Selected Lectures on the Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra
Lecture on the Cheng Weishi Lun (Cheng Weishi Lun), Volume Three (4)
Original text:法有四种。谓善不善。有覆无记。无覆无记。阿赖耶识。何法摄耶。此识唯是。无覆无记。异熟性故。
Explanation: Dharmas are of four kinds. What dharmas does this refer to? These dharmas refer to the dharmas created by the eight consciousnesses, the dharmas that the eight consciousnesses jointly operate and bring forth. These dharmas can be divided into four kinds: the first is wholesome dharmas, the second is unwholesome dharmas, the third is obscured-neutral dharmas, and the fourth is unobscured-neutral dharmas.
"Obscured" (āvṛta) means defiled, covering, or obstructing. Because there is defilement, it can cover and obstruct the true nature and the true mind. When a dharma has such covering, defilement, and obstruction, capable of concealing the true nature and obstructing wholesome dharmas, this is called "obscured." The third kind of dharma is called the obscured-neutral dharma. "Neutral" (avyākṛta) refers to wholesomeness or unwholesomeness; "neutral" means a dharma that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome. The fourth kind of dharma is unobscured-neutral in nature, meaning that the dharmas created have no defilement; they have neither wholesome nature nor unwholesome nature—they are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, an undefiled neutral nature.
The four kinds of dharmas created by the eight consciousnesses include these four: wholesome, unwholesome, obscured-neutral, and unobscured-neutral. Who creates wholesome dharmas? Wholesome dharmas correspond with the six consciousness-minds, and unwholesome dharmas also correspond with the six consciousnesses; both wholesome and unwholesome dharmas correspond with the six consciousness-minds—the six consciousness-minds are sometimes wholesome and sometimes unwholesome. Obscured-neutral corresponds with the seventh consciousness, the manas. The ordinary person's seventh consciousness, the manas, has self-craving, self-conceit, self-love, and self-delusion. Because of these afflictions of ignorance, He takes the meritorious qualities of the Ālayavijñāna as His own merits, thereby covering and obstructing the true nature of the Ālayavijñāna, and also obstructing His own attainment of liberation, keeping Himself long in the cycle of birth and death with unceasing suffering; this is why it is called "obscured."
As for the neutral nature of the manas, it is because His discriminative wisdom is dim and limited; He cannot deliberate on the karmic activities of the six consciousnesses or the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of His own mental activities, nor does He know whether the six sense-object realms are wholesome or unwholesome, or whether the results will be wholesome or unwholesome. The seventh consciousness, the manas, will not say "I want to do good" or "I want to do evil." Therefore the manas is neither wholesome nor unwholesome; His operation is a neutral nature unrelated to wholesomeness or unwholesomeness.
However, from the first bhūmi bodhisattva onward, the mental factors of the manas undergo change: the afflictions are removed, and the obscured nature is partially eliminated. Moreover, the power of His wisdom is stronger than that of the manas of other sentient beings; in particular, He knows that many dharmas are the functional characteristics of the eighth consciousness and not His own functional characteristics, so His grasping at dharmas is greatly reduced. Consequently, He corresponds somewhat more with wholesome dharmas, and His neutral nature diminishes. At the buddha-stage, the manas completely possesses twenty-one mental factors, fully corresponding with the five specific-object mental factors and the wholesome mental factors. At the first bhūmi, He corresponds with only a small portion, because the manas has reached initial untaintedness and the power of wisdom is strengthened; at this point it is called the "wisdom consciousness."
The unobscured-neutral nature refers to the intrinsic characteristics possessed by the mind-substance of the Ālayavijñāna. The Ālayavijñāna is a mind that is intrinsically liberated, because He has no ignorance and no afflictions, and thus does not grasp at any dharma; there is no grasping at a self of persons and no grasping at a self of dharmas. Therefore He cannot obscure the reality of His own substance, cannot obstruct other mind-substances from attaining liberation, and He Himself is not deluded or inverted. Hence, He is a mind-substance without obscuration or concealment.
He never gives rise to thoughts and intentions to create wholesome or unwholesome karmic actions, nor does He create karmic actions within the six sense-object realms. He does not discriminate or select whether what the six consciousnesses have created is wholesome or unwholesome karma. He Himself has no defiled mental activities, no afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, no view of self, self-conceit, self-love, or self-delusion, and He has no wholesome mental factors. Therefore His mental activities are neutral in nature, unrelated to wholesomeness or unwholesomeness—that is, unobscured-neutral in nature. The Ālayavijñāna belongs to the vipāka nature: it can cause the karmic actions of sentient beings to ripen at different times, in different places, and in different categories; once ripened, sentient beings then receive the karmic retribution.
