The Nine Consciousnesses[1]

‘It is now widely recognised that ideologies premised on changing the human being through social reform have failed to achieve their goal, and that while scientific progress has brought much benefit to the world, it has also brought much harm.

The great lesson of the 20th century, therefore, has been that global change and even our very survival hinge on our own inner transformation. When human beings change, all else will follow.’[2]

 These words by Daisaku Ikeda strongly emphasise the need of self-reformation or human revolution. If we human beings do not change then any religion or philosophy that we practise will be useless to us. If we do not change then our needless suffering will continue,  and humanity may ultimately perish.

 Everything is changing, from the tiniest particle of matter to the vast universe. Everything is subject to the eternal flux of change, the rhythm of the universe. But many people are frightened by the uncertainty this brings, the uncertainty of life itself. Since ancient times people have been searching for something they can base their lives on and trust in. The fear of the impermanence of all phenomena is found in the human being’s self or ego. The ego’s greatest fear is to lose control over itself and its surroundings and, ultimately it is the fear of its own disintegration; in other words, its death. 

How can we free ourselves from the fear of impermanence and death? And how can we live in harmony with the rhythm with the universe?  Buddhism teaches that this results from following the path of Buddhahood, the supreme and happiest state of life.  The Buddhist concept of the nine consciousnesses can help us to understand this.  

We live in a continuous exchange with the world around us. Through our five senses, - smell - sight, touch, hearing and taste, we constantly perceive information from the external world. These five senses correspond to what are called the first five of nine consciousnesses. The sixth and seventh consciousnesses are the perceptive functions of the human mind. The sixth consciousness integrates the perceptions of the five senses into coherent images. The seventh or mano-consciousness has the power of thinking in and pondering about abstract concepts. It discerns therefore the inner spiritual world. The eighth or alaya-consciousness is the realm which stores all memories, habits and karma. The ninth or amala-consciousness is called the fundamentally pure consciousness and is the life of the universe itself. Nichiren Daishonin teaches that this ninth consciousness is none other than the Mystic Law of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.  

In Buddhist philosophy the ability of discernment, comprehension or perception is called in Sanskrit vijnana. This word is translated as ‘consciousness’ although its meaning is somewhat different.  The function of vijnana was included by Shakyamuni among the ‘five components’ (go’on) that constitute a living being. The five components are form, perception, conception, volition and consciousness.  When these five components disintegrate the living entity dies. ‘When death approaches, the integrative power of life is lost and the five components, which have hitherto been held in a state of temporary union, disintegrate. Life’s physical and spiritual functions subsequently recede into latency, and the union of the five elements is also lost.’[3]  

The concept of the nine consciousnesses explains the component of ‘consciousness’ in more depth.  

The first five consciousnesses and the sixth consciousness

In Buddhism the five senses are attributed the faculty of consciousnesses because each single sense organ acts like a consciousness of its own in that it discerns external stimuli; that is, every sense organ makes a selection from the external information it receives and sends only this to the brain.  

The sixth consciousness integrates the perceptions of the five senses into coherent images; it is the function of intelligence to make inferences and judgements about the external world. From the sixth consciousness we respond – through the five senses - to the external world. The first five consciousnesses together with the sixth consciousness therefore simply perceive and respond to the external world. In this sense, the six consciousnesses correspond to the first six of the Ten Worlds, in which we react primarily to external stimuli. 

Between the third and the first centuries BC the Abhidharma schools of Theravada Buddhism put forward the idea that the sixth consciousness was the ultimate basis of life and that the first five consciousnesses (the five senses) were its specific functions.  In fact, all living beings which have a central nervous system, be it simple or as complex as that of a human being, posses this sixth consciousness. However, because the workings of the six consciousnesses all arise in response to external circumstances, Buddhism was faced with the problem of exactly where resided the continuing subject that undergoes the cycle of birth and death. Or in other words, what is it that remains once a living entity dies ? What continues after death, or will life revert to nothingness ? 

The seventh or mano-consciousness

In the fourth or fifth century AD Vasubandhu expounded his Consciousness-Only doctrine.  This postulated the existence of the seventh or mano-consciousness, saying that it operated below the level of the sixth consciousness. The word mano derives from the Sanskrit word manas, meaning mind, intellect or thought, and indicates that this consciousness owes its name to the fact that it performs the act of thinking. Unlike those of the first six consciousnesses, the functions of the mano-consciousness are mental and spiritual, and represent a very deep, unconscious awareness of self. We can see this awareness in operation when a person, perhaps through a car crash, ends up in a coma. Despite the fact that the person is totally unconscious of what is going on, he or she nevertheless breathes and makes efforts to stay alive. The awareness of one’s self, therefore, spans the border from the conscious to the unconscious level. Because of this, the mano-consciousness includes a strong attachment to the self.  

Since the end of the nineteenth century attempts had been made in the West to explore different levels of human consciousness, leading to the development of the science of psychology early in the twentieth century. Sigmund Freud, for example, advanced the theory that repressed sexual and aggressive drives give rise to hysteria and other neuroses.  In Buddhism, however, the sexual, aggressive and other instinctual drives at work via the mano-consciousness are defined as ‘earthly desires’, such as greed, anger and ignorance.  These so-called ‘three poisons’ are considered to be fundamental delusive passions that give rise to other, derivative ones.  

