Yogācāra Buddhism, the idealistic branch of Mahāyāna, features a moderate ontology, more inclined to realism, which gives a certain degree of reality to manifestation. According to this ontology, Yogācāra's view of universal unity is organic-functional rather than substantial. The cosmos is unitary not because of an alleged ontological reduction to a single substance, as in primary Mahāyāna or...
According to the Idealistic school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Yogācāra, human existence is not as much the condition of a “being”, of an entity, but a mere experience projected by the cosmic consciousness, by the so-called “store-house consciousness” (ālayavijñāna). Nevertheless, human existence has some special features; it doesn’t represent a simple cosmic experience but rather an “alteration” of...