Original text:异熟若是。善染污者。流转还灭。应不得成。
Explanation: If the vipāka nature were wholesome or defiled, then the transmigration of sentient beings through birth and death, or the elimination of that transmigration and attainment of liberation, would be impossible. If the vipāka nature of the vipāka-consciousness were wholesome dharma or defiled dharma, then sentient beings could not manifest the phenomenon of transmigrating through the six destinies, and there would be no birth and death cycling through the six destinies; likewise, sentient beings could not, through cultivation, eliminate the suffering of birth and death in the six destinies.
Why is this said? For example, if the vipāka nature of the vipāka-consciousness were wholesome, the eighth consciousness could only cooperate with the seven consciousnesses in creating wholesome karma, and would only record and store the wholesome karma created by the seven consciousnesses; in the future it could only output wholesome karmic seeds, causing sentient beings to receive only the retribution of wholesome karma. Then sentient beings could not transmigrate through birth and death in the three evil destinies, and the karmic retribution of birth and death in the six destinies of rebirth could not fully manifest.
If the vipāka-consciousness were wholesome, then when the first seven consciousnesses create unwholesome karma, He could not cooperate with the seven consciousnesses in creating it—for example, evil deeds such as killing, arson, or slandering the Three Jewels—He would not cooperate in creating them. Moreover, even if He did cooperate, since the vipāka-consciousness is wholesome in nature, He could not record and store the seeds of unwholesome karma, could not store the seeds of unwholesome karma and let the unwholesome karma perfume Himself; then in the future the karmic retribution of unwholesome deeds could not be realized.
But the actual situation is that whether the first seven consciousnesses create wholesome karma, unwholesome karma, or karma that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome, the Ālayavijñāna pays no heed to any of this—He cooperates in all of it and stores the seeds. After storing the seeds, when the seeds ripen, He outputs the karmic seeds, letting the seven consciousnesses receive the retribution they deserve.
If the vipāka-consciousness were wholesome, He could not output the seeds of sentient beings' unwholesome karma to make them suffer unwholesome retribution, and most causes, conditions, and retributions could not be realized. Since sentient beings do have the phenomenon of birth and death cycling through the six destinies, and do have the suffering of birth-and-death transmigration, all receiving retribution according to the wholesome and unwholesome karma they have created, the Ālayavijñāna should not be wholesome in nature, and what He cooperates in creating cannot all be wholesome dharma.
Furthermore, suppose the vipāka nature of the Ālayavijñāna were defiled. Then He would have defiled mental activities and the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion; He could only cooperate with the seven consciousnesses in creating defiled unwholesome karmic actions, and could not cooperate with the seven consciousnesses in creating wholesome karmic actions. If He were defiled in nature and not wholesome, then when sentient beings' seven consciousnesses want to create wholesome karma, He would not cooperate in creating it, and wholesome karma could not be accomplished.
Moreover, to put it another way, even if He did cooperate with the seven consciousnesses in creating wholesome karma, He would not store those wholesome karmic seeds, nor would He output those wholesome karmic seeds; then sentient beings who create wholesome karma could not receive wholesome retribution. And most importantly, without His cooperation, the seven consciousnesses could not possibly create wholesome karma; then sentient beings could never remove defiled afflictions, could never attain liberation, and the transmigration of birth and death could never be eliminated.
In that case, if the vipāka-consciousness were either wholesome or unwholesome, then when sentient beings want to create wholesome or unwholesome karma, He could not cooperate in creating it; wholesome and unwholesome karma could not be accomplished, and the karmic seeds of wholesome or unwholesome karma could not be stored; wholesome or unwholesome karma could not perfume the Ālayavijñāna; then the transmigration of sentient beings through birth and death, or the elimination of the suffering of that transmigration, would be impossible.
We now see that sentient beings' karmic retribution of birth and death cycling through the six destinies is unceasing, and their transmigration through birth and death is unceasing; yet there are also sentient beings who, through cultivating goodness, continuously remove defiled afflictions and eliminate the suffering of birth-and-death transmigration. This shows that the vipāka nature of the Ālayavijñāna is neither wholesome nor defiled. He Himself has no defiled nature and no wholesome nature; He accords with conditions and cooperates with the seven consciousnesses in creating any kind of karmic action—thus He is of a neutral nature, neither wholesome nor unwholesome. Because He is neither wholesome nor unwholesome, He can cooperate with sentient beings in creating wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral karmic actions; He can record and store sentient beings' wholesome karma, unwholesome karma, and neutral karma, and output them in the future, thereby realizing sentient beings' causes, conditions, and retributions.
