Latent Impressions and Tendencies (Saṃskāra & Vāsanā)

Every experience and action, the tradition holds, leaves a subtle imprint on the mind — a saṃskāra. These traces accumulate into vāsanās, the ingrained dispositions and cravings that quietly shape how one perceives, reacts, and chooses, often without one's knowing. They are the mechanism behind habit and character, and, on a longer arc, behind rebirth: the unspent traces of past lives sprout as the tendencies of the next. Liberation requires not only right knowledge but the wearing-away of these deep-laid impressions.