Yogācāra
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Yogācāra
Yogachara ( sa, योगाचार, IAST: '; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It is also variously termed ''Vijñānavāda'' (the doctrine of consciousness), ''Vijñaptivāda'' (the doctrine of ideas or percepts) or ''Vijñaptimātratā-vāda'' (the doctrine of 'mere representation'), which is also the name given to its major epistemic theory. There are several interpretations of this main theory; while often regarded as a kind of Idealism, critical scholars argue that it is closer to a kind of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology or representationalism, aimed at deconstructing the reification of our perceptions. According to Dan Lusthaus, this tradition developed "an elaborate psychological therapeutic system that mapped out the problems in cognition along wi ...
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Mahayana
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing branches of Buddhism (the other being ''Theravāda'' and Vajrayana).Harvey (2013), p. 189. Mahāyāna accepts the main scriptures and teachings of early Buddhism but also recognizes various doctrines and texts that are not accepted by Theravada Buddhism as original. These include the Mahāyāna Sūtras and their emphasis on the ''bodhisattva'' path and ''Prajñāpāramitā''. ''Vajrayāna'' or Mantra traditions are a subset of Mahāyāna, which make use of numerous tantric methods considered to be faster and more powerful at achieving Buddhahood by Vajrayānists. "Mahāyāna" also refers to the path of the bodhisattva striving to become a fully awakened Buddha (''samyaksaṃbuddha'') for the benefit of all sentient beings, and is thus als ...
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Buddhist Meditation
Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are '' bhāvanā'' ("mental development") and '' jhāna/dhyāna'' (mental training resulting in a calm and luminous mind). Buddhists pursue meditation as part of the path toward liberation from defilements ('' kleshas'') and clinging and craving (''upādāna''), also called awakening, which results in the attainment of Nirvana, and includes a variety of meditation techniques, most notably '' anapanasati'' (mindfulness of breathing). Other techniques include '' asubha bhavana'' ("reflections on repulsiveness");Deleanu, Florin (1992)Mindfulness of Breathing in the Dhyāna Sūtras Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan (TICOJ) 37, 42-57. reflection on '' pratityasamutpada'' (dependent origination); ''anussati'' (recollections, including ''anapanasati'') and ''sati'' (mindfulness), culminating in ''dhyana'' (develop ...
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Abhidharma
The Abhidharma are ancient (third century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist ''sutras''. It also refers to the scholastic method itself as well as the field of knowledge that this method is said to study. Bhikkhu Bodhi calls it "an abstract and highly technical systemization of the uddhistdoctrine," which is "simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation." According to Peter Harvey, the Abhidharma method seeks "to avoid the inexactitudes of colloquial conventional language, as is sometimes found in the Suttas, and state everything in psycho-philosophically exact language." In this sense, it is an attempt to best express the Buddhist view of "ultimate reality" (''paramartha-satya''). There are different types of Abhidharma literature. The early canonical Abhidharma works (like the '' Abhidhamma Pitaka'') are not phi ...
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Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist philosophy refers to the philosophical investigations and systems of inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in India following the parinirvana of The Buddha and later spread throughout Asia. The Buddhist path combines both philosophical reasoning and meditation.Siderits, Mark. Buddhism as philosophy, 2007, p. 6 The Buddhist traditions present a multitude of Buddhist paths to liberation, and Buddhist thinkers in India and subsequently in East Asia have covered topics as varied as phenomenology, ethics, ontology, epistemology, logic and philosophy of time in their analysis of these paths. Pre-sectarian Buddhism was based on empirical evidence gained by the sense organs ('' ayatana'') and the Buddha seems to have retained a skeptical distance from certain metaphysical questions, refusing to answer them because they were not conducive to liberation but led instead to further speculation. A recurrent theme in Buddhist philosophy has been the reificatio ...
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Asanga
Asaṅga (, ; Romaji: ''Mujaku'') ( fl. 4th century C.E.) was "one of the most important spiritual figures" of Mahayana Buddhism and the "founder of the Yogachara school".Engle, Artemus (translator), Asanga, ''The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment: A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhumi,'' Shambhala Publications, 2016, Translator's introduction.Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga, ''Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching,'' Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xiii. He was born in ''Puruṣapura'', modern day Peshawar, Pakistan. Traditionally, he and his half-brother Vasubandhu are regarded as the major classical Indian Sanskrit exponents of Mahayana Abhidharma, ''Vijñanavada'' (awareness only; also called ''Vijñaptivāda'', the doctrine of ideas or percepts, and ''Vijñaptimātratā-vāda'', the doctrine of 'mere representation)) thought and Mahayana teachings on the bodhisattva path. Biography According to later hagiogra ...
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Yoga
Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciousness untouched by the mind ('' Chitta'') and mundane suffering (''Duḥkha''). There is a wide variety of schools of yoga, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism,Stuart Ray Sarbacker, ''Samādhi: The Numinous and Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga''. SUNY Press, 2005, pp. 1–2.Tattvarthasutra .1 see Manu Doshi (2007) Translation of Tattvarthasutra, Ahmedabad: Shrut Ratnakar p. 102. and traditional and modern yoga is practiced worldwide. Two general theories exist on the origins of yoga. The linear model holds that yoga originated in the Vedic period, as reflected in the Vedic textual corpus, and influenced Buddhism; according to author Edward Fitzpatrick Crangle, this model is mainly supported by Hindu scholars. According ...
