Chapter 6 · The Eight Consciousnesses — a Map of the Mind

Part Two · Doctrine

Why does the mind have eight? How is it that I have only ever felt there to be one?

First, dismantle the misconception hidden in the way the question is put: the eight consciousnesses are not eight little men holding a meeting inside the skull. What this school counts is not 「the number of minds」 but eight functional divisions of the mind — like eight stretches of one river's hydrology, each with its own current-speed and its own charge. Are the eight consciousnesses one, or many? The treatise-master answers with care: 「they cannot be declared definitely one … nor are they definitely many」 — they are neither eight self-governing minds (the sūtra says the eight consciousnesses are like water-waves, all issuing from a single water), nor may they be reified into one single mind-substance. You feel there to be only one because what you ordinarily notice is merely that outermost stretch. This chapter spreads the whole map open.

1 · The Three Transformers — the Overall Map

The closing lines of the opening verse of the Thirty Verses have already given the general table:

「That depends on the transformation of consciousness, and these transformers are but three: namely the ripening, the deliberating, and the consciousness that discerns objects.」

「Transformer」 — the office consciousness holds is not that of a 「reflector」 but of a manifester: every feature of experience arises from it. The transformers fall into three kinds: the ripening transformer (the deep layer that carries the maturation of karmic fruit — the eighth consciousness), the deliberating transformer (the layer of unceasing self-reference — the seventh consciousness), and the object-discerning transformer (the one that meets objects and gives rise to cognition — the first six consciousnesses). The three-way parting of 「mind, manas, and consciousness」 in the Ground-of-Mentation passage of Chapter 2 is, in the verse, precisely these three transformers. What follows walks layer by layer, from the deep to the shallow.

2 · The Ālaya-vijñāna — the Torrent in the Depths

The first transformer; the verse sketches it:

「The first is the ālaya-vijñāna, the ripening, the all-seeds; 　unknowable are its appropriation, its locus, its cognizing — ever [joined] with contact」

The phrase 「unknowable」 must be set down first: this layer of consciousness is so subtle that introspection cannot touch it — you 『have only ever felt there to be one mind』 precisely because it is unknowable. The Cheng weishi lun, in glossing its name, gives three aspects (the three characteristics): the own-characteristic —

「Because this consciousness possesses the senses of the storing, the stored, and the grasped-store.」

The word 「store」 may borrow the image of a warehouse to aid memory, yet it is not a warehouse of physical goods, and the seeds are not small objects placed inside. The Cheng weishi lun explains the three senses of the store by way of relation: because it can hold and maintain the seeds of defilement, it is named the storing; because it is also the place perfumed by, and depended on by, the currently-active defiled dharmas, it is named the stored; because it is grasped by the seventh consciousness as an inner self, it is named the grasped-store. As to the fruit-characteristic, 「it is called the ripening」 — karmic fruit matures in continuous succession in dependence on it; as to the cause-characteristic, 「because it can hold and maintain the seeds of all dharmas so that they are not lost, it is named the all-seeds」 — what it holds are the differentiated capacities able to give birth directly to their own fruits. These three names speak of functional relations — the gathering-in of cause and effect, being perfumed, and being grasped — not of the setting-up of some further container at the bottom of the mind. Its mode of existence the treatise forges again and again with one metaphor that runs through the whole school:

「「Ever」 means that this consciousness, from time without beginning, is of one kind, continuous, constant and unbroken」「「Turning」 means that this consciousness, from time without beginning, arises and perishes moment by moment, altering from before to after, the cause perishing as the fruit is born」「the word 「ever」 wards off annihilation, and 「turning」 shows impermanence — like a torrent, cause and effect are just so by their very nature.」

