Philosophy
26 articles in category.
Gathering the Mind and Abiding in the Realm of Emptiness
The Tiantai school divides all dharmas into two realms. One is what is called the "provisional" (假)—provisional names, provisional characteristics, and provisional functions. The affairs of this world, the dharmas produced by causes and ...
ReadProfessor Lin Chong'an: The Computer Before Us and Its Dependent Origination and Emptiness
眼前计算机的缘起性空
ReadNeither Emptiness Nor Existence, Yet Both at Once
Don't trade one ignorance for another. Don't swap one delusion for a different one.
ReadSeeing Interdependent Conditions Clearly Lets You Cultivate Your Practice While Influencing Others
That earnest, aching wish— the kind that longs to see rough iron forged into fine steel, frustrated when progress stalls— has softened and leveled out over long years of practice. He, too, is shaped by his own karma and the causes and co...
ReadVenerable Gangxiao Explains the Sixth Gatha of the Twenty Verses on Consciousness-Only
Sixth Gatha
ReadLay Buddhist Zhuang Chunjiang: *A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha*, Chapter 8: Discerning the Tathāgatagarbha Buddha-Nature
A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha
ReadContemplating Emptiness Through Phenomenal Constructs, Writing That Transmits the Way
We speak of the stage of seeing the Path—but what Path does one actually see here? Two: the first is called the true seeing of the Path, the second the seeing through phenomenal marks. The true seeing of the Path springs from fundamental...
ReadThough Not Pursuing the Emptiness-Nature of Dreams, Illusions, Bubbles, and Shadows, It Perfectly Embodies Their Empty Nature
Everyone knows that the fundamental purpose of the Buddha Dharma is to teach that "all dharmas are empty." That is why, whenever we recite the Heart Sutra, we chant "the five aggregates are empty"; when someone leaves home, we say they h...
ReadThe Void is Finite, the Mind is Infinite
To summarize these two points, let us further explore the concept of the "world": the world has boundaries, while the void is boundless. The worlds in which we sentient beings reside are all born of our karma—impure lands brought forth b...
ReadSpiritual Cultivation Aims to Transform the Eight Consciousnesses into the Four Wisdoms
We will now discuss the "Three Bodies and Four Wisdoms". The Three Bodies—the Dharmakaya (Dharma Body), Sambhogakaya (Reward Body), and Nirmanakaya (Response Body)—are innate to all sentient beings, and are fully actualized upon enlighte...
ReadThorough analysis of the material world ultimately reveals it to be nothing but emptiness
When Wuxiu heard the Bodhisattva speak these words, he knew that seeking to foretell the length of his own lifespan was meaningless, so he requested guidance on what to do. The Bodhisattva then imparted this teaching: "You should underst...
ReadMeat-Eaters Sever the Seeds of Great Compassion and Buddha-Nature; All Sentient Beings Will Turn Away from Them on Sight
You teach sentient beings in the world to cultivate samadhi, and then to sever the taking of life. This is called the second definitive, pure, and luminous instruction of the Tathagata, the Buddhas of the past, and the World-Honored One.
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