Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 3, No.

2, 2002

Whiteheads Doctrine of
Objectification and Yogacara
Buddhisms Theory of the
Three Natures
Adam C. Scarfe
University of Ottawa, Canada

Introduction: the comparative study of Whiteheadian Cosmology

and Yogacara Buddhism
Many scholars have pointed out that Mahayana Buddhism has much in common
with twentieth-century cosmology in its emphasis on the relativity of nature. For
instance, figures such as Schterbatsky and Murti have translated the main
concept of Buddhism, prattyasamutpada in Sanskrit, as relativity pointing to
a direct analogy to relativity physics. However, in response to these scholars,
Kenneth Inada, a chief translator of Nagarjunas texts into English, warns us
against the overstatement of this interpretation. Inada describes the sense in
which the analogy of the main principle of Buddhism to relativity theory can
be made. He writes that:

it seems that the term (prattyasamutpada) translated as the principle of

relativity with all the overtones of modern science has become very
popular and acceptable even by scholars. This technical term undoubtedly
does have strains of the relativistic notion but not in the normal nor in
the scientific sense. It should be interpreted in the total ontological sense
which means that the rise of an experiential event is spread both
spatially and temporally in a dynamic sense. That is to say, the
relational structure is not static but underscored by the co-arising phenom-
enon of the total nature of things, although some elements at play are
significantly present while others remain insignificant. Thus
prattyasamutpada, might be rendered as relational origination. (Inada
1970, 178)

Inadas statement, with its emphasis on the relativity and the significance of
events, perhaps unknowingly to him, provides to us a perfect prolegomenon for
a conjoint study of Buddhism and Whiteheadian cosmology. One of the most
poignant philosophical parallels we can make in this regard is between
Yogacara Buddhisms theory of the Three Natures (Skt.: Trisvabhava; Chin.:
San-hsing) and Alfred North Whiteheads doctrine of objectification. It is the
ISSN 1463-9947 print; 1476-7953 online/02/020111-15 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1463994032000068537
112 A. C. Scarfe

purpose of this expository paper to suggest that there are some of intrinsic
parallels between them. Precisely, I aim to show how their respective
philosophical elucidations coincide in their particular discussions of universal
relativity, the nature of consciousness, and the fundamental issue of the
self.
Yogacara Buddhism, or the Consciousness-Only school, was founded in
India by Asanga and Vasubandhu in the fifth century A.D. It is usually
considered to be one of the two major, but contrasting, schools of Mahayana
Buddhism, the other being the Madhyamika philosophy of Nagarjuna. Histori-
cally, due to its cumulative but widespread dissemination from India throughout
the Asian continent, and equally to the cultural inter-permeation between China
and India at that time, Yogacara Buddhism enjoyed more than one period of
development, although perhaps none more remarkable than in China.
Paramartha, Kumarajva, and Hsuan-tsang (shuan-dzang; 596664) are the
major figures accredited with introducing Mahayana Buddhist thought into
China. While Paramartha and Kumarajva (with understudy Seng-chao (384
414)) can be said to be the originators of the Ancient She-lun or Old Fa-hsiang
(meaning, dharma-character) Yogacara School in China, Hsuan-tsang is the
chief founder of the New School of Yogacara.
At first, the Mahayana doctrines had success since they blended well with
Taoist thought. However, later, during the Tang Dynasty (618907), they rose
to intellectual dominance in China after Hsuan-tsangs historic journey to India
in the year 633. From 633 to 645, Hsuan-tsang studied and debated with Indian
scholars at Nalanda, equally leaving his mark upon them, and becoming quite
famous in the process.1 Hsuan-tsang then returned to China as a hero, carrying
seven hundred Buddhist works with him. Upon his arrival, Emperor Tai-tsung
asked him to take an official post. However, he declined and, together with a
large group of assistants, and noted pupils Kuei-chi (632682) and Wonchuk
(612696), Hsuan-tsang proceeded to translate and to comment on a number of
the works he brought with him. One seminal text he translated was
Vasubandhus Vijnaptimatratatrimsika or Treatise in Thirty Verses on Con-
sciousness-Only, which resulted in his own interpretation of Yogacara that he
put forth in his Cheng-wei-shih lun, or Treatise on the Establishment of
the Doctrine of Consciousness-Only. This interpretation of Vasubandus
work also took into account the great commentaries of previous figures
such as Dharmapala and Sthiramati. As such, Hsuan-tsangs work revolution-
ized the Buddhist movement in China and, subsequently, the doctrines of
Yogacara rose to dominate the Chinese intellectual scene. His manuscripts
became a central factor in the establishment of the New Fa-hsiang school of
Yogacara Buddhism in China and, later, inspired the onset of the Heavenly
Terrace (Tien-tai) and the Garland (Hua-yen) schools of Buddhism. Today,
Hsuan-tsangs translations facilitate the reconstruction of some of the Indian
Yogacara texts, and they remain some of the most widely used in contemporary
scholarship. For many scholars have remarked that his translations of the texts
into Chinese are among the most accurate and concise renditions of the original
Sanskrit.2
 Doctrine of Objectification and Theory of the 3 Natures 113

