trisvabhava

trisvabhava, in Buddhism, the states of the real existence that appear to a person according to his stage of understanding. Together with the doctrine of storehouse consciousness (alaya-vijnana), it constitutes the basic theory of the Vijnanavada (“Consciousness-affirming”) school of Buddhist thought. The trisvabhava theory was first taught in the Prajnaparamita (“Perfection of Wisdom”) sutras, a group of Mahayana texts composed between the 1st century bce and the 3rd century ce, and was elaborated upon by the Vijnanavada school.

The three forms of existence are:

1. Parikalpita-svabhava (“the form produced from conceptual construction”), generally accepted as true by common understanding or by convention of the unenlightened.

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2. Paratantra-svabhava (“the form arising under certain conditions”), the real form of phenomenal existence free from verbal expression; the world of dependent origination (pratitya-samutpada).

3. Parinishpanna-svabhava (“the form perfectly attained”), the ultimate truth of transcendental emptiness (shunyata).

Each of these three forms should not be regarded as independent existences but as the forms that appear to different individuals according to their existential attitudes toward reality. Through ultimate transcendental wisdom, which denies an illusional superimposition of the reality, a person comes to understand the essence of the phenomenal world as emptiness (shunyata)—i.e., as the form perfectly attained (parinishpanna-svabhava). Thereupon one clearly sees the true nature of phenomena as it is without verbal fiction—i.e., in the form of paratantra-svabhava. In short, paratantra is the pivot that transforms the illusion of parikalpita to the enlightenment of parinishpanna.

The trisvabhava is inseparably connected with the practical purposes of Yogachara (“Practice of Yoga”), as knowledge of the doctrine can enable one to break through the painful chain of death and rebirth, or samsara, and attain the state of enlightenment, or nirvana.

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