成唯識論 義疏通講 · 冊2

This section picks up from the thesis stated in the previous one. To establish that "there is only consciousness, no external object," we first have to establish that neither a real self nor real dharmas can be found. Here the author trains his fire on the real self — like an enormously patient debater, he takes up every way people imagine a "self" and presses each one, round by round, all the way to its breaking point.

This refutation of a real self, for all that it reads like a single sustained debate, has scripture and treatise behind every line. At the very end the author calls the Buddha's own word in the canonical sūtra as witness: whatever renunciants and brahmins suppose there to be a "self," every one of them sees that self only upon the "five aggregates of clinging" — reckoning that form and the rest are the self, or that they are other than the self, or that the self resides within them, or that they reside within the self — running the same four propositions across each aggregate in turn. With that one statement the Buddha pins down "the object of self-view" upon the five appropriated aggregates, leaving no separate real self to be cognized; this is the scriptural root of the present section's refutation. On the treatise side, the basis is the Yogācārabhūmi: the foolish, upon the five appropriated aggregates, raise the "twenty propositions of the view of the perishing aggregates" — upon each of the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness they set up the four propositions "this is the self · the self possesses this · this belongs to the self · the self resides in this," five times four making twenty, of which five propositions see the self directly and the remaining fifteen see "what belongs to the self," all of them arising in dependence on the five appropriated aggregates. The sūtra's teaching that self-view cognizes the five aggregates, and the treatise's verdict that the view of the perishing aggregates cognizes only the five aggregates, are precisely the ground for this treatise's doctrine that "upon dharmas that are not the self one deludedly construes a self" and that all such construal "cognizes the appearance of the impermanent five appropriated aggregates." What follows expounds the refutation in the order the author lays it down.

Why This Must Be Refuted

How do we know that there is, in fact, no object lying outside the mind — that there is only the inner consciousness transforming itself so that it appears like an external object? The author's point of entry is this: because a real self and real dharmas simply cannot be found. So he begins by refuting the real self.

First Round: Just How Large Is This "Self" You Speak Of?

The selves that ordinary people cling to can be sorted, the author observes, into three sizes (three claims about the self's spatial magnitude), and he refutes each. Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) points out that this first one — the self that is "permanent, all-pervading, and vast as space" — is exactly what the two schools of Sāṃkhya and Vaiśeṣika cling to: Sāṃkhya holds the "self" to be the experiencer, for whose sake the "three constituents (primordial nature)" do the work; Vaiśeṣika places the self under the "category of substance," saying that this self can itself both act and experience. The refutation that follows is aimed at this sort of "permanent, all-pervading real self."

Those who hold that the self is permanent, all-pervading, and vast as space. Then such a self ought not to feel pain or pleasure along with the body — space, after all, never aches or itches. And since it is both permanent and all-pervading, filling every location, it ought to be incapable of moving at all; so how could it travel along with the body to perform the various deeds that generate karma? Press the point a further step: is this "self" one and the same across all sentient beings, or is there a separate one in each? If it is one and the same, then when a single person acts, everyone should be acting; when one person reaps a result, all should reap it; when one person is liberated, all should be liberated at once — which is absurd. And if there is a separate self in each being, yet each of these selves is also all-pervading, then they would overlap one another and their very natures would be mixed together. Worse: since they overlap everywhere, when one person acts and receives the result, that place is indistinguishable from where every other self is present, so the act and its result would have to count as something all the selves jointly performed and jointly received. Nor can the objector rescue the view by saying "the acting and the receiving each belong to their proper owner and do not get mixed up." The deed, its fruit, and the body all coincide with every one of those all-pervading selves; to insist arbitrarily that they "belong only to this self and not to that one" cannot be made coherent. And once again, when one person is liberated, all should be liberated — because the practice undertaken and the realization attained likewise coincide with all the selves.

Those who hold that the self is permanent, but of indeterminate size — expanding and contracting to fit the body. If you say it is permanent, then it ought not to stretch and shrink with the body. And if it does stretch and shrink, then it is like the air inside a bellows (swelling and collapsing with the bag) — which means it is not permanent after all. Moreover, since it can grow large or small to match the body, it can be cut apart and divided into pieces; so how can you still call the self "one undivided whole"? This view the author dismisses outright as no better than a child's make-believe talk.

Those who hold that the self is extremely small — minute as a single atom, moving stealthily through the body to get its work done. How could so tiny a point set the whole great body into motion all at once? Suppose the objector rescues the view by saying, "Though it is small, it races around the body so swiftly — like a whirling torch that looks like a continuous ring of fire, so that the whole body seems to move." Then this "self" has become something neither single nor permanent — for whatever comes and goes, racing about from place to place, is by that very fact not permanent and not one undivided whole.

Second Round: What Is the Relation Between the "Self" and the Body-Mind (the Five Aggregates)?

Shifting the angle, the author now refutes the self by way of its relation to the five aggregates, again in three forms.

Those who say the self just is the five aggregates. Then the self ought to be, like the aggregates, impermanent and many (the aggregates by nature arise and perish, and they are a heap of items). Tested aggregate by aggregate, this too fails. The bodily aggregate of rūpa (the five faculties) is not the real self, because, like the physical matter outside the body, it has the property of resistance and obstruction. Mind and the mental factors (citta and caitta) are not the real self either, because they cannot continue uninterruptedly and must wait on a gathering of conditions to arise. And the remaining factors of the saṃskāra aggregate, and the remaining rūpa, are not the real self, because, like space, they have no property of awareness. Every one of the aggregates fails to be the self; so the "self that is the aggregates" cannot stand.

Those who say the self exists really, apart from the five aggregates. Then it would be like space — without the function of generating karma or receiving its fruit. (Once it is severed from the body-mind, with what would it act, and with what would it receive?)

Those who say the self is neither identical with nor separate from the five aggregates. Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) identifies this position as belonging to the Vātsīputrīya school (a school formed by a non-Buddhist of the Vātsī clan who went forth under the Buddha, also called the Pudgalavāda) and the Sāṃmitīya school — who set up a "self" that is neither identical with nor separate from the aggregates it depends on, yet has a real substance of its own and is neither permanent nor impermanent, and who further set up "five repositories of dharmas" (past, present, future, the unconditioned, plus this "inexpressible self"). It is this that the author refutes. Since you grant that this self is set up in dependence on the aggregates, then it ought to be like a pot (which is likewise set up in dependence on the four great elements and is neither identical with nor separate from them) — a merely conventional, posited thing, not a real self. And further: this self cannot be called conditioned (for to be identical with the aggregates would make it conditioned), nor can it be called unconditioned (for only what is apart from the aggregates is unconditioned). In just the same way, then, it can be called neither "a self" nor "not a self" — both exits are sealed shut, and this self cannot so much as be given a name. Kuiji also supplies the inference by which the author refutes the Vātsīputrīya: the self you cling to ought not to be a real self; for since you allow it to be "set up in dependence on the aggregates, neither identical with the aggregates nor separate from them," it is on a par with conventional things such as pots and basins (all of which are set up in dependence on something else and have no real substance of their own).

Third Round: Three Blunt Interrogations

The author presses to the very end with three matched pairs of questions.

Does this "real self" think, or does it not? If it thinks, then it must be impermanent (for thinking comes and goes, starting and stopping, never continuously present). If it does not think, then it is like space and can neither generate karma nor receive its fruit. Both roads are blocked.

Does it have function, or does it not? If it has function, then it is like hands and feet (whatever has function is impermanent) and must be impermanent. If it has no function, then it is like the horns of a hare (whatever has no function is not really existent) and must not be a real self. Once again both ends are blocked.

Is it, or is it not, the object grasped by the "self-view" (the very thought that clings to a self)? If it is not the object of any cognition whatever, then on what grounds could you even know that there is such a self? And if it is the object grasped by the self-view, then there should be a kind of "self-view" that is not mistaken — for it would have truly cognized a real self just as it is. Yet even the scriptural authority that the self-clinger himself reveres condemns self-view across the board and praises the absence of self, teaching that the "view of no-self" can realize nirvāṇa while the "view that clings to a self" sinks one into birth-and-death. Where is there any case of a "wrong view" that can, on the contrary, realize nirvāṇa, or a "right view" that, on the contrary, makes one sink? This shows that self-view is, in the end, mistaken, and that it has not cognized any real self at all.

The author then adds a tight further inference. The self-view does not cognize a real self — because it "has an object," just like any mind that cognizes some other object (every mind that has an object is one that fails to cognize a real self). And what the self-view takes as object is likewise certainly not a real self — because it "is an object that is cognized," just like all other dharmas (whatever is cognized is not a real self). The conclusion, then, is this: self-view does not cognize any real self at all. It merely cognizes "the five aggregates produced by the transformation of the inner consciousness," and then, following each person's own deluded disposition, construes and takes them, in all sorts of ways, to be a self.

Self-Clinging Comes in Two Kinds: One Inborn, One Acquired by Learning

The author next divides self-clinging into two classes.

Innate self-clinging is present from birth. Through the false perfuming that has gone on without beginning, and through an inner causal force, it follows the body and life continuously — needing no one to teach it, requiring no deliberate discrimination, arising spontaneously. It is itself of two kinds. One is "constantly continuous": in the seventh consciousness, the manas, it cognizes (the perceiving-aspect of) the eighth consciousness, generates an image of it, and grasps that as a real self. The other is "intermittent": in the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness, it cognizes the appearance of the "five appropriated aggregates" produced by consciousness — taking them either together or separately — generates an image, and grasps that as a real self. These two forms of innate self-clinging are very subtle and hard to sever; only later, in the path of cultivation, by repeatedly practicing the "contemplation of the emptiness of persons" again and again, can they be removed.

Discriminated self-clinging is acquired. It is triggered by present outer conditions, is not inborn, and arises only after one has met the teaching of a misguided teacher and roused a mistaken discrimination. Moreover, it occurs only within the sixth, mental consciousness. It too is of two kinds: one cognizes the "appearance of the aggregates" as set out in the mistaken teaching, the other cognizes the "appearance of a self" as set out in the mistaken teaching — each generating its image and construing and grasping it as a real self. These two forms of discriminated self-clinging are comparatively coarse and obvious, and easy to sever: at the very first "path of seeing," the moment one illuminates the "suchness disclosed by the emptiness of persons" (the suchness revealed when persons are seen as empty), they are extinguished.

So What Is Self-Clinging Actually Grasping At?

Take all the forms of self-clinging together. What they cognize — the "aggregates" lying outside one's own mind — may or may not exist (the external object is not necessarily real). But the "aggregates" transformed within one's own mind always do exist. So every form of self-clinging is, in truth, cognizing the appearance of the "impermanent five appropriated aggregates" and deludedly grasping it as a "self." And these aggregate-appearances, being produced by a gathering of conditions, are "existent as an illusion is existent" (neither nonexistent nor truly existent); while the "self" grasped by the deluded disposition is purely something fabricated by construal laid on top — and so is "definitively nonexistent." This is exactly what the Buddha says in scripture: a monk should know that the self-views of all the renunciants and brahmins in the world, every one of them, arise in dependence on the five appropriated aggregates.

Turning the Question Around: Without a Real Self, How Can Memory, Karma, and Rebirth Be Established?

At this point the side that maintains a real self counters: if there were no real self, how could there be such things as memory, recognition, recitation and retention, repeated practice, gratitude and resentment? (Don't these require a self that runs consistently through earlier and later moments?)

The author first turns the charge back on the objector. The real self you cling to is, by your own account, "permanent and utterly unchanging." Then "afterward" ought to be exactly the same as "before" (if it never changes, where would a new memory come from), and "before" ought to be the same as "afterward." Since there is no difference at all in nature between before and after, a "later-arising event" such as memory ought, on the contrary, not to be possible. Suppose the objector shifts ground and says, "It is the self's function that changes, while the self's substance does not." This too fails: function cannot be separated from substance, so the function ought to be as permanent as the substance (in which case the function should not change either); and substance cannot be separated from function, so the substance ought to change just as the function does (in which case the substance should not be permanent either). One permanent, one changing — you cannot pry them forcibly apart. What truly lets memory and the rest be established is this: each sentient being has its own "root consciousness" (the eighth, the ālaya-vijñāna), continuing unbroken in one homogeneous class of nature, effortlessly maintaining the seeds, mutually causal with all dharmas; and by the force of perfuming, things like memory and recognition come about. So this difficulty stumps the one who maintains a real self — not the school that teaches consciousness-only.

In the same way, "without a real self, who generates karma, and who receives the result?" That self of yours — permanent as space, utterly unchanging — could never act or receive in the first place; and if it could change, it is no longer the permanent self you claimed. In reality it is the mind and mental factors of the sentient being, continuing unbroken by the force of causes and conditions, that generate karma and receive its result — and there is no difficulty in this at all. "Without a real self, who transmigrates, and who seeks nirvāṇa?" That self of yours, neither arising nor perishing, cannot possibly transmigrate; and being permanent as space and untouched by suffering and affliction, why would it ever need to grow weary and turn away, or seek nirvāṇa? This shows that by positing a permanent self you actually make both transmigration and liberation impossible to explain — permanence ends up harming the very position that asserts it. The truth is this: the body-mind continuum of the sentient being is driven through the various destinies by the afflictions and the force of karma; and because it grows weary of the mass of suffering, it then seeks to head toward nirvāṇa — and none of this requires a real self.

Conclusion: There Is No Real Self At All

After all this round-on-round questioning, we can conclude with certainty: there really is no "self." What there is, is only this — the consciousnesses, from time without beginning, with "the prior thought perishing and the later thought arising," continuing unbroken as cause and effect; and, owing to false perfuming, transforming themselves so as to manifest the semblance of a "self." Foolish people then take this self-like image and stubbornly treat it as a "self."

Onward Transmission

The doctrine established in this section — "refute the real self, settle that there is no self" — is the very foundation on which the whole consciousness-only system rests its account of "no-self," and the later treatises take it up one after another. The Hundred Dharmas treatise, among the root afflictions, lists the "view of the perishing aggregates (the view of self)" as the first of the five views — that is, the very thought refuted here, the one that, cognizing the five appropriated aggregates, deludedly grasps "I" and "what is mine"; and among the factors dissociated from mind it sets up the "person" (pudgala), expressly stating that this is only a conventionally posited name with no real substance, which is just the working-out of this section's doctrine that "the self is merely posited, not really existent." The Thirty Verses — the first half of verse one, "through provisional speech of self and dharmas" — is the very root-verse this section expounds; this section is the extended refutation of the real self packed into that one phrase, "self is provisionally spoken," verse answering to verse. The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, speaks of "false discrimination," saying that the dual grasping of self and dharmas is all wholly-imagined and has no self-substance at all — running together with this section's doctrine that "the appearance of a self manifests, but the construal of it is nonexistent." The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its chapter on the characteristics of the knowable, sets up "the wholly-imagined nature," making clear that self and dharmas are nonexistent and only seem to appear in dependence on what the other-dependent nature transforms — and this is precisely the root from which "refuting self-clinging" is pushed onward toward the doctrines of the other-dependent and the wholly-imagined natures. As for the Twenty Verses, its main concern is to establish consciousness-only and refute the outsiders' clinging to real external objects (refuting external atoms), and it has no direct counterpart to the frontal refutation of the real self (what bears on refuting external objects and atoms belongs rather to the later chapter, "refuting the clinging to dharmas · refuting matter"); here it is honestly left aside.

〔Verses commented〕Unfolding verse 1 · refuting the dharma-attachment

The self refuted, the treatise turns to dharmas — the things taken to be real outside the mind. This chapter refutes the heterodox first: Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika, Maheśvara and the rest, the eternality of sound, and those who hold real atoms capable of producing gross form; it closes with a general refutation of the four positions concerning a thing and its being. The form-dharmas and non-concurrent formations held by the Lesser Vehicle form the next chapter.

The refutation of dharmas has its ground in scripture and treatise. The Saṃdhinirmocana, in its chapter on discerning yoga, says: I declare that what consciousness takes as object is only what consciousness manifests. If the object is only what consciousness manifests, a real dharma outside the mind has nowhere to stand — the scriptural ground for the refutation of dharma-attachment at large. The treatise ground is the Yogācārabhūmi, Basic Section, which fixes consciousness as the present discerning of an object: what is discerned is never apart from the discerning, and a dharma apart from consciousness cannot be found. What follows refutes school by school. This refutation of "dharmas" has its roots in scripture and treatise alike. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in its chapter on the analysis of yoga, says "I declare that the object of consciousness is only what consciousness manifests," and again "here there is no dharma that perceives any dharma; rather, when this mind arises in such a way, just such an image appears" — the object cognized is only consciousness transforming (as a mirror, taking its own substance as condition, reflects back that very substance), and there is no real object outside the mind that is perceived. This is the very scriptural root of refuting "the various dharmas really existing apart from consciousness." The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, with the line "contemplate that the three realms are mind-only in their measure, apart from self and what is mine," displays that all dharmas are mind-only and that outer objects have no nature of their own. The Yogācārabhūmi goes further and assigns "dharmas" to the three own-natures — "the own-nature of what is wholly wholly-imagined, the other-dependent own-nature, and the perfectly-accomplished own-nature" — and makes plain that what is called "wholly wholly-imagined" is "established by repeatedly and pervasively reckoning dharmas on the basis of nominal speech," so that "because of the absence of own-nature in characteristic, the own-nature of what is wholly wholly-imagined is said to be without own-nature." The real dharmas grasped by the non-Buddhist and Lesser-Vehicle schools that this section refutes are precisely "what is wholly wholly-imagined" (established by nominal-speech reckoning, ultimately without essence); and the inner consciousness transforming into the semblance (of an object) that it establishes is precisely "the other-dependent." Its scriptural root is in the Saṃdhinirmocana and the Laṅkāvatāra, its treatise-basis in the Yogācārabhūmi — and with that we follow the treatise and open the exposition.

I. The general thesis: dharmas outside the mind also cannot be found

How do we know that there are in fact no really-existing dharmas outside the mind, and that there is only the inner consciousness transforming so as to resemble an outer object and thereby arising? Because the dharmas-outside-the-mind grasped by both the non-Buddhist schools and the Lesser Vehicle are, when reasoned through, not really existent.

II. Refuting the real dharmas grasped by the non-Buddhist schools

Sāṃkhya (the twenty-three principles, compounded of the three constituents)

The Sāṃkhya teachers hold that the "spirit-self" (puruṣa) is the "intelligence" — the experiencer — and that what it experiences is the "great one" (mahat, intellect) and so on, twenty-three dharmas, all compounded out of the three constituents sattva, rajas, and tamas. They further claim that, although the great one and the rest are compounded from the three constituents, they are nonetheless really existent and not merely nominal, being directly given to perception. The master refutes this in layer after layer.

First: since the great one and the rest are "compounded from many items" (the three constituents), they ought, like an "army" (compounded of many soldiers) or a "forest" (compounded of many trees), to be merely nominal dharmas — how then can they be called really existent items obtained by direct perception?

Second: if the great one and the rest were truly existent, they ought, like the three constituents that are the "underlying substances," not to be produced by compounding. Conversely, since the three constituents sattva and the rest just are the very essence of the great one and the rest (being non-different from them), they too ought, like the great one and the rest, to be compounded out of three and to be impermanent in their transformation. By this mutual objection the three constituents themselves cannot be established as a real, permanent ground.

Third: each of the three underlying constituents possesses many distinct capacities (sattva governs joy, rajas governs distress, tamas governs darkness), so its "essence" too ought to be many (since capacity and essence are one and the same). And since the essence of each of the three constituents is everywhere pervasive, then when one place undergoes change, all the other places ought to change along with it simultaneously (a pervasive, undifferentiated essence cannot be confined to one spot).

Fourth: having granted that the essences and the characteristics of the three constituents are each distinct, how can they then combine into "one single characteristic"? They should not suddenly become one characteristic upon combining, because at the moment of combining the essence is no different from what it was before combining (the essence does not change, so on what could the characteristic become one?).

Fifth: if one tries to save the position by saying "the three constituents have distinct essences but the same characteristic (and being the same in characteristic they can combine into one)," this contradicts the school's own thesis that "essence and characteristic are one." Furthermore, since essence and characteristic are one, the essence too ought, like the characteristic, to merge obscurely into one, and the characteristic too ought, like the essence, to show plainly as three — so one cannot say "three combine into one."

Sixth: the three constituents are the "particulars" and the great one and the rest are the "whole"; and since whole and particular are one, the result ought to be "neither one nor three." When the three constituents manifest, if they do not combine into one characteristic, they ought, as before manifesting, to remain three — so how can what is actually seen be "one" color? And if they do combine into one characteristic, they ought to discard their original particular characteristics, and with them the essence is discarded too.

Seventh: nor can one save the position by saying "each of the three constituents has both a whole-characteristic and a particular-characteristic (whole, hence seen as one; particular, hence seen as three)" — because "the whole just is the particular," the whole-characteristic too ought to be three, so how could one see "one"?

Eighth: nor, again, by saying "the essence of each of the three constituents contains three characteristics, mingled and hard to distinguish, hence seen as one" — for once there are already three characteristics, how can one see them as one? And if they are mingled and hard to distinguish, how then do you know that the three constituents differ from one another at all?

Ninth: if each one of those three constituents already fully possesses three characteristics, then each one alone could form color and the rest (each constituent already has three, so why wait for combining?) — what is still lacking that requires the three constituents to combine? And the essence too ought to form three in each (each constituent has three characteristics, and essence just is characteristic).

Tenth: since the great one and all the rest are compounded from the three constituents, then comparing any with any they ought to show no difference at all; and on this footing the manifold distinctions among "cause (primordial nature), effect (the great one and the rest), the five subtle elements, the five gross elements, and the faculties" can none of them be established.

Eleventh: on this footing, one faculty ought to be able to grasp every object, or one object ought to be grasped by every faculty; and the world's plainly observed distinctions — between sentient and non-sentient, pure and foul, and even between direct perception and inference — ought all to vanish. This is a gross fault. Therefore the real dharmas of Sāṃkhya cannot be established; they are only the reckonings of deluded imagination.

Vaiśeṣika (the six categories: substance and the rest)

The Vaiśeṣika teachers hold that the six categories — substance, quality, motion, generality, particularity, and inherence — are mostly really existent and obtained by direct perception. The master refutes each in turn.

First, regarding the "permanent" categories (such as permanent substances and the atoms): if such a thing can produce an effect, it ought to be impermanent (since it has an operation, like the effect it produces); if it cannot produce an effect, then it ought not to exist really apart from consciousness, like the horns of a hare.

Next, regarding the "impermanent" categories: if such a thing has resistant solidity, then it has spatial parts and can be analyzed, like an army or a forest, and so is not really existent; if it has no resistant solidity, then it is like mind and the mental factors, and so ought not to have a real self-nature apart from consciousness.

Then, taking the "substance" category and the "quality" category as mutual examples: the "earth, water, fire, wind" that you grasp (the substance category) ought to be "non-resistant" — because they, together with "solidity, wetness, warmth, motion" (the quality category, which is non-resistant), are alike touched by the body-faculty; and conversely, the "solidity, wetness, warmth" you grasp (the quality category) ought to be "non-non-resistant" — because they, together with earth, water, fire, and wind (which are resistant), are alike touched by the body-faculty. Again, earth, water, and fire, together with "blue color," are alike seen by the eye, and can be pressed in just the same way. Therefore there are no separately self-existent natures of "real earth, water, fire, wind" and "solidity, wetness," and so on; nor does the eye truly see real earth, water, and fire (what is seen is only the visible color, blue and the rest). Further: among the substance category, those that are "resistant yet permanent" (such as the permanent atoms), being all resistant, ought, like gross manifest earth, to be impermanent; while among the categories, any dharma that is "grasped by a form-faculty yet non-resistant" ought all to be resistant (since you grant a form-faculty can grasp it, it is like earth, water, fire, and wind) — which contradicts its "non-resistant" status.

Next, refuting what is "neither belonging to substance nor belonging to being": the "non-substance qualities" you grasp (those not subsumed under the substance category) ought to have no self-nature separately apart from consciousness, because they are not subsumed by the substance category, like the child of a barren woman (utterly non-existent). And what you grasp as "not subsumed by the nature of being" (not belonging to the "being" category) ought likewise to have no self-nature separately apart from consciousness, because it is not subsumed by the being category, like a flower in the sky.

Refuting the "great being" category: the "being" (great being) you grasp ought to have no separate self-nature once apart from substance, quality, and the rest, because you grant it "is not non-existent" (it is existent), like substance, quality, and the rest. Yet if you say "being" exists separately apart from substance and the rest, then it ought to be "non-being," because you grant it differs from substance and the rest, like "absolute non-existence" (what stands apart from all dharmas is the same as absolute non-existence). Just as "being" itself, in being "not non-existent," does not add some further "nature of being" (being need not have yet another being added), so why should substance and the other dharmas require some additional "nature of being" laid on top before they count as existent? If you say "apart from the dharma-that-has-being there is separately a nature of being," then "apart from the dharma-that-has-non-being there ought separately to be a nature of non-being" — and since you do not grant the latter, how can the former be established? Therefore the nature of "great being" is only the reckoning of deluded imagination.

Refuting the "generality" and "particularity" categories: the "substance-nature, quality-nature, motion-nature" you grasp as different from "substance, quality, motion" themselves definitely cannot be established. Otherwise (if a nature could differ from its essence), this "substance-nature" itself ought also not to be "the nature of substance, quality, and motion" (a nature outside which yet another nature is required), because it differs from substance and the rest, like quality and motion — and this proceeds without end. And "substance and the rest" themselves ought then not to be subsumed by "substance-nature and the rest," because they differ from substance-nature and the rest, like quality, motion, and substance. Just as upon "substance-nature" there is no further "nature of substance-nature," so upon "substance and the rest" there ought not to be a further "substance-nature." If you say "apart from substance and the rest there is separately a substance-nature," then "apart from non-substance and the rest there ought also to be separately a non-substance-nature" — and since you do not grant the latter, how can the former be established? Therefore the two natures, "generality" and "particularity," are merely nominal designations. The "nature" of earth and the rest, in relation to the "essence" of earth and the rest, can likewise be pressed back and forth in the same way.

Refuting the "inherence" category: the "inherence" you grasp is definitely not really existent, because it is not subsumed by the dharmas "being, substance," and the rest, like absolute non-existence. Even the substances and the rest that you yourself grant are obtained by direct perception turn out, on one stroke of reasoning, to be not real — how much more "inherence," which even you grant is not obtained by direct perception: how could it be really existent? And even if one stubbornly insists that inherence is an object of direct perception, by the foregoing reasoning (the compound of many is a nominal dharma, not real) it is still not real.

Finally, the general conclusion: those "substances" and the rest of yours are in fact not apprehensions of self-essences really existing apart from consciousness and obtained by direct perception, because they are "objects of knowledge," and whatever is an object of knowledge is like the hairs of a tortoise (not really existent apart from consciousness). Moreover, the cognition that apprehends "substance" is not a direct-perceptual cognition apprehending the self-essence of the substance category apart from consciousness, because it "arises from a nominal combination," like the cognition apprehending "quality" — and so on, down to the cognition apprehending "inherence," which is the same. Therefore the categories of "substance" and the rest in Vaiśeṣika are likewise designations imposed in keeping with deluded imagination.

Maheśvara and the like (one cause producing all dharmas)

There are non-Buddhists who hold that there is a single "great sovereign god" (Maheśvara) whose essence is real, all-pervasive, and permanent, and who can produce all dharmas. The master refutes this in three linked steps: whatever "can produce" is necessarily not permanent (it undergoes change); whatever is "not permanent" is necessarily not pervasive (it is confined to a time and place); and whatever is "not pervasive" is not truly real. Besides, if its essence is permanent and pervasive and also has productive power, then it ought to produce all dharmas at once, in every place and at every time. And if one says it must wait until it gives rise to "desire," or wait for the assemblage of "conditions," before it produces, then this contradicts the thesis of "one cause producing all dharmas" (needing to wait on desire and conditions means it is not a single cause); and that "desire" and those "conditions" ought themselves to arise all at once (since the cause is permanent). All who grasp at "great Brahmā, time, direction, the original limit, spontaneous nature, empty space, the spirit-self," and so on, as permanently and really existent, possessed of productive power and producing all dharmas, are refuted on this same model.

The eternalist-of-sound schools (the Veda-sound is eternal; all sound is eternal)

Some narrowly hold that "the sound of the treatises of light (the Veda) is eternal," able to serve as a fixed standard and able to express and denote all dharmas; others hold that "all sound is eternal," merely awaiting conditions to be made manifest before it has expressive denotation. Neither view stands: since the Veda-sound is granted to be "denotative," it ought, like other sounds, to be non-eternal; and the other sounds too ought to be of a non-eternal essence, like a jar or a robe, being made manifest only when various conditions (mouth, tongue, and so on) await.

Atoms that are real and permanent and produce gross form

There are non-Buddhists who hold that "the atoms of earth, water, fire, and wind are real and permanent and can produce gross form," and that the gross form so produced does not exceed the measure of the atoms, and though impermanent is nonetheless real in essence. The master refutes: the atoms you grasp, if they have spatial parts, are divisible like a column of ants, and so their essence ought not to be real; if they have no spatial parts, then they are like mind and the mental factors and ought not to be able to aggregate together to produce a gross resultant form (without spatial parts there is no way to combine). Furthermore, since they can produce an effect, they ought, like the effect they produce, to be impermanent — so how can the atoms be called permanent? Again: since the resultant effect does not exceed the measure of the atoms, it ought, like the atoms, to be small and not deserve the name "gross form"; and then that resultant form would not be graspable by the eye and the other form-faculties, which contradicts your own intent that it "produces gross form." If one saves the position by saying "the resultant form, because it combines with the 'quality of magnitude' (the quality of grossness), although not truly gross, resembles gross form and can be grasped by the form-faculties," the refutation is: since the resultant form you grasp is equal in measure to the atoms, it ought, like the atoms, to have no "combination with a quality of grossness" (the atoms have no quality of grossness, so an equal-measured effect ought to have none either); or conversely, the atoms too ought to "have a combination with a quality of grossness" (if the effect has it, the cause ought to as well) — because there is no difference between the place where the effect resides and the place where its cause resides. If one then saves it by saying "the resultant form pervades its many own-causes, and the causes are more than one, so it may be named gross," then the essence of that resultant form ought to be "not one," distinct from place to place like the many causes in which it resides; and since it is not one (scattered across the many atoms), this effect still does not constitute grossness (scattered and not aggregated, it is not gross), and so it is still not grasped by the form-faculties.

General refutation of the four positions of the non-Buddhist schools (the dharma-that-has and the "being"-nature: neither identical, nor different, nor both)

Although the varieties of non-Buddhist schools are many, when it comes to the relation between "dharmas (the subject-that-has)" and "the natures such as 'being' (the predicate)," it does not exceed four positions, and the master refutes them one by one.

First, grasping that "the essence is definitely identical" (as in Sāṃkhya): then all dharmas ought to equal "the nature of being," with no difference of essence among them, which contradicts your own school's "the three constituents and the spirit-self each have distinct essences," and also contradicts the world's manifold distinctions; and if "color and the rest just are the nature of color and the rest," then color and the rest ought to have no differences such as blue, yellow, and so on.

Second, grasping that "the essence is definitely different" (as in Vaiśeṣika): then all dharmas ought not to be "the nature of being," and apart from the dharma there is no being, equal to a non-existence already perished, which contradicts your own school's "the self-essence of substance and the rest is not non-existent," and also contradicts the plainly seen existence of things; and if "color and the rest are not the nature of color and the rest," then color and the rest ought, like sound, not to be objects of the eye.

Third, grasping "both identical and different" (as among the Nirgranthas and the Jainas): this firstly incurs together the faults of both the foregoing "identical" and "different" positions, and secondly, the two characteristics "identical" and "different" are mutually contradictory, so the essences ought to be distinct and cannot reside together in one dharma.

Fourth, grasping "neither identical nor different" (as among the Ājīvika non-Buddhists): its faults are the same as the foregoing (to be non-identical is to fall into difference; to be non-different is to fall into identity); furthermore, is this statement "neither identical nor different" a "negation" or an "affirmation"? If it is purely affirmation, it ought not to doubly deny; if it is purely negation, it establishes nothing and cannot be held as a thesis; if it is both negation and affirmation, it is self-contradictory; if it is neither negation nor affirmation, it becomes idle prattle — and it also contradicts the world's plain common sense that there really are "things identical and things different." Therefore these are all evasive turns of phrase contrived to slip away, and the wise should not be taken in by them.

Onward Transmission

This refutation of the heterodox real dharma is carried forward by the later treatises. The Twenty Verses establishes consciousness-without-object by the four considerations of place, time, and the rest, on the same track as this chapter. The Madhyāntavibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, gathers grasper and grasped under unreal imagination; what is refuted here as a thing and its being is the grasped side of that. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha, in its chapter on the character of the knowable, shows the wholly-imagined nature to be utterly without existence; the schools refuted one by one here are so many faces of that imagining. The Hundred Dharmas sets out five classes and a hundred dharmas with no place for the principles and categories the heterodox posit — a selection resting on refutations of just this kind.

〔Verses commented〕Continuing: unfolding verse 1 · refuting the dharma-attachment

The refutation of Lesser-Vehicle real form and of the non-concurrent formations has its treatise ground. The Yogācārabhūmi, Basic Section, fixes form as eleven kinds in brief, all of them the range of consciousness, and allows none of them existence apart from it; and for the formations not concurrent with mind it establishes that they are provisionally set up upon phases — attainment, life-faculty, group-homogeneity and the rest being posited upon phases of form and mind, with no substance of their own. Those words, provisionally set up upon phases, are the hinge on which this chapter refutes the Lesser-Vehicle reals one by one.

III. Refuting the form-dharmas and the rest grasped by the Lesser Vehicle

The Lesser Vehicle grasps "form and the other dharmas as really existing apart from consciousness." In what follows we refute, in order, the form-dharmas and then the non-concurrent formations (the unconditioned dharmas come in the next section).

Form-dharmas (1) · refuting resistant form (atoms)

The form they grasp is of two kinds in total: one is "resistant form" (having resistant solidity, mutually obstructing, made of atoms), the other is "non-resistant form" (without resistant solidity, not made of atoms). First we refute resistant form — the atoms that are supposed to constitute it cannot stand.

If the atoms have resistant solidity, they ought, like a jar and so on, to be nominal and not real; if they have no resistant solidity, they ought to be like "non-form," and then how could they aggregate to form a jar or a robe? Again: if the atoms have spatial parts, they must be analyzable and so are not really existent; if they have no spatial parts, then how can they combine and "receive light, cast shadow"? When the orb of the sun has just risen and shines on a pillar, the east side of the pillar (toward the sun) receives the light, and the west side (away from the sun) casts the shadow; since the place that receives light and the place that casts shadow are different, the atoms must definitely have spatial parts (a toward-part and an away-part). Again: when we see and touch a wall, we obtain only this one side (the face toward us) and cannot obtain the other part (the face away from us); and since "the aggregated thing" just is "the many atoms," the atoms must have this side and that part. Again: the atoms, wherever they reside, must have the distinctions of up, down, and the four directions, for otherwise there would be no way for them to neighbor one another and aggregate; or else (if they had no spatial parts and interpenetrated into one spot) they could not aggregate into a gross thing. Therefore, for those who grasp that "resistant form just is the many atoms": if the atoms have no spatial parts, they ought to have no "obstruction"; and having no obstruction, they do not constitute "resistant, obstructing" form. So the atoms you grasp must have spatial parts; and having spatial parts, they are analyzable and definitely not really existent. Therefore "resistant form is really existent" cannot be established.

Form-dharmas (2) · non-resistant form — the form on which the five consciousnesses depend and which they take as object is only transformed by consciousness

Then do the first five consciousnesses have no "form on which they depend (the faculties)" and no "form which they take as object (the objects)"? It is not that there is no form; it is only that that form is "transformed by consciousness." When consciousness arises, by the power of the inner causes and conditions it manifests an image resembling the eye and the rest (the faculties) and resembling color and the rest (the objects), and it takes this (inwardly transformed) image as that on which it depends and which it takes as object. And the "five faculties — eye and the rest" are not seen by direct perception (the faculties are imperceptible); their existence is inferred from the fact that they "can give rise to consciousness." This faculty is only a kind of "capacity" (the power to give rise to consciousness), not a real form made (of atoms) outside the mind. Since resistant form outside the mind has already been refuted as untenable, the faculty on which consciousness depends is only a capacity transformed by the inner consciousness — that which can give rise to the eye-consciousness and the rest is called the eye-faculty and the rest, and dependent on it the eye-consciousness and the rest arise.

And the "external object-condition" of the eye-consciousness and the rest (a real outer object serving as object-condition) also cannot, in reason, exist; therefore one must definitely grant that "the image transformed by one's own consciousness" is its object-condition — that is, what "can draw forth a (perceived-image) resembling one's own consciousness" is the object-condition. It is not that everything which "can give rise to this consciousness" counts as the object-condition; otherwise "seeds" and the rest would have to be called the object-condition of this consciousness too (seeds can give rise to consciousness but are not its object).

To put it more finely: when the five consciousnesses, eye and the rest, discern color, they only apprehend that "aggregated whole-characteristic," because the consciousness manifests an image resembling that characteristic; it is not that the "aggregated characteristic" has a separate real essence apart from the many atoms. Once that thing is analyzed and broken apart, the consciousness that "manifests resembling that characteristic" definitely does not arise, which shows that the "aggregated characteristic" is not really existent and cannot be called the (object-)condition of the five consciousnesses; otherwise a "second moon" (the apparent moon seen when one presses the eye, which is not real) could also give rise to the five consciousnesses. Nor is it that "the many atoms, in the position of common-characteristic aggregation," can each serve as object of the five consciousnesses — because there is no "atom-characteristic" appearing in the five consciousnesses; nor that "the many atoms each have an aggregated characteristic" — because when not aggregated this (aggregated) characteristic is absent. Nor is the essence-and-characteristic of the atoms altered between "the position of aggregation" and "the time of non-aggregation" (the essence and characteristic of the atoms do not change before and after); therefore the position of aggregation is just like the time of non-aggregation, and the atoms of color and the rest are in neither case the objects of the five consciousnesses.

