The Mind holds the essence or essential nature of each organ the mind can distinguish between the kidney, the heart, the spleen and so forth. In that regard there is no essential substance to destruct and so it is indestructible.
The four mental or four skandas maintain the essence of the four elements and five organs. The mind or skanda of consciousness maintains earth. “The mental skanda of conceptions maintains wind. The mental skanda of sensations maintains fire. The mental skanda of volitions maintains water. Therefore they are indestructible and do not pass away completely.”
So next Chih-I asks us to ask ourselves if these minds or skandas arise on their own or do they not? We can surmise based upon the theory of dependent origination that do not independently arise and this would be correct. There is no exception to dependent origination not even in other theories. Buddhism is not illogical even if it may be difficult to comprehend at times.
If I might inject here as you wrestle with these perhaps new concepts that fundamentally the most important take away is to internalize the embrace without doubt or reservation the truth of dependent origination as a truth that is found in all other truths, including the Four Nobel Truths, the Eightfold Path, and of course the Twelve Link Chain of Causation. There is not study of Buddhism that can be considered legitimate if it does not pass the test of no independently arising phenomena. If it appears by magic without a cause then it isn’t Buddhism.
Onward onto volitions arise from sensations, sensations arise from conceptions, conceptions arise from consciousness, consciousness arises from volitions from the past, volitions from the past arise from ignorance, ignorance arises from deluded conceptions, and finally deluded conceptions arise from deluded conceptions. No that is not a typo or editorial error.
Deluded conceptions arise from deluded conceptions is the complete turning of the twelve conditions as the sutra says. Suvarnaprabhasa Sutra
There is a wonderful visual story Chih-I provides to illustrate this point in his own words. Sadly I know that I would be in violation of copyright laws if even attempted to retell it. The story is unique and long and beyond my ability to retell it.
Instead I’ll offer what may be a different way of illustrating this. Suppose you are playing a video game. My only experience of playing a video game is from several years ago when I returned to college to get my degree. Most of my classes were comprised of much younger students and since many of them were in the same major as I was we matriculated in many classes together. Over a short period of time and because I was intentional about interacting with the young people and they were perhaps curious about this older person we became good, even close friends. At the time they were all playing World of Warcraft, WoW. Listening to them talk about the experience was intriguing to me so I decided to give it a try.
At first, being new to the whole online game experience I was a total looser. In fact some of them actually took me around almost on a leash getting me gear and completing quests until I got the hang of it. The sheltered me for a while and it helped tremendously. None of that is germain to the story it is merely background information a sort of how it happened and why I know anything about gaming at all even if only a teeny tinny bit.
So, at first the visual of the online game experience is obviously not real. Nothing comes close to being anything like real life, you can tell it is all computer. Now that doesn’t mean the figures don’t act lifelike. In fact the more I found I allowed my self to be immersed in the game the more the distinction between what was obviously not real and what one would consider real life real became more subtle and in fact would even perhaps vanish. It is a combination of intensity of the experience the emotional investment in the game and accomplishing various things as well as the very human and real interaction through voice and text with other human players who are represented by the various digital characters on the screen.
Now here is the thing, if a person, and I’ve seen or witnessed this and perhaps to some degree at times I experienced it myself, if a person allows themselves to fully enmesh into the game and the character and the role being played it can become real as real perhaps are real life real. Crazy huh. And yet this is not a rare phenomena. Perhaps some of the readers of the blog have more experience with online games than I do can perhaps attest to this as well.
So when you then transfer your online personality to your physical real life flesh and bones body forgetting that you are not in the game any longer then a deluded conception or thought (the online character) gives rise to deluded conception or thought (the real life character thinking they are the online character) and visa versa. Sadly this isn’t as graphic as Chih-I’s story though this is a bit more contemporary. Hopefully it makes sense. It’s hard to tell sometimes when you write if what you write will be understood by the reader as you intended or even at all.
The point here is that by understanding this by seeking to understand this dependent origination as we live with and through disease can be the cause for our entering the realm of pratyekabuddhahood.
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