Yogacara and the Primacy of Experience

Yogachara and the Primacy of Experience

THE IDEA OF TANTRA as continuity connects this inquiry with the philosophy of the Yogachara since this early Indian school of Buddhist philosophy was instrumental in developing the idea of tantra.

The Yogachara school was so named because its philosophy leads to application, working on oneself—yoga, harnessing. It has been called by various names in the West, one of the most common (also known in Japan) being chittamatra, which is usually translated “mind only.” Now the word mind is very nebulous in

meaning, different people understanding different things by it. Let us try to understand how the Yogachara school understood this term. The Yogachara system is not, strictly speaking, a single system, but embraces a number of philosophical trends which are in certain ways quite distinct from one another. They are lumped together under this title in virtue of the main tenet which they hold in common: the idea that all the three worlds (the world of sensuousness, the world of form, the world of formlessness) are chittamatra, mind only.

The word chitta (mind), from early times was used to mean, not so much a container of thoughts, as perhaps we tend to understand it, but rather something like a clearinghouse that could both store and transmit impressions. It was thought of as something like a battery. It could be charged and then when it

was charged it would do something. It had this double function which must be borne in mind if we wish to understand the idea of chittamatra. In the first place, since the concept of chitta revolves around the storing and transmission of experience, it would be more precise to translate the idea of chittamatra as “experience alone counts.”

Buddhism has always placed great emphasis on experience. The four basic axioms of Buddhism are highly experiential in character. The first is that everything is transitory; the second that everything is frustrating; the third that everything is without essence; the fourth that nirvana is bliss. These first three axioms relate very much to our actual way of going through life. We observe life and see that nothing lasts; we feel that being faced with

trying to build something on this basis is very frustrating. Then we think and we ask ourselves, “How is this? Why is this?” We get the answer that if everything is transitory it cannot have an essence; because an essence is by definition the principle by which something is what it is. If we started

reasoning from the idea of an essence, we could not account for transitoriness, nor could we account for the constant frustration which we experience. Now the continual frustration makes us feel that some other mode of being must be possible. This is where we come to the fourth basic axiom, which says that nirvana is bliss. Buddha’s disciple Ananda asked him how he could make such a statement, having said that feelings and all such forms are transitory.

The Buddha replied that he had qualified nirvana as bliss only by way of language, that he did not thereby mean a judgment of feeling, such as when we call something pleasant. The term he used for bliss was sukha, which is very close to what we have referred to as the peak experience. This seems to be an experience in which all conceptions and judgments, even the idea of oneself, completely pass away. So what is referred to as bliss can be understood to

transcend transitoriness or permanence or any other form. In later Buddhist philosophical systems, especially the tantra, we find that further developments concerning this state have taken place to the point where even the last trace of experience as such has disappeared. Even the possibility of saying, “I had thus-and-such an experience” has evaporated. This view was developed directly from the idea of the Yogacharins that “experience alone counts.”

But the question still remains of how it comes about that we are always in the realm of frustration. Also, how can we understand the fact that our sense of continual frustration leads us to feel that there is some other mode of experience which gets rid of this frustration? To see the answers to these questions, we must go still further in our understanding of the term chitta.

The Yogacharins developed an understanding of chitta involving eight aspects. What they were actually trying to do was to describe the process in which chitta emerges from its primordial, unqualified, and unconditioned state and glides into our ordinary way of thinking. If we understood this process thoroughly, we would be able to do away with it and let our minds remain in the primordial state. This would be the peak experience.

