Chapter 1 · Where the Buddha First Spoke of Mind — the Saṃdhinirmocana's Own Account

Part One · Sources and Formation

Is consciousness-only a later invention? Did the Buddha himself ever speak of it?

This is the doubt anyone holds before opening this body of learning. This chapter does not argue; it merely lays the original texts open: how the Buddha spoke of mind in the very earliest sūtras, what question was left behind once he had spoken of it, and how the sūtra on which this school rests — the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra — gives its own account of 'when, why, and how the Buddha spoke.'

1 · Mind in the Āgamas

First return to the earliest layer. In the Saṃyukta-āgama the Buddha already has three words for mind — mind, manas, and consciousness — and he gives a famous simile:

「That mind, manas, and consciousness, by day and by night, moment upon moment, transform in an instant, arising as one and ceasing as another. Just as a monkey roaming among the forest trees, from instant to instant and place to place, grasps and seizes the branches, releasing one and taking another. So too are that mind, manas, and consciousness — arising as one and ceasing as another.」 〔《雜阿含經》經289·T02n0099 0081c14–17·巴利平行 SN 12.61·待譯〕

Slow it down clause by clause. 'By day and by night, transforming in an instant' — mind is not a thing set down in place; it is a ceaseless process, fast enough to be measured in 'instants.' 'Arising as one and ceasing as another' — this moment's mind arises, this moment's mind ceases; the next moment's is yet another arising. The monkey simile draws out this speed: the monkey swings through the woods, and the very moment it grasps one branch it has already let go of the one before — 'releasing one and taking another,' never resting on any single branch. Our mind clings to a thought and then lets it go, seizes an object and then loosens its grip — precisely this.

More surprising still is the purpose behind the Buddha's words. In the same passage the Buddha compares body and mind:

「The foolish, unlearned ordinary person had better fasten 'I' and 'mine' to the body of the four great elements than fasten 'I' and 'mine' to consciousness.」 〔同經·0081c11–13·待譯〕

Better to lodge 'I' on the body than on mind-consciousness — why? Because 'the physical body of the four great elements may be seen to endure ten years, twenty, thirty, even a hundred years'; the body at least holds together for some decades, whereas mind-consciousness changes in an instant. The ordinary person's intuition is exactly the reverse: the body ages and decays, and it is that 'I' within the mind that is constant. The Buddha turns this intuition entirely over: what least deserves to be called 'I' is precisely the mind — it perishes faster than the body.

At this point two things stand established. First, the Buddha did speak of mind, and he used three words (mind, manas, consciousness — the later fate of each of these three words is taken up in Chapter Two). Second, the mind the Buddha spoke of is thoroughly dynamic and without self. Everything of this school grows out of these two facts.

2 · The Question of What Holds the Seeds — the Problem Left Along the Way

But the monkey simile at once forces out a question. If mind truly 'arises as one and ceases as another,' this moment's mind ceasing and a later thought arising — then how does what was done yesterday bear fruit today? How does karma made in youth ripen in old age? How do the roots of good cultivated today continue on into tomorrow? Buddhism posits no abiding soul, yet it teaches that the fruits of karma are not lost; it must therefore give an account of a causal mechanism able to make the fruits of karma and one's cultivation continue on, without falling into a permanent self. Later, consciousness-only named the latent capacity 'seeds,' and named the continuous consciousness able to hold the seeds the root consciousness; what 'the question of what holds the seeds' asks is how this mechanism can be established — not the presumption, laid down in advance, that there is some thing or soul stored in the middle.

This question was already buried in the Āgamas and flared up again and again in sectarian Buddhism. Later the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha laid its logic out as a plain reckoning:

「If one dispenses with the ālaya-vijñāna thus established, neither defilement nor purification can be accomplished: for the defilement of afflictions, the defilement of karma, and the defilement of birth would all fail to hold; and worldly purification and supramundane purification would fail to hold as well.」

'Defilement' is the side of bondage — how afflictions persist, how karma bears fruit, how birth-and-death continues; 'purification' is the side of liberation — how the merit of practice accumulates, how the seeds of hearing the Dharma are not lost. The treatise-author's argument is this: without a deep holder of the seeds, neither side can be made to work — not only can saṃsāra not be accounted for, but liberation cannot be accounted for either. And in the course of the argument, the treatise-author turns back and cites, of his own accord, an old simile from the Āgamas:

「If, apart from the maturation consciousness, consciousness and name-and-form are to depend each upon the other, as a bundle of reeds leans together and so stands — this too cannot be established.」

