- The One and the Many:
- Yogaacaara Buddhism and Husserl
- By M. J. Larrabee
Philosophy East and West
Volume 32 No. 1, January, 1981, p. 3-14
© University of Hawaii Press
INTRODUCTION
Among the teachings of the Buddhist
school of aacaara,(1) the
doctrine of the aalayavij~naana
(or aalaya, for short)
is especially unique
and perplexing. The
Yogaacaara or Vij~naanavaada school evolved
between 350 and 500 A.D.,
stimulating other followers in India and China into the ninth century. The
school posits a form of subjective idealism,
partially in reaction to the movement begun by
Naagaarjuna in the second century A.D., a philosophy which had denied the
reality of both the empirical world and the self. Yogaacaara attempts
to establish the reality of the self as
consciousness in order to overcome the skepticism
and nihilism engendered by Naagaarjuna's teachings.(2)
The
doctrine of the aalayavij~naana (“storehouse
consciousness”) is central to Yogaacaara metaphysics, but it appears impervious to a clearly defined conceptual interpretation. At times the
aalaya seems to be only one of many elements of consciousness, all possessing more or less
equal stature. At other times, however, the aalaya seems to take on a predominant and
fundamental role, separating itself from the elements of any particular consciousness and laying claim to a metaphysical status which
amounts to the source of particularity
within the spatio-temporal
world as ordinarily experienced.
Commentators, mirroring one or another aspect
of this fluctuation, have likened the aalaya to
both Freud's unconscious, (3) an ego-centered and particularized
phenomenon although with a
general shared structure, and Jung's collective unconscious, (4) a basic,
universally specified
phenomenon which underlies any particularized ego.
In this article, I wish to sketch an
additional comparison in this instance, between
the aalayanij~naana of
Buddhist idealism and the “flux” of Husserlian idealism, a structure also termed
inner-time consciousness. In particular I will show the extent to which one
phase of Husserl's notion of consciousness can illuminate some of the theoretical problems which emerge from the doctrine of the aalaya. As we shall see, the similarities
between the flux and the aalaya may stem, in
part, from attempts on the part of
both philosophies to ground the particularity of the ego-experienced spatio-temporal realm in a primordial
consciousness of some sort.
The article will take the following
course: I will first outline the important points of the
Yogaacaara system, with emphasis on the
doctrine of the aalaya and its mode
of operation. Next, I will
discuss the Husserlian notion of the flux and compare it with the aalaya in a preliminary
way. The final section will
be an effort
at extending the
metaphysical implications of the comparison
to its furthest point; hopefully, some
additional insight into the problems inherent in the doctrine of the aalaya will result.
I. THE DOCTRINE OF THE
AALAYAVIJ~NAANA
The Yogaacaara school of
Buddhism, with the aid of Western philosophical
terminology, can be described as a metaphysical idealism. Its
main advocates were
Asa.nga
and Vasubandhu, who, in the late fourth
century, drew inspiration from earlier (and,
for us, anonymous) suutras, in particular the Sa.mdhinirmocana Suutra
and the La.nkaavataara Suutra. The Yogaacaarins held that
only consciousness is real. Consequently, neither the external objective world nor the “internal” egological world exists. Both
types of reality
are the result
of transformations of consciousness. The
various arguments which the Yogaacaarins set forth to defend their idealism will not be
discussed here, since our interest concerns
only the description
of how consciousness operates.
This description begins
with the positing of eight types of
consciousness.(5) This multiplicity on the part of consciousness is intended to explain the different functions by
which consciousness apparently “creates” the
illusions of an
existing spatio-temporal world and the internal
ego-worlds. These eight types of
consciousness are: the five external
senses (vision, hearing, and so
on), which count as the first through the fifth consciousnesses; an internal sense-center
(sixth); the “mind” or the discriminating consciousness,
termed manovij~naana (seventh); and the aalaya (eighth), also called
storehouse or home consciousness,
receptacle or appropriating consciousness, or seed consciousness. This eighth consciousness
is, however, first in the order of importance
with respect to generating the movement
from the oneness
of true being as
consciousness to the multiplicity of apparent
beings within the spatio-temporal world, including, of
course, the many empirical consciousnesses (human persons). It is termed
the first transformation of
consciousness as derivable
from what might be
described as the
“pure” or real state of consciousness; consequently, it
is the ground or
condition for the
operation of the other
transformations of consciousness which take
place in the functioning of mind (the second transformation) and the six senses (the third
transformation).