As the Cognition-Only School, Yogacara Buddhism advances one of the

most comprehensive philosophical examinations of consciousness (vijnana)
ever undertaken, for the chief purpose of alleviating unsatisfactoriness or
suffering (duhkha). According to Yogacara Buddhism, undue suffering is
mainly the product of the false view that the self and dharmas exist as static
substances. Therefore, one of its main aims is to develop, in the meditational
(Yogic) practitioner, an awareness of the process of co-dependent origination
(prattyasamutpada) and the discriminations of consciousness that produce the
illusions of the existence of the self and dharmas. In Yogacaras synopsis, there
are eight basic consciousnesses: (15) the five sense-consciousnessessight,
smell, touch, hearing, and taste; (6) the sense-center consciousness (manovi-
jnana); (7) the reflective consciousness (klistamanas); and (8) the
store-house consciousness (alayavijnana). Most attention is paid by the school
to the store-house consciousness (alayavijnana) for its philosophical and
spiritual significance. Recently, in the West, whether accurate or not, scholars
have likened the store-house consciousness to the Hegelian Idea in its ongoing
conceptual development.3
Since consciousness is the central focus of Yogacara, the school is generally
known as the idealistic branch of Buddhism. But scholars today maintain that
Yogacaras idealism is by no means uniform, and have detected doctrinal
divisions within the schools teachings.4 On the one hand, the Old school of
Paramartha (499569), who traveled from India to China in 548, and began to
translate Yogacara texts into the Chinese language, has been given various
interpretations. For instance, some have interpreted it as a form of absolute
idealism. On the other hand, the New school of Dharmapala (439507) in India
and, later, Hsuan-tsang and Kuei-chi in China, is generally held to be a form
of subjective idealism. It is also said that, later, Hsuan-tsangs other pupil,
Wonchuk, attempted to synthesize the two Schools.5 At any rate, in this light,
a parallel between idealistic Buddhist philosophy and Whiteheads Organic
Realism might at first seem unfathomable if we take the common one-sided
interpretations of each as final. For, we must remember that Whiteheads
cosmological scheme is only provisionally realistic, and isolates many of the
conditions for the possibility of idealism. And, it may be mistaken to suggest
that Yogacara is a mere idealism simply because of its philosophical focus on
consciousness, since, as we know from Whiteheads critique of previous
philosophers in the West, even Humes empirical realism has its presupposition
in consciousness.

Whiteheads amendment to Humes account of experience

One of Whiteheads main claims, which distinguishes his thought from that of
modern philosophers like Hume, is that consciousness involves a high degree of
abstraction from our most basic experience of the world. According to him,
consciousness is the crown of experience, only occasionally attained, not its
necessary base (Whitehead 1978, 267). And, contrary to Humes philosophy,
Whitehead emphasizes that feeling is fundamental, in contrast to consciousness.
114 A. C. Scarfe

Whitehead argues that to associate Humes theory of perception, which has its
basis in conscious perception (or in Whiteheads own terminology, in presen-
tational immediacy), with primitive experience has had fatal consequences for
philosophical and scientific views of the natural world. As such, Whitehead
proposes an amendment to Humean empiricism that includes causal efficacy
as a primordial form of perception alongside presentational immediacy (or
conscious perception). Perception in the mode of causal efficacy entails the
basic feeling of a circumambient world of causal operations (Whitehead 1978,
176), where the sense-data, required for immediate sense-perception (as in
conscious perception), enter into experience in virtue of the efficacy of the
environment (Whitehead 1985, 52). Perception in the mode of causal
efficacy, consistent with our basic experience of the world, implies the causal
bombardment of the great multitude of data from the world onto our sensory
organs, with or without conscious awareness of that data. In arguing for causal
efficacy as a primary mode of perception, Whiteheads hidden premise seems
to lie in an inversion of the very principle of Humean scepticism. Particularly,
Whitehead appears to argue against Humes affirmation that all our distinct
perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real
connexion among distinct existences (Hume 1969, 678). On the contrary, for
Whitehead, in the perceptual mode of causal efficacy, there is no perception of
a necessary separation of actual entities, as in consciousness, nor between
putatively stated causes and effects. This position, which contrasts with Hume,
is undoubtedly the result of his maintenance of the fundamental cosmological
principle of universal relativity.

