The Realm of First-Bhūmi Bodhisattvas

The mind that can know all things is called the knower. This capacity for knowing simply does not exist without the ālayavijñāna. As for the known—the six sense objects and myriad dharmas that we know—without the ālayavijñāna they could not manifest before us, and we would have no way to cognize the realms of the six sense objects. The knower is the mind of the seven consciousnesses; the known is the six sense-object realms that are cognized. Both are produced by the ālayavijñāna. Therefore the ālayavijñāna is called the basis of the knowable (ālambana). It is by relying on the ālayavijñāna that there is knower and known, that there exists this vivid and lively world of the five aggregates.

The six sense faculties are produced by the ālayavijñāna; the six sense objects are transformed by the ālayavijñāna; the six consciousnesses are also produced by the ālayavijñāna. The entire false self of sentient beings—the five aggregates and eighteen elements—is all transformed, generated, and held by the ālayavijñāna; the five aggregates themselves have no part in it at all. It is the ālayavijñāna itself that plays with everything, the magician itself at play, manifesting illusion after illusion. If one fully accomplishes this contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and directly and profoundly observes this principle in one's contemplation, one has already attained the first bhūmi. Thereafter, whenever any sentient being comes before you, what you see are all illusions—there are no real sentient beings. When parents are before you, there are no true parents; when family and relatives are before you, there are no true family or relatives. No self, no person, no sentient beings, no life span—there is no substantial dharma of any kind.

The world of the three realms is silent and empty; it is entirely this magician, the ālayavijñāna, dancing with everything; it is entirely this painter, the ālayavijñāna, splashing ink and wielding the brush, depicting the brilliantly colorful world of the five aggregates.

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