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習氣

Pronunciations

Basic Meaning: habituated tendencies

Senses:

  • Also rendered as karmic impressions, habit energies, etc. Latent habituated tendencies created from all of the words, thoughts, actions and external influences experienced by sentient beings. Energies remaining from the fruition of perfumation 熏習. Habitual power; latent reserve karmic energy. For example, when the perfumation by unwholesome activities results in the production of afflictions, even when those afflictions are extinguished, some habituated tendencies remain. As the Yogâcārabhūmi-śāstra says, an arhat who has destroyed all of his afflictions, may still break into a smile when he sees a funny-looking person on the street; or if he lived many lifetimes as an aristocrat, he may still retain an air of arrogance when speaking to people of lower rank (Skt. vāsanā, savāsanā, niṣyanda, dauṣṭhulya, anuśaya; Tib. bag chags). In Yogâcāra, the notion of habituated tendencies is closely linked to, and sometimes used interchangeably with concept of 'seeds'  種子—i.e. latent potentialities which help to comprise the total character of the individual entity. When habituated tendencies are distinguished from seeds, it is from the perspective that they are the traces that remain even after destroying the seeds existent in the ālaya-vijñāna. The major division of habituated tendencies in terms of type is that seen between (1) habituated tendencies in the flow of continuity of sameness 等流習氣 (associated with linguistically conditioned impressions 名言習氣), and (2) ripened habituated tendencies, which are altered in their ripening 異熟習氣. According to the research by Yamabe (2021, which recaps earlier work in Japanese) in the fully-formed tradition of Yogâcāra, bīja and vāsanā are usually treated as synonymous, but in the earlier portions of the Yogâcārabhūmi-śāstra 瑜伽論, vāsanā was used for a much narrower range of meanings than bīja. He argues that the for the broadening of the usage of vāsanā, conceptualization (vikalpa) 分別 played a key role.

    According to the Yogâcāra school, the seeds and the habituated tendencies are removed during the period from the first bhūmi until the tenth. These tendencies are fully eliminated only upon the attainment of Buddhahood, and therefore, as hindrances to liberation are considered to be the most subtle, as all of the other hindrances proper of affliction 煩惱障, and cognition 所知障 can be eliminated at advanced bodhisattva stages. 〔成唯識論, T 1585.31.43a1; 瑜伽論 T T1579.30.305b5〕

    In his Ijangui, Wonhyo distinguishes habituated tendencies into the two types of distinctive 別習氣 and shared 反通習氣. 〔二障義 HBJ 1.79ae 〕 (Skt. dauṣthulya).

    References:

    Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. 2021. “The Position of Conceptualization in the Context of the Yogācāra Bīja Theory.”  In Endo, Toshiichi, ed. Illuminating the Dharma: Buddhist Studies in Honour of Venerable Professor KL Dhammajoti. Hong Kong:  Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong. 463–86.

    [Charles Muller; source(s): Ui,Nakamura,YBh-Ind, JEBD, Yokoi, Hirakawa, Iwanami]
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    [Dictionary References]

    Bukkyō jiten (Ui) 466, 495

    Bulgyo sajeon 498a

    Record of Linji: Rinzairoku (Yanagida) 98-1

    Zengaku daijiten (Komazawa U.) 450b

    Iwanami bukkyō jiten 365, 411

    A Glossary of Zen Terms (Inagaki) 144

    Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha) 136a/149

    Japanese-English Zen Buddhist Dictionary (Yokoi) 278

    Zengo jiten (Iriya and Koga) 2-P54, 9-P214, 10-P59

    Bukkyōgo daijiten (Nakamura) 648b→じっけ, 596b

    Fo Guang Dictionary 4771

    Ding Fubao

    Buddhist Chinese-Sanskrit Dictionary (Hirakawa) 0951

    Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki) (v.1-6)2491c,1570a,2461a

    Bukkyō daijiten (Oda) 909-1, 907-1*754-3

    Sanskrit-Tibetan Index for the Yogâcārabhūmi-śāstra (Yokoyama and Hirosawa)

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    The rights to textual segments (nodes) of the DDB are owned by the author indicated in the brackets next to each segment. For rights regarding the compilation as a whole, please contact Charles Muller. Please do not reproduce without permission. And please do not copy into Wikipedia without proper citation!

    Entry created: 1993-09-01

    Updated: 2021-06-21