Alaya-consciousness
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alaya-consciousness
阿頼耶識 (Skt alaya-vijnana; Jpn araya-shiki )
Also, storehouse consciousness, never-perishing consciousness, or maintaining-consciousness (adana-consciousness).
According to the Consciousness-Only school, the eighth and deepest of the eight consciousnesses; alaya means abode, dwelling, or receptacle, and vijnana means discernment.
Located below the realms of conscious awareness, it is called the storehouse consciousness, because all karma created in the present and previous lifetimes is stored there.
It is also called the never-perishing consciousness, because the karmic seeds preserved there continue even after death, and the maintaining-consciousness, because it maintains the life and body of a sentient being.
The alaya-consciousness is regarded as that which undergoes the cycle of birth and death, and determines the nature of individual existence.
All the actions and experiences of life that occur through the first seven consciousnesses, such as
sight,
hearing,
touch, and
mind,
are accumulated as karma in this alaya consciousness, which in turn exerts an influence on the workings of these seven.
The Consciousness-Only school, which postulates the existence of the eight consciousnesses, holds that all phenomena arise from the alaya- consciousness and that the alaya -consciousness is the only reality.