Vasubandhu — Trimsika-vijnapti-karika 30 verses about “Conceptualisation Only“

Vasubandhu — Trimsika-vijnapti-karika

30 verses about “Conceptualisation Only"

1) Everything conceived as self or other occurs in the transformation of consciousness.

2) This transformation has three aspects: The ripening of karma, the consciousness of a self and the imagery of sense objects.

3) The first of these is also called alaya, the store consciousness which contains all karmic seeds. What it holds and its perception of location are unknown.

4) It is always associated with sense-contact, attention, sensation, perception and volition, Neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It is unobstructed and karmically neutral, Like a river flowing. In enlightenment it is overturned at its roots.

5) Depending on the store consciousness and taking it as its object, Manas, the consciousness of a self, arises, which consists of thinking.

6) It is always associated with four afflictions, self-view, self delusion, self­pride, and self-love, And is obstructed but karmically neutral. Along with these four,

7) From where it is born come sense-contact, attention, sensation, perception, and volition. It is not found in enlightenment, the meditation of cessation, or the supremundane path.

8) That ist he second transformation, the third ist he perception oft he six senses, Which are beneficial, harmful, or neither.

9) It is associated with three kinds of mental factors: universal, specific, and beneficial, As well as the afflicitions and secondary afflicitions, and the three sensations.

10) The universal factors are sense-contact, attention, sensation, perceptoin an volition. The specific are aspiration, resolve, memory, concentration, and intellection. The beneficial factors are faith, conscience, humility, lack af aversion, desire and delusion, energy, tranquility, carefulness, equanimity, and non-violence.

11) The afflictions are desire, aversion, delusion, pride, wrong view and doubt.

12) The secondary afflicitions are anger, hatred, hypocrisy, malice, envy, selfishness...

13) Deceitfulness, guile, arrogance, harmfulness, lack of conscience and humility, sluggishness, Restlessness, lack of faith, laziness, carelessness, forgetfulness, distraction, and unawareness

14) Remorse, sleepiness, initial thought, and analysis can be either afflictive or not.

15) The five sense consciousnesses arise on the root consciousness together or separately, Depending on conditions like waves arise on water.

16) Thought consciousness always manifests except in the realm of no thought, The two thought free meditation states, unconsciousness and thought-free sleep

17) This transformation of consciousness is conceptualization, What is conceptualized does not exist,, thus everything is projection only.

18) Consciousness is all the seeds transforming in various ways Through mutual influence producing the many conceptualizations.

19) Karmic impressions and the impressions of grasping self and other Produce further ripening as the former karmic effect is exhausted.

20) Whatever thing is conceptualized by whatever conceptualization Is of an imagenary nature; it does not exist.

21) The other-dependent nature is a conceptualization arising from many conditions; The complete, realized nature is the other-dependent nature’s always being devoid of the imaginary.

22) Thus it is neither the same nor different from the other-dependent; Like impermanence, etc., when one isn’t seen, the other also is not seen.

23) With the threefold nature is a three-fold absence of self-nature, So it has been taught that all things have no self.

24) The imagenary is without self by definition. The other-dependent does not exist by itself. The third is no-self nature - that is,

25) The complete, realized nature of all phenomena, which is thusness - since it is always already thus, it is projection only.

26) As long as consciousness does not rest in projection only, The tendencies of grasping self and other will not cease.

27) By conceiving what you put before you to be projection only, You do not rest in just this.

28) When consciousness does not perceive any object, then it rests in projection only; When there is nothing to grasp, there is no grasping.

29) Without thought, without conception, this is the supramundane awareness: The overturning of the root, the ending oft he two barriers.

30) It is the inconceivable, wholesome, unstained, constant realm, The blissful body of liberation, the Dharma body of the great sage.

English translation: Ben Connelly und Weijen Teng.

Taken from: Connelly, Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara, Wisdom Publications, 2016.