In this session we unpack the seven natures of self-nature and the seven aspects of ultimate principle. This session emphasizes fusing classical Yogācāra insight into meditative training—having a direct experience that reveals how selfing arises, how realization descends, and how non-duality is lived, not conceptualized.
In this session, we continue exploring the structure of cessation—tracking how perfuming, projections, and perception dissolve together. The focus turns to what the Lankāvatāra calls the “false thesis” shared with the heterodox: mistaking imagined realms for reality. We clarify the distinction between dharmas and conditions, not as philosophy, but as living anatomy of perception.
In this opening session of a rigorous, practice-rooted translation series on the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, we explore the structure of arising, abiding, and cessation in Yogācāra terms. Key teachings include the the distinction between discriminating and conceptualizing mind, the nature of ālaya-vijñāna, and the two kinds of cessation: characteristic and continuity.
*transcript generated by AI Well, hi everybody. Glad to have you all here. Thanks for making it. After our last discussion, which was super fun, by the way, thank you for those of you who participated in the On Zen conversation. Robyn dropped into the Discord chat the idea of working with the Lankavatara Sutra….