Form-dharmas (3) · refuting the "assembled characteristic" (a rescue offered by another sect)

Someone (another sect) tries to rescue the position by saying: each single atom of color and the rest, in the time of "non-assembly," is indeed not an object of the five consciousnesses, but in the position of "common-characteristic assembly," the many atoms mutually reinforce one another in succession, and a "gross characteristic" arises, serving as the object of these five consciousnesses, and that gross characteristic is really existent and serves as the object of this consciousness. The master refutes: not so. First, the "position of common assembly" and the "time before assembly" are one and the same in the essence-and-characteristic of the atoms (assembly does not alter their essence and characteristic). Second, if a jar and a bowl and the like have equal numbers of atoms, the consciousness apprehending them ought to have no difference (yet one plainly sees that the characteristics of jar and bowl differ). Third, in the position of common assembly, each single atom ought to discard its own "small, round characteristic" (to become gross is to lose the small-round characteristic, yet the atoms in fact do not lose it). Fourth, "a consciousness apprehending a gross characteristic" ought not to apprehend "a fine object" (consciousness manifests the gross, the object is only fine atoms, the two do not correspond), otherwise it becomes "a consciousness apprehending one object able to apprehend another object." Fifth, (if correspondence is set aside) then a single consciousness ought to be able to apprehend every object. Even granting "there are atoms" already invites these faults; how much more, since on the principle of consciousness-only there are from the start no real atoms outside consciousness.

Form-dharmas (4) · the conclusion: all resistant form is transformed by consciousness; "atom" is a nominal designation

From this it is definitely known: it is "the image resembling color and the rest transformed by one's own consciousness" that serves as the object-condition — because the perceiving-part arises depending on it (the perceived-image-part) and carries its characteristic. And when consciousness manifests, it manifests "a single whole image" all at once, in proportion to its size, large or small; it does not separately transform into many atoms and then combine them into a thing. Then why did the Buddha speak of "atoms"? That was to refute those who grasp that "gross form has a real essence," teaching them to remove and analyze it step by step (in order to break the grasping at the reality of gross form); it was not that there really are atoms within the various forms. The yoga-practitioner, using the "wisdom of imaginative conception," removes and analyzes the characteristic of gross form layer by layer, and when it is analyzed to the point where it can no longer be analyzed, it is nominally called "atom"; this atom, though it still has spatial parts, is no longer analyzed — for to analyze it further would manifest the characteristic of "empty space" and would no longer constitute form. Hence the atom is called the "limit of form" (the extreme of analysis), not a really existent mote of dust. From this it can be known that all resistant form is manifested by transformation of consciousness and is not constituted of atoms.

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) here lays bare the relation between "direction" and "part": the "essence" of the atom just is its "part," and the essence still occupies a single position, which is why it is said that "the atom still has spatial parts"; but "the direction just is the part (the position itself is that one part), and it is not that there is, outside the position, some further analyzable fine part" — and this does not contradict the Yogācārabhūmi's statement that "the atom has direction but no part," for "no part" means there is no still-finer part left to analyze, since the characteristic of the atom already borders on "the characteristic of empty space." He further glosses the "limit" in "limit of form" as meaning "the utmost exhaustion": analysis here has reached its end, and to split further beyond this point would become "non-form (the characteristic of empty space)." So "the limit of form" is the terminus of analysis, not a really existent particle of dust; whenever the scriptures and treatises say "the atom is the limit of form," this is what they mean.

Form-dharmas (5) · refuting the reality of non-resistant form

The remaining "non-resistant form" (such as the form subsumed under the dharma-base), being of this same (consciousness-transformed) kind, is likewise not really existent; and because it is "non-resistant," it is like mind and the mental factors (which are also non-resistant), and so is definitely not real form. Resistant form, even though it manifests a form-characteristic, when reasoned through still does not exist apart from consciousness — how much more "non-resistant form," which manifests no form-characteristic at all (neither showing nor obstructing): how can it be called a truly real form-dharma?

Form-dharmas (6) · refuting expressive form and non-expressive form

Then are "expressive form" (the manifesting karma of body and speech) and "non-expressive form" (the unmanifest karmic form) not really existent? They too are not. First, on "bodily expressive form": if it is really existent, what is its essence? If one says it is "shape (configuration)," then it is not really existent, because shape can be analyzed and one cannot find a real atom of "length" or "shortness." If one says it is "motion (movement)," it too is not really existent, because dharmas perish the moment they arise, so there is fundamentally no meaning of "movement"; and besides, the "perishing" of a conditioned dharma does not depend on a separate cause (a dharma perishes of itself), and a perishing that had to await a cause (perishing only on account of motion) would not be a true perishing. If one says "there is a kind of form, neither visible color nor configuration, which is drawn forth by mind and can move the hand and so on, and is called bodily expressive karma," this too does not hold: if this form is "motion," it has been refuted above (there is no meaning of motion); if it is "the cause of motion," then it ought to be the "wind element" (wind governs motion), but the wind element has no "expressive" meaning and ought not to be called "expressive"; and besides, the wind element belongs to "tangibles," and the tangible is karmically neutral and does not range over good and evil (whereas expressive karma ranges over good and evil — the two do not match); as for non-visible color, smell, taste, and the rest, they can be understood on the model of "tangibles" (none of them can serve as the essence of expressive karma). Therefore bodily expressive karma is definitely not really existent. In truth it is "mind" that is the cause, making the form-characteristic of the hand and the rest, transformed by consciousness, arise and perish in succession and turn toward another place, so that it appears as though there were movement; and because it can "express the inner mind," it is nominally called "bodily expression." "Verbal expression" too is not a really existent sound-nature: a sound of a single instant has no expressive denotation (a single utterance does not constitute meaning), and many instants in succession are a nominal combination and not real; how much more so, since the external resistant form (sound) has already been refuted above; in truth it is on account of "mind" that consciousness transforms so as to resemble sound, arising and perishing in succession so as to appear to have expression, and this is nominally called "verbal expression." Since "expression" is in fact not real, how could "non-expression" be really existent? It is only nominally established on the basis of the divisions of good and evil within "intention-resolve": either it is established on the basis of the position in which the seeds of "the intention that can give rise to outstanding good or evil bodily and verbal karma" have grown (non-expression of the dispersed state), or it is established on the basis of "the intention, within concentration, that suppresses the active operation of evil body and speech" (non-expression within concentration). Therefore it is only nominally existent.

Form-dharmas (7) · reconciling the three kinds of karma and the courses of karma

The scriptures speak of three kinds of karma — bodily, verbal, and mental; does it not now contradict scripture to judge bodily karma and verbal karma to be not real form? It is not that they are dismissed as non-existent (the three karmas are still granted); it is only said that they are "not form": the "intention" that can move the body is called bodily karma, and the "intention" that can give rise to speech is called verbal karma; "deliberative intention and resolving intention," which are associated with the mind and can also set the mind in motion, are called mental karma — all three karmas have "intention" as their essence. The "intention" that can set body and speech in motion, since it has something it does, is called "karma"; and because it is the place ranged over by the two intentions, deliberative and resolving, and can summon up ripened fruits of pain and pleasure, it is also called a "course" — so the first seven courses of karma (the three of body and the four of speech) also have "intention" as their self-nature; or else, bodily expression and verbal expression, being given rise to by intention, are nominally called "karma," and being places ranged over by intention, are called "courses of karma." From this it can be known: there is in fact no form outside the mind; there is only the inner consciousness transforming so as to resemble form and thereby arising.

Non-associated formations (general thesis)

The "non-concurrent formations" (the formative dharmas not associated with mind, such as possession, non-possession, and so on) are likewise not really existent: they have no obtainable "essence-and-characteristic" as do form, mind, and the mental factors, nor any obtainable "operation" that is "distinct from form, mind, and the mental factors" — which shows they are definitely not really existent and are only nominally established on the basis of the "states-of-division" (the differentiated conditions) of form, mind, and the rest. The very name "non-concurrent formations" points to its situation — Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) analyzes the name thus: the three words "non-associated" serve to mark it off from form, mind, and the mental factors (it does not resemble these three, hence "non-associated"); and the single word "formation" serves to mark it off from the unconditioned (the unconditioned is not a formation, whereas this is conditioned, subsumed under the formation-aggregate). One name, two markings-off, already announces in advance that it is neither form, mind, and the mental factors, nor the unconditioned, but only a class nominally established on the basis of the states-of-division of form and mind. Established by reasoning: they are definitely not things that "have a real essence and operation distinct from form, mind, and the mental factors" (whereas form, mind, and the rest all have a real essence and operation and are subsumed under the aggregates), because they too are subsumed under the "formation-aggregate" (and a dharma within the same aggregate ought not to have a real essence and operation outside form and mind); again, because they are not subsumed under "mind, the mental factors, form, or the unconditioned," like absolute non-existence, they are definitely not really existent; again, because they are not subsumed under "the remaining real dharmas," like the remaining nominal dharmas, they have no real essence. In what follows we refute them one by one.

Non-associated formations · refuting possession and non-possession

On what grounds do the Sarvāstivādins say "possession and non-possession" are distinct from form and mind and have a real essence and operation? They say it is because scripture has explicit words: scripture says "a certain person accomplishes good, accomplishes evil," "a noble one accomplishes the ten dharmas of the adept," and again "the ordinary person does not accomplish the noble dharmas," "the arhat does not accomplish the defilements" — and this "accomplishing, not accomplishing" just displays "possession, non-possession." The master refutes: scripture nowhere says that this "accomplishing, not accomplishing" is distinct from form and mind and has a real essence and operation, so taking it as proof does not hold. Scripture also says "a wheel-turning king accomplishes the seven treasures" — does the wheel-turning king then (by real "possession") accomplish another's body, or non-sentient things? If one says "because he has the power of sovereign use over the seven treasures, he is nominally said to accomplish them," then why not also speak nominally in the same way of good and evil dharmas, instead of grasping at a real "possession"? If one says "the seven treasures are present dharmas, so they may be nominally said to be accomplished (present, hence nominally sayable)," then how do you know that the good and evil dharmas accomplished are "apart from the present" (in the past or future)? Real dharmas apart from the present do not, in reason, exist (the past and future have no essence), and the present already has "the seeds of the good" (which may be nominally said to be accomplished — why need a real possession?). To press further: what outstanding operation does "possession" perform upon a dharma? If one says it can make a dharma manifest, then it ought also to be able to make the "unconditioned" manifest, and "all non-sentient things" ought never to manifest, and a dharma in the position of being "not yet possessed or already lost" ought never to arise; if one says "co-arisen possession" is the cause that makes a dharma manifest, then the separately posited "two births (the characteristic of birth and the birth-of-birth)" become useless; again: if one person simultaneously has the "possession" of the three natures, good, evil, and neutral, then good, evil, and neutral dharmas ought to manifest all at once, and if one says they still await another cause (before manifesting one by one), then "possession" is useless. If one says "possession" is "the cause of a dharma's not being lost" (making a dharma not be lost and so be ever-accomplished), then those "accomplishable dharmas" are from the start not apart from the sentient being, and once apart from the sentient being cannot be obtained at all — so "possession," whether as a cause of arising or a cause of not-being-lost, is useless upon a dharma. Since "possession" is in fact non-existent, "non-possession" too is non-existent along with it. In truth, on the basis of the state-of-division "a sentient being can accomplish dharmas," three kinds of "accomplishing" are nominally established: accomplishment of seeds, accomplishment of sovereignty, and accomplishment of active operation; and reversing these, the name "non-accomplishment (non-possession)" is nominally established; and although these kinds are many, within them the position "the seeds severed in the path of seeing across the three realms have not yet been permanently severed" is the one on which the name "non-possession" is nominally established and called "ordinary-being-nature" (the nature of the unenlightened), because the noble dharmas have not yet been accomplished.

Non-associated formations · refuting the shared lot (the lot common to a class)

On what grounds, again, do they say "the shared lot (the class-nature common to sentient beings)" is distinct from form and mind and has a real essence and operation? They again say scripture has explicit words: scripture says "this is the god-lot, this is the human-lot," and so on. The master refutes: scripture nowhere says that the "shared lot" is distinct from form and mind and really exists, so taking it as proof does not hold. If one says "the arising of similar cognition and similar speech (about sentient beings) — 'this is a human, this is a human' — arises because of the shared lot, so the shared lot really exists," then grass, trees, and the rest (which also make one say 'this is grass, this is grass') ought to have a shared lot too; and besides, if upon the "shared lot" itself one can also raise similar cognition and speech, then the "shared lot" itself ought to have a further "shared lot" (without end), and since you do not grant the latter, how can the former be established? If one says "the shared lot, as a cause, can give rise to similar deeds and similar wishes (people in common doing human deeds, in common having human wishes), so it really exists," this too does not hold: "the habituation cultivated in former lives," as a cause, can give rise to similar deeds and similar wishes, so why grasp at an additional real "shared lot"? In truth, on the basis of the state-of-division of "the similarity of sentient beings' body and mind," the shared lot is nominally established.

Non-associated formations · refuting the life-faculty

On what grounds, again, do they say "the life-faculty" is distinct from form and mind and really exists? They again say scripture has explicit words: scripture speaks of the three dharmas "vital warmth, warmth, and consciousness," and among these the "life-faculty" is called "life-span." The master refutes: scripture nowhere says there is a "real life-span-essence distinct from form and mind," so taking it as proof does not hold. Again: since it has already been established above that "form is not apart from consciousness," the life-faculty too ought not to be apart from consciousness, and there is no separate life-faculty. Again: if the life-faculty were distinct from consciousness and really existent, it ought, like the mental factor "feeling" and the rest (mental factors distinct from consciousness are not called the life-faculty), not to be the true life-faculty. Someone asks: then why does scripture speak of the three dharmas "life-span, warmth, and consciousness" (are they not three distinct things)? Answer: they are spoken of as three on account of distinctions of "meaning," just as the "four right exertions" are basically one diligence, spoken of as four with respect to meaning. Again it is asked: when one abides in a "mindless state" (such as the no-conception concentration) and consciousness does not operate, ought not life-span and warmth then be absent? Answer: have you not heard scripture say "consciousness is not apart from the body" (even in a mindless state there is still consciousness)? Again it is asked: since there is consciousness, why is it called a "mindless state"? Answer: what perishes at that time is the "evolving consciousnesses" (the first six and so on), not the "store-consciousness" (ālaya-vijñāna) (the eighth consciousness still remains, hence there are life-span and warmth, and it is named "mindless"); the proof for this eighth consciousness will be set out in detail later. This eighth consciousness suffices to serve as the essence of "the realm, the destiny, and the birth," being pervasive, constant, continuous, and also the ripened fruit, so there is no need to grasp at an additional real "life-faculty." In truth, on the basis of "the seeds that intimately give rise to this (eighth) consciousness, the duration of abiding in the world drawn forth and fixed by karma," the life-faculty is nominally established.

Non-associated formations · refuting the two mindless concentrations and the no-conception ripened fruit

On what grounds, again, do they say "the two mindless concentrations (the no-conception concentration and the cessation concentration)" and "the no-conception ripened fruit (the karmic fruit of the no-conception heaven)" are distinct from form and mind and have a real self-nature? They say: if they had no real self-nature, they could not block mind and the mental factors from arising (since they can block mind, this shows they have a real essence). The master refutes in turn: if one says "in a mindless state there is a distinct real dharma that can block the mind, called the mindless concentration," then "in a formless state (the formless realm)" too there ought to be a distinct real dharma that can obstruct form, called a formless concentration (yet in the formless realm there is no such real dharma capable of obstructing form); since that side (formless concentration) is not so, how can this side (a mindless concentration with a real dharma blocking mind) be established? Moreover, what need is there of a real dharma to block the mind? Even a nominal dharma like a dam can block (water). In truth: when cultivating concentration, in the preparatory position of entering concentration, one is wearied by "the coarse and agitated mind and mental factors," and gives rise to an outstanding "aspiration" to block and suppress mind and the mental factors, making mind and the mental factors gradually finer and subtler, until at the "subtle-subtle mind" it perfumes the "ripening consciousness" and accomplishes "an extremely strong seed of the wearied mind"; by this wearied seed the active seeds of mind are suppressed and harmed, and the coarse and agitated mind temporarily does not arise — and on the basis of this "state-of-division of non-arising" the two mindless concentrations are nominally established. The seed of this wearied mind is good, so the concentration too is called good. Before cultivating the no-conception concentration, the practitioner seeks "the no-conception fruit," and the seed perfumed thereby summons that (no-conception heaven) ripened fruit; by the power of the concentration, the coarse and agitated conception and the rest do not operate, and on the basis of this state-of-division "no-conception" is nominally established; it is established on the basis of the ripened fruit, and so receives the name "ripened." Therefore these three dharmas (the two mindless concentrations and the no-conception ripened fruit) are likewise not really existent.

Non-associated formations · refuting the conditioned characteristics (birth, abiding, change, perishing)

On what grounds, again, do they say the "conditioned characteristics (birth, abiding, change, perishing)" are distinct from form and mind and have a real self-nature? They again say scripture has explicit words: scripture says "there are three conditioned characteristics of the conditioned," and so on. The master refutes: scripture nowhere says that the conditioned characteristics are distinct from form and mind and have a real self-nature, so taking it as proof does not hold. Now to establish directly their "non-distinctness": First, the particle "of" in "the characteristics 'of' the conditioned" (the genitive) does not indicate that the characteristic and the essence are distinct essences, just as "the essence 'of' form and mind" just is form and mind (the genitive does not indicate a distinct essence). Second, the essence of the "characterizer (birth and the rest)" is not necessarily distinct from the "characterized (form and mind)," otherwise the "characteristic of solidity and the rest" too ought to be distinct from "earth" (earth has solidity as its characteristic, and the solidity-characteristic is not distinct from earth). Third, if the "conditioned characteristics" were distinct from the essence of the characterized, then the "unconditioned characteristic" too ought to be distinct from its characterized (yet the unconditioned characteristic is not distinct from the unconditioned, and by example the conditioned characteristics too are not distinct). Again: if the essences of the four characteristics, birth and the rest, were all co-present, they ought to exert their operation all at once at every time; if one says they are mutually contradictory and their operations cannot be exerted all at once, then their essences too ought to be mutually contradictory — so how can they be "co-present"? And the operations of the three, "abiding, change, perishing," especially ought not to be co-present (abiding makes a dharma abide, perishing makes a dharma perish — they are contradictory). Again: since the essences of both the characterizer (the four characteristics) and the characterized (form and mind) are "originally present" (the Sarvāstivādins grant that the essence of a dharma is ever-existent), their operations too ought to be ever-present like this (there being no separate nature); if one says their operations still await causes and conditions before they arise, then the causes and conditions awaited ought not to be originally present (contradicting the ever-existence of the dharma-essence). Again: (since the essence of the dharma is originally present) positing "birth" and the rest becomes useless (the dharma is originally present, so why need birth?); and since the characterized is ever-existent and birth and the rest combine with it, the "unconditioned dharma" too ought to have birth and the rest (the unconditioned is also a dharma — on what basis is it judged that only the conditioned has birth?). Again: the past and future, being neither present nor permanent, ought, like a flower in the sky, to be non-existent; how can "birth," which is named "existence" (making a dharma come to be), be in the future (the future is not yet, so how can it be named existence)? And "perishing," which is named "non-existence" (making a dharma cease to be), ought not to be in the present (the present is existent — how can it be named non-existence); if "perishing" is not non-existence (the Sarvāstivādins grant perishing also has an essence), then "birth" too ought to be non-existence (birth and perishing on the same model — self-contradictory); how can "perishing" and "abiding," being contradictory, be simultaneous, and how can "abiding," which does not contradict "birth," allow them to be placed in distinct time-periods (the Sarvāstivādins judge the four characteristics to be sequential — a contradiction)? Therefore their grasping that the four characteristics are really existent and co-present is, going forward or back, unreasonable. In truth: a conditioned dharma, by the power of causes and conditions, "having not been, now is; having briefly been, returns to non-being," and in order to display that it is distinct from the unconditioned (the unconditioned has none of these four characteristics), the four characteristics, birth, abiding, change, and perishing, are nominally established — "having not been and now being," the position of existence, is called birth; the brief pause of the position of birth is called abiding; the difference of before and after within abiding is called change; the time of non-being, having briefly been and returning to non-being, is called perishing; the first three characteristics, being "existence," are alike in the present, and the last (perishing), being "non-existence," is in the past. Someone asks: since "perishing" is a "non-existent dharma" (already returned to non-being), how can it serve as a "characteristic" of the conditioned? Answer: perishing displays "this dharma afterward returns to non-being" — what fault is there in its serving as a characteristic? Birth displays that this dharma was formerly not existent, perishing displays that this dharma is afterward non-existent, change displays that this dharma is not frozen and unchanging, abiding displays that this dharma has a brief operation; though all four characteristics are called "displaying" with respect to the conditioned dharma, what each displays is different. This is the nominal establishment of the four characteristics with reference to the "instant"; and if one takes the state-of-division of "a single life-term" (a stretch of life), they can also be nominally established: the initial coming-to-be is called birth, the final non-being is called perishing, the similar succession after birth is called abiding, and the transformation within the succession is called change. Therefore the four characteristics are all nominally established.

Non-associated formations · refuting the name-group, the phrase-group, and the syllable-group

On what grounds, again, do they say there is, distinct from form and mind and really expressive, a "name-group, phrase-group, and syllable-group"? They again say scripture has explicit words: scripture says "the Buddha attained the rare name-, phrase-, and syllable-groups." The master refutes: scripture nowhere says that names, phrases, and syllables are distinct from form and mind and have a real essence, so taking it as proof does not hold. To refute further: if names, phrases, and syllables were distinct from "sound" and really existent, they ought, like color and the rest, not to be truly expressive (if there were a separate existence apart from sound, it would be like color and could not express meaning). If one says "sound can give rise to names, phrases, and syllables," then this sound must have "the inflection of tone and pitch" (rise and fall), and this is already enough to express meaning — why posit names and the rest in addition? If one says "the inflection of tone and pitch upon sound just is the name, phrase, and syllable, and is distinct from sound and really existent," then "the inflection of configuration upon visible color" too ought to be distinct from color and have a separate real essence. If one says "the inflection of tone and pitch upon sound, like the sound of strings and pipes (musical instruments), cannot express meaning (and so an expressive name, phrase, and syllable must be posited in addition)," then this spoken sound ought, like that musical sound, to give rise to no names and the rest in addition; and besides, who says that musical sound definitely cannot express? If a sound with inflection can express, then the sound of a wind-chime too ought to have an expressive use; conversely (if musical and chime sounds do not express), then this spoken sound too ought, like them, to give rise to no real names, phrases, and syllables in addition. If one says "only spoken sound can give rise to names and the rest (excluding musical sound and wind-chimes)," then why not simply grant "only spoken sound can express" (since only speech can give rise to the expressive name, this just is only speech expressing — why need names, phrases, and syllables in between)? And on what grounds is it definitely known that "the expressive just is speech," and on what grounds is it known that "distinct from speech there is separately an expressive"? "Speech is not distinct from the expressive" is a fact known in common to humans and gods alike; to grasp that "the expressive is distinct from speech (positing names, phrases, and syllables in addition)" is the way of "the god-beloved" (the foolish), not what the wise grant. In truth, on the basis of the divisions of "spoken sound," the name, phrase, and syllable are nominally established: the "name" expresses the self-nature of a thing, the "phrase" expresses the distinctions of a thing, and the "syllable" is the letter, serving as the support of the former two; though these three have no separate essence apart from sound, (names, phrases, and syllables being nominal, sound being real) the nominal and the real differ, so they are also not simply equal to sound. By this, the objects of "unobstructed understanding of dharma (which takes name, phrase, and syllable as object)" and "unobstructed understanding of expression (which takes sound as object)" differ; and "sound" and "name" and the rest each have their own placement among the aggregates, bases, and elements. And this (nominal establishment of name, phrase, and syllable on the basis of sound) is spoken of with reference to "this land (the Sahā world)" and does not hold across all buddha-lands, for in other buddha-lands too there are the three — name, phrase, and syllable — nominally established on the basis of "light, sublime fragrance, taste," and so on.

Non-associated formations · refuting latent tendencies, and barring the rest

Someone grasps that "latent tendencies (the seeds of the defilements)" are distinct from mind and the mental factors and are subsumed under the aggregate of the non-concurrent formations. This too is incorrect — a latent tendency is still called "greed" and the rest, just like active greed and the rest (associated with mind), and is not a non-concurrent formations. As for all the rest who grasp that there separately exist various sorts of "non-concurrent formations," they can all be barred one by one on the foregoing reasoning.

To gather it into one statement: there is in fact no form-dharma outside the mind, nor any really existent non-concurrent formations; there is only the manifestation of the inner consciousness.

Onward Transmission

This section, refuting the real dharmas grasped by the non-Buddhist and Lesser-Vehicle schools, makes good the thesis that "form and the non-concurrent formations are all only consciousness-transformation, only nominally established" — and this established position is the foundation on which the consciousness-only system sets up "the dharmas are not really existent apart from consciousness," taken up one by one in the later treatises. The Hundred Dharmas treatise lists the three sets "the eleven form-dharmas, the twenty-four mind-non-concurrent formations, and the six unconditioned" — and this section refutes precisely the grasping at "real existence apart from consciousness" of these three sets, showing them to be only consciousness-transformed, only nominally established on the basis of states-of-division, which is why the Hundred Dharmas places them in the latter three positions of "what consciousness manifests" (not at the head, among the mind-king and the mental factors). The Thirty Verses — verse one, "through the nominal designation of self and dharmas, the manifold characteristics evolve; these rest on the transformation of consciousness" — is precisely the "dharmas" portion of the root-verse this section expounds, verse answering to verse. Closest of all is the Twenty Verses: it is the dedicated treatise that "refutes atoms and clarifies consciousness-only without object," refuting the reality of atoms together with this section — where this section says "if atoms had spatial parts they could be analyzed and so are not really existent," the Twenty Verses presses on with "an atom combined with the six directions ought to have six parts; and if six atoms occupied one and the same spot, the aggregate too ought to be only as large as a single atom," concluding that "one real atom cannot be established" — the two being one and the same cutting edge; and the "consciousness-only without object" that the Twenty Verses establishes is just the warrant for this section's "there is in fact no outer form, only the inner consciousness transforming so as to resemble form and arising." The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, expounds "unreal imagination" (consciousness is the other-dependent, and the grasped object is fundamentally non-existent), which is the basis of this section's meaning that "the object is only consciousness-transformation, the outer object is not existent." The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its chapter on the characteristics of the knowable, establishes the three natures, saying "what is wholly wholly-imagined has no essence; the other-dependent just is consciousness-transformation" — and the real dharmas of the non-Buddhist and Lesser-Vehicle schools that this section refutes are precisely "what is wholly wholly-imagined," while the inner consciousness transforming into the semblance that it establishes is precisely "the other-dependent." The one meaning runs through, before and after.

We have already refuted the conditioned dharmas — the form-dharmas (matter) and the dharmas-not-concomitant-with-mind. One last category remains: the unconditioned dharmas (the asaṃskṛta — such as empty space, cessation-through-analysis, and cessation-not-through-analysis). The author of the treatise refutes these as well, and then draws the whole argument together into "consciousness-only." This section opens out in order: refuting the unconditioned, summing up into consciousness-only, the two kinds of dharma-grasping, the object that dharma-grasping takes, and the final establishing of consciousness-only.

This refutation of the unconditioned and conclusion into consciousness-only has its roots in scripture and treatise alike. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in its chapter on the discernment of yoga, says "the object I speak of is consciousness-only, what consciousness manifests" — the image is solely what consciousness manifests, and there is no real realm outside consciousness; this is exactly the scriptural basis for the words this section quotes at the close, "Maitreya should know — the object of the various consciousnesses is only what consciousness manifests." The same sūtra, in its chapter on the absence of self-nature, sets out the "three kinds of absence of self-nature" (the absence of self-nature in characteristic, in arising, and in the ultimate sense), showing that the wholly-imagined is without characteristic, the other-dependent is without arising, and the perfectly-accomplished is what the ultimate absence of self-nature displays — and this is the very passage on which this section's "the unconditioned is provisionally established in dependence on the nature of dharmas" rests (the suchness displayed by emptiness and no-self, of which existence and non-existence are alike unsayable, the road of thought and speech cut off). The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra gives the image of "the store-consciousness as an ocean," abiding constantly, that the wind of objects stirs into surging "waves of the various consciousnesses," showing that the seeming manifestation of outer objects is wholly transformed by the store-consciousness. Coming to the treatise, the Yogācārabhūmi, in its section settling the meaning by selection, sets up a dedicated heading "settling empty space and cessation-not-through-analysis, the two unconditioned," and rules that empty space "is only the non-existence of the various matter-dharmas displayed, only provisionally existent and not a real thing," and that cessation-not-through-analysis "is only cessation, only stillness, and is likewise provisionally existent and not a real thing" — so that this section's refutation of "the unconditioned existing really apart from matter and mind" agrees, in what it refutes and what it establishes, entirely with the Yogācārabhūmi; and that same place in the Yogācārabhūmi also records the Saṃdhinirmocana's "the object is consciousness-only, what consciousness manifests," sharing one source with this section's conclusion into consciousness-only. What this section's synthetic commentary takes as its authority has its scriptural root in the Saṃdhinirmocana and the Laṅkāvatāra, and its treatise-basis in the Yogācārabhūmi — and following the outline, we now open the exposition.

Four. Refuting the unconditioned dharmas

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) divides the plan of this "refuting the unconditioned" passage into three parts: first "refuting the outsiders' position" (refuting the real unconditioned that the other schools grasp), next "displaying the right principle" (displaying our own school's harmonization), and third "concluding its negation" (summing up that the various unconditioned dharmas are not determinately real). Within these, "refuting the outsiders' position" further splits into "the general negation" (denying as a whole that it is real) and "the particular refutation" (refuting empty space, cessation-through-analysis, and the rest one by one); and the "general negation" itself opens into three steps — first "the general negation of its reality," next "displaying that the dharma is determinately non-existent" (judging by the three kinds of determinately-existent dharma), and last "refuting by inference" (using the hare's horns and the like as inferential disproof). The passage now follows this plan.

To grasp the unconditioned dharmas as standing apart from matter and mind and being determinately, truly real cannot be sustained on reason. First, set up a criterion: what is it that counts as a dharma "determinately existent"? Broadly, three kinds. The first is a presently-known dharma, such as matter and mind, which are known by direct perception. The second is a presently-used dharma, such as a jar or a garment. These first two kinds the world holds in common to be existent; they need no further reason set up to prove them. The third is a dharma that has efficacy — such as the eye or the ear, whose existence we infer from its functioning. But what of the unconditioned? It does not fall into the first two classes, for it is not what the world commonly recognizes; and it has no efficacy either, unlike the eye and ear that are known to exist only through their functioning. And even if one grudgingly grants that it has some efficacy, then whatever has efficacy would have to be impermanent. Therefore one cannot grasp the unconditioned as determinately, truly real. Moreover, since the unconditioned is itself something known, and is a nature displayed by matter, mind, and the rest, it is on the same footing as matter and mind (it too has something it depends on); so it should not be grasped as some real unconditioned-nature standing alone apart from matter and mind.

Now refute empty space in particular: is its substance one or many? Suppose its substance is one, pervading every location. Because empty space accommodates matter and the other dharmas, its substance ought to follow the various dharmas it accommodates (each of which occupies its own place) and so become many — for the empty space "accommodated at this one place" would not coincide, at another place, with the empty space (where the other dharmas stand); following the dharmas, each is separate, and so it becomes many. If one refuses this (still insisting the substance is one and does not divide along with the dharmas), then the dharmas themselves would have to interpenetrate one another (a single pervasive space holding all dharmas, the dharmas thereby pervading each other too). If one rescues the position by saying that empty space simply does not coincide with the dharmas at all, then it would fail to accommodate them — and would be just like the remaining unconditioned dharmas (as cessation-through-analysis does not accommodate matter), losing the very meaning of "accommodation" that is its own. Again, ask: within matter and the other dharmas, is there empty space or not? If there is (space inside matter), then it would be mixed in with matter (two obstructing things in the same place). If there is not (no space inside matter), then it would fail to pervade (where there is matter there would be no space).

And take the same line against the unity-of-substance of cessation-through-analysis and cessation-not-through-analysis: when one severs the afflictive bonds of "one portion, one grade," one would have to obtain at the same instant the cessation-through-analysis of "the remaining portions, the remaining grades" as well (cessation-through-analysis being one in substance, to obtain one is to obtain all); and when "one dharma," lacking the needed conditions, comes to be "non-arisen," one would have to obtain the cessation-not-through-analysis of "all dharmas" (cessation-not-through-analysis being one in substance, to obtain one is to obtain all) — for if you grasp its substance as one, this is how it ought to go. Yet in fact severing one grade does not obtain the cessation-through-analysis of the remaining grades, and this very fact proves in reverse that it is not one in substance. Now suppose instead the substance is many: then it has differences of kind and class, and ought, like matter and the rest, to be no true unconditioned; and empty space too would then no longer "pervade and accommodate" (being many, each is confined to its own place and does not pervade). The other schools that grasp "a truly existent unconditioned apart from mind and mental factors" are all refuted just as above (in the refutation of empty space and the rest). Further: since the unconditioned dharmas are themselves admitted to be without cause and without effect, they ought to be like a hare's horns (what has neither cause nor effect is not real) — not something existing separately, distinct from mind and the rest.

But the scriptures plainly say "there are empty space and the other unconditioned dharmas." How is this to be taken? The author harmonizes it into two layers of meaning. The first layer is "provisionally posited as existent in dependence on the transformations of consciousness": one has heard the names "empty space" and the rest, and accordingly discriminates the characteristics of empty space and the rest; with this habituated over long practice, when mind and the rest arise they manifest a semblance of the characteristics of empty space and the other unconditioned dharmas. Because this manifested characteristic is similar before and after, without alteration, it is provisionally called "permanent." The second layer is "provisionally posited as existent in dependence on the nature of dharmas": the suchness displayed by emptiness and no-self — to call it existent, or non-existent, or neither-existent-nor-non-existent cannot be settled in words; the very road of thought and speech is cut off; it is neither identical with nor different from any dharma; it is the truth of all dharmas, and so it is called the nature of dharmas. With respect to this nature of dharmas: to be free of every obstruction is called "empty space (unconditioned)"; the extinguishing of the defiled by the power of discriminating wisdom, the final realization, is called "cessation-through-analysis (unconditioned)"; what is pure in its own nature without the power of discrimination (or what is displayed through the lack of conditions) is called "cessation-not-through-analysis (unconditioned)"; the cessation of pleasant and painful feeling is called "the immovable (unconditioned)"; and the non-operation of perception and feeling is called "the cessation of perception-and-feeling (unconditioned)." All five of these unconditioned dharmas are provisionally established in dependence on suchness — and even the name "suchness" itself is only provisionally posited. Why then still set up the name "suchness"? In order to block the dismissing of it into nothingness, we say that it "exists"; in order to block the grasping of it as something real, we say that it is "empty"; in order to block the calling of it illusory, we say that it is "real"; and because its principle is not false and not inverted, it is named "suchness." This is altogether unlike the other schools' position, that "there is some real, permanent dharma standing apart from matter and mind, called suchness." Here Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) draws a careful distinction between the Mahāyāna's "suchness" and the "really existent unconditioned" grasped by the Sarvāstivādins and the like. Earlier, in refuting the dharmas-not-concomitant-with-mind, since those dharmas are not apart from matter and mind, one could say they are "not different from matter and mind"; but these unconditioned dharmas are not themselves matter and mind, and so one cannot, as in refuting the dharmas-not-concomitant, say they are "not different from matter and mind" — one can only say that "an unconditioned that is really existent apart from matter and mind is determinately non-existent." As for the Mahāyāna's "suchness," in relation to the conditioned dharmas it is "neither identical nor apart, neither different nor one" — and this is sharply distinct from the Sarvāstivādins' grasping at a real, permanent unconditioned standing apart from matter and mind; so refuting the other schools does not touch the Mahāyāna's suchness. Therefore none of the unconditioned dharmas is determinately, truly real.

Five. Summing up the refutation of dharma-grasping and establishing consciousness-only

Having exhausted the refutation of the real dharmas grasped by the non-Buddhist schools and the lesser vehicle, the author closes the matter with a single overarching inference: those dharmas they grasp as "distinct from mind and mental factors" are not of truly-real nature — because each of them is something grasped (an object of cognition), and whatever is grasped is, like the mind and mental factors (whose objects the self-witnessing portion takes), inseparable from consciousness. And the awareness (the consciousness) that grasps those dharmas does not in fact reach them either (as real dharmas apart from consciousness) — because it is a grasper, and whatever is a grasper has its object inseparable from its own consciousness (just as in "the awareness that takes this awareness" as its object).

But here is the caution: the mind and mental factors are themselves other-dependent (arising in dependence on a host of conditions); they too are like a conjured thing and are not truly real. To say "there is only consciousness" was, in the first place, to dispel the deluded grasping that "apart from mind and mental factors there is some real object." If one then turns about and grasps even "consciousness-only" as truly real, that is exactly the same as grasping outer objects — it is equally a case of dharma-grasping.

Six. The two kinds of dharma-grasping (innate and discriminated) and where each is severed

Just as with self-grasping, the dharma-graspings too divide into two kinds: innate and discriminated.

Innate dharma-grasping arises from the deluded perfuming since beginningless time, an inner causal force; it accompanies the body-and-life constantly, does not wait upon false teachings or false discrimination, and turns of its own momentum — and so it is called "innate." It is itself of two sorts. One is constantly continuous: it lies in the seventh consciousness, which takes the eighth consciousness (its perceiving portion) as object, conjures up a characteristic in its own mind, and grasps it as a real dharma. The other is with interruptions: it lies in the sixth consciousness, which takes the characteristics of the aggregates, sense-fields, and elements that consciousness has transformed — sometimes grasping them collectively, sometimes singly — conjures up a characteristic in its own mind, and grasps it as a real dharma. These two innate dharma-graspings are very subtle and hard to sever; only by repeatedly cultivating the excellent contemplation of the emptiness of dharmas throughout the later ten grounds can they be removed.