In describing this process, the Yogacharins used the concept of the alayavijnana, a concept which has been used differently by different Buddhist schools and which is very important in the tantric tradition. The alayavijnana is already different from the alaya or basic foundation. The latter we assume for the purposes of communication, without affirming that it is an ontological entity. The alayavijnana is already a trend developing into the split we usually

describe as subject and object. We see here that the chitta is a dynamic factor rather than a static conception. In the function of the alayavijnana it is in constant transformation, developing into further dualistic forms. Here we can see the influence of the old conception of chitta as something which stores something up and, once this storage has reached its high point,

must be discharged. This idea of stored potentialities of experience that must at some point be actualized is constantly present in Buddhist philosophy. The precise forms which cause the alayavijnana to function in this way are called vasanas. These are deposits that are potentialities. They develop according to two principles, the one a principle of intrinsic similarity, the other a principle of taking on various specific forms in accordance with

conditions. For instance, a scientist, by way of experience, might take some kidney cells and plant them on some other part of the body, say an arm. They will not develop as skin cells, but will continue to develop as kidney cells. This is the first principle. But the way in which these kidney cells develop as kidney cells will vary according to a multiplicity of conditions. Some people have kidney trouble and others do not. This illustrates the second principle.

As we have said, what develops in the course of the transformation of chitta is a split. As the initial step in the genesis of experience from the process known as the alayavijnana, there develops something else, which is known as manas in Sanskrit and yid in Tibetan. This aspect of chitta now looks back and

takes the original unity out of which it developed as its real self. This original unity is what is taken as an ontologically real self by the Hindus. The Hindus described the original unity as the transcendental ego and the manas as the empirical ego. The Buddhists rejected the reification of these aspects, having seen that they all belonged to the unity of a transformational process. According to the Yogachara, the split that occurs merely contrasts

a limited form with a vital primordial form. The manas or yid then becomes the source of all subsequent mental functions in the way indicated by common speech when we say “I see” or “I think.” But all these mental functions are part of the total process of transformation. According to the Yogachara view, the original source (the alayavijnana) is undifferentiated and ethically or karmically neutral. When the split occurs it

becomes tainted, but still the particular mental movement in question is not determined as ethically positive or negative. This determination takes place through elaborations of the movement which further specify it. This elaboration takes the form of our perceiving with the five senses, and also with the traditional Buddhist sixth sense, which we might loosely call consciousness; that is, the categorical perception which brings categories into sense data

without abstracting them from it. Thus the alayavijnana, the manas, and the six senses are the eight aspects of chitta. This process of transformation we have described is one of growing narrowness and frozenness. We are somehow tied down to our senses, to the ordinary mode of perception. We dimly feel that something else might have been possible. If we try to express this situation in traditional religious terms, we might say

that man is a fallen being. But here he has not fallen because he has sinned or transgressed some commandment coming from outside him, but by the very fact that he has moved in a certain direction. This is technically known in Buddhism as bhranti in Sanskrit or ’khrul pa in Tibetan, and is usually translated as “error.” But error implies, in Western thinking, culpability; and there is absolutely no culpability involved. We might tend to feel that we could have

done otherwise, but this attitude simply does not apply here. The process is a kind of going astray which just happens. The idea of sin is irrelevant. Still we have the feeling of something gone wrong. If we accept our ordinary experience as error, then we ask the question “Is true knowledge possible?” Now the very question already implies that it is possible. That is to say, the sense of error implies the sense of truth. We could not know error without

unerring knowledge. So there is this oscillation back and forth between error and knowledge; and this oscillation presents the possibility of returning to what we have referred to as the original or primordial state. Here original does not have the sense of “beginning.” We speak of it as the original state because we feel that our charge of creative power came from

there. We experienced an energy which we felt to be of the highest value, quite distinct from the tone of our ordinary experience. The existential apprehension of this original state is technically known in the tantric tradition as the mahasukhakaya. In the ordinary Buddhist tradition three is the nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya. Then if it is wished to emphasize the unity of the three and

avoid any tendency to concretize them as separate, we speak of the whole as the svabhavikakaya. This is not a fourth kaya, but the unity of the three. The mahasukhakaya is a significant addition to this picture which came in with tantra. Sukha means “bliss”; maha means “than which there could be none greater.” So we have the peak experience again; and this is always felt as being, which gives kaya.

