Vasubandhu(4th century AD)

Twenty Verses on Consciousness-Only(Vimsatika-Karika)

Yogacara Philosophy

Yoga = “discipline”

Cara = “practice”

Text, pp. 223-228

Topics Covered in the Twenty Verses

• Reality as Consciousness-Only• Perception & its Objects (No Self/No Thing)• Atomism & Experience• Monism & Experience• What is Perception?• Interactions between Individuals• The Problem of Other Minds• Conclusion

The dialogical structure of the text

Objections

&

Yogacara (Vasubandhu) Replies

Vasubandhu’s thesis

Reality as Consciousness-Only

Metaphysical Idealism

The external world is an IDEA, i.e., a construction of consciousness (chit), mind (citta), thought (manas), perception (pratyaksa). There are, in fact, no objects external to consciousness, no non-mental realities.

Objections to metaphysical idealism

• any idea could arise at any time or in any place;• different minds could “perceive” different objects

at the same time & in the same place;• objects could function in unexpected (surprising,

unpredictable) ways.

If the objects of consciousness have no external existence, then, contrary to actual experience,

(See Text, p. 223)

Vasubandhu’s Reply

• Even in dreams, ideas (images, events) arise in particular places at certain times.

• Souls in hell experience the same things although the things experienced do not really exist (i.e., hell is a mental state).

• Things experienced in dreams can function in the expected ways.

(Summary statement on p. 224)

Critical Question

Do V’s replies establish the truth of metaphysical idealism?

Or do they merely suggest that the consciousness-only thesis MAY be true?

A debate about the existence & nature of hell

• Why say that the things experienced in hell do not have objective existence?. Because the guardians of hell, who inflict the sufferings of the hellish state, are in hell but do not experience its torments.

• Animals, hell-guardians, & rebirth.• Hell as the creation of the bad karma of the

condemned -- best interpreted as a mental state rather than as an external, objective reality.

Perception & its Objects

No Self / No Thing

Perception & its Objects

• Objection: The Buddha taught that consciousness arises out of the interaction of the six senses with external objects.

• Reply: Yes, but that teaching was merely an introductory & exoteric preparation for a deeper, esoteric view of reality (102) -- namely, the “seed-consciousness” doctrine.

• The Buddha was trying to gradually initiate his disciples into an under-standing of the insub-stantiality of self & of the insubstantiality of objects.

self & objectsas constructed by ordinary consciousness,

• as opposed to reality as it is in itself (tathata, “suchness”).

• Beyond the ordinary, constructed self (ego) & its subject-object duality, there is

• a transcendent (true) Self, which is substantial, i.e., “really real.”

(Isn’t this an abandonment of the Buddhist doctrine of no-self [anatta], a return to Hinduism?)

Atomism&

Experience

What is an “atom”?

Vasubandhu’s criticism of atomism

• We have no perceptual experience of atoms (since atoms are imperceptible).– no experience of wholes without parts

(indivisible entities), i.e., individual atoms– no experience of groups of distinct & separate

atoms– no experience of aggregations of atoms

*

*What is empiricism?

2. A logical critique of atomism

• If atoms are indivisible & thus have no parts, then they cannot form aggregations.

• If atoms can aggregate, then they must have parts (& be divisible) & are thus not atoms.

• If the atoms in an atomic aggregation occupy different locations, then each of them has parts & is not an atom.

• If all atomic aggregates occupy the same location, then “they” would be just a single atom, & the “aggregation” would not be an aggregation.

The Kasimira Vaibhashika view

• that atoms cannot aggregate, but that

• aggregations of atoms can aggregate to form larger aggregations • is self-contradictory

and thus makes no sense.

Logical criticism, continued

Logical criticism, cont’d

• If one atom can be “in front of,” “behind,” “over,” or “under” another, then atoms must have fronts, back, tops, & bottoms, i.e., parts, & thus atoms are not atoms.

• If atoms have no fronts, backs, tops, or bottoms -- i.e., no parts -- then how is the overshadowing & concealment (e.g., sunlight & shadow, etc.) of atoms possible?

Objection: It is aggregations of atoms, not individual atoms, that are subject to overshadowing & concealment.

V’s reply to the latter objection(p. 227)

• Either atomic aggregations are (A) essentially different from atoms, or they are (B) not essentially different from atoms.

• If (B), then how can atomic aggregations be any more subject to overshadowing & concealment than atoms are?

• If (A), then what happens to the atomic theory of the nature of macroscopic objects (i.e., that they are composed of atoms)?

Another argument against atomism that seems to be sprinkled through pp. 225-7 is the following:

• Atoms are indivisible.

