Buddhist Philosophy

New snippets that I have "captured" from the book.

Two extremes to be avoided: life of pleasure and life of self-torture

Rejection of the idea that there is an underlying identity or essential self passing from one lifetime to another

We do occasionally experience a state of happiness but they never last

Everything is impermanent and this prevents permanent contentment

Sentient beings are subject to an incessant cycle of rebirths, there is a way out and this is the attainment of liberation (moksa)

Does not accept reincarnation though it does postulate a continuous series of rebirths so long as ignorance and selfish desires perpetuate the cycle

Swinging a torch around at a rapid rate creates an illusion of a circle of light

Sentient existence is like a flowing river, ongoing process of changing evens and not a fixed or static state of being

Five bundles of fire sticks to illustrate what is going on as we experience something

All five sticks are alight with lust and desire. Although there is no abiding-self, we cannot deny the reality of our experience.

Five fire sticks are:
Material form- the material giveness of experience
Sensation- the initial sensory apprehension of forms
Cognition- the determinate classification of experience
Disposition- the volitional response that colours experience
Consciousness- awareness of the six sensory ranges

The five bundles are then continually undergoing transformation and do not constitute a persisting or abiding self of any kind.

All five bundles are inter-connected and mutually condition each other.

There is however, causal continuity between past, present and future. And throughout our mental and physical lives.

Sautranitika philosophy – karmic seeds are produced by actions and exist within specific streams of consciousness that bear fruit at a later time.

Sentient experience is a continuity of transformations of consciousness caused by the fruition of the seeds of previous actions.

Indian Mahayana school: Yogacara school, increasing emphasis upon skills-in-means as a salvation of beings

Six types of consciousness-event, arise as a result of the contact of the six sense-organs

Coordinated by a seventh- centralizing and organizing faculty of the mind. Processes all sensory data and creates a coherent picture of reality

Unless one has attained enlightenment, the mind is afflicted with defilements and constructs a false picture of reality, conditioned by individual procliviuties, attachments and karmic seeds.

Unenlightened beings construct a false picture as consisting of enduring subjects and objects which they superimpose onto their experiences

Inherent tendency to reify experience

Yogacara path is an exercise in phenomenological reductionism by relinquishing the language of subject and object one apprehends the bare awareness itself, devoid of the baggage of conceptual thought. Involves giving up deeply ingrained distinctions