Who Would Have Thought What Ālayavijñāna Means?

Who would have thought that the ālayavijñāna is precisely what one uses the mind consciousness to ponder, investigate, analyze, and comprehend? The ālayavijñāna is not something understood, not something imagined, nor something researched into being; it must be realized in person through meditative concentration (samādhi), by breaking through the ignorance of both the mind consciousness and the manas. If the ignorance of the manas is not broken, then bodily, verbal, and mental actions will forever remain ignorant, and that ignorance will continue to be carried into future lives—life after life, still steeped in ignorance.

Many people turn the ālayavijñāna over and over in the words of texts, dissecting the language—what the Chan patriarchs called "drilling through piles of old paper"—their two eyes nearly melting the words away, seeing right through the paper. Some people compile a huge pile of study materials and read them every day; some can even recite them backward and forward, so familiar with the words that they can rattle them off at will. Yet none of them have truly digested and absorbed those teachings. Why? Because without meditative concentration, they cannot realize it; not understanding the true meaning, they learn only the surface, like memorizing a book by rote.

In such practice, which consciousness is being used? It is all the mind consciousness analyzing, inferring, and investigating. Without meditative concentration, one cannot go deep into the manas or mobilize the manas, and thus cannot turn the Dharma into one's own—forever merely learning words. Without meditative concentration, one's contemplation stops as soon as it goes slightly deeper; unable to penetrate further, one can only float on the surface, knowing some shallow knowledge.

Therefore, everyone should turn the light inward and examine their own way and method of practice; correct whatever is wrong as quickly as possible, and get yourself onto the right track as soon as you can, so as to attain great wisdom.