• Whatever is located in space (& time?) is divisible (because space & time are divisible).

• So atoms cannot be located (extended) in space (or in time?) -- they are “no place” at “no time.”

• Now, atomism is the view that everything in the space-time world is composed of atoms.

• But if atoms have no spatial or temporal location (extension), then the world has no spatial or temporal location; it is “no place” at “no time.”

• Isn’t this the same as saying that the world does not exist?

• Does atomism imply metaphysical nihilism?

space & time

• are infinitely divisible.

• So whatever is located in space & time is infinitely divisible.

• Atoms are indivisible.

• Either atoms are (A) located in space & time, or (B) they aren’t.

• Either way, atoms cannot exist. Can you see why?

1 2 = .5 2 = .25 2 = .125 2 = .0625 2 = .03125 2 = .015625 2 = .0078125 2 = .00390625 2 = .001953125 2 = . . .

Monism & Experience*

*Metaphysical monism is the view that reality is an absolute & indivisible unity (“All is one; one is all”).

(227)

V’s arguments against monism

• If monism were true, then– there could be no gradual motion from one place to another

(since everything would be in one place);

– it would not be possible to see only one side of an object while not seeing the other side of it (no difference between one side & another);

– there would be no distinctions or differences between different beings (in fact, there wouldn’t be different beings);

– all things would have the same location (no separation of things in space); and

– there would be no difference between the visible and the invisible (the macroscopic & the microscopic).

What isPerception?

1st Objection: If external objects do not exist, how is “perception” possible?

V’s Reply

1 There is perception in dreams, but the objects perceived are not external to the mind.

2 There is a time-lapse between sensation & perception. By the time perception arises, sensations & their objects (which are “momentary”) are gone. The object of perception is a construction of reflective consciousness.(But perhaps dream images

come into the mind in the 1st place as a result of waking experiences of external objects.)

(Well, then, it seems that sensation [if not perception] implies the reality of external objects, right?)

V’s Rep

ly

What we remember are not external objects, but rather our perceptual experiences, which, as shown above, are constructions of consciousness.

2nd Objection: Memory presupposes the reality of extra-mental objects; we cannot remember what we have not experienced.

(Yes, but [as suggested in the preceding slide] perceptions, according to V, are derived from past sensations, & he does not show that sensations have no external objects.)

3rd Objection: It is commonly recognized that there is a significant difference between dream states (in which objects are mentally constructed) and waking states (in which objects are experienced as external to consciousness).

V’s Reply

Those who are dreaming do not recognize the unreality of the objects experienced in the dream state; but those who wake up do recognize this. Similarly, the enlightened are those who have awakened to a still higher state of consciousness; and they discern the unreality of the world constructed in the so-called “waking state.”

only the enlightened (who are few) can KNOW that reality is

consciousness-only

& that everybody else must either take it on faith (in the authority of the enlightened)

or not believe it at all(since V’s arguments in support of metaphysical idealism

do not seem very effective)?

1st Objection:Doesn’t the fact that one mind can be influenced by another prove that there are objects external to one’s

own consciousness (e.g., friends, teachers, etc.)?

V’s Reply:The doctrine of consciousness-only does

not deny the existence of other minds external to one’s one; what it denies the existence of external material objects.

2nd Objection:Different degrees of moral concern with regard to the consequences of what we do in dreams as opposed to

waking states.

V’s Reply:That’s because the mind has more control of itself

in the waking state than it does in dream states.

(More control, more moral concern?)

(Good response?)

3rd Objection:

• If there are no material objects, then there are no bodies.

• If there are no bodies, then how can butchers kill sheep & then be blamed for taking life?

• V’s Reply:– One mind can change/affect

another (appeal to scripture).

– Killing is the disruption of one stream of consciousness by another.*

*Butchering is a vocation condemned by the Dharma.

Objection

• Can one mind have knowledge of another?

• If so, doesn’t that refute the consciousness-only thesis?

According to Vasubandhu, there is a difference here (again) between the enlightened & the unenlightened. The unenlightened know neither the minds of others nor their own minds. The enlightened know their own minds & the minds of others. (See p. 228)

"The unenlightened are bound by ignorance and are thustrapped in subject-object thinking. At the level of ordinary consciousness, we can only infer the existence of other minds on the basis of analogy with our own minds. But what is taken to be mind is not True Mind, and what they take to be self is not True Self. The enlightened have been liberated from ignorance and have transcended subject-objectconsciousness. They know their own minds as well as theminds of others. They have achieved true Selfhood . . . . "

Conclusion(228)

Only the enlightened can truly know & understand the truth of

consciousness-only.