Peeling back experience like layers of an onion, the Lankavatara Sutra maps out eight distinct consciousnesses that underpin every moment of awareness. First come the six sense streams—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind consciousness—each registering sights, sounds, aromas, flavors, tactile sensations and mental phenomena. These are familiar territory in both ancient and modern psychology.

Beneath them lies the seventh layer, manas or the defiled mental consciousness, which fixates on a “self” and spins dualities of “I” versus “other.” Think of it as that relentless narrator in a Netflix docuseries, always framing events around its own point of view. This ego-clinging faculty distorts raw sensory data into stories of separation and craving.

The real showstopper is the eighth consciousness, ālayavijñāna, often called the “storehouse” or “ground” consciousness. It functions like a hidden treasure trove—or in today’s parlance, a cloud server—where karmic seeds and latent impressions accumulate. Every thought, word or action plants potentialities here, ready to sprout into fresh experiences. No wonder contemporary neuroscience is captivated by parallels between memory encoding and this age-old model.

Within Yogācāra’s “mind-only” framework, the outer world unfolds as a projection of these eight layers. External events mirror inner patterns: social-media algorithms feeding biased content echo manas’s craving for confirmation, while buried traumas surface through dreams, tapping into the storehouse’s vault.

In light of climate rallies and global protests, this blueprint offers a timely reminder: shifting collective behavior starts with transforming the undercurrents of consciousness. By purifying manas—loosening its grip on “self”—and cultivating insight into the storehouse’s workings, practitioners align with Buddha-nature’s boundless clarity. The Sutra doesn’t just analyze mind; it points toward liberation, showing how every stream of awareness can be transmuted from distortion into wisdom.