Discriminated dharma-grasping arises from a present external-conditioning force; it is not inborn, but waits until one meets a false teaching and gives rise to false discrimination before it arises — and so it is called "discriminated"; it is present only within the sixth, the mental consciousness. It too divides into two sorts: one takes as object the "characteristics of the aggregates, sense-fields, and elements" as stated by a false teaching; the other takes as object the "self-nature" and similar characteristics stated by a false teaching (the inherent natures of dharmas and the divine self posited by the non-Buddhist schools) — conjuring up a characteristic in its own mind, then discriminating, calculating, and grasping it as a real dharma. These two discriminated dharma-graspings are comparatively coarse and obvious, and easy to sever: as soon as one enters the first ground and contemplates the suchness that is the emptiness of dharmas in all dharmas, they can be extinguished.

Seven. The object of dharma-grasping is only the "semblance-dharma" manifested by one's own mind

Take together all the dharma-graspings spoken of above. What they take as object — the dharmas outside one's own mind — may exist or may not (they are not necessarily real); but the dharmas manifested within one's own mind all exist. Therefore every dharma-grasping is in fact taking as object the "characteristics of semblance-dharmas manifested by one's own mind," and grasping them as truly real. Yet these "characteristics of semblance-dharmas" are produced by a host of conditions, and so they are "existent as an illusion is existent"; whereas the "real dharmas" that are grasped are purely a fabrication of deluded calculation, and are determinately non-existent. This is why the World-Honored One said: "Maitreya should know — the object of the various consciousnesses is only what consciousness manifests; it is of other-dependent nature, like a conjured thing and the like." In this way, the self and the dharmas "apart from consciousness" that the non-Buddhist schools and the lesser vehicle grasp are, every one of them, not truly real.

Eight. The final establishing of consciousness-only: ruling out "another aggregation" and "the same aggregation" as the immediate object

And so consciousness-only stands firm. First: mind and mental factors will determinately not take "form-dharmas outside the mind" as their object-condition, for the "function of taking an object" must rest upon a truly-existent substance (and dharmas outside the mind have no real substance, and so cannot serve as object-condition). Second: the mind and mental factors of "another aggregation" in the present (another person's, or another moment's) are not the immediate object-condition of "this aggregation's" consciousness — just like those dharmas that are wholly unrelated and are not its object — because they belong to "another aggregation" (and the mind of another aggregation is not the immediate object of this consciousness). Third: even the "mental factors" within the same aggregation (the feeling, perception, and the rest arising together with the mind-king) are not the immediate object of the mind-king, because their own substance is distinct from the mind-king (from its image-portion), just like the remaining dharmas that are not grasped. From this it is to be known: there truly is no object outside the mind; there is only inner consciousness transforming so as to resemble an outer object and thereby arising. As the verse in the scripture says: "The outer objects that the foolish discriminate are, in truth, wholly non-existent; it is only that habit-energies have stirred and muddied the mind, so that the mind manifests a semblance of those outer objects and turns."

Onward Transmission

What this section establishes — refuting the unconditioned and concluding into consciousness-only — the later treatises of the consciousness-only line take up one by one. The Hundred Dharmas treatise lists the "unconditioned dharmas" as the fifth category, opening out the "six unconditioned" (empty space, cessation-through-analysis, cessation-not-through-analysis, the immovable, the cessation of perception-and-feeling, and suchness) — and this section is precisely the refutation of these unconditioned dharmas as "existing really apart from matter and mind," judging them to be provisionally established in dependence on the transformations of consciousness and on the nature of dharmas; it is also from here that the fifth category, the unconditioned, standing beyond the four categories of mind-dharmas, mental factors, form-dharmas, and dharmas-not-concomitant-with-mind, is fixed in place. In the Thirty Verses, the first verse — "by provisional speech there are self and dharmas... these rest upon the transformations of consciousness" — finds in this section the concluding part that "broadly argues the refutation of dharma-grasping," verse answering to verse. The Twenty Verses establishes that "the three realms are consciousness-only" and makes clear that "when inner consciousness arises it manifests the semblance of an outer object, and in this there is not the least real meaning" — which stands directly opposite this section's "there truly is no outer object; there is only inner consciousness arising so as to resemble an outer object," both establishing the thesis that "an outer object seems to manifest, yet the object has no reality." The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, argues "false discrimination," establishing that "the object is non-existent while consciousness exists, and consciousness manifests the semblance of an outer object" — of one strand with this section's conclusion into consciousness-only. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its chapter on the characteristics of the knowable, distinguishes "the other-dependent and the wholly-imagined" — the semblance-dharma being produced from conditions and existent as an illusion is existent, while the grasped real dharma is determinately non-existent — which bears directly on this section's "the object of dharma-grasping is only the semblance-dharma."

Having finished refuting a substantial self and substantial dharmas, an opponent presses back from the opposite direction: you say that self and dharmas are both merely "provisional designations" — but surely the provisional has to rest on something real in order to stand at all. If self and dharmas are truly nonexistent, then on what basis can a provisional designation even be made? In this section, the author of the treatise dismantles this objection — "the provisional must rest on the real" — point by point.

What this section sets out to establish — that self and dharmas are provisional designations and that the wholly-imagined mark has no own-nature — has its roots in scripture and treatise alike. Its scriptural root is the chapter on the absence of own-nature in the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and its teaching of the "three absences of own-nature." There the World-Honored One, with hidden intent, declares that "all dharmas are without own-nature," resting this on three: the absence of own-nature as to characteristic, the absence of own-nature as to arising, and the absence of own-nature in the ultimate sense. The first of these — the absence of own-nature as to characteristic — speaks precisely of the "wholly-imagined mark of dharmas": this characteristic is "set up by provisional naming" and "not set up by its own self-character," and so it is said to be without own-nature. That the wholly-imagined mark is merely set up by provisional naming and does not exist by virtue of any self-character of its own — this is the Buddha's own warrant for the present section's thesis, that the provisional designation of self and dharmas turns merely in dependence on a resembling instance (a superimposition) and not on a real instance (an own-character). And the "absence of own-nature in the ultimate sense" — which discloses the inexpressible real-nature of the other-dependent and the perfectly-accomplished — is just where this treatise's account ("it rests on the transformation of consciousness, set up to counter and dispel deluded grasping") finally comes to rest. The treatise-basis lies in the chapter on the meaning of reality, in the Bodhisattva stage of the Yogācārabhūmi. There two gates are set up — the "inexpressible own-nature" and the "provisionally-designated own-nature": the provisionally-designated own-nature is defined as the "existence" that the world has grasped at through beginningless time (and which is the very root of all discriminating conceptual elaboration), while "everything on which the provisional designation rests is nonexistent" is defined as "nonexistence," the whole reconciled into the middle way that "is free of superimposition and free of denial." That all dharmas are "merely set up provisionally and have no own-nature" is precisely the treatise-basis for this section's thesis — that the provisional turns merely in dependence on a resembling instance, and that the resembling instance just is a superimposition. What Dharmapāla's collated reading takes as its ground in this section, then, has its scriptural root in the three absences of own-nature in the Saṃdhinirmocana and its treatise-basis in the chapter on the meaning of reality in the Yogācārabhūmi. With that, we follow the opponent's objections and dismantle them one by one.

1. The External Objection: If Self and Dharmas Do Not Exist, On What Does the Provisional Designation Rest?

The opponent's objection runs like this. If there is no substantial self and no substantial dharma standing apart from consciousness, then "provisional designation" itself should also fail — because a provisional designation can only be set up when three things are in place: a real instance, a resembling instance, and a shared property. For example, only because there is a "real fire," a "person whose temperament is fierce and so resembles fire," and the property "blazing and red" that the fire and the person hold in common, can one provisionally say "this person is fire." Provisionally calling some foolish person an "ox" works the same way — it rests on a real ox, on a person who resembles an ox, and on a shared property in order to make the designation. Now, the opponent argues, if self and dharmas are truly nonexistent, on what does the provisional designation rest? And if there is no provisional designation, then "the resembling" — the appearance of an outer object — cannot be established either; so how can you go on to say that "the mind manifests what resembles an outer object and turns thereby"?

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) judges the pedigree of this objection clearly. The claim that "the provisional must rest on a real instance, a resembling instance, and a shared property" is one set up by the Vaiśeṣika masters on the basis of their doctrine of categories. They reckon the "real instance" to be the substance-category and quality-category among the Vaiśeṣika's six categories — as when they say "earth has fourteen qualities, fire has eleven qualities," taking the fierceness and redness of fire to be really existent "qualities" — and they take the "real instance" to be the "self-character of a dharma." The "resembling instance" is the similar appearance formed in dependence on the real instance, and the "shared property" is just that "quality" (the fierceness and redness held in common by fire and by the person). And so what the treatise goes on to refute below is precisely this reckoning that "the categories such as substance just are the real instance" — for once it is established that "the categories such as substance are not the real instance," the real instance topples, and the resembling instance and the shared property (the quality-category) that were formed in dependence on it topple along with it. The Notes points out, further, that the author's earlier passage sets up the objection by way of "the outer school (the Vaiśeṣika categorists), who admit a real instance," while the later passage sets it up by way of "the Hīnayāna (the Sarvāstivādins and the like), who likewise admit a real instance" — two routes of objection, which the treatise dismantles in order.

2. The General Answer: The Self and Dharmas Apart from Consciousness Have Already Been Refuted

This objection does not hold. First, "self and dharmas standing apart from consciousness" have already been refuted in the previous two sections. Second, what the opponent calls "the provisional must rest on the real" cannot be made to stand by either of its two possible routes — whether by "provisional designation based on the universal" or by "provisional designation based on the real substance." Both routes are refuted below in turn.

3. Refuting "Provisional Designation Based on the Universal"

"Provisional designation based on the universal" — designating a person as fire on the basis of the universal nature, the class-character, of fire — fails at the outset. This is because properties such as "fierce" and "red" are not inherent to the universal, the shared character; fierceness and redness are particular properties, not the nature of the class as such. And if one were to claim that a provisional designation can be made even without a shared property, then one ought equally to be able to apply the name "fire" to "water" — for if no shared property is required, any name could be assigned arbitrarily, which makes no sense. Suppose the opponent then revises the claim and says: although "fierce" and the rest are not properties of the class, they are nonetheless inseparable from the class, and so a designation based on the universal can still be made. This too is wrong — for in actual fact the class "humankind" and properties like "fierceness" plainly can be separated from one another: there are people who are not fierce, and there is fierceness that is not of the fire-class. Since the class neither possesses that property nor is inseparable from it, and yet the world goes on provisionally designating "this person is fire" all the same, it is evident that the provisional designation is not established by resting on the "universal."

4. Refuting "Provisional Designation Based on the Real Substance"

"Provisional designation based on the real substance" — designating a person as fire on the basis of the actual substance of fire — also fails. This is because properties such as "fierce" and "red" are not held in common by fire and person: the fierceness of fire is the fierceness of fire, and the fierceness of a person is the fierceness of a person; the substances on which they rest — the substance of fire, the substance of the person — are separate, and there is no single "shared property" to serve as the basis of the designation. The fault is the same as before. And if the opponent says, "the properties of person and fire resemble each other — both are fierce and red — and so a designation can be made," this too is wrong: for when the world makes the provisional designation, it says "fire is in the person" — "this person is fire" — and not "the property of fire is in the person." From this it is evident that the provisional designation is not established by resting on the "real substance."

5. Refuting "The Provisional Must Rest on a Real Instance"

Further, the claim that "the provisional must be set up by resting on a real instance" is itself unreasonable. "Real" here refers to the "own-character" — the individual, distinct self-character of each dharma. But neither "provisional cognition" — the provisionally established act of knowing — nor "provisional expression" — the provisionally established name and word — takes the "own-character" as its object: they cannot reach the own-character at all; they operate only upon the "shared character" of dharmas. Nor is it the case that, setting the shared character aside, there is some additional device by which the "own-character" is set up as the basis on which the provisional rests. What is more, provisional cognition and provisional expression must always arise in dependence on "sound" — the sound of name and word; and where sound cannot reach, provisional cognition and expression cannot operate. Yet both the "expressing sound and name" and the "shared character that is expressed" are not the "own-character." Therefore one can know that the provisional designation is not established by resting on a "real instance," the own-character.

6. Drawing the Conclusion: The "Provisional" Merely Turns in Dependence on a "Resembling Instance"

Reasoning the matter all the way through: the "provisional" merely turns in dependence on a "resembling instance." "Resembling" here refers to the appearance of "superimposition" — what is added and set up upon the shared character — and not to any really existent appearance. "Sound" then turns in dependence on this superimposed, resembling appearance. Therefore one cannot say that "the provisional must rest on the real." That objection, accordingly, fails to accord with correct reasoning.

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) supplies a decisive gloss on the four words "the resembling refers to superimposition." To say "resembling," it explains, is meant to bring out that the resembling instance is not really existent — it is "a shared character superimposed, upon an own-character, as an other-dependent existent": as when "a single color-appearance," which is in itself a particular own-character, is forcibly extended over "all colors" (one appearance taken as the appearance common to many colors), this setting-up that "extends it over all colors" is what is called "superimposition." And so the resembling instance — the superimposed appearance — is not something really existent apart from consciousness, but merely an other-dependent dharma added and set up upon the shared character. This confirms the conclusion drawn above: that the provisional does not rest on a real instance (an own-character), but turns merely in dependence on a resembling instance.

7. The Concluding Verse

At the root of it all: it is in dependence on the principle of "the transformation of consciousness" that the Buddha, in order to counteract and remove sentient beings' deluded grasping at a substantial self and substantial dharmas, speaks the language of the "provisional" and the "resembling" — provisionally designating self and dharmas. And so the verse in the treatise says: "In order to counteract and remove the substantial self and substantial dharmas grasped by the foolish, the names 'self' and 'dharmas' are provisionally set up upon the appearances transformed and manifested by consciousness."

Onward Transmission

This section's refutation of "the provisional must rest on the real" and its establishment of "the provisional designation of self and dharmas in dependence on the transformation of consciousness" are the crucial knot on which the whole consciousness-only system founds its principle that "all dharmas are merely set up provisionally," and the later treatises take it up one by one. The Hundred Dharmas treatise lists all dharmas, provisionally set up "in such an order," as the hundred dharmas — mind, mental factors, matter, the non-associated factors, and the unconditioned, these five categories of a hundred dharmas, all of them the unfolding of "what consciousness transforms, the provisional designation of self and dharmas" (not one dharma existing really apart from consciousness) — carrying forward exactly this section's sense that "the provisional is set up in dependence on the transformation of consciousness." The Thirty Verses — verse one, "by the provisional designation of self and dharmas, which rest on the transformation of consciousness" — is the very root-verse this section expounds on its positive side: this chapter expounds precisely the residual objections to the line "the provisional designation of self and dharmas" in verse one, taking it up clause by clause. The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, establishes that "deluded discrimination exists; in it the two are wholly absent" — there the "resembling instance, the superimposition," just is the "resembling object" manifested by deluded discrimination, a sense that touches and may be read alongside this section's "the provisional turns in dependence on a resembling instance (a superimposition)." The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its part on the characteristic of the knowable, argues at length the three natures (the other-dependent, the wholly-imagined, and the perfectly-accomplished) — and "the provisionally-designated own-nature, the absence of own-nature as to characteristic" is precisely "the wholly-imagined formed by superimposition upon the other-dependent," so that this section's sense, "the resembling just is superimposition," receives its fullest unfolding only in the three-natures chapter of the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha. As for the Twenty Verses, its concern is to refute outer objects and establish consciousness-only with no objects (refuting atoms, clarifying consciousness-only without objects); it does not stand in direct correspondence to this section's "refuting that the provisional must rest on a real instance, establishing the provisional designation of self and dharmas." The two belong together only under the one great heading of "refuting the real, consciousness-only" (refuting the grasping at a substantial self and dharmas, set against refuting substantial outer objects) — kindred in doctrinal vein but without a clause-by-clause reading; that is left aside here.

In the last section we came to recognize that dark undercurrent at the bottom of the mind — the ālaya-vijñāna, the storehouse consciousness. In this section we look further into two things. Why is it that, although it is a single consciousness, this undercurrent carries several names at once (its "three aspects")? And by exactly what mechanism does it store the past away as the present, and plant the present back into the future (its "seeds")?

The establishing of this one consciousness has its roots in scripture and treatise alike. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in its chapter on the characteristics of mind, mentation, and consciousness, speaks of an "appropriating consciousness" (ādāna-vijñāna) — "ādāna" meaning "that which follows along the body and appropriates": it sustains the body and the life-faculty and gathers in the seeds, and the World-Honored One pictured it as "the seeds of everything, like a rushing torrent," moment after moment continuous, yet "did not expound it to the foolish," precisely for fear that someone would falsely grasp this appropriating, seed-holding consciousness as a "self." That one line, "the seeds of everything, like a rushing torrent," is the scriptural source of the later phrase "ever turning like a rushing torrent." The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra gives the image of "the store-consciousness as an ocean," abiding, that is stirred by the wind of objects into surging "waves of the various consciousnesses," showing that the ālaya is the root upon which all the transforming consciousnesses depend and from which they arise. The treatise further cites two verses from the Mahāyāna-abhidharma Sūtra as proof of the self-aspect and the cause-aspect — one verse says, "From beginningless time there is the element, the equal support of all phenomena," making clear that the "element (the seeds)" is the equal support of all phenomena (the cause-aspect); the other says, "Because it stores and holds all phenomena, it is the consciousness of all seeds, and so it is named ālaya," making clear that it stores and holds all phenomena and is the consciousness of all seeds (the self-aspect, the sense of "storing"); this sūtra has no transmitted witness in the Chinese lands, and the two verses survive only as cited in this treatise. By the time of the Yogācārabhūmi, the ālaya is fixed as the consciousness that is "all-seeds, the support of appropriation, and that which is encompassed by maturation" — all-seeds being the cause-aspect, appropriation being its object, and maturation being the effect-aspect; the whole treatise-basis for the three aspects lies in this one statement; its "Section on Ascertaining the Meaning" further proves, by "eight characteristics" (appropriation, first arising, clarity, seeds, karmic function, bodily sensation, the location in the mindless absorptions, and the consciousness at the time of death), that the ālaya certainly exists, and makes clear that it has two objects: "discerning the inner appropriated, and the outer undiscriminated semblance of the container world." What this section expounds has its scriptural root in the Saṃdhinirmocana, the Laṅkāvatāra, and the Mahāyāna-abhidharma, and its treatise-basis in the Yogācārabhūmi — and with that we follow the verse and open the exposition.

One Consciousness, Three Faces

Although the storehouse consciousness is a single consciousness, it can be viewed from three angles, and so it bears three names — the ancients called these its "three aspects."

The first face says what it is in itself: "ālaya," the storehouse. Why call it a "storehouse"? Because it and all the defiled phenomena mutually support one another — it stores the seeds of defiled phenomena (it is the that which can store), and it is in turn relied upon by those seeds (it is the that which is stored); and, most pointedly of all, sentient beings, from the very bottom of the mind, grasp this consciousness as "an inner self" (it is the that which is grasped as self). Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) lines up each of these three senses of "storing" against its correlate: "that which can store" is said with respect to the defiled seeds it holds (the consciousness can hold the defiled seeds, so the seeds are named "that which is stored" and the consciousness is "that which can store"); "that which is stored" is said with respect to the defiled phenomena that perfume it (the consciousness is perfumed by the defiled phenomena, so the perfuming defiled phenomena are named "that which can store" and the consciousness is "that which is stored"); and "that which is grasped as self" is said with respect to the defiled seventh consciousness (the seventh constantly grasps it as an "inner self," and so it is named "that which is grasped as self"). This word "storehouse" gathers up cause (the seeds) and effect (the active manifestations) in a single grip, and this is precisely the most fundamental self-nature of this consciousness. Across a lifetime it passes through every kind of stage, but the flaw of "being grasped as a self" is the gravest of all, which is why this name "ālaya" is singled out to mark it.

The second face views it as effect: "maturation" (vipāka). Our present span of life — which realm we are born into, which destiny, what kind of body we come to have — is the total retribution called forth by past wholesome and unwholesome deeds. What is able to bear this total retributive effect, which "matures at a different time and matures through transformation," is precisely this consciousness; apart from it, distinctive retributive results that continue through a single life — such as the life-faculty and the homogeneity of a kind of being — would have nowhere to be established. So, viewed from this side, as the bearer of the fruit of karma, it is called "maturation."

The third face views it as cause: "all-seeds" (the seed of everything). It is able to hold fast the seeds of all phenomena so that they are not scattered and lost; apart from it, no other consciousness can hold seeds in so universal a way. So, viewed from this side, as the storehouse of the cause from which the myriad phenomena arise, it is called "all-seeds."

One and the same consciousness — storehouse (its self-aspect), maturation (its effect-aspect), all-seeds (its cause-aspect) — three faces, all speaking of the very same thing.

So What, Exactly, Is a "Seed"?

The name "all-seeds" forces a finer question: what is meant by a "seed" in the first place?

The definition in the Yogācāra teaching is exact: a seed is each particular functional capacity within the storehouse consciousness that "directly gives rise to its own corresponding effect" — a latent, individually distinct power to produce a result. Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) points out that in this short definition every word is "marking off" some mistaken reading: saying "within the root consciousness (the ālaya)" pinpoints the place where seeds reside, marking off the Sautrāntika master's claim that "material and mental phenomena are made to hold seeds" (seeds are only in the eighth, not in matter or mind); saying "directly gives rise to its own effect" marks off, on the one hand, the "maturation cause" (the maturation cause stands to the maturation effect it calls forth across a lifetime and does not directly produce it, so it is no seed) and, on the other, the active front seven transforming consciousnesses (only what "directly gives rise to its own effect within its own kind" qualifies, and an active state does not). One sentence of definition, drawing the line on three sides.

Here is a difficulty that is always pressed: are the seed, the consciousness it dwells in, and the effect it produces "one and the same thing," or "two separate matters"? The answer is neither identical nor different. Substance and function, cause and effect, are by their very nature like this; to force them into being either strictly one or strictly different is wrong in both directions. But what matters is this: although seeds are neither one nor different, they are really existent. Why must they be really existent? Because what is unreal (like the hairs of a tortoise or the horns of a hare) amounts to nothing at all, and what does not exist cannot serve as a "causal condition." Since a seed must directly give birth to an active manifestation, it must be really existent in order to qualify as that cause. We must distinguish, however: the "real existence" of a seed is a real existence spoken of "in dependence on the conventional," and is different from the supreme-truth real existence of suchness — this is a line the Yogācāra teaching guards firmly, never elevating seeds to the status of suchness. (We may also fix their place in passing: although seeds rest upon the very substance of the eighth consciousness, they are the "image-portion" that this consciousness takes as object, not the "seeing-portion" that does the apprehending — because the seeing-portion always takes seeds as the object it looks upon, and the side that looks and the side that is looked upon cannot be the same side.)

Seeds, too, are wholesome, unwholesome, or indeterminate. As for contaminated (with-outflow) seeds: in their essential nature they are no different from the eighth consciousness itself, so they are reckoned, along with it, as "indeterminate"; yet insofar as they can produce wholesome or unwholesome results, they may also be called wholesome or unwholesome in accord with their effect. Uncontaminated (outflow-free) seeds are another matter: they do not belong to the indeterminate nature of the eighth consciousness, because both their cause and their effect are wholesome, and so they are called, exclusively, "wholesome."

An Ancient Debate: Are Seeds "Innate," or Are They "Perfumed In"?

Where do seeds come from? This is one of the famous debates within the Yogācāra teaching, and the author of the treatise lays the several positions out one by one. Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) marks out the layers of this passage: there are three positions here in all — the first, "innate only," is the old reading held by many masters from high antiquity; the second, "newly perfumed only," is a more recent reading; and the third is the author Dharmapāla's own "establishing both classes together," which is judged to be the correct meaning. We now take these three positions in turn.

First position: seeds are entirely innate. This view holds that all seeds are "naturally so from beginningless time," innately possessed, and not perfumed in after the fact; perfuming can at most make innate seeds "grow," but it generates no new seeds. It cites a string of scriptures and treatises in support: scripture says that sentient beings have, from beginningless time, "manifold elements," present of themselves, like the akṣa-cluster (three fruits sharing a single stem), and "element" is precisely another name for "seed"; scripture also says, "From beginningless time there is the element, the equal support of all phenomena," and "element" here means cause; the Yogācārabhūmi likewise says that the essential nature of seeds is innate, and is then brought forth anew by defiled-and-pure perfuming; and further, sentient beings divide into "five lineages," some fully possessing the seeds for becoming a Buddha and some congenitally lacking them — and this very difference of "possessing versus lacking" shows that seeds are innate.

Second position: seeds are entirely perfumed in. This view holds the reverse — that seeds are all produced by perfuming. The perfumer (the front seven consciousnesses) and the perfumed (the eighth consciousness) both exist from beginningless time, so seeds, too, have been perfumed into being all along, from beginningless time, and do not suddenly spring up at some particular point. Its analogy is vivid: a seed is just another name for a "habit-energy," and fragrance is something perfumed in — sesame is not fragrant in itself; it is the flower that perfumes it, and only then does it carry the scent. It further holds that the differences of lineage among sentient beings should not be drawn by "whether or not one has uncontaminated seeds," but by "whether or not the obstructions can be severed."

The author's verdict: only by establishing both classes together do we have the correct reading. The true answer is that seeds are of two classes each — one "innate" (called the "seeds that abide in their nature," present naturally and from beginningless time), and one "newly arisen" (called the "seeds formed through perfuming," perfumed into being by active manifestation, instance after instance). Why can we not lean to one side only?

To lean to "entirely innate" runs into trouble: if seeds were all innate and not produced through perfuming, then the active manifestations of the front seven consciousnesses could no longer be "mutual causal conditions" with the storehouse consciousness. Yet scripture plainly says that phenomena perfume the consciousness and the consciousness holds the phenomena, the two being "reciprocally cause and effect"; and the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha goes further, using "the wick and the flame burning and generating one another" and "two bundles of reeds leaning together and standing up" to picture the mutual causal conditioning of the storehouse and the defiled phenomena. Merely "nourishing innate seeds to grow" does not yet rise to a true "causal condition" — for if it did, then wholesome and unwholesome deeds calling forth a maturation-effect (which is only a contributory condition) would also have to count as a causal condition. So we must grant "perfuming that produces new seeds," or the very meaning of "causal condition" cannot stand.

To lean to "entirely perfumed in" runs into trouble as well: if there were no innate seeds at all, then from which seed would the "uncontaminated noble path" arise? A contaminated mind cannot serve as the seed of the uncontaminated (their natures are opposed); and if one insisted that the contaminated could produce the uncontaminated, then conversely the uncontaminated ought also to be able to produce the contaminated — even a Buddha would have to fall back into producing the contaminated, and a wholesome mind could serve as the seed of the unwholesome — sheer chaos. So the uncontaminated path must have "innate uncontaminated seeds" as its cause.

Here the author also takes the occasion to refute the doctrine that "the nature of the mind is originally pure." Some hold that the mind is originally pure and is only called defiled when stained by adventitious afflictions; remove the afflictions and it turns into the uncontaminated, so the uncontaminated does not arise without a cause. The author asks: what, precisely, do you mean by "the nature of the mind"? If you mean "the principle of emptiness (suchness)" — the principle of emptiness is a permanent phenomenon, and cannot serve as a producing cause, still less as a seed. If you mean "the substance of the mind itself" — then you have fallen into the non-Buddhist view of a "permanent and unitary substance"; and besides, if the mind's substance were originally wholesome, then the unwholesome mind and the indeterminate mind would all have to be wholesome too, which makes no sense. In truth, when scripture says "the nature of the mind is pure," it means "the suchness revealed by the principle of emptiness of the mind" (suchness being the true nature of the mind), or it means "the substance of the mind is not, in itself, the same as affliction" — it does not mean that "the nature of the contaminated mind is itself the uncontaminated."

As for the scriptural proofs each side adduces, the author reconciles them all. Scripture says "inner seeds certainly have perfuming," but it does not say "seeds are wholly produced by perfuming," so it cannot be used to deny innate seeds — all the more so since even innate seeds must be nourished and made vigorous by perfuming before they can bear fruit, which is exactly the meaning of "inner seeds certainly have perfuming." Again, "perfuming through hearing" is not confined to the contaminated: when one hears the true Dharma, this also perfumes the innate uncontaminated seeds, making them gradually flourish and, in turn, give rise to a supramundane mind. And the new-perfuming side's claim that lineage is "established by reference to the obstructions" in fact cannot do without uncontaminated seeds either — for in the end, whether the obstructions can be severed turns precisely on whether one has uncontaminated seeds; it is only because uncontaminated seeds are too subtle and hard to see that one borrows "whether the obstructions can be severed" to display the differences of lineage.

Clinging to either extreme contradicts the scriptural teaching. So the conclusion is: seeds are of two classes each, innate and newly arisen, established together and not leaning to one side.

What Does It Take to Count as a "Seed"? — Six Conditions

Not just anything qualifies to be called a seed. The author lays down six conditions; lacking even one, a thing is no seed:

One: momentary cessation. A seed perishes the instant it arises (arising and ceasing thought-moment by thought-moment), and it is precisely within this arising-and-ceasing that the power to produce a result resides. This condition excludes what is "permanent and unchanging": the permanent undergoes no transformation, and so cannot be said to produce anything.

Two: co-presence with the effect. A seed must arise simultaneously with, and be combined together with, the active-manifestation effect it produces, in order to count as a seed. The seed's producing of the manifestation is simultaneous.

Three: continuous following-and-turning. A seed must, over a long time, "continue as one kind" (turning along with the eighth consciousness uninterruptedly, the whole way through) right up to the ultimate stage, in order to count as a seed. This condition excludes the front seven consciousnesses: they turn at times and break off at times, and cannot shoulder the responsibility of holding seeds. It also brings out how seeds "produce their own kind," the earlier seed drawing forth the later in an unbroken continuity.

Four: determinacy of nature. A wholesome seed produces the wholesome and an unwholesome seed produces the unwholesome — the nature-class of the result produced is fixed and settled — in order to count as a seed.

Five: awaiting the assembly of conditions. A seed must wait until its own conditions are gathered complete before its power becomes distinguished and it produces a result. This condition refutes the non-Buddhist doctrine that "a self-existent cause, without awaiting conditions, produces its result all at once": if the conditions are not complete, the seed does not produce.

Six: drawing forth its own effect. The seed of a material phenomenon draws forth a material phenomenon, and the seed of a mental phenomenon draws forth a mental phenomenon — each draws forth its own effect — in order to count as a seed. This condition refutes the mistaken reckonings that "one cause produces all effects" and that "matter and mind serve as causes for one another."

Only the functional capacities within the eighth consciousness, complete in all six meanings, are true seeds. The "outer seeds" out there — grains and wheat and the like — are in fact transformations manifested by consciousness, and merely borrow the name "seed" for convenient use; they are not truly seeds. (We may also distinguish their uses in passing: a seed that produces the result presently arising before us is called a "generating cause"; one that holds fast a residual result on the verge of exhaustion, keeping it from breaking off at once, is called a "drawing-out cause." An inner seed is certainly produced and grown through perfuming, and can directly give birth to a result — it is a "causal condition." An outer seed does or does not have perfuming indifferently, and serves only as a "contributory condition" to assist; the result it bears, traced to the root, still has an inner seed as its causal condition.)

What, Exactly, Is "Perfuming"?

Last, we speak of "perfuming" — how is a seed perfumed into being and perfumed into growth? The key lies in this: the side that is perfumed and the side that does the perfuming must each fulfill four conditions.

That which can be perfumed (the perfumed) requires four conditions: First, it must be "stable and abiding" — continuing as one kind from beginning to end, holding fast the habit-energy (this excludes the front seven consciousnesses, which break off at times, and excludes scattered and shifting things like sound and wind). Second, it must be "indeterminate" — even-natured, leaning to neither wholesome nor unwholesome, with room to hold habit-energy (a too-intense wholesome phenomenon or defiled phenomenon, on the contrary, has no room to hold anything else; this is why even the pure eighth consciousness at the stage of Buddhahood only carries its old seeds and is no longer perfumed). Third, it must be "able to be perfumed" — loose and porous in essence, able to take things in (this excludes the mental factors that arise dependent on others, and the unconditioned phenomena that are firm and unchanging). Fourth, it must be "combined with the perfumer" — simultaneous, in the same place, neither identical with nor apart from it (this excludes another's body, and the differing thought-moments before and after). Counting it all up, only the eighth, the maturation consciousness, is complete in all four meanings, and qualifies as "the perfumed."

That which can perfume (the perfumer) likewise requires four conditions: First, it must "have arising and ceasing" — be impermanent, possessed of activity, able to generate and grow habit-energy (the unconditioned does not change and cannot perfume). Second, it must "have distinguished activity" — its force strong enough to set habit-energy in motion (the eighth consciousness and its mental factors are too weak in force, and cannot perfume). Third, it must "have increase and decrease" — its power able to grow or to wane (the consummate wholesome phenomena at the stage of Buddhahood neither increase nor decrease, and so likewise cannot perfume — for otherwise the fruit of Buddhahood would itself become unconsummate, with higher and lower across earlier and later). Fourth, it must be "combined with the perfumed" — simultaneous, in the same place, neither identical with nor apart from it. Counting it all up, only the front seven consciousnesses and their mental factors are complete in all four meanings, and qualify as "the perfumer."

How does perfuming come about? The perfumer and the perfumed "arise together and cease together," and within this very simultaneity the seeds in the perfumed consciousness are perfumed into being and perfumed into growth — just as taking a flower to perfume sesame leaves the sesame carrying the scent. And this is a single, simultaneously turning cycle: at the very moment an active manifestation arises from a seed, it instantly turns back and perfumes a new seed — "the seed produces the manifestation, the manifestation perfumes the seed" — the original seed, the active manifestation, and the new seed being three things in "simultaneous cause and effect." The ancients pictured it with two analogies: like the wick generating the flame and the flame in turn scorching the wick (simultaneously generating and burning one another), and like two bundles of reeds that stand up only by leaning against each other.

Last, we distinguish the two patterns of cause and effect: the pair "active manifestation perfumes a seed into being, the seed produces an active manifestation" is simultaneous cause and effect (as a "co-existent cause" obtains a "result of human effort"); "seeds producing their own kind across earlier and later" (the earlier seed drawing forth the later) is non-simultaneous cause and effect (as a "homogeneous cause" draws forth an "outflow result"). These two alone are truly "causal conditions"; whatever lies outside them is not a causal condition — and even where such things are sometimes called causal conditions, that too is only borrowing the name as a manner of speaking.

With this, the doctrine of the storehouse consciousness's "three aspects" and of "all-seeds" has been, in broad outline, expounded in full.

Onward Transmission

What this section establishes — the storehouse consciousness's "three aspects and all-seeds" — is the cornerstone on which the whole consciousness-only system founds "the root of mind and consciousness, the support of the myriad phenomena," and the later treatises take it up one by one. The Hundred Dharmas treatise lists the ālaya as the eighth of the eight consciousness-dharmas, and places the five ever-present factors — contact, attention, sensation, perception, and volition — at the head of the mental factors, which is precisely the point made in this section that "the eighth is constantly conjoined with contact and the other five ever-present factors." The Thirty Verses — verse two (ālaya, maturation, all-seeds), verse three (the unknowable appropriation and location, and the five ever-present factors), and the first half of verse four (unobscured-indeterminate, ever turning like a rushing torrent) — is the very root-text this section expounds, verse answering to verse. The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, clarifies "false discrimination" — that consciousness arises in dependence on others and is the support of defilement — which bears directly on this section's point that "the ālaya holds the seeds and is a mutual causal condition with the defiled." The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its chapter on the support of the knowable, then makes the broadest possible analysis of the storehouse consciousness's sense of "storing," its three aspects, its seeds, and its perfuming; this section's image of "the ālaya and the defiled as mutual causal conditions, like the wick and the flame, like two bundles of reeds" is itself drawn from the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha. As for the Twenty Verses, its concern is to establish consciousness-only and refute the outsiders' clinging to real objects, and it has no direct counterpart to the ālaya's three aspects and seeds; here it is left aside.

〔Verses commented〕Verse 3, first half

The previous chapter established the three aspects of the ālaya and set out the seeds. This chapter follows the verse and takes first its two root matters: what it cognizes (its object) and how it cognizes (its mode) — and out of that very distinction raises the doctrine of the four parts. The gates of concomitant factors, feeling, nature, ever-flowing and relinquishment form the next chapter.

The sense of this chapter — object, mode, and the four parts — has its ground in scripture and treatise. The Saṃdhinirmocana, in its chapter on mind, thought and consciousness, gives this consciousness its other name together with its appropriating sense: "this consciousness is also called the ādāna consciousness — why? because it pursues and appropriates the body"; ādāna states exactly the appropriation that is one half of this chapter's object. It further says: "the ādāna consciousness is deep and subtle, all its seeds like a torrent; I do not expound it to the childish, lest they discriminate and take it for a self" — which is the ground for the verse's opening word, "imperceptible." The treatise ground is the Yogācārabhūmi: "the ālaya consciousness turns by way of two objects: by discerning the inner appropriated, and by discerning the outer undifferentiated receptacle-aspect" — the warrant for "appropriation" and "world" in the verse; and "the ālaya consciousness takes its object so subtly that even the worldly-wise find it hard to make out" — the warrant for "imperceptible." What follows unfolds the verse. The many gates argued out at length in this section have their roots in scripture and treatise alike. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in its chapter on the characteristics of mind, mentation, and consciousness, says this consciousness is "also named the appropriating consciousness (ādāna-vijñāna)" — "ādāna" meaning "that which follows along the body and appropriates," holding the seeds and the various material faculties so that they do not decay; and that it is "also named the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna)," because it "takes in, conceals, and shares one fate with the body" — and this is the scriptural source for this section's phrase "the appropriation... taken in as its own substance, sharing one fate with it." The same sūtra further admonishes, in verse, that the foolish should not falsely grasp this profound, hard-to-know appropriating consciousness as a "self": "the appropriating consciousness is profound and subtle, all its seeds like a torrent; I have not expounded it to the foolish, for fear they would discriminate and grasp it as a self" — and this section's account of the "unknowable" and of "ever-flowing as a torrent" is rooted here. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra gives the image "the store-consciousness ocean abides constantly, stirred by the wind of objects, and the various consciousness-waves leap up and turn into being," showing that the eighth consciousness is the root on which all the transforming consciousnesses depend. The Mahāyāna-abhidharma Sūtra (which has no transmitted witness in the Chinese tradition, its text surviving only within this treatise) establishes, in two verses, that "the beginningless realm is the equal support of all phenomena" and that "because it stores and conceals all phenomena, it is the consciousness of all seeds, and so is named the ālaya" — the most excellent scriptural attestation for setting up the name ālaya. The treatise-basis lies in the "Section on Ascertainment" of the Yogācārabhūmi: there the ālaya-vijñāna is fixed as "turning by way of two kinds of object-field" (inwardly discerning the appropriated seeds and body-with-faculties, outwardly discerning the non-discriminated receptacle-appearance — the source of this section's "appropriation" and "locale"); it is said to "take an exceedingly subtle object, hard for even the worldly-wise to fathom" (the source of "unknowable"); to "arise and cease moment by moment, flowing on in instantaneous continuity, neither one nor permanent" (the source of "ever-flowing as a torrent"); to "be associated with the five omnipresent mental factors... and its associated feeling is invariably neither painful nor pleasant, subsumed under the neutral quality" (the source of "the five feelings being neutral alone, unobstructed-neutral"); and that "arhats, solitary buddhas, non-retrogressing bodhisattvas, and the tathāgatas do not possess a storehouse consciousness" (the source of "suppression, relinquishment, and the giving-up of the name"). What this section expounds has its scriptural root in the Saṃdhinirmocana, the Laṅkāvatāra, and the Mahāyāna-abhidharma Sūtra, and its treatise-basis in the Yogācārabhūmi — and from here we follow the verse and open the gates one by one.

