Consciousness-Only and the West 唯識與西方哲學

D11 Dharma and the West · 佛法與西方哲學Emptiness and Mind · 空與心Advanced · 高級about 30 min

唯識

viññatti-matta Pāli　vijñapti-mātra Sanskritconsciousness-only; mere representation

The verdict · 判定

Closest in thesis and argument: Berkeley, who also held that to be is to be perceived and argued from the incoherence of matter. Closest in method: Husserl, who set aside the question of an outer world in order to study how experience is put together. The likeness to Berkeley ends at the mind itself. He kept enduring souls and a God whose perceiving holds the world in place. Vasubandhu kept neither, and said that one who settles on “consciousness-only” as a thing to hold has not yet arrived.

在論題與論證上最接近的是柏克萊：他同樣主張「存在就是被知覺」，並且從「物質」這個觀念的不融貫來論證。在方法上最接近的是胡塞爾：他把「有沒有外在世界」的問題擱下，為的是研究經驗是怎麼構成的。跟柏克萊的相似，到「心」本身為止。他保留了持久的靈魂，以及一位以祂的知覺把世界維持住的上帝。世親兩樣都沒有保留；並且說：把「唯識」當成一樣可以執持的東西而安住其上的人，還沒有到。

中文翻譯Every paragraph has a Chinese translation. Tap 中譯▾ under a paragraph to open that one, or use Show Chinese · 顯示中譯 at the top to open them all. 每一段都有中譯：點段落下方的「中譯」只開那一段，或按上方的「顯示中譯」一次全部打開。

1 · What the Dharma says · 佛法怎麼說

The river of pus 那條膿河

The roots of the teaching are in the earliest discourses. “Intention is the leader of things; intention is first, they’re made by intention,” begins the Dhammapada. Asked to teach “the all,” the Buddha answered: “It’s just the eye and sights, the ear and sounds, the nose and smells, the tongue and tastes, the body and touches, and the mind and ideas.” Anyone who claimed to describe some other all would be out of his element. And to a deity who had tried to reach the end of the world by traveling, he said: “it is in this fathom-long carcass with its perception and mind that I describe the world, its origin, its cessation, and the practice that leads to its cessation.” In each passage the world that matters for the path is the world as experienced.

這個教法的根，在最早的經典裡。《法句經》的開頭是：「諸法意先導，意主意造作。」有人請佛陀講說「一切」；他回答：「就是眼與色、耳與聲、鼻與香、舌與味、身與觸、意與法。」凡是宣稱要描述另一個「一切」的人，都是超出了自己的範圍。有一位天神，曾經想靠著行走到達世界的盡頭；佛陀對他說：「就在這個一尋之長、有想有意的身體裡，我施設世界、世界的集、世界的滅，以及通向世界之滅的道。」在每一段經文裡，對修道要緊的那個世界，都是「被經驗到的世界」。

In the fourth or fifth century the philosopher Vasubandhu made this into a thesis. He opens his Twenty Verses by citing a scripture that says the three realms are mind only, and explains: when consciousness arises, it appears as though there were outer objects, as a person with diseased eyes sees hairs and flies that are not there. He then answers the obvious objections. If there were no outer objects, why do things appear at a definite place and time, why do many people see the same thing, and why do things have effects? His reply uses two examples. In a dream we see villages and gardens at particular places and times, and dreams have bodily effects, though nothing outside is there. And hungry ghosts, who share a similar karma, together see a river as full of pus where human beings see water. Agreement among perceivers is explained by a likeness in the perceivers. He adds an argument against matter: an atom with no parts could not combine with others to make a body, and an atom with sides has parts and is no atom.

