Summary
Ālaya-vijñāna, usually translated ‘storehouse consciousness’, is the Yogācāra Buddhist idea of a base layer of mind beneath everyday awareness. It holds the ‘seeds’ (bīja) left by past actions, which ripen into later experience. The idea took shape in India between roughly 100 and 400 CE, in texts such as the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and the writings of Asaṅga and his half-brother Vasubandhu. In the Stanford Encyclopedia’s summary, the storehouse is “constantly replenished”, because every morally significant action creates new seeds.
The concept belongs to a path of liberation: it explains karma and rebirth, and practice aims to transform the store. In our time Thích Nhất Hạnh has taught it widely.
Rationale
Named in Part 1, with a warning: “Simply naming them here doesn’t convey the fullness of their meaning.” Its seeds, laid by repeated action, resemble our cultural habits, though the aim here is liberation.