A. The Gate of Object and Mode — What It Cognizes, and How

What are the "mode of cognition" (the form that its act of knowing takes) and the "object" (the field it apprehends) of this consciousness? The verse answers: "unknowable in its appropriation, its locale, and its discernment." "Discernment" is the act of cognizing-and-distinguishing — this is the mode, for a consciousness has cognition-and-distinction as its very form. "Locale" is place, meaning the receptacle-world (the physical universe), the ground on which all sentient beings rest. "Appropriation" is of two kinds: first, the various seeds (that is, the three classes of habit-energy — those of perceptual forms, of names, and of discrimination); second, the body endowed with sense-faculties (the body possessing the five faculties, comprising the pure-form matter of the five faculties and the fleshly body that supports them). Both of these are "appropriated" by this consciousness — taken in as its own substance, sharing one fate with it (when the body is at ease the consciousness is at ease, when the body is endangered the consciousness is endangered). Both the appropriation and the locale are the object of this consciousness. By the force of causes and conditions, when the storehouse consciousness arises as its own substance, it projects inwardly into the appearance of seeds and the body-with-faculties, and outwardly into the appearance of the receptacle-world; it then takes what it has itself projected as its object, and its mode (the function of discernment) can only arise resting upon that object.

This "discernment" means that the maturational consciousness has a discriminating function with respect to its own object — this belongs to the seeing-aspect (the portion that does the apprehending). Whenever any defiled consciousness arises as its own substance, it manifests two appearances: a "semblance of the object" and a "semblance of the apprehender"; the mental factors associated with it do likewise. Of these, the "semblance of the object" is called the image-aspect, and the "semblance of the apprehender" is called the seeing-aspect. Why must there be these two aspects? Because if mind and mental factors had no "object-appearance" (image-aspect), they ought either to be unable to cognize their own field at all, or else each of them ought to be able to cognize everything indiscriminately (with no image-aspect, one's own field and another's field could not be told apart). And if mind and mental factors had no "apprehender-appearance" (seeing-aspect), they ought to be utterly incapable of cognizing — like empty space — for otherwise empty space too would have to be able to cognize. Therefore mind and mental factors must have both the image-aspect and the seeing-aspect. Scripture confirms this: there is only the consciousness that is aware; the object that is grasped as external has no real status; within the consciousness, the aware portion and the portion that is taken as known each turn of their own accord.

On how to establish "image, seeing, and substance," two schools differ. The Hīnayāna position, which holds that there is a real object apart from consciousness, says the external object is the field, the image-aspect is the "mode," and the seeing-aspect is the "substance (the self-body)"; on their view mind and its factors share the same support and the same object, their mode (image-aspect) is similar, while their "substance" — though equal in number — differs in shape. The correct Yogācāra reading, which has penetrated the truth that there is no real object apart from consciousness, says instead that the image-aspect is the field, the seeing-aspect is the "mode," and the self-substance on which both image and seeing rest is the "substance" — namely the self-witnessing aspect (the portion that witnesses one's own knowing). If this self-witnessing aspect did not exist, one ought to be unable to recall one's own past mind and mental factors — just as one can never recall a field one never experienced, there must be a self-witnessing aspect that witnessed the knowing, so that one can later recall it. On the Yogācāra view, then, mind and its factors share the same supporting faculty and a similar object (image-aspect), while their mode (seeing-aspect) differs (the functions of discernment, of reception, and so on are distinct), and their "substance" (self-witnessing aspect), though equal in number, differs in shape (the substances of consciousness, of feeling, and so on are distinct).

Pressing finer still: when any mind or mental factor arises, in principle it ought to have three aspects — image-aspect (the measured), seeing-aspect (the measuring), and self-witnessing aspect (the result of the measuring) — because cognition involves the threefold distinction of "what is measured, what does the measuring, and the result of measurement," and the image and seeing aspects must have a substance on which they rest. As Dignāga's Compendium of Valid Cognition puts it: the semblance-of-object appearance (image-aspect) is what is measured; the apprehending appearance (seeing-aspect) and the self-witnessing aspect are, respectively, the measuring and its result; and these three are not different in substance (they are one and the same consciousness-body).

Finer yet, there must also be a fourth aspect — the witnessing-of-self-witnessing aspect (the portion that witnesses the self-witnessing aspect). If it did not exist, who would witness the third (the self-witnessing aspect)? Since the several aspects of mind are alike in being apprehenders, each ought in principle to have something that witnesses it. Moreover, without the fourth, the self-witnessing aspect would have no result-of-measurement, yet whatever measures must have a result. Nor can one say "the seeing-aspect is the result-of-measurement for the self-witnessing aspect" — for the seeing-aspect is sometimes erroneous cognition (it apprehends mistakenly), whereas whatever witnesses the substance must be direct perception (immediate and unerring); so the seeing-aspect cannot witness the third. Among these four aspects, the first two (image and seeing) are "outer," the latter two (self-witnessing and witnessing-of-self-witnessing) are "inner." The first aspect (image) is object only; the latter three are both object and apprehender. The second aspect (seeing) cognizes only the first (image), and its cognition may be either valid or erroneous, either direct or inferential. The third aspect (self-witnessing) cognizes the second (and also the fourth). The fourth aspect (witnessing-of-self-witnessing) cognizes only the third (self-witnessing), not the seeing-aspect — because there would be no use in its cognizing the seeing-aspect (the self-witnessing aspect cognizing the seeing-aspect already suffices). The third and the fourth are both direct perception. Composed in this way, the four aspects together possess both object and apprehender (the self-witnessing and the witnessing-of-self-witnessing cognize each other, so the mutual witnessing never breaks off), yet incur no fault of "an endless regress of apprehenders" (since the third and fourth witness each other, the chain comes to rest and there is no need for a fifth). The four aspects are neither identical (not one) nor separate (not different), and so the truth of consciousness-only is established. As scripture says in verse: the minds of sentient beings have the twofold nature of apprehender and apprehended; all the aspects, inner and outer, are bound up in this grasping of object and grasping by apprehender, and what is seen has manifold variety — and this "seeing" is the seeing-aspect.

These four aspects can also be gathered together: into three (the fourth folded into the self-witnessing aspect), or into two (the latter three, all being apprehenders, folded into the seeing-aspect), or into one (one and the same consciousness-body, undivided in substance). Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) assigns these several accounts — those where "the text has but two aspects while the sense has three" — each to its ancient master by name: the one who maintains "a single aspect" (the self-witnessing aspect alone) is Sthiramati; the one who maintains "two aspects" (image and seeing) is Bandhuśrī (of Nanda's line); the one who maintains "three aspects" (further setting up the self-witnessing aspect) is Dignāga; and the one who maintains "four aspects" (setting up the witnessing-of-self-witnessing as well) is Dharmapāla — and this treatise is built upon Dharmapāla's reading; in the body of the text it makes explicit only three aspects, because the characteristic of the fourth aspect (the witnessing-of-self-witnessing) is still hidden and subtle, and so it is passed over and not displayed. As the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says in verse: through the clinging of one's own mind, the mind manifests as though there were external objects and turns; the external objects it sees in fact do not exist, and so we say "mind-only." Everywhere the scriptures say "the one mind alone," and this "one mind" also subsumes the mental factors (the mind-king being chief, it subsumes its factors). Therefore: the mode of the consciousness is just discernment, and discernment is the seeing-aspect of the consciousness.

1. "Locale" — the Receptacle-World, and Who Projects It

The "locale" of which the verse speaks means this: by the force of the maturation of common-aspect seeds (the seeds produced by the shared karma of all beings), the maturational consciousness projects the appearance of a receptacle-world resembling material form — the outer four great elements and the matter derived from them. Although each sentient being projects its own receptacle-world separately, the resulting appearances resemble one another and the locale shows no difference — like the light of many lamps, each shining throughout the room, which appears as a single field of brightness. So whose maturational consciousness projects this receptacle-world? Here there are three views.

One view: all sentient beings project it — for scripture says the receptacle-world arises through the "dominant karmic force" shared by all beings. But it is then objected: if all beings projected it, then the buddhas and bodhisattvas would really have to project this defiled, foul land, and ordinary beings would really have to project the pure, marvelous buddha-lands of other regions (which is not so); and those noble ones who, weary of bodily form, are born in the formless realm and will surely never again descend to this realm — what would they be projecting this land for? So one should say that only those "now dwelling in this realm" and those "due to be born in this realm hereafter" have a consciousness that projects this realm; when scripture says "all," it speaks of a "portion" (those whose karma is alike project it together). The correct reading, however, replies: if it were limited to those now dwelling or due to be born, then when the receptacle-world is "about to be destroyed" there would be no one dwelling in it and none due to be born — so who would be projecting it then? And formless-realm beings already manifest a formless body — what would they project this land for in advance? Even granting them a bodily form, that body and the receptacle of another sphere are coarse and fine in vastly different degrees and do not support one another, so what benefit would there be in using such a body to project this receptacle? In truth the "land that is projected" exists in order to serve a bodily form as its support and means of enjoyment — so wherever a land can have the function of support and enjoyment for some body, that land is projected. Therefore even a being born in another region, or born within its own sphere, may have a consciousness that projects this land; and so, when the receptacle-world is "about to be destroyed" or is "just forming," even though no sentient being dwells in it, the receptacle is still present (there is always some consciousness, capable of using it, projecting it). All this is said with respect to "common enjoyment" (the receptacle commonly projected by shared karma); "individual enjoyment" (what individual karma individually evokes) is inferred along the same lines — a hungry ghost, a human, and a heavenly being see the very same thing differently (the ghost sees a river of pus, the heavenly being sees lapis lazuli).

2. "Appropriation" — Seeds and the Body Endowed with Faculties

The first thing appropriated is the seeds: namely, all the seeds of contaminated phenomena held by the maturational consciousness; they share the same moral quality as this consciousness (both being morally neutral), and so they are its object. As for the seeds of uncontaminated phenomena — though they too lodge in this consciousness, they do not share its moral quality, and so they are not its object; yet, though not its object, they are not separate from it — just like the nature of suchness (which lodges in all phenomena, is not the object of consciousness, yet is not separate from it), and this does not contradict consciousness-only.

The second thing appropriated is the body endowed with faculties: by the force of the maturation of uncommon-aspect seeds (those evoked by individual karma, for one's own enjoyment alone), the maturational consciousness projects the appearance of the pure-form matter of the five faculties and the fleshly body that supports them (the inner four great elements and the matter derived from them); and by the force of the maturation of common-aspect seeds, with respect to the locale of "another's body" it also projects a semblance of it — otherwise there would be no sense in "enjoying another's body" (a person being able to see, to rest on, and to make use of another person's body). On what is projected with respect to "another's body," there are two views. One view: with respect to another's body too, it projects a semblance of faculties (the pure-form sense-faculties) — on the authority of the Madhyānta-vibhāga, which says consciousness manifests as the five faculties of one's own body and of another's body. The correct reading, however, says: with respect to another's body it projects only a semblance of the seat of the faculties (the fleshly body), and does not project a semblance of another's pure-form faculties — for another person's pure-form faculties hold no possibility of enjoyment for oneself; what the Madhyānta-vibhāga means by "the five faculties of self and other manifesting" is that "the consciousness of self and the consciousness of other each project the faculties of its own body," not that my consciousness projects another's faculties. It is precisely because of this that one can explain how, when a being is reborn in another sphere or enters final nirvāṇa, the corpse it leaves behind is still seen to continue in existence (the seat-of-faculties was projected from common-aspect seeds, so even though the original owner's faculties are relinquished, the seat still remains).

3. Form Born of Concentration · A Brief Summary of the Projected Field

All of the above has been said with respect to the outer receptacle, the inner body, and their differences of realm (the three realms) and sphere (the nine spheres) as projected by karmic force. As for the receptacle, body, realm, sphere, and self-and-other projected by "the force of concentration and the like" (the superior power of meditative absorption), these are not so fixed (they can, by the power of concentration, project a field belonging to another sphere). What is projected as body and receptacle is for the most part continuous and enduring; what is projected as sound, light, and the like is for the most part momentary (arising as the force of an immediately present condition strikes it forth). To sum up: the field that this consciousness projects consists of contaminated seeds, the ten material bases (the five faculties and the five fields), and the real form manifested within the base of mental objects (form born of concentration and the like).

Why, then, does this consciousness not project a "semblance of mind and mental factors" as its object? Because the projection of a contaminated consciousness is of two kinds: one is "projection following the force of causes and conditions" (projection that occurs of its own accord from seeds, and must have real function); the other is "projection following the force of discrimination" (projection that occurs through the discrimination of the sixth consciousness, producing only a field that is a mere image). The maturational consciousness projects only "following causes and conditions," and what it projects as form and the like must have real function (it can support, it can be enjoyed); but if it projected mind and mental factors there would be no real function — for mind and mental factors set up as the image-aspect could no longer go on to cognize an object, and that real function must arise instead from the seeds of the actually-functioning mind and mental factors; and projecting unconditioned phenomena likewise has no real function. So the maturational consciousness does not take mind, mental factors, and the like as its object. But at the uncontaminated stage (when it has turned into the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom), this consciousness, associated with supreme insight, though free of discrimination, is by nature pure and clear, so that even though the mind and the like it manifests have no real function, it can still manifest their images — otherwise the buddhas would not be omniscient. Therefore, at the contaminated stage, this maturational consciousness takes as its object only the three: the receptacle-world, the body-with-faculties, and contaminated seeds. The desire realm and the form realm have all three of these objects; the formless realm takes as object only contaminated seeds (its beings, weary of material form, have no bodily form evoked by karma), yet there is still "form born of concentration" there (the form manifested by meditative absorption), which does not violate the principle — so that consciousness too takes this concentration-born form as its object.

4. "Unknowable"

The "unknowable" of which the verse speaks means this: the mode of this consciousness (its function of discernment) is exceedingly subtle and hard to know; its inner appropriated object (the seeds, the body-with-faculties) is likewise exceedingly subtle; and the outer receptacle-world is vast and hard to fathom — both its mode and its object are subtle, hidden, and hard to know, and so it is called "unknowable." Someone asks: how can there be a consciousness like this, one that grasps an object and has a mode, yet whose object and mode are hard to know? The answer: just as, in the attainment of cessation, that "consciousness which does not leave the body" (the ālaya) is unknowable yet should be believed to exist; and indeed one must admit that there is a consciousness in the attainment of cessation — for one who has entered that attainment is still a sentient being, and so must have an appropriating consciousness, just as in the state where mind is active. The state of the attainment of non-conception, the heaven of non-conception, and the like are the same way (a subtle, unknowable ālaya still continues there).

Onward Transmission

What this chapter settles — object, mode, and the four parts — is the ground on which the tradition rests its claim that consciousness itself transforms into two parts and then grasps. The Hundred Dharmas lists the ālaya as the eighth of the mind-dharmas; it is precisely this eighth consciousness whose mode and object are settled here. Verse 3, first half, of the Thirty Verses is the root verse this chapter expounds. The Twenty Verses, establishing that there is consciousness and no outer object, refutes exactly the notion of an object real apart from consciousness — the obverse of this chapter's claim that the object is never apart from it. The Madhyāntavibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, gathers grasper and grasped under "unreal imagination"; the seeing part and image part settled here are those two graspings. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha, in its chapter on the knowable ground, unfolds the ālaya's object and perfuming at length — the same consciousness, treated now in brief and now in full.

〔Verses commented〕Verse 3 (latter half) through Verse 4

The gates taken up here — concomitance, feeling, moral nature, ever-flowing, relinquishment — have their ground in scripture and treatise. The Laṅkāvatāra gives the ever-flowing in an image: "the store-consciousness ocean abides constant, stirred by the wind of objects; the many waves of consciousness leap up and turn into being" — the ocean constant and the waves never still, which is the very figure the verse takes in "ever-turning as a torrent." The treatise ground is the Yogācārabhūmi: "the ālaya consciousness is ever concomitant with the five omnipresent mental factors: attention, contact, feeling, conception, volition" — the warrant for the gate of concomitance; "the ālaya consciousness arises and ceases moment by moment upon its object; know it as a momentary continuum in flow, neither one nor permanent" — the warrant for the "neither cut off nor permanent" of "ever-turning"; and "some have accomplished the evolving consciousnesses and not the ālaya — namely arhats, pratyekabuddhas, non-retrogressing bodhisattvas, and the Tathāgatas abiding in the state with mind" — the warrant for the gate of stages. What follows unfolds the verse gate by gate.

A. The Gate of Concomitant Mental Factors — the Five Omnipresent Factors That Accompany It

With how many mental factors is this consciousness associated? It is constantly associated with five: contact, attention, feeling, conception, and volition. From beginningless time, until the point before it turns into the uncontaminated, the storehouse consciousness is in every state constantly associated with these five — because these are the omnipresent mental factors (which arise with every mind whatsoever).

Contact — this is the "discriminated alteration" upon the "three coming together" (the coming together of faculty, object, and consciousness); its nature is to bring mind and mental factors into contact with their object, and its function is to serve as the support for feeling, conception, volition, and the rest. The mutual conforming of faculty, object, and consciousness is called the "three coming together"; contact arises in dependence on this coming-together and is also able to bring about the coming-together, and so, conversely, it is said to "be that very coming-together." In the state where the three come together there is the function of "giving rise to conforming mental factors," and this is called "alteration"; contact arises resembling that alteration, and so it is called "discriminated." Among the three, the altering force of the "faculty" surpasses that of consciousness and object in inducing contact, and so the Abhidharma-samuccaya and the like say only that "contact is the discrimination of the alteration of the faculty" (naming the strongest to stand for the rest). "To bring all mind and mental factors together and make them cognize one and the same object" — this is the intrinsic nature of contact; and because contact resembles the function of inducing conforming mental factors, its function is to be the "support for feeling and the rest." The Sūtra of Arising and Ceasing says the three aggregates of feeling, conception, and conditioning-forces all take contact as their condition; on this basis it is said that consciousness arises from the coming-together of two things, contact arises from the coming-together of three, and feeling and the rest arise from the coming-together of four (faculty, object, consciousness, and contact). The Yogācārabhūmi says only that contact is the support of feeling, conception, and volition (volition being chief within the aggregate of conditioning-forces, it is named to stand for the rest). The Abhidharma-samuccaya and the like say only that contact is the support of feeling (contact's giving rise to feeling being the most intimate and the strongest, for the agreeable-and-the-like character that contact apprehends and the beneficial-and-the-like character that feeling apprehends are exceedingly close, so it most strongly induces feeling). The intrinsic nature of contact is real, not nominal — among the "six sixes" it is reckoned as a mental factor, it is subsumed under "the nourishment of contact," and it can serve as the condition for feeling and the rest, being, just like feeling and the other mental factors, real, and not simply equivalent to the three coming-together.

Attention — its nature is to "rouse and stir the mind," and its function is to "draw the mind toward its object." It can arouse the seed of "the mind that is due to arise" and draw it toward the object, and so it is called attention; though it also arouses the various mental factors, the mind-king is chief, and so it is said only to "draw the mind." Someone says attention "makes the mind turn and incline toward a particular object, or holds the mind upon a single object so that it stays" — this is wrong: if it were "holding the mind on a single object," it ought not to be omnipresent (it would arise only in the state of concentration), and moreover there would be no distinction between it and "concentration."

Feeling — its nature is to "receive the three object-characters of agreeable, disagreeable, and neither-agreeable-nor-disagreeable," and its function is to "give rise to craving" (it can induce the desire of pleasant feeling to seek union, of painful feeling to seek separation, and of neutral feeling to seek neither union nor separation). Someone says feeling is of two kinds (object-feeling and self-natured feeling), and that only "self-natured feeling" is feeling's own character (because object-feeling shares a character with other mental factors) — this is wrong: feeling does not, after all, cognize the simultaneous contact; if one says "arising in resemblance to contact is called receiving-contact," then any effect resembling its cause would have to be of the nature of feeling; and being a cause of feeling, it should be called "causal feeling" — how can it be called "self-natured feeling"? If one says "just as a king consumes the lands of his realm, so feeling receives the feeling-body produced by contact, and this is called self-natured feeling," this contradicts their own thesis that "feeling does not witness itself" (if feeling cannot take itself as object, how can it receive its own feeling-body)? And if one says "whatever does not abandon its own nature is called self-natured feeling," then all phenomena, since they do not abandon their own natures, would all be of the nature of feeling. So that account is mere coaxing of children. The correct reading is: "object-feeling" does not share a character with other mental factors — it is "the receiving of the agreeable-and-the-like character, fixed as belonging to feeling alone," not shared with other mental factors (feeling alone receives the agreeable-and-disagreeable character; contact only brings about the coming-together and does not receive).

Conception — its nature is to "take the image upon the object (to grasp the configuration)," and its function is to "set up the various names and expressions": one must first establish the "boundary and configuration of the object," and only then can the various names and expressions arise in train (names being established in dependence on configurations).

Volition — its nature is to "make the mind act," and its function is to "drive the mind upon the wholesome and the like": it can grasp the "correct cause (what is to be done)" and the like upon the object, and drive one's own mind to perform wholesome and other deeds (volition being the chief in the making of karma).

These five, being reckoned as omnipresent, are necessarily associated with the storehouse consciousness; and although their mode differs from that of the maturational consciousness (consciousness discerns, feeling receives, and so on differ), they share its "time (simultaneous), support (the same faculty), object (the same field), and substance (equal in number of substances)" — and it is on the strength of these four equalities that they are called "associated."

B. The Gate of the Five Feelings — Associated Only with Neutral Feeling

The mode of this consciousness is exceedingly indistinct, unable to tell apart disagreeable and agreeable object-characters, and it turns subtly, uniformly, and continuously; and so it is associated only with neutral feeling (neither painful nor pleasant). Moreover, the feeling with which it is associated is solely "true maturation," turning in accordance with the projecting karma of a former life and not waiting upon a present condition; whereas the two feelings of pain and pleasure are "born of maturation" (the fruits of completing karma, which must wait upon a present condition), and are not true maturation, and so are not associated with this consciousness. Again: precisely because this consciousness is constant, without rise or fall, sentient beings are able constantly to grasp it as the "inner self"; if it were associated with pain and pleasure it would have rise and fall, and how then could it be grasped as a "constant, single self"? So it is associated only with neutral feeling. Someone asks: then how is it the maturational fruit of "evil karma" (should evil karma not summon pain)? The answer: since it is granted that wholesome karma too can summon neutral feeling (wholesome karma does not necessarily summon only pleasure), this consciousness is the same way (evil karma too can summon a neutral-feeling ālaya) — for neutral feeling is not in conflict with either the painful or the pleasant class, just as the morally neutral can be summoned jointly by both wholesome and evil karma.

C. The Gate of Parity Among Mental Factors — Not Associated with the Object-Specific, the Wholesome, or the Defiled · Unobstructed-and-Neutral · Contact and the Rest Are Likewise

Why is this consciousness not associated with the five "object-specific" mental factors (desire, resolve, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment)? Because each conflicts with it. "Desire" must hope upon a thing it delights in, whereas this consciousness turns of its own accord and hopes for nothing; "resolve" must impress and hold a thing that has been decided, whereas this consciousness is dim and impresses-and-holds nothing; "mindfulness" clearly retains only a thing previously and repeatedly practiced, whereas this consciousness is dim and weak and cannot clearly retain; "concentration" makes the mind focus upon a single object, whereas this consciousness turns of its own accord and, moment after moment, cognizes a different object; "discernment" discriminates only upon merits and the like, whereas this consciousness is subtle and dim and cannot discriminate. So it is not associated with the object-specific factors. Again, this consciousness is solely of the maturational nature, and so the wholesome mental factors and the defiled mental factors are likewise not associated with it; and as for those among the four "indeterminate" mental factors — regret, sleep, applied thought, and sustained thought — that are morally neutral, because they are intermittent and are definitely not maturational, they too are not associated with it.

To which, then, of the four moral qualities — wholesome, unwholesome, obstructed-neutral, unobstructed-neutral — does this consciousness belong? Solely "unobstructed-neutral," because it is of the maturational nature. There are three reasons. First, if the maturational were wholesome or defiled, then neither "the round of birth-and-death" nor "the return to quiescence (nirvāṇa)" could be accomplished (a wholesome nature ought not to flow on in the round, and a defiled nature ought not to return to quiescence). Second, this consciousness is the support of both the wholesome and the defiled; if it were itself wholesome or defiled, then, the like and the unlike being in conflict, it could not simultaneously serve as support for both the wholesome and the defiled sides. Third, this consciousness is of the nature of "that which is perfumed"; if it were itself wholesome or defiled, then, like an intensely fragrant or intensely foul thing whose odor is already fixed and can take on no further perfuming, it could not be perfumed — and if it could not be perfumed, then neither the causes-and-fruits of defilement nor those of purification could be accomplished. So it is solely unobstructed-neutral. "Obstructed" means that defiled phenomena can obstruct the noble path and veil the mind so that it is not pure; this consciousness is not defiled, and so it is "unobstructed." "Determinate (capable of being marked off)" means that the wholesome and the unwholesome can summon lovable and unlovable fruits and also have a distinguished substance that can be marked off; this consciousness is neither wholesome nor unwholesome, and so it is "neutral (indeterminate)."

The verse says "contact and the rest are likewise so," meaning: just as the storehouse consciousness is solely unobstructed-neutral, so too are the five associated factors — contact, attention, feeling, conception, and volition (factors that are associated must share one moral quality); and moreover, contact and the rest, like the ālaya, are maturational, are unknowable in object and mode, take the three kinds of object as object (seeds, body-with-faculties, receptacle-world), are associated with the five factors, and are unobstructed-neutral — it is on the strength of these points of likeness that it is said "contact and the rest are likewise so." Someone says: contact and the rest are like the ālaya in being both maturational and "all-seeds-bearing (able to hold seeds)," and indeed are alike in all respects — for "likewise so" makes no exception. This is wrong. Why? First, contact and the rest turn in dependence on consciousness and are not self-determining; like greed, faith, and other mental factors, they cannot be perfumed, so how could they hold seeds as consciousness does? Second, if contact and the rest could also be perfumed and hold seeds, then a single sentient being would have six seed-holding substances; and when an actually-functioning fruit arises, from which seed would it be born? To say "born from six seeds together" is unreasonable (one has never seen many seeds produce a single sprout); to say "born from one seed only" leaves the other five seeds useless; to say "the six seeds produce in sequence" will not do either (perfuming is simultaneous, the six are equal in force, and there is no principle of priority among them); and to say "the six fruits arise all at once" is even worse (a single being in a single instant would then have six eye-consciousnesses arising at once). Who, then, says contact and the rest can be perfumed and hold seeds? An objector presses: if they cannot, then how is it that contact and the rest are also "named all-seeds-bearing like consciousness"? The answer: it is said that within the image-aspect of these five — contact and the rest — there are "images resembling seeds," and so they are called all-seeds-bearing (since contact and the rest are equal to consciousness in object, since contact and the rest of the formless realm also have an object, and since mind and mental factors must have an intimate object-condition); but these "images resembling seeds" are mere images and cannot serve as a "causal condition" to produce the actually-functioning consciousness (just as the "semblance of an eye-faculty" upon the image-aspect of contact and the rest is not the true supporting faculty of consciousness, and the image of a "semblance of fire" has no power to burn things). Someone wishes to use this "semblance of seeds" to rescue the thesis that "contact and the rest hold seeds" — but this is wrong, because the "semblance-of-seeds and similar characters" that contact and the rest take as object are to be drawn into parity with consciousness only later, when "appropriation and locale" are discussed (and there it is consciousness that is said to project a semblance of the field, not contact and the rest that are said really to hold seeds). From this it is clear: the term "all-seeds-bearing" used earlier in the verse must mean "able-to-be-perfumed, able to hold seeds" (a sense to which only the eighth consciousness can answer); otherwise the verse would incur the fault of "redundancy" (the phrase "maturational, all-seeds-bearing" and the phrase "contact and the rest are likewise so" would overlap). And the claim that "'likewise so' makes no exception, so all things are drawn into parity" definitely cannot stand — for otherwise, must contact and the rest also "discern" (the function of consciousness)? Must contact and the rest also be associated with contact and the rest themselves? So "likewise so" means "said with respect to whatever ought to be alike," not that all things are alike. Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) frames this first transformation as "explained by way of ten gates" (the self-characteristic, the fruit-characteristic, the cause-characteristic, the object, the mode, the concomitants, the five feelings, the three moral qualities, the simile of cause-and-fruit, and the stages of suppression — ten gates in all), and on this very phrase "contact and the rest are likewise so" fixes its reading: "contact and the rest" means that the simultaneous mental factors are drawn into parity with the mind-king (alike unobstructed-neutral, alike unknowable in object and mode), and not that the five — contact and the rest — can, like the eighth consciousness, discern and hold seeds; and it further judges that "unknowable" is not a separate gate of its own but a point of distinction subsumed within the two gates of "object" and "mode" (since both mode and object are subtle and hidden, it is named "unknowable").

D. The Gate of Cause, Fruit, and Simile — "Ever-Flowing as a Torrent," Neither Cut Off Nor Permanent

Is the storehouse consciousness "cut off" or "permanent"? Neither cut off nor permanent, because it is "ever-flowing." "Ever" — means that from beginningless time it is uniform, continuous, and constantly uninterrupted; it is the root by which "realm, destiny, and birth" are established; its nature is firmly settled, and it can hold seeds so that they are not lost. "Flowing" — means that from beginningless time it arises and ceases moment by moment, altering before and after, the cause ceasing as the fruit arises, so that it is not permanently one; it is the locus in which the perfuming of the prior seven consciousnesses becomes seeds. "Ever" rules out "cut off," and "flowing" indicates "not permanent," just as with a torrent, where cause and fruit are inherently so: like the water of a torrent, neither cut off (continuous without break) nor permanent (ever new before and after), continuing for a long time while it sweeps along and drowns beings and things — so too this consciousness drowns sentient beings and keeps them from escape; like a torrent which, though struck up into waves by the wind, still flows on unbroken — so too this consciousness, though it meets the various conditions and gives rise to the prior seven consciousnesses, still continues constantly; like a torrent that sweeps along the fish and the weeds bobbing up and down without letting them go — so too this consciousness constantly turns along with the inner habit-energies and the outwardly arising contact and the rest. That is to say: this consciousness, moment by moment, "produces its fruit as its cause ceases"; because the fruit arises it is not cut off, and because the cause ceases it is not permanent — and "neither cut off nor permanent" is precisely the principle of dependent arising, and so it is said to "flow ever on like a torrent."

Here the author of the treatise takes the occasion to refute such clinging-views as "the real existence of the three times," in order to display the dependent arising of consciousness-only. An objector presses: on your consciousness-only view, since the past and the future are not really existent, "not permanent" is all very well, but how can "not cut off" be established (if past and future have no substance, does this not amount to being cut off)? Turning the question back upon those who hold that the three times are really existent: if the past and the future are really existent, you may indeed grant "not cut off," but how then is "not permanent" to be established (if all three times are real, this amounts to being permanent)? Does merely exposing another's fault establish one's own thesis? No — yet without demolishing the wrong clinging it is hard to display the right. The correct establishment of the consciousness-only thesis is this: at the very moment "the prior cause is just ceasing," "the subsequent fruit" arises simultaneously, like the two ends of a scale, one dipping and one rising, equal in their timing; in this way cause and fruit continue like a flowing stream — why should one need to borrow "the real existence of past and future" to establish "not cut off"? And turning back upon those who cling to the real existence of the three times: at the moment the "cause" exists in the present, the subsequent fruit has not yet arisen — whose cause, then, is this cause? At the moment the "fruit" exists in the present, the prior cause has already ceased — whose fruit, then, is this fruit? Since neither an established cause nor an established fruit exists, who is it that is free of being cut off and of being permanent? Then to break the rescue of "cause and fruit being inherently existent and simultaneous": if "when the cause exists the subsequent fruit already exists," then since the fruit already exists inherently, why need it wait for the prior cause? The sense of "cause" being gone, how can the sense of "fruit" be present? And with no cause and no fruit, how is one free of being cut off and of being permanent? Since you say "the substance is inherently existent," its "function" too ought to be inherently existent, and the cause and condition on which it depends ought also to be inherently existent (and so everything would be frozen-fixed, with no function to speak of) — clearly, then, on your thesis cause and fruit definitely cannot be established, and so one ought to believe the correct principle of Mahāyāna dependent arising. This correct principle is profound and beyond words, and the terms "cause" and "fruit" are all nominal designations: seeing that a present phenomenon has the function of "inducing a subsequent phenomenon," one nominally posits a "future fruit" to set over against it as the "present cause"; seeing that a present phenomenon has the character of "answering to a prior phenomenon," one nominally posits a "past cause" to set over against it as the "present fruit." What is meant by "nominal" is that the actually-functioning consciousness projects a semblance of those characters of cause and fruit. Cause and fruit so understood are far removed from the two extremes of being cut off and being permanent, accord with the middle way, and the wise should follow and train in them.

Again, another school (a strand of the Sautrāntika) says: although there is no past and no future, there is cause and fruit in constant continuity — a present phenomenon, however swiftly fleeting, still has the two moments of "arising-and-ceasing, the initial and the later"; at the moment of arising it answers to its cause, and at the moment of ceasing it induces its fruit; though there are two moments, the substance is one, and the prior cause is just ceasing while the subsequent fruit is just arising; though their characters differ, both are "existent" — in this way cause and fruit are not mere nominal designations, are free of being cut off and being permanent, and incur none of the earlier difficulties; what wise person would abandon this to believe something else? The refutation: this is mere empty talk, with no real meaning at all. How can a single thought-moment contain "two moments (arising and ceasing)"? Arising and ceasing being in mutual conflict, how can they be in the present together? If "ceasing" were in the present, then "arising" would have to be in the future. Being "existent," it is called "arising," and so is present; being "non-existent," it is called "ceasing" — should this not therefore be in the past? If "ceasing" were not non-existent, then "arising" would have to be not existent; and since "arising," in the present, is existent, "ceasing," in the present, would have to be non-existent — arising and ceasing being in conflict, how can one say the substance is one? Even mutually conflicting things such as pain and pleasure are never seen to share one substance. If arising and ceasing were one, then the time should not be two; if arising and ceasing were different, how can one say the substance is one? So the doctrine that "the two moments of arising and ceasing are both in the present, sharing a single substance" definitely cannot stand. And as for the "continuity of cause and fruit" posited by the Sautrāntika master, its principle too cannot stand — because they do not admit a storehouse consciousness able to hold seeds (with no seed-holding substance, the cause and fruit of before and after have nowhere to lodge, and the continuity cannot be maintained). So one ought to believe the correct principle of dependent arising — the "continuity of cause and fruit" — taught in the Mahāyāna.

E. The Gate of Suppression and Final Relinquishment — Relinquished Only at the Stage of the Arhat

This consciousness has flowed ever on like a torrent from beginningless time — so at what stage is it finally "relinquished"? At the "stage of the arhat." That is to say: when the noble ones have utterly purified away the "hindrance of the afflictions," they are called arhats, and at that point the "coarse heaviness of the afflictions" within this consciousness (the coarse-heavy habit-energy of the seeds of affliction) is forever gone, and so it is said to be "relinquished." The "arhat" here comprehends the "stage of the adept (beyond training)" across all three vehicles — all have forever slain the thief of affliction (slayer of the thief), all are worthy of the marvelous offerings of the world (worthy of offerings), and all will forever no longer undergo the birth-and-death of allotted lifespans (no more rebirth). How do we know it comprehends the three vehicles? The "Section on Ascertainment" of the Yogācārabhūmi says that arhats, solitary buddhas, and tathāgatas all do not possess a storehouse consciousness; and the Abhidharma-samuccaya further says that when a bodhisattva attains enlightenment, the bodhisattva all at once cuts off the hindrance of the afflictions and the hindrance to the knowable, thereby becoming both arhat and tathāgata. Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) makes explicit here that "the noble ones" comprehends the three vehicles, and marks out that this "relinquishing of the name" is established solely with respect to "the utter exhaustion of the hindrance of the afflictions," and not with respect to the hindrance to the knowable — for the arhat receives his name by way of having utterly slain the thief of affliction (affliction being the thief that binds one to birth-and-death) and by way of "no-more-rebirth," established upon the utter removal of the birth-and-death of allotted lifespans, and it has nothing to do with whether the hindrance to the knowable has been cut off.

