Self-regulation theory (SRT)
is a system of conscious, personal management that involves the process
of guiding one's own thoughts, behaviors and feelings to reach goals.
Self-regulation consists of several stages. In the stages individuals
must function as contributors to their own motivation, behavior, and
development within a network of reciprocally interacting influences.
Roy Baumeister, one of the leading social psychologists
who have studied self-regulation, claims it has four components:
standards of desirable behavior, motivation to meet standards,
monitoring of situations and thoughts that precede breaking said
standards and lastly, willpower.
Baumeister along with other colleagues developed three models of
self-regulation designed to explain its cognitive accessibility:
self-regulation as a knowledge structure, strength, or skill. Studies
have been conducted to determine that the strength model is generally
supported, because it is a limited resource in the brain and only a
given amount of self-regulation can occur until that resource is
depleted.
SRT can be applied to:
impulse control, the management of short-term desires. People
with low impulse control are prone to acting on immediate desires. This
is one route for such people to find their way to jail as many criminal
acts occur in the heat of the moment. For non-violent people it can lead
to losing friends through careless outbursts, or financial problems
caused by making too many impulsive purchases.
the cognitive bias known as illusion of control.
To the extent that people are driven by internal goals concerned with
the exercise of control over their environment, they will seek to
reassert control in conditions of chaos, uncertainty or stress. Failing
genuine control, one coping strategy will be to fall back on defensive
attributions of control—leading to illusions of control (Fenton-O'Creevy
et al., 2003).
SRT consists of several stages. First, the patient deliberately
monitors one's own behavior and evaluates how this behavior affects
one's health. If the desired effect is not realized, the patient changes
personal behavior. If the desired effect is realized, the patient
reinforces the effect by continuing the behavior. (Kanfer
1970;1971;1980)
Another approach is for the patient to realize a personal health
issue and understand the factors involved in that issue. The patient
must decide upon an action plan for resolving the health issue. The
patient will need to deliberately monitor the results in order to
appraise the effects, checking for any necessary changes in the action
plan. (Leventhal & Nerenz 1984)
Another factor that can help the patient reach his/her own goal
of personal health is to relate to the patient the following: Help them
figure out the personal/community views of the illness, appraise the
risks involved and give them potential problem-solving/coping skills. Four components of self-regulation described by Baumeister et al. (2007) are:
Standards: Of desirable behavior.
Motivation: To meet standards.
Monitoring: Of situations and thoughts that precede breaking standards.
Willpower: Internal strength to control urges
History and contributors
Albert Bandura
There have been numerous researchers, psychologists and scientists who have studied self-regulatory processes. Albert Bandura, a cognitive psychologist had significant contributions focusing on the acquisition of behaviors that led to the social cognitive theory and social learning theory.
His work brought together behavioral and cognitive components in which
he concluded that "humans are able to control their behavior through a
process known as self-regulation." This led to his known process that contained: self observation, judgment and self response. Self observation (also known as introspection)
is a process involving assessing one's own thoughts and feelings in
order to inform and motivate the individual to work towards goal setting
and become influenced by behavioral changes. Judgement
involves an individual comparing his or her performance to their
personal or created standards. Lastly, self-response is applied, in
which an individual may reward or punish his or herself for success or
failure in meeting standard(s). An example of self-response would be
rewarding oneself with an extra slice of pie for doing well on an exam.
Dale Schunk
According
to Schunk (2012), Lev Vygotsky who was a Russian psychologist and was a
major influence on the rise of constructivism, believed that
self-regulation involves the coordination of cognitive processes such as
planning, synthesizing and formulating concepts (Henderson &
Cunningham, 1994); however, such coordination does not proceed
independently of the individual's social environment and culture. In
fact, self-regulation is inclusive of the gradual internalization of
language and concepts. Schunk's Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective is stated to give a contemporary and historical overview of learning theories for undergraduate and graduate learners
Roy Baumeister
As a widely studied theory, SRT was also greatly impacted by the well-known social psychologist Roy Baumeister. He described the ability to self-regulate as limited in capacity and through this he coined the term ego depletion.
The four components of self-regulation theory described by Roy
Baumeister are standards of desirable behavior, motivation to meet
standards, monitoring of situations and thoughts that precede breaking
standards and willpower, or the internal strength to control urges. In Baumeister's paper titled Self-Regulation Failure: An Overview,
he express that self-regulation is complex and multifaceted. Baumeister
lays out his “three ingredients” of self-regulation as a case for
self-regulation failure.
Research
Many
studies have been done to test different variables regarding
self-regulation. Albert Bandura studied self-regulation before, after
and during the response. He created the triangle of reciprocal
determinism that includes behavior, environment and the person
(cognitive, emotional and physical factors) that all influence one
another. Bandura concluded that the processes of goal attainment and
motivation stem from an equal interaction of self-observation,
self-reaction, self-evaluation and self-efficacy.
In addition to Bandura's work, psychologists Muraven, Tice and
Baumeister conducted a study for self control as a limited resource.
They suggested there were three competing models to self-regulation:
self-regulation as a strength, knowledge structure and a skill. In the
strength model, they indicated it is possible self-regulation could be
considered a strength because it requires willpower and thus is a
limited resource. Failure to self-regulate could then be explained by
depletion of this resource. For self-regulation as a knowledge
structure, they theorized it involves a certain amount of knowledge to
exert self control, so as with any learned technique, failure to
self-regulate could be explained by insufficient knowledge. Lastly, the
model involving self-regulation as a skill referred to self-regulation
being built up over time and unable to be diminished; therefore, failure
to exert would be explained by a lack of skill. They found that
self-regulation as a strength is the most feasible model due to studies
that have suggested self-regulation is a limited resource.
Dewall, Baumeister, Gailliot and Maner performed a series of
experiments instructing participants to perform ego depletion tasks to
diminish the self-regulatory resource in the brain, that they theorized
to be glucose.
This included tasks that required participants to break a familiar
habit, where they read an essay and circled words containing the letter
'e' for the first task, then were asked to break that habit by
performing a second task where they circled words containing 'e' and/or
'a'. Following this trial, participants were randomly assigned to either
the glucose category, where they drank a glass of lemonade made with
sugar, or the control group, with lemonade made from Splenda. They were
then asked their individual likelihoods of helping certain people in
hypothetical situations, for both kin
and non-kin and found that excluding kin, people were much less likely
to help a person in need if they were in the control group (with
Splenda) than if they had replenished their brain glucose supply with
the lemonade containing real sugar. This study also supports the model
for self-regulation as a strength because it confirms it is a limited
resource.
Baumeister and colleagues expanded on this and determined the four components to self-regulation. Those include standards of desirable behavior, motivation to meet these standards, monitoring of situations and thoughts that precede breaking standards and willpower.
Applications and examples
Impulse
control in self-regulation involves the separation of our immediate
impulses and long-term desires. We can plan, evaluate our actions and
refrain from doing things we will regret. Research shows that
self-regulation is a strength necessary for emotional well-being.
Violation of one's deepest values results in feelings of guilt, which
will undermine well-being. The illusion of control involves people
overestimating their own ability to control events. Such as, when an
event occurs an individual may feel greater a sense of control over the
outcome that they demonstrably do not influence. This emphasizes the
importance of perception of control over life events.
The self-regulated learning is the process of taking control and
evaluating one's own learning and behavior. This emphasizes control by
the individual who monitors, directs and regulates actions toward goals
of information. In goal attainment self-regulation it is generally
described in these four components of self-regulation.
Standards, which is the desirable behavior. Motivation, to meet the
standards. Monitoring, situations and thoughts that precede breaking
standards. Willpower, internal strength to control urges.
Illness behavior in self-regulation deals with issues of tension
that arise between holding on and letting go of important values and
goals as those are threatened by disease processes.
Also people who have poor self-regulatory skills do not succeed in
relationships or cannot hold jobs. Sayette (2004) describes failures in
self-regulation as in two categories: under regulation and
misregualtion. Under regulation is when people fail to control oneself
whereas misregualtion deals with having control but does not bring up
the desired goal (Sayette, 2004).
Criticisms/challenges
One
challenge of self-regulation is that researchers often struggle with
conceptualizing and operationalizing self-regulation (Carver &
Scheier, 1990). The system of self-regulation comprises a complex set of
functions, including research cognition, problem solving, decision
making and meta cognition.
Ego depletion refers to self control or willpower drawing from a
limited pool of mental resources. If an individual has low mental
activity, self control is typically impaired, which may lead to ego
depletion. Self control plays a valuable role in the functioning of self
in people. The illusion of control
involves the overestimation of an individual's ability to control
certain events. It occurs when someone feels a sense of control over
outcomes although they may not possess this control. Psychologists have
consistently emphasized the importance of perceptions of control over
life events. Heider proposed that humans have a strong motive to control
their environment.
Reciprocal determinism
is a theory proposed by Albert Bandura, stating that a person's
behavior is influenced both by personal factors and the social
environment. Bandura acknowledges the possibility that individual's
behavior and personal factors may impact the environment. These can
involve skills that are either under or overcompensating the ego and
will not benefit the outcome of the situation.
Recently, Baumeister's strength model of ego depletion has been
criticized in multiple ways. Meta-analyses found little evidence for the
strength model of self-regulation and for glucose as the limited resource that is depleted. A pre-registered trial did not find any evidence for ego depletion.
Several commentaries have raised criticism on this particular study.
In summary, many central assumptions of the strength model of
self-regulation seem to be in need of revision, especially the view of
self-regulation as a limited resource that can be depleted and glucose
as the fuel that is depleted seems to be hardly defensible without major
revisions.
Conclusion
Self-regulation
can be applied to many aspects of everyday life, including social
situations, personal health management, impulse control and more. Since
the strength model is generally supported, ego depletion tasks can be
performed to temporarily tax the amount of self-regulatory capabilities
in a person's brain. It is theorized that self-regulation depletion is
associated with willingness to help people in need, excluding members of
an individual's kin. Many researchers have contributed to these findings, including Albert Bandura, Roy Baumeister and Robert Wood.
Emotional self-regulation
or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions
in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to
permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous
reactions as needed. It can also be defined as extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions.
Emotional self-regulation belongs to the broader set of emotion
regulation processes, which includes both the regulation of one's own
feelings and the regulation of other people's feelings.
Emotion regulation is a complex process that involves initiating, inhibiting, or modulating one's state or behavior in a given situation – for example, the subjective experience (feelings), cognitive responses (thoughts), emotion-related physiological responses
(for example heart rate or hormonal activity), and emotion-related
behavior (bodily actions or expressions). Functionally, emotion
regulation can also refer to processes such as the tendency to focus
one's attention to a task and the ability to suppress inappropriate
behavior under instruction. Emotion regulation is a highly significant
function in human life.
Every day, people are continually exposed to a wide variety of potentially arousing stimuli.
Inappropriate, extreme or unchecked emotional reactions to such stimuli
could impede functional fit within society; therefore, people must
engage in some form of emotion regulation almost all of the time. Generally speaking, emotion dysregulation has been defined as difficulties in controlling the influence of emotional arousal on the organization and quality of thoughts, actions, and interactions.
Individuals who are emotionally dysregulated exhibit patterns of
responding in which there is a mismatch between their goals, responses,
and/or modes of expression, and the demands of the social environment. For example, there is a significant association between emotion dysregulation and symptoms of depression, anxiety, eating pathology, and substance abuse. Higher levels of emotion regulation are likely to be related to both high levels of social competence and the expression of socially appropriate emotions.
Theory
Process model
The
process model of emotion regulation is based upon the modal model of
emotion. The modal model of emotion suggests that the emotion generation
process occurs in a particular sequence over time. This sequence occurs
as follows:
Situation: the sequence begins with a situation (real or imagined) that is emotionally relevant.
Attention: attention is directed towards the emotional situation.
Appraisal: the emotional situation is evaluated and interpreted.
Response: an emotional response is generated, giving rise to loosely
coordinated changes in experiential, behavioral, and physiological
response systems.
Because an emotional response (4.) can cause changes to a situation
(1.), this model involves a feedback loop from (4.) Response to (1.)
Situation. This feedback loop suggests that the emotion generation
process can occur recursively, is ongoing, and dynamic.
The process model contends that each of these four points in the
emotion generation process can be subjected to regulation. From this
conceptualization, the process model posits five different families of
emotion regulation that correspond to the regulation of a particular
point in the emotion generation process. They occur in the following
order:
Situation selection
Situation modification
Attentional deployment
Cognitive change
Response modulation
The process model also divides these emotion regulation strategies
into two categories: antecedent-focused and response-focused.
Antecedent-focused strategies (i.e., situation selection, situation
modification, attentional deployment, and cognitive change) occur before
an emotional response is fully generated. Response-focused strategies
(i.e., response modulation) occur after an emotional response is fully
generated.
