There is no beginning and no end.
There is no coming and no going.
There is no being (from non-being) and no non-being (from being)
Above means we are space-time continuum.
There are 4 patterns as space-time continuum.
(Please refer to the following SlideShare)
http://www.slideshare.net/compassion5151/spacetime-continuum-in-4-ways
(into Chapter 33)
1. Birth and death depend on conditions.
- Birth and death are only notions.
- "Birth" means manifestation (appearance).
- “Death” means the absence of manifestation.
- Manifestation and existence are different.
("Before you were born, you were already there."
⇒ You existed before your manifestation.)
- "Conditions" means "the causes and conditions that
allow birth and death to be" (Dalai Lama said, "If the
causes and conditions are fully ripe, nobody can't stop
it) but it is not clealy mentioned in the last paragraph
of Chapter 33 as follows.
(1) Birth (production) and death (disintegration) depend
on conditions.
(2) Consciousness does not manifest only as the
subject of perception, the perceiver.
(3) When there is manifestation of consciousness, it is,
at the same time, both aspects of perception—
perceiver and perceived.
- My guess based on above (3) is that consciousness
manifests only if the consciousness of the perceiver
and the consciousness of the perceived meet together. (The consciousness of the perceiver means myself, and
the consciousness of the perceived means the
potential people around myself such as parents, family,
friends, neighbors...etc.)
- My further guess is that the condition enables the
consciousness of the perceiver to be able to revive the
past life's ego (mental disposition) and to pay for the
past karma (actions) till the past life for the potential
people (the perceived) around the perceiver.
2. Consciousness is by nature a discriminatory manifestation.
- When consciousness manifests,there is differentiation
and discrimination between self and other than self
(self and others).
- Discrimination is not the truth and is an imaginary
construction, a fabrication of the mind.
- This is inside, but that is outside. This continues to
exist, but that ceases to exist. (This = self, That =
others) (For "This is, because that is", please refer to
http://compassion5151.blogspot.jp/2014/08/this-is-because-that-is.html)
- The mind differentiates and compares in order to
develop the image. That is why consciousness is by
nature a discriminatory manifestation.
- Therefore, manifestation of consciousness is the root
cause of discrimination (separation) between oneself
and others.
- I guess manifestation of consciousness means separate
self (ego) in mind consciousness who has the wrong
view (Manas) which separates oneself from others.
3. Perceiver and perceived depend on each other
as subject and object of perception.
- The perceiver and the perceived depend on each other
in order to manifest.
- The nature of consciousness is to manifest perception
in which subject and object support each other to make
the perceiver and the perceived possible.
- What we believe to be an objective reality is first of all
the object of our perception. (So, an objective reality is
really our subjective perception.)
- We have to distinguish between the words
“consciousness” and “manifestation.”
(“consciousness”: unmanifested,
“manifestation”: manifested）
- A manifestation means that both a subject of perception
and, at the same time, an object of perception have
manifested.
- Therefore, both subject and object of perception
(consciousness) are necessary for manifestation and I
guess the subject means ourselves and the object
means parents and others around us.
(From Chapter 33 of "Understanding Our Mind" by Thích Nhất Hạnh)
