base of thinking-mano consciousness. These are called the three subjective transformations.
Now the quotes...from Living Yogacara, An Introduction to Consciousness-Only Buddhism. Yogacara forms the base of Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. Without even finishing I'll put it into my top ten favorite books.