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A PRODUCTION OF www.taoshobuddhameditations.com Published by: www.taoshobuddhameditations.com Country of Origin: Trinidad & Tobago, West Indies. Chief Editor/Graphics Layout & Design: Swami Anand Neelambar
Editorial Team: Taoshobuddha, Swami Anand Neelambar International Contributors: Hadhrat Maulawi Jalaluddin Ahmad Ar-Rowi, Lars Jensen
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In This Issue
Editorial

Taoshobuddha: mailtaoshobuddha@gmail.com Swami AnandNeelambaravatar411@gmail.com

Flowering of Consciousness

You can also visit our website: http://dhyan-samadhi.webs.com/

Consciousness beyond words

www.youtube.com\taoshobuddha9 www.scribd.com\taoshobuddhacyberlibrary

Ego the condensed unawareness

www.scribd.com\avatar411
http://bodhidharmameditation.blogspot.com/

Consciousness without thinking

http://www.taoshobuddhameditations.myeweb.net/ http://meditationtimes.myeweb.net/

Awareness the only medicine

Compassion Meditation of Atisha

Alaya Vijana

Flowering Of Consciousness
Meditation Times

Taoshobudhha Meditations

MEDITATION TIMES
Published by Taoshobuddha Meditations Trinidad, West indies

EDITORIAL
This is our last issue for this year. In this issue we highlight the flowering of consciousness. Our Meditation Times will take on a new format for the New Year. We keep this as a surprise for all our readers. We also take this opportunity to wish all our readers a very Happy Holidays and may the New Year bring renewed faith and trust in the path you have chosen.

From the entire editorial team of Meditation Times

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SEASONS OF AWARENESS

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Words are fixed. It is the consciousness that gives essence, meaning and life-force to the words. Words are matters and have shape. Shape can be imprisoned. Human body can be imprisoned. History bears testimony to this. But that is beyond the words! But which comes from the beyond the unknown and unknowable cannot be condensed within the narrow boundaries of the finite.

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onsciousness is the core of human existence. Buddha taught his monks to be mindful of small things as the methodology to attain to crystallization of consciousness. When you are mindful of small things you grow in consciousness moment to moment with each situation. As you grow in consciousness the moments of unconsciousness begin to get less and less. And then one day the season of springs comes and consciousness flowers. In the beginning the thoughts remain floating on the inner sky. When Consciousness is without thinking it is awareness. We are trained for doing. Doing brings and strengthens ego. Ego is the shadow of action. And being strengthens consciousness. Then there is only one thing that is not doing and that is awareness, watchfulness. The only thing that is not part of the world of action is pure awareness. No shadow is created by pure awareness. It is so pure that light can pass through it. It is transparent and no shadow is created. Consciousness without thinking is awareness. Being alert and with no thought is benediction. Try it! Whenever you see thinking gathering

in you, disperse it immediately and mindfully! Pull yourself out of it! Look at the trees or anything else without screens of thinking between you and the trees. Listen to the chirping of the birds with no chirping of the mind inside. Look at the sun rising and feel that inside you also a sun of consciousness is rising. But do not think about it, or assert, or state, or say. Simply be. And, by and by, you will start feeling glimpses of awareness, as if a fresh breeze has entered into your room which was getting stale and dead; or as if a ray of light has entered into the dark night of your soul; or as if, suddenly, life has called you back. The deeper your watchfulness becomes, in the same proportion your awareness deepens. And then gaps and intervals start arising. One thought comes and then has disappeared but the next thought has not come yet, there is a gap. One cloud has passed, and before another comes there is a gap. In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses or taste of nomind. You can call it taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga names do not matter. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery
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because all barriers are dropped. The screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly and penetratingly. Then whole existence becomes transparent. Remember the innermost core or innerness or flowering of the being is witnessing, awareness, watchfulness. You can call it anything, but it will be another meaning of witnessing. Truth alone is pure awareness. And when truth begins to blossom through you know this as the flowering of consciousness. As consciousness flowers you are more and more aware. Just by being aware, thoughts start disappearing. There is no need to fight. Your awareness is enough to destroy them. And when the mind is empty, the temple is ready. And inside the temple the only god worth placing is silence. So those three words you have to remember: relaxation, thoughtlessness, and silence. And if these three words are no more words to you instead become experiences, your life will be transformed. Through the practice of mindfulness one can attain to awareness. However, only very few people are born with awareness. Those are the people who die full of awareness. If the death was conscious, then the birth will be conscious as well, because the death is the one side and the birth is the other side of the same coin. This is why my so much emphasis is on being awake and alert.

