Part 16 · Chapter 187

The Ari's Text

But the Essence is clothed both in the ten Sefirot called 'world' and in the ten Sefirot called 'Nefashot and Ruchin', etc. Only that the Essence of the Nefashot and Ruchin will be greater than the Essence clothed in the world itself. (Or it is possible that the aspect of the Essence is only what is within the Nefashot and Ruchin, etc., which are the aspects of the parts of the vessels of Atzilut that are clothed there, as stated above. But that which is in the ten Sefirot of the externality called 'world' — even the Essence within them is not in the aspect of the Essence of the vessels of Atzilut, but is a spirituality of one of the aspects of that world, and it requires further thought.) And it is found that there is Ibur, Yenika, and Mochin for the externality, which is the ten Sefirot called 'world', and Ibur, Yenika, and Mochin for the ten Sefirot called 'man'.

Inner Light

This commentary hasn't been matched to individual seifim yet — items are shown in reading order, and the number beside each one counts the notes themselves, not the seifim of the Ari's text.

Not matched to a seif

1The self is clothed both in the ten Sefirot called “world” and in the ten Sefirot called “Nefashot and Ruchin.” That is, the matter of externality and internality is discerned only in the vessels alone, in that the ten Sefirot in each world, their vessels are called internality, and the firmaments and the angels in each world, their vessels are called externality. But the self in them, both the self in the ten Sefirot and the self in the worlds, both of them are the discernment of internality. And further on Rav Chaim Vital is in doubt about the self in the discernment of the worlds, whether perhaps it too is reckoned as the discernment of externality.
And one must remember here what the ARI wrote above, page 1988, item 177, that the principal part of internality and externality is discerned only in the ten Sefirot in each world, for the three vessels KHB, called brain, bones, sinews, are called by the name internality, and the two vessels ZON, called flesh and skin, are called by the name externality. But also the souls of human beings are called by the name internality, since they come from couplings of the inner vessels of the ten Sefirot, and likewise the angels and the firmaments are called by the name externality, since they come from the couplings of the external vessels of the ten Sefirot. See there well, and in the Inner Light.