We are usually living with this perceptual pattern that prevents us from seeing how
beings are related to each other. The Yogacara School calls this perceptual pattern
that is produced from imagination or fallacious discrimination parikalpita-svabhƗva.
When we see reality more closely, however, we find that every being only exists
through its connection with others. There is nothing that is isolated and exists by
itself. That is what is expressed by ‘arising from causation’ (pratƯtya-samutpƗda), to
use the pre-Yogacara terminology. Remember the example of the tree. Everything
only exists in relationship to other things. This constitutes a perceptual pattern in
which one is aware of the relatedness of all beings to each other (paratantra-svabhƗva).
When we further look into reality, we understand that all beings have been
connected with each other from the beginning as far as we know. If all beings are
connected with each other, then they should be called one; if they are one, they are
individually empty in the sense that there is no separate being. Parinipanna-svabhƗva
refers to the perceptual pattern in which one is aware of the fact that all beings are
one and empty.
By connecting two of these three perceptual patterns (raya -svabhƗva), the
Yogacara School epistemologically explains how vexing passions and Enlightenment
happen. We are caught in delusions when we assume that each being is a separate
entity that has become an element of the world by connecting with other beings. We
are enlightened when we realize that all beings are originally connected with each
other. The Yogacara School teaches that it is the mind that decides through which
of these perspectives we see the world and ourselves.
Primary and secondary vexing passionsThis theory of three kinds of perceptual pattern, when isolated, might seem
philosophical, having nothing to do with our concrete psychology. The perceptual
patterns, however, constitute the foundations of our daily feelings, needs, and
behaviors. Failing to see the connection of all beings as the basis of their separateness
results in the attachment to the ego that is wrongly perceived as existing alone without
any connection with other beings. Each ordinary person is, more or less, egocentric,
believing that the world and others should exist for him or her.
Because this substantiation and centralization of the ego does not fit with reality,
it produces various sufferings and conflicts. These are called vexing passions (kleĞa).
The Yogacara School distinguishes minor or secondary vexing passions (upakleĞa)
from primary vexing passions and enumerates twenty such upakleĞas: fury (krodha),
enmity (upanƗha), concealment or hypocrisy (mraka), vexation (pradƗĞa), envy (Ưr
yr), parsimony (matsarya), deception (sƗhya), flattery (mƗyƗ), harmfulness (vihi
sƗ), pride (made), shamelessness (ƗhrƯkya), non-integrity (anapatrƗpya), agitation or
restlessness (auddhatya), torpid-mindedness or low-spiritedness (styƗna), unbelief
(ƗĞraddha), indolence or sloth (kausƯdya), negligence (pramƗda), forgetfulness (musita
smrtih), distraction (vikepa), and non-discernment (asa prajanya).
Most of these secondary vexing passions come from seeing the self and others as
separate and different. By contrast, it also enumerates eleven virtues (kuĞala) as states
222 THE CONSCIOUSNESS-ONLY
SCHOOL