ABSTRACT

A few points of the Mind-Only doctrine should be made clear here. The word mind used in Hwa Yen as well as in Yogācāra has a very broad meaning. It is at once psychological and metaphysical, ethical and religious. It is the total psyche of man, including both the conscious and unconscious. To simplify the issue, we may ignore the highly complicated analysis and "mapping" of the Eight Consciousnesses 15 as given in the Yogācāra system, and discuss only a few essential points of the most noteworthy issue in the Mind-Only doctrine; namely, the concept of the Ālaya (or Store) Consciousness, which is also called the Karma-Supporting Consciousness, Fundamental Consciousness, the Consciousness of All Seeds, and so forth. The major characteristics and function of this Ālaya Consciousness, as viewed by the Yogācāra system, can be summarized as follows:

It functions blindly and autonomously without self-awareness or self-control. 16 It is, therefore, a kind of unconscious beyond the control of the everyday mind in normal circumstances.

It is a great reservoir that holds or stores all mental impressions and learning, including those instincts acquired in lives in the remote past in saṁsāṛa.

It is the supporter of all the other seven consciousnesses, and it is the reservoir of karmic forces. The potential power of the Ālaya is inconceivably great, and the extent of its sphere of influence is immeasurably vast.

The physical world as we see it, is projected and upheld by the Ālaya Consciousnesses of men, and is comparable to the images reflected from a mirror without self-entity. Although the Ālaya's operation of continuous projection and subsistence of the physical world has been carried on for ages by the collective consciousnesses of men through their common karma, the process is involuntary and "unconscious," out of one's reach and awareness.

Under normal circumstances the conscious mind can influence, but cannot directly control the Ālaya at will; the full control of the total Ālaya is called liberation and the success of making the total content of the unconscious conscious is called Enlightenment.