How can a same thing (Alayavijnana) responsible for samsara grant nirvana?

© TK’s comment on “The work of education in hope – my wishes to Chinese New Year”, Feb 16, 2012 06:23 AM

"how can something permanenet and non-dualistic produce things which are impermanent and dualistic?"
"how can a same thing responsible for samsara grant nirvana?"

Your questions are excellent. I try my best to answer you in English:

Your first question refers to the awareness of vijnanas（識）. The Buddha Shakyamuni teaches us that our human beings have 8 vijnanas. If your Lama Rinpoche has taught it to you, you should realize what it means. It means the first 5 vijnanas are able to know - to see見, to hear聞, to smell嗅, to taste嚐, to feel觸. The 6th vijnana (consciousness意識) is able to know, to think and to analyze. These 6 vijnanas work together and make you to see the world, to think a lot of things and to feel sad, happy, good, bad, etc. The 7th vijnana is the one who makes you born and die, born and die, born and die… These 7 vijnanas exist because of the 8th vijnana - the Alayavijnana. The Alayavijnana has no self-awareness（不自覺我）, and exists by itself. The first 7 vijnanas could not exist without Alayavijnana（阿賴耶識）, and they are dualistic. In other words, the Alayavijnana itself is permanent and non-dualistic, but your conscious self not. That’s why Alayavijnana is permanent and non-dualistic, but produces things which are impermanent and dualistic.

Your second question refers to the entity of Alayavijnana. The Alayavijnana itself is non-dualistic and permanent. What the nirvana（涅槃） describes, is the Alayavijnana when it exists by himself. That’s why Alayavijnana is the target of enlightenment. When your conscious self realizes the Alayavijnana (get enlightened), when he observes the Alayavijnana, he finds out how pure and neutral the Alayavijnana is, and how evil and dualistic he himself is. So that your conscious self practices hardly to clean himelf with the Buddha teachings, so that your seeds of three poisons（三毒）vanish which are stored in your Alayavijnana, so that you breaks the samsara（輪迴）and could not be born in three Realms（三界）if you want to be a Arhat（阿羅漢）. If not, you are bodhisattva who will be Buddha in the future and teach the sentient beings the Buddhist Darma – the Darma based on the Alayavijnana.

Alayavijnana is the root of Buddhist Darma. Without Alayavijnana, no one could get enlighted and become Buddha in the future. Alayavijnana is the real vajrayana; all Buddhas teach this just to bodhisattvas who have the greatest kindness and compassion to help sentient beings break the cycle of rebirth.

As to the “vajrayana” of Tibetan Buddhism, it means the secrets of tantric sex between male Lama and female followers. Buddha Shakyamuni never teaches his followers to practice tantric sex. The tantric sex of Tibetan Buddhism is the real thirthikas because it derives from Hinduism and Bön. It is never Buddhism. If you still stay with your Lama Rinpoche, you are thirthikas, not Buddhist.