Understanding MAdhyamaka - 5

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VijnAnavAda

 

The MahAyAna SUtras can roughly be divided into three categories : those

which teach devotion to the Buddha, those which teach the unreality of the

world (shUnyatA) and those which bring out the psychological implications of

shUnyatA. The LankAvatAra SUtra falls in the third category and it is the

source of the views of the VijnAnavAda school.

 

While NAgArjuna's attention is mainly on the first and second, the

VijnAnavAda undertakes the task to work on the third.

 

MaitreyanAtha is said to be the founder of the school which is also

called YogAchAra since it believes that yogic practices are essential

for attaining liberation. But it was MaireyanAtha's disciple Asanga

and Asanga's brother Vasubandhu, who fully develop the doctrines of

this school. While Asanga works on the religious implications of the

doctrine, VAsubandhu provides rigorous logical support.

 

Asanga puts forth the schools basic doctrines in his MahAyAna SUtra LamkAra

ShAstram :

1. Reality is pure consciousness.

2. The PHENOMENAL world is momentary - shUnya. But shUnya doesn't mean

total negation. It is the negation of something in something. It is

the negation of the illusory phenomenal world in its underlying

support - pure consciousness.

3. The individual ego - the "I" - doesn't really exist. It is neither

real nor unreal, nor both, nor neither - it is an illusion.

4. All suffering is due to clinging to the notions of "I" and "mine".

5. Liberation is only the destruction of the illusion or ignorance.

Individual existence is transcended on grasping the true meaning of

nairAtmaya and shUnyatA and one realizes the pure soul and becomes

one with the universal soul (mahAtman).

6. The real is non-dual. It's neither existence nor non-existence,

neither affirmation nor negation, neither identity nor difference,

neither one nor many, neither pure nor impure, neither production

nor destruction. All these are only categories of the intellect

and the Real is beyond

these.

 

VAsubandhu :

 

VAsubandhu's main work is the VijnAptimAtratAsiddhi, which is divided into

two sections : the VimshatIka and the Trimshika.

 

In the VimshatIka, VAsubandhu asserts that mind, consciousness, thought,

knowledge are various words which refer to the same thing. He further says

that the world doesn't exist outside of thought and reality is pure

consciousness.

 

VAsubandu's arguments are so subtle that it has been commonly

misinterpreted as subjective idealism i.e, VAsubandhu has been accused of

saying that the physical world doesn't exist outside of thought and only the

consciousness which perceives objects is real. This couldn't be further from

what VAsubandhu has been trying to say.

 

What the VijnAnavAdin really means is that objects are only objects as

we *know* them to be. Like NAgArjuna, VAsubandhu's arguments are

epistemological and not ontological. What we call as a tree is basically a

conditioned concept - that it is a living thing, which grows on sunlight and

water, that it has leaves and it provides us with fruits to eat. VAsubandhu

is only pointing out that the object in its true nature is unknown to us and

what exists as the object in our consciousness is basically our conception

of it based on its attributes and its utility to us.

 

The distinction between the knower and the known, the subject and object is

made withing the field of consciousness itself. It is due to this

conceptualizing tendency of the mind - ignorance - that duality exists -

that we perceive objects as different from us. In truth, both the subject

and object are in their true nature - pure consciousness.

 

If the objective world doesn't in truth exist, then how do we see a

particular object in particular place and time? How do we explain the

fruitful activity which follows knowledge of the object? How is that

all people see the same object and not only the perceiver?

 

VAsubandhu says these arguments are not valid, for all these things are

true in the case of dreams too, which we know is unreal.

 

In dreams too, we see particular objects in particular places. In dreams

too, others beside us (who're part of the dream) view the objects. Fruitful

activity takes place in dreams also.

 

So the waking state is no different from the dream state - both are unreal.

 

But don't we know the dream state to be unreal when we're awake?

 

VAsubandhu answers that when one is in the dream state, one is not aware

of the unreality of the state. At that point in time it is as real as

the waking state to the experiencer.

 

ShUnyatA is not absolute negation. It is the negation of something in

something. It is the superimposed which is negated, but that which it

is superimposed on - the supporting ground of the superimposition -

the rope mistaken as a snake - is the real.

 

Reality is universal pure consciousness (vijnAptimAtratA). This reality

due to its inherent power undergoes threefold modification. First it

manifests itself as AlayavijnAna or the storehouse of consciousness

which contains the seeds of all phenomena. Then this universal

consciousness manifests itself into two forms - the individual subject

and the external objects. But underlying these three modifications is the

unchanging and eternal pure consciousness.

 

The real is atonce immanent in phenomena as well as transcendent to

them. Identified with its contents it is unreal, but viewed from its

own essence it is the real. Even "pure consciousness" is only an

expression of the intellect and is ultimately unreal. The real is beyond

the intellect and can be grasped only by spiritual experience. It is

pure undefiled existence, good, eternal, blissful and the Buddha's body

of pure existence.

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