When you are aware through lifes roads then you will be aware in the final moments of death as well. A conscious death brings conscious birth as well. Indeed it is benediction to be born conscious and die as well. Awareness is the greatest alchemy possible. Just go on becoming more and more aware, and you will find your life starts changing for the better in every possible dimension. It will bring great fulfillment. Mahavira is the first man in history of human consciousness who has actually worked out that if a man can remember and be aware for fortyeight minutes continuously, that is enough. He will become enlightened, and nobody can prevent him. Just forty-eight minutes is enough to be enlightened. But it is difficult even for forty-eight seconds. For awareness you need not renounce the world and go to the Himalayas or monasteries or anywhere else. Your life gives you enough opportunities to be aware. Each moment circumstances and situations come when you can be aware or unaware. Somebody insults you listen to it with full awareness. And you will be surprised the insult is no more an insult. You may even smile. It hurts only when it is received in unawareness. Somebody praises and appreciates you again listen with alertness. And then nobody can persuade you to do foolish things. Nobody can bribe you and flattery too

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becomes impossible. You will smile at the whole nonsense of it all. Listen. Watch. And be aware. And by and by a different quality of being arises in you which is neither of the body nor the feelings and nor of the thoughts. A different pillar of flame starts gathering within you and becomes more and more crystallized. As this awareness becomes crystallized, for the first time you will feel more and more that you are. This is the feeling of being. And then moods will become more and more irrelevant. They will come and go, but you will remain unperturbed. The climate will change around you, someone may die, you may have financial loss but you will remain unchanged as if nothing has happened. Whatsoever happens on the outside will not in any way change you within. The within remains absolutely pure and uncorrupted. You are the watcher on the hill. This is your true nature. Awareness means you are listening to me unfocused. Of course alertness is there. You have not fallen asleep, but alert to these birds, their chirping, to the wind that passes through the trees, alert to everything that is happening in this precise single moment. Concentration excludes much, includes little. Awareness excludes nothing, includes all. Awareness is a state of no-mind. You are, yet you are not focused. You are just a mirror reflecting and echoing

all. There is beauty in it and the silence and the stillness too. Suddenly you are and you are not, and the miracle starts happening. In this silence you will feel compassion, compassion for all suffering beings. It has not to be practiced either; it comes on its own. This moment is enough. Be aware in this moment. This very moment is total. And when next moment you forget, so be it! Be aware of your forgetfulness. One has to be attentive even to ones inattentiveness. There are moments when you are aware. In those moments you are aware of awareness. It is not a simple awareness. It is complex; you are aware of your awareness. Then there are moments when you are aware of your unawareness, but awareness continues as a substratum. Sometimes you are aware of your awareness and other times you are aware of your unawareness. In both case you are aware. And that is beautiful. Once you have tasted awareness, nothing is worth it you have known the greatest bliss of life. Then, suddenly, many things simply drop. They look stupid, and become foolish. The motivation is not there, the desire is not there, the dreams have fallen. This is awareness. Practice awareness. By becoming more aware, one becomes more aware. There is no other way to it. It is a simple process. Whatsoever you
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are doing, do it with such consciousness as if it is a question of life and death as if a sword is hanging over you. Learn to live life more attentively, mindfully, and meditatively, with love, caring, and consciousness.

Be aware as you traverse through lifes roads moment to moment new meaning will arise. Bliss will overflow as the fragrance of awareness.

*******

he ego is nothing but condensed unawareness. When you become aware by and by that condensed unawareness we call ego disappears. Just as if you bring a lamp into the room - and the darkness disappears. Awareness is the lamp. Be a lamp unto yourself. When you listen with perfect awareness, then listening becomes possible. And that alone is real listening. The body sleeps, the heart sleeps, the mind sleeps but there is something that remains awake within. That which remains awake within is you the alertness and awareness.

