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Yogacara
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Yogacara (Sanskrit: "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga" is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and (some argue) ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahayana Buddhism circa the fourth century C.E. Yogacara discourse is founded on the existential truth of the human condition: there is nothing that humans experience that is not mediated by mind.
The orientation of the Yogacara school is largely consistent with the thinking of the Pali Nikayas.
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Yogacara (Sanskrit: "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga" is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and (some argue) ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahayana Buddhism circa the fourth century C.E. Yogacara discourse is founded on the existential truth of the human condition: there is nothing that humans experience that is not mediated by mind.
The orientation of the Yogacara school is largely consistent with the thinking of the Pali Nikayas. It frequently treats later developments in a way that realigns them earlier versions of Buddhist doctrines. Lusthaus concludes that one of the agendas of the Yogacara school was to reorient later refinements, in all their complexity, so as to accord with the doctrines of earliest Buddhism.
Nomenclature, orthography and etymology
Sanskrit: Yogacara, Vijñanavada, Vijñapti-matra, Vijñapti-matrata
Tibetan: sems tsam
Chinese: Wei-shih, Fa-hsiang, Yüjiazong "Yoga School" ???
Japanese: Yugagyo-ha, Yuishiki
English: Way of Yoga School, Yoga Practice School, Knowledge Way, Consciousness-Only School, Subjective Realism
Yogacara may be orthographically rendered according to English convention as "yogachara", which also approximates the phonetic value. An alternate nomenclature for the school is Vijñanavada (Sanskrit: vada holds a semantic field of "doctrine" and "way"; vijñana holds a semantic field of "consciousness" and "discernment". Hence, Vijñanavada may be rendered as "Consciousness Doctrine" or "Discernment Way"; though it is commonly rendered as "Knowledge Way".
History
The Yogacara is, along with the Madhyamaka, one of the two principal schools of Indian Mahayana Buddhism.
Origination
Masaaki (2005) states that: "[a]ccording to the the first Yogacara text, Buddha set the "wheel of the doctrine" (dharmacakra) in motion three times." Hence, the , as the doctrinal trailblazer of Yogacara, inaugurated the endemic categorical triune of the The Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma; establishing its tenets among the exegesis of the Dharmacakra's "Third Turning". The Yogacara texts are generally considered part of the Third Turning along with the relevant sutra. Moreover, Yogacara discourse surveys and syncretically redacts all Three Turnings.
The origins of the scholarly Indian Yogacara tradition were rooted in the syncretic scholasticism of Nalanda University where the doctrine of Cittamatra was first extensively propagated. Doctrines, tenets and derivatives of this school have influenced and become well-established in China, Tibet, Japan and Mongolia and throughout the World via the dissemination and dialogue wrought by the Buddhist diaspora.
Yogacara, like all Indian schools of Buddhism, eventually became virtually extinct within India.
Vasubandhu, and Maitreya-natha
Yogacara, which had its genesis in the aforementioned sutra, was largely formulated by the brahmin born half-brothers Vasubandhu and (who was said to be inspired by the quasi-historical Maitreya-natha or the divine Maitreya). Lineage and traditions of sadhana and Dharma transmission is primary and key to Buddhism. This school held a prominent position in the Indian scholastic tradition for several centuries due to its lauded pedigree and propagation at Nalanda.
Yogacara and Madhyamaka
Notably, this school was in protracted dialectic (as different from opposition) with the Madhyamaka. In short (and though rather simplistic and not entirely true), while the Madhyamaka held that asserting the existence or non-existence of any ultimately real thing was inappropriate, some exponents of Yogacara asserted that the mind (or in the more sophisticated variations, primordial wisdom) and only the mind is ultimately real. Not all Yogacarins asserted that mind was truly existent, according to some interpretations Vasubandhu and in particular did not.
