Is It All In My Head? An Introduction To The Mind-Only School, Part 1: Mind-Only In Context
Imagine you’re a brain in a jar.
Just a brain, in some mad scientist’s lab, hooked up to a bunch of wires that stimulate your sense faculties, creating an illusion of reality.
Would you have any way of knowing what you are?
This is the thought experiment that first comes to mind when hearing about the Mind-Only school of Buddhism. It seems like it says that nothing exists, it’s all just an hallucination and I’m alone in my head.
In fact, Mind-Only is a fascinating and profound lineage. Emphasizing strong practice and direct experience, it made great contributions to Buddhist logic and psychology, as well as forming a point of contact between Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools of classical India.
In Part 1 of this article, I will give an introduction to the Mind-Only school, its place in history and the value of studying it. In Part 2, I’ll present a closer look at the key ideas and innovations of the Mind-Only. Along the way, we’ll also examine how Mind-Only teachings relate to the Mādhyamika and how understanding each can support the other.
Why study different schools? If you have been practicing in a single lineage for a while, you may not feel so compelled to look for teachings outside of it. However, it can be a beautiful opportunity to expand your view, for a few reasons.
DIFFERENT SCHOOLS CORRECT DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF IGNORANCE Every school or spiritual approach puts the puzzle together in a different way. This allows practitioners to remove their ignorance at whatever level is the most relevant for them.
It’s like when you’re cleaning a room. First you might wipe down all the shelves and surfaces with a big damp cloth. Then, you will go into the little cracks, corners and edges. You’ll use your fingernail or maybe a toothbrush to get everything out of the tightest spots. Finally, you sweep what’s left on the floor with a broom, and pick it up with a brush and dustpan.
You need a different tool for every step of the process.
Our minds are like a dirty room, full of junk and obscured by the dust of wrong perception. We act based on the conditioning of lifetimes of bad habits and mistaken worldview. There is no one single “tool” that can clear it all out in one go.
If there were, after all, it would work for everybody.
It’s clear that everyone is at a different point in their spiritual evolution. Some people benefit the most from intellectual study, some people are cultivating devotion, others are learning through service. Some people thrive from learning about emptiness, others are frightened and put off by it.
Nagarjuna, in his Precious Garland, compared the Buddha to a school teacher, teaching first the alphabet to young children and advanced grammar to the more experienced. In this way, different (even contradictory) teachings are necessary for each being as they progress along the path.
BUDDHIST SCHOOLS AND OTHER SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS ARE IN DIALOGUE From our modern perspective, it’s easy to look at these ancient Buddhist lineages as if they sprang into being fully formed.
In reality, they are all living traditions that developed in active dialogue (and sometimes fierce competition) with each other. The schools of Buddhism in India and Tibet were talking, debating and shaping each other for millennia.
And they had no compunctions against interacting with their non-Buddhist neighbors. If you look closely at many Hindu mystical traditions, there’s clearly a flow of ideas and inspiration going both ways over the ages.
It can be difficult to understand these teachings in isolation. Many Buddhist texts are actually part of ongoing conversations between different schools and traditions: taking them out of their context can be confusing and misleading.
When you take a broader look at how ideas were developed by great spiritual minds in action, it brings them alive and clarifies a lot of misunderstandings.
EXPLORING OTHER TEACHINGS KEEPS US FROM GETTING RIGID. In general, it’s good to commit to a path and go deep in it, rather than scatter your energy exploring everything out there.
However, sometimes it’s good to branch out a little bit.
If you never look beyond our chosen path, you can get rigid and dogmatic. There’s also the danger that you’ll begin to mistake the path for the goal.
Dharma teachings aren’t truth in themselves: they are frameworks for the mind that direct it towards the truth.
Exploring other teachings is a reminder that there are as many paths as there are practitioners. They are all relative, after all. Any set of teachings functions only according to the karma of the one who practices it.
History of Mind-Only So without further ado, let’s meet the Mind-Only school.
The Cittamātra (“mind-only”) or Yogācāra (“yoga practice”) was founded by the 4th-century pair of half-brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu. Asanga was said to have received teachings from Buddha Maitreya himself.
As a school of thought, Yogācāra specialized in approaching all questions of metaphysics and abstract principles through the lens of meditative experience. They focused on individual consciousness, its structure and they way phenomena arise within it, because this was seen as the foundation of ignorance.
By understanding the karmic causes of suffering, these causes can be eliminated. After Vasubandhu, Yogācāra split into two branches: a logico-epistemological tradition and a school of Abhidharmic psychology. Both branches worked together and were deeply concerned with questions of cognition and how to correct cognitive misperception.
Yogācāra developed alongside Mādhyamika for centuries. In India and Tibet, there was a rich tradition of debate between them.
The two schools use some different terminology, but the disagreements between them are actually quite subtle. The main differences revolve around the view of emptiness of the existence or non-existence of external objects.
