Information about the Conference: http://eng.iph.ras.ru/7_8_11_2016.

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RAS Institute of Philosophy

Tibetan Culture and Information Center in Moscow

First International Conference

“Buddhism and Phenomenology”

November 7–8, 2016

RAS Institute of Philosophy, Moscow

Supported by:
 Save Tibet Foundation

K.L. Dhammajoti
Hong Kong University

Adhimukti and Subjectivity in Cognitive Experience.

The Abhidharma and Yogācāra Perspective
(Abstract)

Buddhist scholar, Buddhist monk originally from Malaysia, a

distinguished Professor of Hong Kong University (who also
taught in Sri Lanka and Thailand). The principal authority on
Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma school, as well as an expert on
early Yogācāra. Works with the sources in Sanskrit, Pāli,
Chinese, Sinhalese, and other languages of Southeast Asia,
as well as with Tibetan texts. The founder of the Journal of
Buddhist Studies at the Centre for Buddhist Studies, Sri
Lanka.

1
In my presentation, I shall discuss the gradual ascendance of doctrinal importance of
the concept of adhimukti (following the sūtra-s and the śāstra-s, I shall use this term
interchangeably with adhimokṣa) from Early Buddhism, through the Abhidharma
doctrines, to Yogācāra, examining in particular the contribution of such a concept to
the development of the vijñaptimātratā doctrine of the Yogācāra. In this way, I hope
to bring out the Buddhist understanding of subjectivity in cognitive experience from
the Abhidharma and the Early Yogācāra perspectives.

Firstly, we may note a doctrinal development related to adhimokkha in the Pāli

Vibhaṅga. There, we find adhimokkho replacing upādāna in the twelve-link paṭicca-
samuppāda formula: adhimokkha-paccayā bhavo. The brief explanation thereon
indicates that the whole mental domain in the future existence — comprising all the
four mental aggregates excluding adhimokkha itself — is conditioned by the
adhimokkha in the present.

In Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma, adhimokṣa is enumerated as one of the ten

mahābhūmika-s. That is to say, for them adhimokṣa occurs in every instance of
consciousness. They effectively claim that all our experiences as ordinary worldlings
are essentially conditioned and determined by adhimokṣa/adhimukti.

It has been a fundamental Buddhist teaching since Early Buddhism that the way we
experience the external world is significantly determined by our inner mental states —
our rāga, dveṣa, moha, etc. Such a teaching may be seen as one pertaining to the
psychology of experience. But going a step further, the Sarvāstivāda, committed
realists as they are, have now pinpointed an ontologically existent force — adhimokṣa
— that actually conditions the appearance of the world to us in every moment.
Moreover, they acknowledge that on the basis of a meditative practice in which the
efficacy of adhimokṣa predominates, the external world can convincingly be perceived
to exist in a drastically determined form “physically”, and not just psychologically.
Such a doctrine is undoubtedly one of subjectivity in cognitive experience.

In fact, the early discourses already taught that an adhimokṣa-based meditation as

well as resolute aspirations condition rebirth. (Cf. Anuruddha-sutta and
Sankhhārupapatti-sutta, respectively). The early Yogācāras in the Basic Section of the
Yogācāra-bhūmi inherited this doctrine from Early Buddhism. For example, the
Samāhitā bhūmiḥ teaches that, depending on the manner of the adhimokṣa involved in
the meditation and on its increasing strength, a correspondingly distinctive form of
rebirth results.

In the Tattvārtha-paṭala exposition of the four types of tattvārtha, representing four

progressive levels of cognitive reality, the first, lokaprasiddha-tattvārtha, is that
affirmatively experienced in common by the world:

In brief, it is the cognitive domain of determined adhimukti (niścitādhimukti-gocara),

understanding in the manner: “it is this, not this”; “it is thus, not otherwise” — that object-
base (vastu), which is universally established with one’s own conceptualization by means of
ideation passed down successively among all people in the world [from the beginning], and
not comprehended after having thought about, deliberated and closely examined.

According to this exposition, then, the reality — namely, the experiential world of the
unenlightened ordinary people — is the cognitive domain of adhimukti. This pertains

1
to both external material things as well as inner sensations (pleasure, displeasure,
etc.). This is quite in line with what we have seen before in the texts of Early
Buddhism and Abhidharma: adhimukti decisively conditions the way we perceive the
world, and also our experience of existence! Such a level of reality perceived through
adhimukti is further described as a perception resulting from conceptualization
conditioned by successively perpetuated ideations in the world. This may be said to be
the early Yogācāras’ doctrine of subjectivity in cognition: Existence as experienced
by the ordinary people is necessarily and decisively conditioned by the type of
resolute receptivity or affirmative mentality represented by adhimukti. For the
completely unenlightened, what is perceived is what they have actually already
resolutely decided to perceive!

