Commentary on the Mahayana Vijnaptimatrata Sutra
Section Two: How the Ālayavijñāna Takes Another Body
Original text: 自性如何。作何色相。云何舍离此身。更受余身。
Explanation: What is the self-nature of the Ālayavijñāna? What kind of form and appearance does it have? Why can He leave this physical body and then take another physical body?
The self-nature spoken of here refers to the Ālayavijñāna. He is independent, neither arising nor ceasing, and therefore has a self-nature of His own. All other dharmas are generated, arising-and-ceasing dharmas, dharmas lacking self-mastery (avaśatā), and therefore have no self-nature of their own. What is the self-nature of the Ālayavijñāna like, and what kind of form and appearance does He have? At the end of life, how does the Ālayavijñāna abandon the present physical body and then take other physical bodies? How does He then generate other bodies? This is the key question about the transmigration of sentient beings that the Bodhisattva Bhadrapāla asked the World-Honored One. Here, "taking a body" means that the Ālayavijñāna is going to grasp and uphold the next body, abandoning this body that is about to die, and then manifesting, upholding, and accepting the physical body of future lives.
After the four great elements of the sentient being's physical body disintegrate, the Ālayavijñāna, together with the manas, leaves the physical body and goes to be conceived into the next physical body. He will also manifest another physical body; as for what kind of physical body will be manifested, that is determined by the karmic seeds, decided by the power of karma. In most cases, there is first an antarā-bhava (neutrino-body), and then birth occurs in the various other realms; but if one is born into the heavenly realm, there is no antarā-bhava, and if one descends into the hells, there is also no antarā-bhava.
Where the Ālayavijñāna will go depends on which karmic conditions ripen at the time of this person's death. For example, if in a past life one created unwholesome karma and in this life has not learned wholesome dharmas, the power of the unwholesome karma is great, and at the end of life one will descend into the three evil destinies in accordance with the unwholesome karma one has created. But if the conditions of the wholesome karma created in this life ripen, and the wholesome karma is greater than the unwholesome karma, then at the end of life one will be born into a wholesome destiny in accordance with the conditions of that wholesome karma. The Ālayavijñāna migrates in accordance with the karmic conditions of sentient beings; at the time of death, it depends on which karmic condition ripens first. If the wholesome karma we create in this life is small and cannot withstand the conditions of that unwholesome karma, then even though we have studied Buddhism, when the conditions of unwholesome karma manifest, we will still undergo retribution in the three evil destinies.
Although there are many people who study Buddhism, those whose wholesome karma is truly great are extremely few; eighty percent or even more will descend into the three evil destinies. Even though they study Buddhism in this lifetime, they still cannot avoid descending into the three evil destinies, because the wholesome karma they have done in this life is small, while their unwholesome karma from past lives and this life is abundant and heavy. For example, if there is greed in the mind, a heavy greedy and stingy mind will certainly lead to birth in the realm of hungry ghosts; and if the karma of anger and ignorance is heavy, one will undergo retribution by descending into the hells, or undergo retribution as an animal. Among those who study Buddhism, these unwholesome karmic afflictions have almost none been eliminated or subdued; the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion can only be completely severed upon attaining the third fruit (anāgāmin); at the first fruit, one has only eradicated the coarsest afflictions, and the roots of the afflictions still remain.
Some may say that the sutras teach that upholding the five precepts secures a human body, and since they uphold the five precepts, they will certainly obtain a human body. But this is not necessarily so. First, one cannot correctly judge whether one has truly upheld the five precepts well. Second, even if one has truly upheld the five precepts well, if the unwholesome conditions from past lives happen to ripen, then one must follow those unwholesome conditions into the three evil destinies and transmigrate through birth and death, with no choice in the matter. As for the merit of upholding the five precepts, only when wholesome conditions ripen can one receive wholesome retribution. Heavenly beings also uphold the five precepts; the beings of the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm do not violate the five precepts and create no unwholesome karma whatsoever, yet after they die, some of them go directly to the hells. This shows that the unwholesome conditions of the hells have ripened, and then there is no escaping it.