Everything else is a false identification. Awareness is your nature. The body is your abode. The mind is your computer. Awareness is you, is your very being. Awareness is the fragrance of meditation. Walk, but make walking a meditation. Walking becomes meditation when you are aware of walking. Breathe, but let your breathing become a constant meditation breathe knowingly totally aware. As the breath is going in watch and be aware of it. So too when the breath is going out again watch and be aware of it. This is what Shiva told his consort Devi in response to her questions in Vigyan Bhairav Tantra a 5000 years old treatise on meditation. So too eat, but
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eat with full awareness. Take a bite, chew it, but go on watching. Let the watcher be there in every moment, whatsoever you are doing. Sinners live in a sort of hell in the absence of awareness. The saints imagine themselves in a sort of heaven because of awareness. And for the sage awareness brings moksha, and the absolute freedom. He is freed from all duality. The awareness is the secret and the only key.

persuade you to do foolish things. Nobody can bribe you and flattery too becomes impossible. You will smile at the whole nonsense of it all. Listen. Watch. And be aware. And by and by a different quality of being arises in you which is neither of the body nor the feelings and nor of the thoughts. A different pillar of flame starts gathering within you and becomes more and more crystallized.

As this awareness becomes For awareness you need not renounce crystallized, for the first time you will the world and go to the Himalayas or feel more and more that you are. This monasteries or anywhere is the feeling of being. else. Your life gives you And then moods will As this awareness enough opportunities to become more and more becomes crystallized, for be aware. Each moment irrelevant. They will circumstances and come and go, but you the first time you will situations come when will remain unperturbed. you can be aware or The climate will change feel more and more that unaware. around you, someone may die, you may have you are. This is the Somebody insults you financial loss but you will feeling of being. listen to it with full remain unchanged as if awareness. And you will nothing has happened. be surprised the insult is Whatsoever happens on no more an insult. You may even the outside will not in any way change smile. It hurts only when it is received you within. The within remains in unawareness. Somebody praises absolutely pure and uncorrupted. You and appreciates you again listen with are the watcher on the hill. This is alertness. And then nobody can your true nature.

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onsciousness without thinking is awareness. Doing brings and strengthens ego. Ego is the shadow of action. And there is only one thing that is not doing and that is awareness, watchfulness. The only thing that is not part of the world of action is pure awareness. No shadow is created by pure awareness. It is so pure that light can pass through it. It is transparent and no shadow is created. Consciousness without thinking is awareness. Being alert and with no thought is benediction. Try it! Whenever you see thinking gathering, disperse it! Pull yourself out of it! Look at the trees without screens of thinking between you and the trees. Listen to the chirping of the birds with no chirping of the mind inside. Look at the sun rising and feel that inside you also a sun of consciousness is rising. But do not think about it, or assert, or state, or say. Simply be. And, by and by, you will start feeling glimpses of awareness, as if a fresh breeze has entered into your room which was getting stale and dead; or as if a ray of light has entered into the dark night of your soul; or as if, suddenly, life has called you back. The deeper your watchfulness becomes, in the same proportion your awareness deepens. And then gaps and intervals start arising. One thought comes and then has disappeared but the next thought has

not come yet, there is a gap. One cloud has passed, and before another comes there is a gap. In those gaps, for the first time you will have glimpses or taste of no-mind. You can call it taste of Zen, or Tao, or Yoga names do not matter. In those small intervals, suddenly the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Suddenly the world is full of mystery because all barriers are dropped. The screen on your eyes is no more there. You see clearly and penetratingly. Then whole existence becomes transparent. In the beginning, these will be just rare moments, few and far in between. But they will give you glimpses of what Samadhi is. Like small pools of silence they will come and then will disappear. But now you know that you are on the right track. You start watching again. When a thought passes, you watch it. And when an interval passes that too you watch. Clouds are also beautiful and so is sunshine. Now you are not a chooser. And you do not have a fixed mind. You do not say, I would like only the intervals. That is stupid because once you become attached to intervals alone, you have decided against thinking. And then those intervals will disappear. They happen only when you are very distant, and aloof. They happen spontaneously. They cannot be brought. They just happen you cannot force them to happen. They
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are spontaneous happenings. Go on watching. Let thoughts come and go. Wherever they want to go let them go. Nothing is wrong! Do not try to manipulate and direct. Let thoughts move in total freedom and take their due course. And then bigger intervals will be coming. You will be blessed with small Satoris. Sometimes minutes will pass and no thought will be there; as if there is no traffic and there is a total silence, undisturbed.

listen to the birds. They will be a distraction. Children playing around, dogs barking both in the street and the yard as well - they all will be a distraction.

