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Genesis – Alaya, World of Desire, Consumption

Thich Nhat Hanh · April 1, 2002 · Plum Village, France · Audio Only
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Three Functions of Store Consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna)

  1. Store consciousness: to hold, contain, and maintain all the seeds (bīja)—thoughts, emotions, bodily life—like a hard drive or a fertile field.
  2. Support of life: to maintain the physical body and its environment so that life may continue.
  3. Continuity: to ensure the reproduction and transformation of life in different forms (children, replanting orange trees, etc.).

Structure of the Eight Consciousnesses

  • Eighth: the deepest layer (store) containing all the seeds (sarva-bījaka).
  • Seventh: manas (mentation): wrong view of self, turns toward the store to nourish the feeling of a separate self.
  • Sixth: mind: consciousness influenced by mentation, receives all the seeds that manifest.
  • First–Fifth: sense consciousnesses (eye/seeing, ear/hearing, nose/smelling, tongue/tasting, body/touching).

Distribution of the 50 Verses

  • 1–15: store consciousness
  • 16–22: manas (seventh consciousness)
  • 23–27: mind (sixth)
  • 28–30: five senses (first–fifth consciousnesses)
  • Then: functioning of the consciousnesses and practices of transformation (mindful consumption, non-repression of seeds, free circulation of inner energies).
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