Types of Phenomena

Preface Among the Tibetans, the Buddhist monasteries have traditionally been the great centers of learning. The educational system followed by many of them, such as Ganden, Sera and Drepung of the Gelug tradition, is modeled on that introduced more than a thousand years ago...

The varying traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, and different scholars within each tradition, present a wide array of explanations of affirmation phenomena (sgrub-pa, affirmingly known phenomena, affirmations) and negation phenomena (dgag-pa, negatingly known phenomena,...

[For further detail, see: The Nature of Time as a Temporal Interval. See also: A Buddha's Knowledge of the Past, Present and Future] This evening I’ve been asked to speak about the topic of karma, specifically in relation to the issue of free will versus determinism. When we...

Origins The Vaisheshika (bye-brag-pa) school of Indian philosophy bases itself on The Sutra of Particulars (Skt. Vaisheshika Sutra) by the sage Kanadi (Drang-srong gZegs-zan), as commented on in the 5th century CE by Prashastapada. The slightly later Nyaya (rigs-can-pa) school...

Origins The Samkhya (grangs-can-pa) school of Indian philosophy traces itself from the ancient sage Kapila (Drang-srong Ser-skya), author of The Numbered Items Sutra (Samkhya Sutra). This sutra, however, was compiled only in the 14th century CE. The earliest Samkhya text to...

In the discussion of ways of knowing things and the objects that are known, we touched on the division between conceptual and non-conceptual cognition, and these points introduce us into the topic of what’s called generalities (spyi) and particulars or instances (bye-brag)....

Introduction We are going to begin our discussion of Buddhist metaphysics. This is a large topic which covers an enormous amount of material, and all of this material is quite difficult; it is very complex, with many, many different items that are involved. But I think the...

Fine Points about Categories There was an interesting question Ulla brought up this morning that I thought about. That is: how do we know a double negative? We were speaking in terms of specifiers. How do you know that something is not anything other than itself? Let’s say...

We started our discussion of conceptual cognition last time and I asked you to think of a dog and examine: what is it that appears? Did you think of all dogs in general? Or did a mental picture of a specific dog come to your mind? Answer please. My dog. So, a specific...

The Six Types of Causes According to Vasubandhu Causes (rgyu, Skt. hetu) bring about the production or arising of something. Conditions (rkyen, pratyaya) help shape the identity of what is produced or arises. According to the Vaibhashika presentation, as explained in...