This is the story of fifth century CE India, when the Yogacarin Buddhists tested the awareness of unawareness, and became aware of human unawareness to an extraordinary degree. They not only explicitly differentiated this dimension of mental processes from conscious cognitive processes, but also offered reasoned arguments on behalf of this dimension of mind. This is the concept of the 'Buddhist unconscious', which arose just as philosophical discourse in other circles was fiercely debating the limits of conscious awareness, and these ideas in turn had developed as a systematisation of teachings from the Buddha himself. For us in the twenty-first century, these teachings connect in fascinating ways to the Western conceptions of the 'cognitive unconscious' which have been elaborated in the work of Jung and Freud. This important study reveals how the Buddhist unconscious illuminates and draws out aspects of current western thinking on the unconscious mind. One of the most intriguing connections is the idea that there is in fact no substantial 'self' underlying all mental activity; 'the thoughts themselves are the thinker'. William S. Waldron considers the implications of this radical notion, which, despite only recently gaining plausibility, was in fact first posited 2,500 years ago.

Tathagatagarbha -- Buddha Nature -- is a central concept of Mahayana Buddhism crucial to all the living practice traditions of Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. Its relationship to the concept of emptiness has been a subject of controversy for seven hundred years. Dr. Hookam's work investigates the divergent interpretations of these concepts and the way the Tibetan tradition is resolving them. In particular she does this with reference to the only surviving Indian commentary on the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, the Ratnagotravibhaga. This text addresses itself directly to the issue of how to relate the doctrine of emptiness (the illusory nature of the world) to that of the truly existing, changeless Absolute (the Buddha Nature). This is the first work by a Western writer to present an analysis of the Shentong tradition based on previously untranslated sources. The Shentong view rests on meditative experience that is inaccessible to the conceptualizing mind. It is deeply rooted in the sutra tradition of Indian Buddhism and is central to an understanding of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions and Tantric practice among Kagyupas and Hyingmapas.

Yogacara is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology that stems from the early Indian Mahayana Buddhist tradition. The Yogacara view is based on the fundamental truth that there is nothing in the realm of human experience that is not interpreted by and dependent upon the mind. Yogacara Buddhism was unable to sustain the same level of popularity as other Buddhist schools in India, Tibet, and East Asia, but its teachings on the nature of consciousness profoundly impacted the successive developments of Buddhism. Yogacara served as the basis for the development of the doctrines of karma and liberation in many other schools. In this refreshingly accessible study, Tagawa Shun'ei makes sense of Yogacara's subtleties and complexities with insight and clarity. He shows us that Yogacara masters comprehend and express everyday experiences that we all take for granted, yet struggle to explain. Eloquent and approachable, Living Yogacara deepens the reader's understanding of the development of Buddhism's interpretation of the human psyche.

The foundational teachings of Buddhism—presented here in volume one of Chögyam Trungpa's magnum opus, which offers a systematic overview of the entire path of Tibetan Buddhism This three-volume collection presents in lively, relevant language the comprehensive teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist path of the hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana. Considered Chögyam Trungpa’s masterpiece, The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma will resonate with new and senior students of Buddhism. Chögyam Trungpa begins his study by presenting the teachings of the hinayana. The hinayana introduces core Buddhist teachings on the nature of mind, the practice of meditation, the reality of suffering, and the possibility of liberation. It examines the nature of suffering, impermanence, and egolessness, with an emphasis on personal development through meditative discipline and study. The formal entry into the hinayana and the Buddhist path altogether is the refuge vow, in which a student goes for refuge to the Buddha, or the teacher; the dharma, or the teachings; and the sangha, or the community. The hinayana path is based on training in mindfulness and awareness, cultivating virtue, and cutting grasping. Topics covered in detail in this volume include the four noble truths, karma, the four foundations of mindfulness, meditation practice, the refuge vows, the three jewels, the five skandhas, the five precepts, twofold egolessness, and more.

One of the fundamental tenets of Mahayana Buddhism animating and grounding the doctrine and discipline of its spiritual path, is the inherent potentiality of all animate beings to attain the supreme and perfect enlightenment of Buddhahood. This book examines the ontological presuppositions and the corresponding soteriological-epistemological principles that sustain and define such a theory. Within the field of Buddhist studies, such a work provides a comprehensive context in which to interpret the influence and major insights of the various Buddhist schools. Thus, the dynamics of the Buddha Nature, though non-thematic and implicit, is at the heart of Zen praxis, while it is a significant articulation in Kegon, Tendai, and Shingon thought. More specifically, the book seeks to establish a coherent metaphysics of absolute suchness (Tathata), synthesizing the variant traditions of the Tathagata-embryo (Tathagatagarbha) and the Storehouse Consciousness (Alayavijnana).The books` contribution to the broader field of the History of Religions rests in its presentation and analysis of the Buddhist Enlightenment as the salvific-transformational moment in which Tathata `awakens` to itself, comes to perfect slef-realization as the Absolute suchness of reality, in and through phenomenal human consciousness. The book is an interpretation of the Buddhist Path as the spontaneous self-emergence of `embryonic` absolute knowledge as it comes to free itself from the concealments of adventitious defilements, and possess itself in fully self-explicitated self-consciousness as the `Highest Truth` and unconditional nature of all existence; it does so only in the form of omniscient wisdom.

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 sutra 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.