到了四或五世紀，哲學家世親把這變成了一個論題。他的《唯識二十論》開頭就引了一部說「三界唯心」的經，並且解釋：「內識生時似外境現，如有眩瞖見髮蠅等。」接著他回答了那幾個顯而易見的反駁。如果沒有外境，為什麼事物出現在確定的地方、確定的時間？為什麼許多人看見同一樣東西？為什麼事物有作用？他的回答用了兩個例子。「處時定如夢，身不定如鬼，同見膿河等，如夢損有用。」在夢裡，我們在特定的地方、特定的時間看見村莊與園林；而夢有身體上的作用；雖然外面什麼也沒有。而餓鬼因為有相似的業，一起把一條河看成充滿了膿；人在同樣的地方看到的卻是水。知覺者之間的一致，是用知覺者的相似來解釋的。他又加了一個反對物質的論證：一個沒有部分的極微，沒辦法與別的極微結合成物體；而一個有六個面的極微就有部分，也就不是極微了。

His Thirty Verses give the positive account. What we call self and things are figures of speech applied to the transformations of consciousness, of which there are three layers: a store consciousness that carries the seeds of past action, a level of thinking that takes the store as “me,” and the six kinds of sensory awareness. Experience has three natures. The imagined nature is the world as divided into a grasping subject and grasped objects, and this does not exist at all. The dependent nature is the flow of experience arising from conditions. The perfected nature is that same flow seen without the imagined division. The text ends with a warning about its own thesis. A practitioner who “sets up some little thing before him and says, this is consciousness-only,” still has an object and so does not dwell in consciousness-only. When knowledge finds nothing to grasp, both grasper and grasped fall away, and the basis of the mind is transformed.

他的《唯識三十頌》給出了正面的說明。「由假說我法，有種種相轉；彼依識所變，此能變唯三。」我們所謂的「我」與「法」，是加在識的轉變上的假說；而識的轉變有三層：攜帶著過去行為種子的阿賴耶識；把阿賴耶識當成「我」的思量（末那識）；以及六種感官的了別。經驗有三種性質（三性）。遍計所執性，是被分成「能取的主體」與「所取的對象」的那個世界；而這是根本沒有的。依他起性，是從條件生起的經驗之流。圓成實性，是不帶著那個虛構的二分而被看見的同一道流。這部論以一個針對它自己論題的警告作結。「現前立少物，謂是唯識性；以有所得故，非實住唯識。」等到「智都無所得」的時候，能取與所取都脫落了；於是「便證得轉依」。

2 · In standard form · 寫成標準形式

From how things appear to what appears 從「怎麼顯現」到「顯現的是什麼」

3 · The nearest Western views · 西方最接近的說法

Three Western idealisms 西方的三種觀念論

The same thesis · 同樣的論題

George Berkeley 柏克萊1710

Bishop Berkeley argued that the things we see and touch are collections of ideas, and that ideas exist only in being perceived. “Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.” He called it “an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived.” Matter, he argued, is a notion no one can make sense of. The parallel with Vasubandhu is the closest between any Buddhist and any Western philosopher: the same thesis, the same attack on matter, the same appeal to dreams. They differ on what remains. Berkeley’s world contains spirits, which are simple, active, enduring substances, and an eternal Spirit in whose mind things subsist when no one else perceives them. That is why the tree stays in the quad. Vasubandhu has no enduring souls and no God. For him the regularity of the world comes from seeds of past action ripening in streams of consciousness, and the streams are themselves processes.

柏克萊主教主張：我們所見、所觸的東西，是觀念的集合；而觀念只存在於被知覺之中。「它們的存在（esse）就是被知覺（percipi）；它們不可能在知覺它們的心或思維者之外有任何存在。」他說這是「一種在人們當中奇怪地流行著的意見：房屋、山、河，總之一切可感的對象，有一種不同於它們被知覺的、自然的或實在的存在。」他主張，「物質」是一個沒有人能說清楚的概念。他與世親的對應，是任何一位佛教哲學家與任何一位西方哲學家之間最接近的：同樣的論題；同樣對「物質」的攻擊；同樣訴諸夢。兩人的差別，在於剩下的東西。柏克萊的世界裡有「精神」：單純的、能動的、持久的實體；還有一位永恆的精神，當沒有別人在知覺的時候，事物就存續在祂的心裡。這就是為什麼那棵樹還留在庭院裡。世親沒有持久的靈魂，也沒有上帝。對他來說，世界的規律性來自過去行為的種子在識的相續裡成熟；而那些相續本身就是過程。

The mind’s share · 心所貢獻的那一份

Immanuel Kant 康德1781

Kant rejected Berkeley’s idealism and proposed another. Space, time, and causality are forms that the mind brings to experience. They are not features we read off from things. The world we know is therefore shaped throughout by the knower, and it is the only world we can know. He insisted against Berkeley that something independent of us supplies the material of experience, though we can say nothing of what it is in itself. Yogācāra agrees with Kant that the mind contributes structure, and its three layers of consciousness are an account of where that structure comes from. The difference is in the source. Kant’s forms are the same in every human mind and cannot be changed. Vasubandhu’s are habits laid down by past action and stored as seeds. They differ between kinds of beings, as the river of pus shows, and they can be transformed by practice.

