Vasubandhu%20(4th%20century%20AD)

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Vasubandhu(4th century AD)
Yogacara Philosophy Yoga discipline Cara
practice

• Twenty Verses on Consciousness-Only
• (Vimsatika-Karika)

Text, pp. 99-109
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Topics Covered in the Twenty Verses

• Reality as Consciousness-Only (99-101)
• Perception its Objects (No Self/No Thing)
  (102-103)
• Atomism Experience (103-105)
• Monism Experience (106)
• What is Perception? (106-107)
• Interactions between Individuals (107-108)
• The Problem of Other Minds (108-109)
• Conclusion (109)

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The dialogical structure of the text

• Objections
• Yogacara (Vasubandhu) Replies

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Vasubandhus thesis
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• Reality as Consciousness-Only
• Metaphysical Idealism

The external world is an IDEA, i.e., a
construction of consciousness (chit), mind
(citta), thought (manas), perception (pratyaksa).
There are, in fact, no objects external to
consciousness, no non-mental realities.
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Objections to metaphysical idealism
If the objects of consciousness have no external
existence, then, contrary to actual experience,

• any idea could arise at any time or in any place
• different minds could perceive different
  objects at the same time in the same place
• objects could function in unexpected (surprising,
  unpredictable) ways.

(See Text, p. 99-100)
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Vasubandhus Reply

• Even in dreams, ideas (images, events) arise in
  particular places at certain times (100).
• Souls in hell experience the same things although
  the things experienced do not really exist (i.e.,
  hell is a mental state) (100).
• Things experienced in dreams can function in the
  expected ways (100).

(Summary statement on p. 100)
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Critical Question

• Do Vs replies establish the truth of
  metaphysical idealism?
• Or do they merely suggest that the
  consciousness-only thesis MAY be true?

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A debate about the existence nature of hell

• Why say that the things experienced in hell do
  not have objective existence? (100). Because the
  guardians of hell, who inflict the sufferings of
  the hellish state, are in hell but do not
  experience its torments (101).
• Animals, hell-guardians, rebirth (101).
• Hell as the creation of the bad karma of the
  condemned -- best interpreted as a mental state
  rather than as an external, objective reality
  (101).

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Perception its Objects
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• No Self / No Thing

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Perception its Objects

• Objection The Buddha taught that consciousness
  arises out of the interaction of the six senses
  with external objects (102).
• Reply Yes, but that teaching was merely an
  introductory exoteric preparation for a deeper,
  esoteric view of reality (102) -- namely, the
  seed-consciousness doctrine (102-103).

• The Buddha was trying to gradually initiate his
  disciples into an under-standing of the
  insub-stantiality of self of the
  insubstantiality of objects (103).

That is,
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self objectsas constructed by ordinary
consciousness,

• as opposed to reality as it is in itself
  (tathata, suchness).
• Beyond the ordinary, constructed self (ego) its
  subject-object duality, there is

• a transcendent (true) Self, which is substantial,
  i.e., really real.

(p. 103)
(Isnt this an abandonment of the Buddhist
doctrine of no-self anatta, a return to
Hinduism?)
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AtomismExperience
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The thesis of atomism is stated in the objection
on p. 103.
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What is an atom?
OR
?
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Vasubandhus criticism of atomism

1. An empiricist criticism (103-104)

• We have no perceptual experience of atoms (since
  atoms are imperceptible).
• no experience of wholes without parts
  (indivisible entities), i.e., individual atoms
• no experience of groups of distinct separate
  atoms
• no experience of aggregations of atoms

What is empiricism?
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2. A logical critique of atomism

• If atoms are indivisible thus have no parts,
  then they cannot form aggregations.
• If atoms can aggregate, then they must have parts
  ( be divisible) are thus not atoms.
• If the atoms in an atomic aggregation occupy
  different locations, then each of them has parts
  is not an atom.
• If all atomic aggregates occupy the same
  location, then they would be just a single
  atom, the aggregation would not be an
  aggregation.

(See pp. 104-5)
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The Kasimira Vaibhashika view
Logical criticism, continued

• that atoms cannot aggregate, but that
• aggregations of atoms can aggregate to form
  larger aggregations

• is self-contradictory and thus makes no sense.

(p. 104)
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Logical criticism, contd

• If one atom can be in front of, behind,
  over, or under another, then atoms must have
  fronts, back, tops, bottoms, i.e., parts,
  thus atoms are not atoms (104).
• If atoms have no fronts, backs, tops, or bottoms
  -- i.e., no parts -- then how is the
  overshadowing concealment (e.g., sunlight
  shadow, etc.) of atoms possible? (105)

Objection It is aggregations of atoms, not
individual atoms, that are subject to
overshadowing concealment (105).
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Vs reply to the latter objection(105)

• Either atomic aggregations are (A) essentially
  different from atoms, or they are (B) not
  essentially different from atoms.
• If (B), then how can atomic aggregations be any
  more subject to overshadowing concealment than
  atoms are?
• If (A), then what happens to the atomic theory of
  the nature of macroscopic objects (i.e., that
  they are composed of atoms)?