When the heavenly being's blessings are exhausted and the karmic seeds of the hells ripen, he will follow that karma to the hells to undergo evil retribution, because the seeds of his unwholesome karma from beginningless kalpas have not yet been eliminated, and the conditions of his wholesome karma have not yet ripened and their force is not great enough, so he will still fall into an evil destiny. Where a sentient being goes at the time of death depends on which projecting karma has the greater force, and which karmic condition ripens first. Although some people have created unwholesome karma, if they can sincerely make pure great vows, then at the time of death, when the power of the wholesome vow is greater than the power of the unwholesome karma, they can also rely on this great power of vow to be born into a wholesome destiny. Therefore, for those who study Buddhism, attaining the first fruit is a matter of the utmost urgency. If one attains the first fruit in this life, and in the next life attains the first fruit again, or can attain the second fruit, then life after life one will not descend into the three evil destinies to suffer; later, continuing on to attain the third and fourth fruits and severing the afflictions, one can attain liberation of mind and liberation through wisdom.
Quite a few people claim to have severed greed, feeling as if they are not greedy for the dharmas of the human world and are not interested in anything in the human world, but in reality they have not severed even a tiny bit; that is a state of suppression, not a state of severance. Because they have not eradicated the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), have not attained the first dhyāna, and have not cultivated away the five hindrances, it is impossible for them to sever the affliction of greed. There are also some people who, because on the surface they no longer engage in sexual activity, claim to have already severed the affliction of sexual desire; but in fact that is merely due to the body and other objective reasons, with sexual desire suppressed and restrained on the surface only; psychologically it has not been severed, and in the antarā-bhava they will still take rebirth because of desire.
As long as there is still sexual desire, one will be reborn in the desire realm, not in the form realm or the formless realm. Those who can truly sever greed are people who have attained meditative concentration at the level of the form realm or above and will no longer be born in the human world of the desire realm—except for the bodhisattvas who, after attaining the first dhyāna of the form realm, deliberately remain in the human world. The main causes obstructing the arising of the first dhyāna are the five hindrances: greed, anger, sloth-and-torpor, restlessness-and-regret, and doubt—especially the hindrance of greed among the five. If one's desires for the human world of the desire realm are heavy, one cannot give rise to the first dhyāna of the form realm. Only when desires such as sexual desire and the desire for food and drink in the human world and the desire-realm heavens have all been subdued can the first dhyāna of the form realm arise. If a person is particular about eating, clothing, housing, possessions, and travel, and delights in form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, the first dhyāna cannot be cultivated; if one is too attached to one's living environment, there will be no meditative concentration either.
Only if one can truly, in one's mind, be indifferent to any living environment—good or bad, neither craving the good nor resenting and loathing the bad, with no mental activity arising toward one's conditions of existence—can there be meditative concentration. The moment a desiring thought arises, there is no concentration; only by truly being indifferent, unconcerned, and non-selective is there no arising of mental activity. In daily life, being indifferent and unconcerned about everything, indifferent to whether the environment is good or bad—only by truly accomplishing this can meditative concentration arise. If one is still particular about food, clothing, housing, and so forth—about form, smell, taste, and touch—there will be no arising of the first dhyāna, and the form-realm concentration cannot be cultivated.
At the time of first attaining the fruit and seeing the mind, if meditative concentration cannot arise, then once that opportune moment has passed, it will not be easy to give rise to the first dhyāna later on. One should seize the moment when the view of self is eradicated and the bright awareness appears, when inner joy arises, and diligently cultivate meditative concentration. If there is no bright awareness and the power of concentration is shallow, then later on the first dhyāna will also not easily appear. This is especially true for laypeople, whose lives are too closely tied to daily living, making it even harder to give rise to the first dhyāna. Monastics are somewhat more distant from worldly things and thus relatively a bit easier; for laypeople, cultivating the Buddha-dharma is very difficult, for in life there are everywhere things that easily stir the mind and give rise to thoughts, making it hard to cultivate meditative concentration well.
Among the non-Buddhist ascetics of the past, after they went forth—not to mention the first dhyāna—there were those who attained the fourth dhyāna and the four formless absorptions, and some could even attain the highest meditative concentration, the absorption of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. They went deep into the mountains to cultivate meditative concentration exclusively, and could truly be without any seeking toward anything in the world. Yet now, for us, even cultivating the preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) of the desire realm is so difficult. From this point of view, we are now not even the equal of the non-Buddhists. How can the faculties of us Buddhists today compare with those non-Buddhists? And yet we look down on them. Those non-Buddhists cultivated the four dhyānas and eight absorptions, never shouting slogans about letting go, yet they had truly let go of all the five desires and six sense objects; they were people of genuine practice and realization of meditative concentration, whereas we Buddhists shout slogans all day long yet in a whole lifetime have not been able to give up even a tiny bit of worldly things.