Strategies
Situation selection
Situation
selection is an emotional regulation strategy that involves choosing to
avoid or approach a future emotional situation.
If a person selects to avoid or disengage from an emotionally relevant
situation,they are decreasing the likelihood of experiencing an emotion.
Alternatively, if a person selects to approach or engage with an
emotionally relevant situation, they are increasing the likelihood of
experiencing an emotion.
Typical examples of situation selection may be seen
interpersonally, such as when a parent removes his or her child from an
emotionally unpleasant situation.
Use of situation selection may also be seen in psychopathology. For
example, avoidance of social situations to regulate emotions is
particularly pronounced for those with social anxiety disorder and avoidant personality disorder.
Effective situation selection is not always an easy task. For instance, humans display difficulties predicting their emotional responses
to future events. Therefore, they may have trouble making accurate and
appropriate decisions about which emotionally relevant situations to
approach or to avoid.
Situation modification
Situation modification involves efforts to modify a situation so as to change its emotional impact.
Situation modification refers specifically to altering one's external,
physical environment. Altering one's "internal" environment to regulate
emotion is called cognitive change.
Examples of situation modification may include injecting humor into a speech to elicit laughter or extending the physical distance between oneself and another person.
Attentional deployment
Attentional deployment involves directing one's attention towards or away from an emotional situation.
Distraction
Distraction,
an example of attentional deployment, is an early selection strategy,
which involves diverting one's attention away from an emotional stimulus
and towards other content. Distraction has been shown to reduce the intensity of painful and emotional experiences, to decrease facial responding and neural activation in the amygdala associated with emotion, as well as to alleviate emotional distress. As opposed to reappraisal,
individuals show a relative preference to engage in distraction when
facing stimuli of high negative emotional intensity. This is because
distraction easily filters out high-intensity emotional content, which
would otherwise be relatively difficult to appraise and process.
Rumination
Rumination, an example of attentional deployment,
is defined as the passive and repetitive focusing of one's attention on
one's symptoms of distress and the causes and consequences of these
symptoms. Rumination is generally considered a maladaptive emotion
regulation strategy, as it tends to exacerbate emotional distress. It
has also been implicated in a host of disorders including major depression.
Worry
Worry, an example of attentional deployment, involves directing attention to thoughts and images concerned with potentially negative events in the future.
By focusing on these events, worrying serves to aid in the
down-regulation of intense negative emotion and physiological activity.
While worry may sometimes involve problem solving, incessant worry is
generally considered maladaptive, being a common feature of anxiety disorders, particularly generalized anxiety disorder.
Thought suppression, an example of attentional deployment, involves
efforts to redirect one's attention from specific thoughts and mental
images to other content so as to modify one's emotional state.
Although thought suppression may provide temporary relief from
undesirable thoughts, it may ironically end up spurring the production
of even more unwanted thoughts. This strategy is generally considered maladaptive, being most associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Cognitive change
Cognitive change involves changing how one appraises a situation so as to alter its emotional meaning.
Reappraisal
Reappraisal,
an example of cognitive change, is a late selection strategy, which
involves a change of the meaning of an event that alters its emotional
impact.
It encompasses different substrategies, such as positive reappraisal
(creating and focusing on a positive aspect of the stimulus), decentering (reinterpreting an event by broadening one's perspective to see "the bigger picture"),
or fictional reappraisal (adopting or emphasizing the belief that event
is not real, that it is for instance "just a movie" or "just my
imagination"). Reappraisal has been shown to effectively reduce physiological, subjective, and neural
emotional responding. As opposed to distraction, individuals show a
relative preference to engage in reappraisal when facing stimuli of low
negative emotional intensity because these stimuli are relatively easy
to appraise and process.
Reappraisal is generally considered to be an adaptive emotion
regulation strategy. Compared to suppression (including both thought
suppression and expressive suppression), which is positively correlated with many psychological disorders, reappraisal can be associated with better interpersonal outcomes, and can be positively related to well-being.
However, some researchers argue that context is important when
evaluating the adaptiveness of a strategy, suggesting that in some
contexts reappraisal may be maladaptive. Furthermore, some research has shown reappraisal does not influence affect or physiological responses to recurrent stress.
Distancing
Distancing,
an example of cognitive change, involves taking on an independent,
third-person perspective when evaluating an emotional event.
Distancing has been shown to be an adaptive form of self-reflection,
facilitating the emotional processing of negatively valenced stimuli, reducing emotional and cardiovascular reactivity to negative stimuli, and increasing problem-solving behavior.
Humour
Humour,
an example of cognitive change, has been shown to be an effective
emotion regulation strategy. Specifically, positive, good-natured humour
has been shown to effectively up-regulate positive emotion and
down-regulate negative emotion. On the other hand, negative,
mean-spirited humour is less effective in this regard.
Response modulation
Response modulation involves attempts to directly influence experiential, behavioral, and physiological response systems.
Expressive suppression, an example of response modulation, involves
inhibiting emotional expressions. It has been shown to effectively
reduce facial expressivity, subjective feelings of positive emotion,
heart rate, and sympathetic activation. However, the research findings are mixed regarding whether this strategy is effective for down-regulating negative emotion. Research has also shown that expressive suppression may have negative social consequences, correlating with reduced personal connections and greater difficulties forming relationships.
Expressive suppression is generally considered to be a
maladaptive emotion regulation strategy. Compared to reappraisal, it is
positively correlated with many psychological disorders, associated with worse interpersonal outcomes, is negatively related to well-being, and requires the mobilization of a relatively substantial amount of cognitive resources.
However, some researchers argue that context is important when
evaluating the adaptiveness of a strategy, suggesting that in some
contexts suppression may be adaptive.
Drug use
Drug use, an example of response modulation, can be used to alter emotion-associated physiological responses. For example, alcohol can produce sedative and anxiolytic effects and beta blockers can affect sympathetic activation.
Exercise
Exercise,
an example of response modulation, can be used to down-regulate the
physiological and experiential effects of negative emotions. Regular physical activity has also been shown to reduce emotional distress and improve emotional control.
Sleep
Sleep
plays a role in emotion regulation, although stress and worry can also
interfere with sleep. Studies have shown that sleep, specifically REM sleep, down-regulates reactivity of the amygdala, a brain structure known to be involved in the processing of emotions, in response to previous emotional experiences. On the flip side, sleep deprivation
is associated with greater emotional reactivity or overreaction to
negative and stressful stimuli. This is a result of both increased
amygdala activity and a disconnect between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, which regulates the amygdala through inhibition, together resulting in an overactive emotional brain. Due to the subsequent lack of emotional control, sleep deprivation may be associated with depression, impulsivity,
and mood swings. Additionally, there is some evidence that sleep
deprivation may reduce emotional reactivity to positive stimuli and
events and impair emotion recognition in others.
Intrinsic emotion regulation efforts during infancy are believed to be guided primarily by innate physiological response systems.
These systems usually manifest as an approach towards and an avoidance
of pleasant or unpleasant stimuli. At three months, infants can engage
in self-soothing behaviors like sucking and can reflexively respond to
and signal feelings of distress.
For instance, infants have been observed attempting to suppress anger
or sadness by knitting their brow or compressing their lips. Between three and six months, basic motor functioning
and attentional mechanisms begin to play a role in emotion regulation,
allowing infants to more effectively approach or avoid emotionally
relevant situations. Infants may also engage in self-distraction and help-seeking behaviors for regulatory purposes.
At one year, infants are able to navigate their surroundings more
actively and respond to emotional stimuli with greater flexibility due
to improved motor skills. They also begin to appreciate their caregivers' abilities to provide them regulatory support. For instance, infants generally have difficulties regulating fear. As a result, they often find ways to express fear in ways that attract the comfort and attention of caregivers.
Extrinsic emotion regulation efforts by caregivers, including
situation selection, modification, and distraction, are particularly
important for infants.
The emotion regulation strategies employed by caregivers to attenuate
distress or to up-regulate positive affect in infants can impact the
infants' emotional and behavioral development, teaching them particular
strategies and methods of regulation. The type of attachment style between caregiver and infant can therefore play a meaningful role in the regulatory strategies infants may learn to use.
Recent evidence supports the idea that maternal singing has a positive effect on affect regulation in infants. Singing play-songs, such as "The Wheels on the Bus" or "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain"
have a visible affect-regulatory consequence of prolonged positive
affect and even alleviation of distress. In addition to proven
facilitation of social bonding, when combined with movement and/or
rhythmic touch, maternal singing for affect regulation has possible
applications for infants in the NICU and for adult caregivers with
serious personality or adjustment difficulties.
Toddler-hood
By the end of the first year, toddlers
begin to adopt new strategies to decrease negative arousal. These
strategies can include rocking themselves, chewing on objects, or moving
away from things that upset them. At two years, toddlers become more capable of actively employing emotion regulation strategies. They can apply certain emotion regulation tactics to influence various emotional states.
Additionally, maturation of brain functioning and language and motor
skills permits toddlers to manage their emotional responses and levels
of arousal more effectively.
Extrinsic emotion regulation remains important to emotional
development in toddlerhood. Toddlers can learn ways from their
caregivers to control their emotions and behaviors. For example, caregivers help teach self-regulation methods by distracting children from unpleasant events (like a vaccination shot) or helping them understand frightening events.
Childhood
Emotion
regulation knowledge becomes more substantial during childhood. For
example, children aged six to ten begin to understand display rules.
They come to appreciate the contexts in which certain emotional
expressions are socially most appropriate and therefore ought to be
regulated. For example, children may understand that upon receiving a
gift they should display a smile, irrespective of their actual feelings
about the gift.
During childhood, there is also a trend towards the use of more
cognitive emotion regulation strategies, taking the place of more basic
distraction, approach, and avoidance tactics.
Regarding the development of emotion dysregulation in children,
one robust finding suggests that children who are frequently exposed to
negative emotion at home will be more likely to display, and have
difficulties regulating, high levels of negative emotion.
Adolescence
Adolescents
show a marked increase in their capacities to regulate their emotions,
and emotion regulation decision making becomes more complex, depending
on multiple factors. In particular, the significance of interpersonal
outcomes increases for adolescents. When regulating their emotions,
adolescents are therefore likely to take into account their social
context. For instance, adolescents show a tendency to display more emotion if they expect a sympathetic response from their peers.
Additionally, spontaneous use of cognitive emotion regulation
strategies increases during adolescence, which is evidenced both by
self-report data and neural markers.
Adulthood
Social
losses increase and health tends to decrease as people age. As people
get older their motivation to seek emotional meaning in life through
social ties tends to increase. Autonomic responsiveness decreases with age, and emotion regulation skill tends to increase.
Emotional regulation in adulthood can also be examined in terms of positive and negative affectivity.
Positive and negative affectivity refers to the types of emotions felt
by an individual as well as the way those emotions are expressed.
With adulthood comes an increased ability to maintain both high
positive affectivity and low negative affectivity “more rapidly than
adolescents.” This response to life's challenges seems to become “automatized” as people progress throughout adulthood.
Thus, as individuals age, their capability of self-regulating emotions
and responding to their emotions in healthy ways improves.
Additionally, emotional regulation may vary between young adults
and older adults. Younger adults have been found to be more successful
than older adults in practicing “cognitive reappraisal” to decrease
negative internal emotions. On the other hand, older adults have been found to be more successful in the following emotional regulation areas:
Predicting the level of “emotional arousal” in possible situations
Having a higher focus on positive information rather than negative
Maintaining healthy levels of “hedonic well-being” (subjective well-being based on increased pleasure and decreased pain)
Overview of perspectives
Neuropsychological perspective
Affective
As people age, their affect –
the way they react to emotions – changes, either positively or
negatively. Studies show that positive affect increases as a person
grows from adolescence to their mid 70s. Negative affect, on the other
hand, decreases until the mid 70s. Studies also show that emotions
differ in adulthood, particularly affect (positive or negative).
Although some studies found that individuals experience less affect as
they grow older, other studies have concluded that adults in their
middle age experience more positive affect and less negative affect than
younger adults. Positive affect was also higher for men than women
while the negative affect was higher for women than it was for men and
also for single people. A reason that older people – middle adulthood –
might have less negative affect is because they have overcome, "the
trials and vicissitudes of youth, they may increasingly experience a
more pleasant balance of affect, at least up until their mid-70s".
Positive affect might rise during middle age but towards the later years
of life – the 70s – it begins to decline while negative affect also
does the same. This might be due to failing health, reaching the end of
their lives and the death of friends and relatives.
In addition to baseline levels of positive and negative affect, studies have found individual differences in the time-course of emotional responses to stimuli. The temporal dynamics of emotion regulation, also known as affective chronometry,
include two key variables in the emotional response process: rise time
to peak emotional response, and recovery time to baseline levels of
emotion.
