So we're going to do a short meditation to get a feeling of the continuity of consciousness.
So be aware of being a conscious being today,
Having mind that is clear and cognizant,
That experiences.
And then ask yourself,
What's the cause of this mind today?
And what we can point to is the mind of yesterday.
That was also clear and cognizant,
That perceived objects,
Experienced feelings,
Had motivations and so on.
And what was the cause of the mind of yesterday?
The mind of the day before.
So we can remember Tuesday,
And there was the presence of the mind,
That which is clear and cognizant,
That perceives and experiences.
And then what was the cause of that mind?
The mind of the day before.
So maybe think the mind of last week,
So we don't have to go day by day.
You may not remember everything that happened last week,
But you know that there was consciousness and perception and feeling and thoughts and experience.
And if we go further back in the continuity of the mind of last week,
We have the mind of last month,
And then the mind of last year.
We may not remember exactly what we're doing.
You know there was consciousness then,
That all these moments of consciousness are connected in a causal way,
Each one arises due to the previous moment.
And the consciousness of last year came from the mind of the year before.
And that came from the mind of five years ago.
And that's from the mind of ten years ago.
And so take a minute or two and jump sometime and go back to when you were a young adult and there was consciousness there as a teenager,
As a child.
Get a sense of the continuity of clarity and cognizance with each moment arising from the preceding moment,
And yet different from the preceding moment.
And then link back to being maybe three years old.
There was clarity and cognizance then too.
Not a lot of intellectual ability,
Some verbal skill,
But not so much.
So the mind of the three year old is a continuity of the mind of today,
But it was also very different than the mind of today.
And that mind of the three year old is a continuity of when you were an infant,
With a very different body,
A very different kind of mind,
But also continuity.
And the consciousness of the infant goes back to the consciousness of the baby that just came out of our mother's womb.
Just consciousness there.
We may not remember what was going on.
We certainly didn't have the cognitive abilities then,
And the ability to name and understand our experience.
There were certainly experiences,
Feelings,
Perceptions.
Then think of what it was like to be in the womb.
There was consciousness there too.
Consciousness that was sensitive to the vibration,
To movement.
Consciousness that felt hunger,
Felt tactile sensations,
Touch,
Softness and hardness.
Mental consciousness that didn't know how to verbalize.
But there were definitely thoughts and perceptions all that time in the womb.
Consciousness of the embryo goes back to the consciousness of the zygote.
It goes back to the consciousness that first joined with the sperm and egg,
That very first moment of joining with the seeds from our parents.
Where did that first moment of consciousness come from?
That first moment in this life?
What was its cause?
Where did it come from in the previous moment before it joined with the sperm and egg?
It came from the mind of the bardo being.
That mind came,
Its cause was the last moment of the previous life,
The consciousness in that last moment of the previous life.
Now where did this sense of I come from?
Was the being that was just fertilized,
The being in the bardo,
The being in the previous life,
Was there a sense of I?
Where did that sense of I come from?
And what was that I?
