The State of a First Bhūmi Bodhisattva

The mind that can know all things is called the knower. This capacity to know, without the Ālayavijñāna, simply does not exist. As for the known—the six dusts and myriad dharmas that we know—without the Ālayavijñāna, they also cannot manifest before us, and we would have no way to know the realms of the six dusts. The knower is the mind of the seven consciousnesses; the known is the realm of the six dusts that is known. Both are born of the Ālayavijñāna. Therefore, the Ālayavijñāna is called the basis of the knowable. It is by relying on the Ālayavijñāna that there is a knower and the known, and that the vibrant world of the five aggregates exists.

The six faculties are born of the Ālayavijñāna, the six dusts are transformed by the Ālayavijñāna, and the six consciousnesses are also born of the Ālayavijñāna. The false self of sentient beings—the five aggregates and eighteen realms as a whole—is entirely transformed, generated, and held by the Ālayavijñāna; the five aggregates themselves have nothing to do with it at all. It is the Ālayavijñāna itself that plays with and turns everything around; it is the magician itself that plays, manifesting illusion after illusion. If one fully completes this contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), profoundly and minutely realizing this principle through direct contemplation, one has already reached the first bhūmi. Thereafter, whenever sentient beings come before one, what one sees are all illusions—there are no substantial sentient beings. When parents are before one, there are no real parents; when family members and relatives are before one, there are no real family members or relatives. No self, no person, no sentient beings, no life span—there is nothing substantial in any dharma whatsoever.

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

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