Because of concentration, people have tried to escape from life to go to the Mountains, caves, and to remain isolated, so that you can concentrate on God. But God is not an object. God is this wholeness of existence, this very precise moment. God is the A Buddha is not a man of totality. That is why science will never concentration instead he is a man of be able to know God. The very awareness. He has not method of science is been trying to narrow concentration and Remember, whenever down his consciousness. because of that method, On the contrary, he has science can never know you have two things, been trying to drop all God. two alternatives, choose barriers so that he becomes totally available If you do not take the the new one, the harder, to existence. Watch! lamp of awareness with Existence is you, you are going to choose the one in which simultaneous. I am create a hell around you. more awareness will be speaking here and the Light your lamp traffic noise is wherever you go needed. simultaneous. The cars courting, not courting, speeding on the road and that is not the point. blowing horn; the birds chirping; the Wherever you go, whatsoever you do, dogs barking; people talking always do it in the inner light, with insensibly, music blaring; the wind total awareness. blowing through the trees and much more in a single moment of Remember, whenever you have two meditation as if the whole existence things, two alternatives, choose the has converged at one point. You are new one, the harder, choose the one listening to me, I speaking to you, in which more awareness will be and millions of things going on, it is needed. At the cost of efficiency tremendously rich. always choose awareness, and then you will create the situation in which Concentration makes you one-pointed meditation will become possible. at a cost of discarding: ninety-nine These are all just situations. per cent of life. If you are solving a Meditation will happen. mathematical problem, you cannot
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I am not saying that just by doing them you will get to meditation. However they will be helpful. They will create the necessary situation in you without which meditation cannot happen. Be less efficient but more creative. Let that be the motive and criterion as well. Do not be bothered too much about utilitarian ends. Rather, constantly remember that you are not here in life to become a commodity.

So too you are not here to become a utility, that is below dignity. Also you are not here just to become more and more efficient. Instead you are here to become more and more alive; intelligent; happy - ecstatically happy. But that is totally different from the ways of the mind.

.... .. ... ....

... ....

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Ab tae bs oule Aasman me< ivcrta h<, cetna kI prvaj pr SvCDNd hU<,

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Awareness is light

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wareness is the state of no-mind. Method is awareness. Illnesses are myriad and so too their nature. But there is only one health. The quality of health is one. Health happens only one way and is always the same. Whether I am healthy or you are healthy, the feel of health is the same. Diseases are millions, wrongs are many, but the right key that unlocks all the doors, the master key, is only one. And rather than cutting the branches, or pruning the leaves, cut the very root. There are many people who go on pruning the leaves or cutting the branches. These people are moralists. A moralist cannot be spiritual. The moral person is a little-bit-stupid. He is stupid in the sense that he thinks that by cutting the leaves he is going to destroy the tree. He is not going to destroy the tree this way. You cut one leaf and the tree will respond with three leaves instead, the foliage will become thicker. You cut one branch and the tree will pour its sap and juices into another branch, and the other branch will become thicker and bigger. This is what happens in your life. Somebody is against sex so he represses sex, and cuts that branch. Now the whole energy becomes anger. You will find stories in Indian scriptures, stories like the story of Durvasa a great saint who repressed his sex totally, and then became all anger, just red-hot anger. It is bound to happen. You cannot destroy any energy ever. It is not possible in the very nature of things. Energies can only be transformed, but never destroyed. If you close one outlet, the energy will start flowing from another. If you close the front door, then from the back door it will start flowing. And from the back door it is more dangerous, because it makes you a hypocrite, your life double standard. You start living in a dual way: you say one thing, you do another; you show one thing, you are another. You become more and more split. My emphasis is also exactly the same as Atishas. and one problems, but my answer is always the say be aware of it. If you come with greed I say lust I say again be aware of it. Awareness cuts What is the root? Unawareness is the root. You come to me with a thousand same. If you come with anger I be aware of it. If you come with the very root it is only remedy.

One can be angry only if he is unaware. Try to be angry and aware together and you will find it impossible. You will be either aware, or unaware. When you are aware then anger will not be found, or you may be angry and awareness will have disappeared.