康德拒絕了柏克萊的觀念論，並且提出了另一種。空間、時間與因果性，是心帶進經驗裡的形式。它們並不是我們從事物上讀出來的特徵。所以，我們所認識的世界，自始至終都被認識者塑造過；而它是我們唯一能認識的世界。他堅持反對柏克萊：有某樣獨立於我們的東西，供應了經驗的材料；雖然我們對「它本身是什麼」一無可說。瑜伽行派同意康德：心貢獻了結構；而它的三層識，就是在說明那個結構從哪裡來。差別在於來源。康德的形式，在每一顆人心裡都一樣，而且無法改變。世親的形式，是過去的行為留下、作為種子儲存起來的習氣。它們在不同種類的眾生之間並不相同（那條膿河顯示了這一點）；而它們可以經由修行而被轉變。

The same method · 同樣的方法

Edmund Husserl 胡塞爾1913

Husserl founded phenomenology on a single methodical step. Set aside, without affirming or denying it, the belief that there is a world existing apart from consciousness, and describe experience exactly as it presents itself. What appears then is a structure. Every act of consciousness is of something, and the object as meant and the act that means it can be studied together. Husserl spent his life describing how the experienced world, with its stable things, its time, and its other people, is built up in layers of such acts. Many recent scholars think this is what Yogācāra is. On their reading vijñapti-mātra means “nothing but presentation,” a statement about what we have access to, and the three natures describe how experience is constituted. Husserl’s aim was a rigorous science of consciousness. The Yogācārins undertook the description in order to find where the division into subject and object is made, so that it could be unmade.

胡塞爾把現象學建立在一個方法上的步驟上。把「有一個獨立於意識而存在的世界」這個信念擱置起來，既不肯定、也不否定；然後如實地描述經驗呈現出來的樣子。這時顯現出來的，是一個結構。每一個意識的活動，都是「對某樣東西」的意識；而「被意指的對象」與「意指它的那個活動」，可以放在一起研究。胡塞爾用了一生去描述：那個被經驗到的世界，連同它穩定的事物、它的時間、它的他人，是怎麼在這類活動的層層疊加之中被構成的。近年有許多學者認為，瑜伽行派就是這樣的東西。照他們的讀法，「唯識」（vijñapti-mātra）的意思是「唯有顯現」：一個關於「我們接觸得到什麼」的陳述；而三性描述的，是經驗怎麼被構成。胡塞爾的目標，是一門關於意識的嚴格科學。瑜伽行派之所以作這番描述，是為了找出「分成主體與對象」的那個劃分是在哪裡作出來的；好把它拆掉。

4 · Verdict · 判定

Who is closest, and where the likeness ends 誰最接近，相似到哪裡為止

The answer depends on which Yogācāra one has in view. If the school is read as denying that anything exists outside consciousness, Berkeley is closest, and the Twenty Verses could be bound with his Principles. If it is read as an inquiry into how experience is constructed, Husserl is closest in method and Kant in the idea that the mind supplies the framework. The texts support both readings in different places, and the tradition itself divided over the question. This lesson takes no side. For the purpose of the teaching it matters less than it seems.

