What do retributive consciousness (vipāka-vijñāna), retributive habit energy (vipāka-vāsanā), and equable-flow habit energy (niṣyanda-vāsanā) mean?

The retributive consciousness (vipāka-vijñāna) is another name for the Ālayavijñāna after the eighth bhūmi, indicating that the karmic seeds within the mind-substance can cause sentient beings to be born at different times, in different places, in different lives, and in different realms. The Ālayavijñāna stores the seeds of sentient beings' segmented birth-and-death (pariccheda-maraṇa), while the retributive consciousness stores the seeds of sentient beings' transformational birth-and-death (parināma-maraṇa), that is, the seeds of subtle birth-and-death.

Retributive habitual tendencies (vipāka-vāsanā), also called the habitual tendencies of saṃsāric transmigration, the habitual tendencies of ignorance, or the habitual tendencies of afflictions, are extremely subtle. They generally refer to the habitual tendencies of ignorance of bodhisattvas after the eighth bhūmi, and can also be said to be the habitual tendencies of afflictions of bodhisattvas from the first bhūmi upward. Where there are habitual tendencies, there is birth-and-death; when the habitual tendencies are completely eradicated, one becomes a Buddha. As for the habitual tendencies of the same kind (niṣyanda-vāsanā): "same" (niṣyanda) indicates equality and similarity, and "flow" indicates transmigration, referring to the habitual tendencies that continue within the same consciousness, or the habitual tendencies that continue within the same sentient being.