Vāsanā

Vāsanā (T. bag chags བག་ཆགས་; C. xunxi/xiqi) refers to habitual patterns of thought, speech or action that are imprinted in the mind. In the Yogacara school, these subtle habitual patterns, or "karmic seeds", are imprinted in the alaya-vijnana (storehouse consciousness).

Vāsanā is sometime translated as "perfuming," in the sense that thoughts and actions are "perfumed" by the vāsanā.

Vāsanā can refer to imprints that carry from one life to the next. And vāsanā can be pure or impure.

Damien Keown's A Dictionary of Buddhism defines the term as follows:

"vāsanā (Skt.). Habitual tendencies or dispositions, a term, often used synonymously with bīja (‘seed’). It is found in Pāli and early Sanskrit sources but comes to prominence with the Yogācāra, for whom it denotes the latent energy resulting from actions which are thought to become ‘imprinted’ in the subject's storehouse-consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna). The accumulation of these habitual tendencies is believed to predispose one to particular patterns of behaviour in the future."

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics (Vol 2) states:

latent potencies (bag chags; vāsanā). These are causally effective predispositions or propensities imprinted on the mindstream by any virtuous, nonvirtuous, or neutral activity of body, speech, or mind.

Translations of this term

There are many translations of this term into English, such as:

• habitual tendencies,
• habitual patterns,
• karmic traces,
• karmic residues,
• unconscious propensities,
• imprints,
• impressions,
• and so on.

Three types of vāsanā

Dan Lusthaus identfies three types of vāsanā that are discused in Yogacara texts:

1. linguistic and conceptual habits;

2. habits of self-interest and "grasping self" (ātma-grāha), i.e., the belief in self and what belongs to self; and

3. Habits leading to subsequent life situations (bhāvāṅga-vāsanā), i.e., the long-term karmic consequences of specific karmic activities.

Within the Cheng Weishi Lun

The Cheng Weishi Lun, a commentary on Vasubandhu's Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā, lists three types of vāsanā. Lusthaus describes this presentation as follows:

1. Vāsanā of 'names and words' or 'terms and words (Chinese: ming-yen hsi-chi'i) which equates to 'latent linguistic conditioning'. These seeds, planted in the 'root consciousness' (Sanskrit: alaya-vijnana) by 'terms and words' are the 'causes' (Sanskrit: hetu) and 'conditions' (Sanskrit: pratyaya) of each 'conditioned or caused element or phenomena' (Sanskrit: samskrita dharma). There are two forms:
   1. 'Terms and words indicating a referent' (Chinese: piao-yi ming yen) through which a mindstream is able to express (Chinese: ch'uan) meanings (yi, artha, referent) by differentiation of vocal sounds (Chinese: yin-sheng ch'a-pieh); and
   2. 'Terms and words revealing perceptual-fields' (Chinese: hsien-ching ming wen), through which a mindstream discerns (Sanskrit: vijnapti, upalabdhi) perceptual-fields (Sanskrit: visaya) as ' phenomena of mind' (Sanskrit: citta dharma; caitta dharmas).
2. Vasanas of self-attachment (Sanskrit: atma-graha-vasana; Chinese: wo-chih hsi-ch'i) denoting the false attachment to the seeds of 'me' and 'mine'.
3. Vasanas which link streams-of-being (Sanskrit: bhavanga-vasana; Chinese: yu-chih hsi-ch'i) denoting the karmic seeds, 'differently maturing (Sanskrit: vipaka) that carry over (Chinese: chao) from one stream-of-being to another in the Three Worlds (Sanskrit: Triloka). The bhavanga (linkage from one stream-of-being to the next) is of two types:
   1. Contaminated yet advantageous (Sanskrit: sasrava-kusala; Chinese: yu-lou shan) that is actions (Sanskrit: karma) which produce desirable (Chinese: k'e-ai) fruits; and
   2. Disadvantageous, that is actions which produce undesirable fruits.

Four types of vāsanā

Four types of vāsanā are identified in Tibetan Buddhism:

• mngon brjod kyi bag chags - predispositions of verbalization
• bdag lta'i bag chags - predispositions of the view of self
• srid pa'i yan lag gi bag chags - predispositions of the branches of cyclic existence
• rigs mthun pa'i bag chags - predispositions of [perceptions of] similar type

According to THL dictionary, these four types are identified in the Gelug school.

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 
• Thupten Jinpa, ed. (2020), Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics, Volume 2: The Mind, translated by Rochard, Dechen; Dunne, John, Wisdom Publications 

External links

• Habitual_tendencies, Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
• bag_chags, Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
• Habitual tendencies, Rigpa Shedra Wiki