An objector presses: a bodhisattva's seeds of affliction are not yet utterly cut off, and the bodhisattva is not an arhat, so in principle should still possess a storehouse consciousness — why then does the "Section on Ascertainment" also say that "the non-retrogressing bodhisattva too does not possess a storehouse consciousness"? The answer: that refers to those of the two vehicles, adepts (beyond training), who "turn from the small toward the great and incline toward the great enlightenment" — they will surely never retrogress into rousing the hindrance of the afflictions, and they incline toward enlightenment, and so they are renamed "non-retrogressing bodhisattvas"; such a bodhisattva (originally an adept of the two vehicles, the afflictions already exhausted) does not possess a storehouse consciousness, and is subsumed under the "arhats of the three vehicles," so the treatise's words do not contradict this principle. Again: a bodhisattva from the eighth "immovable ground" upward — in whom all afflictions forever cease to manifest, who turns of his own accord within the stream of the signless dharma, who can give rise to the myriad practices within the myriad practices, advancing moment after moment — this is the one called the "non-retrogressing bodhisattva"; though he has not yet utterly cut off the seeds of affliction within the maturational consciousness, the self-view and self-love that take this consciousness as object no longer "grasp-and-store this consciousness as the inner self" (the self-grasping of the seventh consciousness is forever suppressed and does not function), and thereby he forever relinquishes the name "storehouse," and so it is said that he does not possess a storehouse consciousness, and is also called an arhat.

On "at which stage it is relinquished" there is also a divergent view. One view: a bodhisattva from the first ground upward — who has realized the truth disclosed by the twofold emptiness, has gained the two superior wisdoms of the fundamental and the subsequently-attained, has cut off the two discriminated hindrances, and can give rise to many practices within a single practice; who, though he deliberately rouses afflictions for the benefit of sentient beings, incurs no fault thereby — is also called a non-retrogressing bodhisattva; though he has not utterly cut off the innate afflictions, the "discriminated self-view and self-love" that take this consciousness as object no longer grasp-and-store, and so he too relinquishes the name "storehouse." This view cites the Abhidharma-samuccaya: a bodhisattva of the ten grounds, though he has not cut off all afflictions, has these afflictions like a poison subdued by a spell or a medicine, so that they produce no fault, and on every ground he is like an arhat who has cut off the afflictions, and so he too is called an arhat. The author of the treatise refutes this "first-ground" view: it is unreasonable. Up through the seventh ground there is still "innate self-view and self-love," and one still grasps-and-stores this consciousness as the inner self — how can it be said that the name "storehouse" has already been relinquished? If one says "as soon as the discriminated self-view and self-love do not grasp-and-store, it is called relinquished," then the various stages of the trainee such as "stream-enterer" (in whom the discriminated self-grasping has been cut off) ought also already to have relinquished the name "storehouse" — and this contradicts the treatises (the treatises plainly say that the trainee stages still have a storehouse consciousness). As for that view's rescue by the Abhidharma-samuccaya's "like a poison subdued by spell or medicine": the afflictions a bodhisattva of the grounds rouses are accompanied by "right knowledge" and incur no fault, and this is not something a stream-enterer and the like can possess — so how can it be used to draw a first-ground bodhisattva into parity with one who has already relinquished the ālaya? Moreover, although his sixth-consciousness afflictions, by right knowledge, incur no fault, the "seventh consciousness," in the state of a contaminated mind, still functions of its own accord, grasping-and-storing this consciousness as the inner self — and is this not, then, just like a stream-enterer and the like (still possessing innate self-grasping)? So the first-ground view is unreasonable. The correct reading is: the arhat, having utterly purified away the coarse heaviness of the afflictions within this consciousness, no longer grasps-and-stores the ālaya as the inner self, and thereby forever loses the name "storehouse" and is said to "relinquish" it; but what is relinquished is only the "name," not the relinquishing of the entire "substance" of the eighth consciousness — otherwise it would amount to "an arhat having no consciousness able to hold seeds," and at that point he would have to enter nirvāṇa-without-remainder (whereas an arhat in the with-remainder state still dwells in the world and holds seeds, so the substance of the eighth consciousness is not relinquished).

The eighth consciousness, though all sentient beings possess it, is given various names according to differing senses. There are four names that hold across "all stages" (possessed by ordinary beings and noble ones alike): "mind" (the accumulation of the seeds perfumed by the various phenomena); "appropriating-consciousness" (ādāna, that which holds the seeds and the material faculties so they do not decay); "support of the knowable" (that which serves as support for all the knowable phenomena, defiled and pure); and "seed-consciousness" (that which universally bears all the seeds, mundane and supramundane). The name held only at the "stages of the ordinary being and the trainee" is "ālaya / storehouse" (that which stores and conserves all defilement so it is not lost, and which is grasped-and-stored by self-view and self-love as the inner self; the adept stage and the non-retrogressing bodhisattva no longer have this, since for them the sense of defiled grasping-and-storing is gone). The name held only at the "stages of the ordinary being, the two vehicles, and bodhisattvas at the causal stage" is "maturational consciousness" (that which can answer to the maturational fruit of the wholesome and unwholesome karma inducing birth-and-death; the stage of the tathāgata no longer has it, since at the buddha-stage there is no maturational-neutral phenomenon). The name held only at the "stage of the tathāgata" is "stainless consciousness" (utterly pure, the support of all uncontaminated phenomena; bodhisattvas, the two vehicles, and ordinary beings still hold contaminated seeds and can be perfumed, and have not realized the wholesome-and-pure eighth consciousness); scripture says: the stainless consciousness of the tathāgata is the pure, uncontaminated realm, liberated from all hindrances, associated with the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom. The verse "singles out" the relinquishment of the name "storehouse" because this name is the gravest in fault and is the first to be relinquished. As for the "time of relinquishment" of the several names: the substance of the "maturational consciousness" is relinquished by the bodhisattva at the time he is "about to attain enlightenment," and by the śrāvaka and the solitary buddha at the time they "enter nirvāṇa-without-remainder"; the substance of the "stainless consciousness" has "no time of relinquishment" (the buddha's benefiting and gladdening of sentient beings is without end); and the names "mind, appropriating-consciousness, support of the knowable, seed-consciousness" hold across all stages (with no separate time of relinquishment), being applied according to their senses.

Finally, the eighth consciousness has, in all, two stages. One is the "contaminated stage," subsumed under the morally neutral quality, associated only with the five omnipresent factors such as contact, taking as object only the previously stated objects of appropriation and locale (seeds, body-with-faculties, receptacle-world). The other is the "uncontaminated stage" (when it has turned into the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom), subsumed solely under the wholesome quality, and associated with "twenty-one mental factors" — the five omnipresent, the five object-specific, and the eleven wholesome — because all of these are constantly associated with every pure mind. Why, at the uncontaminated stage, are even the five object-specific factors fully present? Because: it constantly delights in the object observed by realizing wisdom (it has "desire"); it constantly impresses-and-holds the object observed (it has "resolve"); it constantly clearly retains the object once received (it has "mindfulness"); the World-Honored One has no unconcentrated mind (it has "concentration"); and it constantly discriminates upon all phenomena (it has "discernment"); while the "utterly pure faith" and the other wholesome factors are constantly associated, free of defilement, and free of distraction (so all eleven wholesome are present). The eighth consciousness at the uncontaminated stage is also associated only with "neutral feeling," because it turns of its own accord, constantly, and evenly (the buddha-fruit being free of pain and pleasure, ever of one savor); and it takes "all phenomena" as its object, because the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom universally takes all phenomena as object (unlike the contaminated stage, which takes only those three kinds of object).

Onward Transmission

The many gates argued out at length in this section — the ālaya-vijñāna's object and mode, its concomitants, its five feelings, its three moral qualities, its ever-flowing, and its suppression — are the very ground on which the whole consciousness-only system founds "the support of defilement and purification," and the later treatises take it up each according to its sense. The Hundred Dharmas treatise lists the ālaya as the eighth, the last of the eight consciousness-dharmas, and establishes the five that this section's gate of concomitants argues out — contact, attention, feeling, conception, and volition — as the "five omnipresent" mental factors, which arise with every mind whatsoever. The Thirty Verses — verse three (object and mode · concomitants · five feelings) and verse four (three moral qualities · parity among mental factors · ever-flowing · suppression) — is the very root-text this section expounds, verse answering to verse. The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, establishes "unreal imagination" and says that when consciousness arises it manifests as though there were the two portions of "grasped and grasper"; this account of "the semblance of the two-graspings" is precisely the basis on which this section's image-aspect and seeing-aspect (and indeed the four aspects) rest. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its chapter on the support of the knowable, takes the ālaya-vijñāna as "the support of all the knowable phenomena, defiled and pure" and as "the consciousness of all seeds," answering exactly to this section's gate of moral quality ("this consciousness is the support of the wholesome and the defiled") and to its gate of names (the name "support of the knowable"). As for the Twenty Verses, its principle of "consciousness-only, no external object," and its account that "consciousness transforms inwardly into its object and takes what it has projected as its own object, with no real object apart from consciousness," accords with this section's establishment of the four aspects; but the essential characteristic of the ālaya the Twenty Verses has no direct counterpart to, and here it is left aside.

〔Verses commented〕Continuing: unfolding verses 2–4 · proving the eighth

The two previous chapters have set out the ālaya's three aspects, its seeds, and its gates. But one may ask: for all that has been said, does this consciousness really have a substance of its own, apart from the consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind? This chapter answers that. The treatise raises two standards — scripture and reason. Here are the five scriptures and the first five of the ten reasons; the latter five form the next chapter.

The proof that an eighth consciousness exists has its roots in scripture and treatise alike. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in its chapter on mind, mentation, and consciousness, displays this one consciousness under three names: "ādāna" is "following along and appropriating" (it appropriates the body and the life-faculty); "ālaya" is "receiving, harboring, and sharing one safety and danger" (sharing one safety and danger with the body); and "mind" is "accumulating and increasing." It also has a verse — "The ādāna consciousness is profound and subtle; all the seeds are like a rushing torrent" — and the warning, "I do not expound it to the foolish and immature, lest they discriminate it and grasp it as a self." This is precisely the scriptural basis for an eighth consciousness: it displays that it appropriates the body and the life-faculty, that its seeds flow on like a torrent in perpetual succession, and that, being hard to fathom and hard to know, it is easily grasped wrongly as a self. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra gives the image, "The ocean of the store-consciousness perpetually abides, stirred by the wind of its objects into the various waves of the consciousnesses, surging up and arising by turns" — for the eye-consciousness and the rest cannot, like the great ocean, raise the waves of consciousness perpetually and continuously, which by contrast reveals that there is another, eighth consciousness serving as the substance of the "store-consciousness ocean." The Mahāyāna Abhidharma Sūtra has, moreover, two verses: one — "The realm that has existed from beginningless time is the equal support of all dharmas; because of it there are the destinies of rebirth, and the realization of nirvāṇa as well" (the realm-support) — and one — "Because it stores and harbors all dharmas, it is the all-seed consciousness; therefore it is named ālaya, which I reveal to the superior ones" (the storing-harboring) — and this sūtra has no separately circulating version in the Chinese lands, its text surviving only as quoted in the present treatise. As for the treatise-basis, it lies in the Yogācārabhūmi, in its section settling the points to be known: it first cites the verse "the ādāna consciousness is profound and subtle," then establishes "eight characters that prove the ālaya-vijñāna definitely exists" — appropriation, the first arising, the quality of clarity, the quality of seeds, the differentiation of karmic function, the differentiation of bodily sensation, the place of the mindless absorptions, and the consciousness at the time of death — none of which would be coherent apart from the ālaya-vijñāna. The ten reasons of this section unfold precisely from those eight characters of the Yogācārabhūmi (appropriation, seeds, karmic function, bodily sensation, the place of the mindless absorptions, and the consciousness at the time of death each entering into the ten reasons); its scriptural root is in the Saṃdhinirmocana and the Laṅkāvatāra, and its treatise-root in the eight-character proof of the Yogācārabhūmi. What follows expounds it in order, following the present treatise.

A. General Statement: Scripture and Reason as the Two Standards of Measure

How do we know that the eighth consciousness stands apart from the eye-consciousness and the rest, possessing a substance of its own? We must rely on two "standards of measure" — two reliable criteria. The first is scripture, the discourses spoken by the Buddha; the second is reason, demonstration that accords with how things actually are. Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) here unpacks the two words "standard of measure": the eighth consciousness is not an object that worldly "direct perception" (immediate first-hand witnessing) can take, but can be proven only through the two means of "the standard of noble speech" (trusting what the Buddha said) and "inference" (knowing as it accords with reason); these two means are decisively reliable, and so are called "standards of measure" — which is just the backbone of the whole section: the proof of an eighth consciousness does not go by direct perception, but by scripture and reason alone. Kuiji further marks where this section falls within the prose treatment of the root consciousness: the prose first expounds the verse by "eight passages and ten meanings" (the three aspects, the seeds, and the various gates), and this section is the passage that "afterward proves this consciousness exists by ten reasons and five scriptures." The whole passage divides into three parts — first, the posing of the question (asking why, apart from the eye-consciousness and the rest, there should be a separate eighth); second, the direct answer (answering with the five scriptures and ten reasons); and third, down to the line "that there is a separate such consciousness is plainly evident in scripture and reason," the concluding exhortation to belief. Take scripture first. The Mahāyāna Abhidharma Sūtra has a verse: "The realm that has existed from beginningless time is the equal support of all dharmas; because of it there are the destinies of rebirth, and the realization of nirvāṇa as well." From beginningless time there has been this "realm," and all dharmas rest equally upon it; because it exists, there is the turning of beings through the destinies of rebirth, and there is also the realization of nirvāṇa.

The intrinsic nature of the eighth consciousness is exceedingly subtle and hard to display directly, so we display it by way of its functions. The first half of the verse — the "realm," the "equal support of all dharmas" — displays its function as cause-condition; the second half — the destinies and nirvāṇa — displays its function of supporting-and-sustaining within the two gates of forward flow (saṃsāra) and reverse return (nirvāṇa). "Realm" carries the sense of "cause": it is the seed-consciousness, which from beginningless time, in unbroken succession, directly gives rise to all dharmas. "Support" carries the sense of "condition": it is the appropriating consciousness, which from beginningless time serves as the equal basis for all dharmas. Because it can both hold all the seeds (acting as cause) and provide a basis for the active dharmas (acting as condition), it both "becomes those things" (transforming into the receptacle-world and the sense-endowed body) and "is the basis for those things" (the support of all the evolving consciousnesses). It is able to appropriate the five material faculties, so the eye and the other four consciousnesses turn in dependence upon it; and it provides a basis for the manas, so the sixth, mental consciousness turns in dependence upon it (both the manas and the mental consciousness being evolving consciousnesses). Just as the eye-consciousness and the rest each depend on their own concomitant faculty, the eighth, being likewise a consciousness, ought in reason also to take the seventh as its concomitant support. This is its function as cause and its function as condition. "Because of it there are the destinies of rebirth" — because this consciousness exists, holding all the dharmas that conduce to forward flow, it causes sentient beings to flow on through birth-and-death. (Affliction, action, and the resultant birth all belong to forward flow, but "destiny" is the fruit and the most conspicuous, so the verse singles out "destiny"; or "the destinies" may cover both the act of going and the place gone to, and even the equipment of going may be called a destiny.) Affliction, action, and birth all depend on this consciousness — this is its supporting-and-sustaining function within the gate of forward flow. "And the realization of nirvāṇa" — because this consciousness exists, holding all the dharmas that conduce to reverse return, it causes the practitioner to realize nirvāṇa. This line admits three readings: it may refer to the "path that realizes" alone (the cessation that is nirvāṇa does not exist in dependence on this consciousness); or to the "nirvāṇa that is realized" alone (what the practitioner truly seeks); or to both nirvāṇa and the path together (both belonging to reverse return). In any case, the path that severs, the affliction that is severed, and both subject and object of realization all depend on this consciousness — this is its supporting-and-sustaining function within the gate of reverse return. Further: the first line of the verse displays that the intrinsic nature of this consciousness exists eternally from beginningless time, while the latter three lines display that it serves as the general and particular support for the two sets of dharmas — defilement (suffering and its origin) and purity (cessation and the path). (If one said the evolving consciousnesses were the support, they break off and cannot stand as such.) Or the latter three lines may display that it serves as the support for the three natures — the other-dependent, the wholly-imagined, and the perfectly-accomplished. In short, nothing said in this verse can hold together once the eighth consciousness is removed.

B. The Five Scriptures — Explicit Discourse Testimony for the Eighth Consciousness

1. The Mahāyāna Abhidharma Sūtra (the "Storing the Ālaya" verse)

That sūtra has another verse: "Because it stores and harbors all dharmas, it is the all-seed consciousness; therefore it is named ālaya, which I reveal to the superior ones." Because this root consciousness possesses all seeds and can store and harbor all the defiled dharmas, the name "ālaya" (store) is established for it. This "storing-and-harboring" is not like the Sāṃkhya's "primordial nature" transforming into "the great" and so on (where it is one substance unfolding by stages), because the seeds and the substance of their fruits are not one and the same, and both the supported and the supporting arise and perish. This consciousness and the defiled dharmas mutually store and harbor one another, and it is moreover grasped and harbored by sentient beings as a self — therefore it is called "ālaya." The verse's "superior ones" admits two readings: first, the bodhisattvas who have entered the path of seeing and attained true direct insight (they can realize and understand the ālaya, so the Buddha discloses it precisely to them); second, all bodhisattvas (though before the path of seeing they have not yet realized it, they can have confident understanding and can seek the transformation of its basis, so the Buddha speaks of it for them too). This sense of storing-harboring, of seeds, and of being grasped-and-harbored is something only the eighth consciousness can sustain — it is not anything the evolving consciousnesses could possess.

2. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra (the "ādāna" verse)

The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra also has a verse: "The ādāna consciousness is profound and subtle; all the seeds are like a rushing torrent. I do not expound it to the foolish and immature, lest they discriminate it and grasp it as a self." This consciousness can hold the seeds of all dharmas, appropriate the material faculties and their bases, and grasp the "linking of rebirth, continued in succession" (the unbroken continuity from before to after at the moment of taking birth) — therefore it is called "ādāna" (appropriator). "Beings without the requisite nature" (those lacking the Mahāyāna lineage) cannot fathom its depths, so it is called "profound"; the "lineage inclined to mere quiescence" (the two vehicles, who seek only their own peace) cannot penetrate it, so it is called "subtle." It is the true seed of all dharmas, and the moment a condition strikes, the waves of the evolving consciousnesses arise from it, ceaselessly and without interruption, so it is likened to a rushing torrent. In the verse, "the foolish" are those without the nature, and "the immature" are those inclined to quiescence — the Buddha does not expound it to them for fear that they would discriminate it and grasp it as a self, and so fall into evil destinies and obstruct the noble path. This character — "profound and subtle, seeds like a torrent, liable to be grasped as a self" — belongs to the eighth consciousness alone.

3. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (the "store-consciousness ocean" verse)

The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra also has a verse: "Just as the ocean, meeting the condition of wind, raises waves of every kind, their present operation turning on without any interval; so too the ocean of the store-consciousness, struck by the winds of its objects and the rest, perpetually raises the waves of the consciousnesses, their present operation turning on." The eye-consciousness and the rest cannot, like the great ocean, perpetually and continuously raise the waves of the consciousnesses (they break off) — which shows that there is another, eighth consciousness that serves as the substance of this "store-consciousness ocean." Mahāyāna sūtras of this kind are beyond measure and number, and all of them separately affirm the existence of this eighth consciousness.

4. Establishing That "the Mahāyāna Is the Buddha's Word" (Seven Reasons + the Verse from the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra)

Having adduced Mahāyāna sūtras as testimony, we must first establish that "the Mahāyāna sūtras are indeed the Buddha's word." All the Mahāyāna sūtras accord with non-self and oppose self, discard forward flow and incline toward reverse return, praise the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha and disparage the non-Buddhist schools, display the aggregates and the rest while refuting "primordial nature" and the like. Everyone who delights in the Mahāyāna acknowledges that it can display the principle that is without distortion; being included among the discourses, it belongs, just as the Ekottarikāgama and the like do, to "the standard of authoritative teaching" (the standard of noble speech). Furthermore, Maitreya proves by seven reasons that the Mahāyāna truly is the Buddha's word: first, no prior prediction — if the Mahāyāna had been composed after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa by someone bent on destroying the true Dharma, why did the Buddha not predict it in advance, as he did with the other "fearful things to come"? (Since there was no such prediction, it is evidently not a forgery.) Second, original co-currency — the Mahāyāna and the lesser-vehicle teachings ran together in the world from the start, so how can one conclude that the Mahāyāna alone is not the Buddha's word? Third, beyond others' range — what the Mahāyāna teaches is vast and profound, not within the range that the non-Buddhists can contemplate; their scriptures and treatises have never spoken of it, and even if it were explained to them they would not accept it. Fourth, it must be granted either way — if one says the Mahāyāna was spoken by "another Buddha" and not by the present Buddha, then the Mahāyāna is still the Buddha's word, so "the Mahāyāna is the Buddha's word" is established beyond doubt. Fifth, its being or non-being — if one grants that there is a Mahāyāna (a path), then one ought to believe its teaching is the Buddha's word (apart from this, the Mahāyāna path cannot be obtained); and if one says there is no Mahāyāna, then there ought to be no śrāvaka-vehicle teaching either, because apart from the Mahāyāna there is definitely no meaning to "becoming a Buddha" — and if no one becomes a Buddha, who appears in the world to teach the śrāvaka vehicle? So since the śrāvaka vehicle is the Buddha's word, "the Mahāyāna is not the Buddha's word" is incoherent. Sixth, it counteracts — those who diligently cultivate by the Mahāyāna sūtras can all give rise to non-discriminating wisdom that genuinely counteracts every affliction, which shows it is the Buddha's word (it has real efficacy). Seventh, the meaning differs from the letter — what the Mahāyāna teaches is exceedingly profound in intent; one must not take its meaning at the surface of the letter alone and then slander it as not the Buddha's speech. A verse from the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra gathers these seven reasons together: "Because of no prior prediction, co-currency, being beyond others' range, being granted either way, its being or non-being, its counteracting power, and its meaning differing from the letter."

5. The Hidden Intent of the Other Schools — the Four Āgamas Too Secretly Teach the Ālaya

Not only the Mahāyāna: in the sūtras of the Nikāya schools too, the eighth consciousness is taught "by hidden intent," only under a changed name. The Mahāsāṃghikas, in the hidden intent of their Āgama, call it the "root consciousness," the basis of the eye-consciousness and the rest — just as the root of a tree is the source of trunk and branches, while the eye-consciousness and the rest carry no sense of "serving as a root basis." The Sthaviras and the Vibhajyavādins, by hidden intent, call it the "consciousness of existence-factors": "existence" refers to the three modes of existence, and "factor" carries the sense of "cause" — it alone is perpetual and all-pervading, able to serve as the cause of the three modes of existence. The Mahīśāsakas call it the "aggregate that lasts to the end of birth-and-death" — apart from the eighth consciousness, there is no other aggregate that can "exhaust the very limit of birth-and-death without interval" (in the formless realm the material dharmas break off; in the heaven of no-conception and the like the remaining mind and mental factors also cease; the non-concomitant formations, again, have no substance apart from matter and mind — so it alone is fit for the role). The Sarvāstivādins, in the hidden intent of their Ekottarikāgama, call it the "ālaya," in the four phrases "delighting in the ālaya, taking pleasure in the ālaya, rejoicing in the ālaya, being glad in the ālaya" — because the ālaya-vijñāna is the general and particular object of craving across the three times, these four names are established for it.

Here the Sarvāstivādins also use a line of argument about the "true locus of attachment": sentient beings grasp this consciousness as the real "self within," and so long as this has not been severed they perpetually give rise to attachment toward it — therefore this consciousness alone is the "true locus of attachment," and one should not take the "remaining five appropriating aggregates" and the like as the true locus of attachment. How is this proven? By eliminating the candidates one by one. First, one born in a "place of wholly painful sensation" (such as the hells) not only fails to love the remaining five appropriating aggregates but perpetually loathes them, longing moment after moment, "When shall I cast off this life, this body-and-mind, and go to receive pleasure?" (which shows the remaining aggregates are not the true locus of attachment). Second, the "five sense-pleasures" are not the true locus of attachment — one who is free of desire, though he does not crave the five fine sense-pleasures, still loves a self. Third, "pleasant sensation" is not the true locus of attachment — one who is free of the defilement of the third dhyāna, though he loathes pleasant sensation, still loves a self. Fourth, the "view of the body" is not the true locus of attachment — one not yet at the stage beyond training, who yet has confident understanding of non-self, though he does not crave the view of the body, still loves an inner self. Fifth, the "evolving consciousnesses" and the like are not the true locus of attachment — one not yet beyond training, who yet cultivates the cessation of mind, though he loathes the evolving consciousnesses, still loves a self. Sixth, the "material body" is not the true locus of attachment — one free of the defilement of matter, though he loathes the material body, still loves a self. Seventh, the "non-concomitant formations," having no substance apart from matter and mind, are still less the true locus of attachment. When ordinary beings and those still in training give rise to self-love, their love toward the remaining aggregates is sometimes present and sometimes absent (indeterminate), but their "self-love" toward this eighth consciousness invariably arises — so it alone is the true locus of attachment. This shows that the "ālaya" the Sarvāstivādins speak of refers, beyond doubt, to this eighth consciousness. The scriptural testimony (the five scriptures) is now complete; what follows are the reasoned proofs (the ten reasons).

C. The Ten Reasons — Reasoned Proofs Displaying the Existence of the Eighth Consciousness

Reason 1, the Proof from Holding Seeds — There Must Be Some Other Mind That Holds the Seeds

Scripture says that "what gathers and gives rise to the seeds of all the defiled and pure dharmas is called mind"; without the eighth consciousness, this "mind that holds the seeds" ought not to exist. Why are the evolving consciousnesses unfit to hold the seeds? Because they break off in such states as the absorption of cessation; and because they arise and depart easily, varying by faculty, object, attention, wholesome-or-unwholesome category and the like, and cannot hold firm — flickering like lightning. So they cannot receive perfuming, cannot hold seeds, and are not the "mind that gathers and gives rise to defiled and pure seeds." Only the eighth consciousness continues as one homogeneous stream, perpetual and without interval, holding firm and capable of being perfumed like sesame (which can absorb fragrance) — this precisely fits the scripture's "the gathering-and-giving-rise is called mind." If one will not grant a mind that holds the seeds, this contravenes both scripture and reason: the defiled and pure dharmas that arise would have nowhere to deposit their perfuming, so the perfuming could not form into seeds, and they would have arisen for nothing (no cause for them to be continued); and when defiled and pure dharmas arise without any causal seed, they become the non-Buddhists' "uncaused, spontaneous arising." Nor will it do to have matter or the non-concomitant formations hold the seeds — they are not of the nature of mind, and like sound or light they cannot receive the perfuming of the inner defiled and pure dharmas, so how could they hold seeds? Still more, the non-concomitant formations have no real substance apart from consciousness, so how could they serve as the basis for "inner seeds"? As for the mental factors concomitant with the evolving consciousnesses, they too, like the evolving consciousnesses, break off, depart easily, are not self-determining, and are not a perpetual single mental nature — so they neither hold seeds nor receive perfuming. Therefore the "mind that holds the seeds" must be some other mind, namely the eighth consciousness.

Here several divergent views are refuted. Some say that "the 'category' of the six consciousnesses can receive perfuming and hold seeds" (although each particular instance of the six consciousnesses changes, the character of the homogeneous succession of the same kind does not differ, so they take this "category" to hold the seeds). Rebuttal: if this "category" is held to be really existent, it is the same as the non-Buddhists' position; if it is granted to be merely nominal, it has no real efficacy and cannot hold the real seeds of the inner dharmas. And ask further: what nature is this "consciousness-category"? If it is wholesome or unwholesome in nature, it ought not to receive perfuming (what is morally determinate does not receive perfuming, like analytical cessation); if it is morally neutral in nature, then when a wholesome or unwholesome mind is active there is no neutral mind present, so this "category" would have to break off. (Nor can one say "the instances are wholesome and unwholesome while the category is neutral," for each particular category must share the nature of its particular instance.) Again, in mindless states this "category" is definitely absent — being thus broken off, it does not hold firm, so how could it hold seeds and receive perfuming? Again, the "consciousness-category" of an arhat's mind and of an ordinary being's mind is the same, so an ordinary being's defiled dharmas ought to be able to perfume an arhat, and undefiled dharmas ought to perfume an ordinary being (sameness of category implying mutual perfuming) — which is a ruinous consequence. Again, the eye-faculty and the eye-consciousness are of the same category in respect of "faculty and dharma," so they ought to perfume each other, yet you do not allow this. Again, the six consciousnesses, whether in respect of instance or of category, are never simultaneous in their prior and later moments — as though separated by a moment, they cannot perfume each other (perfumer and perfumed must be simultaneous). Even granting someone who holds that "the six consciousnesses can arise together simultaneously," the six consciousnesses are still not what is perfumed, so they have no sense of holding seeds. Others hold that "matter and mind each, in their prior moment, serve as the seed for their later moment" (homogeneous, uninterrupted succession). Rebuttal: since the homogeneous succession involves no perfuming, how can one hold the prior to be the seed of the later? Moreover, if "the prior is the seed of the later," then whatever breaks off ought never to arise again (if the matter and mind at the moment of death of a two-vehicle adept beyond training were the seed of a later set of aggregates, there ought to be no later aggregates — yet there really are). Nor does it work for matter and mind to serve reciprocally as each other's seeds (the evolving consciousnesses and matter are not what is perfumed, as said above). Others hold that "the three times are really existent, so there is no need to posit a separate seed-holding consciousness" (the scripture's "mind is the seed" is said only because the force of mind is strong when it gives rise to defiled and pure dharmas). Rebuttal: the past and future are neither permanent nor present; like sky-flowers, they are not really existent and have no function, so they cannot serve as the cause-condition. Without a consciousness that can hold the defiled and pure seeds, no cause and effect whatsoever can be established. Others hold that "the Mahāyāna principle of emptiness, which dispels characteristics, is the ultimate, denying this consciousness and indeed all dharmas." Rebuttal: this especially violates and damages the sūtras adduced above, holding wisdom, severance, realization, cultivation, and the cause-and-effect of defilement and purity all to be unreal, and so becomes a great wrong view — even the non-Buddhists who slander cause and effect do not say it is wholly nonexistent, only that it is unreal, so this grasping is worse than the non-Buddhists'. If all dharmas were unreal, the bodhisattva need not cultivate the equipment of awakening in order to cast off birth-and-death — what wise person would, in order to fight "an illusory enemy," go and seek "the son of a barren woman" to serve as his army? Therefore one should believe there is a mind that holds the seeds, and on it establish the cause-and-effect of defilement and purity; that mind is the eighth consciousness.

Reason 2, the Proof from Maturation — There Must Be Some Other Mind That Is the True Maturation

Scripture says there is a "maturation mind," felt as the result of wholesome and unwholesome action; without the eighth consciousness, this maturation mind ought not to exist. The eye-consciousness and the rest break off, and are not at all times the fruit of action — like lightning — so they are not the true maturation mind (the true maturation ought not to "break off and then resume"; look at the life-faculty and other maturation-results, where there is no case of resuming after having been cut off). Among the six consciousnesses, those felt as the result of action are, like sound, not perpetually continuous; they are merely "maturation-produced," not "true maturation." So one must grant a "true maturation mind" — one that requites the directive (general-result) action, that is all-pervading and without interval, that transforms into the body and the receptacle as the support of sentient beings (the body and the receptacle cannot stand apart from a mind that transforms into them). The non-concomitant formations have no real substance, and the evolving consciousnesses are not perpetually present; so without this true maturation mind, who is to transform into the body and the receptacle? And in dependence on what could "a sentient being" be perpetually established? Furthermore, whether in absorption or not, whether deliberating or not, there ought always to be many "bodily sensations" arising — otherwise how, afterwards, would one feel the body refreshed or fatigued? If there were not perpetually a true maturation mind, where would these bodily sensations come from in those states? (Note: speaking of "bodily sensations and maturation arising" refers throughout to "sentient beings who are not Buddhas" — the Buddha has no maturation and is not in question here.) From this we know there is perpetually a true maturation mind, and that is the eighth consciousness.

Reason 3, the Proof from the Substance of Destiny and Birth-Mode — The True Substance of "Destiny and Birth-Mode" Is Solely the Maturation Mind

Scripture says that sentient beings flow on through the five destinies and the four modes of birth; without the eighth consciousness, this substance of "destiny and birth-mode" ought not to exist. To serve as the "truly real substance of destiny and birth-mode," a dharma must be "really existent, perpetual, all-pervading, and unmixed" (a dharma that is not maturation makes destiny and birth-mode chaotic — while abiding in this destiny and this birth-mode one could still give rise to dharmas of another destiny and another birth-mode). Test the candidates one by one: maturation matter, and those among the five consciousnesses felt as the result of action, are not "all-pervading" (entirely absent in the formless realm); innately wholesome dharmas, and those within the mental consciousness felt as the result of action, though "all-pervading" and unmixed, are "not perpetual" (they break off); the non-concomitant formations, again, have no real substance — none of these can be established as the substance. Only the maturation mind and its mental factors are the truly real destiny and birth-mode that is real, perpetual, all-pervading, and unmixed. If this mind did not exist, then at the time of being born in the formless realm and giving rise to a wholesome mind (no matter, no five consciousnesses, wholesome arising and not perpetual) one would not count as having a destiny and birth-mode. Even granting, for argument's sake, that destiny and birth-mode comprehend all contaminated dharmas, then when one is born in the formless realm and gives rise to an uncontaminated mind, that too would not count as destiny and birth-mode (the uncontaminated not belonging to the contaminated) — still contravening reason. To avoid both these faults, only a "maturation dharma" is the truly real destiny and birth-mode. And precisely for this reason the Tathāgata is not comprehended by destiny and birth-mode (the Buddha has no neutral maturation), nor comprehended by the three realms (not contaminated, having cast off suffering and its origin, the seeds of conceptual proliferation already severed). Since the truly real destiny and birth-mode is solely the maturation mind and its factors, and these cannot stand apart from the eighth consciousness, we know there is a separate eighth consciousness.

Reason 4, the Proof from Appropriation — That Which Can Appropriate the Material Faculties and Body Is Solely the Maturation Mind

Scripture says the material faculties and body are "appropriated" (held and received by mind, so as to become felt and sensate); without the eighth consciousness, this "mind that appropriates" ought not to exist. The five material faculties and their bases are appropriated only in the present world, and this must come about through "a mind that can appropriate"; and this appropriating is solely the maturation mind — drawn forth by prior action, neither wholesome nor defiled, appropriating the material faculties and body "homogeneously, all-pervadingly, and continuously," a capacity the eye-consciousness and the other evolving consciousnesses do not have. (This statement displays that the evolving consciousnesses lack the capacity to appropriate homogeneously, all-pervadingly, and continuously; it does not say that "whatever can appropriate is invariably the maturation mind" — otherwise the Buddha's material body, having no maturation, would become unappropriated. One should understand it as saying that "what can appropriate a contaminated material body is solely the maturation mind.") Refute the evolving consciousnesses one by one: the evolving consciousnesses "arise only when a present object is at hand," and like sound or wind they cannot appropriate perpetually; among them, the wholesome and defiled, being "not drawn forth by action," like non-analytical cessation, do not appropriate; among them, the maturation-produced, being "not true maturation, not all-pervading in their support, and not continuous," like lightning — none of them can appropriate a contaminated material body. Whenever one says "mind" or "consciousness," it comprehends its mental factors as well (which are determinately concomitant — just as the single phrase "consciousness-only" comprehends the mental factors). Matter and the non-concomitant formations, again, cannot appropriate the material faculties and body — because they "have no object," like empty space. So there must be a separate mind that can appropriate, and that is the eighth consciousness.

Reason 5, the Proof from Lifespan, Warmth, and Consciousness — The Consciousness That Can Hold Lifespan and Warmth Is Solely the Maturation Consciousness

Scripture says that the three — lifespan, warmth, and consciousness — mutually depend on and hold one another, and only thus do they get to abide in succession; without the eighth consciousness able to hold lifespan and warmth, this "consciousness that makes lifespan and warmth abide long" ought not to exist. The evolving consciousnesses have intervals and turnings — like sound and wind — and have no function of perpetual holding, so they cannot be established as the consciousness that holds lifespan and warmth; only the maturation consciousness, without interval and without turning, just like lifespan and warmth (also perpetual and homogeneously continuous), has the function of perpetual holding, so it can be established as the consciousness that holds lifespan and warmth. Someone objects: scripture says the three dharmas "mutually depend on and hold one another," yet lifespan and warmth are homogeneously continuous while "consciousness" alone is not (if it means the evolving consciousness, it breaks off) — how is this coherent? Counter-question to him: since you grant that "warmth alone does not pervade the three realms" (no warmth in the formless realm) and this still does not damage the doctrine of mutual dependence, then why will you not grant that "consciousness alone has intervals and turnings"? Then answer it clearly: wherever the three dharmas are "complete and turn without interval," there the three can perpetually depend on and hold one another; where they are not complete and not without interval, there is no function of perpetual mutual holding — the foregoing precisely uses this principle to display that "the consciousness among the three dharmas does not mean the evolving consciousness"; and the objection that "warmth, when adduced, does not pervade" cannot damage this principle. Furthermore: since lifespan and warmth among the three dharmas are solely contaminated, the "consciousness" that holds them in mutual support is likewise definitely not uncontaminated; so when one is born in the formless realm and gives rise to an uncontaminated mind, who holds that lifespan? (When the evolving consciousness becomes uncontaminated it no longer holds, so there must be some other.) From this we know there is a "homogeneous, perpetual, all-pervading" maturation consciousness that can hold lifespan and warmth, and that is the eighth consciousness.

Onward Transmission

This proof by five scriptures and five reasons is carried forward under the same headings. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha, in its chapter on the knowable ground, treats the ālaya under ten aspects, and the two verses of the Abhidharma Sūtra and the ādāna verse of the Saṃdhinirmocana cited in its section of scriptural attestation are exactly those cited here — one source. The Yogācārabhūmi, in its Section of Ascertainment, establishes eight aspects proving the ālaya, and its aspects of seed-holding, maturation and appropriation are the ground of the first five reasons here. The Hundred Dharmas lists the ālaya as the eighth of the mind-dharmas, and its right to be separately listed rests on just what is proved here — that it has a substance of its own. Without this proof the eighth consciousness would have no title to stand.