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Up to now, nobody has been able to manage both together, and I do not think you can prove the exception. Try it. It is possible you may think both are happening, but if you minutely watch you will find: when awareness is there anger is not, when anger is there awareness is not. Unawareness is the root of all illnesses. Awareness is the only medicine. Buddha says, I am a physician. And once somebody asked, You again and again say you are a physician, but I do not see any medicines around you. What medicines do you give? Buddha responded, My medicine is only one: it is awareness. I prescribe awareness. And it has not to be brought from the chemist; you have to change your inner chemistry to bring it. Yes indeed you have to change your inner chemistry. Right now your inner chemistry functions in such a way that it produces unawareness and unconsciousness as toxins. It can be changed. It can be de-automatized. How to do it you will find in the sutras that are to follow. But remember, one method is enough to correct all wrong. That method is awareness. And how will you know that you have attained it? Awareness is something inner. It is so deep that nobody can see it. Still, if you become aware, everybody who has a little intelligence, who has eyes to see, will become aware of it. Remember as awareness happens at the inner core, compassion starts radiating, love starts radiating. Buddha says: Light the candle of awareness in your heart, and your whole being will radiate compassion. Compassion is the proof. Unless compassion happens, remember, you must be deceiving yourself; you must be doing something else than being aware. Compassion is the aura of awareness. For example, you can try concentration. Concentration is not awareness, and the person of concentration will never show compassion. Compassion is not a consequence of concentration. Concentration means the focusing of the mind, the narrowing of the mind on only one point. The concentrated mind becomes a very powerful mind but remember it is still mind, and very powerful, hence more dangerous than ever. Concentration is the method of science. Awareness is totally different. It is not focusing. Awareness is unfocused alertness. For example, right now you are listening to me. You can hear in a concentrated
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way. You can be focused on me then you will miss the birds and their songs, then you will miss the noise on the road and the sound of cars speeding on the road. Then you are not aware, and then your mind has become very narrow. Awareness is not the narrowing of the mind instead the disappearance of the mind. The narrowing of the mind makes the mind more of a mind. Hence the Hindu mind is more of a mind, the Mohammedan mind is more of a mind, the communist mind is more of a mind, because these are all the process of narrowing the consciousness. Somebody is focused on Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto next one is focused on the Koran or on the Dhammapada, somebody on the Gita, somebody on The Bible. These are all focused people. They create narrow minds in the world. They create conflict, they do not bring compassion. For thousands of years religions have existed, but compassion is still a dream. We have not been able to create a world that knows what love is, friendship is, brotherhood is. Yes, we talk, and we talk too much about all these beautiful things. In fact the talk has become nauseating, it is sickening. It should stop. No more talk of brotherhood and love and this and that - we have talked for thousands of years for no purpose. The reason is that the concentrated mind becomes narrow, becomes more of a mind. And love is not the function of the mind. Love is the function of no-mind. You can call no-mind heart. Both means the same. No-mind and heart are synonymous. Awareness means you are listening to me unfocused. Of course alertness is there. You have not fallen asleep, but alert to these birds, their chirping, to the wind that passes through the trees, alert to everything that is happening in this precise single moment. Concentration excludes much, includes little. Awareness excludes nothing, includes all. Awareness is a state of no-mind. You are, yet you are not focused. You are just a mirror reflecting and echoing all. There is beauty in it and the silence and the stillness too.

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Suddenly you are and you are not, and the miracle starts happening. In this silence you will feel compassion, compassion for all suffering beings. It has not to be practiced either; it comes on its own. Atisha says: Awareness inside, compassion on the outside. Compassion is the outer side of awareness, the exterior of awareness. Awareness is your interiority, subjectivity. Compassion is the way of relating and sharing with others.

