Are we the same Alaya-vijnana throughout all our lifetimes?

Question: Master, the eighth consciousness, or ālayavijñāna, is the first to enter the womb at conception, and the last to depart when we transition to our next rebirth. So is it the same ālayavijñāna throughout all our lifetimes? Venerable Master Jingjie answers: How does the ālayavijñāna function? It is constantly conditioned by the imprints of our actions! Every time you are reborn, you have a lifespan of some length, don’t you? It could be a few days, a few years, or even a few decades. During that life, you will inevitably engage in physical, verbal, and mental activity. Every time you act, the eighth consciousness begins to absorb these karmic imprints. So it is impossible for your ālayavijñāna to stay exactly the same across lifetimes — that simply cannot be. It is constantly taking in new imprints. I’m not even referring to differences across lifetimes: your ālayavijñāna today is already different from what it was yesterday. Just one day makes a difference. That’s the first point. Second, why are we unable to remember our past lives after we are born? In fact, your ālayavijñāna holds countless karmic seeds. Your current life is only a tiny fraction of these seeds that have ripened and come to fruition. That’s why those with abundant good fortune often struggle to cultivate the mind of renunciation: they are easily deceived by the pleasant conditions of their present life, and assume that their lives will be just as good for all their past and future lifetimes. This is why they easily fall into eternalist views (the mistaken belief that a fixed, permanent self exists across all lifetimes). I want to remind all of you: this current life of yours may very well be the best life you have had across all your infinite lifetimes. This is true. You may have been reborn in the three lower realms countless times in the past, but you have forgotten all of that. You just happened to “draw” the most favorable portion of your karmic load for this life. This lifetime is only a tiny fraction of your infinite store of karmic seeds. The Buddha used the analogy of a water bubble to illustrate this: consider the vast ocean — a single water bubble is just a minuscule part of all that water. Do not place too much faith in this present life! It is only a tiny fragment of your countless past and future lives. You must not be deceived by the circumstances of your current life, especially those of you with abundant good fortune. The Buddha taught us to cultivate the contemplation of impermanence. This is because your karmic imprints have no inherent, fixed connection to one another. The good fortune you experience in this life may stem from the karmic merit you created in a past life by observing the five precepts and practicing the ten wholesome deeds — whether that merit was of superior, middle, or inferior grade, that karmic result simply manifests now. As for the seventh consciousness’s clinging — its attachment to a self, you see? — this clinging is very distinct: it does not grasp at the past or the future. It only clings to the present life. That is why it cannot carry over a concept of self from a past life. The seventh consciousness is extremely focused: it latches onto whatever rebirth you take and whatever karmic fruit you experience. So the seventh consciousness adopts the identity of whatever it is attached to: when you are an ant, it forms the sense of self of an ant; when you become a king, the seventh consciousness takes the king as its self. All of these conditions are constantly in flux, which is why the Buddha taught the principle of no-self: there is no permanent, unchanging entity anywhere. Outline of Yogacara Studies