Yogācāra was brought to Tibet by Śāntarakṣita and Lord Atisha, where it flourished. In fact, the earliest work of Je Tsongkhapa is based in Yogācāra principles.
As the dialogue between schools progressed, eventually some great scholars synthesized the two schools, accepting the Mind-Only structure as a ground map of conventional reality that students could use on their progression towards ultimate reality as defined by the Mādhyamika.
I will cover the relationship between Yogācāra and Mādhyamika in more detail in Part 3 of this article.
Yogācāra and non-Buddhist schools
The Mind-Only also had a fruitful relationship with non-Buddhist schools.
There are clear parallels between the basic tenets of Yogācāra and Advaita Vedanta, to the degree that Adi Shankaracharya, the 9th-century founder of Advaita Vedanta, was apparently accused of being a secret Buddhist!
Dignaga, the 6th-century Indian scholar who created the standard formulation of Buddhist logic that would endure until the present day, was a student of Vasubandu. His work influenced both Dharmakirti (himself straddling the Yogācāra, Sautrantika and sometimes Mādhyamika views) and the non-Buddhist Nyaya school, against which Dharmakirti frequently debated.
Through Dharmakirti among others, Yogācārin ideas permeated the Nyaya, Mimamsa and Shaivist branches of Hinduism, especially the Pratyabhijñā school in Kashmir.
(Side note: “Hinduism” as a blanket term for all Indian religious practices outside of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism is a recent Western imposition, but for lack of a good alternative, I use it here.)
Yogācāra and Kashmir Shaivism both assert that awareness is self-illuminating and forms the basis of all objects.
Abhinavagupta, perhaps the greatest Shaivist master, actually quotes from Dharmakirti’s Pramāṇaviniścaya arguing that all objects are perceived objects, that nothing can be known separate from consciousness.
Utpaladeva, the 10th-century founder of the Pratyabhijñā tradition, based much of his work on Yogācāra epistemology. However, Utpaladeva and Shaivism in general assert the absolute reality of a transcendent, non-conceptual subject, a view not found in Yogācāra.
Mind-Only: Experience, not Ontology The key to understanding the Mind-Only teachings is to realize that this school was interested in epistemology, not ontology.
Mind-Only is an experiential approach intended to describe the workings of the mind and reality from a first-person perspective. The goal is not to construct an accurate model of the world but to remove ignorance. This is the attitude of Buddhism in general, and it’s especially strong among Yogācārins. (It’s also the source of the name “Yogācāra,” emphasizing the school’s commitment to practice and personal experience.)
When the Buddha was asked questions about metaphysics and the origin of the world, he wouldn’t give definitive answers. If you’ve been shot with an arrow, don’t waste your time asking what type of wood and feathers it’s made from; get the arrow out!
Trying to define what’s beyond the scope of the senses and rational mind is just fuel for speculation and mental loops, unless it comes out of a profound, direct experience.
Conclusion
The Mind-Only school is fascinating because it stands at the intersection of many streams of thought. It’s a central point in the lively interactions between the Mādhyamika, lower schools of Buddhism, and prominent schools of mystical Hinduism, including Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism.
It’s especially beautiful as a complement to Mādhyamika, since for many centuries these two were the most influential branches of Mahayana Buddhism in India and Tibet, and their ideas developed in parallel.
Understanding Yogācāra allows for more profound insight into the Mādhyamika views, as well as an effective theoretical framework to support meditation practice. The Yogācārin emphasis on psychology and personal experience, combined with the intellectual rigor of Mādhyamika, is a powerful combination.
Now that we have a broad overview of Yogācāra and how it fits into the historical stream of Indian spirituality, I hope you’ll follow me into the next part of the article, where we’ll delve deeper into the ideas of the Mind-Only school.
hese are questions that spiritual seekers have been grappling with for millennia.
The Mind-Only school of Mahayana Buddhism offers a profound and coherent response to these issues and many others.
In the last article in this three-part series, I presented a high-level overview of the Mind-Only, also known as Yogācāra.
In this article, I invite you to go deeper into the central teachings of Yogācāra. Let’s take a look at the most important ideas and principles of the Mind-Only school.
As we go, remember that Yogācāra is a tradition first and foremost of spiritual practice, not abstract philosophy. All of these teachings are meant as a map of individual experience, a map that practitioners can follow on their way out of the limitations of the individual mind.
Principle teachings of Yogācāra Vijñapti-mātra: “nothing but consciousness, cognitive representations only”
The primary tenet of the Mind-Only school does not say that only the mind is real or the world only exists inside an individual mind.
Rather, it means that all our perceptions, everything we know about the world, happen within the mind.
This is undeniably true, though we have a hard time recognizing it.
