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the Shurangama Sutra asked seven times where the mind is

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and nobody has answered it right yet

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so you might as well ask yourself

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your mind

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where exactly is it

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not that beating organ of flesh inside your chest

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but the one listening to these words right now

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the awareness taking in what they mean

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where does it reside

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you might instinctively point to your head

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or touch your chest

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twenty five hundred years ago

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Ananda was asked the very same question

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he was no ordinary disciple

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he attended the Buddha for over twenty years

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he heard more of the teachings than anyone

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and his memory was extraordinary

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he was known as the foremost in learning

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but the Buddha did not test how many sutras he had memorized

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he asked only one thing

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back then you saw the dignity of my form

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your mind filled with joy and you left home to practice

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that mind which gave rise to joy

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where exactly is it

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Ananda thought this would be easy

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he named a location

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the Buddha shook his head

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try another

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that one was rejected too

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a third a fourth all the way to a seventh

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seven answers

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seven times overturned

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this is the most famous opening in the Shurangama Sutra

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the seven searches for the mind

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hey there

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hello everyone

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I am Leo Wang

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what we are reading today

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is a scripture of enormous weight in Chinese Buddhism

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the ancients said the Shurangama for awakening

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the Lotus for becoming a buddha

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one side note

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the origin of this sutra is itself disputed

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some hold it is an original Indian text

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others hold it was composed in China

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the argument runs to this day with no verdict

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I am not going to settle that in this episode

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I will just tell you what it says

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among all the Buddhist sutras

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the Shurangama may read most like a detective novel

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it is in no hurry to hand you an answer

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instead it takes the views you assume are correct

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and peels them off layer by layer

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last episode covered the one mind and two gates of the Awakening of Faith

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this episode the Shurangama

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is the upgraded version of that scalpel

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first look at the seven attempts Ananda made

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the first

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he said the mind is inside the body

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the most intuitive answer an ordinary person gives

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the Buddha asked back

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if the mind is inside

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it should see your organs first

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and only then the outside world

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can you see your own heart liver and lungs

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Ananda said no

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if it cannot see within

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then it is not within

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the second

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Ananda changed course and said the mind is outside the body

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the Buddha said

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if the mind is outside

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then body and mind have nothing to do with each other

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but when a needle pricks your hand

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the mind knows the pain at once

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if the mind is outside

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how does it feel what the body feels

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that does not hold

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the third

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Ananda thought it over and said

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the mind hides inside the sense organs

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like someone watching the world from behind a crystal bowl

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it can see outside things

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while staying hidden inside

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the Buddha asked

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if the mind hides behind the eyes and looks out

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it should also be able to see those eyes

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can you

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the fourth

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Ananda tried a new angle

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closing your eyes you see darkness

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that is the mind looking inside the body

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opening your eyes you see light

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that is the mind looking outside

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the Buddha cut it down

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the darkness you see with eyes closed

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is an image presented in front of you

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it belongs to the seen

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the seer and the seen are not one thing

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and besides

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if that darkness were the inside of your body

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then when you open your eyes to the light

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why do you not also see your own organs

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the fifth

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Ananda said the mind has no fixed place

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it arises with conditions

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wherever conditions come together

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there the mind is

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the Buddha pressed him

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if the mind arises with conditions

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then it has no substance of its own

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something with no nature of its own

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what makes it a mind at all

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you say it exists where conditions gather

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when they scatter it vanishes

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so in deep sleep when no mind is at work

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where has it gone

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the sixth

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Ananda said the mind is in the middle

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between the senses and the outer world

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the Buddha asked

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where is the middle

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if you can point to an exact spot

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you fall back into the traps we already covered

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if you cannot point to it

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then the middle is only an empty word

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with no real place to it

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the seventh

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Ananda was cornered

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so he simply said

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I cling to nothing

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not inside not outside not in between

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dwelling nowhere is the mind

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the Buddha broke that too

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this dwelling nowhere

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does it exist or not

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if it exists

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then it has a form of existence

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and where is that form

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if it does not exist

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then it is as unreal as fur on a turtle or horns on a rabbit

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seven rounds

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and Ananda had nothing left to say

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reading this for the first time

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many people feel the Buddha is just being difficult

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every answer gets picked apart

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so what is the right one

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I remember the first time I read this passage

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I sat in my study staring at nothing for a long while

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then I closed the book

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and tried to answer the question myself

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and I found that no matter how I thought about it

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I could never get out of the circle Ananda was stuck in

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name a place

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and there is a hole in it

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say it is nowhere

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and there is a hole in that too

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then it suddenly hit me

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maybe the problem is not the answer

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it is the question

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the Buddha was not being difficult on purpose

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he was forcing Ananda to see the one error behind every answer

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what error

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Ananda kept assuming the mind is an object

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something that can be placed somewhere

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inside outside or in between

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every answer was hunting for coordinates for the mind

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what the Buddha wanted to demolish

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was not any particular coordinate

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but the assumption that the mind needs coordinates at all

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this problem

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still troubles modern science

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neuroscience has spent over a century looking for where consciousness sits in the brain

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some say the prefrontal cortex

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some say the thalamus

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some propose the claustrum

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others say it is a global workspace spread across the whole brain

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the debate goes on

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with no verdict yet

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how much this resembles the seven rounds with Ananda

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every time a location is found

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new evidence overturns it

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the locations are not the problem

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the premise that consciousness is a thing with a location

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was probably wrong from the start

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the Shurangama took that premise apart with seven questions

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science today

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is still on the road

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this is the first blade of the Shurangama