〔Verses commented〕Continuing: unfolding verses 2–4 · proving the eighth · the latter five reasons

The latter five reasons have explicit ground in scripture and treatise. The Yogācārabhūmi, in its Section of Ascertainment, proves the ālaya by eight aspects, among them that lifespan, warmth and consciousness sustain one another, that in one abiding in the attainment of cessation consciousness does not leave the body, and that consciousness conditions name-and-form while name-and-form conditions consciousness — the treatise ground of reasons five through nine here. And the Saṃdhinirmocana says the ādāna consciousness pursues and appropriates the body, which is what the sixth reason rests on: at birth and at death the mind must be a distracted one, not one in a mindless attainment — and were there no appropriating consciousness, there would be no mind at those moments at all.

Reason 6, the Proof from the Mind at Birth and Death — The Mind at the Time of Taking Birth and at Death Is Solely the Maturation Consciousness

Scripture says that sentient beings, at the time of taking birth and at death, must abide in a "scattered mind," not in a "mindless absorption"; without the eighth consciousness, the mind at birth and death ought not to exist. At the junctures of birth and death, body and mind are clouded and dim — as in dreamless deep sleep, or in extreme fainting — and the clear evolving consciousness definitely does not arise; moreover, in these states the modes of activity and the objects of the six evolving consciousnesses are unknowable, as in mindless states, so the six evolving consciousnesses definitely are not active. Yet the modes of activity and objects of the six evolving consciousnesses are "definitely knowable" (as in ordinary waking) — so what is unknowable at the junctures of birth and death is not the evolving consciousnesses. Only the true maturation consciousness, exceedingly subtle, its modes of activity and objects both unknowable, the fruit of directive action, continuous through a single life-span, perpetual and unchanging — it is the "scattered, mind-bearing" mind, and is named the "mind at birth and death." Said thus, it does not contravene reason. Here one view is refuted: some say "at the time of taking birth there is no mental consciousness" (the five consciousnesses are definitely absent in this state; for the mental consciousness to grasp an object it must rely on one of three — the five consciousnesses, another's teaching, or absorption — and at the time of taking birth all three of these causes are absent, so there is no mental consciousness either). Rebuttal: if the mental consciousness arises only through these three causes, then one born in the formless realm would thereafter never have his mental consciousness arise again — because the absorbed mind of that realm must be drawn forth by a "scattered mental consciousness," yet the five consciousnesses and another's teaching are both absent in that realm, so the scattered mind that could draw forth absorption cannot arise. If one rescues this by saying "the absorbed mind of the formless realm arises afterward, abruptly, by the force of repeated practice," then when he first takes birth there, why does his mental consciousness not likewise arise abruptly? At the first taking of birth in the desire realm and the form realm too, the practiced mental consciousness ought to arise; and if one says "in the first moment it is clouded and dim, so it does not arise," this "clouded and dim" is precisely the cause spoken of above — why posit a new account? (This shows that at the time of taking birth there is indeed no evolving consciousness.) And some other schools hold that "at the junctures of birth and death and the like there is another, subtle kind of mental consciousness, its modes of activity and objects both unknowable." Rebuttal: one should understand that this "subtle mental consciousness" is precisely the eighth consciousness — for the (sixth) mental consciousness that everyone acknowledges does not have the character of "modes of activity and objects unknowable."

Reason 7, the Proof from the Support in Dependent Origination — The Consciousness in "Consciousness Conditions Name-and-Form" Is the Eighth

Scripture says "consciousness conditions name-and-form, and name-and-form conditions consciousness"; these two dharmas mutually depend by turns, like two bundles of reeds leaning on each other and turning together at the same time; without the eighth consciousness, the substance of this "consciousness that mutually depends with name-and-form" ought not to exist. That scripture explains itself: "name" is the four non-material aggregates, and "form" is the kalala (the embryonic substance at the start of taking birth) and the rest; this name-and-form and consciousness abide in mutual dependence, like the reed-bundles serving as each other's condition, perpetually turning at the same time and never abandoning each other. But the eye-consciousness and the other evolving consciousnesses are already comprehended within "name," so if the "consciousness" that mutually depends with name-and-form is not the eighth, then which is it? Nor can one rescue this by saying "the consciousness in 'name' refers to the five consciousnesses, while the mutually-dependent consciousness refers to the sixth" — because at the kalala stage there are as yet no five consciousnesses (so this rescue fails). Moreover, the evolving consciousnesses have intervals and turnings, and have not the strength to "perpetually" appropriate name-and-form, so how could they be said perpetually to serve as the condition for name-and-form? Therefore this "consciousness" displayed here is precisely the eighth consciousness.

Reason 8, the Proof from Consciousness-Food — Among the Four Foods, the Substance of "Consciousness-Food" Is Solely the Eighth

Scripture says "all sentient beings abide in dependence on food"; without the eighth consciousness, the substance of this "consciousness-food" ought not to exist. There are four kinds of food. Morsel-food has "transformation-and-decay" as its character (the three sense-spheres of fragrance, taste, and touch in the desire realm, which nourish the body as they are digested and decay; manifest shape and color do not count as morsel-food, being useless once color decays). Contact-food has "contacting an object" as its character (when contaminated contact takes hold of an object it appropriates joy and the like; among these, "the contact belonging to the six consciousnesses" is preeminent in its food-sense, because the object-contact is coarse and conspicuous and its power to appropriate joy and pleasure is strong). Volition-food has "aspiration" as its character (contaminated volition arising together with desire, longing for a desirable object; among these, "the volition belonging to the mental consciousness" is preeminent, because the mental consciousness's power of aspiration is strong). Consciousness-food has "appropriating-and-holding" as its character (contaminated consciousness, increased and nourished by the force of the prior three foods; among these, "the eighth consciousness" is preeminent, because it is homogeneously continuous and its power of appropriating-and-holding is strong). The Abhidharma-samuccaya says these four foods are comprehended by three aggregates, five sense-spheres, and eleven elements, and can hold sentient beings' bodily life so that it is not destroyed or severed — therefore they are called food. Among them, morsel-food is of use only in the desire realm; contact-food and volition-food, though they pervade the three realms, all turn in dependence on consciousness and follow upon the presence or absence of consciousness. But the eye-consciousness and the other evolving consciousnesses have intervals and turnings, and cannot all-pervadingly and perpetually hold the bodily life (in mindless absorption, sleep, fainting, and the heaven of no-conception they all break off, and even in mind-bearing states they shift according to support, condition, nature, realm, and stage). So ask one who holds "there is no eighth consciousness": on what food does a sentient being in a mindless state abide? Scripture plainly says "all sentient beings abide in dependence on food." One cannot take the "past or future consciousness" in a mindless state as the food — it is neither present nor permanent, like a sky-flower, without substance and without function; and even granting, for argument's sake, that the past and future have substance and function, they are still "not present," like empty space, and are not of the nature of food. Nor can one take "the mind before entering absorption" as the food — while abiding in the mindless state it has already ceased, and the past is not food. Nor can one take the non-concomitant formations of the mindless absorption and the like as the food — they are not comprehended by the four foods, and are moreover not really existent. As for the view that "in the absorption of cessation there is a sixth consciousness that can serve as food," this is rebutted at length below (Reason 10). And one should also ask him: when one is born in the upper two realms and gives rise to an uncontaminated mind, what serves as the food? An uncontaminated consciousness is destructive of the three modes of existence and cannot serve as food for a contaminated bodily life; nor can one say "within the uncontaminated consciousness there are contaminated seeds that can serve as food" — the uncontaminated consciousness, like nirvāṇa, does not hold contaminated seeds; nor can one say "the bodily lives of beings in the upper realms mutually hold one another and serve as each other's food" — the four foods do not comprehend bodily life, the formless realm moreover has no body, and "shared lot of sentient beings" and the like have no real substance. From this we know for certain: there is a separate maturation consciousness, "homogeneous, perpetual, and all-pervading, that appropriates and holds the bodily life so that it is not destroyed or severed," and that is the true substance of consciousness-food — the eighth consciousness. ("Sentient being" is established in dependence on the contaminated appropriating aggregates; the Buddha, being already uncontaminated, does not count as a sentient being. If scripture says the Buddha "is a sentient being, abiding in dependence on food," that is a manifestation taught in accord with the world.)

Reason 9, the Proof from Consciousness in the Absorption of Cessation — In One Who Abides in the Absorption of Cessation, Consciousness Does Not Leave the Body

Scripture says that in one who abides in the "absorption of cessation," the bodily formation, the verbal formation, and the mental formation are all ceased, yet "lifespan is not extinguished, warmth does not leave, the faculties are unimpaired, and consciousness does not leave the body"; without the eighth consciousness, this "consciousness that does not leave the body" ought not to exist. The eye-consciousness and the rest are coarse and agitated in their modes of activity, and necessarily involve toil and effort when they take an object; the practitioner, weary of this toil and seeking momentary respite, gradually subdues them to the "wholly exhausted" stage, and on this stage establishes the name "one who abides in the absorption of cessation" — so in this absorption the six evolving consciousnesses are all ceased. Since they are all ceased, if one will not grant that some "subtle, homogeneous, perpetual, all-pervading consciousness that appropriates and holds lifespan and the rest" still remains, then on what basis is "consciousness does not leave the body" said? If one rescues this by saying "after the absorption of cessation the evolving consciousness will arise again, so it counts as not leaving the body, like a quotidian-fever ague" — then one ought not to say "the mental formation is ceased" (consciousness arises and ceases in step with conception and the rest; since conception and the rest are ceased, consciousness ought to be ceased too), and moreover lifespan, warmth, and the faculties ought, like that "every-other-day consciousness," to break off — a great fault. Furthermore: if in this state there were no consciousness at all, this body would be like a tile or stone and would not count as a sentient being — how then could one be called "one who abides in the absorption of cessation"? Furthermore, if the maturation consciousness were absent in this state, who would appropriate and hold the faculties, lifespan, and warmth (without something to appropriate and hold them, they would all be destroyed, like a corpse)? And once destroyed, a later consciousness could never arise again (apart from consciousness, the remaining body cannot be revived) — so to whom would the scripture's "consciousness does not leave the body" then refer? This shows that once the maturation consciousness has abandoned this body, the remaining body cannot be revived (so it is because the maturation consciousness has not left during the absorption of cessation that the body can later come to life again). Again, if in this state there were no seed-holding consciousness, how could a later consciousness arise without seeds? (The past and future, and the non-concomitant formations, are not real; matter and the rest, apart from consciousness, neither receive perfuming nor hold seeds — all already refuted.) Therefore in the absorption of cessation and the other mindless states, just as in mind-bearing states, there is definitely and really a consciousness — complete with faculties, lifespan, and warmth, and comprehended among sentient beings.

Here the view that "in the absorption of cessation there is a sixth consciousness" is refuted. If one says that in this state there is a sixth consciousness, named the one that "does not leave the body" — this too is wrong: this absorption is also called the "mindless absorption" (if there were a sixth, it would not be mindless). If one rescues this by saying "having no five consciousnesses is what is called mindless," then all absorptions ought to be called mindless (all absorptions are without the five consciousnesses). The mental consciousness too is comprehended among the six evolving consciousnesses; like the body of five consciousnesses, it is absent in the absorption of cessation. Again, the consciousness in this state has modes of activity and objects that are unknowable — like lifespan and warmth — and so is not the sixth consciousness (whose modes of activity are knowable); and if there were in this state a consciousness whose "modes of activity and objects are knowable," it ought, like other states, not to be comprehended by this absorption of cessation (the practitioner entered the absorption precisely to still the "knowable consciousness"). Press him further: if in this state there is a sixth consciousness, does it have mental factors or not? If it has mental factors — then scripture ought not to say "the mental formation is wholly ceased," nor ought it to be called the "absorption of the cessation of sensation and conception." (Rescue: in the preparatory stage one is weary only of sensation and conception, so in the absorption only sensation and conception cease; sensation and conception strongly assist the mind, and are singly named "the mental formation," so saying "the mental formation is ceased" refers to the cessation of sensation and conception.) Counter: then the absorption of no-conception, in which one is weary only of "conception," ought to have only conception cease — yet you do not allow this; and since you yourself grant that "only sensation and conception strongly assist the power of mind," then when these two cease, the mind too ought to cease along with them. (Rescue: just as "the bodily formation, the in-and-out breath, ceases while the body still remains," why must the mind be forced to cease along with the mental formation?) Counter: then when the "verbal formation, namely applied and sustained thought, ceases," speech too ought not to cease — yet you do not allow this (when applied and sustained thought cease, speech is definitely absent). This shows that "formations" stand in two relations to the dharmas they support — "pervasive" and "non-pervasive": when a pervasive one ceases the dharma definitely ceases with it, but when a non-pervasive one ceases the dharma may still remain. The in-and-out breath is "non-pervasive" (the breath ceases while the body remains); applied and sustained thought are "pervasive" with respect to speech (when they cease speech is absent); sensation and conception are likewise "pervasive" with respect to mind (because sensation and conception, like volition, are "factors of broad extent," pervading every mind) — so when sensation and conception cease the mind definitely ceases along with them. How then can one say "sensation and conception cease while the mind remains"? Furthermore, since you grant that volition and the rest are factors of broad extent, then when sensation and conception cease, volition and the rest ought to cease too, and confidence and the rest ought to be absent in this state as well (only when a non-pervasive one ceases can the remaining dharmas persist) — how can you still say there are remaining mental factors? Conversely, if you hold that volition and the rest are not absent in this state, then sensation and conception too ought not to be absent (being equally factors of broad extent). Again, if in this absorption there were volition and the rest, there ought also to be "contact" (the remaining mental factors arise by the force of contact); if there is contact there ought to be "sensation" (contact conditions sensation); if there is sensation, "conception" ought to arise too (sensation and conception are inseparable). (Rescue: just as "sensation conditions craving" does not mean every sensation gives rise to craving, so "contact conditions sensation" does not mean every contact produces sensation.) Counter: the Buddha himself draws a distinction — he says only "the sensation born of ignorance-contact" conditions the arising of craving, but he never draws any distinction over "contact producing sensation," so wherever there is contact there must be sensation, and sensation and conception arise together. Or force the conclusion: then, as in other states, sensation and conception too ought not to cease (and since you posit volition and the rest, this contradicts "the mental formation is ceased" and fails to constitute "the absorption of the cessation of sensation and conception"). Conversely, if one says that in this state there are no mental factors — then "consciousness" too ought to be absent: because one never sees a mind subsisting alone apart from mental factors; because when the pervasive ones among the remaining factors cease the dharma ceases with them, so sensation and the rest ought not to be factors of broad extent, and this consciousness ought not to be a concomitant dharma; and if one grants that this consciousness has no support and no object, then it is like matter, and is likewise not a mind.

Then the view that "in the absorption of cessation the mental consciousness produces contact through the meeting of three" is refuted. Scripture says "with mind-faculty and dharma as condition the mental consciousness arises; the meeting of the three is contact; arising together with contact are sensation, conception, and volition"; so if in this absorption there were a mental consciousness, then through the meeting of the three there must be contact, and contact must invariably arise together with sensation, conception, and volition — how then could there be "consciousness without mental factors"? (Rescue: at other times the meeting of three is potent and can produce contact, and with contact arising, sensation and the rest arise; but because before entering absorption one was weary of the mental factors, the three things in the absorption-state are impotent, do not produce contact, and so there are no sensation and the rest.) Counter: then it ought to be called the "absorption of the cessation of mental factors" — why is only "the cessation of sensation and conception" spoken of? (Rescue: on entering absorption one is weary only of these two, sensation and conception; when these two cease the mental factors all cease, but the name of the absorption is established "according to what was previously the object of weariness.") Counter: this being so (the mental factors all ceasing), the "mind" too ought to cease (arising together with the wearied-of sensation and conception, like the remaining mental factors); and if the mind does not cease, how is it called the "mindless absorption"? Again, of what nature is the mental consciousness in this absorption-state? It ought not to be defiled or neutral (in a wholesome absorption there is no occasion to give rise to a defiled or neutral mind; moreover a defiled or neutral mind must have mental factors; one ought not, in weariness of the wholesome, to give rise instead to the defiled; in seeking quiescence one ought not to give rise instead to the scattered). If one says it is "wholesome," then it is "concomitantly wholesome" and ought to have non-greed and the other wholesome roots concomitant with it (which again makes it have mental factors), and moreover it is neither wholesome by its own nature nor wholesome in the ultimate sense (contradicting your own school: it is neither a wholesome root nor nirvāṇa). If one says it is "wholesome by way of arising-in-train" (drawn forth by preparatory wholesome roots), this too is wrong and contradicts your own school (other wholesome minds are not wholesome by arising-in-train but wholesome by concomitance; and after a wholesome mind a mind of any of the three natures can arise, so how can one definitely say it is wholesome by what preceded it?). This shows that its being wholesome rests, in the end, on the force of "concomitance" and must be concomitant with the wholesome roots — so how can one say it alone has no mental factors? Therefore "if there are no mental factors then the mind too ought to be absent" (mind and mental factors mutually depend). By such demonstration, the eye-consciousness and the other evolving consciousnesses, in the absorption-of-cessation state, are all "not the one that does not leave the body" (they are all ceased); so the consciousness of which scripture says "(in the absorption of cessation) consciousness does not leave the body" is precisely this eighth consciousness — on entering the absorption of cessation one does not still this "utterly quiescent appropriating consciousness." The states of the absorption of no-conception and the like are to be understood in the same way (in all of them only the eighth remains).

Reason 10, the Proof from the Defiled and Pure Mind — The Mind That Can Hold the Seeds of Defilement and Purity Is Solely the Eighth

Scripture says "because the mind is defiled, sentient beings are defiled; because the mind is pure, sentient beings are pure"; without the eighth consciousness, this defiled-and-pure mind that can receive perfuming and hold the seeds ought not to exist. The defiled and pure dharmas take mind as their root — they arise because of mind and abide in dependence on mind, mind receives their perfuming and holds their seeds. There are three kinds of defiled dharma: affliction, action, and result. First, the seeds of affliction: if there were no such consciousness to hold the seeds of affliction, then when one rises and sinks back and forth across realms and stages, or after passing through an "undefiled mind" (a wholesome mind or an uncontaminated mind), the renewed arising of the afflictions would all be without cause (the remaining dharmas cannot hold them, and the past and future are not real); and afflictions arising without cause would mean there is no learner's or beyond-the-learner's fruit in the three vehicles (the afflictions already severed ought to arise again — then there would be no real severance). Second, the seeds of action and result: if there were no such consciousness to hold the seeds of action and result, then in moving back and forth across realms and stages, after passing through "dharmas of a different kind," the renewed arising of action and result would also be without cause (the remaining seeds and remaining causes already refuted above); and if action and result arose without cause, then after one had entered the nirvāṇa without remainder the action and result of the three realms ought to arise again, and afflictions too ought to arise again without cause; moreover the link "formations condition consciousness" in the twelvefold dependent origination could not be established (the evolving consciousnesses receiving perfuming has been refuted above), and the defiled consciousness at the linking of rebirth is not what the formations bring about — the formations ought to link to "name-and-form," and besides, the temporal gap is too wide for a direct conditioning relation — and once "formations condition consciousness" cannot stand, the later links cannot stand either. Pure dharmas too are of three kinds: the worldly path, the supramundane path, and the fruit of severance. First, the seeds of the worldly and supramundane paths: if there were no such consciousness to hold the seeds of the two paths, then after a mind of a different kind the renewed arising of pure dharmas would all be without cause; and if the two pure paths arose without cause, then after entering the nirvāṇa without remainder the two pure paths ought to arise again, and their support ought to arise again without cause; moreover the very first moment of the supramundane path ought not to arise at all (there being no dharma that could hold those "innately existent uncontaminated seeds that are there by their very nature," while the contaminated cannot be the cause of the uncontaminated, and "arising without cause" is not something the Buddha's disciples allow either); and if the first moment does not arise, the later moments do not arise either, so there would be no path-fruit in the three vehicles. Third, the fruit of severance: if there were no such consciousness to hold the seeds of affliction, then "the transformation of the basis, the fruit of severance," could not be established either — because when the path arises, neither the active afflictions nor their seeds are present (the defiled mind and the pure mind do not arise together; the path is a pure mind and does not hold the defiled seeds of the afflictions, being of a contrary nature, like nirvāṇa; and "past, future, acquisition" and the like are not real, while the remaining dharmas, again, cannot hold the seeds). Since there is no "what is to be severed" (the seeds of affliction), "what severs" has nothing to bear upon either — by means of what, and through what, would the fruit of severance be established? If one rescues this by saying "by the power of the path the later afflictions are prevented from arising, and so the fruit of severance is established," then the moment the first instant of the path arises one ought to become beyond-the-learner (all later afflictions being without cause, never to arise again). Only by granting that there is this eighth consciousness can all of this (the three defiled and the three pure) be established — because it alone can hold the seeds of defilement and of purity.

To prove the existence of this eighth consciousness, the reasons are inexhaustible and without end; for fear that the text would grow too prolix, only the essentials have been set out in outline (the five scriptures and the ten reasons). That there is a separate such consciousness is plainly evident both in scripture and in reason; let those endowed with wisdom believe and accept it deeply.

Onward Transmission

What this section establishes — that the eighth ālaya-vijñāna has a distinct substance of its own — is the foundation of the entire consciousness-only system, and the later treatises take it up each in its own place. The Hundred Dharmas treatise lists the ālaya as the eighth of the eight consciousness-dharmas (the root of the eight consciousnesses), and the defiled and pure seeds it appropriates and holds are precisely the "seed-support" from which all the dharmas of the hundred-dharma categories (mind, mental factors, matter, and the non-concomitant formations) come to arise. The Thirty Verses — verses two through four (the ālaya's maturation, its all-seed nature, its being unobscured and morally neutral, its concomitance with contact and the rest, its perpetual flow like a torrent, and its being cast off at the stage of the arhat) — is the very root-text this section sets out to make good: what this section proves by the five scriptures and ten reasons is just that the eighth consciousness established in these verses truly has a distinct substance. The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, establishes "unreal imagination" as the support of the defiled dharmas, which runs together in doctrine with this section's "the eighth consciousness holds the seeds of defilement and purity" (consciousness as the support of defilement). The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its section on the support of the knowable, establishes the ālaya-vijñāna still more fully by "ten characteristics and eight proofs," and those eight proofs share one source with this section's five scriptures and ten reasons — both rest on the eight-character proof of the ālaya in the Yogācārabhūmi's section settling the points to be known. As for the Twenty Verses, its concern is to establish consciousness-only without objects and to refute the outsiders' clinging to real external objects, and it has no direct counterpart to "the proof that the eighth consciousness exists"; here it is left aside.

Having finished with the eighth consciousness, the ālaya-vijñāna, we turn now to the second transformation — the manas. Following the verse, this section sets out its name and meaning, what it rests upon (its support), what it takes as object, its essential nature and mode of activity, and the four root afflictions that never leave it for an instant. When the treatise comes to the matter of "support," it opens out into a long general discussion — an excursus on the "three supports" — and that is the longest and most densely argued passage in the whole section.

This manas has its roots in scripture and treatise alike. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in its chapter on mind, mentation, and consciousness, speaks of an "appropriating consciousness" (ādāna-vijñāna) — "ādāna" meaning "that which follows along and appropriates": it appropriates the body and the life-faculty, is profound and subtle, and the World-Honored One "did not expound it to the foolish, for fear they would take it as a self." That very grasping is what the manas does (the manas grasps the eighth as its "inner self" — the very danger the sūtra warns of). The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra gives the image of "the store-consciousness as an ocean, stirred by the wind of objects into surging waves of the various consciousnesses," showing that the manas is one of the seven transforming consciousnesses that arise in dependence on the store-consciousness. The Yogācārabhūmi then fixes the manas as "named 'mind,' deliberating by nature, constantly grasping I and what is mine," lists the four spontaneous afflictions it never parts from (the view of the perishing aggregates, self-conceit, self-love, and the unshared ignorance), and says "because there is the ālaya-vijñāna there is the manas," which "takes the ālaya-vijñāna as its object, grasping a self and giving rise to conceit." What this section expounds has its scriptural root in the Saṃdhinirmocana and the Laṅkāvatāra, and its treatise-basis in the Yogācārabhūmi — and with that we follow the verse and open the exposition.

A. Opening — the second transformation is the "deliberating transformation" (the manas)

After the first transformation (the consciousness of maturation, the eighth consciousness), it remains to clarify the characteristics of the second transformation, the deliberating transformation. In the teachings this consciousness has the special name manas — because its deliberating is both constant (uninterrupted) and examining (it scrutinizes and decides), surpassing the other consciousnesses in this respect. Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) unpacks the two words "deliberating-examining": "deliberating" is reflective thought, "examining" is measuring-and-deciding; the manas deliberates upon the eighth and measures it as "I," and so is named manas. Kuiji further lays out four alternatives of "constant" and "examining" to mark off what is distinctive about the manas: the seventh alone is "both constant and examining" (uninterrupted, and scrutinizing-and-deciding in its grasp of self); the eighth is "constant but not examining" (uninterrupted, yet not scrutinizing-and-deciding); the sixth mental consciousness is "examining but not constant" (it scrutinizes and decides, but is interrupted); and the first five are "neither constant nor examining" — set side by side, the four alternatives bring out why the manas's "constant, examining grasp of self" is unique. Someone asks: since manas is also rendered "mind" (mano, "the intellect"), how does it differ from the "mind" of the sixth, the mental consciousness (mano-vijñāna)? The answer: the name of the seventh is a "co-referential compound" — like the term "store-consciousness," where "consciousness" simply is the "mind" (the substance of the consciousness is itself the manas; the two words point to one and the same thing). The name of the sixth is a "dependent-determinative compound" — like "eye-consciousness," where "consciousness" is other than the "mind" (just as eye-consciousness rests on the eye-faculty, so consciousness and faculty, consciousness and mind, are two distinct things). Further: the teachings, fearing that the "mind" of the seventh would be confused with the "mental consciousness" of the sixth, give the seventh only the single name "mind" (not "mental consciousness"). And by raising the bare word "mind" alone, they mean to set it apart from the other two senses, "citta" and "vijñāna" — for in the seventh the function of "accumulating" (the sense of citta) and the function of "discerning" (the sense of vijñāna) are both weaker than in the other consciousnesses; so those two names are not taken, and only the most fitting name, "mind," is kept. It is also to show that this is the closest support of the sixth mental consciousness (its immediate support, the support that defiles or purifies it), and so it is called simply "mind."

B. The support — explaining "it turns in dependence on that"

1. "That" is the eighth; the manas arises in dependence on the store-consciousness

The verse-phrase "it turns in dependence on that" displays the support of the manas. "That" refers to the first transformation just discussed (the eighth, the ālaya); the teachings say the manas arises in dependence on the store-consciousness. Here there are two views. One view: the manas takes the seeds of the eighth as its support, not the active eighth consciousness — because the manas is uninterrupted, it need not borrow the active eighth as a "co-present support" in order to arise. Another view (the one inclining to correctness): the manas takes both the seeds and the active eighth consciousness as its support — for although the manas is uninterrupted, it still undergoes transformation (change), and therefore is called a "transforming consciousness"; and being a transforming consciousness, it must borrow the active eighth as a co-present support in order to arise at all. The word "turns" in the verse means "flows on": it shows that the manas, in constant dependence on the eighth, reaches out and grasps its object (it takes the eighth as object and grasps it as "I").

2. The excursus — the "three supports" of every mind and mental factor

Having come to the matter of "support," the treatise here opens out into a long general discussion: not only the manas, but every mind-king and every mental factor has a support, and the supports are of three kinds. First, the causal support — namely, one's own seeds (every conditioned dharma comes to be in dependence on its seeds; apart from its own seeds it cannot arise). Second, the dominant-condition support — namely, the inner six bases (the six faculties); every mind and mental factor turns in dependence on these (apart from its co-present faculty it cannot turn). Third, the equal-immediately-antecedent support — namely, the just-ceased mind (the preceding thought-moment, which has perished and so opens the way for the succeeding one); every mind and mental factor arises in dependence on this (apart from this way-clearing faculty it cannot arise). Only mind and mental factors possess all three of these supports, and only they are said to "have support"; the other dharmas (matter and so on) do not count. Each is now examined in turn.

(i) The causal support (the seed-support) — seed and active state are simultaneous

The first kind is the seed-support. Someone maintains that "the seed perishes, and only then does the active fruit arise" (seed and fruit are not simultaneous but successive), arguing that the Abhidharma-samuccaya says "there is no such thing as 'the seed still present while the fruit has already arisen,'" and that seed and sprout are not simultaneous. The correct view rebuts this: that evidence does not stand. The line in the Abhidharma-samuccaya is said with respect to a seed drawing forth a later seed (members of the same kind generating one another) — not of a seed generating an active state. "Seed generates sprout" is a conventional simile, not the ultimate truth; "seed perishes, sprout arises" is not a thesis both sides admit; and what is more, a lamp's flame and its wick plainly exist simultaneously while serving as cause for one another — proof that cause and effect can be simultaneous. One must distinguish clearly: in a seed's own-kind causation (a preceding seed drawing forth a later seed) the two are indeed not simultaneous; but in the mutual generation of seed and active state (seed generates the active state, the active state perfumes the seed) the two are necessarily simultaneous. So the Yogācārabhūmi says: "An impermanent dharma is cause both for an other nature (seed and active state as cause for one another) and for a later own-nature (a preceding seed for a later seed)" — and this is precisely the meaning of "causal condition": "own-nature" displays a seed's own kind, earlier and later, as cause (not simultaneous), while "other nature" displays seed and active state as cause for one another (simultaneous). The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha likewise says that the store-consciousness and the defiled dharmas are causal conditions for one another, standing simultaneously like a bundle of reeds, and that seed and fruit are necessarily simultaneous. Therefore the seed-support (seed together with active state) is certainly not successive but simultaneous; and wherever a text speaks of "seed and fruit as successive," that is all a "provisional teaching that follows the position of others" (a concession to another school's framing). In this way the eight consciousnesses and all the mental factors each separately have their own seed-support.

(ii) The co-present support — refuting "the five faculties are just the seeds of the five consciousnesses," then distinguishing "support" from "mere reliance"

The second kind is the co-present support. Someone maintains that "the five consciousnesses, eye and the rest, take the mental consciousness as their co-present support (whenever the five arise the mental consciousness is present along with them), and there is no separate five faculties serving as co-present support, because the five faculties simply are the seeds of the five consciousnesses." He cites a verse from the Twenty Verses ("consciousness arises from its own seed and turns as the semblance of an object; to establish the inner and outer bases, the Buddha spoke of them as the ten") and a verse from the Investigation of the Object ("the color-capacity upon consciousness is reasonably called the five faculties; capacity and the object-color are cause for one another beginninglessly") as proof: that the Buddha, to establish the twelve bases, called the seeds of the five consciousnesses the faculties (eye and the rest) and called the image-portion of the five consciousnesses the objects (color and the rest), so the faculties just are the seeds of the five consciousnesses. He further says that the seventh and eighth consciousnesses have no separate co-present support (their own power is strong, and they continue constantly), and that only the sixth mental consciousness has an additional co-present support (it must borrow the manas in order to arise).

The correct view says this "the five faculties are just the seeds of the five consciousnesses" contradicts both reason and scripture, and refutes it on ten counts. One: if the five faculties were just the seeds of the five consciousnesses, the seeds of the eighteen elements would be thrown into confusion — yet the teachings everywhere say the eighteen elements each have their own separate seeds. Two: the seeds of each of the five consciousnesses can generate two portions, image-portion and seeing-portion; which one will you take as "the faculty, eye and the rest"? Take the seeing-portion's seed, and the faculty becomes part of the consciousness-aggregate; take the image-portion's seed, and the faculty becomes an outer base — either way contradicting the teaching that "the five faculties are matter-aggregate, inner bases." Three: if the five faculties were just the seeds of the five consciousnesses, the faculties would become the causal condition of the five consciousnesses and could not be called the dominant condition — yet the teachings say the faculties are the dominant condition. Four: if the nose- and tongue-faculties were just the seeds of nose- and tongue-consciousness, then the nose- and tongue-faculties would have to be bound only to the desire realm, or else nose- and tongue-consciousness would have to extend into the form realm — both horns contradict scripture. Five: the same difficulty arises for the eye-, ear-, and body-faculties as seeds of their three consciousnesses, regarding their distribution across the two realms (desire and form) and the five stages. Six: since the seeds of the five consciousnesses extend to both wholesome and unwholesome, the five faculties would have to be not merely indeterminate — yet the teachings say the five faculties are exclusively indeterminate. Seven: the seeds of the five consciousnesses are not "appropriated," so the five faculties would have to be unappropriated — yet the five faculties are appropriated matter. Eight: if the five faculties were just the seeds of the five consciousnesses, then by parity "the seeds of the mental consciousness" would have to be the manas — yet the manas is an active consciousness, not the seed of the mental consciousness. Nine: the Yogācārabhūmi says the consciousnesses, eye and the rest, all possess three supports; if the five faculties were just the seeds of the five consciousnesses, then the supports of the five consciousnesses would be reduced to only two. Ten: the teachings say the faculties, eye and the rest, extend to both active state and seed; clinging to them as seed alone therefore contradicts all the teachings.

To dodge these difficulties someone shifts his position to rescue it: "Within the consciousness of maturation, the dominant karmic seeds capable of summoning forth the five consciousnesses are called the five matter-faculties — not the seeds that act as causal condition generating the five consciousnesses — and this both accords with those two verses and follows the Yogācārabhūmi." The correct view says this too is empty words; the faults remain. The five matter-faculties still ought not to be indeterminate (karmic seeds extend to wholesome and unwholesome); ought not to be exclusively appropriated, exclusively matter-aggregate, exclusively inner base; the nose- and tongue-faculties ought to be bound only to the desire realm; the three faculties ought not to extend to the five stages; "the karma summoning the mental consciousness" ought to be the manas; eye and the rest ought not to extend to active state and seed; eye and the rest ought not to be matter-faculties. Moreover, if all five consciousnesses were summoned by karma, they would have to be uniformly indeterminate — yet wholesome and unwholesome five-consciousnesses are not karmically summoned, and so there would then be no "faculty, eye and the rest" serving as co-present support for the wholesome and unwholesome five-consciousnesses. So this rescue is no improvement. What is more, the teachings everywhere say the ālaya-vijñāna manifests as the semblance of "matter-faculties, faculty-bases, and the container world" — how can you strike out "matter-faculties"? You grant that "the consciousnesses, eye and the rest, manifest as the semblance of color-objects," yet refuse that "the faculties, eye and the rest, are matter transformed by the store-consciousness" — this confusion deeply contradicts the teaching and the reasoning. In truth, when those two verses said "seeds, capacity, are called the five faculties," their real intent was to refute matter-faculties existing apart from consciousness: with reference to the "semblance of the eye-faculty transformed by consciousness," and because it has the function of "giving rise to the five consciousnesses," they provisionally named it "seed, color-capacity" — not that "the matter-faculty just is the karmic seed of consciousness."

The correct view then additionally establishes several further co-present supports. The "clear mental consciousness" (the mental consciousness conjoined with the five) that takes the five objects ought to take the five consciousnesses as its co-present support (it must be present along with the five; for if it did not rest on the five, the five too ought not to rest on it, the force of mutual reliance being equal). The seventh consciousness, though uninterrupted, undergoes transformation in such stages as the path of seeing, and so ought, like the six consciousnesses, to have a co-present support — otherwise it would not count as a "transforming consciousness," contradicting the doctrine "the transforming consciousnesses number seven"; so the co-present support of the seventh is the active eighth consciousness. Just as the Yogācārabhūmi says, "because there is the store-consciousness there is the manas, and with the manas as support the mental consciousness turns" — this is saying the active store-consciousness is the support, not the seeds of the eighth (otherwise it would have said "because there is the store-consciousness the mental consciousness turns"); which shows the view that "the seeds are the support" contradicts the teaching and the reasoning. The conclusion of this view is: the first five consciousnesses each definitely have two co-present supports (the five matter-faculties and the simultaneous mental consciousness); the sixth consciousness constantly has one co-present support (the seventh consciousness), and when arising together with the five it additionally rests on the five; the seventh consciousness has only one co-present support (the eighth consciousness); and only the eighth consciousness is constantly without transformation, stands by its own power, and has no co-present support.

But a more penetrating correct view says: this still does not exhaust the principle. Since the eighth is of the same "consciousness-nature" as the other consciousnesses, on what grounds is it alone refused a co-present support? Since the seventh and eighth turn together constantly and serve as support for one another, what fault is there in that? Since you grant that "an active consciousness takes the seeds as its support," then "the seeds of consciousness" too should be granted to "rest on the active consciousness" — for the seeds need the "perfuming agent (the active seven transforming consciousnesses) and the maturation-consciousness (the active eighth)" as the support for their generation, growth, and abiding; apart from these the seeds could not be generated, could not grow, could not abide. Again, the maturation-consciousness in the realms with form is able to appropriate the body and "turns in dependence on the matter-faculties" (scripture says the ālaya is blown about by the wind of karma and turns constantly, pervasively in dependence on all the faculties; the Yogācārabhūmi says the six consciousnesses each rest separately and so cannot appropriate the body and faculties — which by contrast shows that the eighth, resting pervasively, can appropriate them); if the eighth did not rest pervasively on the faculties of the realms with form, then like the six consciousnesses it would be unable to appropriate. Therefore: if the store-consciousness is an active state, it definitely has one support (the seventh consciousness), and in the realms with form it additionally rests on the matter-faculties; if the store-consciousness is seeds, it definitely has one support (the active maturation-consciousness), and in the stage of initial perfuming it additionally rests on the perfuming agent.

