Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

consciousness ego, how can we ever understand it, let
alone reject it? In deep meditation we may meet this ego,
which we must then uproot through the doctrine of
sunyata (realization of its voidness); it would be
difficult either to meet or destroy something which one
believes does not exist at least in a conditioned way.
Ordinary persons cannot go deeply into meditation
because their minds become disturbed by impressions
arising through the six types of sense consciousness.
Only by going deeper into meditation is one able to
experience the eighth consciousness (Alayavijnana), the
impure store-consciousness taken by most people to be
their self or soul. Before we can transmute it by the
sunyata teaching into the wisdom of Buddhahood, it has
to be seen and recognized. (Note: according to the
Idealist School (Vijnanavada) there is a pure alaya, but
this is not the doctrine of the highest school, the
Madhyamika.)
It is necessary at least to have the idea of a conditioned
"soul" before we can practice and so destroy it.
Common people with unconcentrated minds cannot
even find this self, so they should not make the mistake
of denying its existence.
9. This is a mistake in the understanding of Chan
doctrine. Some Westerners have denied that the law of
cause and effect (in Sanskrit, hetu-phala) has any place
in Chan teachings, and, if they follow that doctrine, may
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