The mano-consciousness is capable of perceiving a truth beyond the physical external world, transcending day-to-day matters. In this regard it corresponds to Learning and Absorption, the eight and ninth of the Ten Worlds. Its positive qualities, for example, include self-reflection, the intellectual faculties of concentration, wisdom and devotion, and exercise of reason. However, its inherent character is to be attached to the self, the ego. So while on the one hand it may grasp a partial truth of life, on the other, being under the influence of the three poisons, it tends towards a self-centred logic.  

Moreover, the mano-consciousness does not give us a solution to the questions of what will happen after death and of how karma, which binds us to certain patterns of feeling, thought and behaviour, is transmitted and operates from the past through the present into the future.  

The eighth or alaya-consciousness

In addition to the mano-consciousness, the Consciousness-Only school proposed that there was an eighth or alaya-consciousness, which it said lies deeper still.  

The Sanskrit word alaya means a dwelling or receptacle, indicating that all of our thoughts, words and deeds are imprinted, moment by moment, into the realm of the alaya-consciousness as energies which have the potential to influence our patterns of feeling, thought and behaviour in the present as well as in the future. These impressions are called ‘seeds’, so the realm of the alaya-consciousness is sometimes described as the ‘storehouse consciousness’ or the ‘repository of seeds’. The seeds in the alaya-consciousness represent karma, or the latent power of our actions to produce future effects. 

This karmic energy is said to continue eternally, transcending life and death. While the functions of all the consciousnesses up through the seventh consciousness cease upon death, it is the alaya-consciousness that continues to function over the three existences of past, present and future. 

In Buddhist literature the alaya-consciousness is likened to a ‘rushing stream’. If one were be able to observe this rushing stream with one’s eyes one would see a gigantic flow of everything, transcending the present, back into the past and forward into the future, giving rise to birth and death, all in one and the same moment of timelessness.

The view of such a rushing stream is not something one can experience easily; most of us will probably never have the chance to do so. This is because you cannot see the stream of karmic energy with your eyes while alive. Only at the moment of death or when one is in the process of dying will one plunge into the alaya-consciousness, and then, and only then, will one experience this rushing stream. This tallies with reports of near-death experiences that people see their entire life flashing before them in a succession of panoramic scenes. From a Buddhist viewpoint they are witnessing their karma - every thought, every word, and every deed that has been etched into the alaya-consciousness. What is most interesting is that near-death experiences have a number of features that seem to be universal, transcending any cultural and religious differences.  This suggests that there might be some universal fact of existence that all people encounter upon death.  

What happens to people at the moment of dearth may vary considerably depending on their state of life.  However, it seems that the core content of an individual’s experience at the time of death is not greatly influenced by cultural, religious or personal factors. There is a surprisingly high degree of similarity, such as reports of out-of-body experiences.  To give just one example, a personal account of a woman. Suffering a recurrence of meningitis, she lost consciousness, developed a high fever and a very irregular pulse, and finally her pupils dilated, indicating that she was about to die. Those around her evidently began discussing funeral arrangements, going so far as to begin talking about what photo of her to use at the memorial service. However, she later came to and remarked:

This experience indicates that a person in a near-death state is able to ‘see’ things around her. Other people, who were in a coma, later reported that they were able to ‘see’ by identifying, for example, the clothing worn by relatives and people who had come to visit them and could tell what they had spoken.  The psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, in her work On Death and Dying (1969), reports on the case of a blind person who could describe in detail the clothing of all the people gathered at his bedside, proving by this that in a out-of-body state even blind people are able to ‘see’ perfectly well.  

Moreover, the alaya-consciousness transcends the boundaries of the individual and interacts with the karmic energy of others - one’s family, one’s ethnic group, and of humanity as a whole - and also with that of animals, plants, rocks and waters, and with the whole universe.  The Indian Mahayana scholar Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 AD), in his Commentary on the Ten Stages, interpreted this idea in relation to sentient and non-sentient existence: ‘Sentient beings are born by virtue of individual karma, and non-sentient beings by virtue of shared karma.’ In other words, individual lives come into existence by way of their individual actions whereas non-sentient life-forms – such as mountains, rivers and the earth itself – derive their existence from shared karma.

In a sense it can be said that the alaya-consciousness embraces the notion of the ‘collective unconsciousness’ formulated by CG Jung. His theory was that every human being possesses the entirety of the human heritage within the recess of his or her own psyche – that is, that each one of us shares with all our fellow humans a common psychic base, the collective unconscious. Therefore, we all share the common feelings such as fear of darkness and of death as a legacy from our remote ancestors.  

