by Rebecca Radnor

Rebecca Radnor — who posted under the handle "japlady" and signed her posts "J. C." — was a graduate student at Northwestern University when she contributed to soc.religion.eastern in May 1991. She was one of the group's most rigorous voices, bringing academic familiarity with Buddhist philosophy to bear on the practical and doctrinal questions the group was working through.

This post arose from a sustained group conversation about the nature of mind, conditioning, and meditation. Where other participants were drawing on Theravada practice, Vedanta, and Krishnamurti, Radnor here turns to the Yogacara (Vijñaptimātra, or "mind-only") school of Mahāyāna Buddhism and its doctrine of the three own-natures (trisvabhāva), introducing both Asanga's foundational text and Vasubandhu's commentary to illuminate what "emptiness" means when applied to the structure of perception itself.

The post ends on a genuinely open question: can we observe the arising of the subject/object division without concluding that either element is ultimately real? To investigate this, she suggests, is the work meditation points toward.

I would like to discuss some basic teachings of the vijñaptimātra (mind-only) school of Buddhism in terms of the recent postings on meditation, awareness, self, and so on. Let me make it clear from the outset that I am not an adherent of any sect of Buddhism, and I certainly don't "believe" in vijñaptimātra. If anyone who responds to this discussion belongs to a group, more power to you; I respect your choice of teacher, tradition, and method. But please, no "propaganda." It is, in my opinion, detrimental to any serious dialogue when the assumption of a "superior" way is introduced. The reason for this choice of topic is that this school does provide some theoretical basis for discussion; although it does not assert any ontological reality — or refute, as the Mādhyamikas do — the mind-only teachings do analyze the structure of consciousness and its role in the construction of illusion and the possibility of insight.

One of the basic doctrines in vijñaptimātra is the teaching of the three own-natures (trisvabhāva):

First, the imagined nature (parikalpita-svabhāva), in which we mistake the objects of perception to be actual external realities — including the separation of thinker and thought — and believe the categories of worldly discourse actually refer to ultimately real entities.

Second, the dependent nature (paratantra-svabhāva), signifying the interdependence of all perception, the basis of this being the co-dependence of the perceiver and perceived, subject and object.

Third, the perfected nature (pariniṣpanna-svabhāva), which is the realm of suchness — the way things truly are.

In this threefold doctrine we see the traditional division between worldly truth (the first) and ultimate truth (the third) that is common to most Buddhist schools. Here the Vijñaptimātrins add the dependent nature, which acts as an axis around which the other two truths revolve. It is important to notice that the state of ignorance and the state of insight are not different in terms of the perceptual realm. In other words, there is no separation between worldly and ultimate truths. Imagined nature is simply the dependent nature covered by illusion, and the perfected nature is the dependent nature without imagination. This structural explanation of consciousness helps avoid the error of positing substantive realities as ultimate truth — although this still happened in the later development of this school.

Whether we agree with the mind-only teachings or not, I think it is important to keep in mind their emphasis on perception. We have to remember that unless we are enlightened — whatever that means, or if it is at all possible — any theory of truth will be a product of our thinking and consciousness. What use is it to assert some foundational reality above and beyond this world when our consciousness is of this world? If we are to proceed successfully in our dialogues, a manageable topic is, I think, the investigation of the limits and possibilities of our consciousness.

In order to clarify the doctrine of the three natures regarding the issues of awareness and meditation, I'll give a quote by Asanga (attr. Maitreya). It runs as follows:

"The conceptualization of what is unreal exists, but in that conceptualization duality is not found; here emptiness is found in conceptualization, and also that conceptualization is found in this emptiness." (Madhyāntavibhāga, ch. 1, v. 1)

The point of this verse — according to Vasubandhu's commentary — is that the flow of perceptions is a fact, but that the inherent error in perception, the division between the perceiver and the perceived, is actually non-existent. Furthermore, the "truth" of our perceptions is that they are empty of any substantive elements — empty of an independently existing subject and an independently existing object, subject and object being the basis for all other illusions in Vijñaptimātra. Even consciousness and emptiness are interrelated, so there is no possibility of "absolutizing" either one.

So what does this have to do with meditation? In the awareness of passing thoughts, the very notion of a self that sees thinking is still a product of consciousness. This dualistic assumption is so strong that even in our deepest sleep the clinging to a self is still operative. Can we simply be aware of the arising of this self/other mode of consciousness without concluding — or judging — that one or both of these elements has an inherent existence? The very act of judgment presupposes a duality: "we" perceive "X" and say something about it. To mistake the structure of our language, with its categories of subject and predicate, for the structure of the world is a naive assumption about the relationship between language and reality. The very language I'm using now in some way assumes a duality — language versus reality. This is why Vijñaptimātra relegates worldly discourse to the imagined nature.

Colophon

Written by Rebecca Radnor ([email protected]), Northwestern University, and posted to soc.religion.eastern on 18 May 1991 under the subject "on meditation and the mind only philosophy." Radnor signed her posts as "J. C." The Asanga passage is from the Madhyāntavibhāga (Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes), ch. 1, v. 1, with Vasubandhu's commentary.

Preserved from the UTZOO Usenet Archive (University of Toronto, shiftleft.com mirror) for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

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