The most ultimate correct view then distinguishes one crucial point — "support" and "mere reliance" are not the same thing. "Reliance" is the broad sense: every dharma subject to arising and ceasing, coming to be and abiding by depending on causes and conditions, calls whatever it leans upon "reliance" (like ruler and minister leaning upon one another — whatever is depended upon is called reliance). "Support" is the strict sense: only what is "fixed (constant), object-bearing (has an object), governing (acts as sovereign), and able to make the mind and mental factors grasp their own object" is called "support" — and that is the "inner six bases" (the six faculties); the rest, color-objects and so on, are not object-bearing, not fixed, not governing, but are like the "minister," not the "support"; only the six faculties are like the "ruler" and so are the support. This is why the teachings say only that mind and mental factors "have support" and do not say matter has support (matter has no object); and why they say only that "mind" is the support of "mental factors" and do not say "mental factors" are the support of "mind" (the mental factors do not govern). And wherever a text calls "reliance" by the name "support," or calls "support" by the name "reliance," these are all expedient provisional usages. By this strict sense the number of co-present supports is re-established: the five consciousnesses definitely have four co-present supports — the five matter-faculties (the same-object support), the sixth (the discriminating support), the seventh (the defiling-or-purifying support), and the eighth (the root support); lacking any one, the five consciousnesses do not turn. The teachings single out "resting on the five faculties" because the five faculties are "exclusive" (only the five consciousnesses rest on them) and are necessarily "of the same object, close and conforming" to the five consciousnesses (singling out the most immediate). The sixth mental consciousness has only two co-present supports — the seventh and the eighth; lacking either, it does not turn. Although the clear mental consciousness conjoined with the five also takes objects together with the five consciousnesses, the five consciousnesses are "not invariably present (not constantly co-present)," and so do not count as a support of the sixth; the teachings single out "resting on the seventh" because the seventh is its "defiling-or-purifying support," is likewise a transforming consciousness, and is close and conforming. The seventh, the manas, has only one co-present support — the eighth (if the store-consciousness were absent, the seventh would definitely not turn; as the verse says, "with the ālaya as support, therefore the manas turns; resting on mind and manas, the remaining transforming consciousnesses come to be"). The eighth, the ālaya, likewise has only one co-present support — the seventh (if the seventh were absent, the eighth would definitely not turn). The treatise says "the store-consciousness constantly turns together with the manas," and also "the store-consciousness constantly rests on the defiled (that is, the manas)"; and as for the saying "in three stages (the arhat, the cessation absorption, and the supramundane path) there is no manas," that is "said with respect to the obscuring (defiled) manas" (there is no obscuring manas, not that the seventh is wholly absent) — just as the saying "in four stages there is no ālaya" likewise does not mean the eighth is wholly absent (only that the name "ālaya," the grasped-store, is absent). Although the eighth also rests on the five faculties in the realms with form, the five faculties are "not invariably present (absent in the formless realm)," and so do not count as its strict-sense support; and the seeds of consciousness cannot actively grasp their own object (they have no reaching-out function), and so may have "reliance" but no "support." The support of the mental factors is stated according to the consciousness they accompany, with the addition in each case of "their own conjoined mind-king." Stated thus, the account fits the teaching and the reasoning.

(iii) The clearing-the-way support (the equal-immediately-antecedent support) — each of the eight consciousnesses takes its own kind as its clearing-the-way support

The third kind is the clearing-the-way support. One view: the first five consciousnesses neither continue from one moment to the next nor arise except as drawn forth by the sixth, and so take only the sixth as their clearing-the-way support; the sixth mental consciousness continues in its own kind and is also drawn forth by the five consciousnesses, and so takes the prior six consciousnesses as its clearing-the-way support; the seventh and eighth continue in their own kind and are not drawn forth by other consciousnesses, and so take only their own kind as the clearing-the-way support. The correct view refutes this: it does not reach the principle. The first five consciousnesses, in "the stage of non-mastery, when meeting a non-superior object," may be as he says (not continuous); but in "the stage of mastery (as in the buddhas)," where there is mastery over objects, the faculties are mutually employed, and decision arises spontaneously without seeking, how could the five consciousnesses not be continuous? Since the "outflowing five consciousnesses" are drawn forth by the force of the deciding mind, the defiling-or-purifying mind, and attention, and concentrate on their object without being able to let it go for a moment, why should they not be allowed to continue through many moments? So the Yogācārabhūmi says: after the deciding mind there is the defiling-or-purifying mind, and after that the outflowing eye-consciousness turns, wholesome or unwholesome... and right up until this "mind" moves to a different object, eye-consciousness and mental consciousness turn on continuously, wholesome or defiled — which shows that "when eye-consciousness is present the mental consciousness is not absent (the two are simultaneously continuous)," and not that "the two arise by alternating." And if upon meeting an overwhelming object that continuously presses upon body and mind it cannot be let go for a moment, the five consciousnesses must continue (as in the hot hells, or among the play-and-forgetting gods). Again, the Yogācārabhūmi says: "if these six consciousnesses are the equal-immediately-antecedent condition for those six consciousnesses, it is called the mind-faculty" — if the five consciousnesses had only the mental consciousness preceding them (as their equal-immediately-antecedent condition), the treatise ought to have said "this one consciousness is the condition for those six consciousnesses" or "these six consciousnesses are the condition for that one consciousness"; since it does not say this (but says six answering to six), the five consciousnesses too clearly continue in their own kind. Furthermore, when the five consciousnesses arise the mental consciousness must be present, and the mental consciousness can itself draw forth its own succeeding moment — so why borrow "the five consciousnesses" as the clearing-the-way support of the sixth? Again, when the mental consciousness re-arises after mindless sleep or fainting, since the store-consciousness and the manas are constantly continuous they too ought to serve it as a clearing-the-way support (yet in fact the mental consciousness still uses its "prior own kind," stepping across the interruption to link up); and since the mental consciousness is granted to link its own kind across an interruption, why should the five consciousnesses not be granted to link their own kind likewise? Again, the manas conjoined with the wisdom of equal-nature, when it first arises, must be drawn forth by the sixth; the eighth conjoined with the great-mirror wisdom, when it first arises, must be drawn forth by the sixth and seventh; and the maturation-mind in turn rests on the defiled manas or on a wholesome mind of compassion and vow — given this, one must grant that the eighth too takes the sixth and seventh as its clearing-the-way support (yet that one view holds that the seventh and eighth take only their own kind). So that one view does not reach the principle at all. Hence there is a second view: the five consciousnesses take whichever of the "prior six consciousnesses" they may use as the clearing-the-way support; the sixth takes "its prior own kind, or the seventh and eighth"; the seventh takes "its prior own kind, or the sixth"; and the eighth takes "its prior own kind, and the sixth and seventh."

The most ultimate correct view says the second view too is wrong. The "clearing-the-way support" must be something that is "object-bearing, governing, and able to act as the equal-immediately-antecedent condition," that for a later-arising mind and mental factor can "make way (the preceding moment yields its place) and lead onward (draw the succeeding one into being)," and so belongs only to the mind-king, not to the mental factors. Moreover, only where "this and that cannot arise together (preceding and succeeding yield to one another and do not coexist)" can it be said that this has clearing-the-way power for that; now since "the eight consciousnesses in a single body" are allowed to arise simultaneously, how can one take a "different kind (another consciousness)" as the clearing-the-way support? If a different kind were allowed as the clearing-the-way support, then this and that would have to not coexist — which would be the same as the Hīnayāna position that "at one time there is only one mind." Again, the consciousnesses in a single body arise together, their number indefinite; if a different kind were allowed to serve mutually as the equal-immediately-antecedent condition, then matter too ought to be able to serve as such — contradicting the teaching that "the equal-immediately-antecedent condition belongs only to mind and mental factors." As for the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha saying "matter too may have the equal-immediately-antecedent condition," that is a "concede-then-seize statement" (provisionally conceding the Hīnayāna view that "matter and mind have an equal-immediately-antecedent condition successively," in order to seize away its "causal condition" and so refute it), not a real concession; otherwise the word "equal" in "equal-immediately-antecedent" (which expresses preceding and succeeding being matched and equal, a single continuity) would be useless; and if "equal" did not exclude many-or-few but merely expressed sameness of kind, that would directly contradict your own clinging to "a different-kind consciousness as the equal-immediately-antecedent condition." Therefore each of the eight consciousnesses takes only its own kind as the clearing-the-way support — this alone deeply fits the teaching and the reasoning; one's own kind, preceding and succeeding, necessarily do not coexist, which exactly meets the requirement of the clearing-the-way support that it "not arise together." The clearing-the-way support of the mental factors is stated according to their mind-king: mind-king and mental factors, though of different kinds, arise together, yet they are mutually conjoined, harmonize as one, are fixed to arise and cease together, and their activity is necessarily identical; so when the mind-king clears the way, its conjoined mental factors clear the way at the same time, each in turn serving as the equal-immediately-antecedent condition for the other (because they harmonize as one); the eight consciousnesses are not like this (they do not harmonize as one), and so one cannot use the case of mind-king-and-mental-factors to argue the case of the eight consciousnesses. And the mental factors are not themselves the clearing-the-way support (in respect of a later dharma they have no "governing" function). Someone objects: if the equal-immediately-antecedent condition is in each case only one's own kind, then at the moment of "the initial transformation of the basis" of the seventh and eighth, the conjoined wholesome mental factors such as "trust" (which had no own-kind predecessor in the prior stage) would lack their equal-immediately-antecedent condition, contradicting the doctrine that "all minds and mental factors arise from four conditions." The answer: just as when the mental consciousness re-arises after mindless sleep or fainting its clearing-the-way support is still its "prior own kind (the just-ceased mental consciousness)," and the interrupted five consciousnesses are the same (linking their prior own kind across the interruption) — because in between there is "no own-kind mind intervening," it is still called "immediate," and the prior own-kind mind, in ceasing earlier, has already cleared the way for the present consciousness, so why trouble a different kind? (At the transformation of the basis, the equal-immediately-antecedent condition of "trust" and the rest is precisely the prior own-kind wholesome dharma-seeds rising into the active state — the own kind still links up.) As for the teachings saying "the six consciousnesses draw one another forth" and "the seventh and eighth come to be in dependence on the sixth and seventh," those are all said "with respect to the superior dominant condition," not the equal-immediately-antecedent condition (the dominant condition allows different kinds; the equal-immediately-antecedent condition is only own kind), and so there is no contradiction; and the Yogācārabhūmi's "the six consciousnesses are the equal-immediately-antecedent condition for the six consciousnesses, called the mind-faculty" is "general in word but particular in intent" (the text speaks generally of six answering six, but the intent takes each its own kind). So "own kind as the clearing-the-way support" deeply fits the teaching and the reasoning. With this the excursus is finished, and we return to the main text on the manas.

3. Return to the main argument — why "it turns in dependence on that" displays only the first two supports

Although the manas is fully equipped with all three supports, the verse "it turns in dependence on that" displays only the "first two supports (the causal support and the co-present support)," for three reasons: first, to show that the manas's support and its object are the same (both are the eighth — it rests on it and also takes it as object); second, the first two supports are "more conspicuous in function"; and third, the "clearing-the-way support" is in any case easy to understand (own kind being obvious, it need not be specially displayed).

C. The object — explaining "it takes that as object"

The object of the manas is the verse-phrase "it takes that as object." "That" refers to the consciousness it rests upon (the eighth, the store-consciousness); the teachings say the manas takes the store-consciousness as object and grasps it as "I." Here there are several views. One view: the manas takes the substance of the eighth together with its "conjoined dharmas (the contact and the other mental factors conjoined with the eighth)" and grasps them, in order, as "I" and "what is mine" (the mental factors are inseparable from the consciousness, so saying it takes the conjoined dharmas as object is like the term "consciousness-only" and does not contradict the teaching). Another view: the teachings nowhere say that the manas "takes contact and the rest as object," so one should say the manas takes only the seeing-portion and image-portion of the eighth and grasps them, in order, as "I" and "what is mine" (both seeing-portion and image-portion have consciousness as their substance, so this does not contradict the teaching). Another view: if it took the image-portion of the eighth (which includes the five matter-faculties, the container world, and other outer objects) there would be faults — taking an outer object it would be like the five consciousnesses, would be like the sixth taking a shared object, and one born in the formless realm would not grasp "what is mine" (the formless realm having no matter-image-portion); so one should say the manas takes only the "store-consciousness (its seeing-portion)" and its "seeds," grasping them, in order, as "I" and "what is mine" (the seeds being the capacity of the eighth, not a real thing, so this does not contradict the teaching).

The most ultimate correct view refutes all three of the foregoing. The seeds are not part of the consciousness-aggregate (taking the seeds as "what is mine" incurs the same fault as before), and moreover the treatise says the seeds are "really existent" (one cannot say "the seeds are mere capacity, not a real thing," for if the seeds were said to be provisional, a provisional dharma would amount to nothing and could not act as a causal condition — yet the seeds are a causal condition). And, more fundamentally: the "view of the self in the perishing aggregates (the self-view)" with which the manas is conjoined is spontaneous, of a single flavor, and constantly continuous — how could it admit of "separately grasping 'I' and 'what is mine'" as two? A single mind cannot take two objects such as "permanence" and "annihilation" and grasp both discriminatingly; nor can one say that the self-grasping and the mine-grasping arise successively — for the manas has from beginningless time turned of "a single flavor (constantly one)," with no separate prior-and-later grasping. So one should know: the manas takes only the seeing-portion of the store-consciousness as object and nothing else (not the substance of the consciousness, not the conjoined dharmas, not the image-portion, not the seeds) — because that seeing-portion, from beginningless time, "continues as one kind," seems "permanent" and seems "single," and constantly serves as the support of all dharmas, and so is the most fit to be grasped as "the inner self." It grasps only that seeing-portion as "the inner self"; where the treatise additionally mentions "what is mine," that is said by "following the momentum of the language," or it means "grasping it as 'my self'" (grasping it doubly as self), so that within the meaning of a "single self-view" the two words "I" and "what is mine" are spoken. The teachings in many places say only that the manas "has the self-view," and that the self-grasping and the mine-grasping do not arise together. The manas, "before the transformation of the basis," takes only the store-consciousness as object; "after the transformation of the basis (when it becomes the wisdom of equal-nature)" it also takes thusness and the remaining dharmas as object — because the wisdom of equal-nature realizes the "ten kinds of equal-nature," is able to know the differences in the aspirations of sentient beings, and manifests the various reflected images of the buddhas (its object turning broader). This passage of the treatise speaks just with respect to "before the transformation of the basis," and so says only "it takes that, the store-consciousness, as object"; deluded, its object is narrow, awakened, its object is broad — and so it ought to be. Someone asks: since the manas takes the eighth as its support, how can it also take the eighth as its object (taking its own support as object)? The answer: just as "a succeeding moment of consciousness" takes "the preceding mind (which is also its equal-immediately-antecedent support)" as object, and this is universally admitted, what fault is there in the manas taking its own support as object?

D. Essential nature and mode of activity — explaining "deliberating is its nature and its activity"

The verse-line "deliberating is its nature and its activity" displays at once the self-nature and the mode of activity of the manas: the manas has "deliberating" as its self-nature, and likewise uses this deliberating as its mode of activity (both nature and activity are deliberating). By this it also incidentally explains its alternative name — "the one that examines and deliberates" is what manas means. In "the stage before the transformation of the basis," it constantly and examiningly deliberates upon "the self-characteristic it grasps" (grasping a self); in "the stage after the transformation of the basis," it also examiningly deliberates upon "the characteristic of no-self" (realizing no-self) — which shows that the nature-and-activity of deliberating belongs to both delusion and awakening, only the object deliberated differs as "self" or "no-self."

E. The conjoined mental factors — the four root afflictions that never leave it for an instant

How many mental factors are conjoined with the manas? First, it is constantly co-present with "four kinds of affliction" ("co-present" meaning "conjoined"). From beginningless time until before the transformation of the basis, the manas spontaneously and constantly takes the store-consciousness as object and is conjoined with the "four root afflictions." Which four? "Self-delusion, self-view, self-conceit, and self-love." Self-delusion is "ignorance" — bewildered about the "self-characteristic," dark to "the principle of no-self." Self-view is "self-grasping" — falsely reckoning as a self the five aggregates that are fundamentally not a self. Self-conceit is "haughtiness" — leaning on the grasped self, it makes the mind exalt itself (raising itself and looking down on others). Self-love is "self-greed" — toward the grasped self it gives rise to deep attachment. The word "and" in the verse ("and self-conceit, self-love") expresses that the three — view, conceit, and love — can arise together, and is used to set aside the position of another school that "these three cannot be conjoined." These four constantly manifest and roil the inner mind, making the outer seven transforming consciousnesses constantly defiled; through this sentient beings revolve in birth-and-death and cannot get free — and so they are called "afflictions."

Someone asks: there are ten root afflictions; why does the manas have only four? The answer: since the manas already has "the self-view (the view of the self in the perishing aggregates)," the other four views (the extreme view, wrong view, view-grasping, and the grasping of rules and observances) do not arise — for "within a single mind there are not two discernments (a view being a defiled discernment)"; having the self-view, the other views do not arise. Someone asks again: why must the manas have "the self-view" (rather than some other view)? The answer: first, view-grasping, the grasping of rules and observances, and wrong view are all "discriminated (arisen through later conditioning), severed only on the path of seeing," whereas the afflictions conjoined with the manas are exclusively "innate (spontaneous from birth), severed on the path of cultivation," and so those views have no place in the manas. Second, "the view of what is mine, and the extreme view," both arise in dependence on "the self-view," whereas the view conjoined with the manas "does not arise in dependence on them" (the manas only grasps inwardly, does not take outer objects, does not grasp annihilation or permanence). Third, the manas constantly grasps inwardly at "there being a self," and so must have "the self-view." Further: because the self-view examines and decides (there is no hesitation), "doubt" cannot arise; and because of attachment to the self (self-love), "hatred" cannot be produced — and so the root afflictions conjoined with the manas are only these four. Someone asks again: how can the three — self-view, self-conceit, and self-love — arise together? The answer: their modes of activity do not conflict; what fault is there in their arising together? Someone asks again: the Yogācārabhūmi says "greed makes the mind sink, conceit makes the mind exalt itself" — does this not conflict (how can self-love and self-conceit arise together)? The answer: the "greed-sinking, conceit-exalting" conflict the Yogācārabhūmi speaks of is said with respect to the "discriminated, outer-object-taking, having-something-it-looks-down-on-and-leans-on, coarse" greed and conceit; whereas the self-conceit and self-love of the manas are "innate, inner-object-taking (inwardly taking the store-consciousness as object), leaning on one and the same self, subtle" — coarse and subtle being on different levels, so the two passages do not conflict in their doctrine.

Onward Transmission

What this section establishes — that the manas constantly and examiningly grasps a self, ever conjoined with the four afflictions — is the keystone on which the whole consciousness-only system founds its account of "the root of defilement," and the later treatises take it up one by one. The Hundred Dharmas treatise lists the manas as the seventh of the eight consciousness-dharmas, and places self-delusion, self-view, self-conceit, and self-love under the root afflictions of delusion, view, conceit, and greed. The Thirty Verses — verse five (the nature and characteristics of the manas) and the first half of verse six (the four afflictions) — is the very root-text this section expounds, verse answering to verse. The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on the obstructions, takes "self-grasping" as the root of the afflictive obstruction, which is just this section's manas grasping a self. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha establishes the name "defiled mentation" (kliṣṭa-manas) — precisely the manas serving as the "defiling support" that keeps the first six consciousnesses perpetually defiled. As for the Twenty Verses, its concern is to establish consciousness-only and refute the outsiders' real external objects, and it has no direct counterpart to the essential characteristics of the manas; here it is left aside.

〔Verses commented〕Continuing the previous chapter, unfolding verses 5–7

The previous chapter set out the manas's support, its object, its own-nature and its four afflictions. This one carries on through five gates: what mental factors accompany it besides the four afflictions, with what feeling it pairs, what moral nature it has, to which stage it is bound, and at what point it comes to rest. The debate over whether the manas can ever be undefiled, together with its three distinctions and the proof that a seventh consciousness exists, form the next chapter.

The gates settled here have their root in scripture and their ground in treatise. The Saṃdhinirmocana, in its chapter on mind, thought and consciousness, establishes the ādāna consciousness as "pursuing and appropriating the body"; the self that the manas grasps arises in dependence on that consciousness — which is why the gate of "bound according to where one is born" binds as it does. The treatise ground is the Yogācārabhūmi: "the ālaya consciousness at one time turns together with a single evolving consciousness only, namely the manas" — the warrant for the gate of concomitance; and "further, the mind-consciousness takes the defiled manas as its support; while that is unextinguished, the bondage of characteristic-discernment is not released; once the manas has been extinguished …" — which is precisely what this chapter's gate of "absent in three states" declares: while the manas persists the mind-consciousness stays bound, and when it goes the bondage is loosed. The many topics broadened here still have their root in scripture and their basis in treatise. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in its chapter on mind, mentation, and consciousness, speaks of an "appropriating consciousness" (ādāna-vijñāna) — one that "follows along and appropriates the body," sustaining the body and the life-faculty; and this section's "proof that the seventh truly exists" opens out from this sūtra when it adduces the scriptural passage on "the three distinct senses of mind, mentation, and consciousness" (accumulating-and-giving-rise is named mind, deliberating is named mentation, discerning is named consciousness), where "deliberating is named mentation" points precisely to this seventh. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra gives the image of "the store-consciousness as an ocean, stirred by the wind of objects into surging waves of the various consciousnesses," showing that manas is a consciousness that turns in dependence on the store-consciousness; the verse this section adduces in proving the seventh — "the store-consciousness is named mind; the nature of deliberating is named mentation; what discerns the features of objects is what is called consciousness" — comes from this sūtra. The Yogācārabhūmi, in turn, fixes manas as "perpetually associated with the four spontaneous afflictions (the view of the perishing aggregates, self-conceit, self-love, and the unshared ignorance), obscured-indeterminate, turning spontaneously" — which is the treatise-basis for this section's topic "obscured-indeterminate"; it further says that the store-consciousness "always turns together with one consciousness (manas), and when the mental consciousness arises two turn together, on up to seven turning together," which is the treatise-basis on which the topic "whether it can be undefiled" establishes that "the store-consciousness always turns together with one consciousness"; it further says that "the defiled manas serves as the support of the consciousnesses, and while it is unextinguished the feature-bondage is not freed, only when manas is extinguished is the feature-bondage liberated," which is the treatise-basis for the "feature-bondage" item among the six rational proofs; and it further posits a "supramundane manas," which is the treatise-basis for this section's "a supramundane manas is said to exist in scripture." What this section expounds has its scriptural root in the Saṃdhinirmocana and the Laṅkāvatāra, and its treatise-basis in the Yogācārabhūmi — and with that we follow the verse and open out each topic in turn.

A. What other mental factors accompany manas — settling the count

Are the only mental factors associated with manas those four afflictions? No. The verse says, "together with the rest — contact and so on." On the question of "how many more," the author of the treatise lists several positions and finally settles on one number.

First position: the mental factors are nine in all. That is, the four root afflictions plus "the rest" — meaning the five universals: contact, attention, feeling, perception, and volition. Manas is invariably associated with these five universals. (The word "the rest" carries a further purpose. Earlier it was said that contact and so on accompany the eighth consciousness and there belong to the unobscured-indeterminate category; here, lest someone mistakenly assume they are the same, the word "the rest" is added to mark the difference — the contact and so on that accompany manas are obscured. And the word "together" carries the sense of "gathering into a set," combining the prior four with these latter five into nine.) Why, then, does manas have no other mental factors? Take them one by one. "Aspiration" is hope set on something not yet accomplished; but manas spontaneously takes as its object what is already accomplished — perpetually grasping a self — so it hopes for nothing, and thus has no aspiration. "Resolve" is the firm holding of an object once doubted; but manas perpetually takes as its object something already settled, holding nothing under deliberation, and thus has no resolve. "Mindfulness" is the recollection of something formerly experienced; but manas perpetually takes the present as its object and does not turn to the past, and thus has no mindfulness. "Concentration" is single-pointed fixity on one object; but manas takes a distinct object moment by moment and is not single-pointed, and thus has no concentration. "Discernment" is its very "view of self" (the view of self has discernment as its substance), which is already counted among the four afflictions and is not posited again. The eleven wholesome factors have "purity" as their nature, but manas is a defiled consciousness, so the wholesome do not accompany it. The "secondary afflictions" are established only by reference to the before-and-after positional differences of the root afflictions; but manas is perpetually conjoined with the four afflictions as one continuous kind, with no positional variation, and thus has no secondary afflictions. "Regret" is remorse over a former deed, but manas perpetually takes the present as its object and does not regret former deeds, so there is none. "Drowsiness" needs bodily-mental torpor plus external conditions to arise even briefly, but manas is of one inward-grasping kind and depends on no external condition, so there is none. "Applied thought" and "sustained thought" both depend on an outward gate, calculating and giving rise to speech; but manas depends solely on an inward gate, grasping a self in one continuous kind, so neither accompanies it.

Someone refutes this first position. To read "the rest" as the five universals (making the factors nine) is wrong — because the verse elsewhere says manas is "subsumed under the obscured-indeterminate." If there were only nine factors, one could not establish any defiled secondary afflictions associated with that "obscured" quality, and so the "secondary afflictions that accompany manas" would be missing. Yet a root affliction must be accompanied by secondary afflictions. So this word "the rest" precisely points to "the secondary afflictions." The question then becomes: among the secondary afflictions, which ones pervade all defiled minds? Here again there are several positions.

Position: five secondary afflictions pervade all the defiled. The Abhidharma-samuccaya says that torpor, restlessness, lack of faith, indolence, and heedlessness — these five — are perpetually associated with every defiled state (for apart from the very natures of these five — unworkability and the rest — the quality of being defiled cannot be established; when an affliction arises, the mind being already defiled, these five must be present). As for the observation that "restlessness, though it pervades every defiled mind, is heightened in the position of craving, and so is elsewhere called a portion of craving" (just as drowsiness and regret, though they pervade the three moral qualities of wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate, are heightened in the position of delusion, and so are called a portion of delusion) — and as for the statements elsewhere that "the secondary afflictions, whether six or ten, pervade all defiled minds," those speak of pervasion in a special sense and not of actual pervasion. The "six" is said by taking three considerations that show together — coarse-and-subtle range of activity, a nature spanning the indeterminate and the unwholesome, and the capacity to obstruct concentration and discernment. The "ten" is said by reference to the separately posited count of twenty-two secondary afflictions, on the considerations of coarse-and-subtle range of activity and a nature spanning the two qualities. So the various statements do not conflict. On this position, the mental factors accompanying manas total fifteen: the prior nine, the five secondary afflictions, plus the object-specific factor "discernment" (although the view of self is subsumed under object-specific discernment, in the classification of the fifty-one mental factors the senses differ, so it is opened into two — counted both as the view of self and as object-specific discernment). Why are there no further factors? Because anger and the rest of the ten lesser secondaries are coarse and fierce in their activity, while manas is examining and subtle, so they do not accompany it; shamelessness and shamelessness-before-others are exclusively unwholesome, while manas is indeterminate, so they do not accompany it; distraction makes the mind run outward, while manas perpetually grasps inward and does not run out, so it does not accompany it; non-discernment arises as outward-gate activities that violate the proper course, while manas grasps only inward, so it does not accompany it; the remainder are as already explained.

Another position: six secondary afflictions pervade all the defiled. The Yogācārabhūmi says that lack of faith, indolence, heedlessness, forgetfulness, distraction, and faulty discernment pervade every defiled mind (for if forgetfulness, distraction, and faulty discernment were absent, the mind could not give rise to affliction — one must take a formerly experienced object with forgetfulness, and discriminate wrongly, before craving and the rest can arise; and when an affliction arises, the mind must drift, which is by way of distraction. As for torpor and restlessness, their modes of activity are mutually contrary, so it is not that every defiled mind can give rise to both; therefore they are not entered into this six). The position of "five factors pervading the defiled" takes a different grouping; the "ten pervading" is as before. On this position, the mental factors accompanying manas total nineteen: the prior nine, the six secondary afflictions, plus the three object-specific factors of mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, plus the one factor of torpor (mindfulness is posited separately on the same principle by which discernment was posited separately before; concentration is present because manas fixes single-pointedly on the one self it grasps, never letting it go; torpor is added because the ignorance accompanying manas is especially heavy, making the mind torpid; there is no restlessness, because restlessness is contrary to manas).

Another position: ten secondary afflictions pervade all the defiled. The Yogācārabhūmi says that heedlessness, restlessness, torpor, lack of faith, indolence, wrong aspiration, wrong resolve, wrong mindfulness, distraction, and non-discernment — these ten — pervade every defiled mind, span every stage, and are bound to the three realms (for without wrong aspiration and wrong resolve the mind cannot give rise to affliction — toward an experienced object one must desire union with the pleasant or separation from it, and firmly hold the appearance of the matter, before craving and the rest arise. As for "doubt," it hesitates about a principle but does not hesitate about a matter, so a mind associated with doubt still has resolve; if there were hesitation even about the matter, that would not be the affliction of doubt — like doubting whether a thing is a person or a tree-stump. The reason these two are not said elsewhere to pervade is that, when the condition is a non-cherished matter, within a doubt-associated mind the wrong aspiration and wrong resolve are not coarse and evident). On this position, the mental factors accompanying manas total twenty-four: the prior nine, the ten secondary afflictions, plus the five object-specific factors.

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) points out here that a single word "the rest" in the verse gives rise to the whole controversy, and that the foregoing positions in fact divide along two readings of that word: one reads it as "the rest beyond the four afflictions" (the position that the factors are nine), the other reads it as "the rest beyond contact and so on" (the positions that bring out the secondary afflictions). Among the several positions on the count of mental factors, the fourth alone is Dharmapāla's settled view, whose method is "first to reject all three prior positions in general, then to set forth the reasoning of his own school, then to conclude in summary," and the number it arrives at is eighteen.

Finally, the settled correct reading. None of the foregoing positions (nine, fifteen, nineteen, twenty-four) is fully reasoned. Take a hesitation such as "whether a future life exists or not" — where is there any feature of aspiration or resolve there? (So wrong aspiration and wrong resolve do not pervade — this refutes the ten-secondaries position.) When an affliction arises, if there were no torpor there would not necessarily be unworkability, and if there were no restlessness there would be no agitation — and then a defiled state would no more be established than a wholesome one (so torpor and restlessness ought to pervade — this refutes the six-secondaries position that expelled torpor and restlessness). If a defiled mind had no distraction it would not drift, and would not be established as defiled (so distraction pervades). And without lost-mindfulness and non-discernment, how could affliction be made present (so these two also pervade)? Therefore a defiled mind is always associated, in its arising, with eight secondary afflictions: torpor, restlessness, lack of faith, indolence, heedlessness, lost-mindfulness, distraction, and non-discernment. (If lost-mindfulness and non-discernment are taken to have "mindfulness" and "discernment" as their nature, they do not pervade the defiled mind — for it is not that every defiled mind takes a formerly experienced object or makes a discrimination; but if they are taken to have "ignorance" as their nature, then they do pervade the defiled mind in arising.) On this settled reading, the mental factors accompanying manas total eighteen: the prior nine, the eight secondary afflictions, plus the object-specific factor "discernment." Why the remaining factors do not accompany it, and how the three passages of the Yogācārabhūmi — "five," "six," "ten" — are to be reconciled, are as explained above. Stated this way, it neither violates reason nor violates scripture.

B. What kind of feeling manas pairs with

This defiled mind, manas, is associated with what feeling? One position holds it is associated only with "joy" (since it perpetually grasps a self inwardly, and from grasping the self there arises a delighted love). Someone refutes this: then joy would have to reach all the way up to the Peak of Existence, which contradicts the scriptural word (the upper realms have no joy). It should be said that manas pairs with "the four feelings," varying by stage — born into the evil destinies, with displeasure (taking as object the fruit of unwholesome deeds); born among humans, into the desire-heavens, and into the first two meditative absorptions, with joy (taking as object the fruit of wholesome deeds belonging to a joy-bearing stage); born into the third absorption, with pleasure (taking as object the fruit of wholesome deeds belonging to a pleasure-bearing stage); born into the fourth absorption and on up to the Peak of Existence, with equanimity (taking as object the fruit belonging to a purely equanimous stage). But the settled correct reading holds that "four feelings" is also wrong: manas is beginningless, spontaneous, of one continuous kind, perpetually taking as its object an inwardly grasped self without alteration, whereas those four feelings are feelings that vary by stage, and so are not associated with manas. Moreover, wherever manas differs in sense from the eighth consciousness, the treatise always states the difference separately; if it paired with the four feelings (unlike the eighth, which pairs only with equanimity), the treatise should have said so separately. Since it does not, one may settle that it is the same as the eighth — so the feeling associated with manas is equanimity alone. (After the transformation of the support, manas, like the eighth consciousness, pairs only with equanimity, turning spontaneously and evenly. Before the transformation it is associated with the defiled mental factors described above; once transformed, it arises together with only twenty-one mental factors — the five universals, the five object-specific, and the eleven wholesome.)

C. What moral quality manas has — obscured-indeterminate

What moral quality do manas and its mental factors have? They are "obscured-indeterminate," and nothing else. The four afflictions and the rest associated with it are defiled dharmas; they can obstruct the noble path and conceal one's own mind, so they are called "obscured." Yet they are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, so they are called "indeterminate." (Just as the afflictions of the upper two realms, being subdued under the force of concentration, also count as indeterminate, so too the defiled dharmas accompanying manas — because their support is subtle and they turn spontaneously — also count as indeterminate.) Once the support is transformed, manas is purely of wholesome quality.

D. In which stage manas is bound — bound according to where one is born

In which stage are manas and its mental factors bound? "It is bound to whichever stage it is born into." Born into the desire realm, the active manas and its factors are desire-realm-bound; and so on up to the Peak of Existence — because manas spontaneously and perpetually grasps as an inner self the store-consciousness of "its own stage" and does not take another stage as object, it is bound to its own stage. (Or one may explain it thus: manas is fettered by "the afflictions of that stage," and so is called "bound by that.") Once the support is transformed, it is bound to no stage at all (it has left the binding of the three realms).

E. At what point manas comes to rest — its absence in three states

This defiled manas continues beginninglessly; at what point is it "permanently cut off," and at what point "temporarily cut off"? The verse answers: "It is absent in the arhat, in the absorption of cessation, and on the supramundane path." "Arhat" comprehensively indicates the fruit of the adept stage across the three vehicles; in this state both the seeds and the active form of the defiled manas are permanently cut off, and so it is said to be "absent." In "the absorption of cessation of the learner stage and on the supramundane path," the defiled manas is temporarily subdued and quelled, and so it too is said to be "absent" (this is the temporary cutting-off). Why? The defiled manas is subtle, of one continuous kind, turning spontaneously; the contaminated path cannot subdue it. Only the noble path of the three vehicles (the uncontaminated) can subdue and quell it — because "true understanding of no-self" is contrary to self-grasping, and the "subsequently attained uncontaminated wisdom," which is its outflow, is likewise contrary to manas; both of these are uncontaminated and are together named "the supramundane path." The absorption of cessation is an outflow of the noble path and is utterly tranquil, so within that absorption the defiled manas also does not arise. But at the learner stage one has not yet permanently cut off its seeds, so after emerging from the absorption of cessation or from the noble path it becomes active again, until the seeds are exhausted. The afflictions associated with manas (the four afflictions) are "innate," and so are not "abandoned by the path of seeing"; and because they are defiled, neither are they "not to be abandoned." They are so subtle that their seeds must be cut off all at once together with "the very lowest grade of affliction of the Peak-of-Existence stage" (the two being of equal force) — when the "adamantine-like absorption" appears, it cuts off this seed all at once and one becomes an arhat; from then on, at the adept stage, it never arises again. (When an adept of the two vehicles turns his mind toward the Great Vehicle, then from the first generation of the aspiration until he has not yet become a buddha he is in truth a bodhisattva, yet is also called an arhat, because the sense of "worthy" is equally applicable; so the verse's word "arhat" already subsumes him, and he is not stated separately.)

Onward Transmission

The gates of the manas settled here — its accompanying secondary afflictions, its single equanimous feeling, its obscured-indeterminate nature, its binding to the stage of birth, its suppression in three states — are taken up in turn by the later treatises. The Hundred Dharmas lists the manas as the seventh of the mind-dharmas, and it is this consciousness's concomitance and phases that are settled here. Verses 5–7 of the Thirty Verses are the root verses this chapter expounds. The Madhyāntavibhāga, in its chapter on obstructions, makes the view of self the root of the obstruction to the knowable; this chapter's "obscured-indeterminate" states exactly how it veils the noble path while being neither wholesome nor unwholesome. The Mahāyānasaṃgraha, in its chapter on the knowable ground, shows the defiled thought as the support of defilement — the complement of this chapter's gate of the three states: there its role as support, here the stages at which it can be cut.

〔Verses commented〕Continuing: the residual sense of verse 7, and the proof of a seventh consciousness

The dispute taken up here has explicit warrant. The Yogācārabhūmi raises the question: "As the World-Honoured One speaks of a supramundane manas, how is it established? Answer: it is a name provisionally set down, not necessarily to be taken according to its sense. Further, because it counteracts that, being right deliberation that has left inversion behind." Since the World-Honoured One does speak of a supramundane manas, the manas is not defiled only — which is the treatise ground for this chapter's "pervading the defiled and the undefiled." The treatise further says that "the store consciousness turns together, invariably, with one consciousness, namely the manas"; were the manas wholly absent at the arhat stage, the store consciousness would have no consciousness turning with it, which will not stand — and that is one of the six rational grounds. What follows unfolds the two gates, of scripture and of reason.

A. Whether manas can ever be undefiled — a debate over scripture and reason

Is manas forever defiled? One position holds: manas accompanies only the hindrance of affliction (it is perpetually defiled, with no undefiled manas) — because scripture says manas is absent in the three states, and says it is perpetually associated with the four afflictions, and says it is "the support of the defilement of the consciousnesses." The settled correct reading holds that this contradicts both scripture and reason, for a "supramundane manas (a pure manas)" is said to exist in scripture. The reasons form a chain.

An undefiled mental consciousness (the sixth at the supramundane stage), just as in its defiled phase, must have an "innate, exclusive support" (that is, the seventh); therefore at the supramundane stage there must be a pure manas serving as the support of the sixth. The treatise says, "the store-consciousness always turns together with exactly 'one consciousness,' namely manas; when the mental consciousness arises, two consciousnesses turn together; when one of the five sense consciousnesses arises along with it, three turn together; and on up to when all five arise at once, seven turn together." If there were no seventh in the absorption of cessation, then at that time the store-consciousness would have "no one consciousness turning with it," contradicting "always turns together with one consciousness." And if there were no seventh on the noble path, then when the mental consciousness arises the store-consciousness would have "only one consciousness" with it — how then could one say "when the mental consciousness arises the store-consciousness invariably turns with two consciousnesses"? The Āryadeśanā-vikhyāpana (the Xianyang treatise) says manas is perpetually associated with the four afflictions, "or conversely associated (turning from defiled to pure)," with self-elevation or evenness as its mode of activity — which shows that manas spans the defiled and the undefiled.

