Buddha-nature (as Depicted in the Lankavatara-sutra)

by Nguyen Dac Sy | 2012 | 70,344 words

This page relates ‘The Alayavijnana’ of the study on (the thought of) Buddha-nature as it is presented in the Lankavatara-sutra (in English). The text represents an ancient Mahayana teaching from the 3rd century CE in the form of a dialogue between the Buddha and Bodhisattva Mahamati, while discussing topics such as Yogacara, Buddha-nature, Alayavijnana (the primacy of consciousness) and the Atman (Self).

1.2. The Ālayavijñāna

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[Full title: Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna: the essence of beings, (2): The Ālayavijñāna]

The fundamental consciousness known as the Ālayavijñāna or store-consciousness has the following characteristics:

-It stores the seeds of mind (bījas) created from both bad and good deeds; however, according to the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, Ālayavijñāna is always pure in its essence and is not perfumed by the defiling dharmas which create the bījas in it.

-It is like a “store-house” where the bījas are kept.

-It is the object of attachment because the Manas, the seventh consciousness arising from Ālayavijñāna like waves arising from the ocean, attaches itself to Ālayavijñāna as its ātman. It means that sentient being attached to the Ālayavijñāna and imagines it as his self.

Such the conception of the Ālayavijñāna plays an important role in the study of other related concepts such as the Buddha-nature and Mindonly in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra. In the Sūtra, Ālayavijñāna is also named Citta, or Tathāgatagarbha, therefore a study on the Ālayavijñāna is also the study of Tathāgatagarbha or the Buddha-nature. Literally, Ālayavijñāna means “store-house consciousness” (a-lai-ye-shi), in which the ālaya is “abode, dwelling, store-house”.^[1]

In the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, the function of Ālayavijñāna is to store up all the mental images coming from thoughts, affections, desires, and deeds under the “seeds” (bīja) of mind. However, the way that the Ālayavijñāna performs its functions in the system of Vijñānas is very deep and subtle that only the great Bodhisattvas, who have extinguished the seeds of habit-energy, can fully comprehend the Ālayavijñāna.^[2]

Another term is used to called Ālayavijñāna is Citta. Citta, which is used as a synonym of the Ālayavijñāna, may be translated “mind”. The term Citta comes from the root ci, which has two meanings, (1) “to gather”, “to pile”, “to acquire”, and (2) “to perceive”, “to look for”.

Therefore, Citta means either “collection” or “perception” and in the case Citta is identified with the Ālayavijñāna, it takes the sense of accumulation as in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra:

Karma is accumulated by the Citta, reflected upon by the Manas, and recognised by the Manovijñāna, and the visible world is discriminated by the five Vijñānas.^[3]

Ordinarily, Citta may correctly be rendered “thought” or “mind”; however, the problem is that the Laṅkāvatārasūtra frequently uses Citta for the whole system of Vijñānas as well as for the Ālayavijñāna alone.^[4]

Beside the synonym of Citta and Ālayavijñāna, the Laṅkāvatārasūtra also develops the theory of the identification of Ālayavijñāna with Tathāgatagarbha, both are the pure essence hidden within the ordinary living beings. However, the Yogācāra system later held that the Ālayavijñāna was originally conceived as the root of the misled mind and the defiled world, and thus is itself defiled. It was to be transformed into pure wisdom when one attains awakening and destroys all defilements, but before the transformation, Ālayavijñāna was not considered as a pure element.

Vasubandhu, one of the founders of the Yogācāra, does not refer to it as the eighth, even though his later disciples like Sthiramati and Xuanzang constantly refer to it as such. Instead of being a completely distinct category, Ālayavijñāna merely represents the normal flow of the stream of consciousness uninterrupted by the appearance of reflective selfawareness. Ālayavijñāna, according to Vasubandhu, has the seeds of bondage as well as freedom. In other words, Ālayavijñāna or the stream of consciousness can be defiled by allowing Manas overwhelm it. On the contrary, Ālayavijñāna also can be purified by adopting a nonsubstantialist (anātman) perspective and thereby allowing the Ālay-part (i.e., attachment) to dissipate, leaving consciousness or the function of being conscious (vijñāna) intact.^[5]

The above Vasubandhu‘s explanation of Ālayavijñāna makes it very different from that found in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra. Ālayavijñāna in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra has no discrimination or intellection in it because it simply stores all the impressions or mental seeds produced by the activities of the other consciousnesses. Thus, except for the Ālayavijñāna, other vijñānas are regarded as the defiled and contaminated mind.

Briefly, according to the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, Ālayavijñāna is always immaculate even though it stores both good and not good habit energy, mental seeds and images which wrongly created by the Manas and other six consciousnesses when the Manas mistakenly grasps the immanent and immaculate Ālayavijñāna as the individual self of itself. Therefore, the real, original and supreme feature of the Ālayavijñāna which inherently exist within all living beings is obscured by defilements and discriminations made by the Manas and other six consciousnesses. Thus, the Ālayavijñāna unavoidably has two features, the original face of no-self and the imagined mask of personal self.

These features are described in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra as follows:

“There is the highest Ālayavijñāna, and again there is the Ālaya as thought-construction (vijñāpti);I teach suchness (tathatā) that is above seized and seizing.”^[6]

Thus, it is the highest Ālayavijñāna that is its original face, which is immaculate and immanent; and this face of Ālayavijñāna is also named Tathāgatagarbha by the Laṅkāvatārasūtra.