Later Yogacara views synthesized the two, in particular Shantarakshita whose view is attributed as Yogacara-Svatantrika-Madhyamika. In his view the Madhyamika position is ultimately true and at the same time the mind-only view is a useful way to relate to conventionalities and progress students more skillfully toward the ultimate. This synthesized view between the two positions — which also incorporated views of valid cognition from Dignaga and Dharmakirti — was one of the last developments of Indian Buddhism before it was extinguished in the eleventh century during the Muslim incursion.
This view was also expounded by Xuanzang, who after a suite of debates with exponents of the Madhyamaka School, composed in Sanskrit, the no longer extant three-thousand verse treatise on "The Non-difference of Madhyamaka and Yogacara".
Later Yogacara teachings are especially important in Tantric Buddhism, which evolved within their development in India.
Yogacara in Tibet
Yogacara was transmitted to Tibet by and later by Atisa; it was thereafter integral to Tibetan Buddhism although the prevailing Geluk-dominated view held that it was less definitive than Madhyamaka. Yogacara is primary to the Nyingmapa and its zenith, Dzogchen. Yogacara also became central to East Asian Buddhism. The teachings of Yogacara became the Chinese Wei Shih school of Buddhism.
Current debates among Tibetan schools between the Shentong (empty of other) versus Rangtong (empty of self) views appear similar to earlier debates between Yogacara and Madhyamika but the issues and distinctions have evolved further. Though the later Tibetan views could be said to have evolved from the earlier Indian positions, the distinctions between the views became increasingly subtle especially once Yogacara incorporated the Madhyamika view of the ultimate. In the 19th century rime movement commenter Ju Mipham — in his commentary on Shantarakshita's synthesis — wrote that the ultimate view by both schools is the same and the result of each path also leads to the same ultimate state of abiding.
Divergence of the Yogacara of India and China
By the closure of the Sui Dynasty (589-618), Buddhism within China had developed many distinct schools and traditions. Xuanzang, in the words of Dan Lusthaus:
...came to the conclusion that the many disputes and interpretational conflicts permeating Chinese Buddhism were the result of the unavailability of crucial texts in Chinese translation. In particular, he [Xuanzang] thought that a complete version of the Yogacarabhumi-sastra, an encyclopedic description of the stages of the Yogacara path to Buddhahood written by Asa?ga, would resolve all the conflicts. In the sixth century an Indian missionary named Paramartha (another major translator) had made a partial translation of it. Xuanzang resolved to procure the full text in India and introduce it to China.
Moreover, Dan Lusthaus charts the different dialectic and divergent traditions of Buddhism within India and China discovered by Xuanzang and mentions the Buddha-nature, Awakening of Faith, Tathagata-garbha:
Xuanzang also discovered that the intellectual context in which Buddhists disputed and interpreted texts was much vaster and more varied than the Chinese materials had indicated: Buddhist positions were forged in earnest debate with a range of Buddhist and non-Buddhist doctrines unknown in China, and the terminology of these debates drew their significance and connotations from this rich context. While in China Yogacara thought and Tathagata-garbha thought were becoming inseparable, in India orthodox Yogacara seemed to ignore if not outright reject Tathagata-garbha thought. Many of the pivotal notions in Chinese Buddhism (e.g., Buddha-nature) and their cardinal texts (e.g., The Awakening of Faith) were completely unknown in India.
Principal exponents of Yogacara
Principal exponents of Yogacara categorized and alphabetized according to location:
- China: Xuanzang and Kuiji (K'uei-chi);
- India: the half-brothers and Vasubandhu; Sthiramati and Dharmapala
- Japan: Chitsu ?? and Chidatsu ?? (NB: both these people are mentioned in Kusha (Buddhism))
- Korea: Daehyeon ??, Sinhaeng (?? ;704-779), Weonchuk (?? ; 631-696) and Weonhyo (zh: ?? ; ??; 617 - 686); and
- Tibet: Dolpopa, Taranatha, Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, Ju Mipham
Yogacara textual corpus
The ("Unravelling the Mystery of Thought Sutra, 2nd Century CE) was the seminal Yogacara sutra, which continued to be a primary referent for the tradition. Also containing Yogacara elements were the Pratyutpanna Sutra (1st Century CE) and Dasabhumika Sutra (pre-3rd century CE).. The later Lankavatara Sutra ("Descent into Lanka Sutra", 4th century CE) also assumed considerable importance..
