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Author Archives: Vajragoni
Nāgārjuna’s Nirvana

Nāgārjuna’s stance on Nirvana is best illustrated in his Magnum Opus, The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. In Sanskrit it is translated as “Root Verses on the Middle Way”. The work is comprised of 448 verses in twenty-seven chapters. Chapter twenty-five is on Nirvana. … Continue reading
Posted in Nirvana
Tagged antinomies, Ens, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nagarjuna, tetralemma
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Nirvana in the Dharmakaya Sutra

As a great buildup to the Dharmakaya as the Nirvanic Kingdom of Self found in the Dharmakaya Sutra, we first need to review The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra (Nirvana Sutra). When first asked what is meant by Nirvana, The Blessed One responds with … Continue reading
The Lanka’s Nirvana

As a quick reference, the abridged version of the Lankavatara Sutra as found in the Buddhist Bible, Chapter XIII, offers a general overview of the Lanka’s take on Nirvana. Our Study will offer here a more extensive treatment as covered … Continue reading
Posted in Nirvana
Tagged Four kinds of Nirvana, icchantika, itaretara, manovijñāna, MEANING, nirvana, Samadhi Mayopama, samsara, Tozen
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School Days

This blog will overview Nirvana as seen through the lens of the various Buddhist schools. This snapshot is a quick summary: ibid, pg.67 Two of the early schools are the Sarvāstivāda and Vaibhāṣika, the latter being a continuation of the … Continue reading
Posted in Nirvana
Tagged apratiṣṭhitanirvāṇa, Mādhyamika, Mahāyānasaṃgraha, Sarvāstivāda, Sautrāntikas, schools, Vaibhāṣika, Yogācāras
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Nirvana: Early Foundations

The early formulations of Nirvana hinges upon primary ideations of what constitutes life after death. Materialists would not even consider notions of what happens to the corporeal frame after the life cycle ended. For them all life simply ceases to … Continue reading
Posted in Nirvana
Tagged Absolute Quiescence, eternalists, nirvana, samadhi, samāpatti, Yoga
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Coming in November: Nirvana

Nirvana is more often than not misconstrued within Buddhist circles. It is merely discernable as “marking the end of rebirth by stilling the fires that keep the process of rebirth going.” This has much to do with the early Prakrit … Continue reading
Splendor in the Grass

This blog calls for special introductory material. Wordsworth himself wrote concerning his Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood: To that dream-like vividness and splendor which invest objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he … Continue reading
Posted in Wordsworth and Zen
Tagged Coleridge, Ode, priorness, splendor in the grass
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A Gathering of Leeches

Wordsworth’s poem Resolution and Independence does not utilize nature as a major theme, but as a backdrop highlighting those vexations that haunt the human consciousness. It employs what is known as a group of twenty septets with the rhyme scheme … Continue reading
A Westward Reaping Shall We Go

The idea of the west is fertile in the poetic imagination: To the ancient Greeks, from, Odysseus onward, the West was the place of the Hesperides, those mystical islands located at the furthest western boundary of knowledge, where the golden … Continue reading
Dark Workmanship

Wordsworth’s magnum opus, The Prelude, recounts the circumstances surrounding the growth of the poet’s mind involving elements of the natural world, the sense of how his own powers of imagination interacted with that realm, and the transcendent element that arises … Continue reading