[Buddha-l] Sabba Sutta

[Dan Lusthaus]

If I can add a few cents to the sabba sutta cum alayavijnana discussion...

The sabba sutta is one of the most important of the Pali suttas since Buddha
explicitly states that everything we know to be the case we know through our
six senses. Anyone who claims there is anything beyond that is lying or
making up crap.

The mental sense is similar to the five sense-fields, in that it consists of
an organ (manas), a corresponding sense field (dharmas, vi.saya, the
vocabulary expands over time), and when the organ and its corresponding
sense-field (gocara) come into contact, a corresponding consciousness
(vijnana) arises. It is different from the other five in various ways,
explained differently by different Buddhist schools and texts. For instance,
unlike the five, each of which is isolated from the others (e.g., the eye
sees visibles, but not audibles; one can be blind and still hear, etc.), the
mental sense can take the cognitions of the other five as its own
sense-object. We can mentally think about what we see, hear, etc. There is a
great deal of discussion and debate about how that works, with a variety of
different theories. For instance, for Sarvastivada (and some other schools),
there is a momentary time-delay between one of the five senses having its
cognition and the mano-vijnana picking up on it. Mental cognizance of a
sensation is always, in other words, a moment behind the actual sensation.

Enter Yogacara. Now there is no longer just one mental realm on time delay
from the five senses, but two additional mental activities, viz. manas and
the 8th c'ss. There are lots of debates on whether the manas has direct
access to external entities, or whether it gets information on them filtered
through the lower six, whether it gets such information after it has been
processed by the 6th c'ss (manovijnana), or whether it only takes the 8th
c'ss as its object (with different schools and texts holding each of those
positions, while attempting to refute the others).

Bill Waldron no doubt has his reasons for wishing to label the alayavijnana
as "non-conscious" and "unconscious," but I think this can be misleading.
For virtually all medieval Indian Buddhists, every vijnana -- by
definition -- must have an alambana (cognitive-object support) and an asraya
(aa"sraya; a sense-base). Sthiramati, in his bhasya to Vasubandhu's
Trimsika, understands that in order for the alaya- to be called an vijnana,
it must have an alambana. But what serves as alambana for the 8th c'ss?
Sthiramati explains its alambana is "indistinct" (aparicchinna). Based on
his discussion, it would probably be better to say that the alayavijnana's
type of cognition is "subliminal" rather than either "non-conscious" or
"unconscious." There is an indistinct cognitive background (a sensibility, a
mood, a tendency, etc.) that is not usually apparent during more explicit
cognitions (recognizing a tree as a tree) but is nonetheless always present.

To the question of whether the alayavijnana is restricted to a single
individual, or whether there is a "collective unconscious" a la Jung, the
Yogacara texts themselves categorically deny the latter, and insist on the
former. Each of us has our own alayavijnana. There is no group alayavijnana
we share. Bill's response to this sounds like he has been doing apologetic
recastings for nonspecialists for too long, since there is something to what
he says, but the details in the Yogacara texts themselves are not as vague
or as amorphous as his account.

To appreciate the Yogacara take on this, we need to add one additional
factor. From the time of earliest Buddhism, one of the five skandhas was
samskara, embodied karmic conditioning. This is what carries over from one
life to the next, and is developed from pleasure-pain conditioning. As
Buddhist analysis grew more sophisticated and complex, the samskaras became
the most important category, so that when one looks at the abhidharma lists
of dharmas (e.g., the so-called 75 dharmas of the Kosa, or the 100 dharmas
of Yogacara), aside from the unconditioned dharmas and the other four
skandhas, *all* other dharmas are explicitly called types of samskaras.

The 8th c'ss has many names -- alayavijnana is only one of them. The
earliest major name was aadaana-vijnana (appropriating consciousness), since
the 8th appropriates a body on birth, and leaves it on death. It also impels
the individual to appropriate experience, sensation, etc. Other names for
the 8th are vipaaka-vijnana (karmic maturing consciousness),
sarva-biijaaka-vijnana (all seeds consciousness), and muula-vijnana (root
consciousness). Vipaka and sarvabijaka are descriptors of the 8th as
samskaras; mula indicates it as the indistinct underpinning for our other
cognitions, and alayavijnana (warehouse consciousness) attempts to conflate
all of these (the c'ss in which the seeds mature, influencing other
cognitions, in acts of appropriation).

There are, according to Vasubandhu in his Twenty Verses (Vimsatika), "own
seeds" and "seeds from others." Our own seeds are our own samskaric
conditioning, which is why we are born with senses that taste certain things
sweet and others not (while, for instance, pretas would find sugar's taste
repulsive). Seeds from others are conditioning we acquire through contact
with others. E.g., having read Bill's account, even though passed through
intermediaries, his ideas have entered your thinking (consciousness) as
seeds, that may take root and grow there. In other words, we influence each
other, at times profoundly. Seeds are karmic byproducts. So those who have
undergone similar experiences, will tend to congregate together, attracted
to the same types of things, angered and repelled by the same types of
things. Humans usually find feces repulsive because of past karmic
similarities; flies see feces as a scrumptuous lunch, based on their past
karma. This also applies to this-life collectivities. At a KKK meeting
everyone not only thinks but "sees" blacks as inferior and dangerous.
Buddha-l tends to attract anti-Republicans.

So, while each of us has our own alayavijnana, it is being influenced not
only by our own past, but we are influencing each other, continuously. That
engenders a type of collective karma (but not collective unconscious, except
in the most imprecise terms).

Dan Lusthaus