答案取決於心裡想的是哪一個瑜伽行派。如果把這個學派讀成「否認識之外有任何東西存在」，那麼最接近的是柏克萊；《唯識二十論》可以跟他的《人類知識原理》合訂成一冊。如果把它讀成「對經驗如何被構作的探究」，那麼在方法上最接近的是胡塞爾；在「心提供框架」這個想法上最接近的是康德。經論在不同的地方支持這兩種讀法；而這個傳統自己，在這個問題上也分裂過。這一課不選邊。對這個教法的目的來說，它沒有看起來那麼要緊。

On the purpose all three Western views stop short in the same way. Berkeley wanted to defeat skepticism and atheism. Kant wanted to secure the foundations of science, and Husserl wanted to found a science of consciousness. Each leaves the subject of experience in place: a soul, a transcendental ego, a pure consciousness. Yogācāra directs its analysis at that subject. The grasper is as much a construction as the grasped, and consciousness-only, held as a doctrine, is one more object for a grasper to hold. The texts say so in as many words, and they describe the end of the path as a transformation of the basis in which neither side of the division is found. The school that is most often called Buddhist idealism ends by denying the ego that idealism rests on.

在目的上，這三種西方的看法，以同樣的方式停在半途。柏克萊想要擊敗懷疑論與無神論。康德想要穩固科學的基礎；胡塞爾想要建立一門意識的科學。每一位都把經驗的主體留在原處：一個靈魂、一個先驗自我、一個純粹意識。瑜伽行派的分析，瞄準的正是那個主體。能取跟所取一樣，是構作出來的；而「唯識」若被當作一個學說來執持，就成了又一樣讓能取者去抓的對象。經論明白地這樣說；並且把道的終點描述成「轉依」：在其中，那個劃分的兩邊都找不到。這個最常被稱為「佛教觀念論」的學派，結尾是否定了觀念論所立足的那個自我。

Side by side · 並排比較

Five views of mind and world 關於心與世界的五種看法

	Yogācāra瑜伽行派（唯識）	Berkeley柏克萊	Kant康德	Husserl胡塞爾	Common-sense realism常識實在論
Are there objects apart from mind?有離開心的對象嗎？	None are found; the question is set aside or denied找不到；這個問題被擱置，或者被否定	No. To be is to be perceived沒有。存在就是被知覺	Yes, and unknowable in themselves有；而它們本身不可知	The question is bracketed把這個問題放進括號	Yes, and we perceive them有；而且我們知覺到它們
Why do we share a world?我們為什麼共有一個世界？	Similar karma, similar seeds相似的業、相似的種子	God perceives it for all上帝為所有人知覺著它	All human minds have the same forms一切人心有相同的形式	Intersubjective constitution互為主體的構成	The objects are simply there對象本來就在那裡
What is the mind?心是什麼？	A stream in three layers, without a self三層的相續；沒有我	An enduring spiritual substance一個持久的精神實體	A transcendental subject一個先驗主體	Pure consciousness and its acts純粹意識及其活動	One thing among others眾多事物當中的一樣
Can its structure change?它的結構能改變嗎？	Yes. Transformation of the basis能。轉依	Not discussed沒有討論	No. The forms are fixed不能。形式是固定的	It can be described, not altered可以被描述；不能被改動	By learning, in details靠學習；在細節上
What is the inquiry for?這番探究是為了什麼？	Ending the grasper–grasped division止息能取與所取的二分	Refuting skeptics and atheists駁斥懷疑論者與無神論者	Securing science穩固科學	A rigorous science of consciousness一門嚴格的意識科學	None is needed不需要

5 · The step the Dharma takes further · 佛法多走的一步

Why the ghosts see pus 餓鬼為什麼看見膿

The first further step is the moral one, and it has no counterpart in Berkeley, Kant, or Husserl. In Vasubandhu’s example the ghosts see pus because of what they have done. The world a being lives in is the ripening of its past action, stored as seeds and coming to fruit as a way of perceiving. Beings with like histories perceive alike, which is why human beings agree about the river. The claim joins the theory of knowledge to ethics. On this account the world one meets is in part the trace of what one has been, and changing how one acts changes, in time, what one finds. A milder version can be checked in ordinary life. The irritable person lives among irritating people, and the generous person finds the same street friendlier. The school’s psychology, with its lists of mental factors and its account of how habits are laid down and uprooted, is an attempt to work this out in detail.

