Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 64-minute talk, Ilia S. Durovic guides students through the Cittamātra school’s analysis of the person and the mind basis of all. Starting from everyday experience—the constant sense of “I” that moves through eating, sleeping, and meditating—he walks through the logical reasons sensory consciousnesses and ordinary mental consciousness cannot serve as the basis of personhood. They cease during deep sleep, yet memory and karmic continuity persist. He introduces the ālaya vijnana (mind basis of all) as a subtle consciousness present at every moment, including sleep and unconscious states, that stores and sustains karmic imprints across rebirths. Through careful questioning and concrete examples, he clarifies what the ālaya vijnana is not (not gasoline, not the person itself, not any omnipresent mental factor) and sketches its cardinal features: stability, subtlety, neutrality, and function as the vector for karmic potencies. The talk is dense philosophical instruction grounded in textual analysis and Socratic dialogue, pitched at serious Buddhist students engaged in formal study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: CITTAMATRA – KR.mp3
UUID: 0fa1f5ba-9a1b-4ae7-ba3e-223af4f92555
Teacher: Ilia S. Durovic
Collection: Rinpoche's Story
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,732
So in the Cittamātra system, the mind, basis of all, is said to be the person. As you know, there are four different schools of tenets. And each school of tenets has a different mode of abiding or mode of presentation of the existence of persons. So, there are different modes of explanation or modes of identification of the person in the various schools of tenets. There is probably not a single school of tenets which asserts that the person is the person.
So let us begin by pointing out that the Chittamatras when they say that the person is the Alaya Vijñāna, does not mean that we are the Alaya Vijñāna, but that when one seeks for the person, seeks, seeks, seeks, eventually what one finds is the ālaya vijnana. Very helpful way of thinking. So if you think basically about all your activities from the moment you wake up in the morning, you had been sleeping, you wake up, try to prepare breakfast to drink coffee, then for whose sake does one engage in all of this? For the sake of the I, nga in Tibetan. This is not specific to Buddhism.
Before Śākyamūni himself came, there definitely were already investigations in the nature of the I or the self. So therefore, when we ask, well, who precisely is it who eats and for whose sake do we eat? Well, we eat for ourselves. We eat for the eye. We eat for the person.
And then what precisely is the mode of existence of that person? So if we investigate it in terms what the person is, how the person exists, it is obvious that the physical aggregates, the body in other words cannot qualify as a person since for instance during deep sleep, the body has no particular activity. So if we pursue this investigation, eventually, we abut on the mental consciousness or consciousness if you prefer. So when we engage in this investigation of the nature of the person, eventually we find the mental consciousness. Now what is the source of the mental consciousness?
It definitely is not our parents. There are numerous rebuttals of this one. However, if we investigate, we can see that this mental continuum, this leads us to the presentation of previous lives. So then when we examine in this way, we can see that the concept of the continuum of the mental consciousness leads naturally to the idea of past and future lives. Now we talk quite casually about past and future lives, but here this is something whose understanding is generated through analysis, through reason.
It is not the case however that the person exists primordially. Then when we speak of the person in this way, the person or the concept of the person has been examined. Then long before the Buddhist presentation of the analysis of the person, the non Buddhist philosophers of ancient India, the Tīrthikas, Mu stegs pas in Tibet, had engaged in very detailed presentations of the nature of the person, and these are refuted in Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra. So, this examination of the continuum of consciousness therefore leads us to an understanding of the existence of past lives, and in dependence on this in turn, we can understand in brief how the accumulation of virtue in a previous life led as a maturation to the attainment of this human rebirth in this life. So it is not the case that one can just present a priori karma and causality and expect an endorsement of this view.
Instead, it must be grounded in this way through a presentation of the continuum of consciousness and then the generation of an accumulation of virtuous and non virtuous karma, as well as an experience of suffering and of happiness. It’s on this basis that one can then talk of the person. So this presentation of the continuum of consciousness leads us therefore to a presentation of past lives. And this presentation of past lives ushers the concept of karma or of causality that non virtuous deeds lead to suffering and virtuous deeds lead to happiness. Now these deeds are not continually present, instead they deposit, literally infuse, the term in Tibetan is bak chak pa, to infuse, karmic imprints or potencies within the mind stream, these potencies which later on mature to give rise to experiences.
That within which the potencies are infused is a subtle mind, known as the mind basis of all or the Alāyavijñāna. So here, it is the mode by which the karmic imprints or the potencies are infused or placed, which is the critical matter. How are they placed within the mind, the basis of all? This is the difficult topic. Now generally speaking, we are more familiar with our mental consciousness and with the memories within our mental consciousness, which arise also from karmic imprints. It’s a bit difficult to say topic.
