2. Habit-energy

Habit-energy (xiqi) or Habitual perfuming (xunxi) or vāsanā is memory, often used synonymously with bīja (‘seed’), for it is something left after a deed is done, mental or physical, and it is retained and stored up in the Ālayavijñāna as a sort of latent energy ready to be set in motion.^[1]

Dan Lusthaus based on the Chengweishilun lists three types of vāsanā–the “karmic perfuming”:^[2]

(1) Vāsanā of “names and words” or “terms and words” which means “latent linguistic conditioning” which are in turn of two forms: “terms and words indicating a referent” and “Terms and words revealing perceptual-fields”. These seeds, planted in the Ālayavijñāna by “terms and words” are the causes and conditions of each saṃskṛta dharma.

(2) Vāsanā of self-attachment meaning the false attachment to the seeds of “me” and “mine”. Self-attachment is two-fold: Inherent Selfattachment and Self-attachment from discrimination.

(3) Vāsanā, which is linked with existence, meaning the karmic seeds, “differently maturing”, carries over from one existence to another in the three worlds. The bhāvāṅga (linkage from one life to the next) is of two types: Contaminated advantageous (actions produce desirable fruits) and Disadvantageous (actions produce undesirable fruits).

According to Prof. Suzuki, the habit-energy is not necessarily individual because the Ālayavijñāna being super-individual holds in it not only individual memory but all that has been experienced by sentient beings.

He writes:

When the Sūtra says that in the Ālaya is found all that has been going on since beginningless time systematically stored up as a kind of seed, this does not refer to individual experiences, but to something general, beyond the individual, making up in a way the background on which all individual psychic activities are reflected. Therefore, the Ālaya is originally pure, it is the abode of Tathāgatahood, where no defilements of the particularising intellect and affection can reach; purity in terms of logic means universality, and defilement or sin means individuation, from which attachments of various forms are derived. In short, the world starts from memory, memory in itself as retained in the Ālaya universal is no evil and when we are removed from the influence of false discrimination the whole Vijñāna system woven around the Ālaya as centre experiences a revulsion toward true perception (parāvṛtti). This is the gist of the teaching of the Laṅkāvatāra.^[3]

Thus, ontologically, Vāsanā or habit-energy as retained in the Ālaya is originally no evil, but because of the influence of false discrimination, it becomes bad and evil. When the influence of false discrimination is removed, habit-energy transforms into pure-energy, the karmic-energy becomes the vow-energy of Bodhisattva. Because karmicenergy has the universality like the Ālayavijñāna, when the habit-energy or karma is released from false discrimination of the self, this energy becomes the unlimited great force of the Bodhisattva vows.

In other words, according to the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, all things in the world including human minds are not destroyed, but transformed, during the process of practice accordance with the Buddha-nature. The self-force of love and passion will transform into the no-self energy of Karuṇā or compassion. Consciousnesses (Vijñānas) transform into Wisdoms (Prajñās). Ālayavijñāna or Tathāgatagarbha transforms into Dharmakāya. Habit-energy (Vāsanā) transforms into the Vow (praṇidhāna; yuan). The transformation needs a state called sudden revulsion (āśrayaparāvṛtti) taking place in the Ālayavijñāna. This process will be studied in the following section.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Dīghanikāya.Taisho Tripiṭaka (CBETA 2011). Suzuki, Studies in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, p. 184.

[2]:

Dan Lusthaus, Buddhist Phenomenology: Aṅguttaranikāya Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih Lun, pp. 472-73.

[3]:

Dīghanikāya.Taisho Tripiṭaka (CBETA 2011). Suzuki, Studies in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, p. 184.