Studies of affective chronometry typically separate positive and
negative affect into distinct categories, as previous research has shown
(despite some correlation) the ability of humans to experience changes
in these categories independently of one another. Affective chronometry research has been conducted on clinical populations with anxiety, mood, and personality disorders, but is also utilized as a measurement to test the effectiveness of different therapeutic techniques (including mindfulness training) on emotional dysregulation.
Neurological
The development of functional magnetic resonance
imaging has allowed for the study of emotion regulation on a biological
level. Specifically, research over the last decade strongly suggests
that there is a neural basis.
Sufficient evidence has correlated emotion regulation to particular
patterns of prefrontal activation. These regions include the orbital prefrontal cortex, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex. Two additional brain structures that have been found
to contribute are the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex.
Each of these structures are involved in various facets of emotion
regulation and irregularities in one or more regions and/or
interconnections among them are affiliated with failures of emotion
regulation. An implication to these findings is that individual
differences in prefrontal activation predict the ability to perform
various tasks in aspects of emotion regulation.
Sociological
People intuitively mimic facial expressions; it is a fundamental part of healthy functioning. Similarities across cultures in regards to nonverbal communication has prompted the debate that it is in fact a universal language.
It can be argued that emotion regulation plays a key role in the
ability to generate the correct responses in social situations. Humans
have control over facial expressions both consciously and unconsciously:
an intrinsic emotion program is generated as the result of a
transaction with the world, which immediately results in an emotional
response and usually a facial reaction. It is a well documented phenomenon
that emotions have an effect on facial expression, but recent research
has provided evidence that the opposite may also be true.
This notion would give rise to the belief that a person may not
only control his emotion but in fact influence them as well. Emotion
regulation focuses on providing the appropriate emotion in the
appropriate circumstances. Some theories allude to the thought that each
emotion serves a specific purpose in coordinating organismic needs with environmental demands (Cole, 1994). This skill, although apparent throughout all nationalities,
has been shown to vary in successful application at different age
groups. In experiments done comparing younger and older adults to the
same unpleasant stimuli, older adults were able to regulate their
emotional reactions in a way that seemed to avoid negative
confrontation.
These findings support the theory that with time people develop a
better ability to regulate their emotions. This ability found in adults
seems to better allow individuals to react in what would be considered a
more appropriate manner in some social situations, permitting them to
avoid adverse situations that could be seen as detrimental.
Expressive regulation (in solitary conditions)
In
solitary conditions, emotion regulation can include a
minimization-miniaturization effect, in which common outward expressive
patterns are replaced with toned down versions of expression. Unlike
other situations, in which physical expression (and its regulation)
serve a social purpose (i.e. conforming to display rules
or revealing emotion to outsiders), solitary conditions require no
reason for emotions to be outwardly expressed (although intense levels
of emotion can bring out noticeable expression anyway). The idea behind
this is that as people get older, they learn that the purpose of outward
expression (to appeal to other people), is not necessary in situations
in which there is no one to appeal to. As a result, the level of emotional expression can be lower in these solitary situations.
Stress
The way an individual reacts to stress can directly overlap with their ability to regulate emotion.
Although the two concepts differ in a multitude of ways, "both coping
[with stress] and emotion regulation involve affect modulation and
appraisal processes" that are necessary for healthy relationships and
self-identity.
According to Yu. V. Shcherbatykh, emotional stress in situations
like school examinations can be reduced by engaging in self-regulating
activities prior to the task being performed. To study the influence of self-regulation on mental and physiological
processes under exam stress, Shcherbatykh conducted a test with an
experimental group of 28 students (of both sexes) and a control group of
102 students (also of both sexes).
In the moments before the examination, situational
stress levels were raised in both groups from what they were in quiet
states. In the experimental group, participants engaged in three
self-regulating techniques (concentration on respiration, general body
relaxation, and the creation of a mental image of successfully passing
the examination). During the examination, the anxiety levels of the
experimental group were lower than that of the control group. Also, the
percent of unsatisfactory marks in the experimental group was 1.7 times
less than in the control group. From this data, Shcherbatykh concluded
that the application of self-regulating actions before examinations
helps to significantly reduce levels of emotional strain, which can help
lead to better performance results.
Emotion regulation has also been associated with physiological responses to stress during laboratory stress paradigms.
Decision making
Identification of our emotional self-regulating process can facilitate in the decision-making process.
Current literature on emotion regulation identifies that humans
characteristically make efforts in controlling emotion experiences.
There is then a possibility that our present state emotions can be
altered by emotion regulation strategies resulting in the possibility
that different regulation strategies could have different decision
implications.
Digital emotion regulation
Following
widespread adoption in the 21st century of digital devices and services
for use in everyday life, evidence is mounting that people are
increasingly using these tools to manage and regulate moods and
emotions. A wide range of digital resources are used for emotion regulation including smartphones, social media, streaming services, online shopping, and videogames.
Such spontaneous forms of digital emotion regulation can be
distinguished from the use of digital interventions such as smartphone
apps that have been explicitly designed to support emotional regulation
or teach emotion regulation skills in clinical and non-clinical
populations.
Digital implementation of emotion regulation strategies can occur at
all stages of the process model and in all strategy families, including
interpersonal emotion regulation.
Effects of low self-regulation
With a failure in emotion regulation, there is a rise in psychosocial and emotional dysfunctions caused by traumatic experiences due to an inability to regulate emotions. These traumatic experiences typically happen in grade school and are sometimes associated with bullying.
Children who can't properly self-regulate express their volatile
emotions in a variety of ways, including screaming if they don't have
their way, lashing out with their fists, throwing objects (such as
chairs), or bullying other children. Such behaviors often elicit
negative reactions from the social environment, which, in turn, can
exacerbate or maintain the original regulation problems over time, a
process termed cumulative continuity. These children are more likely to
have conflict-based relationships with their teachers and other
children. This can lead to more severe problems such as an impaired
ability to adjust to school and predicts school dropout many years
later. Children who fail to properly self-regulate grow as teenagers
with more emerging problems. Their peers begin to notice this
"immaturity", and these children are often excluded from social groups
and teased and harassed by their peers. This "immaturity" certainly
causes some teenagers to become social outcasts in their respective
social groups, causing them to lash out in angry and potentially violent
ways. Being teased or being an outcast in childhood is especially
damaging because it could lead to psychological symptoms such as
depression and anxiety (in which dysregulated emotions play a central
role), which, in turn, could lead to more peer victimization. This is why it is recommended to foster emotional self-regulation in children as early as possible.
Role of Occupational Therapy
Occupational Therapy
“Occupational
therapy's distinct value is to improve health and quality of life
through facilitating participation and engagement in occupations, the
meaningful, necessary, and familiar activities of everyday life.”
Emotional Regulation and OT
Emotional
regulation is all about increasing one's ability to identify and manage
emotions correctly, react more thoughtfully to challenging situations,
and build resilience and confidence in daily routines. By identifying
self-triggers and selecting meaningful coping strategies, one can more
easily regulate emotions and enhance the calm in this chaotic world.
Qualifications of OTs working in Schools
OTs
are integrated educators in most public and private schools across the
United States. They are trained in mental health and activity analysis
to assess the needs of their clients. OTs and students work together to
create meaningful and healthy habits for stress management, social
skills, emotional labeling, coping strategies, awareness,
problem-solving, self-monitoring, judgment, emotional control, and
others in the school and home environment. OTs can complete formal assessments for emotional regulation and treat in a client-centered manner for each student.
In addition, they can create individualized home programs for carryover
with their families. For example, OTs can work with students to engage
in the occupational therapist-developed program: Zones of Regulation®: A
Curriculum Designed to Foster Self-Regulation and Emotional Control.
This program utilizes evidence-based knowledge, formal assessment, and
in-classroom treatment to improve self-regulation of emotional behaviors
and create long-lasting changes in habits all while in the classroom.
The link to Zones of Regulation® is provided in the references.
Importance of Addressing Emotional Regulation in Schools
Early
childhood access to education on emotional regulation mitigates risk
factors for increased anxiety, depression, and negative behaviors. It
allows the student to create healthy habits for school and home
environments.
Children should be able to learn to regulate their feelings for full
participation in activities, including social skills, play, sports, and
school.
One dictionary definition is "an overwhelming feeling of
reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand,
sublime, extremely powerful, or the like: [e.g.] in awe of God; in awe of great political figures."
Another dictionary definition is a "mixed emotion of reverence,
respect, dread, and wonder inspired by authority, genius, great beauty,
sublimity, or might: [e.g.] We felt awe when contemplating the works of
Bach. The observers were in awe of the destructive power of the new
weapon."
Awe is difficult to define, and the meaning of the word has changed over time. Related concepts are wonder, admiration, elevation, and the sublime.
In Awe: The Delights and Dangers of Our Eleventh Emotion, neuropsychologist
and positive psychology guru Paul Pearsall presents a phenomenological
study of awe. He defines awe as an "overwhelming and bewildering sense
of connection with a startling universe that is usually far beyond the
narrow band of our consciousness." Pearsall sees awe as the 11th
emotion, beyond those now scientifically accepted (i.e., love, fear, sadness, embarrassment, curiosity, pride, enjoyment, despair, guilt, and anger)."
Most definitions allow for awe to be a positive or a negative
experience, but when asked to describe events that elicit awe, most
people only cite positive experiences.
One definition of awe relevant to the research discussed later in this article is established by Monroy and Keltner:
awe is defined as the "perceived vastness" and "need for accommodation"
in shifting one's mentality regarding the world and deviating from
one’s usual frame of reference.
Etymology
The term awe stems from the Old English word ege, meaning "terror, dread, awe," which may have arisen from the Greek word áchos, meaning "pain." The word awesome originated from the word awe in the late 16th century, to mean "filled with awe." The word awful also originated from the word awe, to replace the Old English word egeful ("dreadful").
Keltner and Haidt proposed an evolutionary explanation for awe. They suggested that the current emotion of awe originated from feelings of primordial awe
– a hard-wired response that low-status individuals felt in the
presence of more powerful, high-status individuals, which would have
been adaptive by reinforcing social hierarchies. This primordial awe
would have occurred only when the high-status person had characteristics
of vastness (in size, fame, authority, or prestige) that required the
low-status individual to engage in Piagetian accommodation
(changing one's mental representation of the world to accommodate the
new experience). Keltner and Haidt propose that this primordial awe
later generalized to any stimulus that is both vast and that requires
accommodation. These stimuli still include being in the presence of a
more powerful other (prototypical primordial awe), but also spiritual
experiences, grand vistas, natural forces/disasters, human-made works,
music, or the experience of understanding a grand scientific theory.
Keltner and Haidt propose that awe can have both positive and negative
connotations, and that there are five additional features of awe that
can color one's experience of the emotion: threat, beauty, ability, virtue, and the supernatural.
Awe is a sexually-selected characteristic
Keltner and Haidt's model has been critiqued by some researchers, including by psychologist Vladimir J. Konečni.
Konečni argued that people can experience awe, especially aesthetic awe
(of which, according to him, a "sublime stimulus-in-context" is the
principal cause) only when they are not in actual physical danger.
Konečni postulated that the evolutionary origins of awe are from
unexpected encounters with natural wonders, which would have been
sexually selected for because reverence,
intellectual sensitivity, emotional sensitivity, and elite membership
would have been attractive characteristics in a mate, and these
characteristics would also have given individuals greater access to
awe-inspiring situations. Since high-status people are more likely to be
safe from danger and to have access to awe-inspiring situations,
Konečni argued that high-status people should feel awe more often than
low-status people. However, this hypothesis has yet to be tested and
verified.
Awe increases systematic processing
A third evolutionary theory is that awe serves to draw attention away from the self and toward the environment.
This occurs as a way to build informational resources when one is in
the presence of novel and complex stimuli that cannot be assimilated by
one's current knowledge structures. In other words, awe functions to
increase systematic, accommodative processing, and this would have been
adaptive for survival. This hypothesis is the most recent and has
received the most empirical support, as described in the section on social consequences of awe.
Non-evolutionary theories
Sundararajan's awe
Humanistic/forensic psychologist Louise Sundararajan
also critiqued Keltner and Haidt's model by arguing that being in the
presence of a more powerful other elicits admiration, but does not
require mental accommodation because admiration merely reinforces
existing social hierarchies. Sundararajan expanded upon Keltner and
Haidt's model by arguing that first, an individual must be confronted
with perceived vastness. If an individual can assimilate
this perceived vastness into her or his existing mental categories,
s/he will not experience awe. If an individual cannot assimilate the
perceived vastness, then s/he will need to accommodate
to the new information (change her or his mental categories). If this
is not accomplished, an individual will experience trauma, such as
developing PTSD.
