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Treatise on the Great Vehicle: Discrimination of Conceptualization
In the Yogacara teachings, the store consciousness, Alaya-vijnana, is likened to illusions, mirages, dreams, and hallucinations, serving as the source of all inverted perceptions. Parikalpita, or imagined construction, are fabrications of the mind that do not reflect the true nature of impermanence and non-self of all dharmas. Love or hatred are only mental constructions—images created by the mind that give rise to suffering, happiness, fear, and despair. When we contemplate the nature of Paratantra, or dependent arising of all phenomena, we see that appearances such as a rainbow or a snake are merely mental fabrications, and suchness—the ultimate reality of the object—reveals itself, dispelling all entanglements.
The Alaya consciousness also has two aspects: the “full” aspect, containing all the seeds of ignorance, and the “diminished” aspect, when the seeds of delusion are reduced through practice. The full aspect appears in beings who are completely bound by afflictions; the diminished aspect is manifested in those who have renounced sensual desire and are on the path of learning (Shravakas, Bodhisattvas), and then progress to the state of no more learning (Arhats, Pratyekabuddhas, Tathagatas) when the obstacles of afflictions and knowledge are uprooted. Although Yogacara shows that the ultimate dimension of Alaya is fundamentally indeterminate—neither wholesome nor unwholesome—the teaching needs to continue to be “Mahayana-ized” by integrating the School of Characteristics (the phenomenal world) with the School of Nature (the transcendent essence), in order to nourish the stream of Yogacara teachings to become a path of deep and perfect transformation.