The Great Chariot

by Longchenpa | 268,580 words

A Commentary on Great Perfection: The Nature of Mind, Easer of Weariness In Sanskrit the title is ‘Mahāsandhi-cittā-visranta-vṛtti-mahāratha-nāma’. In Tibetan ‘rDzogs pa chen po sems nyid ngal gso’i shing rta chen po shes bya ba ’...

Part 1b.1a - The support: The explanation of alaya and consciousness

Now if it is asked, “What supports these karmas and in what are they collected?” Their support is explained.

The supporting ground of these is the neutral alaya.
It is like a mirror, and in its conceptionless essence,
Is luminous awareness, unconceptualized as objects.
Creating a ground of arising, it is like the mirror’s brightness.
From that, the five sense perceptions grasp objects such as form.
Not conceptual i n themselves, they are like the mirror’s reflections.

After that occurs, there rise the awarenesses
That separate the objects of grasping and fixation.
In successive moments there are fixation and non fixation,
Conception and non-conception, klesha-mind and mental consciousness.[1]

All the karmas of samsara and purity depend on alaya for its seeds. The Sutra of the Immaculate Wisdom of Mañjushri (’jam dpal ye shes dri ma med pa’i mdo) says:

Alaya is the ground of everything,
The ground of both samsara and nirvana,
And also the ground of total purity.

The suchness of space is called alaya. Serving as the ground of all that is divided, it is completely neutral and undivided.

On top of this, or within it, with the spontaneously present, primordially uncompounded nature of insight as its supported aspect, is the applied alaya of reality.

When this is made into a ground by ignorance as the support of the dharmas of samsara and the collections of the eight consciousnesses with their habitual patterns, it is called the alaya of the various habitual patterns. Within this are supported all things of the compounded nature of good and evil, which arise as various joys and sorrows.

As the support of all causes and fruitions in accord with merit, this also supports all goodness in accord with liberation, and supported by this is the gotra of fruition free from defilement.

As for the extended explanation of what these are like, in the neutral alaya are lower good and bad samsaric causes and effects; the separable causes of nirvana, the aspects according with liberation; and the karma of complete purity. Whatever realizations of the path there may be are all supported there.

Good things according with liberation and included in the truth of the path are incidental and compounded. Therefore, they are supported as separable causes within the alaya of various habitual patterns. They are supported in the gotra as fruitions of separation. Such a fruition is dependent in something like the way that the revealed sun depends on the sun behind obscuring clouds which is yet to be revealed. The Uttaratantra says:

Earth is in water, water in wind, and wind in space.
But space is not in the dhatus of wind and water and earth.
Thus the skandhas and dhatus, and the powers of sense,
Are supported in existence by karma and the kleshas.

Karma and the kleshas are not as they should be.
They always exist in the form of mental artifacts.
As for these artifacts that are not true entities,
The purity of mind is completely existent.
But, as for the dharmas that have the nature of mind,
All of them, on the other hand, are nonexistent.

In this way, the naturally pure nature of mind that is like the sky, primordially possesses the pure buddha fields and buddha qualities in the manner of the two gotras. This beginningless good element of dharmas exists as the ground of separation. As such, it is the support of nirvana.

In this case we need to recognize:

  1. The ground of separation
  2. The cause of separation
  3. The fruition of separation
  4. The separated

The ground of separation is the element or essence.

The cause of separation that eliminates defilements superimposed on that essence, is the aspect in accord with liberation, possessed by the good path.

The fruition of separation is that when sugatagarbha has been freed from all defilements, the buddha qualities manifest.

The separated is the eight consciousnesses with their various habitual patterns. These depend on the alaya of the various habitual patterns.

According to secret mantra these are known as the basis, producer, and fruition of purification and that which is to be purified. The words are different, but the meaning is the same.

Within that state without dependence, is the nature of ignorance, the alaya of the various habitual patterns. It is the cause of impure samsara and its collections of consciousness. That compounded good entities are associated with the level in accord wi th liberation has been taught for a long time.