Five treatises of Maitreya
Among the most important texts to the Yogacara tradition to be the "Five Treatises of Maitreya." These texts are said to have been related to by the Buddha Maitreya. They are as follows:
- Ornament for Clear Realization (Abhisamayalankara, Tib. mngon par rtogs pa'i rgyan)
- Ornament for the Mahayana Sutras (Mahayanasutralankara, Tib. theg pa chen po'i mdo sde'i rgyan)
- Sublime Continuum of the Mahayana (Mahayanottaratantrashastra, Uttara-tantra-shastra, Ratnagotravibhaga, Tib. theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan)
- Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being (Dharmadharmatavibhanga, Tib. chos dang chos nyid rnam par 'byed pa)
- Distinguishing the Middle and the Extremes (Madhyantavibhanga, Tib. dbus dang mtha' rnam par 'byed pa)
A commentary on the Ornament for Clear Realization called Clarifying the Meaning by the Indian scholar Haribhadra is often used, as is one by Vimuktisena.
Most of these texts were also incorporated into the Chinese tradition, which was established several centuries earlier than the Tibetan. However, the Ornament for Clear Realization (Abhisamayalankara), is not mentioned by Chinese translators up to the 7th Century, including Xuanzang, who was an expert in this field, which suggests it may possibly have emerged from a later period than is generally ascribed.
Other texts
Vasubandhu wrote three foundational texts of the Yogacara, the "Treatise on the Three Natures" (Sanskrit: Trisvabhava-nirdesa, Tib. Rang bzin gsum nges par bstan), the "Treatise in Twenty Stanzas" (S: Vimsatika-karika) and the "Treatise in Thirty Stanzas" (S: Trimsikaika-karika). He also wrote an important commentary on the Madhyantavibhanga. According to Buddhist scholar Jay Garfield:
While the Trisvabhava-nirdesa is arguably the most philosophically detailed and comprehensive of the three short works on this topic composed by Vasubandu, as well as the clearest, it is almost never read or taught in contemporary traditional cultures or centers of learning. The reason may be simply that this is the only one of Vasubandhu’s root texts for which no autocommmentary exists. For this reason, none of Vasubandhu’s students composed commentaries on the text and hence there is no recognized lineage of transmission for the text. So nobody within the Tibetan tradition (the only extant Mahayana scholarly tradition) could consider him or herself authorized to teach the text. It is therefore simply not studied, a great pity. It is a beautiful and deep philosophical essay and an unparalleled introduction to the Cittamatra system.
Authorship of critical Yogacara texts is also ascribed to Asanga personally (in contrast to the Five Treatises of Maitreya). Among them are the Mahayana-samgraha adn the Abhidharma-samuccaya. He is sometimes ascribed authorship of the Yogacarabhumi Sastra, a massive encyclopedic work considered the definitive statement of Yogacara, but most scholars believe it was compiled in the 5th century CE.
Other important commentaries on various Yogacara texts were written by Sthiramati (6th century CE) and Dharmapala (7th century CE), and an influential Yogacara-Madyhamika synthesis was formulated by Santarak?ita (8th century).
Yogacara Tenets
Muller (2005) charts two principal points of entry into the tenets of Yogacara soteriology: the first, employs an admixture of the 'eight consciousnesses' (Sanskrit: ), 'four parts of cognition', 'three natures', and the 'doctrine of selflessness', etc.; the second, embraces the 'two hindrances' (Sanskrit: ; Tibetan: sgrib pa gñis).
Muller (2005) furthermore states that:
There is no special need to try to assess whether one of these approaches is better than the other, for indeed, in the vast and complex system that is known as Yogacara, all of these different approaches and categories are ultimately tied into each other, and thus, starting with any one of them, one can eventually enter into all of the rest.
Hattori Masaaki (2005) states that Yogacara:
...attaches importance to the religious practice of yoga as a means for attaining final emancipation from the bondage of the phenomenal world. The stages of yoga are systematically set forth in the treatises associated with this tradition.
Keenan, et al. (2003) states that:
...the Yogacara thinkers did not simply comment on Madhyamika thought. They attempted to ground insight into emptiness in a critical understanding of the mind, articulated in a sophisticated theoretical discourse.
Yogacarins developed an Abhidharma literature set within a Mahayana framework.
Consciousness-only
Main article: Consciousness-only
One of the main features of Yogacara philosophy is cittamatra, or consciousness only. That term was used in Tibet interchangably with Yogacara, although modern scholars believe this is misleading.
The Three Natures
The Yogacara defined three basic modes by which we perceive our world. These are referred to in Yogacara as the three natures of perception. They are:
- Parikalpita, literally "fully conceptualized", or Imaginary Nature, wherein things are incorrectly apprehended based on conceptual construction, through attachment and erroneous discrimination.
- Paratantra, literally "other dependent", or Dependent Nature, by which the correct understanding of the dependently originated nature of things is understood.
- Parinispanna, literally "fully accomplished", or Absolute Nature, through which one apprehends things as they are in themselves, uninfluenced by any conceptualization at all.
Also, regarding perception, the Yogacara emphasized that our everyday understanding of the existence of external objects is problematic, since in order to perceive any object (and thus, for all practical purposes for the object to "exist"), there must be a sensory organ as well as a correlative type of consciousness to allow the process of cognition to occur.
Eight Consciousnesses
Perhaps the best known teaching of the Yogacara system is that of the eight layers of consciousness (Sanskrit: ). This theory of the consciousnesses attempted to explain all the phenomena of cyclic existence, including how rebirth occurs and precisely how karma functions on an individual basis. For example, if I carry out a good or evil act, why and how is it that the effects of that act do not appear immediately? If they do not appear immediately, where is this karma waiting for its opportunity to play out?
The answer given by the Yogacara was the store consciousness (also
known as the base, or eighth consciousness; Sanskrit: 'alayavijñana') which simultaneously acts as a storage place for karma and as a fertile matrix that brings karma to a state of fruition. It may be ultimately traceable to the "luminous mind" of the agamas. The likeness of this process to the cultivation of plants led to the creation of the metaphor of seeds (Sanskrit, bijas) to explain the way karma is stored in the eighth consciousness. The type, quantity, quality and strength of the seeds determine where and how a sentient being will be reborn: one's species, sex, social status, proclivities, bodily appearance and so forth.
On the other hand, the karmic energies created in the current lifetime
through repeated patterns of behavior are called habit energies (Sanskrit:
vasana). All the activities that mold our bodymind, for better
or worse--eating, drinking, talking, studying, practicing the piano or
whatever--can be understood to create habit energies. And of course, my
habit energies can penetrate the consciousnesses of others, and vice
versa--what we call "influence" in everyday language. Habit energies can
become seeds, and seeds can produce new habit energies.
According to Walpola Rahula, all the elements of the Yogacara storehouse-consciousness are already found in the Pali Canon. He writes that the three layers of the mind (citta, manas, and vijnana) as presented by Asanga are also used in the Pali Canon: "Thus we can see that Vijnana 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 Vijnanaskanda. Manas represents the aspect of its mental functioning, thinking, reasoning, conceiving ideas, etc. Citta which is here called Alayavijnana, 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."
Sunyata in Yogacara
The doctrine of emptiness (Skt. Sunyata) is central to Yogacara, as to any Mahayana school. Early Yogacara texts, such as the Yogacarabhumi-sastra, often act as explanations on Prajnaparamita sutras. See also the Samdhinirmocana Sutra. Keenan (2003) holds that Sunyata and Pratityasamutpada and the theme of "two truths" are central in Yogacara thought and meditation.