I look at a tree and I think I see a tree; I don’t think that I’m “seeing” an interpretation of visual data that my brain creates out of a certain spectrum of visible light received by my eyes.
We generally believe very strongly in our senses and assume that there is a direct correlation between what we perceive and what is “out there.” This is not a solid assumption. First, because our senses create a picture of the world based on a very limited set of data: the world the way we know it is very different than the reality known by a bird that can see ultraviolet light, or a dog who is red/green colorblind but can smell at least 10,000 times better than us. And secondly, because the senses don’t actually need an external world to function.
In fact, sense perceptions that are not triggered by external stimuli (like hallucinations or dreams) can be just as vivid or even more so than normal perceptions. If you've ever had a lucid dream and been able to consciously explore your dream world, you can observe for yourself how well the senses create an appearance of reality without any link to the outside world.
When we forget that our perceptions and experiences are mental constructions, we mistake our interpretations for reality, thinking they are the same as what is being interpreted. This, according to Yogācāra, is the fundamental ignorance.
So what is there that our sense consciousness is interpreting?
We can’t say. It’s an epistemological black hole. At that level, you can’t even talk about existence or non-existence, whether or not there is a material objective basis or “raw data” of subjective experience. The Yogācārins, as a point of principle, do not try to address this unanswerable question.
Three natures According to Yogācāra, all phenomena have three natures, or ways of being.
More correctly, since all phenomena are objects of a perceiving subject, there are three cognitive modes through which any being can perceive the world. Vasubandhu defines these “three natures” in his treatise Trisvabhāvanirdeśa.
The conceptually constructed or imaginary realm. Here, concepts and a mistaken notion of permanent existence are projected onto what is impermanent and non-conceptual, creating an illusory sense of dualistic existence. The causally dependent realm. Related to dependent origination, in this realm objects exist as a flow of interdependent causes and effects. The consummate or perfectional realm. The view of emptiness, based on that of the Mādhyamika, in which things have no inherent reality. In the words of Vasubandhu, “The eternal non-existence of what appears in the way it appears.” The third nature acts as a purifying force, removing the delusions of the first nature.
The second nature interacts with both the first and third natures. When mixed with the first nature, the second nature causes objects that are dependent and internal to be perceived as independent and existing external to the consciousness that perceives them.
But when mixed with the third nature, it becomes the highest view. The flow of all phenomena is both eternally happening and essentially empty: fullness and void at the same time, a union of existence and non-existence.
Eight consciousnesses One of the psychological innovations of the Mind-Only school is the system of 8 consciousnesses.
It’s an expansion on the classical Buddhist definition of the 6 consciousnesses. This includes the five senses we’re familiar with plus the mind, seen as a subtle sense organ creating images of internal perceptions.
To call something a consciousness rather than just a sense implies that it’s higher up on the cognitive ladder.
A consciousness is what happens when a functioning sense organ comes into contact with an object of perception. The eye comes into contact with light, and the experience of seeing occurs. The ear comes into contact with vibration, and the experience of hearing occurs.
In the case of the mind, the mental consciousness occurs when the empirical mind contacts the energy of thought and ideation. Yogācāra adds two higher-level forms of perception: manas-vijñāna and ālaya-vijñāna.
Manas or self-consciousness, the seventh consciousness, is the part of the mind that creates an illusion of individual self. It is essentially taking all of our experiences, both of the senses and of our own existence, and slapping a label of “this is me” onto it.
Mind-Only scholars refer to this as the “defiled” mind because this is the point where the ego contracts reality into itself. It is roughly the equivalent of the ahamkara in Hindu traditions.
Above or below this level, there is no sense of “me.”
Below it, there is the working of the six sense consciousnesses, which do not inherently have this feeling of “me.” A visual perception occurs and it is simply that, until manas makes you believe “I am seeing this.”
Above the level of manas, we are already at ālaya-vijñāna, the impersonal storehouse consciousness.
Alaya-vijñāna: “storehouse consciousness, base consciousness”
A unique feature of the Yogācāra system, ālaya-vijñāna is the most fundamental layer of perception.
It is a base level of consciousness that receives all perceptions and out of which all experiences arise. ālaya-vijñāna (literally “storehouse consciousness”) is like a warehouse of karma. The imprints of any action are stored here as karmic seeds, and when they have ripened, they unfold as an event within one of the sense consciousnesses.
ālaya-vijñāna continues uninterrupted from life to life. Every sentient being has their own storehouse consciousness, collecting the imprints of their unique experiences and generating a unique reality for them.
However, ālaya-vijñāna should not be mistaken for a permanent self belonging to each individual. Why?
It is always changing. Just as no two moments of your life are exactly the same, at every second seeds are ripening and new seeds are planted within ālaya-vijñāna. It has no form of its own. Like a blank screen onto which images are projected, it has no identity beyond the collection of seeds it contains. Manas is actually where the illusion of individual identity appears. It grasps onto the activity of ālaya-vijñāna and creates a sense of self from it, mistaking itself for an object within the field of experience.