If an individual can accommodate, s/he will experience awe and wonder.
By this model, the same vast experience could lead to increased rigidity
(when assimilation succeeds), increased flexibility (when assimilation
fails but accommodation succeeds), or psychopathology (when both
assimilation and accommodation fail). Sundararajan did not speculate on
the evolutionary origins of awe.
Despite the meaningfulness[specify] that feelings of awe can bring, awe has rarely been scientifically studied. As Richard Lazarus
wrote in his book on emotions, "Given their [awe and wonder's]
importance and emotional power, it is remarkable that so little
scientific attention has been paid to aesthetic experience as a source
of emotion in our lives".
Research on awe is in its infancy and has primarily focused on
describing awe (e.g., physical displays of awe and who is likely to
experience awe) and the social consequences of awe (e.g., helping
behavior and decreased susceptibility to persuasion by weak messages). A
recent paper published a in-depth review on the research on awe.
Precipitants
Shiota, Keltner, and Mossman (2007)
had participants write about a time they felt awe. They found that
nature and art/music were frequently cited as the eliciting stimulus.
Although most definitions allow for awe to be positive or negative,
participants described only positive precipitants to awe, and it is
therefore possible that positive awe and awe+fear (i.e., horror) are
distinctly different emotions.
Awe and mental health
Awe
is a unique emotional state comprising eight to ten positive feelings
triggered by encountering novel stimuli that challenge the familiar. Awe
involves five processes linked to well-being: “shifts in
neurophysiology, a diminished focus on the self, increased prosocial
relationality, greater social integration, and a heightened sense of
meaning.” Awe fosters optimism, connection, and well-being while
reducing anxiety, depression, and social rejection. It reshapes one's
self-perception, promotes prosocial actions, strengthens the sense of
connection to humanity, and deepens individual feelings of meaning.
Emotional experience
In the same set of experiments by Shiota, Keltner, and Mossman (2007),
the researchers had participants write about a time they recently
experienced natural beauty (awe condition) or accomplishment (pride
condition). When describing the experience of natural beauty,
participants were more likely to report that they felt unaware of
day-to-day concerns, felt the presence of something greater, didn't want
the experience to end, felt connected with the world, and felt small or
insignificant.
The study of awe in the West
is relatively recent, and the field especially lacks information on awe
in non-Western contexts. Nomura, Tsuda, and Rappleye found that the
effects of vastness and accommodation leading to a diminished sense of
self were consistent among Chinese and American participants; however,
Chinese participants had more interpersonal awe experiences than
American participants’ self-awe experiences. Nature was also found to be
very relevant to Japanese participants’ awe experiences. However, the
effect was not as positive as it was for American participants.
Physical displays
This Atlanta lightning strike may have inspired awe.
Researchers have also attempted to observe the physical, non-verbal
reactions to awe by asking participants to remember a time they felt awe
and to express the emotion nonverbally.
Using this method, researchers observed that awe is often displayed
through raised inner eyebrows (78%), widened eyes (61%), and open,
slightly drop-jawed mouths (80%). A substantial percent of people also
display awe by slightly jutting forward their head (27%) and visibly
inhaling (27%), but smiling is uncommon (10%). Cross-cultural research
is needed to determine whether physical displays of awe differ by
culture.
Personality and awe
Some individuals may be more prone to experiencing awe. Using self- and peer-reports, researchers
found that regularly experiencing awe was associated with openness to
experience (self and peer-ratings) and extroversion (self-ratings).
Later studies
also found that people who regularly experience awe ("awe-prone") have
lower need for cognitive closure and are more likely to describe
themselves in oceanic (e.g. "I am an inhabitant of the planet Earth"),
individuated, and universal terms, as opposed to more specific terms
(e.g. "I have blonde hair").
Social consequences of awe
A
more recent study found that experiencing awe increased perceptions of
time and led to a greater willingness to donate time, but not to donate
money.
The greater willingness to donate time appeared to be driven by
decreased impatience after experiencing awe. Experiencing awe also led
participants to report greater momentary life satisfaction and stronger
preferences for experiential versus material goods (e.g. prefer a
massage to a watch). Awe, unlike most other positive emotions, has been shown to increase systematic processing, rather than heuristic processing, leading participants who experience awe to become less susceptible to weak arguments.
Awe has recently become a topic of interest in atheist groups, in response to statements from some religious individuals
who say that atheists do not experience awe, or that experiencing awe
makes one spiritual or religious, rather than an atheist. For example,
see Oprah's comment that she would not consider swimmer Diana Nyad an atheist because Nyad experiences awe, as well as the response to this video by interfaith activist Chris Stedman.
Awe is often tied to religion, but awe can also be secular. For more examples, see the writings on being an "aweist" by sociologist and atheist Phil Zuckerman, the book Religion for Atheists by author Alain de Botton, and the video on how secular institutions should inspire awe by performance philosopher Jason Silva.
Yogachara (Sanskrit: योगाचार, IAST: Yogācāra; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices.Yogachara was one of the two most influential traditions of Mahayana Buddhism in India, the other being Madhyamaka.
Yogācāra is 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 epistemic theory. There are several interpretations of this
main theory: various forms of Idealism, as well as a phenomenology or representationalism, aimed at deconstructing the reification of our perceptions.
According to Dan Lusthaus,
this tradition developed "an elaborate psychological therapeutic system
that mapped out the problems in cognition along with the antidotes to
correct them, and an earnest epistemological endeavor that led to some of the most sophisticated work on perception and logic ever engaged in by Buddhists or Indians."
While Yogācāra was mainly associated with Indian Mahayana Buddhism from about the fourth century CE onwards, it also included non-Mahayana practitioners of the Sautrāntika school. The 4th-century Gandharan brothers, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, are considered the classic philosophers and systematizers of this school, along with the figure of Maitreya. Yogācāra continues to be influential in Tibetan Buddhism and East Asian Buddhism. However, the uniformity of a single assumed "Yogācāra school" has been put into question.
According to Thomas Kochumuttom, Yogācāra is "meant to be an explanation of experience, rather than a system of ontology". For this reason, Yogācārins developed an Abhidharma literature set within a Mahāyāna framework. In its analysis, Yogācāra works like 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. They form a complex system, and each can be taken as a point of departure for understanding Yogācāra.
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.
The standard translation of both terms is "consciousness-only" or
"mind-only." Several modern researchers object to this translation, and
the accompanying label of "absolute idealism" or "idealistic monism". According to Kochumuttom, a better translation for vijñapti-mātra is representation-only.
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. 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.
Regarding existing Sanskrit sources, the term appears in the first verse of Vasubandhu's Vimśatikā, which is a locus classicus of the idea, it 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).
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 (no Sanskrit original, trans. from Tibetan):
These representations (vijñapti) are mere representations (vijñapti-mātra), because there is no [corresponding] thing/object (artha)...Just as in a dream there appear, even without a thing/object (artha),
just in the mind alone, forms/images of all kinds of things/objects
like visibles, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, houses, forests, land,
and mountains, and yet there are no [such] things/objects at all in
that [place]. MSg II.6
The term is sometimes used as a synonym with citta-mātra (mere citta), which is also used as 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 (*traidhātuka) is nothing but mind (or thought: *cittamatra). Why? Because however I imagine things, that is how they appear.
Interpretations of vijñapti-mātra
Idealism
According to Bruce Cameron Hall, the interpretation of this doctrine as a form of subjective or absolute idealism has been "the most common "outside" interpretation of Vijñānavāda, not only by modern writers, but by its ancient opponents, both Hindu and Buddhist."
The German scholar and philologist Lambert Schmithausen
affirms that Yogacara sources teach a type of idealism which is
supposed to be a middle way between the realist Abhidharma positions and
what it often considered a nihilistic position which only affirms
emptiness as the ultimate.
Scholars such as Jay Garfield, Saam Trivedi and Sean Butler argue that Yogācāra is similar to Idealism (and they compare it to the idealisms of Kant and Berkeley), though they note that it is its own unique form and that it might be confusing to categorize it as such. Paul Williams, citing Griffiths, writes that Yogacara could be termed "dynamic idealism".
Jonathan Gold writes that the Yogācāra thinker Vasubandhu can be said to be an idealist (similar to Kant),
in the sense that for him, everything in experience as well as its
causal support is mental, and thus he gives causal priority to the
mental. At the same time however, this is only in the conventional
realm, since "mind" is just another concept and true reality for
Vasubandhu is ineffable, "an inconceivable 'thusness' (tathatā)." Indeed, the Vimśatikā states that the very idea of vijñapti-mātra must also be understood to be itself a self-less construction and thus vijñapti-mātra is not the ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya) in Yogācāra. Thus according to Gold, while Vasubandhu's vijñapti-mātra can be said to be a “conventionalist idealism”, it is to be seen as unique and different from Western forms, especially HegelianAbsolute Idealism.
Mere representation
Other scholars note that it is a mistake to conflate the two terms vijñapti-mātra and citta-mātra. While the standard translations for both vijñapti-mātra and citta-matra are often "consciousness only" and "mind-only" (signifying an Idealistic doctrine), objections are raised to this conflation, as well as to Idealistic interpretation. Different alternative translations for vijñapti-mātra have been proposed, such as representation-only, ideation-only, impressions-only and perception-only.
David Kalupahana argues that citta-mātra signifies a metaphysical reification of mind into an absolute, while vijñapti-mātra refers to a certain epistemological approach. According to Kalupahana, the term vijñapti-mātra replaced the "more metaphysical" term citta-mātra used in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (which he sees as introducing an absolutist idealism). Kalupahana argued that the Laṅkā uses the term citta-mātra (thought-only), leading it to develop an ontology with an absolute reality, which contrasts the epistemology of the term vijñapti-mātra (which was the original meaning of the idea).
According to Thomas Kochumuttom, Yogācāra is a realistic pluralism which does not deny the existence of individual beings.
Kochumuttom argues that Yogācāra denies that the absolute reality is
consciousness, that individual beings are transformations of an absolute
consciousness and that they are illusory appearances of a single
monistic reality. Thus, for Kochumuttom, vijñapti-mātra means "mere representation of consciousness" and is:
a theory which says that the world as it appears to the unenlightened ones is mere representation of consciousness. Therefore, any attempt to interpret vijñaptimātratā-vāda as idealism would be a gross misunderstanding of it.
Furthermore, according to Kochumuttom, "the absolute state is defined
simply as emptiness, namely the emptiness of subject-object
distinction. Once thus defined as emptiness (sunyata), it receives a number of synonyms, none of which betray idealism."
Alex Wayman notes that one's interpretation of Yogācāra will depend on how the qualifier mātra
is to be understood in this context, and he objects to interpretations
which claim that Yogācāra rejects the external world altogether,
preferring translations such as "amounting to mind" or "mirroring mind"
for citta-mātra. For Wayman, what this doctrine means is that "the mind has only a report or representation of what the sense organ had sensed." The representationalist interpretation is also supported by Stefan Anacker.
Soterological phenomenology
According to Dan Lusthaus, the vijñapti-mātra theory is closer in some ways to Western Phenomenological theories and Epistemological Idealism or Transcendental idealism, but it is not an ontological idealism because Yogācāra rejects the construction of metaphysical or ontological theories. Moreover, Western idealism lacks any counterpart to karma, samsara or awakening, which are central for Yogācāra. Regarding vijñapti-mātra, Lusthaus translates it as "nothing but conscious construction" and states it is:
A deceptive trick is built into the
way consciousness operates at every moment. Consciousness projects and
constructs a cognitive object in such a way that it disowns its own
creation - pretending the object is "out there" - in order to render
that object capable of being appropriated. Even while what we cognize is
occurring within our act of cognition, we cognize it as if it were external to our consciousness. Realization of vijñapti-mātra
exposes this trick intrinsic to consciousness's workings, thereby
eliminating it. When that deception is removed one's mode of cognition
is no longer termed vijñāna (consciousness); it has become direct cognition (jñāna).
Lusthaus further explains that this reification of cognitions aids in
constructing the notion of a solid self, which can appropriate external
'things'. Yogacara then offers the analysis and meditative means to
negate this reification, thereby also negating the notion of a solid
self:
Consciousness engages in this
deceptive game of projection, dissociation, and appropriation because
there is no "self." According to Buddhism, the deepest, most pernicious
erroneous view held by sentient beings is the view that a permanent,
eternal, immutable, independent self exists. There is no such self, and
deep down we know that. This makes us anxious, since it entails that no
self or identity endures forever. In order to assuage that anxiety, we
attempt to construct a self, to fill the anxious void, to do something
enduring. The projection of cognitive objects for appropriation is
consciousness's main tool for this construction. If I own things (ideas,
theories, identities, material objects), then "I am." If there are
eternal objects that I can possess, then I too must be eternal. To
undermine this desperate and erroneous appropriative grasping, Yogācāra
texts say: Negate the object, and the self is also negated (e.g., Madhyānta-vibhāga, 1:4, 8).