Original text:又此识是。善染依故。若善染者。互相违故。应不与二。俱作所依。
Explanation: Furthermore, because the Ālayavijñāna is the consciousness upon which wholesome dharmas depend, and also the consciousness upon which defiled dharmas depend, it is said that the Ālayavijñāna is unobscured-neutral; He is neither wholesome nor defiled in nature. If the Ālayavijñāna were wholesome in nature, then wholesomeness and defilement contradict each other, and He could not serve as the basis for defiled karma; if the Ālayavijñāna were defiled in nature, then defilement and wholesomeness contradict each other, and the Ālayavijñāna could not serve as the basis for wholesome karma. Therefore, as long as the Ālayavijñāna is one or the other—wholesome or defiled—He cannot simultaneously serve as the basis for both wholesome and defiled karma; only one of the two kinds of karma could depend on Him, and the two kinds of karmic actions could not simultaneously depend on the Ālayavijñāna and manifest in operation.
But in fact, the Ālayavijñāna is the consciousness that is simultaneously the basis of both wholesome and defiled karma; both kinds of karma can rely on the Ālayavijñāna to operate, and only then can karmic actions be created and wholesome and unwholesome dharmas be produced. If there were no Ālayavijñāna as the basis, then wholesome dharmas could not be accomplished, nor could unwholesome dharmas. Therefore the Ālayavijñāna is the consciousness upon which wholesome and unwholesome dharmas depend, and the Ālayavijñāna is neutral in nature.
"If wholesome or defiled"—if the Ālayavijñāna were wholesome, or unwholesome, then since wholesomeness and unwholesomeness contradict each other, the Ālayavijñāna could not serve as the basis for wholesome dharmas, or could not serve as the basis for unwholesome dharmas; He would not be the consciousness upon which wholesome dharmas and defiled dharmas simultaneously depend, and could not serve as the basis for both kinds of dharmas at the same time. Then sentient beings' wholesome and unwholesome karma could not be created simultaneously. Yet sentient beings are always either creating wholesome karma or creating unwholesome karma—they never create only one kind of karma. This shows that the Ālayavijñāna is neither wholesome nor unwholesome in nature but neutral, which allows sentient beings sometimes to create wholesome karma and sometimes unwholesome karma, and the Ālayavijñāna cooperates in creating all of it.
If the Ālayavijñāna were wholesome in nature, then when sentient beings create unwholesome karma, He could not accord with sentient beings and cooperate with them in creating unwholesome karma; unwholesome karmic actions could not arise depending on the Ālayavijñāna, and thus the Ālayavijñāna would not be the consciousness-substance upon which unwholesome dharmas depend. But unwholesome karma is indeed being created by sentient beings—how is unwholesome dharma created? It is created by the Ālayavijñāna cooperating by transmitting seeds, with His own mental factors also operating together. The truth of the matter is that the Ālayavijñāna is also the consciousness-substance upon which unwholesome dharmas and unwholesome karma depend. Therefore the Ālayavijñāna does not belong to wholesome dharmas, is not wholesome in nature, but is neutral in nature; otherwise unwholesome karmic actions could not be created.
If the Ālayavijñāna were defiled in nature, then when sentient beings create wholesome karma, He would not accord with sentient beings in creating wholesome karma, and sentient beings' wholesome karma could not be accomplished. Yet sentient beings are able to create wholesome karma—what does this show? It shows that the Ālayavijñāna still accords with sentient beings, transmits seeds, and employs His mental factors to cooperate in creating wholesome karma. Therefore the Ālayavijñāna is not unwholesome dharma, not defiled in nature, but neutral in nature.
If the Ālayavijñāna belonged to wholesome dharma, or to unwholesome dharma—belonging to one of these two natures—then He could not serve as the basis for both wholesome dharmas and unwholesome dharmas. This shows that the Ālayavijñāna is of a nature neither wholesome nor unwholesome; He is neutral in nature. Only thus can He serve as the basis for sentient beings' wholesome and unwholesome karma alike; only when wholesome and unwholesome karma depend on this consciousness can sentient beings create wholesome and unwholesome karmic actions.
Original text:又此识是。所熏性故。若善染者。如极香臭。应不受熏。无熏习故。染净因果。俱不成立。故此唯是。无覆无记。
Explanation: Furthermore, because the Ālayavijñāna is that which can be perfumed by wholesome and defiled karma, He is neutral in nature. "This consciousness is of the nature of being perfumed" means that the Ālayavijñāna can be perfumed by the karmic seeds of the seven consciousnesses: when wholesome karma is stored, He is perfumed by wholesome karma and will output wholesome karmic seeds, realizing wholesome bodily, verbal, and mental actions and their retribution; when unwholesome karma is stored, He is perfumed by unwholesome karma and will output unwholesome karmic seeds, realizing defiled bodily, verbal, and mental actions and the retribution of unwholesome karma.