What, then, is the aalayavij~naana,
the eighth type of consciousness? Asa.nga in
his Mahaayaanasa.mgraha summarizes its nature as follows:
“All actions (dharmas)
which are blemished... lodge in it in the
quality of fruit and... it itself lodges in these
dharmas in the quality of cause (hetubhavana)....”(6) The aalaya, then, has a twofold
character it “receives” and “stores” the fruit of actions and perceptions, the dharmas, in the form of
seeds, and it causes further actions and
perceptions on the basis of these seeds. In short, it is both caused by and causes
dharmas.(7)
We may note at this point that this dual
character of the aalaya answers one
problem which besets any
idealism: if neither
enduring spatio-temporal objects nor enduring subject-egos exist,
how can the regularity, consistency,
and continuity of our experience be explained? The Yogaacaarins
claim that these characteristics of experience flow from the causal force of the
seeds on the alaya, seeds which regularly “perfume” the other consciousnesses (as the original texts
express it) in a specific way which gives rise again and again to the same manifestations (for example, the apparently subsisting trees, birds, and so on).(8) Thus my experience of myself as an enduring subject arises
regularly because the aalaya
receives the fruit (effects) of a mind (manovij~naana) which illusorily posits my self as an enduring entity. This
illusory belief in turn is caused by the seeds of the aalaya operating on the mind. The interplay of reciprocally affecting aalaya and
manas perpetuates the belief in an enduring self. and
the perpetuation of the belief leads to the assumption
of the “real” existence of a self which is the object of that
belief. In the same way, the experience of
enduring physical objects in an enduring spatio-temporal world derives its continuity and consistency from the mutual causation between the aalaya and the other
seven types of consciousness.(9)
Thus far, the doctrine of the aalaya appears to cohere well with the basic idealistic position
of the Yogaacaara school. However, certain difficulties arise upon
closer investigation. First, what is the
proper character of the aalaya? To be consistent with
their
adherence to the no-soul doctrine of the Buddha, the Yogaacaarins cannot
view it as an
enduring soul like “container” which holds the constantly passing seeds. On the other hand, they do not want to claim that
the aalaya is equivalent in structure with these seeds. The
latter interpretation would result in a
continuous defilement by the
non-aalaya consciousnesses causing the
seeds, thus rendering impossible the attainment of nirvaana, that pure state of
consciousness defined by the cessation of
such defilements.(10)
Asa.nga does not resolve this problem. He states only: “These seeds are
substantially neither different from nor identical with the receptacle consciousness
(aalayavij~naana).” (11) But this statement merely reiterates the
preceding position in an ambiguous and paradoxical manner: the seeds cannot be different from the aalaya because then the aalaya would be an enduring substratum underlying
the momentary seeds, all
of which are distinct from it. On the other
hand, the seeds cannot be equivalent to the
aalaya because
then no consciousness free from
the defilements of these seeds would be possible. But if the aalaya can be characterized
in neither of these ways, how
then can it be characterized? A second and related difficulty concerns the
predication of number to the aalaya is it one
or many? The texts themselves do not resolve this issue,
although certain indications are
available. There are two predominant interpretations on this point. First, the aalaya is
one, but “materializes” at many
points as individual consciousnesses which are empirically but erroneously viewed as individual
ego-centered persons. Second,
the aalaya is many, that is, each individual
person has an aalaya as one of
the eight consciousnesses which make up that individual.
As we can see, the latter interpretation
emphasizes the psychological descriptive aspect of the Yogaacaara doctrine, while
the former highlights the metaphysical or ontological
aspect.(12) The psychological view was taken
by Hsuan-Tsang, a seventh-century Chinese follower and interpreter of the Yogaacaara school. He notes in his commentary
on Vasubandhu's Thirty Verses, the Ch'eng
wei-shih lun: “The word ‘consciousness’ generally expresses the
idea that all human beings each possess eight consciousnesses,”
including the aalaya
consciousness.(13) This interpretation
militates against any
monistic tendencies of
the doctrine
of consciousness-only, which at
times seems to posit some single ultimate
reality. For
Hsuan-Tsang, such a single ultimate
could not even be “True Thusness” (tathaagatataa), as many Buddhists describe
the state of absolute reality reached in nirvaa.na, since Hsuan-Tsang claimed that even
tathaagatataa is “possessed” in an individual way by each human being. Only by inferring that True Thusness is one and
the same in each individual (thus dissolving any and all individuality)
could one arrive at a monism on
Hsuan-Tsang's interpretation of the aalaya. It
might be noted, however, that if one takes into account the Buddhist penchant
for confounding the law of contradiction, a
monistic position might be
feasible by claiming that Thusness is neither
one (because each human being can possess it) nor many (because
it is the one ultimate reality).
Hsuan-Tsang might then be
interpreted as discussing merely one common
aspect of the reality of the aalaya and
Thusness when he attributes both of them to individual persons. The
alternative interpretation of the number of aalaya bypasses a possible
collision with the Yogaacaara
monism by asserting that the aalaya
is one, but that it differentiates itself into various ego-centers, which rise and fall like
the waves of the ocean, Also,
like the
waves of the ocean, the individual ego-centers are
neither wholly distinct from nor wholly identical with the aalaya.
