"Like the waves of the ocean, Mahamati, the world which is the mind-manifested is stirred up by the wind of objectivity, it evolves and dissolves." — Lankavatara Sutra
The natural proclivity of the human mind is to engage with phenomena which includes the corporeal body. The subset of phenomena includes our daily thoughts and emotions, even including our experiences, hopes and dreams. It includes religious thought as well when it is devoted to eidola such as God.
When our consciousness is under the powerful habit of taking up such phenomena, that is, clinging to it, it is called alaya-vijnana (i.e., clinging consciousness which is also a matrix of percepts). In modern scientific parlance, the alaya-vijnana can be thought of as an immaterial torsion field which receives and bears a hidden order. Nothing escapes it.
If one might so put it, we thirst to be conscious of things and mental states so that the effect of such desire is borne by the alaya-vijnana which continually reinforces our thirst. As a condition, it is like a vicious circle. It should be stressed, that this proclivity dooms us, as spiritual beings (sattva), to an unending existence of cyclic rebirth and suffering.
Because our cognitive will (manas) is, so to speak, hooked on the alaya-vijnana mode of being, we are almost always cognizant of being phenomenally conscious which binds us to the body, i.e., the individuum, and by implication death and rebirth.
As we engage (alaya) with our everyday world, at the same time, we are unaware that we are cognizing or willing (manas) consciousness that is partaking of our body’s senses and sensory phenomena. Only during deep introspection can we, to some degree, delineate consciousness by cognitive willing (manovijnana) that is oriented towards sensory consciousness such as the consciousness of the physical body. This doesn’t mean we fully understand cognitive willing (manas) that is incorporeal and by implication, bodiless. However, during introspection the process of willing up consciousness that connects with our everyday embodied conscious life is hinted at. What is important is to recognize the subtly of our embodiment and how it takes place.
It almost goes without saying that our cognitive will (manas) is wrongly oriented which means it is defiled with wrong views. Moreover, our cognitive will has never witnessed pure Mind (cittamatra). Subsequently, it remains ever defiled and wrongly turned (aparavritti) towards sensory consciousness; being always excited and reinforced by the seed-like percepts in the alaya matrix. In fact, our cognitive attitude believes that we must depend on sensory consciousness. As a consequence, we are always cognizant of being entangled with sensory consciousness and embodied. But this is not the real picture of reality.
To escape the fate of samsara, our cognitive will must turn towards (paravritti) the bodiless pure Mind that is like a creative matrix (garbha) which is ubiquitous and eternal. This turning can also be understood to be a profound transformation in which the previous life of samsara is exchanged for the new life of nirvanic bliss that connects with the incorporeal eternal.
Because of this transformation we no longer perceive things (i.e., phenomena) in the normal way in which the world and things are spiritually empty; where we only sense sensations which can either be pleasurable or painful. Instead, we perceive things as constructions of spiritual substance or Suchness. To oversimplify this, we are conscious of spiritual bliss or light; and that things or phenomena are like waves made of this spiritual oceanic substance. Hitherto, we perceived only the waves—never the waveless living ocean.
Hell yeah! I am lighted headed from reading this wonderful stuff, LOL. Who needs sitting like Zen stump when one can read this article (like a mantra)......that is where the juice is, ;)
Bodhiratna
Posted by: Bodhiratna | January 11, 2008 at 11:03 AM