Therefore, when Yogācāra discusses cognitive objects (viṣaya), they are analyzing cognition, and its constructions. While Yogācāra posits that cognitive objects are real, it denies "arthas" (objects of intentionality
or "a telos toward which an act of consciousness intends") which are
"outside the cognitive act in which it is that which is intended."
So according to Lusthaus, "Yogacarins don't claim that nothing
whatsoever exists outside the mind" and "Consciousness enjoys no
transcendent status, nor does it serve as a metaphysical foundation.
Consciousness is real by virtue of its facticity -- the fact that
sentient beings experience cognitions -- and not because of an
ontological primacy."
In this way, instead of offering an ontological theory, Yogācāra
focuses on understanding and eliminating the underlying tendencies (anuśaya) that lead to clinging to ontological constructions, which are just cognitive projections (pratibimba, parikalpita).
Arguments in defense of vijñapti-mātra
Yogācāra philosophers were aware of the objections that could be brought against their doctrine. Vasubandhu's Vimśatikā mentions three and refutes them:
The problem of spatio-temporal determination or
non-arbitrariness in regard to place and time. There must be some
external basis for our experiences since experiences of any particular
object are not occurrent everywhere and at every time. Vasubandhu
explains this by using the dream argument, which shows how a world created by mind can still seem to have spatio-temporal localization.
The problem of multiple minds experiencing the same object or inter-subjective agreement. Vasubandhu counters that mass hallucinations (such as those said to occur to hungry ghosts)
caused by the fact they share similar karma, show that inter-subjective
agreement is possible without positing real external objects.
Hallucinations have no pragmatic results, efficacy or causal
functions and thus can be determined to be unreal, but entities we
generally accept as being "real" have actual causal results that cannot
be of the same class as hallucinations. Against this claim, Vasubandhu
argues that waking life is the same as in a dream, where objects have
pragmatic results 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 outside of a dream.
According to Mark Siderits, after disposing of these objections, Vasubandhu believes he has shown that vijñapti-mātra is just as good at explaining and predicting the relevant phenomena of experience as any theory of realism
that posits external objects. Therefore, he then applies the Indian
philosophical principle termed the "Principle of Lightness" (which is
similar to Occam's Razor) to rule out realism since vijñapti-mātra is the simpler and "lighter" theory, "that is, the theory that posits the least number of unobservable entities."
Another objection that Vasubandhu answers is that of how one
person can influence another's experiences, if everything arises from
mental karmic seeds in one's mind stream. 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."
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. From the vijñapti-mātra
position, it is easier to posit a mind to mind causation than to have
to explain mind to body causation, which the realist must do. However,
Siderits then goes on to question whether Vasubandhu's position is
indeed "lighter" since he must make use of multiple interactions between
different minds to take into account an intentionally created artifact,
like a pot. Since we can be aware of a pot even when we are not
"linked" to the potter's intentions (even after the potter is dead), a
more complex series of mental interactions must be posited.
In disproving the possibility of external objects, Vasubandhu's Vimśatikā also attacks Indian theories of atomism and property particulars as incoherent on mereological grounds. Vasubandhu also explains why it is soteriologically important to get rid of the idea of really existing external objects. According to Siderits, this is because:
When
we wrongly imagine there to be external objects we are led to think in
terms of the duality of 'grasped and grasper', of what is 'out there'
and what is ' in here' - in short, of external world and self. Coming to
see that there is no external world is a means, Vasubandhu thinks, of
overcoming a very subtle way of believing in an 'I'... once we see why
physical objects can't exist we will lose all temptation to think there
is a true ' me' within. There are really just impressions, but we
superimpose on these the false constructions of object and subject.
Seeing this will free us from the false conception of an 'I'.
Siderits notes how Kant
had a similar notion, that is, without the idea of an objective mind
independent world, one cannot derive the concept of a subjective "I".
But Kant drew the opposite conclusion to Vasubandhu, since he held that
we must believe in an enduring subject, and thus, also believe in
external objects.
Analysis of Consciousness
Yogācāra gives a detailed explanation of the workings of the mind and the way it constructs the reality we experience.
According to Lusthaus, "the most famous innovation of the Yogācāra school was the doctrine of eight consciousnesses." These "eight bodies of consciousnesses" (aṣṭa vijñānakāyāḥ) are: the five sense-consciousnesses, citta (mentality), manas (self-consciousness), and the storehouse or substratum consciousness (Skt:ālayavijñāna). Traditional Buddhist descriptions of consciousness taught just the first six vijñānas, each corresponding to a sense base (ayatana) and having their own sense objects. Standard Buddhist doctrine held that these eighteen "dhatus" or components of experience, "exhaust the full extent of everything in the universe, or more accurately, the sensorium."
These six consciousnesses are also not substantial entities, but a
series of events, arising and vanishing, stretching back from
beginningless (anadi) time.
Buddhist Abhidharma
expanded and developed this basic model and Yogācāra responded by
rearranging these into their own schema which had three novel forms of
consciousness. The sixth consciousness, mano-vijñāna, was seen as
the surveyor of the content of the five senses as well as of mental
content like thoughts and ideas. The seventh consciousness developed
from the early Buddhist concept of manas, and was seen as the defiled mentation (kliṣṭa-manas) which is obsessed with notions of "self". According to Paul Williams,
this consciousness "takes the substratum consciousness as its object
and mistakenly considers the substratum consciousness to be a true
Self."
Ālaya-vijñāna
The eighth consciousness, ālaya-vijñāna
(storehouse or repository consciousness), was defined as the storehouse
of all karmic seeds, where they gradually matured until ripe, at which
point they manifested as karmic consequences. Because of this, it is
also called the "mind which has all the seeds" (sarvabījakam cittam), as well as the "basic consciousness" (mūla-vijñāna) and the "appropriating consciousness" (ādānavijñāna). According to the Saṅdhinirmocana Sūtra, this kind of consciousness underlies and supports the six types of manifest awareness, all of which occur simultaneously with the ālaya.
William S. Waldron sees this "simultaneity of all the modes of
cognitive awareness" as the most significant departure of Yogācāra
theory from traditional Buddhist models of vijñāna, which were "thought to occur solely in conjunction with their respective sense bases and epistemic objects."
As noted by Schmithausen, the ālaya-vijñāna, being a kind of vijñāna, has an object as well (as all vijñāna has intentionality). That object is the sentient being's surrounding world, that is to say, the "receptable" or "container" (bhājana) world. This is stated in the 8th chapter of the Saṅdhinirmocana Sūtra, which states that the ādānavijñāna is characterized by "an unconscious (or not fully conscious?) steady perception (or "representation") of the Receptacle (*asaṃvidita-sthira-bhājana-vijñapti)."
The ālaya-vijñāna is also what experiences rebirth into future lives and what descents into the womb to appropriate the fetal material. Therefore, the ālaya-vijñāna's holding on to the body's sense faculties and "profuse imaginings" (prapañca) are the two appropriations which make up the "kindling" or "fuel" (lit. upādāna) that samsaric existence depends upon. Yogācāra thought thus holds that being unaware of the processes going on in the ālaya-vijñāna is an important element of ignorance (avidya). The ālaya is also individual, so that each person has their own ālaya-vijñāna, which is an ever changing process and therefore not a permanent self.
According to Williams, this consciousness "seen as a defiled form
of consciousness (or perhaps sub- or unconsciousness), is personal,
individual, continually changing and yet serving to give a degree of
personal identity and to explain why it is that certain karmic results
pertain to this particular individual. The seeds are momentary, but they
give rise to a perfumed series which eventually culminates in the
result including, from seeds of a particular type, the whole
‘inter-subjective’ phenomenal world." Also, Asanga and Vasubandhu write that the ālaya-vijñāna ‘ceases’ at awakening, becoming transformed into a pure consciousness.
According to Waldron, while there were various similar concepts
in other Buddhist Abhidharma schools which sought to explain karmic
continuity, the ālaya-vijñāna is the most comprehensive and systematic. Waldron notes that the ālaya-vijñāna concept was probably influenced by these theories, particularly the Sautrantika theory of seeds and Vasumitra's theory of a subtle form of mind (suksma-citta).
Transformations of consciousness
For Kalupahana, this classification of ālayavijñāna and manas as an eighth and seventh category of consciousness is based on a misunderstanding of Vasubandhu's Triṃśikaikā-kārikā by later adherents.
According to scholar Roger R. Jackson, a "'fundamental unconstructed awareness' (mūla-nirvikalpa-jñāna)" is "described [...] frequently in Yogacara literature.", According to Kalupahana, instead of positing additional consciousnesses, the Triṃśikaikā-kārikā describes the transformations of this consciousness:
Taking vipaka, manana and vijnapti as three different kinds of functions, rather than characteristics, and understanding vijnana itself as a function (vijnanatiti vijnanam), Vasubandhu seems to be avoiding any form of substantialist thinking in relation to consciousness.
These transformations are threefold according to Kalupahana. The first is the ālaya and its seeds, which is the flow or stream of consciousness, without any of the usual projections on top of it. The second transformation is manana, self-consciousness or "Self-view, self-confusion, self-esteem and self-love". It is "thinking" about the various perceptions occurring in the stream of consciousness". The ālaya is defiled by this self-interest. The third transformation is visaya-vijñapti, the "concept of the object". In this transformation the concept
of objects is created. By creating these concepts human beings become
"susceptible to grasping after the object" as if it were a real object (sad artha) even though it is just a conception (vijñapti).
A similar perspective which emphasizes Yogācāra's continuity with early Buddhism is given by Walpola Rahula. According to Rahula, all the elements of this theory of consciousness with its three layers of vijñāna are already found in the Pāli Canon:
Thus we can see that Vijñāna
represents the simple reaction or response of the sense organs when
they come in contact with external objects. This is the uppermost or
superficial aspect or layer of the Vijñāna-skandha. Manas represents the aspect of its mental functioning, thinking, reasoning, conceiving ideas, etc. Citta which is here called Ālayavijñāna,
represents the deepest, finest and subtlest aspect or layer of the
Aggregate of consciousness. It contains all the traces or impressions of
the past actions and all good and bad future possibilities.
The Three Natures and Emptiness
Yogācāra works often define three basic modes or "natures" (svabhāva)
of experience. Jonathan Gold explains that "the three natures are all
one reality viewed from three distinct angles. They are the appearance,
the process, and the emptiness of that same apparent entity." According to Paul Williams, "all things which can be known can be subsumed under these Three Natures." Since this schema is Yogācāra's systematic explanation of the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā), each of the three natures are also explained as having a lack of own-nature (niḥsvabhāvatā)." Vasubandhu's Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa gives a brief definition of these three natures:
"What
appears is the dependent. How it appears is the fabricated. Because of
being dependent on conditions. Because of being only fabrication. The
eternal non-existence of the appearance as it is appears: That is known
to be the perfected nature, because of being always the same. What
appears there? The unreal fabrication. How does it appear? As a dual
self. What is its nonexistence? That by which the nondual reality is
there."
In detail, three natures (trisvabhāva) are:
Parikalpita-svabhāva (the "fully
conceptualized" nature). This is the "imaginary" or "constructed"
nature, wherein things are incorrectly comprehended based on conceptual
construction, through the activity of language and through attachment
and erroneous discrimination which attributes intrinsic existence to
things. According to the Mahāyānasaṃgraha,
it also refers to the appearance of things in terms of subject-object
dualism (literally "grasper" and "grasped"). The conceptualized nature
is the world of everyday unenlightened people, i.e. samsara, and it is false and empty, it does not really exist (see Triṃśikā v. 20). According to Xuanzang'sCheng Weishi Lun, "there is the absence of an existential nature by its very defining characteristic" (lakṣana-niḥsvabhāvatā). Because these conceptualized natures and distinct characteristics (lakṣana) are wrongly imputed not truly real, "they are like mirages and blossoms in the sky."
Paratantra-svabhāva (literally, "other dependent"), which is the dependently originated nature of dharmas, or the causal flow of phenomena which is erroneously confused into the conceptualized nature. According to Williams, it is "the basis
for the erroneous partition into supposedly intrinsically existing
subjects and objects which marks the conceptualized nature." Jonathan
Gold writes that it is "the causal process of the thing’s
fabrication, the causal story that brings about the thing’s apparent
nature." This basis is considered to be an ultimately existing (paramārtha) basis in classical Yogācāra (see Mahāyānasaṃgraha, 2:25). However, as Xuanzang notes, this nature is also empty in that there is an "absence of an existential nature in conditions that arise and perish" (utpatti-niḥsvabhāvatā).