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Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majority regions surrounding the Himalayan areas of India (such as Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and a minority in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), in much of Central Asia, in the southern Siberian regions such as Tuva, and in Mongolia. Tibetan Buddhism evolved as a form of Mahāyāna Buddhism stemming from the latest stages of Indian Buddhism (which also included many Vajrayāna elements). It thus preserves many Indian Buddhist tantric practices of the post-Gupta early medieval period (500 to 1200 CE), along with numerous native Tibetan developments. In the pre-modern era, Tibetan Buddhism spread outside of Tibet primarily due to the influence of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), founded by Kublai Khan, which had ruled China, ...
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Śūnyatā
''Śūnyatā'' ( sa, wikt:शून्यता#Sanskrit, शून्यता, śūnyatā; pi, suññatā) pronounced in English as (shoon-ya-ta), translated most often as ''emptiness'', ''vacuity'', and sometimes ''voidness'', is a Buddhism, Buddhist concept which has multiple meanings depending on its doctrinal context. It is either an ontological feature of reality, a meditative state, or a phenomenological analysis of experience. In Theravada, Theravāda Buddhism, ''Suññatā'' often refers to the Anatta, non-self (Pāli: ''anattā'', Sanskrit: ''anātman'') nature of the Skandha, five aggregates of experience and the Āyatana, six sense spheres. ''Suññatā'' is also often used to refer to a Buddhist meditation, meditative state or experience. In Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhism, ''śūnyatā'' refers to the tenet that "all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature (''svabhava'')", but may also refer to the Buddha-nature teachings and primordial or empty awar ...
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Maitreya-nātha
Maitreya-nātha (c. 270–350 CE) is a name whose use was pioneered by Buddhist scholars Erich Frauwallner, Giuseppe Tucci, and Hakuju Ui to distinguish one of the three founders of the Yogacara school of Buddhist philosophy, along with Asanga and Vasubandhu. Some scholars believe this Maitreya to be a historical person in India. The traditions themselves have held that it is referring to Maitreya, the future buddha. Academic views Scholars are divided in opinion whether the name refers to a historical human teacher of Asaṅga or to the bodhisattva Maitreya. Frauwallner, Tucci and Ui proposed this as a possibility, while Eric Obermiller and Fyodor Shcherbatskoy doubted the historicity of this figure. Traditional view The Buddhist traditions themselves have always held that Asaṅga received the texts in question from Maitreya directly in the Tuṣita heaven. Asaṅga is said to have spent many years in intense meditation, during which time tradition says that he often visite ...
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Dan Lusthaus
Dan Lusthaus is an American writer on Buddhism. He is a graduate of Temple University's Department of Religion, and is a specialist in ''Yogācāra''. The author of several articles and books on the topic, Lusthaus has taught at UCLA, Florida State University, the University of Missouri, and in the Autumn of 2020 he was an Associate in the Department of South Asian Studies at Harvard University. Lusthaus also collaborated with Heng-ching Shih in the translation of Kuiji's (K'uei-chi) commentary on the Heart Sutra with the Numata translation project. Lusthaus is an editor for the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, in the area of Indian/East Asian ''Yogācāra''/''Tathāgatagarbha''. He contributed the contents of his catalogue of the major ''Yogācāra'' translations of ''Xuanzang'' to the DDB, as well as a number of other terms related to the ''Cheng Weishi Lun ''Cheng Weishi Lun'' (, CWSL, Sanskrit reconstruction: ''*Vijñapti-mātratā-siddhi'', English: ''The Demonstration of ...
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Sandhinirmocana Sutra
The ''Ārya-saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra'' (Sanskrit) or ''Noble sūtra of the Explanation of the Profound Secrets'' is a Mahāyāna Buddhist text and the most important sutra of the Yogācāra school. It contains explanations of key Yogācāra concepts such as the basal-consciousness (''ālaya-vijñāna''), the doctrine of appearance-only (''vijñapti-mātra'') and the "three own natures" (''trisvabhāva''). Étienne Lamotte considered this sutra "the link between the ''Prajñaparamita'' literature and the Yogācāra Vijñanavada school". This sūtra was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese four times, the most complete and reliable of which is typically considered to be that of Xuanzang. It also was translated into Tibetan. The original Sanskrit text has not survived to the present day. Nomenclature and etymology The ''Ārya-saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra'' (; ''Gongpa Ngédrel'') is variously romanized as ''Sandhinirmocana Sutra'' and ''Samdhinirmocana Sutra''. The full Sanskrit t ...
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Lambert Schmithausen
Lambert Schmithausen (born 17 November 1939 in Cologne, Germany) "On the Problem of the External World in the Ch'eng wei shih lun" Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies 2005 (''Studia Philologica Buddhica'', Occasional Paper Series). p. 67. is a retired professor of Buddhist Studies, having served in positions at the University of Münster and the University of Hamburg (Germany). He is one of the leading academics in the field. Biography Schmithausen received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1963. He was an associate professor of Indology at the University of Münster from 1970 to 1973, moving to the University of Hamburg from 1973 until his retirement in 2005. His main fields of research are the Yogacara tradition of Indian Buddhism and Buddhist ethics, particularly the ethics of nature. He was elected a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1995. Publications The following are publications by Lambert Schmit ...
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