Yogācāra is a school of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, also known as Vijñānavāda. It also included non-Mahayana practitioners of the Dārṣṭāntika school. The earliest text of the tradition is the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in which the concept of the "Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma", first appears. The Saṃdhinirmocana and other Yogācāra texts are were considered by Yogacarins to be part of the 'third turning'. Yogācāra therefore places itself within a framework that makes it the ultimate, most fully realized manifestation of Buddhism.
Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, who were half-brothers, are traditionally held to be the founders, although Yogacarin texts are known to have existed centuries before they lived. Both figures have retroactively been accepted as 'Zen masters' by the Zen tradition, and their commentaries on The Diamond Sutra are included alongside the words of Lin-chi and Hui-neng. Vasubandhu is considered one of the Indian Patriarchs of Zen. They were also exponents of the Abhidhamma teachings; prior to his Yogacarin material, Vasubandhu authored a treatise on the subject of Abhidhamma.
Yogācāra's focus is on: cognition, consciousness, perception, epistemology, and meditation. Personal experience and realization is emphasized. Doctrinal innovations of the Yogācāra school include vijñapti-mātra (nothing other than mind, or, nothing but cognition), the three self-natures, and the theory of eight consciousnesses. Yogācāra had a strong influence on the formation of the Zen school, which was called the Laṅkāvatāra School in its earliest incarnations. Though the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra did not maintain a high degree of popularity, Yogacarin influence on the development of Zen persists in its current incarnations.
Prajnapti-matra is considered a hallmark of Yogācāra texts. It means 'designation-only', and refers to what exists only as a verbal convention, or as a provisional designation. Reality cannot be designation or indicated in any way beyond the provisional, since the designations made about it are affected by the consciousness of the one making them, and the boundaries between mind-objects are created by consciousness. Alongside the variation, vijñapti-mātra, this famous phrase came to distinguish Yogācāra as a school with eschewed linguistic certainty or finality and pointed to a noumenal reality that was beyond description. Because of claims such as these - "objects do not exist outside of the mind" - Yogacara has sometimes been mischaracterized as a form of metaphysical idealism.
Yogācāra's philosophy of the psyche identifies eight types of consciousness. The first six are sometimes called the sensory consciousnesses, corresponding to the fields of sense-consciousness that make up the ayatanas. Each perceives a different kind of sense-object that it perceives as the experience of a given sensory organ. The sixth consciousness - covering the 'sixth sense' of the mind - is particularly important, because it reifies the previous five into concepts. The seventh consciousness is the source of self-identity and reasoning. It is associated with the individual's subjective experience, and together with the sixth consciousness is the cause of objects. The eighth is the repository or storehouse consciousness, conceived of as the receptacle that contains what remains from our projections (thoughts, words, or deeds). As such, it is sometimes described as the metaphor of a seedbed, from which subsequent projections arise.
Yogacarins created several different models for various aspects of consciousness or the mind, and often drew correspondences between them. The eight consciousnesses are key to understanding the rest of the Yogacarin theories on the mind, and are repeated cross-referenced by Yogacarin texts. The way that several terms are used in Yogacara depends on the eight consciousness model.
These three terms can also be associated with a threefold division of consciousness that the Lankavatara Sutra puts forward as a 'simplified' version of the eight consciousness model:
The eighth or 'storehouse' consciousness regarded as the same as the tathagata-garbha (womb of the buddhas). It is also said to be equivalent to the dharma-kaya (the Dharma Body of the Buddha, which is coterminous with all of reality). To put it one way, the alaya-vijnana when hidden is the tathagata-garbha, the mere potential for awakening. When made visible, it is the dharma-kaya.
Perception ultimately originates with the eighth form of consciousness and subsequently gives rise to the other forms of consciousness. To put this into more straightforward terminology, one’s value judgments are what causes one to create categories, thus making it possible to conceive of individual objects. This, in turn, gives rise to the intellect and the sense perceptions. Then, the experience of the intellect and the sense perceptions gives rise to more karma, which formulates the arising of phenomena into a cycle. This is effectively a microcosm of the concept of samsara, reduced to the level of the individual human mind.
"Mahamati, our perceiving consciousness functions like a clear mirror in which shapes and images appear. Mahamati, although perceiving consciousness and object-producing consciousness are the cause of whether they are separate from each other or not, perceiving consciousness, Mahamati, is the result of imperceptible habit-energy and imperceptible transformations, while object-producing consciousness is the result of grasping different phenomena and the habit-energy of beginningless projections. Mahamati, when all false projections obscuring our true consciousness cease, all forms of sensory consciousness cease. This, Mahamati, is what is meant by the 'cessation of characteristics'. Mahamati, as for the 'cessation of continuity', when the cause of continuity ceases, continuity itself ceases. Mahamati, why is this so? Because it is dependent. What it depends on is the habit-energy of beginningless projections. And what supports it are the projections of the objects of consciousness perceived by one's own mind.
