Yogachara () is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditation, as well as philosophical reasoning (hetuvidyā). Yogachara was one of the two most influential traditions of Mahayana Buddhism in India, along with Madhyamaka.
The compound Yogācāra literally means "practice of yoga", or "one whose practice is yoga", hence the name of the school is literally "the school of the yogins".Jones, Lindsay (Ed. in Chief) (2005). Encyclopedia of Religion. (2nd Ed.) Volume 14: p.9897. USA: Macmillan Reference. (v.14) Yogācāra was also variously termed Vijñānavāda (the doctrine of consciousness), Vijñaptivāda (the doctrine of ideas or percepts) or Vijñaptimātratā-vāda (the doctrine of 'mere representation'), which is also the name given to its major theory of mind which seeks to deconstruct how we perceive the world. There are several interpretations of this main theory, which include various forms of idealism, as well as a phenomenology or representationalism. Aside from this, Yogācāra also developed an elaborate analysis of consciousness (vijñāna) and mental phenomena (dharmas), as well as an extensive system of Buddhist spiritual practice, i.e. yoga.
The movement has been traced to the first centuries of the common era and seems to have evolved as some yogis of the Sarvāstivāda and Sautrāntika traditions in north India adopted Mahayana Buddhism. The brothers Asaṅga and Vasubandhu (both c. 4-5th century) are considered the classic philosophers and systematizers of this school, while it is also traditionally attributed by Buddhist believers to the figure of Maitreya-nātha.Siderits, Mark, Buddhism as philosophy, 2017, p. 146. Yogācāra was later imported to Tibet and East Asia by figures like Shantaraksita (8th century) and Xuanzang (7th-century). Today, Yogācāra ideas and texts continue to be influential subjects of study for Tibetan Buddhism and East Asian Buddhism.
Doctrine
Yogācāra philosophy is primarily meant to aid in the practice of yoga and meditation and thus it also sets forth a systematic analysis of the Mahayana path of mental training (see five paths pañcamārga).Jones, Lindsay (Ed. in Chief)(2005). Encyclopedia of Religion. (2nd Ed.) Volume 14; Masaaki, Hattori (Ed.)(1987 & 2005)"Yogācāra": p.9897. USA: Macmillan Reference. (v.14) Yogācārins made use of ideas from previous traditions, such as Prajñāpāramitā and the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma tradition, to develop a novel analysis of conscious experience and a corresponding schema for Mahāyāna spiritual practice.Keenan, John P. (tr). The Scripture on the Explication of the Underlying Meaning. 2000. p. 1Peter Harvey, "An Introduction to Buddhism." Cambridge University Press, 1993, page 106. Yogācāra sutras such as the Saṅdhinirmocana Sūtra developed various core concepts such as vijñapti-mātra, the ālaya-vijñāna (store consciousness), the turning of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti), the three natures (trisvabhāva), and emptiness. These form a complex system, and each can be taken as a point of departure for understanding Yogācāra.Muller, A. Charles (2005; 2007). Wonhyo's Reliance on Huiyuan in his Exposition of the Two Hindrances. (Published in Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism. Imre Hamar, ed., Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007, p. 281-295.) Source: (accessed: April 7, 2010)
The doctrine of vijñapti-mātra One of the main features of Yogācāra philosophy is the concept of vijñapti-mātra. It is often used interchangeably with the term citta-mātra in modern and ancient Yogacara sources.Gold, Jonathan C., "Vasubandhu", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/vasubandhu/Schmithausen, Lambert, The Genesis of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda: Responses and Reflections, Tokyo, The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014, p. 597. The standard translation of both terms is "consciousness-only" or "mind-only." Several modern researchers object to this translation in favor of alternatives like representation-only. The meaning of this term is at the heart of the modern scholarly disagreement about whether Yogācāra Buddhism can be said to be a form of idealism (as supported by Garfield, Hopkins, and others) or whether it is definitely not idealist (Anacker, Lusthaus, Wayman).
Origins According to Lambert Schmithausen, the earliest surviving appearance of this term is in chapter 8 of the Saṅdhinirmocana Sūtra, which has only survived in Tibetan and Chinese translations that differ in syntax and meaning.Schmithausen, Lambert, The Genesis of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda: Responses and Reflections, Tokyo, The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014, p. 387. The passage is depicted as a response by the Buddha to a question which asks "whether the images or replicas (*pratibimba) which are the object (*gocara) of meditative concentration (*samadhi), are different/separate (*bhinna) from the contemplating mind (*citta) or not." The Buddha says they are not different, "Because these images are vijñapti-mātra." The text goes on to affirm that the same is true for objects of ordinary perception.Schmithausen, Lambert, The Genesis of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda: Responses and Reflections, Tokyo, The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014, p. 391.