So, Rinpoche mentioned many times at the monastery when we were studying the Lamrim and specifically studying this topic, that it was important to implant stable karmic imprints within our mind and here he was really referring to infusing stable karmic imprints within what the Cittamātra called the mind basis of all, but what is called in the other traditions, the fundamental mind. Now at present, probably the karmic imprints which are infused within our minds, infused within the mental consciousness, at the level of mental consciousness, at the level of recollections. So here, therefore, the foundation of the person is mental according to Cittamātra. The instance given of the person is the Alaya Vijñāna, the mind basis of all. Then you might ask, well does that mean that I am the Alāyavijñāna? It’s a good question.
Obviously no, what is being said by Chitamatra is that when one analyzes ultimately, what one finds is the instance of the person is the Alāyavijñāna. So let us take an example which should make this a bit clearer. Let us take the case of a car. Then the numerous parts to a car which make it function, but at the end of the day if you analyze really carefully, the one thing which is indispensable for the car to operate is gasoline. No gasoline, no car. Then that is not to say that gasoline alone is a car.
Likewise for ourselves, actually we need food to operate, but we are not food. Likewise, if we take terrorists, when we investigate terrorists, then obviously at the end of the day, they are human beings. Would we want to say that all human beings are potential terrorists? Obviously not. So now if you take the case, for instance, in Tibetan, when we say, I eat, I sleep, I meditate, I study in every single case, it is I or nga in Tibetan who does this.
And it is a vocable which arises very easily, which is uttered very easily. So when we investigate therefore what precisely the eye is, in other words, the experience of pleasant or unpleasant sensation or if you wish in a more technical context, the experience of pleasant or unpleasant maturation. Then we find that the eye cannot be the Alāyavijñāna body since in deep sleep, the body is practically non functional. However, under investigation, we can see that the I or the person has to be ultimately a subtle consciousness. So now it is not the case that there is one single ālaya vijnana which is somehow shared by everybody.
Each person has their own individual Alaya Vijñāna or mind basis of all, and even though we refer to it as a subtle consciousness, that term is actually not used. In Cittamātra, the term which is used is Alāyavijñāna or mind basis of all Now, obviously, we have numerous rebirths and the debates which do arise in the Buddhist texts is are all the Alayavijnanas, which are the supports of these rebirths one or different, are they one nature or different natures? What exactly is the status of the Alāyavijñāna of the being in the intermediate state and so forth. Then even though we all have our own Alāyavijñāna, our own mind basis of all, we are unable to use it in the way of sensory consciousnesses, which we use and then eventually cease. So therefore, under investigation, the person ourselves encounters, if you wish, the Alaya Vijñāna, this subtle mind.
Now you do understand that the person is not the Alāyavijñāna nor is the Alāyavijñāna the person. We have bodies, we have physical components. The Alāyavijñāna is mental. So ultimately, if we investigate Chris, Chris encounters his Alaya Vijñāna, abuts on his Alaya Vijñāna. Is Chris his Alaya Vijñāna?
No. Chris, no. But Chris’ Alaya Vijñāna is a person. So actually there are two modes of presentation of the person, the coarse and the subtle, and at present when we refer to persons in daily life, it’s a coarse person we refer to. And in Buddhist texts, one refers to the person either being an imputed existence or a substantial existence.
Now the imputedly existent person is probably the coarse person. The substantially existent person is probably the mind basis of all. So here, one must be able to present the meaning of the Alaya Vijñāna. Then as I asked you previously, are the sensory consciousnesses the Alaya Vijñāna? You quite rightly answered, no they aren’t.
Then I asked whether the mental consciousness was the Alaya Vijñāna and you also answered, no it isn’t. So it is through such careful investigations that one is able to identify the meaning of the Alaya Vijñāna. So you understand what sensory consciousness is, the consciousness of the five doors are. Are the sensory consciousnesses the Alaya Vijñāna? Yes or no?
No. No. Why? Why? Why?
Quick, quick, please. Quick, quick, quick, please. I have time, know. No more, I need to cook, you know. I’m asking you why aren’t sensory consciousness So most of you answered correctly that during deep sleep one is unable to use the sensory consciousnesses and is still present during deep sleep.
The same is true of the mental consciousness, which cannot be used during deep sleep and does not qualify therefore as the. Yeah. Could you repeat, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, I translated your words. You can pass. Chris, you can pass, pass, pass it.
You can see it. My my understanding is that the reason why the sense consciousness cannot be persons because they are absent during sleep. But basically the reason they cannot be the consciousness is because not because they’re absent but because what is required is something is present constantly. So I’m looking at the inverse basically, the opposite. Something that must be present all the time qualifies to be the that’s basically my statement.
