Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (119)

The Aggregate of Death and the Aggregate of Birth

Original text: 大王。识为其主。业为攀缘。二种相因。初识生起。或趣地狱。或堕傍生。琰摩罗界。及阿修罗。若人若天。初识生已。各受其报。同分心品。相续随转。最后识灭。名为死蕴。最初识起。名为生蕴。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, the Ālayavijñāna is the master that gives birth to the five-aggregate body of the next life, and the karmic seeds serve as the object condition. When these two causes and conditions come together, the first consciousness of the next life arises. Then sentient beings will proceed to the hells, or fall into the realm of hungry ghosts, or be reborn among animals—the three evil destinies; or they will be reborn in the three good destinies: the asura destiny, the human destiny, and the heavenly destiny. When the first consciousness has arisen, sentient beings begin to each receive their karmic retribution, and then the consciousness on that same physical body continues to operate without interruption. When consciousness ceases at the end of life, the physical body becomes a corpse, which is called the aggregate of death; the consciousness that first arises on the physical body is called the first consciousness, and the five aggregates of the physical body are called the aggregate of birth.

When the six consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind arise in the next life, it is because the six consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind in this life have created karmic actions, and because the seeds do not perish, it is thereby determined that we must have a five-aggregate body in the next life to receive the karmic retribution. After the first consciousness arises on the five-aggregate body, this person either goes to the hells, or to the animal destiny, or to the asura realm, or is reborn again as a human, or ascends again to the heavens—transmigrating through the six destinies according to the wholesome and unwholesome karma we have created.