ālaya-vijñāna is an answer to the problem of continuity: if everything that I experience (including my image of myself) is the product of past karma, without any individual self to hold it all together, what makes it so that I experience the results of my own past actions?
How can I even say that they are my actions, when the being who experiences the results is completely different from the one who created the causes?
However, the concept was heavily criticized by opposing schools, for whom it seemed too close to saying that sentient beings have a permanent, self-existent nature. Chandrakirti and Bhavaviveka (both Mādhyamika) argued that ālaya-vijñāna was atman in disguise, something that exists absolutely but beyond contact with the phenomenal world.
Indeed, it seems at first glance to have a lot in common with the Hindu description of consciousness as the universal, transcendent basis of reality, although it is not the same. (The difference will become clear when I talk about the Mind-Only view of enlightenment.)
To avoid the stigma, later Yogācārins dropped the term ālaya-vijñāna and instead used citta-santana (“mind-stream”) to refer to essentially the same idea.
View of dependent co-arising: subject and object arise from the same seed Another hallmark of the Mind-Only is the assertion that subject and object arise from the same karmic seed, or bija.
In any act of perception, we can identify three elements: subject (the one who perceives), object (the thing which is perceived) and the perception itself.
We very much believe in a division between subject and object. I am the one seeing that. He is the one doing this to me. We can’t imagine how it would be like to be both subject and object. Just try to imagine it now, you’ll see the mind short-circuits around the idea.
But when we look at reality from a karmic perspective, where every experience is generated by a ripening of a sentient being’s karmic seeds, the kinship of subject and object begins to make sense.
Look at any moment of your life. If you take out the story – the labels, concepts, sense of “I” and direction in time – you have a bare flash of perception. Raw data about the world, inside and out, all coming in one burst. Some of it is in the background of your attention, some in the foreground, but it is all there together.
Bundled in there is a sensation of self, a filter that goes over all your sensory information and says, “this belongs to me, this doesn’t belong to me.”
A single karmic seed creates a single moment of experience, including everything perceived in that moment: external sensations, internal sensations (such as thought and memory), and a sense of ego that divides the actor in the scene from the set. From this, we find the Yogācārin definition of emptiness: the non-duality of perceiving subject and perceived object.
The Mādhyamikas reject the Yogācārin approach to emptiness and dependent co-arising, since they assert that conventionally, subject and object exist as separate entities.
They claim that the Yogācārins fall here into the extreme of nihilism. The Yogācāra assertion of the inherent reality of the consciousnesses, on the other hand, would fall into the extreme of self-existence.
It’s a thorny topic. However, remember that the Yogācāra teachings are intended as epistemology, not ontology. It’s possible to synthesize the two views, taking Yogācāra as a map of experience through conventional reality while the Mādhyamika view attempts to represent the actual nature of reality.
View of enlightenment The process of enlightenment is referred to in the Mind-Only school as āśraya-parāvṛtti or “turning around of the basis,” the basis here being ālaya-vijñāna.
With the sudden overturning of ālaya-vijñāna, the eight consciousnesses are replaced with enlightened cognitive abilities that perceive all objects exactly as they are.
The five sense consciousnesses become immediate, direct cognitions.
The sixth consciousness becomes perfect, non-conceptual discernment.
The seventh consciousness, instead of creating a separate ego, generates a complete equality between self and others. Manas no longer grasps the activity of ālaya-vijñāna as its own self. Dissolving any division of internality and externality, this makes it impossible to hold any preference between self-as-perceiver and self-as-other.
The eighth consciousness finally becomes the Great Mirror Cognition (Mahādarśa-jñāna), a perfect, impartial reflection of reality that displays everything without any distortion, prejudice or attachment.
So what are these enlightened cognitions exactly? What are objects like when perceived as they are, without ignorance and self-grasping?
The Yogācārins don’t say. Because this higher reality is non-dual and non-conceptual, it’s impossible to describe in language.
Furthermore, it’s not important to speculate about what reality is really like or what will happen when we become enlightened. We have to find out for ourselves.
Conclusion
This is by no means a definitive guide to the ideas of the Yogācāra school.
As a tradition that flourished for centuries, in a land that was a hotbed of rich spiritual inquiry, it’s incorrect even to categorize Yogācāra as a single uniform school. It had many branches and developments, shaped by opposing voices within the school and in response to the critiques of other traditions.
However, meeting these concepts will give you a taste of the Yogācāra and a framework within which to understand it. I hope you will, in the spirit of the Yogācārins, take this knowledge as fuel for your own meditation.
In the next and final installment of this series, we will zoom in on the Mind-Only view of emptiness, which will give deeper insight in the relationship of Yogācāra to the Mādhyamika.