In this metaphysically accented view, the aalaya acquires a more fundamental role
than it has in the preceding psychological interpretation. Here
the aalaya
functions as the ground for
the individual
ego-centers and, consequently, as a common ground for the consistency of world-experience undergone by the majority of individual
human subjects, specifically
the continuous yet (for
Buddhists) illusory belief engendered by the manas consciousness that
a substantial world with
substantially enduring
ego-subjects exists.(14)
This interpretation
of the aalaya would, to a certain
extent, accord with the Yogaacaara doctrine
of the triple nature of
reality: reality is one (monism), but appears as either perfected, dependent or imagined (parini.spanna, paratantra, or parikalpita).(l5)
As perfected, reality is ultimate reality or “Thusness”
(tathataa). Thus the aalaya in its perfected state is
pure consciousness, totally undifferentiated and undefiled.(16) It is this state which a
supposedly existent individual person would
reach
upon attaining nirvaa.na; nirvaa.na is the “return” to the one, the
cessation of the wave on the surface of the
aalaya. The aalaya in its dependent nature, however, is a
continuously defiled (by mind and sensations) and appearance-causing
consciousness, which
“causes” the totally unreal
imagined nature of consciousness as an
empirical subject living within an
object-laden world. Mind and sensasions, alone with subjects and world, are reality in
its imagined
state in fact, of course,
unreality mistakenly seen as reality.
One problem which the unitary view of the aalaya must face is
how an ultimately unitary aalaya is
differentiated into a plurality of different but
“con-current consciousnesses or ego-subjects.(17) If consciousness is an ever-flowing
single stream, as the Yogaacaarins
would maintain, can it serve to
ground the diversity of the dharmic series which
constitute the individual egos' consciousnesses? As one aalaya, it should apparently give rise to simultaneous
ego-subjects which are the
same and
which
lack all distinctions. This is
obviously not the case, for the many
ego-subjects are seemingly unique
in the (illusory) characters they have, the (illusory) actions they perform, and so
on. I myself, as a series of momentary
dharmas, am distinct and different from you. Consequently, the unitariness of the aalaya must be
interpreted in a way which can account for the divergences in its “waves.”
Let us look more
closely at the momentariness of the aalaya.
As pure flowing consciousness, the aalaya is surely beyond description. The moment we say that it flows, we are leaning toward an entitative image in which we see some thing which constantly changes. Yet
this is precisely
not the nature of pure consciousness.
In apprehending pure consciousness as one,
we might imagine again something which is immutable and possibly lacking in all
determinations. But, of course, the aalaya is not an entity
in any sense of substantiality, either as an underlying substrate of changes or as an immutable
substance with a quasi-divine nature. Yet constant change and immutable indetermination both
seem to be characteristics of the aalaya (although they are
seemingly incompatible without a grounding substance theory). Can non-entitative consciousness
be both constantly changing
in its determinations
and immutably indetermined?
For that is precisely how we want to interpret the aalaya in its pure reality. We would like
to say that the aalaya is both momentary and unitary, since
as unitary it can nonetheless
ground the multiplicity of ego-subjects in
the sense that. in its dependent nature, it contains
all the possible seeds which
can give rise to such “defiled”
consciousnesses.
There is another
related difficulty which follows from the above argument, that is,
the seemingly temporal character of
the aalaya especially as it relates to the problem of the relation
between the aalaya and its seeds.
This character appears most strongly when the Yogaacaarins employ the image of a stream or an ocean with
waves to describe the nature of the aalaya. For example, Vasubandhu notes in his Thirty
Verses (the Tri.m’sikaa):
the aalaya “is always
flowing like a torrent.....”
(18) The image ably emphasizes both the persisting existence and the non-substantial charateristics of the aalaya. Like a stream
or torrent it continuously flows on,
or, perhaps more accurately, there is a continuous flowing
(not: some thing is
continuously flowing). Also, like
the stream, it undergoes continuous change or transformation (recall Heraclitus'
river). From one perspective,
such transformation can be seen as the result of the constant change
over of
the momentary seeds “carried” by the
aalaya-stream. But, as noted earlier, a clear
cut equivalence does not exist between the aalaya and its
seeds the aalaya is not momentary simply because
each of the seeds is, yet in each of “its” moments it is causing and being caused anew. From another perspective, the change of the aalaya could be accounted
for by its nature as a flow: a flowing
is never the same, quite apart from whatever
it carries along with it. But,
as mentioned earlier, the aalaya cannot be completely separated from its seeds; so too
neither can its changeability be completely separable from the momentariness of its seeds.
Leaving aside the
recurrent dialectical imagery of this description of the aalaya, let us look more closely
at the difficulty
which I termed the
“seemingly temporal” character of the aalaya. A superficial
understanding of the “flowing”
image of the aalaya might lead one who is familiar with
Western metaphysics to interpret this image as giving the aalaya a similarity to, if not an identity with, time. For the Westerner, change
implies duration which in turn
implies a length of time which measures this duration. But for the Yogaacaarin, time is as unreal
as the object which apparently
subsists through change within this time. Any empirical notion of
time, of clock-time, the time of the universe and
the movement of its bodies (charted in years, months, days, and so forth), is rejected as a construct
of mind (manas). Consequently, the
aalaya cannot be termed temporal in the usual
sense; nor can it be termed
eternal, if eternity means endless endurance through time. If the aalaya is in any
sense temporal, the
nature of this characteristic must be
elucidated by means of a more primordial sense of
time and/or temporality.
