A Commentary on the Mahāyāna Sūtra on the Manifestation of Consciousness

Original text: 贤护。识弃此身。受他生者。众生死时。识为业障所缠。报尽命终。犹如灭定。阿罗汉识。如阿罗汉。入灭尽定。其阿罗汉识。从身灭转。如是死者之识。弃身及界。乘于念力而作。是知彼如是。我某乙生平。所作事业。临终咸现。忆念明了。身之与心。二受逼切。

Explanation: The Buddha said, "Xianhu (Bhadrapāla), when consciousness abandons this body and takes up another birth—when sentient beings die, consciousness is entangled by karmic obstructions; when the retribution is exhausted and life ends, it is like the cessation of the arhat's consciousness. Just as an arhat enters the cessation of perception and feeling, and the arhat's consciousness departs from the body—so too the dying one's consciousness abandons the body and the realms, acting by the power of mindfulness. Thus that person knows: 'Such-and-such a person, in this life, the deeds I have done'—all appear at the moment of death, remembered clearly, while body and mind are both pressed hard by the two kinds of suffering." The Buddha said, "Xianhu (Bhadrapāla), after the ālayavijñāna abandons the material body of this life, it goes to the material body of the next life, accepting another material body ('another birth' means another lifetime). When sentient beings die, the ālayavijñāna is entangled by the karmic formations and karmic obstructions created by the seven consciousnesses. When the retribution of this period is exhausted and the time of death arrives, it is just like the ālayavijñāna of an arhat who has entered the cessation of perception and feeling. When an arhat enters the cessation of perception and feeling and is about to enter nirvāṇa without remainder from that state, his ālayavijñāna disappears from the material body and enters the realm of quiescent cessation. It is the same when sentient beings die: the ālayavijñāna abandons the sentient being's material body and the eighteen realms. The ālayavijñāna abandons the body in accordance with the power of mindfulness of the manas, working in concert with the functioning of the manas's mental factor of deliberation (manana). At this point, the dying person knows that this life has ended; in the instant before death, all the deeds accomplished in this life appear entirely in the mind, each one capable of being recalled, with the mental sense-objects clear and distinct, and at the same time both body and mind fully feel the pressing agony." Because the karmic formations created throughout the dying person's life have left karmic seeds, at the time of death the ālayavijñāna will transmigrate to the next life in accordance with those karmic seeds. If he created the karma of an animal, he will be bound by the karma of animals, and the ālayavijñāna will accept an animal's material body; if he created the karma of a hungry ghost, he will be bound by the karma of hungry ghosts, and the ālayavijñāna will go to a hungry ghost's material body, and the retributive results he experienced in this life come to an end. At the time of death, it is just like the ālayavijñāna of a fourth-fruit arhat in the cessation of perception and feeling, which abandons the material body and departs. When an arhat has completed the four dhyānas and eight absorptions and enters the cessation of perception and feeling, the first six consciousnesses all cease, leaving only the seventh consciousness and the ālayavijñāna. Of the five universal mental factors of the seventh consciousness, the mental factors of feeling and perception cease, so the seventh consciousness, the manas, no longer has the mental factors of feeling and perception and has lost the function of discernment; but the three mental factors of mental application (manaskāra), contact (sparśa), and deliberation (cetanā) remain, and it can still apply itself to the faculties, the material world, and the realm manifested by the ālayavijñāna. He can still apply himself to and make contact with the conditions of the material body, and then give rise to the mental factor of deliberation, capable of making decisions. For example, He may give rise to a resolute mind, wanting to manifest the six consciousnesses and emerge from absorption, or He may want to extinguish the material body entirely and enter nirvāṇa—all of these are decided by the manas's mental factor of deliberation. When sentient beings die and the ālayavijñāna leaves the body, the situation is the same as that of an arhat in the cessation of perception and feeling, whose seventh consciousness and ālayavijñāna leave the body to enter nirvāṇa without remainder.