The reed-bundle — bundled reeds stand by propping against one another, and pull one out and the rest fall with it — is originally the Āgamas' simile for consciousness and name-and-form depending on each other. The treatise-author cites it to say: the Buddha long ago placed consciousness in just this position of mutual dependence and mutual support. The question is not new, and the seed of the answer is not new either. As for whether these three words (mind, manas, consciousness) mean one thing or three, the schools were already quarreling: 「There is yet another class who hold that mind, manas, and consciousness are one in meaning and differ only in wording.」 — some maintained the three words are one in meaning, differing only in the letter; others did not allow it. The resolution of this dispute must wait until Chapter Six. This chapter only poses the question and gives no answer: keep hold of this question of 'who holds' — it is the guiding thread of the whole book.

3 · This School's Own Answer to 'When Did the Buddha Speak' — the Three-Period Classification of the Teaching

So when, and how, did the Buddha himself speak to the depths of mind? In the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, in the Chapter on the Character of Naturelessness, the bodhisattva Paramārtha-samudgata made the summation on behalf of all readers to come. He divides the Buddha's lifetime of teaching into three stages, and the three verdicts are worth citing in full:

「World-Honored One! At first, at one time, at the sages' alighting-place at Vārāṇasī, in the Deer Park, solely for those setting out on the śrāvaka vehicle, you turned the wheel of the true Dharma by way of the aspect of the Four Noble Truths. Though it was most wondrous, most rare, and none among all the gods, humans, and the rest in the world had before been able to turn it in accord with the Dharma — yet the wheel of Dharma turned at that time was surpassable, admitted of more, was of non-definitive meaning, and was a place where disputes may find their footing.」

The first period: the Deer Park, where for those seeking personal liberation (the śrāvaka vehicle) he taught the Four Truths — suffering, its arising, its cessation, and the path. The verdict has three key words: 'surpassable,' there is something higher still to be said; 'admits of more,' room yet remains; 'non-definitive in meaning,' the doctrine has not yet been fully expounded — and therefore it is 'a place where disputes find their footing': later people can plant their feet here and argue.

「World-Honored One! In the past, in the second period, solely for those setting out to cultivate the Great Vehicle, on the basis that all dharmas are without self-nature, unarisen, unceasing, originally quiescent, and by their very nature in nirvāṇa, you turned the wheel of the true Dharma by way of a concealed character. Though it was still more wondrous, most rare, yet the wheel of Dharma turned at that time was likewise surpassable, admitted of more, was still of non-definitive meaning, and was a place where disputes may find their footing.」

The second period: for those who had raised the Mahāyāna aspiration, he taught that 'all dharmas are without self-nature' — the Prajñā teaching of emptiness. Note the verdict: the content has gone deeper, yet the manner is one of 'a concealed character' — it was said, but said implicitly, without breaking open and making plain in exactly what sense, and with respect to which layer, 'no-self-nature' holds. And so it remains 'surpassable, admitting of more, still of non-definitive meaning.'

「World-Honored One! Now, in this third period, universally for those setting out on all the vehicles, on the basis that all dharmas are without self-nature, unarisen, unceasing, originally quiescent, by their very nature in nirvāṇa, and of the very nature of naturelessness, you turn the wheel of the true Dharma by way of a manifest, clearly-drawn character. It is foremost in wonder, most rare of all. The wheel of Dharma now turned by the World-Honored One is unsurpassable and admits of nothing more; it is of truly definitive meaning, and is not a place where disputes may find their footing.」

The third period: 'universally for all the vehicles' — no longer addressed to a single kind of capacity — restates that same phrase 'no-self-nature' by way of 'a manifest, clearly-drawn character': it breaks it open and makes plain in which three senses it each holds (this is precisely the content of Chapter Seven, the three natures and the three naturelessnesses). The verdict is turned entirely over: 'unsurpassable, admitting of nothing more, of truly definitive meaning.'

What matters is to grasp the character of this passage. The three-period classification is not a history of the teaching written by later hands; it is the text's own positioning of itself: one and the same teacher, one and the same truth, spoken to different students, at different stages, to different depths — what came before is not wrong, only not fully said; what came after is not a new invention, only the original words made manifest. This school stands upon the Saṃdhinirmocana, and what it stands upon is precisely this self-declaration of 'making manifest.' Whether or not to believe this declaration is the reader's freedom; the work of this book is to lay it open as it is.

