宗鏡錄 56.2

56.2

Now, among the three transformers, the eight consciousnesses have already been discussed. Now, relying on the sūtras and treatises, there are further multiple approaches: unfolded, they are boundless; folded up, they are a single path. The sūtras also explain that there are nine kinds of consciousness, because the nature of consciousness is included; or because the eighth consciousness is distinguished into defiled and pure, it is therefore said that there are nine consciousnesses. It is not that the dependent nature has nine distinct substances, nor that its substantial category has nine distinct consciousnesses. As for the nine consciousnesses, the eighth is divided into two as defiled and pure, taking the defiled as with-outflows and the pure as without-outflows. The first seven consciousnesses are not divided into defiled and pure, because they are all subsumed under the transforming consciousnesses (pravṛttivijñāna). Since the eighth is not a transforming consciousness, it alone is divided into two, namely the defiled and the pure; combined with the preceding seven kinds, they therefore constitute nine consciousnesses.