Whiteheads doctrine of objectification: the division and decision

of the extensive continuum
The principle of universal relativity is one of the fundamental notions in
Process and Reality. For Whitehead, our conscious perception of actual entities
originates out of the backdrop of the extensive continuum; namely, the
circumambience of space and time that we help compose. The term extensive
continuum designates the spatio-temporal universe in which the many actual
entities, in cumulative solidarity, compose the one society.6 This extensive
continuum, Whitehead writes, is one relational complex in which all potential
objectifications find their niche. It underlies the whole world, past, present, and
future [] (and) involves both the property of indefinite divisibility and the
property of unbounded extension (1978, 66).7 In other words, for Whitehead,
the extensive continuum as implied by the principle of relativity consists in the
functional interrelatedness of all actual entities; namely, in the notion that no
entity can be conceived in complete abstraction (or separation) from the system
of the universe (1978, 3). By basing his process metaphysical scheme on this
principle, Whitehead shows how presentational immediacy (or conscious
perception), which is supposed to involve the immediate perception of a given
object, is really not that immediate.8 That is to say, conscious perception
presupposes the process of objectification of an actual entity, which involves
 Doctrine of Objectification and Theory of the 3 Natures 115

the division and decision of the extensive continuum.9 Objectification

implies the process by which an actual entity is atomized out from the
backdrop of the extensive continuum. For Whitehead, actual entities atomize
the extensive continuum. This continuum is in itself merely the potentiality for
division; an actual entity effects its division (Whitehead 1978, 67).10 Hence,
perception in the mode of presentational immediacy is not really that primitive
since it presupposes the division and decision of the essentially unbounded
extensive continuum.
The theory of objectification holds that it is by way of division and
decision that we perceptually and ontologically carve up the effectively
unbounded extensive continuum into the actual entities that we know as given
in experience. From this perspective, the actual entity is initially an indetermi-
nate potentiality for division, as yet unobjectified. But, the actual entity becomes
a determinate, given entity as it is divided and decided through the process
of its objectification. Whitehead explains:
The notion of givenness carries with it a reference beyond the mere data
in question. It refers to a decision whereby what is given is separated
off from what for that occasion is not given. This element of givenness
in things implies some activity procuring limitation. The word decision
does not here imply conscious judgment, though in some decisions
consciousness will be a factor. The word is used in its root sense of a
cutting off. The ontological principle declares that every decision is
referable to one or more actual entities, because in separation from actual
entities there is nothing, merely nonentity The rest is silence.
(Whitehead 1978, 43)
It is clear that an object given and cognized in presentational immediacy only
becomes objectified in virtue of its abstraction from the extensive continuum.
For Whitehead, where there is no decision involving exclusion, there is no
givenness (Whitehead 1978, 42). Consequently, the givenness of the object as
consciously perceived presupposes the division and decision of the extensive
continuum. It is a derivative abstraction, necessary indeed as an element in the
description of the fundamental experiential feeling, but delusive as a metaphys-
ical starting point (Whitehead 1978, 160).
As Whiteheads doctrine of objectification revolves around the notions of
division and decision of the extensive continuum, it is important to get clear
the status of such division; namely, whether it is a subjective activity, or
whether it resides with the object. In Whiteheads metaphysics, the process by
which the extensive continuum is divided and decided into actual entities
belongs neither simply to subjectivity nor to objectivity. Against the one-sided
view that they are solely the product of the activity of radical subjectivity, it
must be remembered that for Whitehead, since objectification is abstraction,
divisions of the extensive continuum do not represent divisions which are; they
are divisions which might be (Whitehead 1978, 284). This is the case, since in
dividing, one might be ignoring the subjective unity (of the actual entity in
question) which is inconsistent with such division (Whitehead 1978, 284). This
116 A. C. Scarfe

stance reminds us of the position of Kantian subjective idealism, in which we

cannot penetrate to things as they are in themselves. However, in Whiteheads
scheme, division and decision may also be said to be equally the product of
objectivity, since the object may be said to donate itself to such manners of
division. That is to say, objectification is partially due to the incoming causal
efficacy of the world on our sensory organs, particularly, on data that lend
themselves to those manners of division. Hence, for Whitehead, objectification
is neither one-sidedly a subjective, nor an objective activity. Rather, it is the
merging of subject and object; namely, objectification implies the process of
concrescence by which one actual entity becomes present in another entity
(Whitehead 1978, 50).