Now I suggest that the apparent
tension, if not contradiction, between a plurality of momentary
determinations and an immutably indeterminate unity can
be better understood
if we introduce
a perspective on time foreign to the letter of Yogaacaara thought as
such. This
perspective, the time of absolute consciousness, is found in Husserlian
phenomenology We will now sketch the
relevant features of this notion of time.
II. HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF
TIME AS FLUX
The core of Husserl's theory of inner time-consciousness is found in
his 1905
lectures, Towards the Phenomenology of internal Time-Consciousness.(19) In these lectures Husserl
approaches the discussion of time from the point of view of
experience. Time is
not merely a scientifically objective topic,
something apart from the experiencing subject. Experienced time is the time
of living experience
(Erlebniss-sensings, thinkings, willings) of our subjective inwardness, rather
than the time of objects, of a physical universe subject to putative natural
laws. Experienced time, however, cannot be equated with what might be termed a factual psychological time, for example, a person's subjective “measurement”
of a duration of time, the “feeling” that
“this hour went faster than the last
hour.” Husserl's more radical
position on time presents a point of view which can be applied
to the Yogaacaara philosophy,
despite its rejection of time as an objective measure of passing moments.
For Husserl, inner
time is most fundamentally consciousness self-constituting
itself. At this level, inner
time is aware of
itself in its
own conscious flow and, consequently, generates itself and all experiences as temporal.
Husserl names this consciousness the
“flux” to emphasize
its primordiality. This
consciousness of inner time is both multiphased and synthesized as a
unity many yet one. The former
characteristic refers to a
composition of many phases of the flow, for
example, consciousness
of the present moment, of a past moment as just past (called “retention”), of a
future moment (called “protention”).(20)
However, these different phases do not comprise
a series of really discrete
moments, for all
phases are fundamentally interconnected. Inner
time-consciousness has a synthetic
unity which derives from the fact that each phase occurs “all-at-once” within the
consciousness of the Now. This occurrence
all-at-once is within a living present which
Husserl distinguishes from the
present of the Now-point. The painfully brief discussion
of the preceding paragraph
illustrates the difficulty in describing a
phenomenon which in some sense both is and is not temporal. As Husserl notes, “names are lacking” for the absolute characteristics of the flux
of inner-time consciousness,(21)
even though
we often speak of it in terms which are normally used to describe the constituted stream of experience rather than the constituting flux. As
we have seen, the Yogaacaarin avoids this
problem of description by the use of metaphorical descriptions which lack specific temporal terminology, but which imply some
type of non-serial temporality (for example,
the aalaya is like an ocean with
its waves or a stream with its rippling current).(22) Husserl naturally avoids such images, but he nonetheless attempts to describe the
flux: it is, for example, not
an object, a process, or any kind of thing which alters or
persists. The flux is not in time, is not itself temporal in
the usual sense.(23) Since the flux is not in time, it is said to be “all-at-once,”
a phrase which itself is
subject to the misinterpretation inherent in
using “time” talk. Also, Husserl
equates the flux with
absolute
consciousness.(24) Because of
this equivalence of the
flux with absolute consciousness, the flux cannot
be considered a metaphysical
principle independent of consciousness the
flux is consciousness taken in its absolute sense. Therefore, in some difficult to
understand yet important sense, it parallels
the Yogaacaarin view
of pure
consciousness as the absolute or perfected reality.
The concept of
“all-at-once” is based on
the notion of
the “living present,” a highly complex concept
in Husserl's later philosophy of time.(25) For our purposes, the living present
may be described as the active focus of the self-differentiation of absolute consciousness (also termed
transcendental subjectivity), encompassing
both an undifferentiated beginning and
the differentiations of the streaming flow of
inner time (present consciousness, retention
and protention). Flux as all-at-once
is the living
present,
a unified synthesis
of differentiated “moments.”
This concept of
the flux
is crucial for our interpretation
of the aalaya
as unitary yet momentary, undifferentiated yet
distinguished. I will return to this interpretation
in the next section, but now I would like to draw several parallels
between the constituting character of
the flux and the “causal” character of the aalaya. First, in
Husserl's phenomenological discussion of
the constitution of the ego, we may differentiate two meanings
of “ego” and “constitution”: (1) the
constitution of an empirical ego (psychological ego)
as a temporal and historical being, and (2)
the constitution of the transcendental ego as absolute consciousness. The first type is dependent
on the second type, just as for the Yogaacaarin
the appearance of a mundane ego is dependent
on the aalaya consciousness.
