![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
The Highest States in Buddhism vs. Hinduism, the Alaya Consciousness vs. Brahman
[This is from my Stages course for select students] The eighth consciousness, also known as the alaya consciousness or storehouse consciousness, is a particularly complicated, difficult subject to discuss. Shakyamuni Buddha taught for several decades and had many highly advanced practitioners as his disciples, yet despite disciples of high prajna wisdom and high samadhi attainments, Shakyamuni rarely spoke of the alaya consciousness in order to prevent any entries into error. That’s how important this topic is, and how difficult it is to discuss. As Shakyamuni said, The storehouse consciousness [alaya] is very profound and subtle; Shakyamuni threfore gave very few teachings on the alaya consciousness in order not to provide people with another false source of fixation of something as the ultimate. He didn’t want to talk extensively about something that sentient beings, lacking wisdom, might take as a higher Self or final Reality. In particular, he worried that beings might take the alaya as a big Self, or true atman. In fact, the Hindu sages who were able to reach to the alaya body of consciousness before him all made this very mistake, taking the alaya as the Great Self (Brahman) when it is only the essence of consciousness. They would reach this stage of cultivation and claim, “I am He, I am He” or “I am Brahman, I am Shiva.” Similarly, “All this is Brahman,” “I know the Supreme Brahman; there is nothing higher than that (Prasna Upanishad VI.7),” “All this Universe is Brahman. The Self is Brahman. (Mandukya Upanishad, Verse 2).” Contrast this with Buddha’s discourse in the Diamond Sutra where he says that there is no such real thing as a world system or agglomeration of world systems, for if such a thing existed in reality it would be the oneness of all phenomena. Neither any components nor the whole should be regarded as real. No stage of attainment should be regarded as real either. If one even considers themselves an ego, identity, being or real self, they are not correct either. No stage of attainment is really existing or ever really attained. Many in history have reached the stage where they were able to claim “I and the Father are one,” but this was also only reaching the alaya -- if that far -- without fully transforming it or overturning its basis. And many of those sages were killed by people who did not understand what they were saying. To overturn the alaya and produce a revolution in its basis, turning all its seeds into wisdoms – that’s the stage of true enlightenment taught by Shakyamuni Buddha. Many masters since then have been able to reach to the alaya by cultivating the seventh consciousness to the stage where they silenced the sixth and first five consciousnesses by turning away from the senses and phenomena. Many yoga concentration techniques will help you do this. But many of these also made the mistake of holding on to the alaya as the object of the seventh consciousness and clinging to it as a Self. In Zen a master would have to break up someone’s stage of realization in order to get them to perceive this (awaken) and go beyond. Afterwards, as long as they had attained the right view and understanding, a master would not worry about what particular cultivation practices a student would thereafter choose to follow. This is so important to understand these various fine distinctions that we should review this in more detail. If you do not understand this, you cannot understand the real meaning of enlightenment and how it puts an end to transmigration (as well as sorrow, misery, etc.) or why it involves cultivating prajna transcendental wisdom. Those things are just words until you understand the whole picture and grand scheme of things. In the Brahmanism and other religious streams that were created by the Vedas and which predated Shakyamuni, Vedic philosophy originally held that a great being named Brahman was the creator of all beings, including man. Brahman was revered as the lord of all creation, but was not apart from ourselves. In Vedic literature, it was asserted that there was no difference, no duality between the true self of human beings, called the “atman,” and the true self of Brahman. Brahman is “One Without a Second” and fully present in each and every individual being. This is similar to a common religious theme that God and man share the same essence, or the idea that “Heaven and man are one” found in Confucianism. But Brahman, in this case, is considered beyond form, and the universe and all the beings within it are considered forms or phenomena that are transformations of Brahman the great one Self. The Triple Realm is thus considered one great unified whole that is Brahman’s very being. In Vedic philosophy, the highest ideal is to return to the state where Brahman and the individual soul, or atman, become one. Hence, the cultivation methods espoused in Hinduism involve the purifying effects of meditation and other elevating and refining cultivation techniques that return the small self of the individual person to the great self of Brahman. As “atman” is a word that originally meant “breath” or “vital principle,” it is not surprising that the majority of these methods involved breathing practices to cultivate one’s chi, or prana. The anapana methods of Buddhism, for instance (see the Anapanasati Sutra) take hold of some of these breathing methods and combine them with the practice of prajna wisdom to help speed the process of attainment. The name “Brahman” means absolutely pure and perfectly real. But what is Brahman? Brahman gives birth to all things by transformations that are akin to magical illusions that seem real, but which lack any true substance. Brahman is therefore the totality of the universe, just like the alaya. It is a unity of mind and the material world, the fundamental nature. All apparent phenomena are empty illusions that are the “play” or “sport” of Brahman, who gives rise to all things without any particular aim or purpose. Similarly, all things are born from consciousness, and within this realm of interdependent origination no ultimate purpose can be found. So all things are maya and have no ultimate purpose, but everything is linked together through cause and effect to comprise one great whole. As sentient beings and part of this great body of transformations, we traverse from life to life in an unending, ceaseless round of incarnations. None of it is real, however, but just a gigantic set of illusory transformations that we take to be real, which causes pain and suffering and sorrow. As sentient beings, we have two choices: (1) to become free of maya by achieving liberation where we return to the fundamental state of Brahman, or (2) to continue the endless suffering rounds of birth and death through ceaseless transmigration. To awaken to Brahman and return to his nature requires that we throw off the barrier of ignorance and cultivate illumination. The means to do so, according to Brahmanism, the Vedas and Hinduism, was to withdraw from the senses and to cultivate yoga, mantra and meditative concentration. Most all cultivation methods in the world can be traced back to the Indian discoveries in these areas. Pure consciousness, in its purest base form as the alaya consciousness, can indeed be reached this way, which is exactly what many of the Vedic sages accomplished. Of course, many did not even reach that high stage of attainment, but somee stage much lower. In pure consciousness meditation, you can detach from the senses and the sixth consciousness, which is akin to the yoga injunctions to withdraw from the outward senses and turn inwards. By grasping phenomena with the sixth consciousness you discriminate an objective world, but when that discrimination ceases, you can reach cessation as a state. If you do that, what is then the object of the seventh consciousness? The alaya consciousness. If one is ignorant about the proper path, the seventh consciousness will take the alaya and hold to it as a self. If one is not ignorant, they will refrain from clinging to the alaya or taking it as something real, and by continuing to shine the empty awareness of prajna without clinging, let mind be born without abiding in any of its states. The highest reality is approachable only by prajna transcendental wisdom, and this is always and ever the correct path of cultivation. As the sage Nisargadatta said of his own attainment, I am conscious and unconscious, both conscious and unconscious, neither conscious nor unconscious – to all this I am witness – but really there is no witness, because there is no thing to be a witness to. I am perfectly empty of all mental formations, void of mind – yet fully aware. This I try to express by saying that I am beyond the mind.[1] If one is not careful and posits Brahman as the ultimate Source, then when consciousness is the only object then the seventh consciousness will take the “purity” of the alaya as an object; it will take hold of the alaya as Brahman the Great Self. If one correctly cultivates prajna, they can overturn the alaya and reach true and perfect enlightenment that is beyond consciousness and the Three Realms. With thoughts ever arising, with all its seeds always in the process of transformation, the alaya is the source of all creation and transmigration. But one can mistake the alaya as the pure truth or ultimate essence where there is neither subject nor object, positive nor negative, good or bad - just as Vedic works cite – because that is the nature of the alaya seen in its aspect of purity. Like Brahman, the alaya is the master of transmigration and transformation because of the constant stirring of its seeds (elements) until and unless it has been overturned by voidness meditation so that one detaches from it as an object and thus transcends it. One should not even consider the alaya as being Real, but let it be without attachment or fixation. It can be transcended only by emptiness meditation, which means the “cultivation of prajna wisdom.” When you can let go of the alaya as an object, so that it returns to its original inherent identity as the ground state of Suchness, you can “experience a revolution in its basis” and the seeds of the alaya (the components of consciousness) can all become clear wisdoms. Then one can become the ultimate master of consciousness as well as birth and