Sautrantika

The Meaning of “Mind” in Buddhism I’ve been asked to come here this weekend to teach about appearances (snang-ba), how the mind makes appearances and the various problems that are associated with that. This is not a very simple topic, because in fact all our problems come...

Historical Introduction The Buddhist teachings on cognition theory and logic derive from the works of the late 5th-century Indian master Dignaga and of Dharmakirti, the late-6th century disciple of his disciple. Dignaga wrote A Compendium of Validly Cognizing Minds (Tshad-ma...

Introduction  When we look at the concept of the self in Buddhism, we need to analyze it from the points of view of the four schools of the Indian tenet systems. We’re going to refine our understanding further and further as we work our way through these schools. When we speak...

The two truths are a quite complex and deep topic within the sphere of Buddhism and I would like to try to present them in a practical way, trying to indicate that these are not just a topic of intellectual interest, but of practical use. We are aiming in Buddhist practice to...

The founding of the Sautrantika tenet system is attributed to Kumaralata (Skt. Kumāralāta) (aka Kumaralabdha, Skt. Kumāralabdha) in the late first century CE. He rejected the Sarvastivada abhidharma sources in favor of relying exclusively on the Sarvastivada sutras. His views...

Introduction Our topic for this weekend is “ways of knowing” or lorig in Tibetan. This is a very helpful topic because it deals with how we know anything, how we know that what we know is correct, and how we know that it is decisive. It very much affects how we proceed on the...

How a Mental Urge, and Not a Revealing Form, Functions as a Karmic Impulse for Actions of the Body  Vasubandhu explains in A Discussion for the Establishment of Karma (Las-grub-pa’i rab-tu byed-pa, Skt. Karmasiddhiprakaraṇa) (Derge vol. 136, 144B): Suppose (Vaibhashika) asks,...

Decisive Determination and Apprehension A decisive determination (nges-shes, determining cognition) is a cognition that ascertains (nges-pa) its own object (rang-yul) correctly by decisively cutting it off from incorrect interpolations (sgro-’dogs bcad-pa) that it is something...

Review We’ve been speaking about appearances and how the mind is involved with that. We’ve seen that when we speak about appearances, we’re speaking about something that appears to the mind and has a deep relationship with mind. And when we speak about mind, we’re speaking...

Mental Holograms in Non-Conceptual Cognition In sensory non-conceptual cognition, an external object (phyi-don) casts (gtod) a mental aspect (rnam-pa) – or mental impression, mental image – of itself on the sensory consciousness that cognizes it. Mental aspects or images are...