Furthermore, the constitution
of the transcendental ego is the
self-constitution of the flux.(26) And although the
Yogaacaarins have no parallel to the concept
of self-constitution, their Absolute would at least be independent in its being, a
concept analogous to
Husserl's notion of
self-constitution.
Second, for Husserl the
flux is not
simply a non-personal stream of experience; it is personal, it is always
someone's ego.(27) This
ego or
transcendental subjectivity (not to be
confused with the empirical ego) serves as
repository of its past in the sense that the ego both “has”
its living experiences and retains
them in retentional
modifications within
its “unconscious” (the repository of experiences
and their contents which are
no longer held in retentional modifications). The ego
also “has” the future as its protentional horizon, as the horizon of its
possibilities. The ego in this sense is termed “monad, “ exhibiting its own concreteness by constituting
itself as a being with temporally constituted
experiences which stretch in
two directions
from the present.(28) And it lives these experiences all at once as the living present. At first sight,
the transcendental ego seen from this perspective may
appear as a substantial entity quite
unlike the Yogaacaara aalaya. But,
for Husserl, the transcendental ego is not a substance
in the usual sense its “concreteness” is defined within the
flash-point of the living present, and consequently it does not require any characteristics
proper to a
substantial entity.
Again, the Yogaacaarins
use metaphor to eke out a description
detailing how the
non-substantial aalaya is affected by and affects
non-realities: it stores seeds, it is perfumed by
seeds, and so on. Yet for both Husserl and the Yogaacaarins
there remains the difficulty of relating a basically non-substantial
being with seemingly “substantial” characteristics.
Third, and finally, in
relation to the absolute consciousness as monad, Husserl's description of the workings of inner time-consciousness includes the
element of
genesis. In the post-Ideas writings, Husserl
frequently states that sense (Sinn)
has a “genesis”
or “history.”(29) Sense is the correlate of constituting consciousness; it is the object-as-experienced. To say that sense has a
sense-genesis is to indicate a “pointing
back” or reference to
something more original and consequently something “prior” to the sense under investigation. This prior
element is the act(s) or no esis(es) which
originally constituted that sense.(30) In other
words, no object of consciousness
occurs isolated from previous experience.
At another point Husserl describes the genesis of a judgment
as “its intentional motivational foundations.”(31)
The notion of genesis as foundation indicates that the presently investigated sense points back to something original which
serves as a foundation for the current sense. This foundation must be present in the structure of the ego for the current sense to
be constituted at all; consequently, it is a necessary condition for
the current sense and its constituting act(s). This characteristic
of the genetic structure of the monad recalls the necessary presence of
particular seeds in the aalaya in order that a particular mode of consciousness
and/or object may appear. The
seeds “perfume” the aalaya, and as a result of this perfuming
the aalya causes certain phenomena. The
aalaya, then, in its causal character, is
comparable to genesis as foundational for sense-constitution.
But genesis as foundation
is not merely a
condition for the current sense;
it is also “motivational” (as
mentioned in the
earlier quotation) in the sense that it provides an impulsion or inducement toward the production of the new,
founded sense. The term “motivation”
gives genesis a further significance, since the term implies that the foundation is not
only a necessary precondition for, but also
an affective element in, the constitution of the current sense.
This motivational
aspect thus parallels the
Yogaacaara emphasis on the mutual causation between the aalaya
and its seeds. The seeds of
past actions “fall” into the
aalaya, perfume it and consequently “motivate” the aalaya to cause further actions conditioned by the past actions. Both the theory of the aalaya and of genesis can account for the
consistency within the empirical ego and its experiences of the spatio-temporal world.
While inner time-consciousness gives the
formal conditions for
the temporal existence of the ego, both
empirical and transcendental, the notion of
genesis explains the determinations
of the material and concrete aspects
of living
experience. Similarly, the concept of aalaya as pure flow provides the formal grounds
for the (apparent) existence of an empirical
ego and the spatio-temporal
world and also explains the origin of the concrete, consistent experiences within this
world.
III. FINAL COMPARISON AND
CONCLUSION
At this point we can
state the explanatory value of Husserl's doctrine of inner time for an
interpretation of the Yogaacaara aalayavij~naana. Since for Husserl transcendental
consciousness is not “in” empirical time,
it is not itself empirical, nor are its
concretions within the genetic structure empirical. These structures explain not
only the source of empirical time but also
the development of a concrete empirical ego. In this way Husserl's
doctrine parallels that of the aalaya, which is the cause of the
consciousness of a “real” world and of differentiated empirical ego-subjects experiencing themselves as existent in that
spatio-temporal realm.