Heart Meditation

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Meditation of the Month

n one of the sutras Atisha says to move from thinking to feeling and from feeling to being. Thinking is the quality of the mind. Feeling is the fragrance of the heart. And when thinking and feeling enter the synergistic harmony something else emerges and that is your being.
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Naqshbandi Sufi Sheikhs gave a Maraqba for the invoking the heart center. This is Sufi terminology is Awakening of the heart energies. Human heart is the mixture of both positive and negative emotions. In most of the cases the negative outweighs the positive and then it all results in negative outpouring. Sufis uses this technique to transform negative emotional energies to neutralize. And when all negative emotions and their subsequent energies are transformed the heart center is said to have kindled. Much later when I explored the life and works of Atisha I came about a similar meditation the meditation to conserve the energies of the heart and I was immediately fascinated by it. The method is, when you breathe in - listen carefully, it is one of the greatest methods - when you breathe in, think that you are breathing in all the miseries of all the people in the world. All the darkness, all the negativity, all the hell that exists anywhere, you are breathing it in. As if a dark river is entering from your toes to reach to your heart. And when the river reaches allow it be absorbed in your heart. This is quite different from the so-called positive thinkers of the West. The positive thinking as enunciated in the West requires When you breathe out, throw out all your misery and negativity; and when you breathe in, breathe in joy, positivity, happiness, cheerfulness. Atishas method is just the opposite: when you breathe in, breathe in all the misery and suffering of all the beings of the world - past, present and future. And when you breathe out, breathe out all the joy that you have, all the blissfulness that you have, the entire benediction that you have. Breathe out, pour yourself into existence. This is the method of compassion: drink in all the suffering and pour out all the blessings. In both the techniques breathing is used as a tool. First you have to allow your breathing to go deep to your solar plexus. Only then you can see tremendous results. And you will be surprised if you do it. The moment you take all the sufferings of the world inside you, they are no longer sufferings in you. The heart immediately transforms the energy. The heart is a transforming force: drink in misery, and it is transformed into blissfulness then pour it out. This is what Mira did when he was sent the cup full of poison. She virtually drank all negativities and infused compassion in the atmosphere. Once you have learned that your heart can do this magic, this miracle, you would like to do it again and again. Try it. It is one of the most practical methods simple, and it brings immediate results. Do it today, and see.

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Many years ago during my Radio Program in Trinidad I gave this meditation spontaneously. Then I called it Light of the Being. This video meditation is available on Taoshobuddha You Tube channel http://youtu.be/32s4QaKqffc You can do this meditation sitting down of lying whichever is be convenient to you. However this is one of the approaches of Buddha and all his disciples. Atisha is one of his disciples, in the same tradition, in the same line. Buddha says again and again to his disciples, IHI PASSIKO: come and see! They are very scientific people. Buddhism is the most scientific religion on the earth; hence, Buddhism is gaining more and more ground in the world every day. As the world becomes more intelligent, Buddha will become more and more important. It is bound to be so. As more and more people come to know about science, Buddha will have great appeal, because he will convince the scientific mind - because he says, Whatsoever I am saying can be practiced. And I do not say to you, Believe it, I say, Experiment with it, experience it, and only then if you feel it yourself, trust it. Otherwise there is no need to believe. Try this beautiful method of compassion: take in all the misery and pour out all the joy.

Alaya Vijnana may have developed from concepts in some early Buddhist schools. It is referred to as Store-house consciousness. It accumulates all potential energy for the aggregate of the body-mind (Sanskrit: nama-rupa), the mental (nama) and physical (rupa) manifestation of ones existence, and supplies the substance to all existences. It also receives impressions from all functions of the other consciousnesses and retains them as potential energy for their further manifestations and activities. Since it serves as the basis for the production of the other seven consciousnesses - called the evolving or transforming consciousnesses, it is also known as the base consciousness or mula-vijjnana or causal consciousness. Since it serves as the container for all experiential impressions - termed metaphorically as bija or seeds, it is also called the seed consciousness or container consciousness. Yogachara yoga practice; one whose practice is yoga is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. Yogachara developed within Indian Mahayana Buddhism in about the 4th century CE. Yogachara
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discourse is founded on the existential truth of the human condition. Certainly there is nothing that humans experience that is not mediated by mind. According to Yogachara teachings, the seeds stored in the store consciousness of sentient beings are not pure - note that each being has his own one and only, formless and no-place-to-abide Store-house consciousness. Also note that of each of us, our being is created by our own Store consciousness according to the karma seeds stored in it, and in that sense, in coming and going we definitely do not own the no-coming and no-going Store-house consciousness, rather we are owned by it. Just as a human image shown in a monitor can never be described as lasting for any instant, since he is just the production of electron currents of data stored and flow from the hard disk of the computer, so too seed currents flow from the Store consciousness, that never last from one moment to the next , and through the process of seeds purging, the dharma practitioner can became a Arahat when the four defilement - Mental Function, self-delusion, self-view, egotism, and self-love, of the seventh consciousness are purified. By then the polluted Mental Functions of the first six consciousnesses would have been cleansed, since the seventh or the Manas consciousness dictates whether or not the seeds drain from the eighth Seed consciousness, and whether or not the content breaks through becoming a function to be perceived by us in the mental or physical world. Furthermore, in contrast to an Arahat, a Buddha is one with all his seeds stored in the eighth Seed consciousness. Cleansed and substituted, bad for good, one for one, his polluted-seeds-containing eighth consciousness or Alaya Consciousness becomes an all-seeds-purified eighth consciousness - Pure consciousness, and he becomes a Buddha himself. Thus all the elements of the Yogachara storehouse-consciousness are already found in the Pali Canon. The three layers of the mind -chitta, manas, and vijnana as presented by Asanga are also used in the Pali Canon: Thus we can see that Vijnana represents the simple reaction or response of the sense organs when they come in contact with external objects. This is the uppermost or superficial aspect or layer of the Vijnanaskanda. Manas represents the aspect of its mental functioning, thinking, reasoning, conceiving ideas, etc. Chitta which is here called Alayavijnana, represents the deepest, finest and subtlest aspect or layer of the Aggregate of consciousness. It contains all the traces or impressions of the past actions and all good and bad future possibilities too.

