This state of bondage, itself illusory, can be seen through by “a sudden revulsion, turning, or re-turning of the ālaya vijñāna back into its original state of purity [alaya-jnana]….The mind returns to [or is recognized as] its original condition of non-attachment, non-discrimination, and non-duality [pure alaya-jnana]”—in other words, by recognizing the ever-present state of nonduality, or the union of Emptiness and Form.3 Although most Yogacharins insisted that the end state of Emptiness of Madhyamaka is the same as in Yogachara, there is an unmistakably more positive tone to the Yogachara—certainly in the concept of the nature of Mind, but also in how nonduality is conceived. For Madhyamaka, nonduality is virtually an utter blank, at least to the mind’s conceptions, although that blankness is actually seeing Reality exactly as it is, in its Suchness or Thusness, without names, concepts, categories, or prejudices. While Yogachara wouldn’t specifically disagree, it more positively sees Emptiness and nonduality as “the absence of duality between perceiving subject and the perceived object,” which allows for the grand radiance, or luminosity, of Emptiness to be better recognized in the very midst of manifestation. Again, it’s not phenomena that are illusory or suffering inducing, but seeing phenomena as objects, as items set apart from awareness or the subject and existing as independent entities out there. Once they are separated from us, then we can either desire them or fear them, both eventually causing suffering, alienation, and bondage.
