Yogācāra (Sanskrit: "yoga practice"), also spelled yogāchāra, is an influential school of philosophy and psychology that developed in Indian Mahayana Buddhism starting sometime in the fourth to fifth centuries C.E., also commonly known as consciousness-only or mind-only (Sanskrit: cittamātra) (although scholars increasingly make distinctions between the two). Relief image of the bodhisattva Kuan Yin from Mt. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Yogacara. ...

Sometimes referred to as the Knowledge Way or Vijnanavada, Yogācāra has also been called Subjective Realism, acknowledging that individual factors including karma contribute to an experience of reality that must be different for every being. According to them, only consciousness (Vijñāna) is true, and all objects of this world external to the mind are false. They believed in an absolute, permanent consciousness called ālaya vijñāna (or 'Store-House Consciousness'), which is said to house the karmic seeds which develop into our experience of reality. This branch became well-known in China, Tibet, Japan and Mongolia. Store consciousness (Sanskrit ālayavijñāna; Tib. ...

History

The Yogācāra texts have come to be considered part of the Third Turning of the Wheel along with the relevant sutras. The Yogācāra texts form a survey of all of The Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma. Originating around a set of scriptures and treatises composed by such early Indian masters as the brothers Vasubandhu and Asanga (who was said to be inspired by the legendary Maitreya-natha), this school held a prominent position in the Indian scholastic tradition for several centuries. It was also transmitted to Tibet by Dharmarakshita who initiated Atisha into the Yogachara lineage, where its teachings became an integral part of much of Tibetan Buddhism up to modern times, and to East Asia, where it was studied with intensity for several centuries. The Three Turnings of the Wheel (of Dharma) refers to a framework for understanding the teachings of the Buddha, as understood by various schools and sects of Buddhism. ... The Three Turnings of the Wheel (of Dharma) refers to a framework for understanding the teachings of the Buddha, as understood by various schools and sects of Buddhism. ... Many religions and spiritual movements hold certain written texts (or series of spoken legends not traditionally written down) to be sacred. ... Vasubandhu (Sanskrit. ... Asanga (also called Aryasanga), born around 300 C.E., was a great exponent of the Yogacara. ... Maitreya-nātha (ca. ... Tibet (see Name section below for other spellings) is a plateau region in Central Asia and the indigenous home to the Tibetan people. ... For the teacher of Atisha, see Dharmarakshita (Sumatran). ... AtiÅ›a Dipamkara Shrijnana (Bangla: অতীশ দীপঙ্কর শ্রীজ্ঞান) (982 - 1054 CE) was a Buddhist teacher who reintroduced Buddhism into Tibet after King Langdharma had nearly destroyed it. ... Tibetan Buddhism is the body of religious Buddhist doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, the Himalayan region (including northern Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh), Mongolia, Buryatia, Tuva and Kalmykia (Russia), and northeastern China (Manchuria: Heilongjiang, Jilin). ... Geographic East Asia. ...

Notably, this school was in opposition to the Madhyamaka (Sanskrit: "Middle Way") school of Buddhism. While the Madhyamaka school asserted that there is no ultimately real thing, the Yogācāra school asserts that only the mind is ultimately existent. This debate still continues among Tibetan schools as the Shentong (empty of other) versus Rangtong (empty of self). Yogacara teachings are especially important in Tantric Buddhism, or the secret practices of Buddhism where they have informed the Mindstream Doctrine. Proponents of Yogacara characterized the Madyhamaka school and its doctrine as a preliminary path, and that students learn the Madhyamaka school until they have mastered it, and then they are ready switch to the Yogācāra school.^{[citation needed]} Madhyamaka (Also known as Åšunyavada) is a Buddhist Mahayāna tradition popularized by Nāgārjuna and AÅ›vaghoá¹£a. ... Shentong view, also sometimes called “Yogacara Madhyamika,” is a philosophical sub-school found in Tibetan Buddhism, holding that the nature of mind is empty of other (i. ... A mandala used in Vajrayana Buddhist practices. ... This article needs cleanup. ...

Despite the opposition between the Madhyamika and Yogacara, a synthesis called Yogacara-Svatantrika-Madhyamika was propounded by Shantarakshita, and was one of the last developments of Indian Buddhism before it was extinguished in the eleventh century during the Muslim invasions. Shantarakshita was an Indian sage, abbot of Nalanda University, a great center of Buddhist scholarship. ...

Yogācāra, like all Indian schools of Buddhism, eventually became virtually extinct within its mother country. However, all four of the major schools of Buddhism did heavily influence the schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Yogācāra is most prevalent in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. In addition, the teachings of Yogācāra became the Chinese Fa Xiang school of Buddhism. The Nyingma tradition is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism (the other three being the Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug). ... Dharma-character school (Chinese: 法相宗 pinyin fa xiang zong) is the pejorative name for a stream of thought that represented the Indian Yogācāra system of thought in East Asia. ...

