Human Development

Alaya-vijnana

Description:
[Alaya-vijnana] is the closest to pure, undifferentiated consciousness, the formless self, like the surface of a great ocean, continuously forming new "crests", the mind and senses which come and go, or like a perpetually renewing stream providing continuity through successive lives.
The eighth and deepest level of individual consciousness delineated by Yogacara Buddhism, this is the ground of all knowledge and the storehouse of consciousness. This is where there is development, interaction and "ripening" - [vipaka] - of "karmic seeds" - [vasana] - from previous "lives". They create the delusion of something existing in itself, the delusion that "I" am a separate reality able to experience in a real world, rather than experience being all that exists. This is what happens as "karmic seeds" of essence arising from causes and conditions are passed to [manas], from which sensory experience arises. That is, "karmic seeds" trigger thought and action at the sensory level via [manas]. Impressions arising from thought and senses as a result of activity are conveyed to the storehouse by [manas], perpetuating [karma].
Thus this is the state of consciousness in which the personal tendencies (skandhas) exist. It is more than a passive, unconscious store, however, as it takes from experience and constantly modifies itself. It is mind in its deepest and most comprehensive sense; while it manifests itself as individualized in empirical consciousness, it never loses its identity and eternality (Suzuki). It makes itself appear to be both the inner world of mental activity and the perceived external world, so that dreams and waking consciousness, by this standard, only differ by degree, not kind. Different interpretations consider [alaya-vijnana] as equivalent to [tathata] (suchness) or only as a product of karma in previous lives. Certainly it does not die when the body dies but is reborn in the new body just as the surface of the ocean continuously re-forms in new waves which continuously pass away. Tsung-mi, a chronicler of Ch'an (Zen), indicated the process whereby, in the unenlightened aspect of alaya-vijnana, intrinsic enlightenment is gradually overlaid by delusion and, in the enlightened aspect, the delusion systematically removed until the occurrence of [tongo] - sudden enlightenment.
Broader:
Consciousness in Buddhism
Shiki
Related:
Human development
Yogacara