Thus far, however, we have mentioned only the surface parallels between flux and aalaya. The Yogaacaara doctrine does not specifically introduce the notion of a quasi-temporal
characteristic for the aalaya similar to the inner-time
of Husserlian transcendental consciousness.(32) It is at this
point, then, that the Husserlian analysis may be
helpful in understanding and expanding the aalaya doctrine, specifically
for the clarification
and resolution of the problem raised at
the end
of section
I. Clearly
the aalaya is not “in” empirical time reality cannot have the non-real characteristic of
empirical temporality. But, as noted earlier,
the descriptions of the aalaya possess
a time like character. Could this character be
understood as
something similar to the inner-time consciousness in Husserl? By such
a comparison, we may discover that
at least some, although not all, of the ambiguousness of the aalaya's character will be
dispersed. Husserl's explanation of inner-time consciousness would be most
relevant to the problem of whether the aalaya
is one or many. If we consider the flux as the core
of the self-constitution of
Husserl's transcendental consciousness, we find a single
undifferentiated beginning which
grounds all differentiations of sense constituted by it as
transcendental consciousness. How does
Husserl allow for this movement from an undifferentiated
oneness (the flow) to differentiated multiplicity? The answer to this
question clarifies the nature of the flux, to
the extent that clarification is
possible for a being with “no names.” The flux, although
resembling an undifferentiated oneness,
has a double reality.
Husserl attempts to capture the nature of the flux by terming it the “living present.”
This living present is characterized as both
standing and streaming; Husserl notes in an unpublished manuscript from 1932:
The primordial level of consciousness
is a stream, which stands
and streams, which streams in a constantly invariable form,
so that, however... in the streaming a doubled present constitutes itself the present of the respective worldly perceiving and the present of this perceiving
simultaneously with the retentions and
protentions of the perceptions just-past and just-coming.(33)
Transcendental consciousness
is basically a double constitutive reality. Within
its oneness as living present, it differentiates
itself in the twofold character of standing and streaming. Such a differentiation grounds all further
differentiations, both on the level of the primal temporality of
conscious experiences and on the empirical, and founded
level of “objective” temporality
(the empirical ego and its experiences). Thus, its oneness is at once one and many.
If such a characterization is allowed, an ontological source of the constituted world of experience emerges which overcomes the
difficulties posed by the problem of the one
and the many with respect to the aalaya.
In applying this characterization of the temporality of transcendental
consciousness to the aalaya, we could
continue to maintain the Buddhistic emphasis
on a single rationally inexplicable source of Being,
while giving some concrete analysis of the nature of this source as a source of
multiplicity.
The aalaya can thus be
seen as the living present which is not an empirical
flow, but exists as the source of all present empirical egos and their supposedly
contemporaneously present empirical
worlds. The streaming characteristic of the living present adequately reflects the nature
of the aalaya as flowing. The standing
characteristic emphasizes the a temporality (or, as Husserl puts it, the
quasi-transtemporality) and unity of the
aalaya. It also allows for the unitary nature
of all differentiations
which flow causally from the aalaya, for example, the fact that all empirical ego-subjects
seem to experience basically the same (“non-real”) empirical
world. By using the dialectical character of the living present, we could
thus explicate the aalaya as one reality which
by its nature is
fundamentally differentiated into a multiplicity of temporal modes. From this
primal differentiation, the
higher
level differentiations into the
multiplicity of empirical ego-subjects would follow, all sharing the same ontological source, yet not all sharing the same empirical experiences or dharmic characters.
Each “wave” of the aalaya would echo only certain aspects of the total range of higher level differentiations (in Husserl, genetic contents).
Thus, the aalaya in its dependent or apparent
nature is many; in its true reality, one.
To recapitulate
the living present is both standing
and streaming. As standing, it is the One the Now
through which flow all differentiated living
experiences and their contents (my experience
of the spatio-temporal world
and of myself as
existing empirical subject, and so forth)
. As streaming, it is the Many, self-differentiating itself into a multiphased stream of
temporality which occurs all-at-once, thus
serving as source for the multiple experiences within empirical time
and space. Although Husserl does not equate the constitution by transcendental
consciousness with a
complete
constitution of all beings in their being (in a
metaphysically committed sense), the use of his analysis to explicate the Yogaacaara aalaya would be combined with a metaphysical claim namely, that the aalaya in its true or
perfected state as Thusness is the source of being (real
and unreal) of all other entities. This comparative
effort, while not fully
integrating the Yogaacaara aalayavij~naana into the phenomenological framework, nevertheless can supplement the discussion
of the aalaya and perhaps
obviate
some of the difficulties
inherent in its interpretation.
NOTES
1. The discussion
of the Yogaacaara school includes Asa.nga and his follower Vasabandhu,
supplemented by elements from earlier anonymous
idealist Suutras.
2. See A. K. Warder, Indian Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970).
3. Ramakant A. Sinari, The Structure of Indian
Thought (Springfield, Illinois: Charles Thomas, 1970), p. 98. Sylvain L'evi notes in his
Mateeriaux pour l'e'tude du systeeme Vij~naptimaatra:
the term “aalaya” includes “... the
entire domain which we today designate as the
subconscious and the unconscious....” (Paris: Librairie
Ancienne
Honore Champion,
1932), p. 10.
4. Ninian Smart,
Doctrine and Argument in
Indian Philosophy (London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1964), p. 58.