Five treatises of Maitreya

The scriptural heart of the Yogachara tradition according to the Tibetans, are the "Five Treatises of Maitreya." These texts are said to have been related to Asanga by the Buddha Maitreya. They are as follows: Asanga (also called Aryasanga), born around 300 C.E., was a great exponent of the Yogacara. ... Maitreya Bodhisattva (Sanskrit) or Metteyya Bodhisatta (Pāli) is the future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. ...

• Ornament for Clear Realization (Abhisamayalankara, Tib. mngon par rtogs pa'i rgyan)
• Ornament for the Mahayana Sutras (Mahayanasutralankara, Tib. theg pa chen po'i mdo sde'i rgyan)
• Sublime Continuum of the Mahayana (Mahayanottaratantrashastra, Ratnagotravibhaga, Tib. theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan)
• Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being (Dharmadharmatavibhanga, Tib. chos dang chos nyid rnam par 'byed pa)
• Distinguishing the Middle and the Extremes (Madhyantavibhanga, Tib. dbus dang mtha' rnam par 'byed pa)

A commentary on the Ornament for Clear Realization called Clarifying the Meaning by the Indian scholar Haribhadra is often used, as is one by Vimuktisena. Abhisamaya-alamkāra (The Ornament of Direct Realization) is a Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophical text attributed to India and Tibet, the text seems to have been unknown in China before the modern period. ... Mahāyāna-sūtrālamkāra-kārikā (The Adornment of Mahāyāna Sūtras) is a major work of Buddhist philosophy attributed to Maitreya-nātha. ... Ratna-gotra-vibhāga, The Analysis of the Source of the [Three] Jewels is an important Buddhist philosophical text associated with tathāgata-garbha thought. ... Dharma-dharmatā-vibhāga is a short Yogācāra work, attributed to Maitreya-nātha, which discusses the distinction and correlation (vibhāga) between phenomena (dharma) and reality (dharmatā); the work exists in both a prose and a verse version and survives... Madhyānta-vibhāga-kārikā is a key work in Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy, which was written by Maitreya-nātha. ... Haribhadra Suri was an 8th Century Jainist author. ...

Many of these texts are attributed to Asanga in the Chinese tradition, which is several centuries earlier than the Tibetan. The Ornament for Clear Realization (Abhisamayalankara, is nowhere mentioned by any of the Chinese translators up to the 7th Century, including Xuanzang, who was an expert in this field. Abhisamaya-alamkāra (The Ornament of Direct Realization) is a Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophical text attributed to India and Tibet, the text seems to have been unknown in China before the modern period. ... A portrait of Xuanzang Xuanzang (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hsüan-tsang; CantoneseIPA: jyn4tsɔŋ1; CantoneseJyutping: jyun4zong1) was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler and translator that brought up the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period. ...

Yogacara Tenets

The Three Natures

The Yogacara defined three basic modes by which we perceive our world. These are referred to in Yogācāra as the three natures of perception. They are:

• Parikalpita, literally "fully conceptualized", or Imaginary Nature, wherein things are incorrectly apprehended based on conceptual construction, through attachment and erroneous discrimination.

• Paratantra, literally "other dependent", or Dependent Nature, by which the correct understanding of the dependently originated nature of things is understood.

• Parinispanna, literally "fully accomplished", or Absolute Nature, through which one apprehends things as they are in themselves, uninfluenced by any conceptualization at all.

Also, regarding perception, the Yogacara emphasized that our everyday understanding of the existence of external objects is problematic, since in order to perceive any object (and thus, for all practical purposes for the object to "exist"), there must be a sensory organ as well as a correlative type of consciousness to allow the process of cognition to occur. Dependent Origination (Sanskrit: pratītya-samutpāda, Pali: paticca samuppada) The doctrine of pratitya-samutpada is Buddhisms primary contribution to metaphysics. ...

Model of Consciousness

Perhaps the best known teaching of the Yogācāra system is that of the eight layers of consciousness. This theory of the consciousnesses attempted to explain all the phenomena of cyclic existence, including how rebirth occurs and precisely how karma functions on an individual basis. For example, if I carry out a good or evil act, why and how is it that the effects of that act do not appear immediately? If they do not appear immediately, where is this karma waiting for its opportunity to play out? For other uses, see Karma (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Karma (disambiguation). ...

The answer given by the Yogacaras was the store consciousness (also known as the base, or eighth consciousness; Sanskrit: ālayavijñāna) which simultaneously acts as a storage place for karma and as a fertile matrix that brings karma to a state of fruition. The likeness of this process to the cultivation of plants led to the creation of the metaphor of seeds (Sanskrit, bijas) to explain the way karma is stored in the eighth consciousness. The type, quantity, quality and strength of the seeds determine where and how a sentient being will be reborn: one's species, sex, social status, proclivities, bodily appearance and so forth. Store consciousness (Sanskrit ālayavij āna; Tib. ... Store consciousness (Sanskrit ālayavijñāna; Tib. ... For other uses, see Karma (disambiguation). ... In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit term bīja (Jp. ... Sentience is the capacity for basic consciousness -- the ability to feel or perceive, not necessarily including the faculty of self-awareness. ...

On the other hand, the karmic energies created in the current lifetime through repeated patterns of behavior are called habit energies (Sanskrit: vasanas). All the activities that mold our bodymind, for better or worse--eating, drinking, talking, studying, practicing the piano or whatever--can be understood to create habit energies. And of course, my habit energies can penetrate the consciousnesses of others, and vice versa--what we call "influence" in everyday language. Habit energies can become seeds, and seeds can produce new habit energies. Bodymind is a compound conjunction of body and mind and may be used differently in different traditions, disciplines and knowledges. ...

Śūnyatā in Yogachara

The concept of emptiness (Skrt: śūnyatā) is central to Yogachara, as to any Mahayana school. Early Yogacara texts, such as the Yogacarabhumi-sastra, often act as explanations on Prajnaparamita sutras. See also the Samdhinirmocana Sutra. Śūnyatā, शून्यता (Sanskrit), Suññatā (Pāli), stong pa nyid (Tibetan), Kuu, 空 (Japanese) qoÉ£usun (Mongolian), generally translated into English as Emptiness or Voidness, is a concept of central importance in the teaching of the Buddha, as a direct realization of Sunyata is required to achieve liberation from the cycle of... YogācārabhÅ«mi-śāstra, also known as Discourse on the Stages of Yogic Practice is the encyclopaedic and definitive text of the Yogācāra school of Buddhism. ... The Sandhinirmocana Sutra (Sanskrit: Discourse Explaining the Thought or Sutra on Unfurling the Real Meaning) is a Buddhist scripture classified as belonging to the Consciousness-only school of Buddhist thought. ...

As one Buddhologist puts it, "Although meaning 'absence of inherent existence' in Madhyamaka, to the Yogacarins [śūnyatā] means 'absence of duality between perceiving subject and the perceived object.'"^[1]

This is not the full story however, as each of the three natures (above), has its corresponding "absence of nature". ie:

• parikalpita => laksana-nihsvabhavata, the "absence of inherent characteristic"
• paratantra => utpatti-nihsvabhavata, the "absence of inherent arising"
• parinispanna => paramartha-nihsvabhavata, the "absence of inherent ultimacy"

Each of these "absences" is a form of sunyata, ie. the nature is "empty" of some particular qualified quality.

The Legacy of the Yogacara

There are two important aspects of the Yogācāra schemata that are of special interest to modern-day practitioners. One is that virtually all schools of Mahayana Buddhism came to rely on these Yogācāra explanations as they created their own doctrinal systems--even the Zen schools. For example, the important Yogācāra explanation of the pervasiveness of one's delusions through "mind-only" had an obvious influence on Zen. Relief image of the bodhisattva Kuan Yin from Mt. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ...

That the scriptural tradition of Yogācāra is not yet that well known among the community of Western practitioners is perhaps attributable to the fact that most of the initial transmission of Buddhism to the West has been directly concerned with more practice-oriented forms of Buddhism, such as Zen, Vipassana, and Pure Land. Also, it is a complicated system, and there are still not really any good, accessible, introductory books on the topic in Western languages. However, within Tibetan Buddhism more and more Western students are becoming acquainted with this school. Very little research in English has been carried out on the Chinese Yogācāra traditions. Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism notable for its emphasis on practice and experiential wisdom—particularly as realized in the form of meditation known as zazen—in the attainment of awakening. ... Vipassanā (Pāli) or vipaÅ›yanā (Sanskrit) means insight. While it is often referred to as Buddhist meditation, the practice taught by the Buddha was non-sectarian, and has universal application. ... The Buddha Amitabha, 13th century, Kamakura, Japan. ...

External links

• "Early Yogaacaara and Its Relationship with the Madhyamaka School", Richard King, Philosophy East & West, vol. 44 no. 4, October 1994, pp. 659–683
• "Vijnaptimatrata and the Abhidharma context of early Yogacara", Richard King, Asian Philosophy, vol. 8 no. 1, March 1998, pp. 5–18
• "The mind-only teaching of Ching-ying Hui-Yuan" (subtitle) "An early interpretation of Yogaacaara thought in China", Ming-Wood Liu, Philosophy East & West, vol. 35 no. 4, October 1985, pp. 351–375
• Yogacara Buddhism Research Association; articles, bibliographies, and links to other relevant sites.