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Manifestation Only – Chant 02-07

Thich Nhat Hanh · December 6, 1992 · Plum Village, France
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There are all kinds of seeds—universal seeds—including:

  1. the seeds of birth and death (samsāra, suffering, fear, hatred, sorrow) and the seeds of nirvana (the cessation of birth and death, coolness, solidity),
  2. the seeds of loyalty and betrayal, the seeds of delusion and awakening, the seeds of suffering and happiness.
    They do not oppose each other like enemies but inter-are, like the flower contains the garbage and the garbage contains the flower; from afflictions can arise enlightenment—afflictions are enlightenment. If you want to find nirvana, you must look right in the midst of birth and death, using the three keys of impermanence, non-self, and nirvana to open the door of reality and to touch the seed of awakening right in the heart of suffering.

In the store consciousness (alaya-vijñāna) are also stored:

  • the seeds of names (names/words) and forms (images/perceptions),
  • the seeds of body, of mind (feeling, perception, mental formations),
  • the seeds of realms (the three realms: desire, form, formless), grounds (the ten Bodhisattva grounds), and worlds (the sentient world—all living beings; the material world—mountains, rivers, air, the sun),
    with the four main functions of the eighth consciousness:
    1. receiving—receiving experiences as seeds,
    2. maintaining—preserving and maintaining the seeds,
    3. base—the six sense bases (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind),
    4. body and energy—manifesting and sustaining both the individual and the community.
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