ABSTRACT

Rūpa-dhātu has certain characteristics: Homogeneity, that is, typological or morphological or phylogenic similarities; stability; continuity. Vāsanā the karmic 'perfuming' of the consciousness stream are conditioning. Experiences produce vāsanā that are 'planted' in the alayavijnāna, latently conditioning subsequent experiences until the planted vāsanā comes to fruition. Yogācāra focuses on three types of vāsanā in particular: linguistic vāsanā, self-attachment vāsanā, and linkage vāsanā. Language is the sphere of universals, of universal classes, of the cognitive linking of one particular cognitive object with another based on definable identities and differences. The distinction between consciousness and rūpa is itself a viparyāsa. The status of the cognitive object has underwritten Western philosophical thought at least since Descartes. Thinking he had grounded certainty in cognitive self-reflectivity, Descartes tried to jump from the cognitive 'substance' to the other substance, the 'extensional' substance.