School. Vasubandhu (–480 or 320–400), Asanga’s brother, became a priest of
Theravadin Buddhism, and then was converted to Mahayana under his brother’s
influence, and completed the system of the Consciousness-only School. He wrote
Abhidharma-koĞa-Ğastra, Vi satike-kƗrikƗ, Tri ĞikakƗrikƗ,and MahƗyƗna-sa
grahabhƗsya.
Basic tenets of BuddhismThe Yogacara School shares with other schools of Buddhism the idea of a ‘dharma
seal’ which means the sign of truth by which Buddhism explicitly distinguishes itself
from non-Buddhist schools. Three dharma seals that distinguish the Buddhist
perspective are: (1) all conditioned things are impermanent; (2) phenomenal things
are in existence only by condition and so have no substance, and (3) the mind becomes
calm by extinguishing the forces of craving or attachment to things and states of being.
From the viewpoint of Buddhism, ordinary people are restless and discontent
because they lack insight into impermanence and non-substantiality, and attach
themselves to various things and persons. That is why Buddhists speak of four dharma
seals by adding to the three above the reality that events of life inevitably go against
one’s will and thus lead to distress and anguish.
The goal of Buddhism is to resolve these sufferings and attain a lasting peace of
the mind by realizing that all things, including humans, are limited and have no
essence in themselves, and therefore excessive attachment is both impossible and
unnecessary. In this sense, Buddhism has originally a therapeutic character.
In Japan as in the West, the concepts of impermanence, non-self, suffering, and
nirvana tend to be misunderstood in the direction of negativism and life-denial. Even
within Buddhism there seems to have been the tendency to advise people to go into
nirvana in the sense of death as soon as possible because life leads to desires which in
turn result in sufferings. More exactly speaking, Buddhism inherited the ancient
Indian outlook that teaches that human life does not end with death but repeats itself.
In the history of Indian Buddhism, there was a phase after the Buddha’s death in
which the dominant school sought individual liberation and equated it with the
complete liberation from reincarnation or rebirth in any form.
Emptiness and nirvana with no fixed abode in Mahayana
BuddhismAt about the start of the Christian era, there emerged a group of Buddhists who
criticized this pessimistic tendency as hinayana or ‘lesser vehicle’, meaning that one
is content with escaping alone from this world of suffering into the world of calmness.
Mahayana, namely a ‘bigger vehicle,’ was developed as a means of saving all sentient
beings from the world of suffering. The core concept in Mahayana was Emptiness
(Ğnjnyata) and nirvana with no fixed abode (apratishita-nirvƗna).
ĝnjnyata literally means zero. This word was, and is still, often misunderstood as
mere nothingness. However, it seems to be a concept that synthesized, condensed,
220 THE CONSCIOUSNESS-ONLY
SCHOOL