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

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>br>
  

• 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

SaTlTlS and PapaTica 83 Anusaya 86 The Unconscious in E a r l y Buddhism 99 Ssava 103 AsampajSno mano-sankhSrS 105 Mi n d - r e a d i n g 107 Remarks on t he “Concept of t he U n c o n s c i o u s ' 113 Notes to C h a p t er One 120 CHAPTER TWO: THE ABHIDHARMA CONTEXT 133 Background of t he Abhidharma 135 The Abhidharma System of Mind 142 C i t t a - c a i t t a 152 The c a i t t a s 154 C i t t a - v i p r a y u k t 5 - s a g s k 5 r 5 157 The Six h e t u s , Five p h a l a s , and Four p r a t y a y a s 161 Karma and KleSa in t he Ko&a 172 The P r o b l e m a t i c s of Abhidharma A n a l y s i s 183

The S a r v S s t l v S d l n Conce pts 189 The k l e£a/ anu£ay a C o n t r o v e r y 196 The S a u t r S n t i k a Concept of Seeds ( M j a ) 204 The P r o b l e m a t i c s G e n e r a t e d by t he Concept of Seeds 210 Notes t o C h a p t e r Two 229 CHAPTER THREEi THE ALAYAVIJfiANA IN THE YOGACARA 248 I n t r o d u c t i o n t o t he Yog3c5ra C h a p t er 249 The YogScSra c o n c e p t i o n o f t h e S l a y a v i j ^S n a - Review of C h a p t e r s 1 and 2 253 The Saodhinirnocana SUt ra, t he YogScSrabhUml and the O r i g i n s of t he SlayaviJflSna 268 The Sagidh in irmocana S U t r a ' s New Model of t he Mind 273 The Sl aya T r e a t i s e of t he YogScSrabhUnt I 281 The P r o o f P o r t i o n of t he Sl aya T r e a t i s e 281 The I n t r o d u c t i o n of the A f f l i c t e d Mind ( k l i s ta- manas) 291 The S l ay a v i JflSna In t he P r a v r t t i / N i v r t t i P o r t i o n s 297 The P r a v r t t i P o r t i o n 300 The N i v r t t i P o r t i o n 307 The S l a y a v i JflSna in t h e ManSySna-saograha 312 I d e a l i s m and YogScSra 312 The MahsySna-sajpgraha 319 The Synonyms of t he S l a y a v i JflSna in t he MahSySna-sagtgraha 319 The A f f l i c t e d Mind in t he MahSySna-sa&graha 324 The C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of t he S l a y a v J JflSna in t he HahSySna-sawgraha 332 I n f u s i n g and Seedi ng t he S l a y a v I JftSna 335 The D e m o n s t r a t i o n of t he S l a y a v I JflSna in t he MabSySna-saograha 342 L o g i c a l Arguments f o r t he S l a y a v i jfiSna 343 Ca n o n i c a l I n t e r l u d e s 348 R e b i r t h and t he S l a y a v i JflSna in Yog5c5ra 354 Supramundane P u r i f i c a t i o n 358 The S l a y a v i JflSna, Language and S o c i e t y 368 Notes t o C h a p t e r Three 377

CHAPTER FOUk: a CuMpAkISON OF THE ALAYAVIJNANA WITH FREUD'S AND JUNG'S THEORIES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 400 Common P r o b l m a t i c s Between t he S l a y a v i jTiSna and t he Unconsci ous 404 Common C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s 408 La t e nc y 408 L a t e n t Causal E f f i c a c y 415 S i m u l t a n e i t y and R e c i p r o c a l C o n d i t i o n a l i t y 420 C o g n i t i v e P r o c e s s e s 427 Ma t r i x of All Cons ci ous Acts 430 Co n c l u s i o n to Common C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s 433 Di v e r g e n c e s 437 R e b i r t h 438 R e p r e s s i o n 439 E n e r g e t i c s and Her meneut i cs 444 I n s t i n c u a l D r i v e s 459 C o n c l u s i o n 463 The C o l l e c t i v e Uncons ci ous and t he S l a y a v i jflSna 468 Did a Common P r o b l e m a t i c Lead to the S l ay a v i jflSna and t he Unconscious ? 474 Notes t o C h a p t er Four 482 CONCLUSION 495 APPENDIX 503 T r a n s l a t i o n of t he Saipdh in irmocana SUtra Ch a p t er V and V I 1 1 . 37 504 Notes 516 T i b e t a n Text 520 T r a n s l a t i o n of t he Pr oof P o r t i o n of t he YogScSrabhUmi -Vin i Scaya-saqigrahaoT 526 Notes 537 T r a n s l a t i o n of t he P r a v r t t i / N i v r t t i P o r t i o n s of t he YogScSrabhUmi-Vin iicaya-sajpgrahanT 539 Notes 563 T i b e t a n Text 571 T r a n s l a t i o n of Ch. l of the MahSySna-samgraha 583 Notes 635 O u t l i n e of t he Te x t s 716 BIBLIOGRAPHY 721

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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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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