Tag Archives: manovijñāna

The Lanka’s Nirvana

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Vajragoni

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 throughout the sutra. This is largely a compilation from the Complete Lanka and Discussion as found in our library. read more

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A further look at the Vijñānas

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Vajragoni

The Sagathakam posits numerous statements concerning the Vijñānas, as does the Lanka as a whole. Doing a search here at Unborn Mind Zen you will discover a rich source of connotations concerning the vijnanic system. This blog offers a further observation through the lens of hermeneutics. Florin Giripescu Sutton in his monumental work, Existence and Enlightenment in the Lankavatara Sutra, makes reference to a paper by Edward Hamlin entitled, Discourse in the Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, Journal of Indian Philosophy 11 (1983): 267-313. For a good treatment of Sutton’s work as well as a great technical breakdown of the Vijñānas, see The Complete Lanka and Discussion, available in our Unborn Mind Library. But for now the focus is on Hamlin’s paper with his hermeneutical treatment of the vijñānas. He begins by elucidating: read more

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Svabhāva

Posted on December 5, 2018 by Vajragoni
  1. (Chapter II verse 156) [Cleary]: This world is representation, made of names, not there as it appears.  The clusters are makers of optical illusions imagined by the naïve.

I Like Cleary’s description here of the skandhas as “clusters”. Suzuki’s translation says that the skandhas are like a “hair-net wherein discrimination goes on”; Cleary refers to this as being akin to an optical-illusion maker. We are indeed just made-up like clusters of an active imagination—just naïve and complacent dupes of our Skandhic-Overlords. read more

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