Abstract

Yogacara Buddhism has frequently been mislabelled by scholars as a form of philosophical idealism. Hence it is usually asserted that Yogacara claims that mind or consciousness is the only reality and that the aim of Yogacara practice is the transformation of a defiled, empirical mind/consciousness into a true mind. This interpretation totally distorts Yogacara's actual intent, which is summarized in the Sanskrit term vijnapti-matra . I seek to demonstrate that vijnapti-matra does not mean that mind alone is real, but rather that all human problematics are produced by and in the closure of psycho-linguistic conditioning; mind is the problem, not the solution. ;Since proper understanding of Yogacara depends on correctly contextualizing its doctrines, the evolution of key concepts--such as karma, the privileging of the cognitive domain , the 'closured-actuality' and 'exceeding-reference-actuality' , etc.--has been traced from early Buddhism through the development of Mahayana, to the interpretation given these notions in the Yogacara schools. A strong epistemological affinity between Yogacara and the Phenomenologies of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty is also discussed and analyzed. ;When, during the seventh century, Hsuan-tsang composed the Ch'eng Wei-shih lun, a compilation and translation into Chinese of ten Sanskrit commentaries on Vasubandhu's Trimsika , he intended it as a corrective on the errant interpretations of Yogacara then prevalent in China. In order to recover the authentic Yogacara position, sections of the text have been translated and analyzed. Appendices include charts of the seventy-five and one-hundred dharmas, and a translation of the first chapter of the Madhyanta Vibhaga