The alaya-vijnana is often described in terms of metaphor: the already-mentioned seedbed, where karmic seeds take root and bear fruit, or as a vast ocean that gives rise to karmic waves. The latter metaphor would be used heavily in Chan, since the essence of the Mind (alaya-vijnana) is originally a pure and undifferentiated essence (since it is the tathagata-garbha), but the water still forms into waves that are not separate from the water, merely a function of it. The origin of metaphors like, "The mind as a clear mirror", or "Raising waves where there is no wind" can be found in the Lankavatara Sutra:
"Mahamati, as with its visual form, consciousness arises together with the minutest sensory objects and sensory material of the various sense organs, and with it arise external realms as well like so many images in a clear mirror or like the ocean when a strong wind blows. And as the wind of externality stirs the sea of the mind, its waves of consciousness never cease. Whether there is any difference or not among the characteristics of causes and effects is due to a deep attachment to what arises from karma."
Red Pine's Comment: In the metaphor of the ocean and the waves, the water represents repository consciousness, the movement of the water represents the will (or self-consciousness), the waves represent conceptual consciousness, and the wind is that of externality.
To elucidate these claims outside of a mystical context, one interpretation is that the Lankavatara is assessing a view of perception as emergent only with the convergence of subject and object, then raising the problem that the boundaries of the object are defined by the subject. The ‘frame problem’ of modern times hearkens back to the assertions in the Lankavatara – itself not without precedent in Buddhism – that the objects of sense perception are merely aggregates (skandhas in Sanskrit) of sub-phenomena, and these sub-phenomena are themselves also aggregates.
According to Walpola Rahula, all the elements of the Yogācāra storehouse-consciousness are already found in the Pāli Canon:
Thus we can see that 'Vijñāna' represents the simple reaction or response of the sense organs when they come in contact with external objects. This is the uppermost or superficial aspect or layer of the 'Vijñāna-skandha'. 'Manas' represents the aspect of its mental functioning, thinking, reasoning, conceiving ideas, etc. 'Citta' which is here called 'Ālayavijñāna', represents the deepest, finest and subtlest aspect or layer of the Aggregate of consciousness. It contains all the traces or impressions of the past actions and all good and bad future possibilities.
Dan Lusthaus has chronicled how Yogacara emerged as a further development on Abbidharma, the system of Buddhist thought in which both Asanga and Vasubandhu operated:
Standard Buddhism described six consciousnesses, each produced by the contact between its specific sense organ and a corresponding sense object. When a functioning eye comes into contact with a color or shape, visual consciousness is produced. When a functioning ear comes into contact with a sound, auditory consciousness is produced. Consciousness does not create the sensory sphere, but on the contrary is an effect of the interaction of a sense organ and its proper object. If an eye does not function but an object is present, visual consciousness does not arise. The same is true if a functional eye fails to encounter a visual object. Consciousness arises dependent on sensation. There are altogether six sense organs (eye, ear, nose, mouth, body, and mind) which interact with their respective sensory object domains (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental spheres). Note that the mind is considered another sense since it functions like the other senses, involving the activity of a sense organ (manas), its domain (mano-dhātu), and the consciousness (mano-vijñāna) resulting from the contact of organ and object. Each domain is discrete, which means vision, audition, and each of the remaining spheres function apart from each other. Hence deaf can see, and blind can hear. Objects, too, are entirely specific to their domain, and the same is true of the consciousnesses. Visual consciousness is entirely distinct from auditory consciousness, and so on. Hence there are six distinct types of consciousness (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental consciousness). These eighteen components of experience - viz. six sense organs, six sense object domains, and six resulting consciousnesses - were called the eighteen dhātus. According to standard Buddhist doctrine these eighteen exhaust the full extent of everything in the universe, or more accurately, the sensorium.
Early Buddhist Abhidhamma, focusing on the mental and cognitive aspects of karma, expanded the three components of the mental level - mind (manas), mental-objects (mano-dhātu), and mental-consciousness (mano-vijñāna) - into a complex system of categories. The apperceptive vector in any cognitive moment was called citta. The objects, textures, emotional, moral, and psychological tones of citta's cognitions were called caittas. Caittas (lit.: "associated with citta") were subdivided into numerous categories that varied in different Buddhist schools. Some caittas are "universal," meaning they are components of every cognition (e.g., sensory contact, hedonic tone, attention, etc.); some are "specialized," meaning they only occur in some, not all, cognitions (e.g., resolve, mindfulness, meditative clarity, etc.). Some caittas are wholesome (e.g., faith; lack of greed, hatred, or misconception; tranquility; etc.), some unwholesome, some are mental disturbances (kleśa) (appropriational intent, aversion, arrogance, etc.) or secondary mental disturbances (anger, envy, guile, shamelessness, etc.), and some are karmically indeterminate (torpor, remorse, etc.).
