Vāsanā (Sanskrit; Devanagari: वासना) is a behavioural tendency or karmic imprint which influences the present behaviour of a person. It is a technical term inIndian philosophy, particularlyYoga, as well asBuddhist philosophy andAdvaita Vedanta.
Vāsanā (Devanagari: वासना,Tibetan:བག་ཆགས,Wylie:bag chags) and its nearhomonymvasana (Devanagari: वसन) are from the same Indo-European linguistic root, sharing a common theme of 'dwelling' or 'abiding'.[note 1]
Keown (2004) defines the term generally within Buddhism as follows:
"vāsanā (Skt.). Habitual tendencies or dispositions, a term, often used synonymously with bīja (‘seed’). It is found in Pāli and early Sanskrit sources but comes to prominence with the Yogācāra, for whom it denotes the latent energy resulting from actions which are thought to become ‘imprinted’ in the subject's storehouse-consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna). The accumulation of these habitual tendencies is believed to predispose one to particular patterns of behaviour in the future."[2]
Sandvik (2007: unpaginated) states that:
... bag chags, in Sanskrit vāsanā. This word is used a lot in presentations about karma. It means habitual tendencies, subtle inclinations that are imprinted in the mind, like a stain. For example, if someone smokes, there will be a habitual tendency for an urge to smoke every day, usually around the same time. There are bigger picture bag chags, such as why some people are kind by nature, and others are cruel; it's the tendency to behave in a certain way that will trigger similar actions in future, reinforcing the bag chags.
— [3]
D.T. Suzuki (1930) in The Lankavatara Sutra, connects vasana to its other meaning, 'infusing':
"Discrimination is the result of memory (vasana) accumulated from the unknown past. Vasana literally means "perfuming," or "fumigation," that is, it is a kind of energy that is left behind when an act is accomplished and has the power to rekindle the old and seek out new impressions. Through this "perfuming," reflection takes place which is the same thing as discrimination, and we have a world of opposites and contraries with all its practical consequences. The triple world, so called, is therefore the shadow of a self-reflecting and self-creating mind. Hence the doctrine of "Mind-only" (cittamdtra)." p.96[4]
Lusthaus states that theCheng Weishi Lun (Chinese: 成唯識論), a commentary onVasubandhu'sTriṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā, lists three types of vāsanā, which are synonymous with 'bija' or 'seeds':[5]
Bag chags are important inBonpo soteriology, especially the view of the BonpoDzogchenpa, where it is fundamentally related to the key doctrines of 'Primordial Purity' (Tibetan:ཡེ་ནས་ཀ་དག,Wylie:ye nas ka dag[note 2] AsKarmay relates in his English rendering of the Bonpo text 'Kunzi Zalshay Selwai Gronma' (Tibetan:ཀུན་གཞི་ཞལ་ཤེས་གསལ་བའི་སྒྲོན་མ,Wylie:kun gzhi zhal shes gsal ba'i sgron ma) from the Tibetan:[6]
"Some people doubt that ifkun gzhi is pure from the beginning, it cannot be accepted as the ground on which one accumulates one's impressions (bag chags), but if it is the ground for storing thebag chags, it cannot be pure from the beginning.
The essence ofkun gzhi at no time has ever experienced being defiled by thebag chags since it is absolutely pure from the beginning. In that case, one might think that it cannot be the 'ground' for storing thebag chags. However, thebag chags are stored there only through the 'co-ordination' of all the eight kinds of consciousness.Kun gzhi is therefore merely the ground for storing thebag chags. It is like a treasury.
Although in the sphere of space, many a world came into existence and remains, the essence of space remains undefiled by the dirt of the world, even a particle of it.[7][note 3]
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam (5.11.5) (also known as the BhagavataPurana), a principal text for theVaishnava tradition ofSanatana Dharma employs the term 'vasana':
| Devanagari | Roman Transcription[8] |
|---|---|
| स वासनात्मा विषयोपरक्तो | sa vāsanātmā viṣayoparakto |
| गुणप्रवाहो विकृतः षोडशात्मा | guṇa-pravāho vikṛtaḥ ṣoḍaśātmā |
| बिभ्रत्पृथतङनामभि रूपभेदम् | bibhrat pṛthań-nāmabhi rūpa-bhedam |
| अन्तर्बहिष्ङवं च पुरैस्तनोति | antar-bahiṣṭvaṁ ca purais tanoti |
A satisfactory English rendering has not yet been sourced, but the import is that the 'imprinted-volitions-of-mind' (vāsanātmā), whether pious or impious, are conditioned by theGunas. The gunas propel the mind into different 'formations' (rūpa-bhedam). The 'mind' (atma) is the master of the sixteen material elements.[note 4] Its 'refined or coarse quality' (antaḥ-bahiṣṭvam) determines the mind-formations of manifestation (tanoti).
A vasana literally means 'wishing' or 'desiring', but is used in Advaita in the sense of the sub-conscious or latent tendencies in one’s nature.[9]
Writing from anAdvaita Vedanta perspective, Waite refers to a model offered by Edward de Bono:[note 5]
If you take a jelly, solidified and turned out onto a plate, and you trickle very hot water onto the top, it will run off onto the plate and leave behind a faint channel where the hot water melted the jelly. If you now pour more hot water, it will tend to run into the same channels as before, since these offer the line of least resistance, and deepen the channels. If this is done repeatedly, very deep channels will form and it will become difficult, if not impossible, to get the water to run anywhere else. The equivalent of an entrenched habit has been formed.[9]