That is, the events in this causal flow, while "seeming to have real
existence of their own" are actually like magical illusions since "they
are said to only be hypothetical and not really exist on their own." As
Siderits writes "to the extent that we are thinking of it at all - even
if only as the non-dual flow of impressions-only - we are still
conceptualizing it."
Pariniṣpanna-svabhāva (literally, "fully
accomplished"): the "consummated nature" or the true nature of things,
the experience of Suchness or Thatness (Tathātā) discovered in meditation unaffected by conceptualization or language. It is defined as "the complete absence, in the dependent nature, of objects – that is, the objects of the conceptualized nature" (see Mahāyānasaṃgraha, 2:4).
What this refers to is that empty non-dual experience which has been
stripped of the duality of the constructed nature through yogic praxis.
According to Williams, this is "what has to be known for
enlightenment" and Siderits defines it as "just pure seeing without any
attempt at conceptualization or interpretation. Now this is also empty,
but only of itself as an interpretation. That is, this mode of cognition
is devoid of all concepts, and so is empty of being of the nature of
the perfected. About it nothing can be said or thought, it is just pure
immediacy." According to Xuanzang, it has the "absence of any existential nature of ultimate meaning" (paramārtha-niḥsvabhāvatā)
since it is "completely free from any clinging to entirely imagined
speculations about its identity or purpose. Because of this, it is
conventionally said that it does not exist. However, it is also not
entirely without a real existence."
The central meaning of emptiness in Yogācāra is a twofold "absence of
duality." The first element of this is the unreality of any conceptual duality
such as "physical" and "non-physical", "self" and "other". To define
something conceptually is to divide the world into what it is and what
it is not, but the world is a causal flux that does not accord with
conceptual constructs. The second element of this is a perceptual duality between the sensorium and its objects, between what is "external" and "internal", between subject (grāhaka, literally "grasper") and object (grāhya, "grasped").
This is also an unreal superimposition, since there is really no such
separation of inner and outer, but an interconnected causal stream of
mentality which is falsely divided up.
An important difference between the Yogācāra conception of emptiness and the Madhyamaka conception is that in classical Yogācāra, emptiness does exist and so does consciousness, while Madhyamaka refuses to endorse such existential statements. The Madhyāntavibhāga for example, states "there exists the imagination of the unreal (abhūta-parikalpa),
there is no duality, but there is emptiness, even in this there is
that," which indicates that even though the dualistic imagination is
unreal and empty, it does exist. Contra Madhyamaka, which was criticized by Vasubandhu and Asaṅga for being nihilistic (see Vimśatikā v. 10), the Yogācāra position is that there is something that exists (the paratantra-svabhāva that is mere vijñapti), and that it is empty. The Bodhisattvabhūmi likewise argues that it is only logical to speak of emptiness if there is something (i.e. dharmatā) that is empty. Thus Asaṅga speaks of emptiness as "the non-existence of the self, and the existence of the no-self."
The Yogācāra school also gave special significance to the Lesser Discourse on Emptiness of the Āgamas. It is often quoted in later Yogācāra texts as a true definition of emptiness.
Karma
An explanation of the Buddhist doctrine of karma
(action) is central to Yogācāra, and the school sought to explain
important questions such as how moral actions can have effects on
individuals long after that action was done, that is, how karmic
causality works across temporal distances. Previous Abhidharma Buddhist
schools like the Sautrantika had developed theories of karma based on the notion of "seeds" (bījā)
in the mind stream, which are unseen karmic habits (good and bad) which
remain until they meet with the necessary conditions to manifest.
Yogācāra adopts and expanded this theory. Yogācāra then posited the "storehouse consciousness" (Sanskrit: ālayavijñāna), also known as the basal, or eighth consciousness,
as the container of the seeds. It simultaneously acts as a storage
place for karmic latencies and as a fertile matrix of predispositions
that bring karma to a state of fruition. In the Yogācāra system, all
experience without exception is said to result from karma or mental
intention (cetana), either arising from one's own subliminal seeds or from other minds.
For Yogācāra, the seemingly external or dualistic world is merely a "by-product" (adhipati-phala) of karma. The term vāsanā
("perfuming") is also used when explaining karma, and Yogācārins were
divided on the issue of whether vāsāna and bija were essentially the
same, whether the seeds were the effect of the perfuming, or whether the
perfuming simply affected the seeds.
The type, quantity, quality and strength of the seeds determine where
and how a sentient being will be reborn: one's race, sex, social status,
proclivities, bodily appearance and so forth. The conditioning of the
mind resulting from karma is called saṃskāra.
Vasubandhu's Treatise on Action (Karmasiddhiprakaraṇa), treats the subject of karma in detail from the Yogācāra perspective.
Meditation and awakening
As the name of the school suggests, meditation practice is central to
the Yogācāra tradition. Practice manuals prescribe the practice of
mindfulness of body, feelings, thoughts and dharmas
in oneself and others, out of which a revolutionary and radically
transformative understanding of the non-duality of self and other is
said to arise. This process is referred to as āśraya-parāvṛtti,
"overturning the Cognitive Basis", or "revolution of the basis", which
refers to "overturning the conceptual projections and imaginings which
act as the base of our cognitive actions." This event is seen as the transformation of the basic mode of cognition into jñāna (knowledge, direct knowing), which is seen as a non-dual knowledge that is non-conceptual (nirvikalpa), i.e., "devoid of interpretive overlay". When this occurs, the eight consciousnesses come to an end and are replaced by direct knowings. According to Lusthaus:
Overturning the Basis turns the five sense consciousnesses into immediate cognitions that accomplish what needs to be done (kṛtyānuṣṭhāna-jñāna). The sixth consciousness becomes immediate cognitive mastery (pratyavekṣaṇa-jñāna),
in which the general and particular characteristics of things are
discerned just as they are. This discernment is considered nonconceptual
(nirvikalpa-jñāna). Manas becomes the immediate cognition of equality (samatā-jñāna), equalizing self and other. When the Warehouse Consciousness finally ceases it is replaced by the Great Mirror Cognition (Mahādarśa-jñāna)
that sees and reflects things just as they are, impartially, without
exclusion, prejudice, anticipation, attachment, or distortion. The
grasper-grasped relation has ceased. ..."purified" cognitions all engage
the world in immediate and effective ways by removing the self-bias,
prejudice, and obstructions that had prevented one previously from
perceiving beyond one's own narcissistic consciousness. When
consciousness ends, true knowledge begins. Since enlightened cognition
is nonconceptual its objects cannot be described.
Five Categories of Beings
One
of the more controversial teachings espoused by the Yogacara school was
an extension of the teachings on seeds and store-conscious. Based on
the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra,
the Yogacara school posited that sentient beings had innate seeds that
would make them capable of achieving a particular state of enlightenment
and no other. Thus, beings were categorized in 5 ways:
Beings whose innate seeds gave them the capacity to achieve full Buddhahood (i.e. Bodhisattva path).
Beings whose innate seeds gave them the capacity to achieve the state of a pratyekabuddha (private Buddha).
Beings whose innate seeds gave them the capacity to achieve the state of an arhat.
Beings whose innate seeds had an indeterminate nature, and could potentially be any of the above.
Beings whose innate seeds were incapable of achieving enlightenment ever because they lacked any wholesome seeds.
The fifth class of beings, the Icchantika,
were described in various Mahayana sutras as being incapable of
achieving Enlightenment, unless in some cases through the aid of a
Buddha or Bodhisattva. Nevertheless, the notion was highly criticized
by adherents of the Lotus Sutra (e.g. the Tiantai school) and its teaching of universal Buddhahood. This tension appears in East Asian Buddhist history.
Alikākāravāda and Satyākāravāda
An
important debate about the reality of mental appearances within
Yogācāra led to its later subdivision into two systems of Alikākāravāda (Tib.rnam rdzun pa, False Aspectarians, also known as Nirākāravāda) and Satyākāravāda (rnam bden pa, True Aspectarians, also known as Sākāravāda). They are also termed "Aspectarians" (ākāra) and "Non-Aspectarians" (anākāra). The core issue is whether appearances or “aspects” (rnam pa, ākāra) of objects in the mind are treated as true (bden pa, satya) or false (rdzun pa, alika).
While this division did not exist in the works of the early Yogācāra
philosophers, tendencies similar to these views can be discerned in the
works of Yogacara thinkers like Dharmapala (c. 530–561?) and Sthiramati (c. 510–570?).
According to Yaroslav Komarovski the distinction is as follows:
Although
Yogācāras in general do not accept the existence of an external
material world, according to Satyākāravāda its appearances or “aspects” (rnam pa, ākāra)
reflected in consciousness have a real existence, because they are of
one nature with the really existent consciousness, their creator.
According to Alikākāravāda, neither external phenomena nor their
appearances and/in the minds that reflect them really exist. What exists
in reality is only primordial mind (ye shes, jñāna), described as self-cognition (rang rig, svasamvedana/ svasamvitti) or individually self-cognizing primordial mind (so so(r) rang gis rig pa’i ye shes).
Davey K. Tomlinson describes the difference (with reference to later Yogacara scholars from Vikramashila) as follows:
On one hand is the Nirākāravāda, typified by Ratnākaraśānti (ca. 970–1045); on the other, the Sākāravāda, articulated by his colleague and critic Jñānaśrīmitra
(ca. 980–1040). The Nirākāravādin argues that all appearances do not
really exist. They are ersatz or false (alīka). Ephemeral forms appear
to us but are the erroneous construction of ignorance, which
fundamentally characterizes our existence as suffering beings in
saṃsāra. In the ultimately real experience of an awakened buddha, no
appearances show up at all. Pure experience, unstained by false
appearance (which is nirākāra, “without appearance”), is possible. The
Sākāravādin, on the other hand, defends the view that all conscious
experience is necessarily the experience of a manifest appearance
(consciousness is sākāra, or constitutively “has appearance”). Manifest
appearances, properly understood, are really real. A buddha’s experience
has appearances, and there is nothing about this fact that makes a
buddha’s experience mistaken.
Practice
The main source for the yogic and meditative practices of the Yogācāra school is the encyclopedic Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra (YBh, Treatise on the Foundation for Yoga Practitioners). The YBh presents a structured exposition of the Mahāyāna Buddhist path of yoga (here referring to spiritual practice in general) from a Yogācāra perspective and relies in both Āgama/Nikāya texts and Mahāyāna sūtras while also being influenced by Vaibhāṣika Abhidharma. According to some scholars, this text can be traced to communities of Yogācāras,
which initially referred not to a philosophical school, but to groups
of meditation specialists whose main focus was Buddhist yoga.
Other Yogācāra texts which also discuss meditation and spiritual
practice (and show some relationship with the YBh) include the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra, the Madhyāntavibhāga, Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, Dharmadharmatāvibhāga and Asanga's Mahāyānasaṃgraha.
The main or basic section of the YBh is structured around seventeen bhūmis
(explained in fourteen books), which are "foundations" or "groundings"
of meditation, referring to "a field of knowledge that the Yogācāra
acolyte ought to master in order to be successful in his or her yoga
practice." Some of these are doctrinal topics such as the five vijñānas (book 1), the ālayavijñāna, afflictive cognition (kliṣṭaṃ manaḥ), the 51 mental factors (book 2), and the defilements (saṃkleśa, book 3). Other books discuss meditation practice proper (books 4, 9, 10, and 12).
The YBh's Bodhisattvabhūmi section discusses the Yogācāra school's specifically Mahāyāna forms of practice which are tailored to bodhisattvas.
These figures are seen as spiritual virtuosos who are working on
attaining full Buddhahood through a process that can take hundreds of
aeons of spiritual development (and countless rebirths). Unlike other books in the YBh (such as the Śrāvakabhūmi) which are more influenced by Śrāvakayāna texts, the Bodhisattvabhūmi is strongly influenced by Mahāyāna works, including the Prajñāpāramitā literature.
The aim of the bodhisattva's practice in the Bodhisattvabhūmi is the wisdom (prajñā) which realizes of the inexpressible Ultimate Reality (tathata) or the 'thing-in-itself (vastumatra), which is essenceless and beyond the duality (advaya) of existence (bhāva) and non-existence (abhāva). The Bodhisattvabhūmi outlines several practices of bodhisattvas, including the six perfections (pāramitā), the thirty-seven factors of Awakening, and the four immeasurables. Two key practices which are unique to bodhisattvas in this text are the four investigations (paryeṣaṇā) and the four correct cognitions (yathābhūtaparijñāna).
The four investigations
The four investigations and the corresponding four correct cognitions or knowledges which arise from them are:
The investigation of the names [of things] (nāmaparyeṣaṇā), leads to correct cognition resulting from the investigation of names just for what they are, which is "just names" (nāmamātra).