As Abhidharma grew more complex, disputes intensified between different Buddhist schools along a range of issues. For Yogācāra the most important problems revolved around questions of causality and consciousness. In order to avoid the idea of a permanent self, Buddhists said citta is momentary. Since a new citta apperceives a new cognitive field each moment, the apparent continuity of mental states was explained causally by claiming each citta, in the moment it ceased, also acted as cause for the arising of its successor. This was fine for continuous perceptions and thought processes, but difficulties arose since Buddhists identified a number of situations in which no citta at all was present or operative, such as deep sleep, unconsciousness, and certain meditative conditions explicitly defined as devoid of citta (āsaṃjñī-samāpatti, nirodha-samāpatti). If a preceding citta had to be temporally contiguous with its successor, how could one explain the sudden restarting of citta after a period of time had lapsed since the prior citta ceased? Where had citta or its causes been residing in the interim? Analogous questions were: from where does consciousness reemerge after deep sleep? How does consciousness begin in a new life? The various Buddhist attempts to answer these questions led to more difficulties and disputes.
Yogācārins responded by rearranging the tripartite structure of the mental level of the eighteen dhātus into three novel types of consciousnesses. Mano-vijñāna (empirical consciousness) became the sixth consciousness (and operated as the sixth sense organ, which previously had been the role of manas), surveying the cognitive content of the five senses as well as mental objects (thoughts, ideas). Manas became the seventh consciousness, redefined as primarily obsessed with various aspects and notions of "self," and thus called "defiled manas" (kliṣṭa-manas). The eighth consciousness, ālaya-vijñāna, "warehouse consciousness," was totally novel.
The Warehouse Consciousness was defined in several ways. It is the receptacle of all seeds, storing experiences as they "enter" until they are sent back out as new experiences, like a warehouse handles goods. It was also called vipāka consciousness: vipāka means the "maturing" of karmic seeds. Seeds gradually matured in the repository consciousness until karmically ripe, at which point they reassert themselves as karmic consequences. Ālaya-vijñāna was also called the "basic consciousness" (mūla-vijñāna) since it retains and deploys the karmic seeds that both influence and are influenced by the other seven consciousnesses. When, for instance, the sixth consciousness is dormant (while one sleeps, or is unconscious, etc.), its seeds reside in the eighth consciousness, and they "restart" when the conditions for their arising are present. The eighth consciousness is largely a mechanism for storing and deploying seeds of which it remains largely unaware. Cittas occur as a stream in ālaya-vijñāna, but they mostly cognize the activities of the other consciousnesses, not their own seeds. For Yogācāra 'ignorance' (avidya) in part means remaining ignorant of what is transpiring within one's own ālaya-vijñāna. In states devoid of citta, the flow of cittas are repressed, held back, but their seeds continue to regenerate without being noticed, until they reassert a new stream of cittas. Warehouse Consciousness acts as the pivotal karmic mechanism, but is itself karmically neutral. Each individual has its own Warehouse Consciousness which perdures from moment to moment and life to life, though, being nothing more than a collection of ever-changing "seeds," it is continually changing and therefore not a permanent self. There is no Universal collective mind in Yogācāra. (Lusthaus)
Lusthaus:
Enlightenment consists in bringing the eight consciousnesses to an end, replacing them with enlightened cognitive abilities (jñāna). Overturning the Basis turns the five sense consciousnesses into immediate cognitions that accomplish what needs to be done (kṛtyānuṣṭhāna-jñāna). The sixth consciousness becomes immediate cognitive mastery (pratyavekṣaṇa-jñāna), in which the general and particular characteristics of things are discerned just as they are. This discernment is considered nonconceptual (nirvikalpa-jñāna). Manas becomes the immediate cognition of equality (samatā-jñāna), equalizing self and other. When the Warehouse Consciousness finally ceases it is replaced by the Great Mirror Cognition (Mahādarśa-jñāna) that sees and reflects things just as they are, impartially, without exclusion, prejudice, anticipation, attachment, or distortion. The grasper-grasped relation has ceased.
Kalupahana 1992, p. 139:
Instead of being a completely distinct category, alaya-vijnana merely represents the normal flow of the stream of consciousness uninterrupted by the appearance of reflective self-awareness. It is no more than the unbroken stream of consciousness called the life-process by the Buddha. It is the cognitive process, containing both emotive and co-native aspects of human experience, but without the enlarged egoistic emotions and dogmatic graspings characteristic of the next two transformations.
As the name of the school suggests, meditation practice is central to the Yogācāra tradition. Practice manuals prescribe the practice of mindfulness of body, feelings, thoughts and dharmas in oneself and others, out of which an understanding of the non-differentiation of self and other is said to arise. This process is referred to in the Yogācāra tradition as āśraya-parāvṛtti, "turning about in the basis", or "revolution of the basis", the basis being the store-house consciousness:
… a sudden revulsion, turning, or re-turning of the ālaya vijñaña back into its original state of purity [...] the Mind returns to its original condition of non-attachment, non-discrimination and non-duality".
In this awakening it is realized that observer and observed are not distinct entities, but mutually co-dependent. (1)
The Three Self-natures, also known as the "three modes of reality" are explained in the Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa-śāstra, a treatise on the subject by Vasubandhu.
This theory of cognition asserts three different "realms of cognition", "natures", or "modes of reality" (that one experiences):
1. The conceptually-constructed realm (parikalpita-svabhāva; also called "imagined reality"): in this realm, things experienced by the mind are interpolated into un-real conceptions. In particular, this involves the conception of "selves", or some kind of essence or inherent reality to things.
2. The realm of causal dependency (paratantra-svabhāva; also called "dependent reality"): building upon the delusions of the conceptually-constructed realm, impermanent phenomena that arise and cease are perceived as existing within a flux of causes and conditions; the structure of reality in which conceptions occur is imagined to consist of permanent attributes, or else the interdependence of things is seen as the evidence of their mutual reality. Associated with dependent origination.
3. The perfected realm (pariniṣpanna-svabhāva, also called "perfected reality"): the realm of emptiness; sometimes seen as 'an antidote' (pratipakṣa); cleanses the causal realm of all delusional conceptions. Neither perception nor non-perception, neither inherent existence nor dependence.
Red Pine:
The three modes do not refer to separate realities. They simply represent the three ways we perceive what is real. In imagined reality, we mistakenly perceive things as separate from other things. In dependent reality, we correctly perceive things as dependent on other things, but we still perceive the world in terms of things which are themselves fictions. In perfected reality, we neither perceive nor do not perceive things, for things neither exist nor do not exist. In perfected realty, we dwell in the realm of the tathagata-garbha.
Lusthaus:
The conceptually constructed realm is the erroneous narcissistic realm in which we primarily dwell, filled with projections we have acquired and habituated and embodied. Paratantra (lit. 'dependent on other') emphasizes that everything arises causally dependent on things other than itself (i.e., everything lacks self-existence). The perfectional realm signifies the absence of svabhāva (independent, self-existent, permanent nature) in everything.
When the causally dependent realm is cleansed of all defilements it becomes "enlightened." These self-natures are also called the Three Non-self-natures, since they lack fixed, independent, true, permanent identities and thus shouldn't be hypostatized. The first is unreal by definition; the third is intrinsically "empty" of self-nature, i.e., it is the very definition of non-self-nature; and the second (which finally is the only "real" one) is of unfixed nature since it can be "mixed" with either of the other two. Understanding the purified second nature is equivalent to understanding dependent origination (pratītya-samutpāda), which all schools of Buddhism accept as Buddhism's core doctrine and which tradition claims Buddha came to realize under the Bodhi Tree on the night of his enlightenment. (2)
"Mahamati, imagined reality arises from appearances. And how does imagined reality arise from appearances? Mahamati, as the objects and forms of dependent reality appear, attachment results in two kinds of imagined reality. These are what the tathagatas, the arhats, the fully enlightened ones describe as 'attachment to appearance' and 'attachment to name'. Attachment to appearance involves attachment to external and internal entities, while attachment to name involes attachment to the individual and shared characteristics of these external and internal entities… What serves as ground and objective spport from which they arise is dependent reality. And what is perfected reality? This is the mode that is free from name or appearance or from projection… This is perfected reality and the heart of the tathagata-garbha." ()
Red Pine's Comment: The "ground" of dependent reality is the eighth, or repository consciousness, which supplies the "names". The "objective support" includes the remaining seven forms of consciousness, including the five sensory-based forms of consciousness, which supply the "appearances".
See also: Asanga, Vasubandhu
Resources:
(Lanka, XXIII)
(1, 2) Dan Lusthaus, What is and isn't Yogācāra
() Randolph Whitfield, Record of the Transmission of the Lamp