Mahāyāna Sūtra on the Manifestation of Consciousness (72)

Original text:月实童真复白佛言。世尊。将死之时。云何识舍于身。云何识迁于身。云何识知。今舍此身。佛告月实。众生随业获报。识流相续。持身不绝。期毕报终。识弃舍身。随业迁受。譬如水乳和煎。以火热力。乳水及腻。各各分散。如是月实。众生命尽。以业力散。形骸与识。及诸入界。各各分散。识为所依。以取法界。及法界念。并善恶业。迁受他报。

Explanation: The youth Yueshi (Moon-Reality) said to the Buddha: World-Honored One, at the time of approaching death, how does the ālayavijñāna relinquish the physical body? How does the ālayavijñāna depart from the physical body? How does the ālayavijñāna know that it should now relinquish the physical body?

By what does the ālayavijñāna know that it should now relinquish and depart from the physical body? It must have come to know the karmic seeds, and it decides to depart from the body based on those karmic seeds. The ālayavijñāna manifests and upholds the physical body in accordance with the karmic seeds. When the karmic seeds indicate that at a certain moment the seeds of the four great elements should no longer be supplied to sustain the existence of the physical body, the ālayavijñāna knows at which minute the physical body should disappear and that the four great elements should be withdrawn and no longer output. At that moment, the physical body disintegrates into the four great elements, the six sense-objects can no longer be manifested normally, the six consciousnesses can no longer normally discern the six sense-objects, the six consciousnesses gradually cease, and the manas together with the tathāgatagarbha depart from the body.

The Buddha told Yueshi that sentient beings receive their retributive results in accordance with their wholesome and unwholesome karma. It is only because the seeds of the ālayavijñāna flow forth in the physical body in a continuous stream that the existence and functioning of the physical body can be continuously sustained. Only when the lifespan comes to an end does the ālayavijñāna decide to relinquish the physical body, and in accordance with the sentient being's wholesome and unwholesome karma it flows and migrates onto the physical body of the next life.

For example, when water and milk are mixed together and heated over a fire, the milk will float to the top while the water stays below, and the water and milk each separate on their own. The lives of sentient beings are like this too: because of karmic conditions, when a sentient being's life ends, the five aggregates scatter and decay, the physical body and the mind consciousness separate, and the six sense faculties and the six sense-objects all separate from one another.

The ālayavijñāna is that upon which the lives of sentient beings depend. After He relinquishes the original physical body, the seeds of the five aggregates return into the ālayavijñāna; the seeds of the four great elements and the seeds of consciousness all return into the ālayavijñāna. When the conditions are complete, the ālayavijñāna, in accordance with the mental power of the manas as well as the seeds of wholesome and unwholesome karma, migrates onto the five aggregates of the next life, and again outputs the seeds, forming the five-aggregate body of the next life; the six sense faculties, the six consciousnesses, and the six sense-objects all appear once again.

Here, "the stream of consciousness" refers, first, to the seeds of consciousness of the ālayavijñāna itself flowing forth instant after instant, so that the ālayavijñāna continues to function without ceasing and without perishing; and second, to the ālayavijñāna flowing forth the seeds of consciousness of the seven consciousnesses, allowing the seven consciousnesses to operate continuously, so as to sustain the life activities of the five-aggregate body. The ālayavijñāna constantly upholds our physical body, allowing the life activities of the body to continue without interruption. When this period of life ends, this period of retributive result also comes to an end, and the ālayavijñāna then relinquishes this physical body.