excrement in radically different ways demonstrates
that what each perceives is a projection based on its
own conditioning, or its own mental “seeds” (bljas) ac-
quired from past experiences (perhaps in past lives).
KARMA(ACTION) is collective, in that we gravitate to-
ward beings or types who perceive as we do, erro-
neously justifying the seeming universality of our
group perspective. Thus the “varying perception” ar-
gument supports rather than undermines the Yogaca ra
position. Vasubandhu uses the example of a wet
dream to demonstrate causal efficacy: Though the
erotic cognitive object is a mental construction, with-
out external or physical reality, it causes actual sem-
inal emission, a physical effect produced outside the
dream and recognized as such upon awakening. This
means that even though dreams are only fantasies,
they have real karmic consequences. The deluded
mind produces real effects that can only be known af-
ter awakening, once delusion has ceased. Awakening
means enlightenment—BODHI(AWAKENING) can also
mean enlightenment—the cessation of the deluded
mind. Even though we act in a collective deluded
world of our own construction, our actions have real
causal consequences.
To the objection that dream objects are usually not
as stable as objects perceived while awake, Vasubandhu
replies that objects and events seem less clear, less con-
sistent in dreams than when awake because during
sleep the mind is overcome by sleepiness and, thus, it
is not “thinking clearly.” Therefore, in a dream one
does not know that the objects therein are only dream-
objects until one awakens. Similarly, to the question of
whether we can know other minds, Vasubandhu replies
that even our own minds are opaque to us, since our
mental capacities are dim and sleepy. An awakened one
(the literal meaning of buddha), however, can know
other minds more clearly than we know our own. So,
not only can we know other minds (if we awaken), but
we constantly influence each other for better and for
worse (though we may not notice that within our
individual dreams). Thus, karma is intersubjective.
Moreover, since the more awake one is, the more
causally effective one’s mind becomes, sages and bud-
dhas can exert powerful effects on the world, includ-
ing devastating destruction, and even life and death.
Vijñaptimatra
Yogacara encapsulates its doctrine in the term
vijñaptimatra(often rendered “consciousness-only” or
“representation-only”), which is not meant to suggest
that only the mind is real. Consciousness (vijñana) is
not the ultimate reality or solution for Yogacara, but
rather the basic problem, as Vasubandhu’s Twenty
Versesillustrated. Vijñaptiis grammatically a causative
form, “what makes known,” and thus indicates that
what appears in cognition is constructed, projected by
consciousness, rather than passively received from
outside by consciousness. Since nothing appears to
us except within our acts of consciousness, all is
vijñaptimatra.The inability to distinguish between our
interpretations of the world and the world itself is what
Yogacara calls vijñaptimatra.This problem pervades
ordinary mental operations and can be eliminated only
when those operations are brought to an end.
It is not that there is nothing real outside an indi-
vidual mind. Yogacara rejects solipsism and theories
of a universal mind that subsumes individuals. Ac-
cording to Yogacara, each individual is a distinct con-
sciousness stream or mental continuum (cittasantana),
and individuals can communicate with each other,
teach and learn from each other, and influence and af-
fect each other. If this were not the case, learning about
Buddhism would be impossible. Even rupa(sensorial
materiality) is accepted, if one realizes that physicality
is only known as such through sensation and cogni-
tion. Everything we know, conceive, imagine, or are
aware of, we know through cognition, including the
notion that entities might exist independent of our
cognition. Although the mind does not create the
physical world, it generates the interpretative cate-
gories through which we know and classify the physi-
cal world, and it does this so seamlessly that we mistake
our interpretations for the world itself. Those inter-
pretations, which are projections of our desires and
anxieties, become obstructions (avarana) preventing
us from seeing what is actually the case. In simple
terms, we are blinded by our own self-interests, our
own prejudices, our desires. Unenlightened cognition
is an appropriative act. Yogacara does not speak about
subjects and objects; instead, it analyzes perception in
terms of graspers (grahaka) and what is grasped
(grahya).
The Buddhist notion of karma is intimately con-
nected to the notion of appropriation (upadana). As
the earliest Buddhist texts explained, suffering and ig-
norance are produced by karma. Karma, according to
Buddhism, consists of any intentional activity of body,
speech, or mind. Intention is the crucial factor, and in-
tention is a cognitive condition, so whatever is devoid
of cognition must be nonkarmic and nonintentional.
Thus, by definition, whatever is noncognitive can have
no karmic implications or consequences. IntentionYOGACARASCHOOL