On The Problem Op The External World In The Ch'eng Weishihlun (studia Philologica Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series Xiii)

摘要

India. Its affiliation is to the Yogacara school of Buddhist Philosophy (also known as Vijnanavada) often referred to as the 'Mind-only' (citta-mdtm or vijnaptimdtm) teaching. Its basic tenet is the denial of the independent existence of material things and the whole external world outside consciousness. However, it recognises several layers of consciousness and the eighth one, called 'storehouse' consciousness (alaya vijndna), preserves impressions (vdsands) of past experiences and seeds (bijds) of karmic actions. When these mature (become vipakavijndna), the minds of individual beings project them outwards and perceive them as objects and events in an external world around them which shape their lives. The world, thus projected, appears to be shared by beings, or perhaps better expressed, the worlds projected by individuals appear to overlap, hence the assumption that individual alaya vijnanas also overlap or have a common ground. This seems to be corroborated by the view, expressed in Lankdvatdra-sutra, that dlaya vijndna harbours Buddha nature, also termed tathdgatagarbha or 'womb of buddhahood', in other words, that every being has deep inside himself the potential to become a Buddha.