Ever, and so not annihilation; turning, and so not a permanent self — each word dams up one abyss. 「Like the water of a torrent, neither cut off nor permanent, continuing over a long time, and in it there is drifting and drowning」; 「Again like a torrent that, though struck by wind and the rest, raises waves yet flows on unbroken」 — the surface eye-consciousness and ear-consciousness rise and fall like waves, while the deep current never once halts. The ādāna verse of Chapter 1, 「all the seeds are like a torrent」, is here unfolded to its full extent. There is, besides, a piece of everyday evidence hidden in its feeling-tone: this consciousness 「is associated with the feeling of equanimity alone」 — its affective baseline is forever the neither-painful-nor-pleasant equanimity, its 「mode of activity utterly indistinct」 — precisely because it neither hurts nor itches and is constant and even, we have no awareness of it at all. The last stroke is its ending: at the stage of the arhat it is 「relinquished」 — but the treatise states this with great precision:

「By this, the name 'ālaya' is forever lost — this is what is called 'relinquishing'; it is not the relinquishing of the entire substance of the eighth consciousness.」

What is relinquished is the name 「ālaya」 (the sense of defiled grasped-store being severed), not the whole substance of the eighth consciousness — the foreshadowing of the immaculate consciousness and the great perfect-mirror wisdom of Chapter 12 is here already set down.

3 · Manas — the Organ of Self-Grasping

The second transformer; three verses tell it in full:

「Next, the second transformer; this consciousness is named manas, 　resting on that and turning, it takes that as its object — deliberation is its nature and mark. 　Ever conjoined with four afflictions — namely self-delusion, self-view, 　together with self-conceit and self-love — and conjoined too with contact and the rest. 　Subsumed under the obscuring-indeterminate, bound according to where one is born, 　in the arhat, in the cessation-attainment, and on the supramundane path, it is not.」

The six words 「resting on that and turning, taking that as object」 are the mechanism of the whole tragedy: manas arises in dependence on the eighth consciousness (resting on that and turning), and then turns back to make the eighth consciousness its own object (taking that as object) — day and night it faces that deep torrent and reads the current as 「I」. 「Deliberation is its nature and mark」: its entire office is just this one unresting self-deliberation. The four afflictions ever conjoined with it, set out in plain words: self-delusion (blindness to the principle of no-self — not knowing that it is a current), self-view (taking the current for a self), self-conceit (leaning on this 「I」 and growing proud), self-love (a deep clinging to this 「I」). The whole ground-tone of the ordinary being's self-centredness — that flavour of 「I」 that needs no learning, no thinking, and is on-line twenty-four hours a day — is factory-set at this very layer. And the verdict on its character is worth pondering: 「obscuring-indeterminate」 — it veils the noble path (obscuring), yet is neither good nor evil (indeterminate): to grasp at self is not a crime, it is background noise. The verse's closing, 「in the arhat, in the cessation-attainment, and on the supramundane path, it is not」, shows that defiled manas is not something that cannot be brought to rest; and the Cheng weishi lun further records the contrast before and after the transformation of the basis: 「In the stage before the transformation of the basis, it constantly and closely deliberates upon the grasped mark of self; in the stage after the transformation of the basis, it likewise closely deliberates upon the mark of no-self.」 This is the foreshadowing of the wisdom-of-equality of Chapter 12: the wisdom won by transforming the group associated with the seventh consciousness still closely deliberates upon no-self and equality, yet one cannot say that defiled manas is itself that seed of wisdom, or is renamed 'wisdom' on the spot.

4 · The First Six Consciousnesses — Mind and Mental Factors in Active Operation

The third transformer is the terrain we know: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind — the consciousnesses that discern objects. As for the working rhythm of the first five (sense) consciousnesses, the Cheng weishi lun has one line:

「That is: the group of five consciousnesses, depending inwardly on the root consciousness and following outwardly attention, the five sense-faculties, objects, and the rest — the manifold conditions coming together — only then come to be present; and by this they arise now together, now not together.」

The five consciousnesses are not always switched on: only when faculty, object, attention, and the rest of the manifold conditions come together do they appear — 「like the billows of water, according as the conditions are many or few」: many conditions, many waves; few conditions, few waves; no conditions, and the sea-surface is for a while level. The sixth, mental consciousness, by contrast, is almost around the clock: 「apart from these five states, the mental consciousness arises constantly」 — only five states (the heaven of no-perception, the no-perception attainment, the cessation attainment, extremely heavy sleep, and fainting) can take it off-line.

