MIND ONLY

The Yogacara or Idealist School of Buddhism moved beyond sunyata, or emptiness.  They held that only mind exists, and that the objects of its thought are ideas only. 

If this is so, though, how does one mind with its own ideas share the everyday world with other minds, they were asked.  Their answer was that there is a reservoir or store of perceptions on which all minds draw. 

This reservoir they said is called "the consciousness that holds all" or "the receptacle consciousness," the technical term for which is Alaya-vijnana.  This "consciousness" is the storehouse of all ideas, a kind of cosmic all-mind. 

An earlier description of this consciousness was Absolute Suchness, or Bhutatathata, meaning "that which is such as it is."  Absolute Suchness is pure and at rest, the "oneness of the totality of things."  To identify oneself with it is to be in Nirvana.

Yogacara's "mind only" was to have great influence on later Buddhism.