5. See Vasubandhu, Tri.m`sika,
v. 2, trans. Wing-Tsit Chan as
“The Thirty Verses on the Mind-Only
Doctrine” in A Source Book in Indian Philosophy, ed. S. Radhakrishnan
and C. A. Moore (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1957), p. 334; the same translation also appears in A Source
Book in Chinese Philosophy, ed. W. Chan (Princeton,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1963), p. 380 (hereafter cited as SBIP and SBCP). Also,
see The La.nkaavataara Suutra, Ch. 6, v. 82,
trans. D. T. Suzuki (London: Rout ledge &
Kegan Paul Ltd., 1932), p. 190. On manas, see Asa.nga, Mahaayaanasa.mgraha, Ch. I,
v. 59, no. 3 and 4, trans. Etienne Lamothe,
as La somme du grand vehicule
(Louvain: Bureaux de Museon,
1934), p. 81; Vasubandhu, Tri.m’sika, v. 5, SBIP, p. 334 (SBCP, p. 383). On the
third
transformation,
see Vasubandhu, Tri.m`sika, v. 5, SBIP, p. 334 (SBCP, p. 383).
6. Ch. 1, v. 3, p. 13. Confer. Sa.mdhinirmocana
Suutra, Ch. 5, v. 7, trans. Etienne Lamote as L'explication des
mysteres (Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1935) , p.
186; Vasubandhu,
Tri.m`sika, vv. 2 and 5, SBIP, p. 334 (SBCP, p. 380).
7. Ch. 1, vv. 14-15, pp.
32-33. While in many
contexts the Indian term dharma means duty, the Buddhist idealists
often use the term to refer to conscious activities,
that is, both the process and the products of
those activities.
8. See La.nkaavataara,
Ch. 6, v.
82, p. 193, and v. 83, p. 195. Also, Asa.nga, Ch. 1, vv. 58-59, pp. 80-81. D. T. Suzuki, in his Studies in the La.nkaavataara
Suutra (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Ltd., 1930), characterizes the
“perfuming” of the aalaya as
follows: “... it is a kind of energy that is left behind when an act is accomplished
and has the power to rekindle the old and seek out new impressions.... Through
this
`perfuming',...we have a world of opposites and contraries
with all its practical consequences.” P. 99. Confer. L'evi, p. 10.
9. The aalaya doctrine is
also intended to address the problem of
retribution and transmigration. The aalaya
thus provides the ground for adjudicating moral consistency between
the different “lives”
of each individual spirit, as well as for empirical
consistency between the different
moments of experiencing. See
Asa.nga,
Ch. 1, v. 59,
no. 2, p. 81.
10. In most
Buddhist literature, nirvaa.na is the term which refers to the goal of human
existence, the attainment of unity with the one true
reality. What is actually attained in this
state is open to interpretation; for example,
it could be a
complete cessation of activity or the
achievement of the purest activity.
11. Ch. 1, v. 16, p.
34.
12. See Ashok Kumar Chatterjee,
The
Yogaacaara Idealism (Varanasi:
Bhargava Bhashan, 1962), pp. 132-133: “... the aalaya as a constructive hypothesis must be accepted
either as one or as many; in neither
case is it free [from] difficulties. This indicates only that it is not ultimate.”
Chatterjee notes that the aalaya must be
grounded in the Absolute because the
aalava can never reach a pure state: “It already
contains the seed of self-disruption in the
form of this implicit duality... between itself
and its contents,” p. 117. Chatterjee himself leans toward a Hegelian interpretation
of Yogaacaara, such that the bare identity of the aalaya and the Absolute
(true reality) is impossible.
13. Trans., Wing Tsit Chan as “Treatise on the
Establishment of the Doctrine of Consciousness-Only” in SBCP, p. 392.
14. See Smart, p. 58: The aalaya
“...is not part of what constitutes the individual, cannot
be considered as the
name for an entity peculiar to any individual.”
Compare Surendranath Dasgupta, Indian Idealism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1962) , pp. 115-119,
who interprets Vasubandhu to mean that the aalaya is
only a
hypothetical state which grounds
all individual experiencing subjects; as such, the
aalaya is unitary. Chatterjee, however, proposes
that the
interpretation of the aalaya as unitary can
be maintained only when unity is interpreted as “the harmony obtaining between
the moments belonging to different series, as between
moments of a single series..., the unity of the temporal succession,” p. 132.
15. See Sa.mdhinirmocana, Ch. 6, vv. 3-6, pp. 188-189; Asa.nga, Ch. 2, v. 1, p. 87;
Vasubandhu, Tri.m`sika, vv. 20-21, SBIP, p. 336 (
SBCP, p. 393); Hsuan-Tsang, SBCP, p. 393. Compare A. K.
Warder, Ch. 11, especially pp, 1130, 438-439.