多走的第一步，是道德上的；而它在柏克萊、康德或胡塞爾那裡，沒有相應的東西。在世親的例子裡，餓鬼看見膿，是因為他們做過的事。一個眾生所居住的世界，是它過去行為的成熟：作為種子儲存起來，然後結成一種「知覺的方式」。有相似歷史的眾生，知覺也相似；這就是為什麼人類對那條河的看法一致。這個主張把知識論接到了倫理學上。照這個說明，一個人所遇到的世界，有一部分是他曾經是什麼樣子的痕跡；而改變一個人怎麼做，日子久了，就改變了他所遇到的東西。一個比較溫和的版本，在日常生活裡就可以檢驗。易怒的人，活在一群惹他生氣的人當中；慷慨的人，發現同一條街比較友善。這個學派的心理學，連同它那些心所的清單，以及它對「習氣怎麼被留下、又怎麼被拔除」的說明，就是試著把這一點詳細地推演出來。

The second step is the school’s refusal to rest in its own thesis, which was quoted above. Western idealisms are positions, and their authors defended them as true descriptions of how things are. The Thirty Verses treat consciousness-only as a stage. A meditator first sees that the objects of experience are presentations, and so stops grasping at them. He then sees that a presentation with nothing presented is no presentation, and stops grasping at mind as well. What is left is described only by negation: without grasping, beyond thought, a knowledge that is not of the world as divided. The later tradition argued over whether this goes beyond what Nāgārjuna had said or restates it with a psychology added. For the practitioner the instruction is the same. The idea that everything is mind is a ladder of the kind met in the last three lessons.

第二步，是這個學派拒絕安住在它自己的論題上；上面已經引過。西方的各種觀念論，是「立場」；它們的作者把它們當作對「事物是怎樣的」的真實描述來捍衛。《三十頌》把唯識當作一個階段。禪修者先看見經驗的對象是顯現，於是不再去抓它們。然後他看見：沒有所顯現之物的顯現，也就不成其為顯現；於是也不再去抓心。剩下來的，只能用否定來描述：無所得、不思議、一種出世間的智。後來的傳統爭論過：這是超出了龍樹所說的，還是加上一套心理學把它重說了一遍？對修行者來說，指示是同一個。「一切都是心」這個想法，就是前三課裡遇到的那一種梯子。

6 · How to say it to a Western audience · 對西方人怎麼講

The world as you meet it 你所遇到的那個世界

“Consciousness-only” and “mind-only” are heard in the West in two ways, both unfortunate. Some hear a denial that the world exists, and stop listening. Others hear the promise that thought creates reality, and expect to change their circumstances by wishing. Begin with something no one disputes. Two people walk into the same room, and one sees a party and the other an ordeal. A dog on the same street lives in a world of smells we do not have. What each of us meets is a world already shaped by the one who meets it. Then say what the teaching does with that fact. It asks where the shaping comes from, answers that it comes from habit and past action, and holds that it can be changed. Leave the question of whether there is a world apart from all minds for the end, and say frankly that Buddhists have disagreed about it.

「唯識」與「唯心」在西方被聽成兩種樣子；兩種都不理想。有些人聽到的是「否認世界存在」，於是不再聽下去。另一些人聽到的是「念頭創造實相」的許諾，於是期待靠著願望來改變自己的處境。從一件沒有人爭論的事開始。兩個人走進同一個房間；一個看到的是一場派對，另一個看到的是一場折磨。同一條街上的一隻狗，活在一個我們所沒有的氣味的世界裡。我們每個人所遇到的，都是一個已經被「遇到它的那個人」塑造過的世界。然後說出這個教法拿這項事實做了什麼。它問：這個塑造是從哪裡來的？它回答：來自習氣與過去的行為；並且主張：它是可以改變的。把「有沒有一個離開一切心的世界」這個問題留到最後；並且坦白地說：佛教徒在這一點上意見並不一致。