The term is sometimes used as a synonym with cittamātra (mere citta), a name for the school that suggests idealism. Schmithausen writes that the first appearance of this term is in the Pratyupanna samadhi sutra, which states "this (or: whatever belongs to this) triple world is nothing but mind (or thought: *cittamatra). Why? Because however I imagine things, that is how they appear."Schmithausen, Lambert, The Genesis of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda: Responses and Reflections, Tokyo, The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2014, p. 598.
Regarding existing Sanskrit sources, the term appears in the first verse of Vasubandhu's Vimśatikā (Twenty Verses), which states, "This [world] is vijñaptimātra, since it manifests itself as an unreal object (artha), just like the case of those with cataracts seeing unreal hairs in the moon and the like (vijñaptimātram evaitad asad arthāvabhāsanāt yathā taimirikasyāsat keśa candrādi darśanam)."Siderits, Mark, Buddhism as philosophy, 2017, p. 149. According to Mark Siderits, what Vasubandhu means here is that we are only ever aware of mental images or impressions which manifest themselves as external objects, but "there is actually no such thing outside the mind."
The term also appears in Asaṅga's classic work, the Mahāyānasaṃgraha:
Another classic statement of the doctrine appears in Dharmakīrti's Pramānaṿārttika (Commentary on Epistemology), which states, "cognition experiences itself, and nothing else whatsoever. Even the particular objects of perception, are by nature just consciousness itself."
Arguments for consciousness-only According to the contemporary philosopher Jan Westerhoff, Yogācāra philosophers came up with various arguments in defense of the consciousness-only view. He outlines three main arguments: the explanatory equivalence argument, the causation-resemblance argument, and the constant co-cognition argument.
Explanatory equivalence argument This argument is found in Vasubandhu's Viṃśatikā-vijñaptimātratāsiddhi (Twenty Verses) and is an inference to the best explanation. It argues that consciousness-only can provide an account of the same features of experience which the realist explains by appealing to the existence of mind-independent material objects. This is coupled with a principle of ontological parsimony to argue in favor of idealism.
Vasubandhu mentions three key features of experience which are supposed to be explained by matter and refutes them:Williams, 2008, pp. 94-95.Fernando Tola, Carmen Dragonetti, Being as Consciousness: Yogācāra Philosophy of Buddhism, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 2004, p xxiv.Siderits, Mark, Buddhism as philosophy, 2017, pp. 150-151.
According to critics, the problem of spatio-temporal determination (or non-arbitrariness in regard to place and time) indicates that there must be some external basis for our experiences, since experiences of any particular object do not occur everywhere and at every time. Vasubandhu responds with the dream argument, which shows how a world created by the mind can still seem to have spatio-temporal localization. The problem of inter-subjective experience (multiple minds experiencing the same world). Vasubandhu counters that mass hallucinations (such as those said to occur to hungry ghosts) caused by the fact they share similar karma (which is here understood as traces or seeds in the mind-stream), show that inter-subjective agreement is possible without positing real external objects. Another criticism states that hallucinations have no pragmatic results, efficacy, or causal function, and thus can be determined to be unreal, but entities we generally accept as being "real" have actual causal results (such as the 'resistance' of external objects) that cannot be of the same class as hallucinations. Against this claim, Vasubandhu argues that waking life is the same as a dream, in which objects have pragmatic effects within the very rules of the dream. He also uses the example of a wet dream to show that mental content can have causal efficacy even outside of a dream.
With these arguments, Vasubandhu believes he has shown that mere cognizance is just as good at explaining the relevant phenomena of experience as any theory of realism that posits external objects. According to Siderits, it is even possible for science to exist within such a framework. As he explains:
One surprising result of this is that an impressions-only theorist could still do science. In doing science we are seeking to find those regularities that help us explain and predict the course of our experience. We are used to thinking that these are to be expressed in terms of laws about the behavior of physical objects. The impressions-only theorist will say they must instead be put in terms of laws governing the transformation of mental streams. But the data to be explained are the same in either case.Siderits, Mark. Buddhism As Philosophy, page 262. Second Edition, Hackett Publishing, 2021.
Having disposed of various objections, Vasubandhu then appeals to the Indian philosophical principle termed the "Principle of Lightness" (Sanskrit: lāghava, which is similar to Occam's Razor) to rule out realism since vijñapti-mātra is the simpler and "lighter" theory which "posits the least number of unobservable entities."Siderits, Mark, Buddhism as philosophy, 2017, p. 157.
Another objection that Vasubandhu answers is how one person can influence another's experiences if everything arises from mental karmic seeds in one's mindstream. Vasubandhu argues that "impressions can also be caused in a mental stream by the occurrence of a distinct impression in another suitably linked mental stream."Siderits, Mark, Buddhism as philosophy, 2017, p. 170. As Siderits notes, this account can explain how it is possible to influence or even totally disrupt (murder) another mind, even if there is no physical medium or object in existence, since a suitably strong enough intention in one mind stream can have effects on another mind stream.