death, because consciousness is the source of transmigration. This is how one ultimately becomes free of the stream of incarnations and one learns how to master their mind. The mind can no longer cheat you because you always see through it. When the alaya becomes transformed, it is called “immaculate consciousness” that is pure without clinging. This is where the true enlightenment first introduced by Buddhism surpassed the Hindu and Vedic sages who reached the realm of Brahman, or the alaya, and took it as a fixed Supreme Self. It is easy to mistake it as the highest Self just as Shakyamuni said, so he rarely spoke of it. It’s hard enough just getting people to attain a state of dhayan-samadhi, let alone reach this far. Few people attain to this in their cultivation, and of those who can, Shakyamuni didn’t want people to grasp onto the alaya as anything real. If you do, you cannot go beyond it. In his many years of teaching, Shakyamuni Buddha often refused to go into deep explanations of the real nature of nirvana, called the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, until he had been teaching for quite a while and his disciples had “grown up” with spiritual attainments and prajna wisdom. The nirvana of Buddhism is to overturn the alaya whereas in the previous sects and schools, it was to reach to the alaya, or simply to reach some stage of dhyana and the lower heavens with their appropriate gods and goddesses. This is what you find in most worldly religions. Initially in his teaching career, Shakyamuni considered most of his disciples as children of limited capacities who could only "digest" the simple and basic spiritual fare of "suffering, impermanence and non-Self." So he set up the path as something that put an end to suffering, and stressed the analysis of the mind and mental formations to discover that there is no such thing as an ego. Once his students had progressed upon the spiritual path with the cultivation attainments of samadhi, gong-fu and prajna wisdom, only then were they ready to be introduced to the culminational teachings of the Tathagatagarbha or Buddhanature, as revealed in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which deal with bliss, permanence and true Self. But this is a different, higher set than the sat-chit-ananda (existence, consciousness, bliss) of Hinduism because it goes BEYOND the alaya whereas the Vedic sat-chit-ananda stops at the alaya and mistakes it as the ultimate, calling it Brahman. As Buddha said, the true sat-chit-ananda is the achievement of the nirvana without remainder beyond the realm or function of the alaya. One achieves this by cultivating prajna wisdom to let go of the alaya, and the even bigger secret is that prajna wisdom is also considered a guest rather than the ultimate host, which is how one continues to cultivate to a higher and higher attainment without any effort at all. Many practitioners tend to mistakenly identify the stilling of the sixth consciousness when all thoughts cease - a time when the alaya is alone in the meditation - as pure consciousness and the Higher Self or ultimate attainment. Properly speaking, we can call this “cultivating the seventh consciousness” rather than the eighth because you don’t go beyond the eighth but take it as your object of meditation. This is the source of all the deep philosophical mistakes in Hinduism, and the reason is from meditation (cultivation) that did not go high enough or far enough. The great Confucian Wang Yang Ming also made this mistake, as have many others since Shakyamuni’s time. It is truly difficult to reach the alaya, and even more difficult to find a great and skillful teacher who can help you crush your experiential realm and toss all away so that you abide nowhere at all. If the alaya is the object of concentration without movement of the sixth or seventh consciousness (the mind), we can describe it as formless, pure, unchanging, formless, timeless, undifferentiated, all-pervading, self-illuminating, absolute, without attributes, beginning or end. It’s easy for you to find such quotes in various religious texts, and to add to this list. This is where most people, as high stage Arhats, stop in their cultivation, and indeed in the Upanishads and other cultivation texts we find reference to these descriptions. Shakyamuni could find no teacher in his day who had reached the stage of totally and completely overturning the alaya, nor could he find this dharma taught anywhere. However, upon reaching perfect and complete enlightenment he could see the other Buddhas who had achieved this feat and who had surmounted the Three Realms. He could also see and perfectly understand all the beings who had attained a stage of incomplete enlightenment, a fractional nirvana or Bodhisattva bhumi, because they had not yet freed themselves totally from the alaya (base of consciousness) and purified it. Surpassing it, he can easily see through them and understand all their levels and stages of meditation, their karma, transformations, mental faults and so forth. Now you can understand why the various Buddhist scriptures say things like this, for now it becomes a science you can understand rather than just flowery religious overblown wording. A “Buddha” doesn’t mean Buddhism. It means a completely enlightened being, from any place within the Triple Realm, who has overturned the alaya and escaped the Three Realms, and who can thus survey the Three Realms clearly from without and know all such things within it like: 1. What is right or wrong in each and every condition. When one holds the alaya (pure consciousness) as the object of meditation and their stage of cultivation is not stable, it is easy for the alaya to be moved by the sixth consciousness, after which creation (and thus transmigration) seems to appear. Transcending the alaya is true non-production, no-birth, no-origination. At the stage of cultivating the alaya when the sixth consciousness is still, it may appear to be a realm of non-production, no-birth, no-origination, unborn non-moving non-duality where we say it is changeless, formless and so forth, but this is because the mind is momentarily still but the alaya has not been transcended and overturned. Only the true overturning of complete and perfect enlightenment produces a revolution in the seeds of consciousness. Otherwise one is just holding the alaya as an object of consciousness and enjoying its purity. When the sixth consciousness once again stirs, worldly things will once again appear which is the changeable maya of Brahman. Creation is then a vibration in pure consciousness. Everything we see thus depends on movements of the mind and when the movements cease, the mind is thoughtless and returns to its source. As Ramana Maharshi said, “There is no creation in the state of realization. When one sees the Self, the world is not seen. So see the Self and realize that there has been no creation.”[2] He also said, “The creation is said to have an origin. How? Like a tree and the seed from which it has grown. How was the seed produced? From a similar tree. Where is the end to the series of questions? Therefore, one must know one’s Self before the world is known.”[3] Thus we have the cultivation school of Yogacara called Consciousness-Only, or Mind-Only, which leads one back to the alaya and urges prajna wisdom cultivation for complete and perfect enlightenment. A true cultivator can also become so steeped in meditation on pure consciousness that no worldly things are seen, and this nothingness can be mistaken for a destruction of the alaya. There are all sorts of ways one can go astray in their cultivation at this high stage of cultivating consciousness, with many of these great errors being explained in the Surangama Sutra. You’ll find such a high level discussion of these mistakes in no other literature other than in this sutra, such as the following excerpt regarding the mistakes one can make in cultivating through the skandha of consciousness:
Many of the formless samadhi absorptions can now be better understood from this discussion, and while they are talked of as stages of liberation or enlightenment in some schools, you can also understand that this is only partial enlightenment because one only attains to the alaya but has not produced a revolution in its basis. The alaya itself must return to its own source. If you do that, we no longer speak of transmigration or even consciousness but of transcendental wisdom, and thus the first five, the sixth, seventh and eighth consciousnesses are all transformed into their specific wisdoms of direct seeing-knowing-realizing without clinging. Consciousness still functions, but one is clear through and through because they have penetrated through the alaya, past the realm of consciousness entirely, and one does not cling with stickiness to any of its operations. One still lets thoughts be born, but without resting the mind anywhere. One functions in the world, the ordinary mind still functions, but one is clear and void through and through. One has become the master. You function in the world while transcending it. This is true Buddhahood. Thus we have the Great Mirror Wisdom, Action Performing Wisdom, Wisdom of Equality and so forth that are the transformations of consciousness when prajna wisdom causes a revolution in its basis. The Mind clearly knows all the thoughts and functions within consciousness, but is not deceived by them. Operating outside the alaya and not subject to transmigration but seeing through it, this is why Zen masters can freely exercise their “great functioning” and the “sharp point of potential,” for they are not bound by consciousness and can take advantage of any circumstances to help people awaken. One functions in the world while transcending it. In fact, one transcends the entire Triple Realm for it is all entirely bound with consciousness because it is created of consciousness. No gong-fu is supreme other than the accomplishment of enlightenment past the Triple Realm. It is as the Taoist-Zen immortal Chang Tzu-yang said, “Even if you have a halo crowning your head, it is still a mirage; even if clouds arise under your feet, you are not immortal.”