Guided Meditation
Unifying Our Consciousness

Some people have problems focusing or controlling their thinking. Daesonsa-nim used to say that these kind of people had broken consciousness. He meant that the person’s eight levels of consciousnesses all had separate actions. He was especially referring to the person’s sixth, seventh, and eighth consciousness were not unified, which caused the person to become somewhat schizophrenic. His theory was that each person’s mind is only one mind. He realized that some people could not control their minds, and could not control their bodies. Having one mind means that our sixth, seventh, and eighth consciousnesses all become unified. The Heart Sutra states, “Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita perceives that all five skandhas are empty.”

Shakyamuni Buddha taught that each person has eight classes of human consciousness. The first six of these are the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. This sixth class is usually defined as the intellect. Through our intellect we create an illusory self that is separate from the universe, and this separate self we call ‘I.’ The separate self is usually held apart from the objective world, and our sixth consciousness (thinking or intellect,) is not aware of the persistent habit of constantly creating this separate self. Buddha said that it is only in the seventh class of consciousness, (Skt., manas) that this awareness of a discreet construct of a separate ‘I” becomes constant. The seventh consciousness also acts as the communication of our essential nature and this universe’s essential nature to the eighth consciousness (ālaya-vijñana,) from which, in response to causes and conditions, specific insights are communicated back to the six senses. New perceptions are in turn conveyed up to the sixth and seventh consciousness’ and the cycle continues endlessly.