4th Cent. CE: Vashubandhu and his elder brother Asanga.

Converted to Theravada and then to Mahayana.

Yogacara idealism or Vijnanavada ("Way of Consciousness").

Asanga’s trip to heaven to visit the Maitreya Buddha. Buddha>Nagarjuna>Maitreya-Messiah.

Vashubandhu’s offer of his tongue.  See Ikeda account.

 

Five ways of liberation

Karma Yoga—the way of action, works and deeds.

Dhyana Yoga—the way of meditation. Zen

Jnana Yoga—the way of knowledge

Bhakti Yoga—the way of faith, devotion, and grace. Pure Land Buddhism

Tantric Yoga—the way of experience

The triumph of jnana yoga

"Studying a four-line verse is better than a life of alms-giving."

--a Yogacara motto

The triumph of Jnana Yoga: the way of knowledge.

Hindu Jnana Yoga also dominate in Shankara’s (8th Cent.) Advaita Vedanta.

Nagarjuna’s negative version of this.

Bhakti Yoga in Stryk, pp. 292-3? Still Jnana Yoga. "Supreme knowledge" and omniscience

The realist replies
Kalupahana (1), p.143ff.

If external objects are only mental projections, then how are there any spatial or temporal determinations?

Objection: One should be able to perceive anything anywhere one pleases.

Vashubandhu’s answer: dreams are mental projections and they have both spatial and temporal determination.

A dream tiger has real stripes and moves through time with all qualities intact.

The realist persists

True perceptions require a common object for these perceptions.

Subjective idealism implies that every object of perception is unique and distinct.

The idealist response: the well known phenomenon of collective hallucination.

Vashubandhu and the "denizens of Hell."

God is Berkeley’s and Hegel’s answer; "store" consciousness is Yogacara’s.

The realist’s final objection

There is "fruitful" activity in the world, viz., things get done.

Idealism could imply that either everything gets done or nothing gets done.

Vashubandhu: a dream tiger causes real fear and a "wet" dream produces results!

VASUBANDHU'S CRITIQUE OF ATOMISM

Studying a four-line verse is better than a life of alms-giving.

--a Yogacara motto

Please note that the inserted diagrams have extra space that I have not been able to delete.  So keep on scrolling!

Assumption: Atoms are indivisible and have no spatial parts. But if "one atom joined with six others must consist of six parts" where the six others touch the one, like this:

Therefore, the atoms are divisible and this division is open to infinite regress. The atoms are not true unities then. Alternately, it is just as logical (and detrimental to realism) to see all six atoms as one: they either dissolve into an infinite many or dissolve into a unity.

If atoms are infinitely divisible and take up no space, then there can be no difference between tiny things and gigantic things--they would take up the same space. Reductio ad absurdum? 

Realist Revision (from the Buddhists of Kashmir): The atoms do not actually join, only aggregates of atoms join together as "molecules," like this:

But does this form a real aggregate? Contemporary theories of electromagnetic forces? 

If atoms are not spatial, how can aggregates be spatial? Does this not commit the Fallacy of Composition? The logic of composition tells us that the qualities of the whole must be the same as the qualities of the parts.

Realist Answer: Just because the parts of a machine are light, it does not mean that the machine itself is light. Therefore, aggregates can be spatial, while atoms are non-spatial.

Idealist Response: But if the parts of a machine are metal, then the machine is obviously metal.

Is having no spatial divisions more like "metalness" or "light-heavy"? Seems like the answer is the former. (Light things add up to heavy things, but no amount of non-spatiality adds up to spatiality.) So Vasubandhu appears to win his point: aggregates cannot be spatial if the atoms are not spatial.

If an atom has no spatial divisions, it could cast no shadow nor be occulted. Aggregates, having no spatial division, could also do neither. A solid thing would have parts, would cast shadows, and could occult another things. How can the atom be a thing at all if it cannot do this?

Origin of sense qualities such as color--in the atoms, in the aggregates, in the perceiver?

Realist answer: certain configurations of colorless atoms are perceived by the eye as green, red, etc.

 
Idealist response? Here the composition logic might go the other way?

Quatrain XIV: Buddhist equivalent of Zeno's paradoxes. Assuming unity, there cannot be any plurality, change, or motion. This is fine for Vasubandhu because pure mind is one, immutable, and immovable.

XIV: If the world is a unity without spatial divisions, then we could not actually take a step anywhere, because one step, or even where we stand, is everywhere. There would be no temporal divisions either, so we could not grasp at one time and not grasp at another.

Grasping a pen: I cannot choose to grasp just one part of it; I must grasp the whole thing.

Not only could we not distinguish between small and large things, but we could not distinguish among other qualities either.

XV: How can one say that during waking hours perception of external objects exists if the same perception exists in dreams with no objects?

XVI: Memory doesn't help us substantiate external objects, because it is nothing but a representation of a representation. If there is ultimately no plurality, change, movement, then what is the status of store consciousness? Is it One or is it Many? Does it really have karmic seeds that sprout to produce a samsaric world? Lankavatarasutra (Styrk, 280): Defilements right on the face of the Mind. Kalup, 181, 182: ocean image. Defilements are like waves on the sea of the Dharmakaya?

The superiority of yogic rapture

The "reality" of the waking state makes the dream state unreal.

But the reality of the yogic trance makes the waking state equally unreal.

Therefore, pure consciousness is the only reality.

Remove the prism of ignorance, colors become illusory, and the white light of the Dharmakaya is all that is left.

Samsara is Nirvana; Nirvana is Samsara. See Stryk, p. 297.

"STORE" CONSCIOUSNESS

(alaya-vijnana)

Basis for a Common Perception of the World

Contains Unconscious Dispositions ("Seeds") to Act

Very similar to the Unconscious Mind of the Hindu Yoga-sutras

While in this state there is no Self-Object Split

MIND (MANAS)

Still Unconscious and contains Four Defilements:

Perception of Substantial Self; Confusion of Self; Self-Pride; Self-Love

CONSCIOUS PERCEPTION

Form (rupa = body), Sound, Odor, Taste, Tangible Object, Concepts/Ideas

These six objects are mental projections;

they are not produced by external objects;

they are simply the sprouted "seeds" of store consciousness;

this is accepted openly as a form of karmic determinism:

what you sow is what you reap.

Here finally is a consciousness of a self and objects.

The "fruits" of this life's karma contain seeds for a new "store" consciousness in for the next life. Enlightenment comes with the recognition of the truth of Yogacara idealism: there is no objective support for grasping and craving.

The ultimate goal is a life without craving which then will lead to fusion with a universal consciousness without any differentiation or defilement--something roughly equivalent to Hinduism's Brahman without qualities (nirguna Brahman). The Yogacara idealists called it, predictably, the Dharmakaya--the Buddhist Godhead.

A rather dramatic form of this theory of psychological projection is found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, where the lama guiding the soul explains that the wrathful deities attacking it are nothing but mental projections its own evil deeds. The wrathful deities have no external existence of their own.