In the later Yogācāra development, we may note that one of the major proofs for
doctrine of vijñaptimātratā precisely relies on the adhimukti-based meditative
experience of the aśubhā. The *Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, in arguing for this
vijñaptimātratā thesis, asserts that a bodhisattva endowed with four knowledges can
awaken into the fact that no external object (artha) exists at all. Of the four, two are
particularly relevant in this connection:

(I) The viruddhajñānanimitta-jñāna — knowledge that the same object-entity is

the cause of contradictory consciousnesses. E.g.: Water is experienced by
humans as that which quenches thirst, etc; by fish experience as a dwelling
abode; by preta-s as fire; by the gods as being jewel-adorned.
(II) The trividhajñānānuvartana-jñāna — knowledge that arises in conformity
with the threefold knowledge: (IIa) Bodhisattvas with mastery of mind and
those in the dhyāna can cause any object to appear in accordance with
their power of adhimukti. (IIb) For a meditator who has acquired śamatha
and who practices contemplation of dharma-s, objects appear immediately
upon his attentive reflection. (IIc) For those who have acquired the
nirvikalpa-jñāna, when it arises, no object at all appears.

A major point in the above argument is that a being’s experience of his existence is
dependent on the particular gati of rebirth. Such a notion is also shared by the
Śrāvakayāna. Indeed, on the basis of the Anuruddha-sutta, the
Abhidhamma/Abhidharma and the Vastu-saṃgrahaṇī, we may say that there is an
essential parity between, on the one hand, the doctrines in those earlier sources that
adhimokṣa-based meditative praxis conditions rebirth, and on the other, the gati-
dependence proof of vijñaptimātratā as well as the buddha-visualization experiences
in the *Pratyutpannabuddha-saṃmukhāvasthita-samādhi-sūtra, etc. The
fundamentally important difference is that the latter has now doctrinally come to teach
that such rebirth and buddha- or god-encounter experiences are cittamātra or
vijñaptimātra. But in both cases, it is the adhimukti-based praxis that stands out as
what effectuates the distinctive experiences. This is, in a gist, the early Yogācāra
doctrine of subjectivity in sentient experiences: subjectivity not only in terms of
cognitive experiences in the present human existence, but also of the conditioning of
rebirth states and the totality of experiences pertaining thereto in the samsaric context.

These early Yogācāras go so far as to declare that phenomenal existence is manifested

solely from our own subjective conceptualization (vikalpa). In the later period too, the
Triṃśikāvijñaptibhāṣya likewise pronounces: “sarvam idaṃ vikalpamātram”.

2
However, as the Viniścaya-saṃgrahaṇī — again invoking the adhimukti meditative
experience — explains: in spite of all external phenomena having no ontological
status outside conceptualization, the totality of phenomenality does not vanish upon a
single individual acquiring the non-conceptualizing wisdom.
A vastu may be either arisen from an unshared conceptualization as its cause or from a
shared conceptualization as its cause. In the former case, for one free from
conceptualization, it also ceases accordingly. In the latter, even if one is without
conceptualization, it will not cease completely, being sustained by others’
conceptualization ... But although it is not ceased, the one possessing purity penetrates into
it with proper and pure vision. Just as, numerous meditators (yogācāra), exercising
adhimukti in diverse manners (sna tshogs su mos par byed pa) by means of their equipoised
knowledge, perceive differently with regard to one and the same thing; likewise is the case
here. (Similar position in the *Mahāyāna-saṃgraha.)

In summary: the later Yogācāras’ doctrine, totally denying the ontological status of
external phenomena as it does, ipso facto denies any objectivity in our cognitive
experiences. In substantiating this view, they have importantly relied on the earlier
Buddhist teachings related to adhimukti. What I further hope to have brought out
above is that, significantly, even the teachings in the early discourses, the Abhidharma
tradition, as well as the early Yogācāras — all not idealistic in the vein of the
vijñaptimātratā doctrine — likewise hold the position of subjectivity in cognitive
experience. For them, one might say that the world we experience is in a significant
sense the world of adhimukti.