As one Buddhologist puts it, "Although meaning 'absence of inherent existence' in Madhyamaka, to the Yogacarins [sunyata] means 'absence of duality between perceiving subject and the perceived object.'"
This is not the full story however, as each of the three natures (above), has its corresponding "absence of nature". ie:
- parikalpita => laksana-nihsvabhavata, the "absence of inherent characteristic"
- paratantra => utpatti-nihsvabhavata, the "absence of inherent arising"
- parinispanna => paramartha-nihsvabhavata, the "absence of inherent ultimacy"
Each of these "absences" is a form of sunyata, ie. the nature is "empty" of some particular qualified quality.
Yogacara gave special significance to the agamas' "Lesser Discourse on Emptiness". A passage there (which the discourse itself emphasizes) is often quoted in later Yogachara texts as a true definition of emptiness.
Meditation in the Yogacara tradition
As the name of the school suggests, meditation practice was central to the Yogacara tradition. Practice manuals perscribe 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 Yogacara tradition as "turning about in the basis" (asraya-paravrtti), the basis being the alayavijñana.
Contemporary scholarship
Lusthaus (1999) holds that Étienne Lamotte, a famous student of Louis de La Vallée-Poussin, "...profoundly advanced Yogaacaara studies, and his efforts remain unrivaled among Western scholars."
Philosophical dialogue: Yogacara, Idealism and Phenomenology
Yogacara has also been identified in the Western Philosophical tradition as Idealism, or more specifically Subjective idealism. This equation was standard until recently, when it began to be challenged by scholars such as Kochumuttom, Anacker, Kalupahana, Dunne, Lusthaus, Powers, and Wyman. Buddhist scholar Jay Garfield continues to uphold the equation of Yogachara and Idealism. Yogacara has also been aligned with Phenomenalism. In modern Western philosophical discourse, Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty have approached what Western scholarship generally concedes as a standard Yogacara position.
The Legacy of the Yogacara
There are two important aspects of the Yogacara schemata that are of special interest to modern-day practitioners. One is that virtually all schools of Mahayana Buddhism came to rely on these Yogacara explanations as they created their own doctrinal systems--even the Zen schools. For example, the important Yogacara explanation of the pervasiveness of one's delusions through "mind-only" had an obvious influence on Zen.
That the scriptural tradition of Yogacara is not yet that well known among the community of Western practitioners is perhaps attributable to the fact that most of the initial transmission of Buddhism to the West has been directly concerned with more practice-oriented forms of Buddhism, such as Zen, Vipassana, and Pure Land. Also, it is a complicated system, and there are still not really any good, accessible, introductory books on the topic in Western languages. However, within Tibetan Buddhism more and more Western students are becoming acquainted with this school. Very little research in English has been carried out on the Chinese Yogacara traditions.
Yogacarins, those that hold to the tenets of Yogacara, generally uphold the doctrine of the Alaya vijñana: a fundamental, root or base consciousness. The alaya vijñana is the fecund matrix, the substrate fabric of consciousness and being. The alaya vijñana houses the karmic bija that "seed" our experience of reality and "perfume" our worldview. The Alaya vijñana and the Tathagata-garbha doctrine developed and resolved into the Mindstream or the "consciousness-continuity" doctrine (Sanskrit: citta santana) to avoid being denounced as running counter to the doctrine of Sunyata and the tenets of Anatman. These developments, whether perceived as evolutions, devolutions or hybridizations are contentious, often divisive between and within schools and traditions.
External links
- , featuring many scholarly articles and translations
- , Richard King, Philosophy East & West, vol. 44 no. 4, October 1994, pp. 659–683
- , Richard King, Asian Philosophy, vol. 8 no. 1, March 1998, pp. 5–18
- (subtitle) "An early interpretation of Yogaacaara thought in China", Ming-Wood Liu, Philosophy East & West, vol. 35 no. 4, October 1985, pp. 351–375
- ; articles, bibliographies, and links to other relevant sites.
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