Mahāyāna Sūtra on Revealing Consciousness (38)

Original text:识在于身, 如闇之体。视不可见, 不可执持。如母怀子, 不能自知。是男是女。黑白黄色。根具不具。手足耳目。类与不类。饮食热刺。其子便动。觉知苦痛。众生来去。屈伸视瞬。语笑谈说。担运负重。作诸事业。识相具显。而不能知。识之所在。止于身中。不知其状。

Explanation: The Ālayavijñāna in the body of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) is like darkness, formless and colorless. When we look with our eyes, we cannot see it; if we try to grasp hold of Him, we cannot grasp Him; if we try to touch Him, we cannot touch Him either—we simply cannot hold onto Him at all. This describes His characteristic of being formless and without marks, yet able to manifest within all dharmas. It is just like a mother who is pregnant yet does not herself know whether the child she carries is a boy or a girl, whether the skin color is black, white, or yellow, or whether the six faculties are complete or incomplete. Because in that past era there were no testing devices, during pregnancy there was no way to determine whether the fetus was male or female, and the appearance of the physical body was also unknown—whether it had hands and feet, eyes and ears, and so on, all were unknown.

However, when the mother is eating, if she eats hot food, the child, stimulated by the heat, will move about restlessly in the womb; the fetus fears heat, and when the child moves, the mother feels intense pain. If the mother wants to eat something cold, the child also cannot bear it and will also move about restlessly, and the mother can feel the pain. At this point the mother knows of the child's activity.

The child in the womb is a metaphor for the Ālayavijñāna, and the mother is a metaphor for the sentient being's five aggregates. When the sentient being's five aggregates come and go, bend and stretch, glance about with the eyes, speak, laugh, and converse, carry water and haul firewood, bear heavy loads on the body, and engage in all sorts of activities, the features of the Ālayavijñāna are all fully manifested. Yet sentient beings do not know where the Ālayavijñāna is operating; the Ālayavijñāna dwells within the body, but sentient beings do not know what state He is in, just like the pregnant mother who does not know her child.

The Ālayavijñāna is formless and without marks; sentient beings do not know what He looks like, but when the five aggregates are operating, one then knows that the Ālayavijñāna is present. In this way a Chan (Zen) gong'an emerges, and the Ālayavijñāna can be quite easily realized; seeing the mind can be quite swift. This sūtra almost plainly reveals the Ālayavijñāna. When one later engages in Chan meditation and investigates gong'ans, it becomes very easy to investigate them out. Investigating Chan is actually not difficult; it is just that the power of meditative concentration (samādhi) is insufficient, so realization through enlightenment is somewhat harder, while understanding through intellectual comprehension is quite easy. Previously one could not grasp the direction of Chan investigation, but now, after studying this passage from the Mahāyāna Sūtra on the Manifestation of Consciousness, one can be very clear: the Ālayavijñāna has never been separate from the five aggregates; the true dharma is never apart from the false dharma, and of course the false dharma is also never apart from the true dharma—within the operation of the false dharma there is the manifestation of the true dharma. This direction for investigating Chan is very clear. Yet some Buddhist practitioners engage in Chan investigation for thirty years at a stretch, and by the time of death they still do not know in which direction to investigate; they do not understand how to attain the Ālayavijñāna, nor do they know that Chan investigation is about awakening to the eighth consciousness, awakening to the tathāgatagarbha.

"Sentient beings come and go, bend and stretch, glance and blink; they speak, laugh, and converse, carry and haul, bear heavy loads; engaging in all activities, the features of consciousness are fully manifested." If these few lines were to be explained in detail, then ordinary Chan gong'ans could be understood. However, even if one can understand them, if one still does not know the actual operation of the Ālayavijñāna within them, it is merely intellectual understanding, not true realization. One still needs to investigate carefully, to investigate out the specific workings of the Ālayavijñāna—only this is realization through enlightenment. After such realization, wisdom immediately rises. If one investigates Chan and gets only a rough picture, without knowing the specific operations, without knowing the details, at most it is intellectual understanding. The Ālayavijñāna is within the sentient being's body, but one does not know what kind of state He is in. Generally, when one's knowledge and views are not yet complete, one only knows that the Ālayavijñāna functions everywhere, but one does not know exactly where He functions or what function He performs. At this point there is still some distance from realization through enlightenment, and one must continue to strive.