What is Time?: Yogācāra-Buddhist Meditation on the Problem of the External World in the Cheng Weishi Lun
Jianjun Li
Asian Studies February 29, 2016 DOI: 10.4312/as.2016.4.1.35-57 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that the temporality of consciousness, revealed through the Yogācāric doctrine of the incessant differentiation of consciousness (vijñāna-pariṇāma), calls into question any temporally conditioned, appropriational understanding of vijñapti-mātratā. On this basis, the author contends that the problem of the external world in the Cheng weishi lun cannot be approached without accounting for the temporality of consciousness, which compels confronting the riddle of time. |
Abstract
Because it asserts that there is consciousness-only (vijñapti-mātratā), the difficulty in philosophically approaching the Yogācāra-Buddhist text Cheng weishi lun centers on the problem of the external world. This paper is based on a review by Lambert Schmithausen that, specifically with regard to the problem of the external world, questions Dan Lusthaus’s phenomenological investigation of the CWSL. In it I point out that the fundamental temporality of consciousness brought to light by the Yogacaric revelation of the incessant differentiation of consciousness (vijñāna-pariṇāma) calls into question every temporally conditioned, and hence appropriational, understanding of vijñapti-mātratā. Therefore, the problem of the external world cannot be approached without taking into account the temporality of consciousness, which, furthermore, compels us to face the riddle of time.
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| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |