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The Ālayavijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought: The Yogācāra Conception of an Unconscious

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Abstract

The thesis focuses on the relations between mind and karma and the continuity of life in saṃsāra based upon a concept of mind, the ālayavijñāna, as presented in the texts of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu of the Yogācāra school of Indian Buddhism, A.D. 4-5th centuries. It has been the topic of many sectarian disputes as well as the springboard for several far-reaching doctrinal developments, so it is desirable to examine it within its early Indian Buddhist context.
      The first section presents the multivalent viññāṇa of the Pali Canon and related concepts. It demonstrates that the major characteristics later predicated of the ālayavijñāna were present in an unsystematized but implicit form in the viññāṇa of the early discourses.
      The next section describes the systematic psychological analysis developed by the Abhidharma and its consequent problematics. It argues that the incongruity of Abhidharmic analysis with the older unsystematized doctrines led to major theoretical problems concerning the key concepts of kleśa and karma, to which the Sautrāntika school offered the concept of seeds (bija).
      The third section, based primarily upon the texts translated herein, depicts the origination and gradual development of the ālayavijñāna within the Yogācāra school from a somatic "life principle", to an explicitly unconscious mind, to its final bifurcation into an unconscious afflicted mind (kliṣṭa-manas) and a passive respository of karmic seeds, the latent loci of kleśa and karma, respectively.
      The last section compares the ālayavijñāna systematically with Freud's and Jung's concepts of the unconscious, concluding that their respective philosophical milieus led both traditions to conceptions of unconscious mental processes as necessary compensations for strictly intentional epistemological models.
      In the appendix the major texts presenting the ālayavijñāna, Chaps. V and VIII.37 of the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, part of the Viniścaya-saṃgrahaṇī of the Yogācārabhūmi, and Ch. 1 of the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, are translated and extensively annotated in order to contextualize the minutiae of this concept of mind with its canonical precursors and its Abhidharmic contemporaries. (Source: ProQuest)

Citation	Waldron, William S. "The Ālayavijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought: The Yogācāra Conception of an Unconscious." PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1990.

Contents

• Acknowledgementsii
• Prefaceiii
• Introduction1
  
  

• CHAPTER ONE: CANONICAL BUDDHIST THOUGHT26
  • The Three Marks of Existence28
  • The Formula of Dependent Co-origination32
  • A Short Commentary on paṭicca-samuppāda35
  • Karma44
  • Reciprocity of Name-and-Form and Consciousness47
  • Consciousness Conditions Name-and-Form49
  • Craving and the Support of Consciousness50
  • Name-and-form Conditions Consciousness52
  • Sankhārā59
  • Viññāṇa65
  • Viññāṇa and Perception66
  • Viññāṇa and Rebirth68
  • Citta and Mano75
  • A Note on Saññā80
  • Saññā and Papañca83
  • Anusaya86
  • The Unconscious in Early Buddhism99
  • āsava103
  • Asampajāno mano-sankhārā105
  • Mind-reading107
  • Remarks on the "Concept of the Unconscious"113
  • Notes to Chapter One120
    
    

• CHAPTER TWO: THE ABHIDHARMA CONTEXT133
  • Background of the Abhidharma135
  • The Abhidharma System of Mind142
  • Citta-caitta152
  • The caittas154
  • Citta-viprayuktā-saṃskārā157
  • The Six hetus, Five phalas, and Four pratyayas161
  • Karma and Kleśa in the Kośa172
  • The Problematics of Abhidharma Analysis183
  • The Sarvāstivādin Concepts189
  • The kleśa/anuśaya Controversy196
  • The Sautrāntika Concept of Seeds (bīja )204
  • The Problematics Generated by the Concept of Seeds210
  • Notes to Chapter Two229
    
    

• CHAPTER THREE: THE ĀLAYAVIJÑĀNA IN THE YOGĀCĀRA248
  • Introduction to the Yogācāra Chapter249
  • The Yogācāra conception of the ālayavijñāna
       - Review of Chapters 1 and 2253
  • The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, the Yogācārabhūmi and the Origins of the
       ālayavijñāna268
  • The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra's New Model of the Mind273
  • The ālaya Treatise of the Yogācārabhūmi281
  • The Proof Portion of the ālaya Treatise281
  • The Introduction of the Afflicted Mind (kliṣṭa-manas)291
  • The ālayavijñāna in the Pravṛtti/Nivṛtti Portions297
  • The Pravṛtti Portion300
  • The Nivṛtti Portion307
  • The ālayavijñāna in the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha312
  • Idealism and Yogācāra312
  • The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha319
  • The Synonyms of the ālayavijñāna in the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha319
  • The Afflicted Mind in the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha324
  • The Characteristics of the ālayavijñāna in the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha332
  • Infusing and Seeding the ālayavijñāna335
  • The Demonstration of the ālayavijñāna in the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha342
  • Logical Arguments for the ālayavijñāna343
  • Canonical Interludes348
  • Rebirth and the ālayavijñāna in Yogācāra354
  • Supramundane Purification358
  • The ālayavijñāna, Language and Society368
  • Notes to Chapter Three377
    
    

• CHAPTER FOUR: A COMPARISON OF THE ĀLAYAVIJÑĀNA WITH
  FREUD'S AND JUNG'S THEORIES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS400
  • Common Problematics Between the ālayavijñāna and the Unconscious404
  • Common Characteristics408
  • Latency408
  • Latent Causal Efficacy415
  • Simultaneity and Reciprocal Conditionality420
  • Cognitive Processes427
  • Matrix of All Conscious Acts430
  • Conclusion to Common Characteristics433
  • Divergences437
  • Rebirth438
  • Repression439
  • Energetics and Hermeneutics444
  • Instinctual Drives459
  • Conclusion463
  • The Collective Unconscious and the ālayavijñāna468
  • Did a Common Problematic Lead to the ālayavijñāna and the
    Unconscious?474
  • Notes to Chapter Four482
    
    
• CONCLUSION495
• APPENDIX503
  • Translation of the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra
    Chapter V and VIII.37504
    • Notes516
    • Tibetan Text520
  • Translation of the Proof Portion of the Yogācārabhūmi-Viniścaya-
    saṃgrahaṇī526
    • Notes537
  • Translation of the Pravṛtti/Nivṛtti Portions of the Yogācārabhūmi-Viniścaya-saṃgrahaṇī539
    • Notes563
    • Tibetan Text571
  • Translation of Ch. 1 of the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha583
    • Notes635
  • Outline of the Texts716
• BIBLIOGRAPHY721

ālayavijñāna - A neutral base consciousness that is posited as the storehouse for the seeds of past karmic actions in which they remain in a latent state until the circumstances arise for them to ripen as karmic consequences. Skt. आलयविज्ञान Tib. ཀུན་གཞིའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ Ch. 阿賴耶識,藏識

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ālayavijñāna - A neutral base consciousness that is posited as the storehouse for the seeds of past karmic actions in which they remain in a latent state until the circumstances arise for them to ripen as karmic consequences. Skt. आलयविज्ञान Tib. ཀུན་གཞིའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ Ch. 阿賴耶識,藏識

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Yogācāra - Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana). Skt. योगाचार Tib. རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྤྱོད་པ་ Ch. 瑜伽行派

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ālayavijñāna - A neutral base consciousness that is posited as the storehouse for the seeds of past karmic actions in which they remain in a latent state until the circumstances arise for them to ripen as karmic consequences. Skt. आलयविज्ञान Tib. ཀུན་གཞིའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ Ch. 阿賴耶識,藏識

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ālayavijñāna - A neutral base consciousness that is posited as the storehouse for the seeds of past karmic actions in which they remain in a latent state until the circumstances arise for them to ripen as karmic consequences. Skt. आलयविज्ञान Tib. ཀུན་གཞིའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ Ch. 阿賴耶識,藏識

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abhidharma - Abhidharma generally refers to the corpus of Buddhist texts which deals with the typological, phenomenological, metaphysical, and epistemological presentation of Buddhist concepts and teachings. The abhidharma teachings present a meta-knowledge of Buddhist sūtras through analytical and systemic schemas and are said to focus on developing wisdom among the three principles of training. The Abhidharma is presented alongside Sūtra and Vinaya as one of the three baskets of the teachings of the Buddha. Skt. अभिधर्म Tib. ཆོས་མངོན་པ། Ch. 阿毗达磨

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kleśa - Often referred to as poisons, these are a class of disturbing or disruptive emotional states that when aroused negatively affect or taint the mind. Skt. क्लेश Tib. ཉོན་མོངས་ Ch. 煩惱

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kleśa - Often referred to as poisons, these are a class of disturbing or disruptive emotional states that when aroused negatively affect or taint the mind. Skt. क्लेश Tib. ཉོན་མོངས་ Ch. 煩惱

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bīja - A seed, commonly used figuratively in the sense of something which has the potential to develop or grow, and likewise as the basic cause for this development or growth. Skt. बीज Tib. ས་བོན་ Ch. 無漏種

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sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt. सूत्र Tib. མདོ། Ch. 佛经

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Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt. महायान Tib. ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ། Ch. 大乘

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kleśa - Often referred to as poisons, these are a class of disturbing or disruptive emotional states that when aroused negatively affect or taint the mind. Skt. क्लेश Tib. ཉོན་མོངས་ Ch. 煩惱

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kleśa - Often referred to as poisons, these are a class of disturbing or disruptive emotional states that when aroused negatively affect or taint the mind. Skt. क्लेश Tib. ཉོན་མོངས་ Ch. 煩惱

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bīja - A seed, commonly used figuratively in the sense of something which has the potential to develop or grow, and likewise as the basic cause for this development or growth. Skt. बीज Tib. ས་བོན་ Ch. 無漏種

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kun gzhi - Although it is commonly used as an abbreviation of ālayavijñāna (kun gzhi'i rnam shes), in later Tibetan traditions, particularly that of the Kagyu and the Nyingma, it came to denote an ultimate or pure basis of mind, as opposed to the ordinary, deluded consciousness represented by the ālayavijñāna. Alternatively, in the Jonang tradition, this pure version is referred to as ālaya-wisdom (kun gzhi'i ye shes). Skt. आलय Tib. ཀུན་གཞི་

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