ReflectionsI come to the study of consciousness and the self through my training as a Buddhist monk and scholar, who has learned about the mind and the self from Tibetan teachers, the meditations they taught, and the voluminous lit er a ture of this tradition.It was a welcome surprise to realize that the insights that I gained through my studies and practice could be of use in the scientific...
This chapter argues that phenomenological reduction, on the one hand, and the sort of contemplative reduction that constitutes meditation practice, on the other hand, have tremendous potential for comparative analysis, but that there are limits to conceiving them too closely along similar lines. In identifying many of the commonalities and differences between phenomenological and contemplative...
This chapter uses insights of the Yogācāra Buddhist tradition to explore some questions concerning consciousness. It is first argued that the Yogācāra view of consciousness provides a middle ground between the extremes of eliminativism and Cartesianism. It is then shown that the Yogācāra view, which emphasizes the close link between the phenomenal aspect of consciousness and reflexivity, is...