The One Thing

According to Buddhist writer Thich Nhat Hanh, "our mind has eight aspects or, we can say, eight 'consciousnesses.'  The first five are based in the physical senses,  They are the consciousnesses that arise when our eyes see form, our ears hear sounds, our nose smells an odor, our tongue tastes something, or our skin touches an object.  The sixth, mind consciousness, . . . arises when our mind contacts an object of perception.  The seventh . . . is the part of consciousness that gives rise to and is the support of mind consciousness.  The eighth . . . is the ground, or base, of the other seven consciousnesses."  

That is why I call the eighth consciousness "substrate consciousness."  Various teachers over the centuries have used different names.  Thich Nhat Hanh called it by the Sanskrit alaya vijnana, or store consciousness (that term is what is left out by the ellipses in the last sentence).  Translator Red Pine called it "repository consciousness," the receptacle that contains whatever remains from our thoughts, words, or deeds,and is therefore the seedbed from which our subsequent thoughts, words, and deeds arise.  

Substrate consciousness has been compared to the ocean.  Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, feel, or think flows into the ocean of substrate consciousness like thousands of rivers. Individual thoughts, words, and deeds, are like "waves" in the "ocean" of substrate consciousness.

All material things are known to us only by our perception of them; therefore, all things and our experience of all things are one and the same and are just more waves in the ocean of substrate consciousness.  Therefore, the entire material universe - you, me, the sun, the stars, and the sky - are waves of substrate consciousness. arise from substrate consciousness, and eventually resolve back to substrate consciousness.  Everything is nothing other than substrate consciousness.  

Although we can differentiate one wave from another in the ocean, each wave is itself nothing but ocean and is never separate from ocean.  Similarly, we can differentiate between things in the universe - self, other, mountains, rivers, plants, and animals - it's all still substrate consciousness and is never anything other than substrate consciousness.  

Everything is the one thing.