4 · The Deep and Subtle Not Expounded — the Reservation the Buddha Himself Accounted For

The teaching of the three periods still leaves one last question: since there was something deeper that could be said, why did the Buddha not say it from the very start? The Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra's Chapter on the Character of Mind, Manas, and Consciousness does not give only a single verse; the prose first sets out clearly the office and the names of this deep-layer consciousness. It says of the first moment of rebirth-linking:

「Therein, at the very first, the all-seed mind-consciousness matures, unfolds, coalesces, increases, and grows vast. It relies on two appropriations: first, the appropriation of the material faculties together with their bases; second, the appropriation of the habit-energies of images, names, discrimination, verbal expression, and conceptual proliferation.」

What the all-seed mind-consciousness appropriates has two sides: one side is the material faculties together with the body as their basis; the other side is the habit-energies of images, names, discrimination, verbal expression, and conceptual proliferation. The text then, in terms of three functions, establishes three names:

「This consciousness is also named the ādāna-consciousness. Why? Because this consciousness follows after and grasps-and-holds the body. It is also named the ālaya-vijñāna. Why? Because this consciousness takes in, stores-and-conceals, and shares one fate — peace and peril alike — with the body. It is also named 'mind.' Why? Because in this consciousness form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and the rest accumulate and grow.」

Ādāna takes the sense of grasping-and-holding; ālaya takes the sense of taking in, storing-and-concealing, and sharing one fate; 'mind' takes the sense of accumulating and growing. How the first six consciousnesses join to it the text also states plainly:

「Because the ādāna-consciousness serves as their support and their establishing ground, the six consciousnesses proceed.」

These three passages are the very prose root of the verse; the verse does not drop a 'storehouse' out of thin air, but re-proclaims the full account — the all-seeds, the two appropriations, the three names, and the six consciousnesses proceeding in dependence. At the end the text further guards against reifying this picture: only when a bodhisattva inwardly 'sees no ādāna and no ādāna-consciousness; sees no ālaya and no ālaya-vijñāna; sees no accumulation and no mind,' and even sees no six faculties, six objects, and six consciousnesses, is he called skilled in the ultimate meaning. To establish the several consciousnesses is the skill of the knowledge of the Dharma's abiding; not to grasp at any one consciousness within the ultimate is the final skill.

After this prose, the Buddha re-proclaims it in a single verse, and also accounts for why he does not expound it to those whose capacity is not yet ripe:

「The ādāna-consciousness is deep and subtle, all its seeds like a rushing torrent; 　I do not expound it to the foolish and ignorant, fearing they would discriminate and grasp it as a self.」

Slow the four lines one by one. 'Deep and subtle' — this layer of mind-consciousness is deeper and subtler than every thought that daily awareness can detect; introspection cannot touch its bottom. 'All its seeds like a rushing torrent' — note the choice of simile: not a storehouse, not a foundation, but a rushing torrent. The holder of the seeds is itself a ceaseless water, racing on instant by instant — the monkey-like dynamism of the first section still holds even at the deepest layer; the answer the Buddha gives to the question of 'who holds' is not a motionless soul, but a river that carries. And the last two lines are the most candid words in the whole sūtra: 'I do not expound it to the foolish and ignorant' — I do not tell this to those whose capacity is not yet ripe — why? 'Fearing they would discriminate it and grasp it as a self': afraid that a person, hearing that 'there is a deep-layer consciousness holding all the seeds,' would at once seize it as an 'I,' and set back up under a new name the very thing the Buddha took such pains to dismantle.

So to speak of it not early is not to hoard a secret; it is to protect people. The three periods of the third section are the panorama of this caution; this verse is its close-up. And this line, 'fearing they would discriminate it and grasp it as a self,' is also the warning-sign this school posts for itself: in every later chapter, wherever the ālaya-vijñāna is discussed, this sign stands always alongside — it is not a soul, and whoever reads it as a soul commits precisely the error the Buddha foretold.

Return to the question that opened the chapter: is consciousness-only a later invention? Now an answer can be given as it truly is. The Buddha did speak of mind — spoke of it very early, very dynamically, very thoroughly as without self; the question of 'who holds' was already forced out between the Buddha's monkey simile and his reed-bundle simile, and the Buddha too, with his own mouth, spoke of that deep and subtle stream that holds the seeds, and accounted for his reason for not speaking of it early. As for how this thread was taken up by the analytical tradition, how it fermented among the schools, and how it was raised into a school by Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu — that is the road of the next three chapters. To follow the original texts: the main text of the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, the fifth station of the reading path, awaits.

Author · Shi Huijing CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · 二〇二六 · 夏