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According to the Lankavatara Sutra and the schools of Chan and Zen Buddhism, in contrast with the Yogachara position, the store consciousness or alayavjnana is identical with the Tathagata-garbha i.e., the womb or matrix of the Thus-comeone, the Buddha, and is fundamentally pure. From this point of view it is because the store consciousness, while being originally immaculate in itself contains a mysterious mixture of purity and defilement, good and evil that the transformation of consciousness can take place and enlightenment can be experienced. In this analysis, mental and physical manifestations are nothing but discriminations of Mind and all aspects of the first seven consciousnesses are just the reflections of the store consciousness - Alaya also known as the Tathagata-garba. A core teaching of Chan-Zen Buddhism describes the transformation of the Eight Consciousnesses into the Four Wisdoms and is found in Chapter 7 of the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch Zen Master Huineng and other Zen masters, such as Hakuin Ekaku in his work titled Keiso Dokuqui and Xuyun in his work titled Daily Lectures at Two Chan Weeks, Week 1, Fourth Day. In this teaching, Buddhist practice is to turn the light of awareness around from misconceptions regarding the nature of reality as being external to directly see ones own nature kensho, and thus to transform the Eighth Consciousness into the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom, the Seventh Consciousness into the Equality or Universal Nature Wisdom, the Sixth Consciousness into the Profound Observing Wisdom and First to Fifth Consciousnesses into the All Performing - Perfection of Action Wisdom. There exist doctrinal relationships between Alaya-vijnana, tathagatagarbha, Yogachara, Atman, Abhidharma, prakti and the Mindstream states. Several Yogachara notions basic to the Abhidharma wing of Yogachara came under severe attack by other Buddhists, especially from the notion of Alaya-vijnana, which was denounced as something akin to the Hindu notions of atman and prakiti the primordial substrative nature from which all mental, emotional and physical things evolve. Eventually the critiques became so entrenched that the Abhidharma wing atrophied. By the end of the eighth century it was eclipsed by the logico-epistemic tradition of Yogachara and by a hybrid school that combined basic Yogachara doctrines with Tathagata-garbha thought. The logicoepistemological wing in part side-stepped the critique by using the term cittasantana, mind-stream, instead of alaya-vijnana, for what amounted to roughly the same idea. It was easier to deny that a stream represented a reified self. On the other hand, the Tathagata-garbha hybrid school was no stranger to the charge of smuggling notions of selfhood into its doctrines, since, for example, it explicitly defined the tathagatagarbha as permanent, pleasurable, self, and pure - nitya,
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sukha, atman, uddha. Many Tathgatagarbha texts, in fact, argue for the acceptance of selfhood (tman) as a sign of higher accomplishment. The hybrid school attempted to conflate Tathagata-garbha with the alaya-vijnana. Although Vasubandhu had postulated numerous alaya-vijnanas the storehouse consciousnesses, a separate one for each individual in the para-kalpita, this multiplicity was, according to Philosopher Thomas McEvilley, later eliminated in the Fa Hsiang and Hua Yen metaphysics, which inculcated instead the doctrine of a single universal and eternal alaya-vijnana. This exalted statement of the alaya-vijbana is described in the Fa Hsiang as primordial unity.

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