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Another argument against atomism that seems to be
sprinkled through pp. 104-5 is the following

• But if atoms have no spatial or temporal location
  (extension), then the world has no spatial or
  temporal location it is no place at no time.
• Isnt this the same as saying that the world does
  not exist?
• Does atomism imply metaphysical nihilism?

• Atoms are indivisible.
• Whatever is located in space ( time?) is
  divisible (because space time are divisible).
• So atoms cannot be located (extended) in space
  (or in time?) -- they are no place at no
  time.
• Now, atomism is the view that everything in the
  space-time world is composed of atoms.

Also,
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space time

• are infinitely divisible.
• So whatever is located in space time is
  infinitely divisible.
• Atoms are indivisible.
• Either atoms are (A) located in space time, or
  (B) they arent.
• Either way, atoms cannot exist. Can you see why?

1 ? 2 .5 ? 2 .25 ? 2 .125 ? 2 .0625 ? 2
.03125 ? 2 .015625 ? 2 .0078125 ? 2
.00390625 ? 2 .001953125 ? 2 . . .
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Monism Experience
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(106)

Metaphysical monism is the view that reality is
an absolute indivisible unity (All is one one
is all).
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Vs arguments against monism

• If monism were true, then
• there could be no gradual motion from one place
  to another (since everything would be in one
  place)
• it would not be possible to see only one side of
  an object while not seeing the other side of it
  (no difference between one side another)
• there would be no distinctions or differences
  between different beings (in fact, there wouldnt
  be different beings)
• all things would have the same location (no
  separation of things in space) and
• there would be no difference between the visible
  and the invisible (the macroscopic the
  microscopic).

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What is
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• Perception?

1st Objection If external objects do not exist,
how is perception possible? (106-107)
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Vs Reply

• There is a time-lapse between sensation
  perception. By the time perception arises,
  sensations their objects (which are
  momentary) are gone. The object of perception
  is a construction of reflective consciousness
  (106-7).

• There is perception in dreams, but the objects
  perceived are not external to the mind (106).

(But perhaps dream images come into the mind in
the 1st place as a result of waking experiences
of external objects.)
(Well, then, it seems that sensation if not
perception implies the reality of external
objects, right?)
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Vs Reply
2nd Objection Memory presupposes the reality of
extra-mental objects we cannot remember what we
have not experienced (107).
(Yes, but as suggested in the preceding slide
perceptions, according to V, are derived from
past sensations, he does not show that
sensations have no external objects.)

• What we remember are not external objects, but
  rather our perceptual experiences, which, as
  shown above, are constructions of consciousness
  (107).

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3rd Objection It is commonly recognized that
there is a significant difference between dream
states (in which objects are mentally
constructed) and waking states (in which objects
are experienced as external to consciousness)
(107).
Does this mean that . . .
Those who are dreaming do not recognize the
unreality of the objects experienced in the dream
state but those who wake up do recognize this.
Similarly, the enlightened are those who have
awakened to a still higher state of
consciousness and they discern the unreality of
the world constructed in the so-called waking
state.
Vs Reply
(107)
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only the enlightened (who are few) can KNOW that
reality is consciousness-only

• that everybody else must either take it on
  faith (in the authority of the enlightened)
• or not believe it at all
• (since Vs arguments in support of metaphysical
  idealism
• do not seem very effective)?

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Interactions between Individuals
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1st ObjectionDoesnt the fact that one mind can
be influenced by another prove that there are
objects external to ones own consciousness
(e.g., friends, teachers, etc.)?

• Vs Reply
• The doctrine of consciousness-only does not deny
  the existence of other minds external to ones
  one what it denies the existence of external
  material objects.

(107-108)
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2nd ObjectionDifferent degrees of moral concern
with regard to the consequences of what we do in
dreams as opposed to waking states.
(108)

• Vs Reply
• Thats because the mind has more control of
  itself in the waking state than it does in dream
  states.
• (More control, more moral concern?)

(Good response?)
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3rd Objection
(108)

• If there are no material objects, then there are
  no bodies.
• If there are no bodies, then how can butchers
  kill sheep then be blamed for taking life?

• Vs Reply
• One mind can change affect another (appeal to
  scripture).
• Killing is the disruption of one stream of
  consciousness by another.

Butchering is a vocation condemned by the Dharma.
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The Problem of Other Minds
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Objection(108)

• Can one mind have knowledge of another?
• If so, doesnt that refute the consciousness-only
  thesis?

According to Vasubandhu, there is a difference
here (again) between the enlightened the
unenlightened. The unenlightened know neither
the minds of others nor their own minds. The
enlightened know their own minds the minds of
others. (See p. 109)
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Conclusion(109)
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• Only the enlightened can truly know understand
  the truth of consciousness-only.