amala-vijnana

[Yogicfire]

I have been reading about the amala-vijnana (the ninth consciousness). Up until recently, I thought that the mind only school had eight consciousnesses, and that the alaya-vijnana was the base consciousness. However, some of the Far Eastern schools appear to have added a ninth consciousness, amala-vijnana, the pure consciousness.

I would be interested in hearing any thoughts on this doctrinal development, and some explanation on the exact correspondence between the alaya-vijnana and the amala-vijnana. Why was there a need to introduce this extra consciousness? Is this a teaching that is only in the Far Eastern schools, and not in Vajrayana?

Amala-vijnana seems to have been a popular concept in the Hua Yen and T'ient'ai schools.

[jcsuperstar]

might want to ask this one over on dharma wheel not dhammawheel

[Alex123]

The closest thing that I am aware of is the bhavanga citta found in Theravada Abhidhamma. It may be somewhat similar to 7th and 8th consciousness of vijnanavada.

[Yogicfire]

might want to ask this one over on dharma wheel not dhammawheel

Is there a dharma wheel? Or is that a joke? I have been out of the Buddhist forum loop for a few years, and this site seemed one of the main Buddhist forums, and this sub forum seemed to have a lot of Mahayana type questions, as well as Theravada, as a dhammic 'free for all'.

[bodom]

might want to ask this one over on dharma wheel not dhammawheel

Is there a dharma wheel? Or is that a joke? I have been out of the Buddhist forum loop for a few years, and this site seemed one of the main Buddhist forums, and this sub forum seemed to have a lot of Mahayana type questions, as well as Theravada, as a dhammic 'free for all'.

No joke.

http://www.dharmawheel.net/

[Yogicfire]

Many thanks for the link. If the moderators want to delete this thread that is fine.