Below is an entry from the Glossary which is repeated in each of Chinese Master Hsuan Hua’s 14-volume commentary on the Lotus Sutra. Again, another example of the value of these books.

Eight consciousnesses, Ch. 八識, ba shi.

The eightfold division of the mind taught by the Consciousness-Only School (Ch.唯識 weishi; Skt. Yogācāra).

This school describes the mind as a system of seven active consciousnesses (Skt. Vijñāna) that develop out of the eighth consciousness (Skt. Ālayavijñāna; Ch. Translit. 阿赖耶識 alaiye shi). The first five are the physical sense consciousnesses; the sixth is cognitive consciousness; and the seventh mediates between the first six and the eighth.

This eighth consciousness accounts for karmic continuity from life to life and during states of concentration in which the first seven cease. The eighth takes as its primary object the karmic impressions brought about by activity in the first six; because of this, it is often called the “storehouse consciousness” – that is, the metaphorical storehouse of karma. The seventh (Skt. Manas-vijñāna; Ch. Translit. 末那識 mona shi) takes the eighth as its primary object and mistakes it for a persistent self. The seventh is thus the origin of self-identity in the mind.

The seventh also transmits karmic impressions from the first six to the eighth; in doing so, it imbues them with a sense of self that is said to “defile” the eighth consciousness. When conditions arise for the ripening of karma “stored” in the eighth, karmic impressions pass once again through the seventh on their way to the six, where they give rise to various objects and circumstances of experience. On their way through the seventh, the karmic impressions again receive the imprint of self. This circular process – from sense impression to karmic impression and back, always mediated by the sense of self – is described as the “consciousness-only” nature of deluded experience. While the first seven consciousnesses are acquired at conception, relinquished at death, and may be inactive during states of deep concentration, the eighth continues indefinitely and without interruption until its transformation (along with the other seven) into wisdom by means of spiritual cultivation. The transformation of deluded consciousness into the omniscient wisdom of a Buddha is the project of Bodhisattva practice according to the Consciousness-Only School.