The aspect associated with the buddha qualities of nirvana is called the applied alaya of reality, which is where the essence, emptiness; the nature, luminosity; and all pervading compassion arise in experience. These jewel- like buddha qualities, without defilement or freedom from defilement are the intended meaning of the primordially luminous kayas and wisdoms without gathering or separation, the meaning of the natural state.

The aspect of complete purity, though described by the words “like space,” “the markless,” “emptiness,” “the completely uncompounded,” and so forth, is not nihilistic, empty nothingness; rather, it is realization of spontaneous presence, the luminosity of the kayas and wisdoms. It is empty in the sense of being completely liberated from all dharmas of samsara. The Gandavyuha Sutra says:

The disk of the moon, immaculate and pure,
Always undefiled, is completely full.
Yet by the power of time within this world,
The moon is thought to wax and wane in phases.

Likewise, the alaya of reality
Possesses sugatagarbha at all times.
Alaya here is another word for the essence,
As it was taught by the Tathagata.

For the childish ones who do not know this,
Alaya, by the power of habitual patterns,
Is seen as being various joys and sorrows,
Karmic awareness, which is all the kleshas.

With a nature pure and undefiled,
With qualities like a wish-fulfilling gem,
With no transmigration, and no change,
It is perfect awareness of liberation.

Maitreya says:

There is nothing to illumine,
There is nothing to improve.
The real looks at the real.

In accountable names, this is called the applied alaya of reality, the beginningless goodness of the element of dharmas, sugatagarbha, the dhatu, the luminous nature of mind, dharmadhatu, the suchness of the natural state, the natural purity of suchness, the perfection of prajña, the supporting ground, the source of arising, and the producer of the cause of separation. Yet what is being named cannot be truly encompassed by thought.

In addition to the nature of mind, there is the aspect supporting the habitual patterns of samsara, called the alaya of the various habitual patterns. What is it like? It is primordially wi thout karmic natures of good and bad, or of liberation and compete purity. That is because it is the support and producer of all such incidental productions. Because the arising of both virtue and evil depends on it, and because its essence is ignorance, it is neutral.

Some say that it is not ignorance because it serves as the support of the five poisons and of complete purity. That is just a change of labels. Why? Though it is not the same as the ignorance that discriminates the five poisons, co-emergent ignorance at the time of first being confused by samsara is also called ignorance.

The support and producer of complete purity should be examined further. That is not the support and producer of the wisdom of buddhahood, possessing the two purities, primordial purity and purity from incidental defilements. Alaya must be transformed. The Holy Golden Light says:

Alaya transformed is dharmakaya, the essence.

The Tantra on Exhausting the Basis of the Elements says:

Pure alaya is dharmadhatu.

That support is not the support of the element. It does not present itself as the suchness of defilements in the sense of a cause or support separate from them, as the supported. Therefore, it does not serve as more than the support of the conditioned accumulations of merit and wisdom that come about as a result of meditation on the path. Since these accumulations are included in the truth of the path, though they are classified as deceptive and impermanent, they are therefore supported by the alaya of various habitual patterns, and it is their external principal cause.

“If they depend on it like that, how is it reasonable that it also destroys such things?”

That is also similar. It is like a lamp dependent on a wick or a fire dependent on fuel burning until they burn themselves out.

Though they depend on alaya, habitual patterns of samsara are self-purified by the path of the two accumulations. Defilements of the gotra, or of the element, are cleared away. Then the phenomenal exists as it did at first, as the manifest luminosity of enlightenment. Since that path produces this manifestation, it is called the condition of purification. After that, the antidotes that produce purification destroy even themselves. This is because they are good false conceptions imputed by mind. The commentary on the Uttaratantra says:

The beginning of the occasion of the manifestation of enlightenment occurs because all truths of the path are eliminated.

The Madhyamakavatara says:

By burning all the dry kindling of every knowable object
There is peace, the dharmakaya of the victorious ones.

If so, what about the kind of emptiness that throws nothing away, or what about the thirty seven factors of enlightenment?

All things are gathered into the level of buddhahood without being thrown away. The thirty-seven factors of enlightenment are there. However, neither of the above are included in the path, since at that point the path is over.