The investigation of things (vastuparyeṣaṇā), leads to
correct cognition resulting from the investigation of things. One sees
things just for what they are, namely a mere presence or a
thing-in-itself (vastumātra). One understands that this is apart from all labels and is inexpressible (nirabhilāpya).
The investigation of verbal designations suggesting and portraying an intrinsic nature (svabhāva-prajñapti-paryeṣaṇā),
leads to correct cognition resulting from the investigation of such
designations. One sees the designations just for what they are, namely
as mere designations (prajñaptimātratā). Thus, one sees the idea of intrinsic nature to be illusory like a hallucination or a dream.
The investigation of verbal designations expressing individuation and differences (viśeṣaprajñaptiparyeṣaṇā),
leads to correct cognition resulting from the investigation of such
designations. One sees the designations just for what they are, namely
as mere designations. For example, a thing may be designated as existing
or non-existing, but such designations do not apply to true reality or
the thing-in-itself.
The practice which leads to the realization of the true nature of things is based on the elimination of all conceptual proliferations (prapañca) and ideations (saṃjñā) that one superimposes on true reality.
This elimination of concepts and ideas is the basic framework applied
by the bodhisattva to all meditative practices. The YBh states:
The
path of practice shall be correctly followed in order to eliminate that
ideation. Through understanding, thoroughly exercised upon all objects
of knowledge, [and] by keeping in mind only the ideation that the
ideations of all phenomena [are nothing but] adventitious, you should
thus repeatedly remove any ideation conducive to the proliferation
directed at all phenomena and should consistently dwell on the
thing-in-itself by a non-conceptualizing mental state which is focused
on grasping only the object perceived without any characteristics. Thus
you will obtain the concentration stemming from the lineage of those
practicing the pure contemplation of the Tathagata's Supreme Cognition.
Even when you practice the meditation on the impurity, you should not
relinquish this mental orientation. Likewise when you practice the
meditation on friendliness, dependent origination, analysis of elements,
mindfulness of breathing, the first absorption and so on up to the
station of neither ideation nor non-ideation as well as the
bodhisattva's countless meditations, supernatural faculties,
contemplations, and attainments, you should not relinquish precisely
this mental orientation.
The three samādhis (meditative absorption and unity) are likewise adapted into this new framework. These three are the emptiness (śūnyatā), wishlessness (apraṇihita), and imagelessness (ānimitta) samādhis.
The bodhisattva abodes
Another
original contribution of the YBh regarding the bodhisattva's practice
is the doctrine of the thirteen (or sometimes twelve) abodes or
dwellings (vihāra). This framework of the bodhisattva's path to awakening is as follows:
The abode of the predisposition (gotravihāra). This refers to someone with the predisposition for being a bodhisattva who has not given rise to the resolve for awakening.
The abode of practicing with ascertainment (adhimukticaryā-vihāra).
This is when a bodhisattva has given rise to the resolve for Awakening
and begins to practice, but they have an impure conviction and unstable
meditation.
The abode of joy (pramuditavihāra). This is when a
bodhisattva has pure conviction due to having their first glimpse of
direct realization. Their meditation is now vast, uninterrupted, and
certain.
The abode higher discipline (adhiśīlavihāra) is when discipline is cultivated on the basis of pure conviction.
The abode of higher mind (adhicittavihāra) is when one practices all stages of mundane meditation on the basis of higher discipline.
The abode of higher insight associated with the factors of Awakening (bodhipakṣyapratisaṃyukto 'dhiprajñavihāra) is the level of analyzing the thirty-seven factors of Awakening in order to realize the truths, beginning with the four foundations of mindfulness.
The abode of higher insight associated with the truths (satyapratisaṃyukto 'dhiprajñavihāra) is the level of fully realizing the truths as they are on the basis of having analyzed the factors of Awakening.
The abode of higher insight associated with the arising and ceasing of dependent arising (pratītyasamutpādapravṛttinivṛttipratisaṃyukto 'dhiprajñavihāra)
is the level wherein the practitioner after having mastered the truths
sees how suffering arises when the existential facts are not understood
and how suffering comes to an end when the existential facts are
understood (through the process of dependent origination).
The abode free from conceptual characteristics where the path is steadily followed intentionally and with effort (sābhisaṃskāraḥ sābhogo niśchidra-mārgavāhano nirnimitto vihāraḥ). One constantly cultivates non-conceptual insight into the reality of all phenomena, while applying intention and effort.
The abode free from conceptual characteristics where the path is automatically followed spontaneously and effortlessly (anabhisaṃskāro 'anābhoga-mārgavāhano nirnimitta eva vihāraḥ). On this level, the bodhisattva is able to walk the path spontaneously and effortlessly.
The abode of analytical knowledge (pratisaṃvidvihāra) is when
the bodhisattva uses their mastery of insight and meditation to teach
the Dharma to others using all terms, their meanings, their derivative
analyses, and subdivisions.
The highest and perfected bodhisattva abode (paramaḥ pariniṣ-panno bodhisattvavihāraḥ)
is the culmination of the path, where the highest and complete
Awakening is achieved. This life is their final rebirth or their
penultimate rebirth before entering nirvāṇa.
The abode of a Tathāgata (tathāgato vihāraḥ) is when a bodhisattva becomes a buddha, and performs all the various deeds of a buddha.
History
The Yogācāra, along with the Madhyamaka, is one of the two principal philosophical schools of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, while the Tathāgatagarbha-thought was also influential.
One of the earliest texts of this tradition is the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra which might be as early as the first or second century CE. It includes new theories such as the basis-consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), and the doctrine of representation-only (vijñapti-mātra) and the "three natures" (trisvabhāva).
However, these theories were not completely new, as they have
predecessors in older theories held by previous Buddhist schools, such
as the Sautrāntika theory of seeds (bīja) and the Sthavira nikāya's Abhidharma theory of the bhavanga.
Richard King notes that Sautrāntika's defended a kind of
representationalism, in which the mind only perceives an image (akara)
or representation (vijñapti) of an external object (never the object
itself). Yogacara merely removed the need for any external object which
acts as a cause for the image.
The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, as the doctrinal trailblazer of the Yogācāra, inaugurated the paradigm of the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma, with its own tenets in the "third turning" (the consciousness-only teachings). Yogācāra texts are generally considered part of the third turning along with the relevant sutra.
Moreover, Yogācāra discourse surveys and synthesizes all three turnings
and considers itself as the final definitive explanation of Buddhism.
The early layers of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra also contains very early Yogācāra material, perhaps earlier than the Saṃdhinirmocana. This work is strongly influenced by Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma.
According to Dan Lusthaus, the orientation of the Yogācāra school is largely consistent with the thinking of the Pāli nikāyas.
It frequently treats later developments in a way that realigns them
with earlier versions of Buddhist doctrines. One of the agendas of the
Yogācāra school was to reorient the complexity of later refinements in
Buddhist philosophy to accord with early Buddhist doctrine.
However, according to Y. Karunadasa,
the exact opposite is true, and the Pali sources are firmly realist
texts that confirm the existence of matter. Karunadasa argues that the
real extra-mental existence of matter and the external world is "clearly
suggested" in the Nikayas, "nor is there any positive evidence to show
that the world is mind-made or simply a projection of subjective
thoughts".
Yogācāra philosophy's systematic exposition owes much to Asaṅga (4th c. CE) and Vasubandhu
(4th-5th c. CE). Little is known of these figures, but traditional
hagiographies state that Asaṅga received Yogācāra teachings from the
bodhisattva and future Buddha, Maitreya. Accounts of this are given in the writings of Paramārtha (6th century) and Xuanzang, who reports that important texts like the Mahāyāna-sūtra-alaṃkāra and the Madhyanta-vibhaga are divinely revealed from Maitreya.Asaṅga went on to write many of the key Yogācāra treatises such as the Mahāyānasaṃgraha and the Abhidharma-samuccaya
as well as other works, although there are discrepancies between the
Chinese and Tibetan traditions concerning which works are attributed to
him and which to Maitreya.
Asaṅga also went on to convert his brother Vasubandhu into the Mahāyāna Yogācāra fold. Vasubandhu had been a top scholar of Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika and SautrāntikaAbhidharma thought, and the Abhidharmakośakārikā is his main work which discusses the doctrines of these traditions. Vasubandhu also went on to write important Yogācāra works after his conversion, explaining and defending key Yogācāra doctrines.
Development in India
The
Yogācāra school held a prominent position in Indian Buddhism for
centuries after the time of the two brothers. According to Dan Lusthaus,
after Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, two distinct "wings" of the school
developed:
However, the doctrines of the Abhidharmic wing came under increased attack by other Buddhists, especially the notion of ālaya-vijñāna, which was seen as close to the Hindu ideas of ātman and prakṛti. Because of this, the logical tradition shifted over time to using the term citta-santāna instead of ālaya-vijñāna, since it was easier to defend a "stream" (santāna) of thoughts as a doctrine that did not contradict not-self.
By the end of the eighth century, the Abhidharma wing had mostly become
eclipsed by the logical tradition as well as by a new hybrid school
that "combined basic Yogācāra doctrines with Tathāgatagarbha thought."
Yogācāra-tathāgatagarbha synthesis
Panorama of the site of Vikramaśīla university (Bhagalpur district, Bihar).
Vikramaśīla was an important center for late Indian Yogacara scholars,
including the great panditas like Jñānaśrīmitra and Ratnākaraśānti.
According to Lusthaus, the synthetic Yogācāra-tathāgatagarbha school accepted the definition of tathāgatagarbha (the buddha-womb, buddha-source, or "buddha-within") as "permanent, pleasurable, self, and pure (nitya, sukha, ātman, śuddha) which is found in various tathāgatagarbha sutras. This hybrid school eventually went on to equate the tathāgatagarbha with the ālaya-vijñāna. Some key sources of this school are the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra), and in China the Awakening of Faith.
Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha became extremely influential in both
East Asia and Tibet. During the sixth and seventh centuries, various
forms of Yogācāra dominated the Chinese Buddhist landscape such as
orthodox forms and hybrid tathāgatagarbha forms. There were feuds
between these two approaches. The translator Bodhiruci
(6th century CE) for example, took a more orthodox approach while the
Ratnamati was attracted to Tathāgatagarbha thought and sought to
translate texts like the Dasabhumika sutra in conformity with his understanding. Their disagreement on this issue led to the end of their collaboration as co-translators.
The translator Paramārtha is another example of a hybrid thinker. He promoted a new theory that said there was a "stainless consciousness" (amala-vijñāna, a pure wisdom within all beings, i.e. the tathāgatagarbha), which is revealed once the ālaya-vijñāna is purified.
According to Lusthaus, Xuanzang's travels to India and his composition of the Cheng Weishi Lun
was an attempt to return to a more "orthodox" and "authentic" Indian
Yogācāra, and thus put to rest the debates and confusions in the Chinese
Yogācāra of his time. The Cheng Weishi Lun returns to the use of the theory of seeds instead of the tathāgatagarbha to explain how some beings can reach Buddhahood.
However, by the eighth century, various forms of synthetic
Yogācāra-tathāgatagarbha became the definitive interpretation of
Yogācāra in East Asian Buddhism. Later Chinese thinkers like Fa-Tsang would thus criticize Xuanzang for failing to teach the tathāgatagarbha in his system.
Karl Brunnhölzl notes that this syncretic tendency also existed in India, but that:
it seems that Yogācāra masters generally adopted the notion of tathāgatagarbha in accordance with the Uttaratantra only later, when Buddhist tantra
with its very similar notions of ground tantra and all beings’
primordially being buddhas was flourishing. Examples of such Yogācāras
include Jñānaśrīmitra, Ratnākaraśānti, and the authors of several commentaries on the prajñaparamita from a Yogācāra perspective.
Yogācāra and Madhyamaka
According to Tibetan sources, this school was in protracted dialectic with the Madhyamaka
tradition. However, there is disagreement among contemporary Western
and traditional Buddhist scholars about the degree to which they were
opposed, if at all.
The main difference deals with issues of existence and the nature of
emptiness. While Madhyamaka works state that asserting the existence or
non-existence of anything was inappropriate (including emptiness), Yogācāra treatises often assert that the dependent nature (paratantra-svabhāva) really exists and that emptiness is an actual absence that also exists. For example, the Madhyāntavibhāga clearly asserts that "the imagination of the nonexistent [abhūta-parikalpa] exists. In it duality does not exist. Emptiness, however, exists in it." Classical Yogācāra thinkers like Asaṅga and Vasubandhu critiqued Madhyamikas who "adhere to non-existence" (nāstikas, vaināśkas) because they saw them as straying into nihilism (ucchedavāda). They held that there was really something which could be said to "exist", that is, vijñapti, and that was what is described as being "empty" their system.
