Unitatea funcțional-organică (a conștiinței) ca alternativă la unitatea substanțială, în budhismul Yogācāra

Yogācāra Buddhism proposes a moderate ontology that grants a degree of reality to manifestation, rejecting both substantialist and nihilist extremes. The cosmos is unified not by a single substance but by the organic-functional interrelation of all components, with unity residing in the manifesting pattern of plurality. The store-house consciousness (ālayavijñāna) functions as a cosmic consciousness that unifies all experience—actual factors (dharma) and potential karmic seeds (bīja)—into a single causal flow. Its continuity is not substantial but consists in the regularity of succession, as all factors are momentary flashes. This consciousness represents a middle way between permanence and destruction, providing continuity without a persistent entity.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Yogācāra Buddhism, the idealistic branch of Mahāyāna, features a moderate ontology, more inclined to realism, which gives a certain degree of reality to manifestation. According to this ontology, Yogācāra's view of universal unity is organic-functional rather than substantial. The cosmos is unitary not because of an alleged ontological reduction to a single substance, as in primary Mahāyāna or Brahmanism, but rather because of a unitary functioning, in close inter-relation, of all its components. The approach to universal unity in Yogācāra is cosmological rather than metaphysical, with unity residing in the manifesting pattern of plurality. For Yogācāra, the entire manifestation represents the ideation of a cosmic consciousness, known as the „store-house consciousness” (layavijna). The main aspect of the store-house consciousness is to unify in a single causal flow the whole experience, be it in an actual, manifested form, of factors (dharma), or only in a potential form, of karmic seeds (bja). The continuity and stability provided by the store-house consciousness is not a substantial continuity or stability, but only one consisting in the regularity of succession. The store-house consciousness is, in respect of its content, substance, nothing more than the elements that compose it. Since all factors are momentary flashes, the store-house consciousness equally shares their momentary character. The ontological status of the store-house consciousness represents a middle way between the extreme of permanence (vata) and the nihilistic one, of „destruction” (uccheda). The nature of the store-house consciousness provides continuity, regular succession to manifestation, but without introducing any persistent entity. Its function is the one ascribed by Mahyna to the series of conditioned coproduction (prattyasamutpda), that is to represent a middle way between non-existence and reality.