user295: The answeres to the following question: Is the Ocean Samadhi a metaphor or an actual meditation? implply there are 8 types of conciousness in Chinese Buddhism. What are these? How did they originate? Is this there a common text with Theravada which is cited deriving or rationalising this?

user2282: From the wiki page:

All surviving schools of buddhist thought accept – "in common" – the existence of the first six primary consciousnesses (Sanskrit: vijñāna, Tibetan: རྣམ་ཤེས་, Wylie: rnam-shes).1 The internally coherent Yogācāra school associated with Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu, however, uniquely – or "uncommonly" – also posits the existence of two additional primary consciousnesses, kliṣṭamanas and ālayavijñāna, in order to explain the workings of karma.[2] The first six of these primary consciousnesses comprise the five sensory faculties together with mental consciousness, which is counted as the sixth. 


295: <p>The answeres to the following question: <a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/13686/is-the-ocean-samadhi-a-metaphor-or-an-actual-meditation">Is the Ocean Samadhi a metaphor or an actual meditation?</a> implply there are 8 types of conciousness in Chinese Buddhism. What are these? How did they originate? Is this there a common text with Theravada which is cited deriving or rationalising this?</p>
 2282: <p>From the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Consciousnesses" rel="nofollow">wiki</a> page:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>All surviving schools of buddhist thought accept – "in common" – the existence of the first six primary consciousnesses (Sanskrit: vijñāna, Tibetan: རྣམ་ཤེས་, Wylie: rnam-shes).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Consciousnesses" rel="nofollow">1</a> The internally coherent Yogācāra school associated with Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu, however, uniquely – or "uncommonly" – also posits the existence of two additional primary consciousnesses, kliṣṭamanas and ālayavijñāna, in order to explain the workings of karma.[2] The first six of these primary consciousnesses comprise the five sensory faculties together with mental consciousness, which is counted as the sixth. </p>
</blockquote>
