These represent the levels of consciousness in humans. The first 5 minds are our senses. The first 7 minds are all temporary, when we die these die too. The 8th mind,our Alaya mind, remains even after we die. We are not a physical body alone. Our true mind, the Alaya mind, is our true self . Below is a description of each mind or consciousness.
- Visual Mind (Gen-Shiki)
Our ability to see
- Auditory Mind (Ni-Shiki)
Our ability to hear
- Olfactory Mind (Bi-shiki)
Our ability to smell
- Gustatory Mind (Zes-shiki)
Our ability to taste
- Tactile Mind (Shin-Shiki)
Our ability to feel
- Mental Mind (I-shiki)
Our ability to think or receive information from the other senses
- Attachment (Mana-Shiki)
This is our attachment to things, people, idea and so on. This is mine, I own this, I own that. This is the root of all evil
- Alaya Mind (Araya-Shiki)
The store house of our karmic energy or karmic seeds (these are colorless and formless), This is our true self, it is deep within. It is constantly changing because we are doing different interactions every day. This is a mind that does not die, it is eternal, transmigrating from past to present then continues to the future. It is the source of our lives, likened to a river that continuously flows and from time to time a bubble appears in the river – this bubble is our physical body. This bubble eventually disappears as the river flows just like how our physical body dies. The physical body is just an appearance for the Alaya mind. Alaya in Sanskrit means “storage” just like in ”HimALAYA” which means storehouse of snow
Is like a corpse, it doesn’t listen to the teachings of Buddhism. It is shrouded in darkness and loneliness with no one for company. This is the reason we feel lonely even if we are with a lot of people because the Alaya mind is always suffering alone. We have to make our Alaya mind listen and we do this by listening to Buddhism.
Making Effort 