Negative prehensions and organic selectivity

Although according to Whitehead we can imagine beings (perhaps like the
Buddha) who observe all phenomena in all space with an equal eye, unbiased
in favour of any part, (his doctrine of objectification and theory of prehensions
are based in the fact that) with us it is otherwise, a cat at our feet claims more
attention than an earthquake at Cape Horn, or than the destruction of a world
in the Milky Way (Whitehead 1990, 91; my additions). In Whiteheads theory
of prehensions, the notion of negative prehensions constitutes how the
extensive continuum is divided and decided by the organism. Among the
basic functions of negative prehensions are the positing of nothingness and the
elimination of irrelevant data from experience, or, more accurately, from
feeling. Negative prehensions, operating in concert with positive prehensions,
are the primary vehicles of organic selectivity, enabling the chief organic
activities of appropriation and self-realization. While the former aspect of
appropriation represents the prehensive passage of the objectively real into
subjective ideality, the latter mode of self-realization characterizes the causal
ingression of the subjectively ideal into objective reality. In so doing, White-
head seeks to describe first, the process by which what is done in the world is
transformed into a reality in heaven, and (second, that by which) the reality in
heaven passes back into the world (Whitehead 1978, 351).11 Particularly, his
philosophy of organism is provisionally realistic, in contrast to the schools
stemming from Kantian subjective idealism, including those philosophies
branding themselves, Absolute Idealism. Whitehead writes:
For Kant the process whereby there is experience is a process from
subjectivity to apparent objectivity. The philosophy of organism inverts
this analysis, and explains the process as proceeding from objectivity to
subjectivity, namely, from objectivity, whereby the external world is a
datum, to the subjectivity, whereby there is one individual experience.
(Whitehead 1978, 219)
As such, in a converse manner to the Kantian and Hegelian systems emphasiz-
ing the primacy of teleological self-realization, Whiteheads primary aim is to
trace the process of appropriation by the organism for the foundation of its own
 Doctrine of Objectification and Theory of the 3 Natures 117

existence, the various elements out of which it arises (Whitehead 1978, 156).
In other words, Whitehead is at first concerned with the question as to how the
various data and elements of objective reality are appropriated into the subjec-
tive constitution of organisms, which is the basic aim of the theory of
prehensions. Thus, Whiteheads initial perspective is that subjective aims are
derived and appropriated from the actual occasions of the objective world. But,
his full position would seem to undercut the dichotomy of appropriation and
self-realization within the creative process, since self-realization implies the
appropriation of an object and, conversely, the appropriation of an object is the
condition for the possibility for the development of a subjective aim, and for
self-realization in general. Consequently, Whiteheads theory of prehensions
depicts the mutual growing together of actual occasions, where the disjunction
of the phases of appropriation and self-realization, as well as subject and
object, are abstract divisions within the process of concrescence made only for
the sake of analysis. For not only are objective data fused into one datum in the
prehensive process, but also subject and object grow together and are unified.
In Whiteheads metaphysics, it is clear that both appropriation and self-real-
ization have their basis in organic selectivity, since the higher organisms,
especially those possibly endowed with conscious experience, are said to be
distinct from those of the lower organisms by the simple fact of their capacity
for selectivity. To be sure, for him, it is the mark of a high-grade organism to
eliminate, by negative prehension, the irrelevant accidents in its environment,
and to elicit massive attention to every variety of systematic order (Whitehead
1978, 317). In Whiteheads view, negation in general is foundational for
consciousness. As he writes, negation is the peculiar characteristic of con-
sciousness (Whitehead 1978, 274). Particularly, negative prehensions are the
instrument by which the organism effects its division and decision of the
extensive continuum, as implicit to consciousness. And, it is largely in virtue of
such elimination that the organism determines the relevance of (or valuates)
objective data, both in terms of appropriation and self-realization. Specifically,
Whiteheads notion of negative prehensions reflects an incorporation of San-
tayanas view that
it is only things on the scale of the human senses and in the field of those
instinctive reactions which sensation calls forth, that can be the primary
objects of human knowledge: no other things can be discriminated at first
by an animal mind, or can interest it, or can be meant and believed in by
it. It is these instinctive reactions that select the objects of attention,
designate their locus, and impose faith on their existence. (1929, 175)
In summary, Whiteheads doctrine of objectification and theory of prehensions
support three conclusions that we shall keep in mind while analyzing some of
the main tenets of Yogacara Buddhism. First, in conjunction with the principle
of relativity, Whitehead holds that consciousness implies a process of ob-
jectification that divides and decides the extensive continuum into the actual
entities that we know as given in experience. Second, negative prehensions
represent the manner in which the organism divides and decides the
118 A. C. Scarfe

extensive continuum by valuating data, eliminating irrelevancies, and selecting

those objects that are either useful to it or those that exert some degree of causal
influence on it. Third, Whiteheads theory of prehensions depicts how subject
and object grow together and are unified, thus overcoming the traditional
Cartesian subjectobject dichotomy.