The list of names for this is co-emergent ignorance, the alaya of the various habitual patterns, obscuration without beginning or end, the great darkness, primordially existing unawareness and so forth.

The nature of mind like the sky, besides existing as the beginningless space of the dhatu, depending on liberation exists as yogic union, and depending on samsara exists as the various habitual patterns. These are the joys and sorrows of the different appearances of samsara and nirvana and the arising of their faults and virtues. The commentary to the Uttaratantra says:

The dhatu of time without beginning and end
Exists as the place of all the various dharmas.
Since this exists, all beings have attained nirvana.

Now, regarding the divisions of alaya and the eight consciousnesses, the neutral alaya of the various habitual patterns is like a mirror. The alaya-consciousness is like the luminous clarity of the mirror. The consciousnesses of the five gates are like reflections in the mirror. The mental consciousness is the process of analyzing former objects of these or saying, “These are the apparent objects of the five gates,” when these objects first arise.

Klesha-mind occurs after that, when desire, aversion or indifference arise accompanying experience. If there is no such appraisal by Klesha-mind, no karma is accumulated by the six sense-awarenesses, because there is no conditioning by any of the three poisons. This is how the former masters say it should be analyzed.

When the nature of all dharmas is known, the situation of the view, meditation, and action, is like that. Ignorant beings who make biased assertions about such a state of mind accumulate bad karma.

Thus, the gate of accumulating karma is the mental sense and the five senses along with their supports. The accumulator is mind possessing the kleshas and the mind wishing for goodness, and the one who knows such a mind.

When these are collected, they are collected in alaya. The developer, proliferator and collector, diminisher and so forth, is alayavijñana. Master Lodrö Tenpa (blo gros brtan pa) in his great commentary on the Mahayanasutralankara says:

The mind-sense and the five senses, the eye and so forth, are the gates of karma, and supports of its entering. The mind that thinks of good, bad, and indifferent is the producer. The six objects, form and so forth, are what is produced. Alayavijñana is the developer. Alaya is their support and place, like a house.

Alayavijñana is clear and vivid awareness with no fixation of object and perceiver. Proliferating from that are the awarenesses of the five senses.

The eye consciousness apprehends form. It does not arise as concept, but as consciousness. Similarly the ears hear, the nose smells, the tongue tastes, and things that the body can touch are sensed. They do not arise as concept, but as consciousness.

Arising from the apparent objects of the five gates, or arising directly afterward, as likenesses of phenomena in the five gates, there are dharmas. These are object dharmas. From apprehension o f them being apprehension of the arising of phenomena, this is known as “consciousness (literally “awareness of phenomena.”).” The same text says:

As for mind-consciousness, traces like former objects arise, or awareness of inferences of unperceive d objects, but these too are objects. These too are consciousness.

Former objects of the awarenesses of the five gates and alayavijñana, or the six aspects of each one’s awareness, as soon as they have ceased, are called mental. The Abhidharmakosha says:

As soon as the six have ceased,
Their consciousness becomes mental.

When there is apparent form, the vivid, luminous object existing without fixation is alayavijñana. The arising of phenomenal awareness that sees form is the eye-consciousness. When presentation of both has ceased, when that form has been imputed, the instantly arising aspect that thinks, “This is form,” is mind or content mind.

Moreover, entering that same instant, labeling that non-conceptuality quickly and precisely as non-conceptual, the object first intuited is labeled “grasping conception.” All the detailed analysis that arises after that is said to be “fixating conception.”[2]

If there is not this analytical continuation by mind of apprehension at the first instant, karma does not accumulate. So it is maintained by all the lords of yoga. TheDoha of the Peak of Knowing (rtog rtse’i do ha) says:

The consciousness of the objects of the six senses
Is not defiled by simply being grasped.
Having no karma, hence also without its ripening,
It is seen without defilement, just like space.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Mere mental consciousness that does not have the attachments of the kleshas.

[2]:

‘dzin pa’i rtog pa. Sometimes dpyod pa instead of rtog pa.

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