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Existence and Enlightenment in the Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra

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This book offers a systematic analysis of one of the most important concepts characterizing the Yogācāra School of Buddhism (the last creative stage of Indian Buddhism) as outlined and explained in one of its most authoritative and influential texts, Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra. Compiled in the second half of the fourth-century A.D., this sūtra not only represents a comprehensive synthesis of both early and late religio-philosophical ideas crucial to the understanding of Buddhism in India, but it also provides an insight into the very early roots of the Japanese Zen Buddhism in the heart of the South Asian esotericism.

The first part of the book outlines the three-fold nature of Being, as conceptualized in Buddhist metaphysics. The author uses an interpretive framework borrowed from the existentialist philosophy of Heidegger, in order to separate the transcendental Essence of Being from its Temporal manifestation as Self, and from its Spatial or Cosmic dimension. The second part clarifies the Buddhist approach to knowledge in its religious, transcendental sense and it shows that the Buddhists were actually first in making use of dialectical reasoning for the purpose of transcending the contradictory dualities imbedded in the common ways of perceiving, thinking, and arguing about reality. (Source: SUNY Press)

Citation	Sutton, Florin Giripescu. Existence and Enlightenment in the Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra: A Study in the Ontology and Epistemology of the Yogācāra School of Mahāyāna Buddhism. SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. https://archive.org/details/lankavatarafgsuttonexistenceandenlightenmentinthelankavatarasutraastudyintheonto_202003_621_R/mode/2up.

Contents

• Forewordxiii
• Prefacexv
  
  

Introduction

• 0.1. The Purpose of the Study, and the Significance of the
         Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra within Buddhist Doctrinal History1
• 0.2. Dating the Text: Problems of Form and Interpretation13
• 0.3. Methodology and Outline of the Study23
  
  

Part One: Concepts of Being

• 1.0. The Nature of Buddhist Ontology39
•        General considerations * The practical aim of the Yogācāra Philosophy
• 1.1. The Threefold Meaning of Tathāgata-garbha and its
         Relation to Ālaya-vijñāna: the Essence of Being51
•        Preliminary considerations * Tathagāta-garbha as essential, supramundane,
         pure dharma, and its contrast with the Hindu Ātman * Tathagata-garbha
         as embryo, and the dynamics of Buddhahood * Tathāgata-garbha
         as womb or matrix of Buddhahood * Conclusion
• 1.2. The Five Skandhas: the Temporal Manifestation of Being79
         Introduction * Brief overview of the Ātman controversy prior to the
         Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra * Rūpa, or the formative elements of the five Skandhas
         * Nāma, or the formless elements of the five Skandhas * The Skandhas and
         the empirical self, or personality * The Skandhas and the trans-empirical
         Self, the Tathāgata * The five Skandhas and the denial of metaphysical
         dualities * Concluding remarks on the notion of Self and its varieties
  
• 1.3. Dharmadhātu: the Spatial or Cosmic Dimension of Being117
         Introductory remarks * Dharmādhatu as cosmic Law: the fundamental
         structure of the universe * Dharmādhatu as universal Void: the ground
         of Being * Concluding observations
  
  

Part Two: Concepts of Knowing

• 2.0. Buddhist Epistemology, Buddhist Dialectics135
         Truth, untruth, half-truth, "the truth" * The tetralemma logic: a thousand
         years of Buddhist dialectics * The early use of the tetralemma in the
         Pāli canon * Rationality and irrationality in Nāgārjuna's relativistic logic
         * Epistemology in the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra: a radical critique of language,
         logic, and knowledge * Conclusions and preview of part two
  
• 2.1. The Epistemological Reduction of the Citta-mātra (Mind-only) Doctrine169
•        Preliminary considerations * Citta as the empirical mind
         * Citta as the transcendental Mind * Citta-mātra as explanation for the
         triple world (Tribhava) * Concluding words and the connection between
         Laṅkāvatāra and Zen

• 2.2. From Mind to No-mind: the Transcendental Leap beyond Empirical
         Cognition209
         * Introduction * The five Dharmas or epistemic categories * The three
         Svabhāvas or modes of cognition * The attainment of Āryajñāna:
         transcendental Wisdom or Gnosis * Concluding remarks
  
• 2.3. The Conjunctive System of the Eight Vijñānas: the Integration of Both Mind
         and No-mind States of Consciousness237
         * Introductory remarks * Jñāna and Vijñāna: abstract intuition versus
         concrete knowledge * Khyāti- and Vastuprativikalpa-vijñāna:
         the perceptual and the object discriminating knowledge * The inner
         revolution (Parāvṛtti): the return to the tranquil state of
         pure consciousness (Ālaya-vijñāna) * Conclusion
  
• 2.4. The Disjunctive Theory of Causation: Things are Neither this, Nor that,
         for They Are All Subject to Causes and Conditions (Hetu-pratyaya)261
         * Introduction * The expansion of the relevance of causation: from the
         psychological to the cosmic-philosophical principle * Causation as a
         possible theoretical basis for a monistic view of the world * Causation as a
         teaching device * Excursus: highlighting Nāgārjuna's thought in respect to
         causation * The soteriological value of the theory of causation
         * Concluding observations
  
  

• 3.0 Final Overview287
•        Appendix295
•        Notes323
•        Bibliography357
•        Index365