Yogacara Buddhism on consciousness-only

In its comprehensive elaboration on the eight consciousnesses and on the nature
of cognition in general, Yogacara Buddhism characterizes consciousness as a
process of co-dependent origination; namely, of mutual arising or relational
origination, to use Inadas terminology. For Yogacara, the consciousness
which has dependently originated is known by the word transformation
(parinama) (Kawamura, 33).12 The transformation of consciousness is
responsible for the illusory view that the self and dharmas exist as static
substances, which leads to unsatisfactoriness and suffering (duhkha). It is said
to occur in three connected ways: (1) in respect to the karmic maturation and
causal fruition of all good and evil deeds, (2) through the discerning and the
discrimination of objects, and (3) through the reflective consciousness (klista-
manas) taking the store-house consciousness as an object; namely, as the self.
Here, I shall deal primarily with points (2) and (3).
Yogacara attempts to provide a means to overcome the hindrances brought on
by these three transformations of consciousness in which the self and dharmas
are wrongly viewed as static substances. It argues as follows. First, it is held
that consciousness possesses the seed of everything (i.e. self and dharmas),
which is the meaning of the saying that everything is cognition-only (Kawa-
mura, 101). Second, it is stated that Everything (i.e. self and dharmas) in this
(world) is [] mere discrimination (Kawamura, 111). Therefore, it is con-
cluded that consciousness (of anything) entails discrimination. To be sure, it is
stated that the transformation of consciousness is discrimination. (But,) any-
thing which is discriminated does not exist in that form (Kawamura, 98).
Consequently, for Yogacara, one is liberated from suffering by being without
discrimination (Kawamura, 122); specifically, one is freed from unsatisfactori-
ness by way of the knowledge and awareness that the transformations of
consciousness occur due to relational origination. For it is held that it is due
to (co-dependent origination that) this or that discrimination is produced
(Kawamura, 101). Hence, it is clear that for Yogacara, our consciousness of
objects presupposes a process by which they are discerned and discriminated,
but they do not truly exist in such a manner. But, to get Yogacaras full
perspective requires an understanding of the theory of the Three Natures.

Co-dependent origination and Yogacaras theory of the Three

Natures (Skt.: Trisvabhava; Chin.: San-hsing)
The theory of the Three Natures (Skt.: Trisvabhava; Chin.: San-hsing) and their
 Doctrine of Objectification and Theory of the 3 Natures 119

respective Essencelessnesses (nihsvabhavata) is one of the central doctrines of

Yogacara Buddhism. The Three Natures and their Essencelessness progres-
sively comprise a multi-perspectival conception of the varying degrees of
awareness of co-dependent or relational origination (prattyasamutpada) in our
experience of the world. Each of the Three Natures are to be taken as
essenceless since each are negated (although not in a hierarchical manner),
which logically brings about the standpoint of the next.
First, the imagined or contrived nature (Skt.: parikalpita-svabhava; Chin.:
pein-chi so-chih-hsing) is characterized by a lack of awareness of relational
origination. This stage is that of the everyday, conventional consciousness,
which is steeped in dualities, and is responsible for the ontological differen-
tiation and discrimination of self and objects in the world. Here, self and object
are considered to exist as permanent, causally independent, self-subsistent, and
static substances. However, for Yogacara, objects do not truly exist in the way
that conventional consciousness conceives of them. It is stated that since a
thing which is the object of discrimination does not have any reality, it does not
exist (Kawamura, 111). As such, the contrived nature is shown to be
essenceless because its discriminations do not exist in reality.
Second, the dependent-on-others, other-standing, or regulated by another
nature (Skt.: paratantra-svabhava; Chin.: i-ta-chi hsing) is the negation of the
conventional consciousness, which has its basis in discrimination. This stage
constitutes the awareness that any entity comes into being by depending upon
causes and conditions other than itself (Kawamura, 112). The dependent-on-
others nature is further characterized as the first awareness of the functional
interrelatedness and causal interdependence of subject and subject, of subject
and object, and of object and object, which may still be said to exist
independently, but as appearances; namely, figuratively. However, the depen-
dent-on-others nature is shown to be essenceless, because it does not represent
the full repercussions of relational origination.
Third, the perfected nature (Skt.: parinispanna-svabhava; Chin.: yuan-
cheng shih-hsing) is the negation of the dependent-on-others nature, but it is
representative of the principle of co-dependent origination made absolute. It is
the full awareness of the relationally originated network of reality, namely, the
interpenetration and solidarity of all things, such that all things, including
subjects and objects, are not seen to exist independently, and are neither seen
as causes nor effects. As Hsuan-tsang further explains, as the non-discriminat-
ing wisdom which realizes truth arises, all spheres of objects and their
characters will cease to appear (Chan 1963, 388). Like Whiteheads central
notion of a prehension or, alternatively, an uncognitive apprehension (1967a,
69), the perfected nature is uncognitive since when the object does not exist
(is not discriminated), there is no cognition (Kawamura, 121). This view of the
world is simply known by Yogacara as Thusness. In this stage, all discrimina-
tions, even figurative ones, are negated, and the world is experienced as uniform
and relational. But, this nature is also shown to be essenceless, since dwelling
in it would seem to reduce the world to an absolute void, without meaning.
In fully developing the awareness of relational origination, the Yogic prac-
120 A. C. Scarfe