[5] What achievement is worthy when bound within the Three Realms? Of course the modern Advaita Vedanta teachers have also now been able to achieve this enlightenment of Shakyamuni by transcending Brahman, and have tried to lift Hinduism up with the appropriate teachings and understanding of non-duality, non-clinging and thus the over-turning of the alaya. But if one simply relies on the old Veda, Upanishads and other scriptures, it is easy to remain caught in the net. Of course, you're so talented if you even get that far to realize the skandha of consciousness, the alaya, Brahman. The key point is that to attain perfect and pure enlightenment you must forget any notions of the Self and cultivate prajna to go beyond the alaya and drop attachments to consciousness, for the Higher Self, or the alaya, or universe as a whole (the entire Triple Realm) are the obstacle of the voidness of Reality. The basis of the yoga cultivation and meditation methods in Vedic culture are not wrong. It’s just that practitioners do not go far enough for there is farther to go. Shakyamuni simply took what was the best of what was in use and added an understanding and practice of prajna wisdom so that one could proceed faster and attain farther than what was previously available. This is what enlightened Buddhas teach – how to become ultimately free and liberated, which why the beings of all directions and states in the Triple Realm come to them for teachings. In this way by attaining to the basis of (transcending) consciousness, one surmounts all of creation (the Triple Realm) and attains the Tathagatagarbha or Matrix of Reality. If one does not transcend the alaya then one does not understand the fundamental, one does not know the Source. As high as your attainment is, this lack of comprehension is still called “Ignorance,” and thus the sages before Shakyamuni were technically still in the realm of ignorance. Colloquially we can say that “they had the Tao,” but the measure of their Tao was not complete. Knowing that, we can also say “they did not have the Tao.” To overturn the alaya is to destroy the root of ignorance. To attain the alaya or rest in the alaya or take it as the ultimate object of one’s efforts is to remain in ignorance, bound in ignorance. The difference is not insignificant, but the entire purpose of this book. When you don’t know something we call it “ignorance,” so not knowing the source, we are all bound to Ignorance. One might comprehend a portion of the alaya, but without perfect and clear penetration one only can achieve “nirvana with a remainder.” The dhyana, on the other hand, are a type of common phenomenon that can be cultivated by anyone, and which can serve as a stepping stone or practice station to help you lay a foundation for the ultimate attainment. They are not the monopoly of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism or any other school and are feely cultivated throughout the universe including the various human religions. They are the birth mother of sages and sages, initiates, adepts, gurus and great ones. But the real “great ones” are those with perfect and complete enlightenment wherein the entire alaya has been transformed. When we previously spoke of the five types of eyes or powers one could attain through their cultivation efforts, we stated that a perfectly awakened, completely awakened Buddha attains a “Buddha eye” not attained by lower level sages because he has “gone beyond, gone beyond” the limits of (the alaya) consciousness whereas the other sages are still operating within the realm of consciousness. Above, beyond, transcending the Triple Realm – however you wish to word it – the “Buddha eye” is an omniscient eye without limitations that can see, comprehend, penetrate everything within the universe of the Triple Realm. Buddha often taught that Arhats could see an incredible number of aeons into the past or future but their vision was still limited because they were still bound by the incompleteness of their cultivation. So now you can understand this. This is all science. Bodhisattvas can attain the “wisdom eye” that realizes or “sees” emptiness because of cultivating partially through the alaya. Many of the Hindu sages before Shakyamuni (and many sages afterwards) only attained the ability to be able to see the Form Realms within the Triple Realm, so they did not even cultivate to the alaya. They created religions or teachings based on their limited attainments that only reached so far up to certain Heavens. This explains the various differing ranks of sages, and also why we have different ranks of ultimate Gods such as Jehovah, Odin, God the Father, Indra, Sakka, Brahman, Mahesvara and so forth, which brings up an interesting story to help make clear the sort of ranks and knowledge capabilities of the gods in the various heavens. There’s a story in the Buddhist scriptures of a talented monk who wanted to find out the answer to the question, “Where do the four elements cease without remainder?” Through meditation he reached the Heaven of the Four Great Kings, who did not know the answer. Next he went to the thirty three gods in a higher Desire Realm heaven, but none of these rulers knew either. He then asked King Sakka (Indra), the king of these gods, but Sakka did not know the answer. Up and up he went asking all sorts of gods at each and every higher level. Finally he came to Great Brahma, the Creator, Uncreated, Knower of All. When the monk finally achieved an audience with Great Brahma, Brahma