The position that Yogācāra and Madhyamaka were in dialectic was expounded by Xuanzang
in the 7th century. After a suite of debates with exponents of the
Madhyamaka school in India, Xuanzang composed in Sanskrit the no longer
extant three-thousand verse treatise The Non-difference of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra.
Yogācāra and Madhyamaka philosophers demonstrated two opposing tendencies throughout the history of Buddhist philosophy in India, one which worked to separate and distance the two systems and one tendency which worked towards harmonizing them. The harmonizing tendency can be seen in the work of philosophers like Jñānagarbha (8th century), his student Śāntarakṣita (8th century) and also in the work of the Yogācāra thinker Ratnakaraksanti (c. 1000). These thinkers also saw the Yogācāra Alikākāravāda
("false aspectarian", those Yogācāras who believe that mental
appearances are false or don't ultimately exist) view as the highest.
Śāntarakṣita
(8th century), whose view was later called
"Yogācāra-Svatantrika-Madhyamaka" by the Tibetan tradition, saw the
Mādhyamika position as ultimately true and at the same time saw the
Yogācāra view as a useful way to relate to conventionalities and
progress students more skillfully toward the ultimate. This synthesized view between the two positions, and also incorporated the views of valid cognition (pramana) from Dignāga and Dharmakīrti.
Later Tibetan Buddhist thinkers like Shakya Chokden would also work to show the compatibility of the alikākāravāda sub-school with Madhyamaka, arguing that it is in fact a form of Madhyamaka. Likewise, the Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyamtso has a similar view which holds that the "profound important points and intents" of the two systems are one. Ju Mipham
is also another Tibetan philosopher whose project is aimed as showing
the harmony between Yogacara and Madhyamaka, arguing that there is only a
very subtle difference between them, being a subtle clinging by
Yogacaras to the existence of an "inexpressible, naturally luminous
cognition" (rig pa rang bzhin gyis ’od gsal ba).
Translations of Indian Yogācāra texts were first introduced to China in the early 5th century CE. Among these was Guṇabhadra's translation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra in four fascicles, which would also become important in the early history of Chan Buddhism. During the sixth century, the Indian monk and translator Paramārtha (真諦; 499–569) widely propagated Yogācāra teachings in China, among monks and laypersons. His translations include the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, the Madhyāntavibhāga-kārikā, the Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā, and the Mahāyānasaṃgraha.
Xuanzang
(fl. c. 602 – 664) is often seen as the most important founder of East
Asian Yogācāra. At the age of 33, Xuanzang made a dangerous journey to
India in order to study Buddhism and procure texts for later
translation. Dan Lusthaus writes that Xuanzang had come to the conclusion that issues of dispute in Chinese Buddhism could be resolved with the availability of important texts like the Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra.
Xuanzang spent over ten years in India traveling and studying under various Buddhist masters.
Lusthaus writes that during this time, Xuanzang discovered that the
manner in which Buddhists understood and interpreted texts was much
richer and more varied than the Chinese materials had previously
indicated, and drew meaning from a broad cultural context. Xuanzang's teachers included Śīlabhadra, the abbot of Nālandā, who was then 106 years old and who tutored him for 10 years. Upon his return from India, Xuanzang brought with him 657 Buddhist texts, including important Yogācāra works such as the Yogācārabhūmi. He was given government support and many assistants for the purpose of translating these texts into Chinese.
As an important contribution to East Asian Yogācāra, Xuanzang composed the Cheng Weishi Lun, or "Discourse on the Establishment of Consciousness Only." This work is framed around Vasubandhu's Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā, or "Thirty Verses on Consciousness Only." In his commentary, Xuanzang upheld Dharmapāla's commentary on this work as being the correct one, and provided his own explanations of these as well as other views. This work was composed at the behest of Xuanzang's disciple Kuījī (632–682), and became a central work of East Asian Yogācāra. Xuanzang also promoted devotional meditative practices toward Maitreya. Xuanzang's disciple Kuiji
wrote a number of important commentaries on Yogācāra texts and further
developed the influence of this doctrine in China. He was recognized by
later adherents as the first true patriarch of the school.
The tradition was also brought to Korea (where it is known as Beopsang) and Japan (where it is known as Hossō). Principal exponents of Yogācāra in Korea include Daehyeon (大賢), Sinhaeng (神行 ; 704–779), Woncheuk (圓測 ; 631–696) and Wonhyo (元曉 ; 원효 ; 617 - 686), while in Japan they include Chitsū (智通) and Chidatsu (智達) of the Kusha-shū school, Dosho (道昭), Jokei (貞慶), Zenju (善珠), Tokuitsu (徳一).
Like the Chinese tradition, the Tibetan Nyingma school and its Dzogchen teachings promote a hybrid form of Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha. The Jonang school meanwhile developed its own systematic view which they termed shentong ("other-voidness" Wylie: gzhan-stong), which included elements from Yogācāra, Madhyamaka and Tathāgatagarbha. They considered this view to be definitive, in contrast to the rangtong ("self-voidness" or prasaṅgika, Wylie: rang-stong), comprising both Svatantrika and Prasaṅgika Madhyamaka.
Although Je Tsongkhapa (whose reforms to Atiśa's Kadam tradition are generally considered the beginnings of the Gelug school) argued in favour of Yogācāra views (specifically regarding the existence and functioning of eight consciousnesses)
early in his career, the prevailing Gelug view eventually came to hold
Yogācāra views as a matter of interpretable meaning, therefore distinct
from Madhyamaka which was held to be of definitive meaning.
Current discussions between Tibetan scholars regarding the differences between shentong and rangtong
views may therefore appear similar to historical debates between
Yogācāra and Madhyamaka, but the specific distinctions have, in fact,
evolved much further.
Although later Tibetan views may be said to have evolved from the
earlier Indian positions, the distinctions between the views have become
increasingly subtle and complex, especially as Tibetan Yogācāra has
evolved to incorporate Madhyamaka and Tathāgatagarbha philosophies. Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso, the 19th-century Rimé movement
commentator, wrote in his commentary on Śāntarakṣita's synthesis, that
the ultimate view in both schools is the same, and that each path leads
to the same ultimate state of abiding.
Influence
Virtually all contemporary schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism are influenced by Yogācāra Buddhist thought. This includes modern Zen, Pure Land and Tibetan Buddhism. Zen was heavily influenced by Yogācāra sources, especially the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra.
In Tibetan Buddhism, Yogācāra sources are still widely studied and many
Yogācāra texts are key works studied in the monastic education
curriculum of the various schools. Some influential in Tibetan Buddhism include: Asanga's Abhidharma-samuccaya, and the "Five Treatises of Maitreya" including the Mahayanasutralankara, and the Ratnagotravibhāga (a text which teaches Yogacara and buddha nature doctrines).
Hindu philosophers such as Utpaladeva and Śrīharṣa were also influenced by Yogacara ideas and responded to their theories in their own works.
Textual corpus
A wall painting depicting Xuanzang's travels and his translation work, Xuanzang Memorial Hall, modern Nalanda
Sūtras
The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra
("Sūtra of the Explanation of the Profound Secrets"; 2nd century CE),
was the seminal Yogācāra sutra and continued to be a primary referent
for the tradition.
Another text, the Mahāyānābhidharmasūtra is often quoted in Yogācāra works and is assumed to also be an early Yogācāra sutra.
The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra also later assumed considerable importance in East Asia, and portions of this text were considered by Étienne Lamotte as being contemporaneous with the Saṃdhinirmocana. This text equates the Yogācāra theory of ālayavijñāna with the Tathāgatagarbha and thus seems to be part of the tradition which sought to merge Yogācāra with Tathāgatagarbha thought.
Asaṅga, Vasubandhu and early treatises
Some of the earliest Yogācāra material can be found in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, such as the doctrines of ālayavijñāna and āśrayaparāvṛtti. This text, a massive encyclopedic work on yogic theory and praxis, is traditionally attributed to Asaṅga (4th century) or Maitreya, but most scholars (such as Schmithausen
and Aramaki) believe it contains the work of many authors, and its
components reflect various stages of historical development. Most of its
material is non-Mahayana and according to Lusthaus, it draws
extensively from on the Āgamas. Nevertheless, Asaṅga may still have influenced its development.
Authorship of several major Yogācāra treatises or śāstras are ascribed to Asaṅga, a major doctrinal systematizer of the school. Among them are his magnum opus, the Mahāyānasaṃgraha and also a compendium of Yogācāra Abhidharma, the Abhidharma-samuccaya.
Asaṅga's brother Vasubandhu is also considered to be an important Yogācāra figure. He wrote various important śāstras, including the Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa (Treatise on the Three Natures), Viṃśaṭikā-kārikā (Treatise in Twenty Stanzas), Triṃśikā-kārikā (Treatise in Thirty Stanzas), Vyākhyāyukti ("Proper Mode of Exposition"), Karmasiddhiprakarana ("A Treatise on Karma"), and the Pañcaskandhaprakaraṇa (Explanation of the Five Aggregates). According to Jay Garfield, the Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa is "arguably one of the most philosophically detailed and comprehensive" work on the three natures by Vasubandhu.
Vasubandhu also wrote a large systematic work on Abhidharma, the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya,
which remains influential in Tibet and East Asia. According to Robert
Kritzer, though this work is traditionally seen as being based on Sarvastivada and Sautrantika Abhidharma, it also contains Yogācāra influences drawn from the Yogācārabhūmi.
Other figures and texts
According to Williams, there is a fairly early Yogācāra work surviving in Sanskrit called the Alokamala (‘Garland of Light’) of Kambala (c. 450–525), which "gives of a form of Yogācāra just prior to the vigorous critical Madhyamika response to it represented by the works of Bhavaviveka." Williams also notes that this work "tries to harmonize where possible the Madhyamika position with that of Yogācāra."
Important commentaries on various Yogācāra texts were written by Sthiramati (6th century) and Dharmapala of Nalanda (6th century), who represent different sub-traditions within the school. The Indian Buddhist logicianDignāga (c. 480– 540 CE) wrote an important Yogācāra work, the Alambanapariksa and its vrtti (commentary). The work of Dharmakirti also shows Yogācāra influence.
The Chinese figure of Xuanzang (602-664) wrote a commentary (Ch' eng wei shih lun, Skt. reconstruction: Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi*) on the Trimsikā of Vasubandhu, for which he used numerous Indian commentaries, favoring the work of Dharmapala. In the East Asian Yogācāra tradition, this is the central work on Yogācāra philosophy.
Besides the works of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu outlined above, the Yogācāra tradition as it is understood in Tibetan Buddhism is also based on a series of texts called the Five Dharmas of Maitreya. These are the Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra, Dharmadharmatāvibhāga, Madhyāntavibhāgakārikā, Abhisamayalankara and the Ratnagotravibhaga. These texts are traditionally said to have been related to Asaṅga by the Bodhisattva Maitreya from Tusita Heaven. According to D.S. Ruegg, the "five works of Maitreya" are mentioned in Sanskrit sources from only the 11th century onwards. As noted by S.K. Hookham and Paul Williams, their attribution to a single author has been questioned by modern scholars, especially the Abhisamayalankara and the Ratnagotravibhaga (which focuses on tathāgatagarbha).There are also various commentaries on these texts from Indian and
Tibetan authors that are important in the Tibetan scholastic tradition.
According to Karl Brunnholzl, the Chinese tradition also speaks of five Maitreya texts (first mentioned in Dunlun's Yujia lunji), "but considers them as consisting of the Yogācārabhūmi, *Yogavibhāga [now lost], Mahāyānasūtrālamkārakā, Madhyāntavibhāga and the Vajracchedikākāvyākhyā."
Contemporary scholarship
Yogācāra has also been identified in the western philosophical tradition as a type of idealism.
This equation was standard until recently, when it began to be
challenged by scholars such as Kochumuttom, Anacker, Kalupahana, Dunne, Lusthaus, Powers, and Wayman. Yogācāra has also been aligned with phenomenology by some authors, most notably Lusthaus.
German scholar and philologist Lambert Schmithausen
has repeatedly defended the view that the classic Yogacara sources
defend an idealist ontology. He notes that careful reading and
philological study of Yogacara texts show that they clearly reject the
mind independent existence of the external world.
He also notes that the current trend in rejecting the idealistic
interpretation might be related to the unpopularity of idealism among
the Western philosophy academy.
Similarly, Jay Garfield continues to uphold the interpretation of Yogācāra as idealism. To the same effect, Nobuyoshi Yamabe states that "Dignāga also clearly inherited the idealistic system of Yogācāra."
Like many contemporary scholars, Yamabe is aware that the texts
considered to be Yogācāra treatises reflect various stages in addressing
the issue of mind and matter.
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