titioner progressively develops his knowledge from the contrived nature of

conventional ontology to the dependent-on-others nature of all things. But, by
being completely without discrimination, as in the perfected nature, one
experiences the interpenetration of all things: of subjects with subjects, of
subjects with objects, and of objects with objects, and their resulting essence-
lessness. In this way, the Three Natures and their Essencelessness represent a
progressive awareness of the illusions brought on by consciousnesss discrimi-
nation of subject from subject, of subject from object, and of object from object.
However, if everything is said to be completely interdependent, as in the
perfected nature, then an absolute nothingness would be said to exist.
Although it is said that Buddhism in general makes nothingness an absolute, it
is clear that Yogacara does not accept any one of the Three Natures, nor their
Essencelessness as final conclusions. On the one hand, subjects and objects are
fundamentally a discrimination that does not exist in the perfected reality,
made through consciousness. From this perspective, we cannot know things-in-
themselves in the Kantian sense, because consciousness falsely discriminates
the external world. On the other hand, through the relinquishing of conscious-
ness and discrimination, the view that there are no subjects, nor objects, and
which implies the existence of absolute nothingness, is equally said to be a
discriminative, one-sided cognition.13 Hence, these two extreme views are also
to be considered as mutually originated. Furthermore, Hsuan-tsang writes if
there were no worldly truth, there would be no absolute truth (Chan 1963,
389), pointing to the interdependence of each of the Three Natures. It is also for
this reason that Yogacara describes a point in the practitioners development
when she leaves the stage of nothingness (Kawamura, 63), so as not to dwell
in the absolute void. As such, each of the Three Natures represent subsequent
experiential standpoints that are negated, or shown to be untrue, but are still
preserved conceptually. That is to say, the Yogin is not to dwell in any of the
Three Natures, nor in their subsequent Essencelessnesses. Instead, the interplay
between and the progressive negation of each of the Three Natures is meant as
a relationally originated process embedded within experience.

Yogacara on the false view of the self as product of the reflective

consciousness (klistamanas)
According to Yogacara, the activity of the reflective consciousness (klista-
manas) is one of the main reasons for the wrong view that the self exists as an
independent, permanent substance, leading to unsatisfactoriness and suffering
(duhkha). Yogacara goes to great lengths to demonstrate how the reflective
consciousness takes the store-house consciousness (alayavijnana) as its cogni-
tive object, thus one-sidedly constituting it as the self. Yogacara explains that:
having that as its cognitive object means that the store-house conscious-
ness (alayavijnana) is its very object because the reflective
consciousness (klistamanas), being accompanied by the view of the
existence of an individuality and others, has the store-house conscious
 Doctrine of Objectification and Theory of the 3 Natures 121

ness (alayavijnana) as its cognitive object (thinking that) it is mine or

it is I. (Kawamura, 58)

