Chittamatra

Introduction [As background, see: The Two Truths: Vaibhashika and Sautrantika] The Tibetans study four tenet systems (grub-mtha’) of Indian Buddhism. Among them, Vaibhashika (bye-brag smra-ba) and Sautrantika (mdo-sde-pa) are Hinayana systems – specifically, subdivisions of...

Introduction  Concerning the life of Tsongkhapa, one of the most important points is what a great revolutionary Tsongkhapa was. Through all his tremendous efforts in meditation and preliminary practices building up positive force and so on, he gained a newer and deeper...

This evening, we shall be beginning a seminar on what does karma actually mean in terms of Vasubandhu and Nagarjuna’s presentations. This is an extremely important topic, since karma is one of the things that we need to overcome. We need to rid ourselves completely of it so...

Atomic Particles Among forms of physical phenomena are atomic particles (rdul-phran). Although atomic particles do not exist as external phenomena; nevertheless, visible objects, such as clay vases, are made of them. Unlike the Vaibhashika and Sautrantika assertion of atomic...

Introduction When we speak about the two truths in Chittamatra and the other Mahayana schools, we’re not talking about two different types of true phenomenon, we’re going to talk about the true truths. But speaking about the two truths that are descriptive of all phenomena,...

Formulation of the Topic for Analysis  In Buddhism, a temporal interval is what we’re speaking about when we talk about time; it’s an interval between the occurrence of a cause and the occurrence of an effect. What is most common in Buddhism (and what all Buddhist tenet...

Unawareness of How We Exist and Disturbing Emotions  We are talking about the self, “me,” how we exist and how we establish that we exist. This is a very crucial question that is asked in Buddhism. When we are unaware of how we and everyone exists, when either we don’t know or...

We’ve been speaking in depth about mental appearances or holograms that arise in both non-conceptual and conceptual cognition, and we’ve seen that it’s rather complex. Before we go any further, perhaps it might be a good thing to ask if you’ve understood at least something...

An in-depth examination of the Gelug understanding of the Chittamatra (Mind-Only) assertion of the voidness of forms of physical phenomena, when objects of non-conceptual sensory cognition, deriving from a different natal source than do the consciousness and accompanying...

The basic features of the Gelug presentation of the Chittamatra system according to the textbook tradition of the 16th-century master Jetsun Chokyi Gyaltsen, followed by Ganden Jangtse and Sera Je Monasteries.