Kaya is translated as “body,” but not in the sense of the purely physical abstraction which is often made in defining “body,” where we say that one thing is the mental aspect of us and the other thing is the physical aspect. This is a misconception. There is no such thing as a body without a mind. If we have a body without a mind, it is not a body, it is a corpse. It is a mere object to be disposed of. If we speak properly of a body, we mean something which is

alive; and we cannot have a live body without a mind. So the two cannot be separated—they go together. Thus the mahasukhakaya is an existential factor, which is of the highest value. This is not an arbitrary assignment of value that is made here. It is just felt that this is the only absolute value. This absolute value can be retrieved by reversing the process of error, of going astray; by reverting the energy

that flows in one direction and becomes frozen, less active. It is this process of freezing which causes us to feel imprisoned and tied down. We are no longer free agents, as it were, but are in samsara. So in answer to the question of whether or not there is some alternative to the continual frustration in which we live, the answer is yes. Let us find the

initial, original, primordial, or whatever word you want to use—language is so limited—as a value. This is the mahasukhakaya. The possibility of returning to the origin has been rendered manifest in the form of certain symbols of transformation, such as the mandala. Transformation from ordinary perception to primordial intrinsic awareness can take place when we try to see things differently, perhaps somewhat as an artist does. Every

artist knows that he can see in two different ways. The ordinary way is characterized by the fact that perception is always related to accomplishing some end other than the perception itself. It is treated as a means rather than something in itself. But we can also look at things and enjoy their presence aesthetically.

If we look at a beautiful sunset, we can look at it as a physicist does and see it as a system of wavelengths. We lose the feeling of it completely. We can also look at it as a poignant symbol of the impermanence of all things and be moved to sadness. But this also is not just the sunset itself. There is a definite difference when we just look at it as it is and enjoy the vast play of colors that is there in tremendous vividness. When we look like this, we

will immediately notice how free we become. The entire network of mental factors in which we usually labor just drops off. Everyone can do this but, of course, it requires work. The art of the mandala has been developed to help us see things in their intrinsic vividness. Although all mandalas are fundamentally similar, each is also

unique. The colors used in them, for instance, vary greatly according to the basic makeup of the practitioners. The character of a particular mandala is known as the dhatu-tathagatagarbha. Dhatu here refers to the factor of the particular individual makeup. Tathagatagarbha refers to the awakened state of mind or buddhahood. So a particular mandala could be seen as a specific index of the awakened state of mind. Care is taken to relate to individual

characteristics because, although each person is capable of total buddhahood, he must start from the aspect of it that is most strongly present in him. There is a Zen saying that even a blade of grass can become a Buddha. How are we to understand this? Usually we consider that a blade of grass simply belongs to the physical world; it is not even a sentient being, since it has no feelings, makes no judgments, has no perceptions. The explanation is that

everything is of the nature of Buddha, so grass is also of this nature. It is not that it in some way contains buddha nature, that we can nibble away analytically at the various attributes of the blade of grass until there is nothing left but some vague leftover factor that we then pigeonhole as buddha nature. Rather, the blade of grass actually constitutes what we call buddhahood or an ultimate value.

It is in this sense that a blade of grass or any other object can be a symbol of transformation. The whole idea of symbols of transformation is made possible by the philosophical development of the Yogacharins, who saw that what comes to us in earthly vessels, as it were, the elements of our ordinary experience, is the fundamental mind, the ultimate value. The ultimate value comes in forms intelligible to us. Thus certain symbols such as mandalas,

already partially intelligible to us, can be used as gateways to the peak experience. So these symbols exist, differing according to the needs of individuals. We can slip into the world of running around in circles—that is what samsara literally means—or we can also, through such symbols, find our way out of it. But the way out is nowhere else but in the world where we are. There is no

other world besides the world we live in. This is one of the main purports of Buddhist philosophy and one which Westerners often find hard to grasp. Buddhist philosophy does not make the distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal. The phenomenon is the noumenon and the noumenon is the

phenomenon; not in the sense of mathematical equation, but in the sense that you cannot have one without the other. The technical statement of this is that there is appearance and there is also shunyata; but shunyata is not somewhere else, it is in the appearance. It is its open dimension. The appearance never really implies any restriction or limitation. If there were such a limitation, we could never get out of it.