In such a manner, by taking the store-house consciousness as its cognitive

object, the reflective consciousness leads to the errors of self-view, self-
infatuation, self-pride, and self-love. However, Yogacara argues against the
error of the taking the store-house consciousness as a substantial self,
discriminated from the world. Interpreted through lens of Whiteheadian cosmol-
ogy, Yogacaras argument involves the same principle of Whiteheads
provisional realism. For Whitehead, contrary to the Kantian and Hegelian
systems, all subjective aims, whether novel or not (i.e. whether the product of
conceptual reversion or not), are initially appropriated and derived from the
actual occasions of the objective world. As Yogacara similarly points out, in the
Abhidharmasutra it is said that the world, from beginningless time, is the basis
of all things (Kawamura, 104), including the contents of the store-house
consciousness. External objects are further said to be a co-operating cause of
consciousness (Kawamura, 34), producing the sensory impressions that lead us
to belief in the existence of the object. Thus, the store-house consciousness is
a receptacle (Kawamura, 46), which stores up past occasions of the world. It
is not representative of a substantial self, thoroughly independent of the
objective world; an insight that represents a turning of the basis (Kawamura,
122), in the mindset of the Yogin.
In a similar manner to Whiteheads metaphysical standpoint regarding the
ingression of eternal objects into actual occasions, Yogacara also holds that the
store-house consciousness is not simply the container of the objective world.
On the contrary, it matures selected conceptual data for manifestation back
into the objective world, but it is still not to be conceived as a static self.14
Hence, Yogacara consistently endeavors to show that subject is thoroughly
co-dependent with object, undercutting the two illusions: (1) the illusion of (the
substantiality of) that which is seized and (2) the illusion of (the substantiality
of) that which seizes (Kawamura, 103; my additions), within the process of
cognition. And, neither the seized (object) nor the seizer (subject) have strict
priority in the cognitive process. Rather, they are co-dependently originated
poles, unified in process. In this manner, the non-discriminatory supermundane
knowledge having the equality of the object and subject as its characteristic is
produced (Kawamura, 121). And, in essence, for Yogacara, in so far as the
Yogins mind is not wholly established in (vijnapti-matra which is character-
ized by) non-duality, attachment to the object and/or the subject (which
produces suffering) neither disappears nor is extinguished (Kawamura, 119).
Consequently, from this perspective, Yogacara would seem neither to be
one-sidedly idealistic, nor realistic in nature.

Conclusion: Whitehead and Yogacara Buddhism as compatible

theories of relatedness
In maintaining the co-dependent or relational origination of all things,
122 A. C. Scarfe

Yogacara Buddhism, in a similar to Whiteheads cosmological scheme, is a

theory of relativity. By way of the Theory of the Three Natures representative
of degrees of awareness of relational origination, Yogacara holds the central
thesis that consciousness entails the discrimination of objects out from what is
truly interdependent and interpenetrative. Furthermore, Yogacara goes to great
lengths to describe how subject and object are the product of discrimination
within the structure of consciousness. For both Yogacara and Whitehead, it is
by way of negation or the positing of nothingness that such ontological
discrimination or division is carried out. To further support this conclusion,
Whiteheads negative prehensions are the vehicles of organic selectivity
required in our basic conscious experience of the world. They are the manner
in which the extensive continuum is divided and decided by the organism, by
attributing the zero of relevance (Whitehead 1978, 148) to data that are
eliminated from experience. However, Whitehead also seeks to maintain a
balance of division and connection in experience, guarding against an excess of
negative prehension that would undoubtedly result in the complete negation of
experience. He states, the right coordination of negative prehensions is one
secret of mental progress but unless some systematic scheme of relatedness
characterizes the environment, there will be nothing left where by to constitute
vivid prehension of the world (Whitehead 1978, 254). For Yogacara, a balance
of the Three Natures is also to be maintained, as each degree of awareness of
co-dependent origination provides the conditions for the possibility of the
others. For the Heart Sutra (Mahaprajnaparamitahridaya-sutra), which may be
said to provide a brief summary of the doctrine of the Three Natures,
emphasizes the biconditional proposition that emptiness is form and form is
emptiness.

Notes
Presented at the Whitehead and China in the New Millennium Conference at Beijing
Normal University, China, 1721 June 2002.
1 See Chen (1964, 2367). Also see Hopkins (1999, 41).
2 See Chen (1964, 2358, 3689). Also see Chan (1963, 371).
3 See Verdu (1974, 5).
4 For example, see Murtis (1980) refutation of Yogacara as absolute idealism. See
Kochumuttom (1982), who interprets Yogacara as open to interpretation as a
pluralistic realism. See Wayman (1984), for whom Yogacara is both a Hegelian
Absolute Idealism and a Kantian transcendental idealism. Also see Verdu (1974), in
which both the Old School of Paramartha (499569) and the New school of
Dharmapala and Hsuan-tsang are idealistic, but due to their differing views regarding
the nature of the store-house consciousness (alayavijnana), the New School is a
more radical idealism than the Old.
5 See Hopkins (1999, 414).
6 My use of the term universe in description of the extensive continuum is meant
only in a generalized way. The term universe suggests the extensive continuum
as already objectified. According to Whitehead, possibilities of division constitute
the external world a continuum. For a continuum is divisible, so far as the
contemporary world is divided by actual entities, it is not a continuum, but is atomic.
Thus the contemporary world is perceived with its potentiality for extensive division,
 Doctrine of Objectification and Theory of the 3 Natures 123