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the mind

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is not an object that can be placed anywhere

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but the sutra does not stop there

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there is a second sharper blade

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having demolished where the mind is

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the Buddha immediately puts forward another claim

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everything you see

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is not delivered from the outside world

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it is generated by your own mind system

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the sutra calls this manifesting according to karma

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according to karma

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means following the karmic habits you have accumulated

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manifesting

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does not mean discovering something new

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it means perception right now shows up this way

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let me tell you something that happened to me

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one winter night

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I got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water

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passing through the living room

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I caught a dark shape on the floor beside the sofa

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my whole body jolted

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I froze

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in that instant

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my brain told me it was a big rat

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heart racing

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cold down my back

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hands shaking a little

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then I turned on the light

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it was just a black fuzzy slipper my daughter had left there

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the rat never existed

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but the fear was real

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the racing heart was real

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so who put that rat there

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not the slipper

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it was my own mind system in the dim light

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pulling from its database of past experience and rendering it

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think about it

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you have been through this too

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a coat rack at night becomes a figure standing there

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a pipe knocking in the corner becomes footsteps

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every time

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your mind hands in the answer first

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and your senses check it afterwards

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this is exactly what predictive coding in modern cognitive science describes

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the brain is not a camera passively taking in signals

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it is a prediction engine

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it first generates an expected image from past experience

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then checks it against sensory data

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a match feels normal

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a mismatch produces error

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and the model gets adjusted

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the order is what matters

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the world you see

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comes first from the prediction of your brain

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not from outside signals

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prediction first

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verification second

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this is exactly what the Shurangama is saying

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only in different words

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what you see is not the outer world

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it is an image your mind projects right now from karmic seeds

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your karma

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is the prior model

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the six senses

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are the channels that carry the error signal

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the entire world you perceive right now

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is the version of reality this model renders

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I covered this structure back in the episode on consciousness only

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the seeds in the alaya consciousness are the model parameters

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the sixth consciousness is the inference running right now

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and the manas is the reviewer stamping every result with this is me

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the Shurangama goes one step further

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it does not just explain how the mind works

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it says outright that the whole world you see is the output of this system

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not the input

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what does that mean

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it means you and everyone you know

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may live in the same physical world

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and perceive something completely different

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someone afraid of dogs since childhood walks into a park

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and the first thing they see is the leashed dog far off

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a gardener walks into the same park

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and sees the roses that just opened in the flower bed

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same world

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but their minds work from different libraries of seeds

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and render completely different pictures

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that is the everyday version of manifesting according to karma

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you think you are looking at the world

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you are looking at yourself

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still

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the Shurangama goes one crucial step beyond predictive coding

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predictive coding stops at the brain being a prediction engine

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and works on making predictions sharper and errors smaller

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to push cognition forward

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the Shurangama says

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that is not enough

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the problem is not whether the prediction is accurate

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it is that you take the predicted image for the real world

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you take your own projection for objective reality

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that is the root of ignorance

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the Buddha gave an analogy

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a man has a film over his eyes

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he looks at a lamp at night

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and sees a ring of five colored light around the flame

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he believes the lamp really has that halo

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others tell him it is not there

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he does not believe them

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the Buddha said

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the whole world you see every day

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is seen through exactly that film

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and the film is not in the eye

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it is in cognition

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your mind renders everything carrying priors from beginningless time

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when do you finally see the lamp as it is

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not by getting better glasses

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but when the film itself heals

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when you stop taking your projection for the world

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this connects straight back to the Awakening of Faith from last episode

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it said the gate of suchness is awareness that neither arises nor ceases

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and the gate of arising and ceasing is the alaya consciousness weaving pure and impure together

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the Shurangama adds a sharper cut here

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the reason you keep circling in the gate of arising and ceasing

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is not that the world is too complicated

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it is that you never questioned where the world in your eyes comes from

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you keep looking for where the mind is

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the Buddha says

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the problem is not where the mind is

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it is that you assumed there is a where to put it in

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you keep looking for the real world

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the Buddha says

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the problem is not whether the world is real

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it is that you think what you see is the world

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the two blades together

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complete the core mission of the first half of the Shurangama

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every assumption about inside and outside is taken apart

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the mind is not inside not outside not in between

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the world does not come in from outside

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it is generated right now from accumulated seeds

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which brings me to something

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people in the comments often ask

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I understand the principle

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but the thoughts just will not stop

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you close your eyes

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and anxiety trauma and regret play on repeat

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you know they are not real

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and still they will not go away

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the seven searches already gave us the clue

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thoughts do not stop

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not because the images come from outside

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but because your mind keeps manifesting according to karma

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rendering automatically from old seeds

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you think you are remembering the past

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you are creating that image again right now

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thoughts are not invaders from outside

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they are your own system running

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seeing this clearly

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is not about forcing the thoughts to stop

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it is that the moment you watch the machine run

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a gap opens between you and it

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and that gap

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is where practice begins

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so here is the question

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if the mind cannot be found anywhere

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if everything seen is projection

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then what is real

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is there anything

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that cannot be taken apart

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have you ever noticed

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when you actually go quiet

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and stop hunting for a place to put the mind

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there is something that has been there the whole time

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it needs no location

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yet every perception you have right now depends on it

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it needs no definition

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yet every definition starts from it

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what is it

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the second half of the Shurangama unfolds around exactly this question

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and that is the next episode

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where do you think your mind is

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you just heard seven answers

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and every one of them fell

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so what is yours

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I am curious

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leave your thoughts in the comments

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I am Leo Wang

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see you next episode