That they cultivated non-Buddhist dharmas was only because their karmic conditions from past lives were unfavorable. For example, in a past life they may also have cultivated meditative concentration, only it was a non-Buddhist dharma; they had neither taken refuge in the Three Jewels nor received the precepts, and that is why in this life they did not encounter the Buddha-dharma. Therefore, taking refuge in the Three Jewels is very important: if one takes refuge in the Three Jewels in this life, one will take refuge in the Three Jewels again in the next life, and relying on the Three Jewels to study Buddhism, one will not go off to cultivate in non-Buddhist dharmas. In studying Buddhism, not encouraging the receiving of the five precepts and not taking refuge in the Three Jewels is absolutely unacceptable; without such reliance, the mind has nowhere to turn, the foundation is unstable, and in future lives one can easily drift into non-Buddhist paths.
If in this life one does not cultivate meditative concentration, in the next life one will still be distant from the cultivation and realization of meditative concentration, still unable to enter the threshold of cultivating concentration, and the Buddha-dharma cannot be realized. Therefore, whatever dharma the Buddha tells us to cultivate, we should cultivate it in accordance with the Buddha, and not engage in our own inventions and creations. Whatever way the Buddha tells us to cultivate, that is the way we should cultivate. Everything the Buddha taught is the noble word, the supreme teaching-authority (āgama), all truthful speech; only by relying on it one hundred percent can one obtain the benefits of the Buddha-dharma.
Original text: 云何身分。弃之于此。而牵诸入。获当来报。受种种身。差别不同。
Explanation: The Bodhisattva Bhadrapāla continued to ask the Buddha: Why does the Ālayavijñāna discard the body and leave it behind, yet carry the six entrances along to obtain the future-life retributive body? The various physical bodies that the Ālayavijñāna accepts in future lives have many differences; they are not the same physical body.
If a physical body has no consciousness participating in it, it has no function of aggregation and is not called an aggregate. When the physical body is combined with the eight consciousnesses, it has the functions and roles of the five aggregates, among which the Ālayavijñāna, the seventh consciousness, and the sixth consciousness cannot be absent; among the five sense consciousnesses, one to three may be missing, but the sixth, seventh, and eighth consciousnesses cannot be missing and must be present. Wherever the physical body dies, there the Ālayavijñāna abandons it: if born among humans, it is abandoned among humans; if born in the hells, it is abandoned in the hells; if born among animals, it is abandoned among animals. The Ālayavijñāna then brings the six faculties and six entrances onto the new physical body, and sentient beings receive the retribution of future lives.
The "entrances" (āyatanas) refer to the eye entrance, ear entrance, nose entrance, tongue entrance, body entrance, and mind entrance—that is, the six functions of entry corresponding to the six faculties—and these six faculties are carried along to obtain future retribution. For example, a sentient being now has a human body; after death, in the next life he becomes an animal, and on the animal's body the Ālayavijñāna generates the six entrances, carrying the six entrances there—the six faculties being the animal's six faculties. The animal's body then has the six entrances: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind entrances. With the inner six entrances complete, the outer six entrances—form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas—can be transmitted into the physical body, the six consciousnesses can arise in dependence on them, and thereafter discriminating activities appear.
"Future retribution" means retribution that has not yet appeared now but will appear later. Only after the antarā-bhava arises and ceases does the physical body of the next life come into being, hence it is called "future," meaning what should come later. To carry the entrances into the physical body, the five aggregates must appear completely before there can be future retribution. The meaning of "carrying the entrances" is not that the original five faculties such as the eye faculty are directly brought into the future-life physical body, but rather that after the Ālayavijñāna takes conception, in the mother's womb, in accordance with the karmic seeds, it generates the functions of the six faculties anew; only with the six faculties complete is one a normal sentient being.
The Ālayavijñāna accepts various bodies with many differences. A sentient being may receive an animal body in this life; when the animal karma is finished, in the next life he may obtain a human body, in the life after that perhaps a ghost body, in the life after that perhaps a hell body, perhaps a heavenly body, and at times even an asura body. Sentient beings are thus, life after life, receiving various different physical bodies within the six destinies, unable to escape the suffering of birth-and-death transmigration—this is the difference among the six-destiny bodies of sentient beings. As for which body will be received, it still depends on the sentient being's karmic seeds: karma includes not only what is created in this life but also the karma done in past lives, all added together; whichever karmic condition ripens first determines which karmic retributive body is received.