and not its actual atomic division [] The contemporary world as perceived by the
senses is the datum for contemporary actuality, and is therefore continuous
divisible but not divided. The contemporary world is in fact divided and atomic,
being a multiplicity of definite actual entities (1978, 62). He goes on to suggest that
the extensive continuum is not a fact prior to the world; it is the first determination
of order that is, of real potentiality arising out of the general character of the
world (1978, 66).
7 Nobo writes that Whiteheads metaphysics is the vision of universal solidarity: that
the entire universe is somehow to be found within each of its ultimate concrete
components or, equivalently, that the final real actualities of which the universe is
composed are each all and all in each (1986, xiv). Nobo later explains, The
fundamental thesis of Alfred North Whiteheads philosophy of organism is that the
final actualities of the universe cannot be abstracted from one another because each
actuality, though individual and discrete, is internally related to all other actualities.
This mutual involvement of discrete actualities is what Whitehead meant by the
solidarity or connectedness of the universe (1986, 1).
8 Rather, for Whitehead, perception in the mode of presentational immediacy is that
which rescues from vagueness a contemporary spatial region, in respect to its spatial
shape and its spatial perspective from the percipient (Whitehead 1978, 121).
Furthermore, it illustrates the contemporary world in respect to its potentiality for
extensive subdivision into atomic actualities and in respect to the scheme of
perspective relationships which thereby eventuates. But it gives no information as to
the actual (process of) atomization of this contemporary real potentiality
(Whitehead 1978, 123; my addition).
9 Specifically, Whitehead writes that objectification is an operation of mutually
adjusted abstraction, or elimination, whereby the many occasions of the actual world
become one complex datum (Nobo 1986, 127 of the original version of Process and
Reality; Whitehead 1978, 321; emphasis added).
10 For Whitehead, the actual entity and/or the nexus is objectified only by the
interplay of division and connection. For him, our perception of actual entities
involves the process of contrasting the disjoined many actual entities implied by the
indefinite divisibility of the extensive continuum with the unified one actual entity
implied by the indefinite connectibility of the extensive continuum. More precisely,
our perception of actual entities is caught up in the contrast between the many actual
entities as compositional of the one (which increases the many by one), and the one
actual entity as comprising the many (which decreases the many by one, but
maintains the one in objective immortality).
11 Here, one is reminded that in Chinese philosophical expression the word tian
simultaneously means both heaven and nature.
12 As Verdu points out: the word parinama means transformation. [] In the new
Fa-hsiang school, as interpreted from the works of Vasubandhu, causation entails
only an inner, radically idealistic or cognitive evolvement [], rather than a real,
emanatistic evolution from the alaya: it is causation by ideation only. []
Ironically, the usage of the term parinama by the new Fa-hsiang school turned out
to be more similar to Sankaras vivartavada theory than to Ramanujas emanatistic
conception of parinamavada. [] Obviously this new Fa-hsiang affection for
Vasubandhu is not due to his doctrine of the alaya, for it does not differ radically
from his brothers conception. It is the frequent use of the term parinama by
Vasubandhu (compared to Asangas predilection for the word pratibhasa) that makes
him so dear to the new brand of idealism propounded by Hsuan-tsang. Parinama is
understood to imply a pure idealistic transformation within the very medium of the
alaya. This is why the alaya stores this transformation and its roots, namely, the
bja. (1974, 41).
13 Here, one could recall the later Heideggers (1998, 92) remark that the nothing is
the origin of negation.
124 A. C. Scarfe

14 According to a stock saying of Yogacara, speaking of the store-house conscious-

ness, A seed produces a manifestation; a manifestation perfumes a seed; the three
elements (seed, manifestation, and perfuming) turn on and on; the cause and effect
occur at one and the same time (Chan 1995, 371).

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Correspondence address: Adam C. Scarfe, #1, 33 Bateman Crescent, Saskatoon,

Saskatchewan, S7H 3C3 CANADA. E-mail: acscarfe@attcanada.net