The assertion of a state which is unconditioned and beyond temporal change creates unavoidable tensions for any Buddhist account that concerns the shift from worldly experience to a liberated one. The presence of such tensions can be found in the controversy between simultaneous (cig char; yugapad) and gradual (rim gyis; krameṇa) conceptions of the contemplative path and the state of liberation...
The Buddhist vision of liberation is intimately related with an experiential state that transcends intentionality, temporality and causality, owing to its non-directed, unchanging and unconditioned nature. As such, this vision reveals a novel mode of non-dual awareness, which is not divided into perceiving subject and perceived objects. In order to directly recognise this mode, several Buddhist...
This article focuses on the main contemplative principles of the ‘Heart Essence’ (sNying thig), a Tibetan Buddhist tradition that is characterized by a vision of non-duality and primordial wholeness. Due to this vision, which asserts an original reality that is not divided into perceiving subject and perceived object, the ‘Heart Essence’ advocates a contemplative practice that undermines the...