Rather than saying something does not qualify to be the because it is absent. Obviously, it is insufficient on the basis of these reasons alone to explain the mode of existence of the other. There are numerous other reasons which are given. I guess my point is that you’re you’re explaining the exclusion, explaining why something cannot be the but not something that can be. So my point is what can be is something that is present at every single moment rather than specify something that cannot be.
What cannot be the Alāyavijñāna? Something that basically is absent for example during sleep. That doesn’t explain what the Alāyavijñāna is. It’s just items that cannot be. So when we awaken from deep sleep, then we can recollect what we did or thought yesterday, we can also recollect what we did much longer ago.
This therefore entails that there must exist a stable support for these memories, which are rooted in imprints, and this stable support cannot be the sensory consciousnesses, which cease during deep sleep, nor can it be the mental consciousness, which also ceases during deep sleep. It becomes therefore necessary to posit a subtle consciousness, which can be the vector for these imprints, and that is the Now Sautrāntika and probably the Vaibhāṣika as well assert that during deep sleep, as well as during a coma of the state of unconsciousness, deep mental consciousness is simply absent. This is not in other words, consciousness isn’t there. This is not the position of the Cittamātrins who say that there must be some type of consciousness during these states. And the rationale for this explanation is that according to both both Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika, during a meditative equipoise on cessation, mental consciousness ceases.
Then according to Chitamatra, during a meditative equipoise on cessation, the Alāyavijñāna remains. So at present Geshe-la would like to ask you, what is the meaning of the Alāyavijñāna? There was a definition of the definition. Do you remember? You’re gonna you just continue.
No. No. No. No. It’s just water.
Water has never harmed anything. I ask for the definition of the Alāyavijñāna, please. Steve and I were talking about it during discussion group. Came up with something that’s a bit wordy though. I’ll I’ll read it to you.
The Alāyavijñāna is a stable, subtle consciousness observing the five sense objects, five sense organs and the imprints of manifest conceptuality. You got to speak louder. And end what? And the karmic imprints Uh-huh. Of manifest conceptuality with an aspect of inattentiveness and an unobscured and neutral nature.
It is accompanied by the five omnipresent mental factors and in functioning as a stable base for the karmic imprints it is posited as the person? Can you give me your text, I will translate directly. I ask you, you are a student of Rinpoche you know. So Geshe-la is asking what you think What is your what are your thoughts about the Alāyavijñāna? What is the Alaya Vijñāna?
What is the definition? It is a very subtle mind that is the support for karmic imprints and remains during deep sleep? The Alāyavijñāna is a subtle consciousness that is the vector for karmic imprints. It’s a stable consciousness and so it’s present at all times including throughout sleep and comas and so forth. And it is Mhmm.
Steve explained the Alaya Vijñāna and its associates, it would be good if yourselves could do so as well. So you mentioned the associates, in other words, the parts of the Alāyavijñāna. Now are these five omnipresent mental factors also the Alaya Vijñāna or not? Then if we take the example of the sensation of the Alaya Vijñāna, which one is it? Is it pleasant?
Is it unpleasant? What is it? And why are the remaining four omnipresent mental factors Discrimination, intention, attention and contact. The Alaya Vijñāna or not the Alaya Vijñāna? What kind of mental factor?
So therefore, what does that entail? Why are the four remaining, so we covered sensation. Why are the four remaining omnipresent mental factors not the Alāyavijñāna? They are neutral. Same thing.
You’re not providing an explanation. Yes, because the Alāyavijñāna is a main mind and the five omnipresent mental factors So I’d like him now to come up with a nice elegant definition of the as a stable mind, a subtle mind, and the basis of infusion of karmic imprints, which transmigrates from life to life. Then Marx definition was very verbose. So Geshe-la would like a beautiful definition from you, something which you can basically think about happily. Just what you say.
No. Okay. Let’s meditate during a couple of minutes on the meaning of the Alaya Vijñāna. You mentioned all the key components, but Geshe-la would like something concise and elegant. Okay, four or three minutes.
. So for discussion at present, Geshe-la would like you to come up with a nice compact definition of the Alaya Vijñāna. Then I ask Geshe-la’s permission to send you a copy of a translation of Günter Reymann’s treatise made by a friend of mine at the University of Virginia. Put your names on a piece of paper with your emails, but only if you’re actually going to read it, it’s a monster of a thesis, it’s 600 pages, because it’s a lot of material to send by email. So put your names and I’ll take that at the end of the discussion.
So a definition which is easy to understand and the very essence. Please.