Laura Iverson
Suppose you were to awaken one day and discover that what you once conceived to be “you” unraveled and revealed itself to be a combination of five different parts all vying for attention: a concretized formal entity that is comprised of sensate impressions; these sensate impressions suddenly branch out and perceive its apparent environment through the medium of conflicting pleasurable or disagreeable feelings; suddenly the scene shifts again as everything undergoes a morphosis into pure cognitive mentation as it first begins to conceptualize just what it construes to be perceived phenomena; now firmly attached to all that is moving within this great phenomenal craze, bundled and conditioned patterns of habitual karmic associations emerge and predetermines all future perceptions through the constricted lens of preconceived discriminations; thus consciousness is born and is heavily dependent upon all the aforementioned aggregates as it crawls through samsara in sentient fashion—seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting and touching and evaluating and feebly trying to focus and make some sense of it all whilst at the same time, being hindered and inextricably linked and allied with a vast storehouse consciousness (Alaya-vijnana) of self-same interdependent origination since time immemorial.
Thus, what you once perceived to be self, is not really self at all, but rather this collection of aggregates, or skandhas. This is what Gautama Buddha meant in reference to no-self (anatman); he was referring to these skandhas, and certainly not somehow equating them with the Actual Self (Atman) of THAT which animates all perceived phenomena.
When self-entrapped in what we Lankavatarians refer to as “pluralized obstruction mode”, Mind becomes enraptured with these skandhic outflows and so, what is needed, is a radical “turn-about” within the deepest recesses of this defiled collective consciousness (Alaya vijnana) thereby initiating proper Recollection and Release from all suffering (dukkha) by awakening (bodhipower) the Immaculate twin of this defilement—the Tathagatagarbha (the very womb of Buddhaic light—suchness). The supramundane vehicle through which this transcendent process is initiated is referred to as the bodhi, or garbha child—a developing Bodhisattvic mystical fetus (within the heightened dharma-womb of suchness) through which the Recollective Resolve to thoroughly precede these created, skandhic obstructions, becomes activated. In this fashion, the adept of Unborn Mind Zen is reassured of one day transcending this skandhic prison through the welcoming and hidden Unborn Light of infinite Bodhisattvas and Buddhas whose boundless bodhipower breaks the spell of all defiled aggregated existence. One could also say that this Spiritual Impregnation is a process wherein the former skandhic-child needs to be aborted in order to make room for the developing mystical fetus housed within this womb of suchness.
*Todays accompanying image by artist Laura Iverson was purchased by me back in 2018 and now prominently hangs in my hermitage.