Indian Non-Buddhist Tenets

The Source of the Tantras Tantra practice requires conviction in the authenticity of the tantras, correct understanding of their procedures and theory, and certainty of their validity as methods leading to enlightenment. According to the Tibetan tradition, Shakyamuni Buddha...

Introduction We’ve been going through, in summary, the main points of the sixteen chapters of Aryadeva’s Four Hundred Verse Treatise. And we saw that the first eight chapters speak about how to rid ourselves of incorrect views concerning conventional truth. And now we’re ready...

Introduction and Question about Concepts and Nonexistent Phenomena We started going through the second half of the text, the chapters that deal with voidness, (specifically the topic is refuting or overcoming the incorrect views regarding voidness and the deepest nature of how...

The Indian Tenet Systems on Rebirth, Liberation and a Creator In India, at both the time before and after the Buddha came, there were many systems of tenets. Within the Charvaka school of tenets, there's no acceptance of past lives and future lives. They assert that the mind...

Conceptual Cognition Furthermore, a conceptual cognition is a conceptually implying awareness that cognizes an audio (category) or meaning/object (category) as suitable to be associated (with each other). An audio category (sgra-spyi) is the category of the sound of a specific...

Once we have a little bit of an understanding of the twelve links of dependent arising and how our uncontrollably recurring rebirth, samsara, actually works, then we can focus with close placement of mindfulness on the feelings in terms of being the true origins of suffering....

There are many strategies for dealing with environmental issues, such as using renewable energy sources, reducing industrial and motor vehicle pollution, and so on, but another one that has perhaps received less publicity is the damaging effects of meat production. Reducing...

The topic for the panel discussion is a comparison between the approaches of theistic and nontheistic religions toward teaching their followers ethics as the foundation for taking social responsibility for the common good in general and, specifically for environmental...

Introduction One of the most important principles in Tibetan Buddhism is dependent arising. Nothing exists or can happen on its own without being related to and relying on other factors. Moreover, everything arises from a complex of many causes and circumstances; nothing...

Background This evening I’ve been asked to speak about the Samkhya and Nyaya schools that Buddhism refutes. We cannot refer to them as Hindu schools since Hinduism is a much more modern phenomenon that occurred in India after the period of time in which the monastic debates...