The Foundations of Buddhism

The Abhidharma 221 dharmas, by the practice of the path. Critics of the Sarvastivadins objected that if 'possession' is a dharma ...

222 The Abhidharma no duration in time. It is in the light of this that we should under- stand the Abhidharma account of the twe ...

The Abhidharma 223 to a continuously present (but still always changing) underlying state of mind, which the Sautrantikas and la ...

9 The Mahayana The Great Vehicle The beginnings of the Mahayana The production of Buddhist siitras or texts claiming to be 'the ...

The Mahiiyiina 225 have for their existence is the late second century CE when a number of Mahayana siitras were translated into ...

226 The Mahiiyiina earliest is probably the A:ftasiihasrikii or 'Perfection of Wis- dom iii 8,ooo Lines'. The characteristic tea ...

The Mahayana 227 his meeting with a previous buddha, Dipmpkara. Megha could have chosen to become a disciple of Diparpkara and f ...

228 The Mahayana existence.^5 And the more this happens, the greater the opportun- ity for the suggestion that the attainments o ...

The Mahayana 229 From this perspective the difference between hznayiina and mahiiyiina is effectively the difference between pro ...

230 The Mahayana wisdom: he stills the mind by means of calm meditation and then turns the mind to insight. A new scheme of ten ...

The Mahiiyiina 231 The bodhisattva of these higher bhumis is a quite extraordinary being who works ceaselessly for the benefit o ...

232 The Mahiiyiina to exist in an ordinary sense means to be born as an individual being in a particular realm; Buddhas have pre ...

The Mahiiyiina 233 the enjoyment body is, again hardly what the Buddha ultimately is. What a buddha is in 'himself' is the dharm ...

234 The Mahayana continuation of the practice of the recollection and visualization of the Buddha and his qualities (buddhiinusm ...

The Mahayana 235 a few lines in length, was originally composed in Chinese and only subsequently rendered into Sanskrit.^23 In t ...

The Mahayana other theoretical systems. Perfect wisdom, however, is what see~ through the process of the mind's conceptual const ...

The Mahayana 237 'model' or map of the way things are. Like any model or map, it may be useful and indeed help us to understand ...

The Mahiiyiina philosophy. The Madhyamaka was to become one of the two great philosophical traditions of the Mahayana, but lest ...

The Mahiiyiina 239 teaching of the Buddha is that everything is empty of its own inherent existence. But Nagarjuna was quick to ...

The Mahayana In emptiness, then, Nagarjuna attempts to articulate very pre- cisely what he sees as the Buddha's teaching of depe ...