Sentences you can use 可以直接用的句子

This school does not say the world is unreal. It says that the world you meet has already been shaped by your mind.
這個學派並沒有說世界是不真實的。它說的是：你所遇到的世界，已經被你的心塑造過了。
Where a human being sees water, a fish sees a home. The tradition’s own example is harsher: a hungry ghost sees pus.
人看到水的地方，魚看到的是家。這個傳統自己的例子更嚴厲：餓鬼看到的是膿。
Berkeley said that to be is to be perceived. Vasubandhu agreed, and then turned the same analysis on the perceiver.
柏克萊說：存在就是被知覺。世親同意；然後把同樣的分析轉向了那位知覺者。
The point is practical. The sense of a “me in here” facing “things out there” is something the mind builds, and it can be seen through.
重點是實踐上的。「這裡面的一個我」面對著「那外面的東西」的那種感覺，是心建造出來的；而它是可以被看穿的。
How you have acted shapes how you see. Change the one over time and the other changes.
你過去怎麼做，塑造了你怎麼看。日子久了，改變前者，後者也跟著改變。
Even “everything is mind” is a tool. The texts say that if you hold on to it, you have not understood it.
就連「一切都是心」也是一件工具。經論說：如果你抓著它不放，你就還沒有懂。

Phrases to avoid 要避開的說法

“It’s all in your head.” 「這全在你的腦子裡。」

Dismissive, and it locates mind inside the skull, which the teaching denies. Say “shaped by mind.”

帶著輕視；而且把心放在頭顱裡面；這個教法否認這一點。要說「被心塑造」。

“You create your own reality.” 「你創造你自己的實相。」

Heard as wishing things into being. The seeds are habits and past actions. They are not wishes.

會被聽成「用願望讓事情成真」。種子是習氣與過去的行為。它們不是願望。

“Nothing exists except my mind.” 「除了我的心，什麼都不存在。」

Solipsism. The texts argue at length that other streams of mind exist.

這是唯我論。經論用了很長的篇幅論證：其他的心相續是存在的。

“Buddhism is a form of idealism.” 「佛教是觀念論的一種。」

True at most of one school on one reading, and it ends by denying the subject that idealism needs.

頂多只對一個學派的一種讀法成立；而它的結尾，否定了觀念論所需要的那個主體。

Three languages · 三語對照

The vocabulary, in Chinese, Pāli, Sanskrit, and English 術語：中文、巴利文、梵文、英文

中文	Pāli	Sanskrit	English
唯識	viññatti-matta	vijñapti-mātra	consciousness-only; mere representation
瑜伽行派	—	Yogācāra	the school of the practice of yoga, founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu
了別（表識）	viññatti	vijñapti	a presentation; an appearing to consciousness
阿賴耶識	—	ālaya-vijñāna	the store consciousness
末那識	mano	manas	the thinking mind that takes the store as “me”
種子	bīja	bīja	seeds: dispositions laid down by action
習氣	vāsanā	vāsanā	habit energy; perfuming
遍計所執性	—	parikalpita-svabhāva	the imagined nature
依他起性	—	paratantra-svabhāva	the dependent nature
圓成實性	—	pariniṣpanna-svabhāva	the perfected nature
能取・所取	gāhaka, gayha	grāhaka, grāhya	grasper and grasped; subject and object
轉依	—	āśraya-parāvṛtti	transformation of the basis

Reading check · 理解測驗

Did it land? 讀懂了嗎

1. What does the Buddha call “the all” in the early discourse?

2. What do the hungry ghosts in Vasubandhu’s example show?

3. What are the three natures?

4. Where does the likeness between Berkeley and Vasubandhu end?

5. What does the Thirty Verses say of one who sets up “consciousness-only” as something to hold?

Write · 你怎麼講？

Describe one place, such as your classroom or kitchen, as it appears to you and then as it might appear to a child, a dog, or a stranger. About 150 words.
描述一個地方，例如你的教室或廚房：先寫它在你眼中的樣子；再寫它在一個小孩、一隻狗，或者一位陌生人眼中可能的樣子。約 150 個字。
A friend says: “So Buddhists think nothing is real?” Write a reply of five sentences that uses the river.
一位朋友說：「所以佛教徒認為沒有任何東西是真的？」用那條河，寫一段五句話的回應。
Recall a time when a change in your own habits changed how a person or place appeared to you. In 200 words, say what changed and what stayed the same.
回想一次經驗：你自己習慣的改變，改變了某個人或某個地方在你眼中的樣子。用 200 個字說明：什麼變了？什麼沒變？

Go further · 延伸