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The eight consciousnesses

From Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia
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The eight consciousnesses, or more literally, eight collections of consciousness (Skt. aṣṭavijñānakāya; Tib. རྣམ་ཤེས་ཚོགས་བརྒྱད, Wyl. rnam shes tshogs brgyad) are mentioned in the writings of the Mind Only school.

The six consciousnesses

  1. Visual (or eye) consciousness (Skt. cakṣur-vijñana; Tib. མིག་གི་རྣམ་ཤེས, mig gi rnam shes)
  2. Auditory (or ear) consciousness (Skt. śrotra-vijñana; Tib. རྣ་བའི་རྣམ་ཤེས, rna ba'i rnam shes)
  3. Olfactory (or nose) consciousness (Skt. ghrāṇa-vijñana; Tib. སྣའི་རྣམ་ཤེས, sna'i rnam shes)
  4. Gustatory (or tongue) consciousness (Skt. jihva-vijñana; Tib. ལྕེའི་རྣམ་ཤེས, lce'i rnam shes)
  5. Tactile (or body) consciousness (Skt. kāya-vijñana; Tib. ལུས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་ཤེས, lus kyi rnam shes)
  6. Mental (or mind) consciousness (Skt. mano-vijñana; Tib. ཡིད་ཀྱི་རྣམ་ཤེས, yid kyi rnam shes)
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The seventh and eighth consciousness

To the six consciousnesses mentioned in the Abhidharma texts of the basic vehicle are added:

7. Defiled mental consciousness or emotional consciousness (Skt. kliṣṭamanas; Tib. ཉོན་ཡིད, Wyl. nyon yid) and
8. All-ground consciousness (Skt. ālaya vijñāna; Tib. ཀུན་གཞི་རྣམ་ཤེས, kunshyi namshé; Wyl. kun gzhi rnam shes).

Transformation into Five Wisdoms

According to Mipham Rinpoche, the eight consciousnesses transform into the five wisdoms in the following way:

  1. Alaya transforms into the wisdom of dharmadhatu.
  2. Alaya consciousness transforms into mirror-like wisdom.
  3. Emotional consciousness transforms into wisdom of equality.
  4. Mental consciousness transforms into the wisdom of discernment.
  5. Five sense consciousnesses transform into the all-accomplishing wisdom.


Source

www.rigpawiki.org