16. See Chatterjee, p. 124: “When the aalaya starts functioning,
there is no Absolute,
since the aalaya itself
is the Absolute
defiled.” Consequently, perfected
reality as the Absolute is, in a sense, the aalaya
purified. The
diffference between this interpretation and
mine is perhaps simply a matter of nomenclature. Compare Sinari, p. 98, and
La.nkaavataara, Ch. 2, v. 18, p. 55. Suzuki in his introduction to the La.nkaavataara states: “The [Tathaagata-] Garbha is from the psychological
point of view the AAlayavij~naana..., “ pp.
xxxix-xl. Suzuki,
however, claims a distinction between
the Lan.nkaavataara and the Yogaacaarins on this
point: “But the aalayavij~naana of the Yogaacaara is not the same as that of
La.nkaavataara.... The former conceives
the aalaya to be purity itself with
nothing defiled in it, whereas the La.nkaavataara ...
make[s] it the cause of purity and defilement,” ibid. Suzuki fails to
note that, for the Yogaacaara, the aalaya in its dependent nature
is defiled by its seeds, thus
continuing to produce further mistaken dharmas. In
contrast to the foregoing, Dasgupta sees a
complete distinction between the
aalaya and pure
consciousness: “As
ground of this aalayavij~naana we have pure consciousness called vij~naptimaatra, which
is beyond all experiences, transcendent and pure consciousness...; even this
aalayavij~naana is an imposition on it...”
pp. 119- 120.
17. Chatterjee discusses this
problem but finds no satisfactory solution,
p. 131.
18. V, 4, SBIP, p. 334 (SBCP, p. 380). Compare Sa.mdhinirmocana, Ch. 5, v. 4, p. 185, and v. 6, p. 186; La.nkaavataara, Ch.
6, v. 81, p. 190.
19. Husserliana, vol. 10: Zur Phanomenolagie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, ed. R. Boehm (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966),±34, p. 73; trans. J.
Churchill as The Phenomenology
of Internal Time-Consciousness (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University
Press, 1964), p. 98. Compare Husserl,
Erfahrung und Urteil, 3d ed., rev. and ed. by
L. Landgrebe (Hamburg: Claassen, 1964),± 38, p.191, trans.
J. S. Churchill
and K. Ameriks
as Experience and Judgment (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1977), p.
165.
20. Husserliana, vol.
3: Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und
phanomenologischen Philosophie, Book I, ed. W.
Biemel (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1950), p. 199.
21. Zeitbewusstseins,±
36, p.75 (trans., p. 100);
compare Husserl MSC 13 II (1934), p. 9, Edmund Husserl Archives, Cologne, West Germany.
22. See note 18.
23. Zeitbewusstseins,
Beilage 6, p. 113 (trans., pp. 152-153).
24. Ibid., pp. 75,
112(trans., pp. 100 and 150-151).
25. Husserl MS C 3 III (1931),
pp. 23-24, Edmund Husserl Archives, Cologne, West Germany. See Klaus Held,
Legendige Gegenwavt (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1966).
26. Husserliana, vol. 6: Die Krisis
der Europ, sche Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phanomenologie, ed. W. Biemel (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1954), p. 175; trans. David Carr as The Crisis of
European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology (Evanston, Illinois:
Northwestern University Press, 1970), p. 172.
27. Husserliana, vol.
9: Phomenologische Psychologie, ed. W. Biemel
(The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1962), p. 475. “All my pasts lie in me, in the streaming
present....”
28. Husserliana, vol. 1. Cartesianische
Meditationen und Pariser Vortrge, ed. S. Strasser (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1950), 33, p.102; trans. D. Cairns as
Cartesian Meditations (The Hague: M. Nijhoff,
1964), pp. 66-67.
29. Husserliana, vol.
17: Formale and transzendentale Logik, ed. P. Janssen (The
Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1974;1st ed., Halle: M.
Niemeyer,1929),± 85, pp. 215-216; trans. D.
Cairns as Formal and Transcendental Logic (The Hague: M. Nijhoff,
1969), p. 207.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., p. 226
(trans., p. 218).
32. Kenneth K. Inada
discusses the feasibility of applying the notion of temporality (not of time) to the Buddhist doctrine in
his article, “Time and Temporality - A
Buddhist Approach,” Philosophy East and West 24, no. 2
(April, 1974): 171-179.
While not
specifically directed toward Yogaacaara Buddhism, the
discussion offers an account of
temporality different from Husserl's.
33.
Husserl MS
C 7 I (1932), p. 4, Edmund Husserl Archives,
Cologne, West Germany.
See Held, Foreword, pp. x and 30: “ ‘Now’ as the one remaining
form of presence and ‘Now’
as a changing time-point among others...” are Held's
characterization of the present as both standing and streaming. See
Husserl, Erfbhrung, Beilage I, pp. 467-468
(trans., p. 386); Husserl MS C 3 III (1931), pp. 29-31,
and MS B
III 9 (1931), pp. 36-37, Edmund Husserl Archives, Cologne,
West Germany.