Part 3 Flashcards
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Def of view of the transitory collection
is a type of self grasping of persons that grasps one’s own I as being an inherently existent I.
The observed object of the VTC is the I within one’s own continuum, the I that is merely imputed on one’s own aggregates. This I exists. The conceived object of the VTC is the this conventionally existent I as in inherently existent I. This I does not exist.
Chittamatrin description of how external things exist:
“The elephant in in our dream is not outside the mind bc there is no elephant in the room, it is not the mind itself because it is not an awareness and it is not separate from the mind bc if the mind apprehending the elephant ceases the elephant disappears. The elephant is just an appearance to mind that is otherwise indescribable.”
Def of phenomena source:
Forms that do not appear to the eye consciousness of ordinary beings but which appear clearly to their mental consciousness are phenomena sources.
12 sources:
6 object sources - form, sound, smell, taste, tactile object, phenomena source
6 power sources - eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mentality.
They are called sources because they are the sources of consciousness.
Def of form source, etc:
- is an object experienced by eye consciousness.
The definition of phenomena source is an object of mental consciousness that is other than the first 5 sources. An example is mind.
Def of eye source, etc:
- is a sense power possessing form that principally and directly generates its own effect, an eye consciousness….
The def of mentality source is a power that lacks form and that principally and directly generates its own effect, a mental consciousness.
Chittimatrins have 8 consciousnesses as opposed to 6 b/c:
they assert 8 mental consciousnesses: the sixth mental consciousness, the consciousness-basis-of-all, and the deluded mentality.
Chittimatrins have three reasons for asserting the consciousness-basis-of-all:
“(1) it is the basis for conveying karmic potentialities from one life to another
(2) since there are no external objects it is the basis for storing potentials from which the various minds and their appearances arise
(3) it is the very continuity of a person from one life to another and so it is the self.”
M-P refutation of the Chittimatrins’ 3 reasons for the c-b-all:
“(1) The Chittamatrins have invented a consciousness-basis-of-all that is a repository of karmic potentials awaiting the conditions to ripen because they do not understand how an action that has ceased produces an effect. In reality karmic potentials are borne from one life to another by the mere I and there is no need to posit a consciousness-basis-of-all to explain this.
(2) Since external objects exist, a consciousness such as an eye consciousness is generated by an object meeting a sense power, and not from potentials stored on the consciousness-basis-of-all. There is no need to posit a consciousness-basis-of-all to explain how consciousness arises. Buddha sometimes spoke of a ‘basis-of-all’, but only when he was referring to emptiness. It was never his final intention to assert a consciousness-basis-of-all. Since there is no consciousness-basis-of-all there is no deluded mentality observing it and so the number of consciousnesses is definitely six.
(3) The self is merely imputed on the aggregates and cannot be found within them. A self that is a consciousness is a non-existent, like a child of a childless woman.”
Def of eye consciousness, etc:
- is a consciousness that is principally generated from its own dominant condition, an eye sense power.
If the aggregates are the self, then since they are many
The self is also many…
4 consequences of aggregates as self:
1) person has many selves
2) self is substantially existent
- against Sutras
- follows that VTC not wrong, not root of samsara, etc
3) continuum of self ceases when we attain nirvana
4) impossible to remember former lives
- no connection between past and present self bc inherently existent
- no karma. If so, then like saying John’s actions experienced by Peter.
