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HÌN AYANA AND M AH AYANA
thinkers. And so, in due time, the two systems came practically together. Sharing ideas, problems, and methods, their protagonists argued out the same questions in the same city and village parks and courtly gardens, until, at last, the practical distinctions between their two approaches disappeared. Whether one worshiped Vişņu or the Bodhisattva, śiva or the Buddha, whether one sought release in Brahman or in the all-containing ālaya, the methods to be followed were practically identical, the attitudes toward the divine guru hardly distinguishable, and the grounds for an honest fundamental argument impossible to find.
Thc universal “repository consciousness"--pure thought, in and of itschf--is the wellspring of every possible creative idea, and hence of the unending series of transient thoughts through which are realized both the life-process of cach individual and the panorama of the whole phenomenal world. The dynamism of the mental processes is gencrated by defilement-germs inherent in the ālaya-and yet, fundamentally, the ālaya transcends the defilement. Through wisdom (prajñā), obtained in the experience of enlightenment, this truth is rcalized and understood. The ālaya is tathātā, sheer bcing-the absolute, forever beyond defilement-and as such is comparable to a jewel. A jewel may be buried in the earth, but when it is recovered, cleaned, and polished, it again shines in its pristine splendor. The moment "the cleansing or doing away” (vyavadāna), is cffected by the yogi-bodhisaliva (as a consequence of his attainment of transcendental wisdom) the blazing splendor is beheld in its motionless, absolutely intact purity. What was thought to be a defilement has disappeared; for the beheld defilement was only an effect of incomplete knowledge, no more than a reflex of the conditions of all earthly cogitation.
Clearly, the problem has not been explained; the argument has been revolving in circles. The defilement (klesa) is an effect of defilement (avidyā). The "cleansing away” (vyavadāna) that dis
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