Further: if, because the treatise says "in the arhat state there is no defiled manas," one inferred there is no seventh, then one ought equally, because the treatise says "in the arhat state one relinquishes the ālaya (in name)," to infer there is no eighth. Since the eighth does not lack its substance merely by the relinquishing of the name, how could the seventh lack its substance merely by the absence of the defiled manas? Again: the treatises say "by transforming the seventh consciousness one attains the wisdom of equality"; this wisdom, like every other wisdom, must have a supporting "associated pure consciousness," and if there were no seventh this wisdom would not exist (the dependent cannot stand apart from its support). Nor can it be said to depend on the six evolving consciousnesses, for it is already granted that the buddha's wisdom of equality "operates perpetually" (like the great-mirror wisdom), whereas the six evolving consciousnesses are intermittent and cannot serve as the support of a perpetually operating wisdom. Again: if at the adept stage there were no seventh, the eighth would have "no co-existing support," yet the eighth must have a co-existing support (like the other consciousnesses). Again: just as in one who has not realized "the selflessness of persons" the grasping at a personal self operates perpetually, so in one who has not realized "the selflessness of dharmas" the grasping at a dharma-self ought also to operate perpetually; if there were no seventh, on what consciousness would this grasping at a dharma-self arise? It cannot arise on the eighth (the eighth has no "discernment"). Therefore one should believe: in the two vehicles' noble path, absorption of cessation, and adept stage, this seventh consciousness still operates perpetually (giving rise to grasping at a dharma-self), because they have not realized the selflessness of dharmas. Again: the treatises use "the five sense consciousnesses, being alike in dharma (each having its own exclusive co-existing support)" to prove that there is a seventh serving as the support of the sixth; if on the noble path and at the adept stage there were no seventh serving as the sixth's support, then the thesis and the reason so established would both incur a fault. Otherwise the five sense consciousnesses too would at times have no support — yet the five sense consciousnesses always have a support, and the sixth should be likewise. Therefore there must be an "undefiled manas," perpetually arising and present in these three states; and when the verse says "absent in three states," it is said with reference to the "defiled manas" (it does not say the substance of the seventh is absent) — just as when it is said "the ālaya is absent in four states," it means the name is absent, not that the substance of the eighth is absent.

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) at this point also records two readings of the Yogācārabhūmi's remark that "the supramundane manas is a designation only, not necessarily to be taken in the literal sense." On one reading, the manas of the supramundane stage no longer deliberates (it knows spontaneously, without coarse or scattered discernment), and since it no longer deliberates it ought not to be called "manas" at all — so this "supramundane manas" is confined to the contaminated and does not extend to the uncontaminated. On another reading, taking the Yogācārabhūmi's line "because it has left distortion behind and deliberates rightly," it is granted that this supramundane manas does extend to the uncontaminated. The Notes records both neutrally, passing no judgment on which of the two readings is correct.

B. The three distinctions of manas

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) signals the connective thread of this topic: the foregoing treatment of "subduing and cutting off in the three states" being now complete, here the discourse turns upon "the sense of the causal vehicle," opening out the three distinctions of manas from the side of "its positional modes of activity."

The distinctions of manas are, in brief, three: associated with the view of a personal self, associated with the view of a dharma-self, and associated with the wisdom of equality. The first runs through all ordinary beings, the learners of the two vehicles, and the bodhisattvas of one kind up to and including the seventh stage in their contaminated mental phases — taking the ālaya-vijñāna as object, it gives rise to the view of a personal self. The second runs through all ordinary beings, the disciples, the solitary realizers, and all bodhisattvas in those phases where "the fruit of the wisdom of dharma-emptiness is not present" — taking the consciousness-of-maturation as object, it gives rise to the view of a dharma-self. The third runs through all the tathāgatas, and the bodhisattvas in the phases of the path of seeing and the path of cultivation where "the fruit of the wisdom of dharma-emptiness is present" — taking the immaculate consciousness, the consciousness-of-maturation, and the like as object, it gives rise to the wisdom of equality.

When the view of a personal self arises, the view of a dharma-self must be simultaneously present, because grasping at a personal self must arise in dependence on grasping at a dharma-self — just as on a dark night one first mistakes a thing for a "tree-stump" (the dharma-grasping), and only then falsely calls it a "person" (the person-grasping). The two views, person and dharma, though distinct in function, are not mutually contrary and rest together on "one discernment" — just as the eye consciousness, single in substance, can discern the many — blue, yellow, and so on — in many functions without contradiction. The learners of the two vehicles, when the noble path or the absorption of cessation is present; the bodhisattvas of sudden realization, in the path of cultivation; and the learners of gradual realization, when "the fruit of the wisdom of person-emptiness is present" — all give rise to dharma-grasping alone (person-grasping having been subdued). The adepts of the two vehicles, and those of gradual realization, when "the fruit of the wisdom of dharma-emptiness is not present," likewise give rise to dharma-grasping alone (person-grasping having been cut off). In the bodhisattvas of the eighth stage and above, self-grasping never again becomes active (whether cut off or perpetually subdued), but when "the fruit of the wisdom of dharma-emptiness is not present" they still give rise to dharma-grasping, and the two are not mutually contrary — as scripture says, "from the eighth stage and above all afflictions no longer become active; there remains only the supporting hindrance to the knowable," and this hindrance to the knowable is "active" and not merely "seed" (the seeds are not yet cut off, only no longer active).

The manas that accompanies dharma-grasping, although in the two vehicles and the like it is named "undefiled" (it does not obstruct the wisdom they seek), is in the bodhisattva named "defiled" (it obstructs the bodhisattva's wisdom of dharma-emptiness), and so with respect to the bodhisattva it too is called "obscured-indeterminate"; with respect to the two vehicles it is called "unobscured" (it does not obstruct their wisdom). It is subsumed under "maturation-born" (it arises perpetually from the consciousness-of-maturation, and so is named maturation-born — though it is not the true fruit of maturation; this name is broadly applicable, just as "the dominant condition" subsumes whatever the other three conditions do not, so that whatever a distinct category fails to subsume is entered into this subsumption).

C. How it is proved that a seventh consciousness truly exists — scripture and six rational proofs

How do we know that the seventh consciousness has its own substance, distinct from the eye consciousness and the rest? By scripture and by reason.

Scriptural authority. The World-Honored One, in scripture after scripture, sets forth the three distinct senses of "mind, mentation, and consciousness" — "accumulating-and-giving-rise" is named mind, "deliberating" is named mentation, and "discerning" is named consciousness. Although these three senses run through all eight consciousnesses, the names are assigned according to which sense is preeminent in each: the eighth is named "mind" (it accumulates the seeds of all dharmas and gives rise to all dharmas); the seventh is named "mentation" (taking the store-consciousness as object, it perpetually examines and deliberates, grasping a self); the remaining six are named "consciousness" (over the six kinds of object they discern coarsely, movingly, and intermittently). A verse of the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra says: "The store-consciousness is named mind; the nature of deliberating is named mentation; what discerns the features of objects is what is called consciousness." Moreover, the Great Vehicle scriptures in place after place separately speak of a seventh consciousness (the Great Vehicle scriptures are scriptures of perfect authority, as already shown at length). The Vimokṣa-sūtra also speaks of it separately, with a verse: "The defiled mentation, perpetually, arises and ceases together with the afflictions; if it is liberated from the afflictions, then it is neither past nor to come." That scripture explains itself: there is a defiled mentation that from beginninglessness perpetually arises and ceases together with the four afflictions of the view of self, love of self, conceit of self, and delusion of self; when the counteracting path arises and the afflictions are cut off, this mentation attains liberation; at that time the afflictions associated with it are not only absent in the present but also absent in past and future (past and future have no own-being). Scriptural passages of this kind are found in all the schools and are not exhaustively recounted here.

Reason (six proofs).

One — the proof from the non-common ignorance. Scripture says there is a "non-common ignorance," subtle and perpetually operating, veiling the truth; if there were no seventh consciousness, it could not be established. In all phases the ordinary being perpetually gives rise to "the non-common ignorance that is deluded about principle," veiling the truth and obstructing the noble eye of wisdom (a verse says: "When the mind of true meaning is about to arise, that which is always its obstacle, operating together in all phases, is the non-common ignorance"); and so scripture says the ordinary being perpetually dwells in the long night, blinded by ignorance, never once awake. If there were a time, in the ordinary state, when this ignorance temporarily did not arise, that would contradict scripture; and it would also be unreasonable for ignorance, within one and the same ordinary state, to operate at some moments and not at others (it must operate perpetually). This perpetually operating ignorance cannot be established as resting on the prior six consciousnesses — the six are intermittent, whereas this ignorance must defile perpetually. If one grants a manas (to serve as its support), this fault does not arise.

Someone objects: manas is perpetually associated with the four afflictions; how then can the ignorance that accompanies it be called "non-common"? One position answers: the view of self, conceit, and love that accompany manas are not root afflictions (only ignorance is a root), and so this ignorance may be called non-common. The settled reading refutes this: it contradicts both reason and scripture — for in the category of pure secondary afflictions these three are not listed; these three are subsumed under the six roots, or the ten afflictions (they are roots); and everywhere it is said that manas is perpetually associated with the four root afflictions. It should rather be said that among the four afflictions "ignorance is the chief," and although the three arise together with it, ignorance is still named "non-common" (from beginninglessness it is perpetually inwardly deluded, never once examined, delusion being preeminent). (Then are the view and the rest that accompany it also called non-common when each is preeminent? Granting that they too may be called non-common when preeminent is no fault.) Another explanation: "this delusion is called non-common" in the way "the non-common qualities of a buddha" are so called — that is, this consciousness alone possesses it. Someone objects: then the afflictions associated with the other consciousnesses, which this consciousness lacks, should also be called non-common. Answer: the name "non-common" is assigned by the consideration of preeminence, not because whatever is mutually absent is called non-common — the ignorance associated with the seventh operates perpetually from beginninglessness and can obstruct the wisdom of true meaning, and this preeminent function belongs to this consciousness alone, so it is called non-common. (Then should the three that accompany it also be called non-common? With ignorance as the chief it alone obtains this name; or perhaps the three may also be called non-common, but in order to distinguish "the delusion shared with craving and the rest in the other consciousnesses," ignorance is for now singled out.) In sum, "non-common ignorance" is of two kinds: "perpetually operating non-common" (which the other consciousnesses lack — namely the one associated with manas) and "solitary non-common" (which this consciousness lacks — the one arising alone). And so the Yogācārabhūmi speaks of two kinds of ignorance — the one accompanying craving and the rest, called "associated ignorance," and the one not accompanying craving and the rest, called "solitary ignorance." The solitary ignorance that is preeminent is abandoned only by the path of seeing (scripture says the learner's non-common ignorance is permanently cut off and creates no new karma); the solitary ignorance that is not preeminent is also abandoned by the path of cultivation (anger and the rest span the paths of seeing and cultivation). "Perpetually operating non-common" is lacking in the other schools (only the Great Vehicle posits it); "solitary non-common" is found in both the Great and the Lesser Vehicle.

Two — the proof from "mentation and dharmas as conditions giving rise to the mental consciousness." Scripture says that eye and form as conditions give rise to the eye consciousness, and on up to "mentation and dharmas as conditions give rise to the mental consciousness"; if there were no seventh, the "mentation (the faculty)" that serves as the condition for the arising of the mental consciousness would be missing. Just as the five sense consciousnesses must have the eye and so on as their "dominant, exclusive, co-existing" supports (the five faculties), the mental consciousness, belonging likewise to the six consciousnesses, ought in principle to have such a support too; and if there were no seventh, where would its support come from? It cannot be said that "form" is the support of the mental consciousness (mentation is not form); otherwise the mental consciousness would have to lack the two discriminations of "recollection" and "calculation" (whereas it truly has them). Nor can one reverse the case and say "the five sense consciousnesses have no co-existing support," for the five sense consciousnesses turn simultaneously with the five faculties (like seed and sprout, like form and shadow); since consciousness and faculty must share an object, it is just as mind and mental factors are necessarily simultaneous (so the faculty is a simultaneous co-existing support). Hence the commonly granted mental consciousness, like the eye consciousness and the rest, must have an "exclusive support that displays its own name and place" as its co-existing support; this support is not of the category "the immediately antecedent condition" (which is the prior moment of mentation) but is a "dominant, generating" support — because the mental consciousness is subsumed under one of the six consciousnesses (and this support is the seventh).

Three — the proof from "deliberating is named mentation." Scripture says "deliberating is named mentation"; if there were no seventh, this "mentation that deliberates" would be missing. If one takes "the mental consciousness" to be it: when it is present, the "prior moment of mentation" that served as its immediately antecedent support has already ceased and is no longer present, while past and future are not real — and so the function of "deliberating" cannot be established (there is no perpetually present mentation conducting the deliberating); this being so, how could one say "deliberating is named mentation"? If one says this "mentation" is a designation (posited in dependence on the already-ceased prior moment), that too is wrong — without a "true deliberating (substance)," on what is the designation posited? If one says it is posited in dependence on "a deliberating that was present (the active mental consciousness)," then at that time it is properly named "consciousness (discerning)" — how could it be named "mentation (deliberating)"? Therefore one should know there is a distinct seventh, manas, perpetually examining and deliberating, which is properly named "mentation"; and "the already-ceased prior moment of the sixth" is designated "mentation" by borrowing the name of the seventh.

Four — the proof from the distinction between the two absorptions, the no-perception absorption and the absorption of cessation. Scripture says the no-perception absorption and the absorption of cessation are distinct; if there were no "defiled mentation," these two absorptions would have to be without distinction. Both absorptions extinguish the prior six consciousnesses and their mental factors, and are identical in substance and number (their outer appearance is the same); if there were no defiled mentation (to serve as the cause of their difference), then since the two absorptions (one with defiled mentation, one without) are not so distinguished — one having it and one not — by what could they be told apart? If one says they are distinguished by "the preparatory effort, the realm, the stage, the support," and the like, that too is wrong — for the very "cause" of those distinctions is precisely the presence or absence of "defiled mentation"; if the presence or absence of defiled mentation were itself absent, the cause of those distinctions would be gone too. Therefore there must be a distinct "defiled mentation" (serving as the fundamental difference of the two absorptions).

Five — the proof from self-grasping in the no-perception beings. Scripture says that in the no-perception beings, for the span of one life, the mind and mental factors (the prior six) are all extinguished; if there were no seventh, they would have to be without defilement (self-grasping). For the long span of that life they lack the six evolving consciousnesses; if there were no manas, self-grasping would be gone — yet what sense is there in "an ordinary being fully bound by the afflictions, having no self-grasping at all for an entire life"? If he had no self-grasping he would be like one in nirvāṇa (free of grasping), and then he should not be jointly censured and turned away from by the noble and the worthy (yet the no-perception heaven is in fact censured and turned away from). (If one says "self-grasping is present at the first moment of entering and the last moment of emerging from the no-perception state," there is no fault — but the fault remains for "the long middle span" where it is absent; if one offers "the self-grasping of past and future" to cover it, past and future are neither present nor permanent, equivalent to nothing, and the fault remains; if "the fruit obtained (the fruit of self-grasping)" is absent, then "what obtains it" is absent too; to take a non-concurrent formations as the support has been refuted before, and to take the perfuming of the store-consciousness as the support — this very thesis posits no seventh, so there is no perfuming of self-grasping in the store-consciousness, and so no perfuming at all; and that some other dharma is perfumed has already been argued to be unreasonable.) Therefore there must be a distinct defiled manas, perpetually giving rise to self-grasping in the no-perception heaven — and it is precisely for this that the noble and the worthy jointly censure and turn away from that heaven.

Six — the proof that the minds of the three moral qualities perpetually carry self-grasping. Scripture says that when an ordinary being gives rise to a mind of any of the three qualities — wholesome, defiled, or indeterminate — it perpetually carries self-grasping; if there were no seventh, this perpetually carried self-grasping would be missing. When the ordinary being's mind of the three qualities is operating, though it gives rise outwardly to various kinds of action, inwardly it perpetually grasps a self; and because of this self-grasping, the giving and the rest performed by the six consciousnesses cannot "let go of features" (be free of the features of grasper and grasped, and so become pure). And so the Yogācārabhūmi says, "The defiled manas is the support of the (prior six) consciousnesses; while it is unextinguished, 'the bondage of feature-discerning' is not liberated, and only when manas is extinguished is the feature-bondage liberated" — "feature-bondage" meaning the inability to understand the dreamlike nature of the features of objects, being bound by the perceiving-aspect and the perceived-aspect and not free. A verse says: "This defiled mentation is the support of the consciousnesses; while this mentation is unextinguished, the bondage of the consciousnesses is never undone." Again: when a wholesome or unobscured-indeterminate mind arises, if there were no self-grasping (perpetually accompanying it), these minds ought not to be "contaminated" — because within one's own continuum the affliction and the wholesome and the rest of the six consciousnesses do not arise together (the affliction of the six is intermittent and cannot sustain the contaminatedness of the wholesome and the rest); and to say it is by "the bondage of afflictive conditions in past and future" is also wrong (past and future are not real); it is not that "another's continuum's affliction" makes one's own contaminated (otherwise another's liberation should make one's own uncontaminated); nor can it be said that "there is some latent tendency that is a non-concurrent formations, manifesting in the continuum and making the wholesome and the rest contaminated" (the non-concurrent formations is not real, as already granted); nor can it be said "they are contaminated because produced from a contaminated seed" (that seed has no prior "cause" by which it could become contaminated); it is not that a contaminated seed makes them contaminated (otherwise the learner's uncontaminated mind would have to become contaminated too). In truth, what makes the contaminated contaminated is that it arises and ceases together with "the actively present affliction of one's own person," the two mutually augmenting (this perpetually accompanying active affliction being precisely the self-grasping of manas); from this a contaminated seed is perfumed and later becomes active again, and only thus is the sense of "contaminated" established — for the ordinary being, and for the learner alike; as for the adept, his contaminated states, though not accompanied by an outflow, arise from a previously contaminated seed and so are contaminated, with no violation of reason. Therefore it is "manas perpetually giving rise to self-grasping" that establishes the contaminated sense of the wholesome and the rest; and if this manas were absent, that contaminated sense would surely be absent — by which one knows there is a distinct seventh consciousness.

The reasons proving the existence of a seventh consciousness are many; here, following the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, six have been set forth in brief, and the wise should accordingly believe and study. As for the scriptures that speak only of "six consciousnesses," it should be understood that this is the "expedient teaching that accords with the occasion," or that it counts six consciousnesses in accordance with the six faculties; in discussing the kinds of consciousness, there are in truth eight.

Onward Transmission

The various remaining topics of manas established here — the secondary afflictions that accompany it, its pairing with equanimity alone, its obscured-indeterminate quality, its being bound according to where one is born, its subduing and cutting off in the three states, its spanning the defiled and the undefiled, its three distinctions, and its having a substance of its own — are taken up by the later treatises each according to its own topic. The Hundred Dharmas treatise, among the secondary afflictions, lists torpor, restlessness, lack of faith, indolence, heedlessness, lost-mindfulness, distraction, and non-discernment — precisely the eight secondaries this section settles as "pervading the defiled mind and accompanying manas"; and among the object-specific factors it lists "discernment," which is just the view of self of manas, said here to have discernment as its substance. The Thirty Verses — the second half of verse six, "together with the rest, contact and so on," and verse seven, "subsumed under the obscured-indeterminate; bound according to where one is born; absent in the arhat, the absorption of cessation, and on the supramundane path" — is the very root-text this section expounds, verse answering to verse. The Madhyānta-vibhāga takes it up in two places: in its chapter on the obstructions, it makes the four afflictions the root of defilement and manas their perpetual companion, which is the very root of the afflictive obstruction; and in its chapter on characteristics, in clarifying false discrimination, manas grasping a self makes the giving and the rest unable to let go of features — which is just this sense. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its chapter on the support of the knowable, establishes the name "defiled mentation," clarifying the sense in which manas serves as the defiling support; and the six rational proofs by which this section proves the seventh, "following the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, set forth in brief," are themselves carried over from the six rational proofs of the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha. As for the Twenty Verses, its concern is to establish consciousness-only and refute the outsiders' real external objects, and it has no direct counterpart to the remaining topics, the three states, or the proof of manas; here it is left aside.

Having finished with the Second Transformation—the deliberating transformation, the manas—we now come to the Third Transformation. This Third Transformation is the set we know most intimately: the first six consciousnesses—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Following the verse, this section first treats their "aspect": how the six consciousnesses are given their names, why each is said to "have discerning objects for its nature and for its aspect," which of the three moral qualities—wholesome, unwholesome, indeterminate—they run through, and finally a side-debate among the old masters: whether the three moral qualities of the six consciousnesses can actually arise simultaneously. As for the long train of mental factors they associate with (the universals, the object-specific factors, the wholesome, the afflictions, the secondary afflictions, and the indeterminate), although the verse names them here at the outset, their detailed treatment is held over to the following sections.

The setting-up of the first six consciousnesses has its roots in scripture and treatise alike. The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, in its chapter on mind, mentation, and consciousness, plainly says that it is in dependence on the "appropriating consciousness" (ādāna-vijñāna), as their basis and their establishment, that the six bodies of consciousness can turn—the eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-consciousnesses; and that when a single eye-consciousness turns, only one "discriminating mind-consciousness" turns together with it, sharing its sphere and its object, and likewise when two, three, four, or five bodies of consciousness turn together, only this one discriminating mind-consciousness turns sharing their sphere. This is precisely the scriptural basis both for the setting-up of the first six consciousnesses and for the "mind-consciousness that accompanies the five" (the discriminating mind-consciousness that turns simultaneously with the five, upon the same object). The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra makes the point from the other side: the first five consciousnesses "cannot discern the self-nature of forms and the rest," and so the five bodies of consciousness arise to discern form and the rest; and it says that "as for the five bodies of consciousness, mind, mentation, and mind-consciousness arise together, and the wholesome and unwholesome transform and dissolve into one another, flowing on in succession"—which both shows that the five consciousnesses have "discerning objects" for their work, and shows that the five run through both wholesome and unwholesome, the scriptural basis for the six consciousnesses running through the three qualities. As for the treatise-basis, the Yogācārabhūmi fixes the eye-consciousness as "resting on the eye and discerning form," and fixes that "consciousness is just the present discerning of the object-field taken as object" (this is the treatise-basis for "discerning objects as nature-and-aspect"); it also says that the mind-consciousness, beyond the other consciousnesses, "has superior operations," being able to "discriminate its object and deliberate upon its object," and on up to rousing the karmas of body and speech, freeing itself from desire, cutting off and re-continuing the wholesome roots (this is the treatise-basis for the mind-consciousness running through all dharmas while the five merely discern objects); and its Section on Ascertainment further says that "in the six bodies of consciousness, the wholesome, unwholesome, and other qualities are to be found" (the treatise-basis for the six consciousnesses running through the three qualities), and that "the four kinds of operation—discerning the container, the basis, the self, and the object—are to be found turning together moment by moment" (the treatise-basis for the consciousnesses turning together and the three qualities being able to co-occur). What Dharmapāla's woven commentary expounds in this section has its scriptural root in the Saṃdhinirmocana and the Laṅkāvatāra, and its treatise-basis in the Yogācārabhūmi—and so, following the verse, we open the exposition below.

A. How the Six Consciousnesses Are Named—Naming by Faculty and Naming by Object

After the "deliberating transformation" (the Second Transformation, the manas), we should now clarify the aspect of the "object-discerning transforming consciousness." "Object-discerning transformation" simply means the consciousness that discerns objects. The differentiations of this consciousness come to six in all, because it differs in kind as it follows the six faculties and the six object-fields, each distinct.

1. Naming by Faculty—Complete in Five Senses

Why exactly six consciousnesses, no more and no fewer? Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) explains: the faculties and the object-fields each have six distinctions, and the consciousness turns following the differences of faculty and object-field, so the kinds of consciousness are "not a matter of arbitrary number, nor a separately posited count"—they answer precisely to the six faculties and six object-fields, and so come to six.

The first way of naming is called "naming by faculty": the one that rests on the eye-faculty is the eye-consciousness, the one that rests on the ear-faculty is the ear-consciousness, and so on, up to the one that rests on the mind (the mind-faculty), which is the mind-consciousness. Kuiji's Notes points out that these six consciousnesses in fact also rest upon the six object-fields, yet a name is taken preferentially from the "faculty" because "the faculty prevails over the object-field upon it (the faculty's force surpasses the object's)," and so the name is taken from the faculty. Why can a name be taken from the faculty in this way? Because a consciousness stands to its faculty in five distinct senses—first, it depends on the faculty (the consciousness arises by leaning on the faculty); second, it issues from the faculty (the consciousness is generated and set in motion by the faculty); third, it belongs to the faculty (the consciousness is bound to and owned by the faculty); fourth, it assists the faculty (the consciousness is able to support the faculty); and fifth, it resembles the faculty (the consciousness conforms to and is like the faculty). Kuiji's Notes spells out these five senses word for word as "resting on the faculty, issuing from the faculty, belonging to that faculty, assisting that faculty, resembling that faculty"—all five fastened to the "faculty," and so the name is taken from the faculty.

Someone might object: all six consciousnesses in fact turn in dependence on "mind" (the manas), so why single out the sixth and call it the "mind-consciousness," as though it alone depended on mind? The answer: this is said with respect to what is not shared. The first five consciousnesses each have their own unshared material faculty (the eye-consciousness rests only on the eye-faculty, the ear-consciousness only on the ear-faculty); and what the sixth consciousness rests on uniquely—what it does not share with any other consciousness—is precisely the mind-faculty. So, following this layer of non-sharing, the sixth is called the "mind-consciousness," exactly as the first five are called eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, and so forth after each one's own unshared material faculty. The names do not become confused (there is no fault of "names running together").

One may also put it from another angle: the sixth consciousness rests on "mind" (the mind-faculty) and on it alone, and so it is called the mind-consciousness. But note carefully: this is said specifically to settle how the consciousness (the vijñāna) gets its name. "Mind" in the sense of the eighth (citta) and "mind" in the sense of the seventh (manas) each get their names by their own logic, and do not follow this "naming by faculty" rule.

2. Naming by Object—Following the Root Meaning of "Consciousness"

The second way of naming is called "naming by object": the six consciousnesses may also be called the form-consciousness, the sound-consciousness, and so on, up to the dharma-consciousness. This follows the root meaning of the word "consciousness"—consciousness has, by its very meaning, the discerning of objects, and so a name is taken from the object it discerns. How does the naming follow the object? Whatever discerns upon the six object-fields is called a "consciousness": the first five (form-consciousness and the rest) can discern only their respective five object-fields (form and so on), while the "dharma-consciousness" (that is, the mind-consciousness) is able to discern all dharmas without restriction; or one may say that because the mind-consciousness is able (on its own) to discern the "dharma" object-field, it alone receives the name "dharma-consciousness." The six names taken in this way, after the object, likewise do not run together.

This "naming by object," however, comes with a precondition: it is said for the time when the five material faculties have not yet attained mastery. Once mastery has been attained (as with the buddhas, the realized stages), the faculties can serve one another's functions—a single faculty can then give rise to consciousness and take hold of every object-field. At that point one can no longer name "by object" (because if one faculty cognizes all object-fields, the names would fall into confusion), and one can only name "by faculty," which still keeps the names from running together. The holy teaching confirms this layer too: the Sūtrālaṃkāra says that "in the Tathāgata's case, each of the five faculties turns upon all five object-fields"—and that is said with respect to the coarse, manifest, same-kind object-field (not that it can cognize only its own native kind); the Buddhabhūmi-sūtra says that "the wisdom of accomplishing what is to be done can discriminate the manifold differences in sentient beings' mental conduct, can rouse the transformations of the three karmas of body, speech, and mind, and can perform the four kinds of declaration"—and these functions could not be carried out unless one faculty were able to cognize all object-fields across the board. So we can see that, after mastery is attained, the mutual functioning of the faculties—one faculty cognizing all-round—has the holy teaching as its warrant.

As for the "basis" and the "object-condition" of the six consciousnesses: because these are so coarse and manifest, and everyone acknowledges them, they are not separately set out in detail here. Earlier, where the wording made it convenient, the "basis" has already been spoken of; and this "object-condition" is likewise held over to a later place where the sense makes it convenient.

B. What "Discerning Objects as Nature-and-Aspect" Means

The verse's line "discerning objects for its nature and aspect" points out, in a single stroke, both sides of the six consciousnesses—their "self-nature" and their "mode of activity." The six consciousnesses have the discerning of objects for their self-nature, and they likewise use this very discerning of objects as their mode of activity (both self-nature and mode of activity come to rest on "discerning objects"). And this one line also incidentally explains the distinct names set up above—it is precisely because the consciousness "is able to discern objects" that it is called a "consciousness."

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) parses this line as a "twofold gate of essence and aspect": the word "discern" reaches to the side of "self-nature," and this self-nature is the consciousness's "self-witnessing portion"; while the side of the "mode of activity" is the consciousness's "perceiving portion," which has the grasping of the object's image for its object. The self-witnessing portion is in turn the basis of the perceiving portion, and the perceiving portion has the object's image for its object—taken together, this is why one says all at once "discerning objects as nature-and-aspect." With the single word "discern," both sides—self-nature and mode of activity—are gathered in.

This too has the holy teaching as its witness. As a sūtra says: "What is the eye-consciousness? It is what rests on the eye-faculty and discerns the manifold forms"—and so on at length, up to "What is the mind-consciousness? It is what rests on the mind-faculty and discerns the manifold dharmas." But one should understand that this passage is said with respect to the unshared basis (the eye-consciousness merely cited by its unshared eye-faculty), with respect to the stage before the transformation of the basis, and with respect to what is discerned by the perceiving aspect. The remaining bases (such as the shared mind-faculty) and what else is discerned (such as the objects discerned after the transformation of the basis) are, as already said above, not confined to that one layer of the sūtra's wording.

C. Which Three Moral Qualities the Six Consciousnesses Run Through

These six transforming consciousnesses—which moral quality gathers them in? The answer: they are gathered in by the three qualities of the wholesome, the unwholesome, and the neither-of-the-two (the indeterminate).

Kuiji's Notes (the Shuji) sums it up at the head: here the verse is "raised as the answer," and a single answer brings out that "the six consciousnesses run through all three qualities."

First, let us be clear about "neither-of-the-two." "Neither-of-the-two" is the indeterminate—it is neither wholesome nor unwholesome; it falls on neither side, and so it is called "neither-of-the-two." On this point Kuiji's Notes makes plain that what is called "neither-of-the-two" shows that its self-nature "is not the two self-natures of the wholesome and the unwholesome," and so is called neither-of-the-two. Then what is "wholesome," and what is "unwholesome"? Only what is able to bring benefit in both this life and the other life is called "wholesome." Note carefully: although the pleasant fruits of the human and heavenly destinies can bring benefit to one in this life, they cannot go on to benefit the other life (the fruit-reward itself no longer summons further benefit for a later life), and so a pleasant fruit, taken in itself, is not called "wholesome." Kuiji's Notes presses the point further: a dharma must be able to "benefit in both this life and the other life" before it is called wholesome; the pleasant fruits of the human and heavenly destinies benefit only one life and do not reach to the second, are in themselves an "indeterminate fruit-dharma" whose essential nature is not wholesome, and moreover come to inflict decline in the later life (when the pleasant fruit dissolves it turns to suffering), and so are not named wholesome. Only what is able to inflict harm in both this life and the other life is called "unwholesome." Likewise, although the painful fruits of the woeful destinies can inflict harm on one in this life, they cannot go on to harm the other life, and so a painful fruit, taken in itself, does not count as "unwholesome" either (this layer can be inferred on the model of the "pleasant fruit is not wholesome" case). And whatever, on these dividing-lines of "wholesome and unwholesome, benefit and harm," admits of no determination—where one cannot judge which side it inclines to—is called "indeterminate."

How, then, are the six consciousnesses specifically judged? Quite simply: if these six transforming consciousnesses associate with the eleven wholesome mental factors—faith and the rest—they belong to the wholesome quality; if they associate with the ten (unwholesome mental factors)—shamelessness and the rest—they belong to the unwholesome quality; and if they associate with neither side, they belong to the indeterminate quality.

D. Whether the Three Moral Qualities of the Six Consciousnesses Can Arise Simultaneously—the Old Masters Hold Two Views

Now a side-debate branches off: within one and the same instant, can the three qualities of the six consciousnesses—wholesome, unwholesome, indeterminate—arise simultaneously? Here the old masters hold two views.

There is first a view maintaining that "the three qualities are not together" (the three qualities cannot arise simultaneously at one time). Its reasoning is this: the six consciousnesses are alike "outward-turning" (they all turn by reaching out to grasp outer objects), and the three qualities of wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate are mutually opposed and cannot coexist within a single moment of thought. What is more, the first five consciousnesses must be led by the mind-consciousness—the five and the mind-consciousness are born together and cognize the same object, and only by this can they become wholesome or defiled. That being so, if one were to allow that the three qualities of the five consciousnesses could become active all at once, then the mind-consciousness that leads them would, at that very moment, also have to run through all three qualities—which would violate correct principle. Therefore it concludes that the three qualities are not together. It also answers a counter-evidence: the Yogācārabhūmi and other places say that "the store-consciousness can, at one time, associate with the transforming consciousnesses, the three qualities arising all at once"—but that is said with respect to many moments (several successive instants, one after another), not that the three qualities arise simultaneously within one single instant. It is just like saying "one mind," where "one mind" refers to a single stretch of the mental continuum, not to a single instant of arising-and-ceasing; so there is no fault of contradiction.

There is another view (and this is the settled, correct reading) maintaining that "the three qualities may be together" (they can arise simultaneously). It says: the eye and the other five consciousnesses, in such classes as the "abrupt mind" and the "uniform-flow mind," are to a greater or lesser degree allowed to arise simultaneously (and need not all belong to one quality). Although the five consciousnesses and the mind-consciousness are certainly born together, their wholesomeness and so on need not be the same; and so the difficulty raised by the first view ("if the five are together, the mind-consciousness must run through all three qualities") here comes to nothing (it is spent in vain). This has the Yogācārabhūmi for its warrant: suppose someone, just meeting the condition of a "sound," emerges from meditative concentration—the mind-consciousness associated with that concentration is in fact still turning along with it (it is still the meditative mind), while a separate ear-consciousness arises to hear the sound. It is not the case that "the concentration-associated mind-consciousness alone takes hold of this sound." Why? Because if it were the mind-consciousness alone that took the sound, the ear-consciousness not receiving it, then this person should not have emerged from concentration on account of the sound; yet the fact is that "it is not that one emerges from concentration the very moment the sound is taken"—rather, the ear-consciousness receives the sound, and if a wish then arises in the mind, only after a while does one emerge from concentration. We can see, then, that during concentration the "ear-consciousness abruptly hears the sound" while the mind-consciousness is still within concentration. This ear-consciousness, abruptly hearing the sound, ought by rights not to be wholesome (because at that moment the mind-consciousness is wholesome in concentration); and for an ordinary person who has not yet transformed the basis, his "abruptly falling mind" must be indeterminate. By this single passage it is conclusively proven: the "mind-consciousness that accompanies the five" need not always share the wholesome and other qualities of the five consciousnesses. The texts everywhere say only that "the mind-consciousness that accompanies the five also cognizes the five object-fields"; they never say that it is "of the same quality" as the five consciousnesses.

The Abhidharma-samuccaya adds a further proof: it says that "in the stage of meditative equipoise (the stage of being in concentration) there are no five consciousnesses"—but that is said with respect to "the greater part" (so it is for the most part, not absolutely none at all). If, among the five consciousnesses, the three qualities turn all at once, then the mind-consciousness, according to whichever consciousness it "leans its attention" toward, shares that consciousness's quality; and if the mind-consciousness leans its attention toward none of them, then it becomes the indeterminate quality. So the conclusion is: the three qualities of the six transforming consciousnesses are allowed to arise simultaneously. But one boundary must be added: upon reaching the "stage of attained mastery" (the buddha-stage), the six consciousnesses are gathered in by the wholesome quality alone—because the buddha's form, mind, and the rest are all gathered in by the truth of the path, and because the seeds of conceptual proliferation have been forever extinguished (there can no longer be any defiled-indeterminate to mix in). And so at the buddha-ground there is the wholesome alone.

Onward Transmission

What this section establishes—that the first six consciousnesses "have discerning objects for their nature-and-aspect and run through the three qualities of wholesome, unwholesome, and neither-of-the-two"—is the foundation on which the consciousness-only system founds its account of "the gate of the transforming consciousnesses," and the later treatises take it up one by one in the system's own order. The Hundred Dharmas treatise lists the eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, and mind-consciousnesses—these first six—among the eight consciousness-dharmas (the first six of the eight), and the moral-quality judgment made in this section comes to rest precisely upon the mental factors it enumerates: the wholesome quality answers to the eleven wholesome factors, faith and the rest, the unwholesome quality to the afflictions and secondary afflictions, shamelessness and the rest; whether one of the first six consciousnesses belongs to a given quality is decided by whether or not it associates with these factors. The Thirty Verses—verse eight (the general statement of the first six consciousnesses · discerning objects as nature-and-aspect · the three qualities of wholesome, unwholesome, and neither-of-the-two)—is the very root-verse this section expounds, verse answering to verse; and the train of mental factors that verse eight touches on opens downward into the broad discussion of the "six classes of mental factors" from verse nine onward. The Madhyānta-vibhāga, in its chapter on characteristics, establishes the doctrine of "unreal imagination"—consciousness is other-dependent and appears as the semblance of an object—which runs together in doctrine with this section's "discerning objects / consciousness discerning the object-field," the first six consciousnesses being precisely the "discerning" function upon the other-dependent. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in its chapter on the characteristics of the knowable, separately sets up the body-consciousness, the consciousness of the embodied one, the consciousness of the experiencer, and the rest—consciousnesses that turn in dependence on the ālaya—among which the first six consciousnesses are included, being the discerning consciousnesses upon the other-dependent. As for the Twenty Verses, its concern is to establish consciousness-only and that there are no external objects, refuting the outsiders' clinging to real objects, and it has no direct counterpart to the "essence-and-aspect · three qualities of the object-discerning consciousness"; here it is left aside.