Explanation of the Mahāyāna Sūtra on the Revelation of Consciousness

Original text: 贤护。识弃此身。受他生者。众生死时。识为业障所缠。报尽命终。犹如灭定。阿罗汉识。如阿罗汉。入灭尽定。其阿罗汉识。从身灭转。如是死者之识。弃身及界。乘于念力而作。是知彼如是。我某乙生平。所作事业。临终咸现。忆念明了。身之与心。二受逼切。

Explanation: The Buddha said, "Bhadrapāla, after the Ālayavijñāna abandons the physical body of this life, it goes to the physical body of the next life, accepting another physical body ('another birth' means another lifetime). When sentient beings die, the Ālayavijñāna is entangled by the karmic obstructions created by the seven consciousnesses. When the retribution of this period is exhausted and life comes to an end, it is like the Ālayavijñāna of an arhat who has entered the cessation of perception and feeling (nirodha-samāpatti). When an arhat enters the cessation of perception and feeling, and is about to enter nirvāṇa without remainder from that state, his Ālayavijñāna disappears from the physical body and enters the realm of quiescence. It is the same when sentient beings die: the Ālayavijñāna abandons the sentient being's physical body and the eighteen dhātus. The Ālayavijñāna abandons the body in accordance with the power of mindfulness (smṛti-bala) of the manas, functioning in concert with the deliberation (manasikāra) mental factor of the manas. At this time, the dying person knows that this life has ended; in the instant before death, all the deeds accomplished in this life appear in the mind, and each one can be recalled, with the mental sense-objects clear and distinct; at the same time, both body and mind fully experience the pressing agony."

Because the karmic actions committed throughout the dying person's life leave behind karmic seeds, at the time of death the Ālayavijñāna will flow on to the next life in accordance with those karmic seeds. If he created the karma of an animal, he will be bound by the karma of animals, and the Ālayavijñāna will accept an animal's physical body; if he created the karma of a hungry ghost, he will be bound by the karma of hungry ghosts, and the Ālayavijñāna will go to a hungry ghost's physical body, and the retribution he experienced in this life will come to an end. At the time of death, it is just like the Ālayavijñāna of an arhat of the fourth fruit in the cessation of perception and feeling, which abandons the physical body and departs.

When an arhat has completed the four dhyānas and eight samāpattis and enters the cessation of perception and feeling, the first six consciousnesses all cease, leaving only the seventh consciousness and the Ālayavijñāna. Of the five universal mental factors of the seventh consciousness, the feeling mental factor and the perception mental factor cease, so the seventh consciousness, the manas, no longer has the feeling and perception mental factors and has lost the function of cognition; it still has the three mental factors of attention (manaskāra), contact (sparśa), and deliberation (cetanā), and can still direct attention toward the faculties, the body, and the surrounding world manifested by the Ālayavijñāna. It can still attend to and contact the condition of the physical body, and then give rise to the deliberation mental factor and make decisions. For example, it may give rise to a resolute mind, wanting to manifest the six consciousnesses to emerge from samādhi, or it may want to extinguish the physical body entirely and enter nirvāṇa—all of these are decided by the deliberation mental factor of the manas. When sentient beings die and the Ālayavijñāna leaves the body, it is the same as the situation of the seventh consciousness and Ālayavijñāna of an arhat in the cessation of perception and feeling leaving the body to enter nirvāṇa without remainder.