The substance of the Ālayavijñāna itself is tranquil and undefiled, constant and unchanging; yet He must store the karmic seeds created by the seven consciousnesses in order to realize the continuity of sentient beings' birth and death. After storing the karmic seeds, the seeds can perfume the Ālayavijñāna, giving the Ālayavijñāna the nature of being neither defiled nor pure (na saṃkleśo na vyavadānam)—so it is no longer the tranquil, undefiled substance itself; and because the seeds have the impermanence of arising and changing, it is no longer the substance's constancy and unchangingness.
Because the karmic seeds within Him constantly arise, cease, and change, the wholesome and unwholesome karma stored in the Ālayavijñāna is constantly transformed. What does "being perfumed" mean? Whatever karmic actions sentient beings create—whether wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral—are all stored in the Ālayavijñāna. Once stored in the Ālayavijñāna, the seeds within the Ālayavijñāna acquire wholesome and defiled characteristics; that is, the originally tranquil eighth consciousness contains defiled, arising-and-ceasing karmic seeds, making the Ālayavijñāna, together with the seeds as a whole, a mind-substance that is neither defiled nor pure.
The seeds are stored into the mind-substance, and in the future He must again transmit the seeds out to cooperate with sentient beings in creating wholesome and defiled karma—this is called perfuming. If He does not store wholesome seeds, He is not perfumed by wholesome dharmas, and in the future the wholesome bodily, verbal, and mental actions and retribution of sentient beings will not form, and sentient beings' wholesome karma cannot be established. If He does not store the seeds of unwholesome karma, He is not perfumed by defiled dharmas, and in the future He will not output sentient beings' unwholesome karmic seeds to cooperate with sentient beings in creating defiled karma and realize the retribution of their unwholesome karma. If He were not perfumed by defiled dharmas, He would not store and output the seeds of defiled karma. Then sentient beings' defiled karmic seeds could not perfume Him, and in the future He would not transmit sentient beings' defiled seeds, and would not cooperate with sentient beings in creating defiled karma.
But He is indeed according with sentient beings, whether in creating wholesome karma or unwholesome karma—He accords with both kinds. The karmic seeds of both kinds of karma are stored in His mind-substance. He is indeed being perfumed by both kinds of karma, and in the future He will output the karmic seeds of wholesome or unwholesome karma, cooperating with sentient beings in creating wholesome karma as well as unwholesome karma. Therefore He is neither wholesome nor unwholesome in nature; this can only show that He belongs to the neutral nature that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome.
If the Ālayavijñāna belonged to wholesome dharma or defiled dharma, it would be as if He were extremely fragrant or extremely foul—His nature would be fixed and unchanging, and He would no longer be perfumed by fragrance or foulness into change. If He were wholesome in nature, similar to an extremely fragrant dharma, then when foul odor came, He would not be perfumed by it; He would remain forever extremely fragrant. Then foul odor could not be stored in His mind-substance, and in the future He would not release the defiled seeds of foul odor; sentient beings would not receive the unwholesome retribution of foulness. Likewise, fragrance could not perfume Him either, and He would not become more fragrant.
If He were defiled in nature, similar to an extremely foul dharma, then when fragrance came, He would not store the seeds of fragrance, nor be perfumed by it; in the future He would not transmit the seeds of fragrance to receive the wholesome retribution of fragrance. Likewise, foul odor could not perfume Him and make Him more foul, because He could no longer be perfumed—He would already have reached the extreme.
This shows that the Ālayavijñāna does not belong to the nature of extreme fragrance or foulness; by the same reasoning, He is neither wholesome in nature nor defiled in nature, and can only belong to the neutral nature that is neither wholesome nor unwholesome. If He were wholesome in nature or unwholesome in nature, then the wholesome or unwholesome actions created by sentient beings would in the future have no causes, conditions, and retributions—causes, conditions, and retributions would not be established, because He is not perfumed. Therefore, based on the above arguments, the Ālayavijñāna is solely unobscured-neutral in nature. The Ālayavijñāna can only be unobscured-neutral; He has no wholesome nature and no defiled nature, does not belong to the wholesome, and does not belong to the unwholesome.
Original text:覆谓染法。障圣道故。又能蔽心。令不净故。此识非染。故名无覆。
Explanation: "Obscured" refers to defiled dharma, because it obstructs the noble path. It can also veil the mind, making it impure. "This consciousness is not defiled, hence called unobscured." Defilement means lack of tranquility; it can veil one's own mind so that one does not recognize the true nature, does not see ultimate reality, and therefore obstructs the noble path, preventing the attainment of noble fruits—one would remain forever in the cycle of rebirth.
"This consciousness is not defiled, hence called unobscured." This Ālayavijñāna has no defilement and no obscuration by ignorance; therefore the Ālayavijñāna is unobscured. He cannot obscure Himself, cannot veil the true nature and truth, cannot obstruct the manifestation of His own true nature and ultimate reality, and does not obstruct His noble nature; therefore He is unobscured.
