Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva, Shantideva says,
An ordinary person looking at external objects
Believes them to be genuine and true,
While the yogin sees them as magical illusion:
That is why yogins and laymen disagree.The many religious schools of this world, whether Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, or
Muslim, the great scientists who analyze the nature of things, and the atheists too
do not argue about whether things are perceived or not. If things cannot be
perceived, then there is nothing to argue about; if what is seen is the same to all,
then no argument arises. But they do argue. Each school has its own opinion about
the origin and nature of appearances. They argue whether appearances are
determined by the objective or the subjective aspect and whether the appearances
we perceive in the moment coincide with the actuality. The argument is about the
cause of external appearances, about who or what produces those appearances.
“Scientists”—rational, Western intellectuals—need to examine the different
philosophical opinions determined by divergent views about how appearances are
perceived. Everyone can accept that the nature of appearances is what is disputed
and is the necessary focus of examination. The belief that appearances are
nonexistent contradicts common sense, since if they did not exist, all putatively
perceptible, material things would be like space. The crucial question that
scientists must address is whether the object that appearances depend upon is
truly existent or not. The answer necessarily must always be “No object upon
which any appearance may depend has a true existence!” as explained above.
1.10 THE WAYS OF ESTABLISHING THE UNREAL WORLD AS MAGICAL ILLUSION IN THE DIFFERENT
LEVELS OF APPROACH
Even the early Buddhist Relativist (Vaibhashika) and Traditionalist (Sautrantika)
schools accepted that gross phenomena like mountains, houses, and so forth, exist
only as imputation. According to them, what we perceive, speak, or do—both mind
and mental functions—are fictional truths: whatever is established by the
application of gross labels is considered to be fictional and illusory. But they also
believe that there are basic particles that are not just nominal imputation but have
actual substantial existence—that are ultimately real. An instant of consciousness,
for example, is deemed to be a discrete indivisible entity, and therefore an
ultimate truth.
The Mahayana Mind-Only school (Chittamatra) holds that, primordially, the
appearance of all things has been determined by the various habitual imprints
upon the basic ground of being of the mind’s positive and negative thoughts.
Gradually, the power of habitual tendencies increases and the entire world with its
various beings appears. They do not assert that collections of atoms are the basis of
reality as in the Relativist and Traditionalist schools. Such atoms cannot withstand
analysis, as Asanga points out in The Thirty Stanzas,