Part 1b.1j - How the cause of liberation is produced

In particular, how, though the three-fold awareness of the desire realm has the manner of same and different, by becoming familiar to the mind of desire, how the cause of liberation is produced.

Now in particular, there is the explanation of the awareness of the desire realm, which is a support of impurity with the manner of same and different:

As the mind of desire becomes what it is accustomed to,
It also produces the cause of being freed from its highs and lows.

Because the coarse and celestial levels of desire are levels of karma, and because, in particular, we can become a vessel of practicing Dharma there, the Objects of Mindfulness says:

As for desire, mind becomes coarsened by planting seeds of good and bad. Therefore, in particular, we should try to work with the good dharmas.

1.j.i) What consciousness predominates during the day

What is it?

By day the seven-fold consciousness usually dominates.
The other two, of the same nature, are then its retinue.
Thus, there is grasping of form by visual consciousness.
The luminous aspect, free from thought, is alaya-consciousness.
The aspect of non-thought is alaya itself.
All the other six should be known in a similar way.

The aspect by which the eye sees form is the eye-consciousness. The aspect of clear awareness of luminosity and non-thought is alayavijñana. The aspect of non-thought is alaya itself. It is similar for sound, smell, taste, and touch, and when the mind consciousness apprehends a remembered object. The consciousnesses apprehend their respective individual objects. Luminous awareness is alayavijñana. Non-thought is alaya.

When there is the motionless, vivid luminosity of alayavijñana, individual objects are not hindered, and there is also awareness of them. The luminosity is alayavijñana, and the non-thought is alaya. Also, in such cases of sense-perception, one-pointed e ntering and dissolving into realalaya exist as latencies, just as the stars exist as latencies when the sun rises. Here is how the Commentary Examining Mind and Wisdom (sems dang ye shes brtag pa’i ’grel pa) explains the armor of buddhahood:

Completely non-conceptual awareness rests in the aspect of alaya. Its mere clarity/luminosity is alayavijñana. Apprehension of individual objects is the six consciousnesses. Entering, dissolving, and non-thought are the situations of alaya.

1.j.ii) The way in which these are the same and different

Here is the explanation of how these consciousnesses are the same and different:

Sleep is one-pointed, and when we awake from out of our dreams,
There are the successive times of alaya and its consciousness
And then the times of mind and the six collections of sense,
The times of one and two in one and all in one,

One-pointed sleep is the time when all awareness is one in alaya. It never fails to be outwardly re-emanated. At the time of dream, from within alaya come alayavijñana, and superimposed on that the isolated mind consciousness arises. At this time of no external emanation from alaya, alaya is of one essence with the consciousness rising from it, and the mind consciousness. When we wake from sleep, there is a great deal of external emanation from within alaya, but still alaya and all of the eight consciousnesses are of one essence. These matters are presented as in the Secret Commentary (gsang ’grel).

Now if the meaning is summarized very clearly, the luminous nature of mind is the support or source of all that arises. Within it, if it is examined, samsara and nirvana are completely undivided and undifferentiated. Although it is changeless, this is sugatagarbha, which, as the applied natural state, is the source of samsara and nirvana. The Dohakosha (do ha) says:

The solitary nature of mind is the seed of all,
Whatever emanates as samsara and nirvana.
It bestows the fruition of whatever is desired.
I prostrate to mind, which is like a wish-fulfilling gem.

The Gandavyuha Sutra says:

To describe the special cause
From which arising occurs,
It is not without causation,
Nor is it without action;

Not different from appearance,
Not different from alaya.
If, in fact, it were different,
Alaya would not be eternal.

Unmanifest, undestroyed, permanent,
It excludes the four extremes.
It is pure sugatagarbha,
Called the emanation of wisdom.

Not different from the essence,
Like a finger that points to the essence,
The various levels and alaya
Are also sugatagarbha.

Alaya is the essence,
As the Sugata has taught.
Though the essence is alaya,
Weak minds do not know this.

The nature as the cause of pure entities, the kayas and wisdoms and so forth, is known as the undefiled, true alaya. When alaya is made into the support of samsara, it is designated as the defiled alaya of the various habitual patterns. Of one essence wi th the supporting ground, these two are presented in terms of the different kinds of supported dharmas. The Ornament of Clear Realization (Abhisamayalankara, mngon rtogs rgyan) says:

By the particular kinds of supported dharmas,
In that form its divisions are expressed.

That is the same approach. When there is defilement, what is to be purified also is described by a different name as our enlightened family nature or essence, pure of every defilement, and it also exists in that way. The above text says:

As in the conception of those who do not know
The moon is thought to wax to fullness and wane away;
Though actually the moon neither grows nor diminishes,
That is how it seems in this or that land in the world.

Similarly within the alayavijñana,
Foolish, ignorant beings, not knowing how things are,
Think there is always growing and diminishing.
Being free of that bondage is known as buddhahood.

Alaya, as the ground of all the various dharmas,
With their habitual patterns of pride and all the rest,
Exists corrupted by concepts and discursive thoughts.
When it is otherwise, it exists without defilement.

If it ever attains its natural non-defilement,
Those aspects will be supported for all eternity.

The actual moon neither waxes nor wanes, but in the four continents it appears to have different phases. The luminous nature of mind itself is buddhahood. It has no characteristics of joy and sorrow. Yet samsaric beings seem to see the different celestial realms, lower realms, and so forth. If the true nature is purified, we reach the real alaya. That is what is being said.

That completes the explanation of the arising ofalayavijñana and the eight consciousnesses from alaya. These are included within the ignorant confusion of the mind-consciousness. The sutras say:

Mind is the chief, and mind is very quick.
Mind comes first, and it is before all dharmas.

When we do not know the changeless nature, the perfectly established, there is false conception. Various kinds of impure, confused appearance arise, produced within relativity. When these dreamlike confusions of samsara are eliminated, there is the perfectly established, mind itself. By meditation on the unerring path of upaya and prajña in the developing and perfecting stages; that primordial ground, the essence, is made to manifest as it is. It is realized like that. That completes the explanation of the ground, the support of karma.