appeared in all his majesty and glory announcing, "I am Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be." The monk then humbly and respectfully asked his question, but all Great Brahma did was repeat, "I am Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be." The monk eventually got frustrated and said, “I know you are "Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be," but I asked you a question about where the four elements cease without remainder. The Great Brahma replied, “Listen little monk, don’t embarrass me. All these other gods are listening and think I know everything. If you want to know the answer to a question like that, don’t ask me. I don’t know the answer. For a question like that, you have to go ask the Buddha.” The monk then returned to the world and told Shakyamuni Buddha the story. Shakyamuni and the monk both laughed and then the Buddha told him, “When sailors are searching for land they let go of pigeons from their ship. If the pigeons don’t return it means they’ve found land nearby. If they do return, it’s because there is no land in sight. You’re just like a pigeon who has returned back to me because none of the gods could not give you the answer.” Then he told the monk that nirvana is where the four elements cease without remainder. But now you know that this nirvana is a purification, revolution, seeing through or overturning of the alaya consciousness, and not a resting or cultivation of the alaya which would be a fractional enlightenment, or nirvana with remainder. The higher gods did not know this because they had not achieved it. And so it is with Jehovah (an angry god or asura belonging to the Desire Realm), Christianity’s Father “God” (a Form Realm deity), Indra, Odin, Allah, Ahura Mazda, and so forth. This is not a propaganda piece to trumpet any supposed “superiority of Buddhism.” Remember we are speaking of enlightenment dharma, not a religion called “Buddhism,” for enlightenment dharma appears in countless realms. Since Shakyamuni’s time, only a handful of individuals have completed the course of full and complete enlightenment in this world, but the last time any completely enlightened ones appeared in this world to fully reveal and teach the full dharma was Shakyamuni, so this is what we go by. In a different world it’s a different name but it’s all about enlightenment. A similarly interesting story from the Good and Evil Sutra that further sheds light on our topic is as follows: The following story relates what happened on one occasion when the supernatural powers of Gautama Buddha and those of the six non-Buddhist gurus were compared.
This is similar to Sun Wu Kung, the Monkey King’s experience, in the Journey to the West where Wu Kong (representing the mind) used his superpowers to travel for days in the universe to try to escape Buddha. When he felt he had gone far enough, he stopped to take a piss against a wall and marked it with a piece of chalk. When it came for the Buddha to find him, it was revealed that the wall was one of the Buddha’s fingers, and that the Monkey had been flying in his universal hand the entire while. Outside of the Three Realms, a Buddha surpasses it and transcends it while everything we do is within it. These are all quite entertaining stories and their major point is to teach us that true enlightenment is to pierce through the final barrier of the alaya, or skandha of consciousness in total. Once you do that, which is by cultivating the prajna transcendental wisdom of non-clinging, you can finally achieve the True Tao that is neither empty nor not empty, neither real nor not-real, neither existent nor non-existent. The teachings of the alaya consciousness are therefore such a great boon, such a great gift for humanity because they lead us to liberation that ultimately frees us from birth and death, sorrow and suffering, and also forever free humanity from the superstitions of ultimate gods and religion as well as small thinking. But if that’s the case, how are we to describe the ultimate basis of the alaya?
[1] I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, trans. by Maurice Frydman, (The Acorn Press, Durham: North Carolina, 1973), pp. 328. [2] Talks With Ramana Maharshi, Ramana Maharshi, (Inner Directions Publishing, Carlsbad: California, 2006), pp. 355-356. [3] Talks With Ramana Maharshi, Ramana Maharshi, (Inner Directions Publishing, Carlsbad: California, 2006), p. 422. [4] How to Measure and Deepen Your Spiritual Realization, Nan Huai-Chin and William Bodri, (Top Shape Publishing, Reno: Nevada, 2002), pp. 709-713. [5] The Story of Chinese Zen, Nan Huai-Chin, trans. by Thomas Cleary (Charles E. Tuttle, Boston, 1995), pp. 154. [6] Discriminations Between Buddhist and Hindu Tantras, C. M. Chen, (Mani Printing Works, Kalimpong, 1969), pp. 138-140. [7] The Story of Chinese Zen, Nan Huai-Chin, trans. by Thomas Cleary (Charles E. Tuttle, Boston, 1995), pp. 35-37. |
Meditation Techniques | Health and Relaxation | Advanced Yoga Kung-fu | Religions and Spiritual Practice | Self-Improvement | Zen and Tao | Wisdom Teachings Paranormal Explanations | Consciousness Studies | Ethical Business | Martial Arts © 2006-2017 Top Shape Publishing LLC 1135 Terminal Way #209 Reno, NV 89502 ![]() |