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transformation nor to destruction. They are nothing but one soulthatness (bhutatathatā).
The soul as birth and death (samsāra) comes forth from the tathāgata womb (tathāgatagarbha), the ultimate reality. But the immortal and the mortal coincide with each other. Though they are not identical they are not duality either. Thus when the absolute soul assumes a relative aspect by its self-affirmation it is called the all-conserving mind (älaya-vijñāna). It embraces two principles, (I) enlightenment, (2) non-enlightenment. Enlightenment is the perfection of the mind when it is free from the corruptions of the creative instinctive incipient memory (smrti). It penetrates all and is the unity of all (dharmadhātu). That is to say, it is the universal dharmakāya of all Tathāgatas constituting the ultimate foundation of existence.
The multitude of people (bahujana) are said to be lacking in enlightenment, because ignorance (avidyā) prevails there from all eternity, because there is a constant succession of smrti (past confused memory working as instinct) from which they have never been emancipated. But when they are divested of this smrti they can then recognize that no states of mentation viz. appearance, presence, change and disappearance, have any reality. They are neither in a temporal nor in a spatial relation with the one soul, for they are not self-existent. The enlightenment shows itself imperfectly in our corrupted phenomenal experience as prajña (wisdom) and karma (incomprehensible activity of life). Though all modes of consciousness and mentation are mere products of ignorance, ignorance in its ultimate nature is identical and non-identical with enlightenment; and therefore ignorance is in one sense destructible though in another sense it is indestructible. When the mind of all creatures, which in its own nature is pure and clean, is stirred by the wind of ignorance (avidyā), the waves of mentality (vijñāna) make their appearance. These three (i.e. the mind, ignorance and mentality) however, have no existence, and they are neither unity nor plurality. When the ignorance is annihilated, the awakened mentality is tranquillized, whilst the essence of wisdom remains unmolested. It is by the touch of ignorance (avidyā) that the truth assumes all the phenomenal forms of existence. Non-enlightenment is the raison d'être of samsāra. In describing the relation of the interaction of avidyă (ignorance), karmavijñāna (activity consciousness -the subjective mind), vişaya (external world--represented by the senses), and the tathatā (suchness), Aśvaghoşa says that there is an interperfuming of these elements. Thus Aśvaghoşa says 'By perfuming we mean that while our worldly clothes (viz. those which we wear) have no odour of their own, neither offensive nor agreeable, they can vet acquire one or the other odour according to the nature of the substance with which they are perfumed. Suchness (tathatā) is
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