One of the main features of Yogācāra philosophy is the concept of vijñapti-mātra. It is often used interchangeably with the term citta-mātra, but they have different meanings. The standard translation of both terms is "consciousness-only" or "mind-only." It is believed, the earliest surviving appearance of this term is in chapter 8 of the Saṅdhi-nirmocana Sūtra, which has only survived in Tibetan and Chinese translations.

Yogācāra gives a detailed explanation of the workings of the mind and the way it constructs the reality we experience. One of the most famous innovations of the Yogācāra School was the doctrine of 8 consciousnesses. These "8 bodies of consciousnesses" (aṣṭa vijñāna-kāyāḥ) are: a) the 5 sense-consciousnesses, b) citta (mentality), c) manas (self-consciousness), d) the storehouse or substratum consciousness (Skt: ālaya-vijñāna). The 8th consciousness,

All things which can be known can be subsumed under these 3 Natures. Since this schema is Yogācāra's systematic explanation of the Buddhist doctrine of Emptiness (śūnyatā), each of the 3 natures are also explained as having a lack of own-nature (niḥsvabhāvatā). Vasubandhu's Tri-svabhāva-nirdeśa gives a brief definition of these 3 natures: "What appears is the dependent. How it appears is the fabricated.

An explanation of the Buddhist doctrine of Karma (action) is central to Yogācāra, and the school sought to explain important questions - such as how moral actions can have effects on individuals long after that action was done, that is, how karmic causality works across temporal distances. In the Yogācāra system, all experience without exception is said to result from karma or mental intention (cetanā), */ */

The main source for the yogic and meditative practices of the Yogācāra School is the encyclopaedic Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra (YBh, Treatise on the Foundation for Yoga Practitioners). The YBh presents a structured exposition of the Mahāyāna Buddhist path of yoga (here referring to spiritual practice in general) from a Yogācāra perspective and relies in both Āgama/Nikāya texts and Mahāyāna sūtras while also being influenced by Vaibhāṣika Abhidharma.

Yogācāra philosophy's systematic exposition owes much to Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. Little is known of these figures, but traditional hagiographies state that Asaṅga received Yogācāra teachings from the Bodhisattva and future Buddha, Maitreya: Accounts of this are given in the writings of Paramārtha (6th century) and Xuanzang, who reports that important texts like the Mahāyāna-sūtra-alaṁkāra and the Madhyānta-vibhāga are divinely revealed from Maitreya.

Classical Yogācāra thinkers like Asaṅga and Vasubandhu criticized Mādhyamikas who "adhere to non-existence" (Nāstikas) because they saw them as straying into nihilism. They held that there was really something which could be said to "exist", vijñapti, and that was what is described as being "Empty" in their system. The position that Yogācāra and Mādhyamika were in dialectic was expounded by Xuanzang in the 7th century:

Some of the earliest Yogācāra material can be found in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, such as the doctrines of ālaya-vijñāna and āśraya-parāvṛtti: This text, a massive encyclopaedic work on yogic praxis, is traditionally attributed to Asaṅga (4th century) or Maitreya, but most scholars believe it contains the work of many authors, and its components reflect various stages of historical development. Asaṅga's brother Vasubandhu is also Yogācāra figure.