The mind never travels alone — the consciousness of every instant carries with it a set of attendant staff, named mental factors (caitta). Five of them are 「universal」: whenever any consciousness arises, these five are necessarily present, and each of their definitions is a precise functional specification:

「「Contact」 means the differentiating-and-altering of the threefold conjunction; its nature is to make mind and mental factors touch the object」 (faculty, object, and consciousness — the three link up — contact) 「Attention has as its nature the capacity to alert the mind; toward the object it takes, its function is to draw the mind」 (to rouse the mind and pull it toward the object — attention) 「「Feeling」 has as its nature the taking-in of agreeable, disagreeable, and neither object-marks; its function is to give rise to craving」 (to receive the favourable and the adverse — feeling, and the starting-point of love-and-hate) 「「Perception」 has as its nature the grasping of an image upon the object; its function is to set up the various names and words」 (to grasp a figure upon the object and to fix names — conceptualization) 「「Volition」 has as its nature the causing of the mind to construct; toward the wholesome categories and the rest, its function is to conscript the mind」 (to drive the mind into action — will, whence karma issues)

Contact, attention, feeling, perception, volition — touching, attending, feeling, image-grasping, setting-in-motion — the minimum establishment of any single act of 「seeing」. The full roster of mental factors numbers fifty-one, divided into six classes (the universals, the object-specific, the wholesome, the afflictions, the secondary afflictions, and the indeterminate); this book, following 「one post, one charge」, does not enter the same item twice on the ledger — for the whole chart, follow the Baifa mingmen companion volume — which is this school's complete taxonomy of mental phenomena, one dharma to a file.

5 · How the Mind Knows Itself — the Four Parts

The last corner of the map answers one of philosophy's most slippery questions: consciousness discerns its object — who discerns consciousness itself? The Cheng weishi lun analyses the consciousness of a single instant into the seen-part and the seeing-part: 「that which resembles the apprehended-aspect is called the seen-part; that which resembles the apprehending-aspect is called the seeing-part.」 — the object-image that appears is the seen-part, the apprehending function is the seeing-part. Yet if there were only these two parts, one everyday fact could not be accounted for — memory:

「The self-substance on which the seen-part and the seeing-part rest is called the entity, that is, the self-witnessing part. Were this absent, one ought not to be able to remember one's own mind and mental factors — for just as what has never experienced an object certainly cannot be remembered.」

You remember not only the flower you saw yesterday but also 「that I saw」 — with this the treatise-master establishes that, beyond apprehending its object, consciousness still has a self-witnessing: if consciousness, when it arose, were wholly without self-knowing, then afterward there would be no way to recall it, 「just as what has never experienced an object certainly cannot be remembered」. This dimension that witnesses itself is named the self-witnessing part. Take watching a film as a comparison: the image on the screen is the seen-part, the act of watching is the seeing-part, and the inward self-witnessing that this act of consciousness has in the very moment of watching may be likened to the self-witnessing part. The treatise-master presses one layer further: 「There is, moreover, a fourth: the witnessing-of-the-self-witnessing. Were this absent, who would witness the third?」 — he sets up the fourth part and stops there (for the masters' debate over three parts versus four, follow the full discussion in the Cheng weishi lun companion volume). Chapter 11's Saṃdhinirmocana says, further, that in stilling 「there is again, upon this very mind, the mind able to contemplate」; the two passages can illuminate each other as a clue that 『the mind too can become an object-of-cognition』, but the source-text does not say that stilling is established by the self-witnessing part, and so this can serve only as a cross-reading, and cannot be written up as a causal proof.

The eight stretches of hydrology are now walked through to the end: the seed-holding torrent in the depths, the self-grasping background noise of the middle layer, the condition-following billows of the surface, and the registration each wave carries with it. The map is in hand — yet on one and the same river, why does one being see ghosts and another see water? How can all three ways of seeing be right? The next chapter is the pivot of the whole book.

To follow the source-texts: on the reading path, Station Three — the Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only, verses 1–16; Station Seven — the Cheng weishi lun, the chapter on the first two transformers; Station One — the Baifa mingmen lun in its entirety, await you.

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