The alaya-consciousness holds the potential effects of all of our actions, both good and evil, but in itself it cannot be described as either intrinsically good or intrinsically evil.  People try in various ways to change their destiny – for example, by accumulating benefit through good deeds, but we are easily influenced by our karmic energy and tend towards the lower six worlds. As Daisaku Ikeda notes: 

The way of battling the negative forces within one’s life through altruistic acts is the way of a bodhisattva and of self-reformation. In this sense the alaya-consciousness corresponds to the world of Bodhisattva.[7] But the energy of negative karma can defeat even a Bodhisattva: 

How, then, can we change our karma and free ourselves from the attachments and illusions of the ego, including the fear of death ? 

The ninth or amala-consciousness

When Shakyamuni Buddha was lying on his death bed, his disciple Ananda, who had constantly waited in service upon the Buddha, asked him: ‘On what should we rely in our practice after you have passed away?’ Shakyamuni replied: ‘Ananda, you should make yourself an island and depend on yourself. Without depending on others, you should make the Law an island and your foundation.’[9]  Behind Ananda’s question we can find the very human feelings of loneliness and fear of impermanence, as mentioned above. Everything is subject to the eternal flux of change, every living entity will die one day, and we will then have to say ‘Good bye. Fare well.’  

This fear originates from our ego, but what is our ego? In Buddhism, the ego means the sixth and the seventh consciousnesses together; and since the subconscious ego is also active in one’s karma, the ego actually reaches and extends into the eighth consciousness, and vice versa. This ego which originates from the sixth to the eighth consciousness has no real substance, because it is always changing and vanishing, coming and going, and undergoes the cycle of birth and death. Furthermore it is under the influences of the three poisons and self-centred thinking which stems from the four illusions.[10] This ego is therefore called the small ego or ‘small self’ in contrast to the greater ego or ‘greater self’, which Nichiren Daishonin identifies with the world of Buddhahood. 

Theravada Buddhism proclaims that no such ‘greater self’ exists: the goal of Buddhist practice is nirvana, which literally means ‘to blow out’ or extinguish, indicating liberation from constant rebirth into this world of suffering. The Lotus Sutra, however, teaches that this understanding of nirvana did not reflect the Buddha’s true intention.  The Lotus Sutra not only rejects this ‘doctrine of annihilation’, but also the idea of an unchanging and eternal ‘soul’. Rather, Shakyamuni’s conclusion is that ‘Essentially, it is the energy of karma that continues beyond birth and death.’[11] When we die our individual lives – which are akin to a field of individual karmic energy - fuse with the life of the universe, the totality of cosmic karmic energy.

The true intent of Shakyamuni Buddha’s reply to Ananda’s question was to lead Ananda to the great self of the amala-consciousness. 

This ninth consciousness exists at a level of life even deeper than the alaya-consciousness. The Sanskrit word amala means ‘pure’, ‘unstained’ or ‘spotless’ because it remains eternally untainted by karmic accretions. It is fundamentally free of impurities and of the ceaseless struggle between good and evil represented by the alaya-consciousness. It is therefore also called the fundamentally pure consciousness. When we tap into the fundamentally pure consciousness ‘we can at once change both the negative and positive karmic energy in our life into ‘supremely positive’ energy’.[13] The amala-consciousness has such supremely positive energy because it is the life of the universe that underlies all the other consciousnesses.

The amala-consciousness activates all consciousnesses from the eighth to the seventh and sixth and purifies our five senses, the first five consciousnesses. The purification of our six senses equates to manifesting Buddhahood in our lives. It is the fusion of our small ego or self with the greater self of the universe.  

As long as we hold fast to our small ego we experience the fear of the impermanence of all phenomena and of death. This fear comes from the small ego looking at the rushing stream of alaya, the karmic energy. Since it cannot hold fast to anything it suffers. This natural impulse to hold on to something is the origin of suffering and of fear. At the same time it originates in ignorance of the greater self. In Buddhism this ignorance is called ‘fundamental darkness’ (mumyo) in contrast to enlightenment. The greater self of the fundamentally pure consciousness is as eternal as the universe and the enlightened state of life of the Buddha.

The Buddha is ‘the ‘eternal Buddha’ of the ‘Life Span’ (sixteenth) chapter who ‘could be called an expression in human form of this fundamentally pure consciousness that is without beginning or end’.[14] Nichiren Daishonin calls this fundamentally pure consciousness the ‘unchanging reality which reigns over all life’s functions’.[15]  

He makes clear how important it is for us to transform our small self into, or fuse it with, the greater self, without denying our lives of the small self, saying:  

He also says: ‘Base your heart on the ninth consciousness and your practice on the six consciousnesses.’[17]

Thus, Nichiren Daishonin shows us the way to carry out the reformation: by chanting Nam- myoho-renge-kyo to the Gohonzon we open up the most profound and sacred dimension of life, the ninth consciousness. This is possible according to the principle of the simultaneity of cause (the nine worlds, or the life of ordinary people) and effect (the world of Buddhahood). To ‘Base your heart on the ninth consciousness’ means to make faith and study the mainspring of one’s actions; while to base one’s practice ‘on the six consciousnesses’ means to take this action amid the realities of daily life and society, contributing to others’ happiness and working to establish a peaceful world.  In the conversations on the ‘Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra’ SGI President Ikeda states: